Introducing the Hardline According To
     ...Ofer Maimon

In Sweden there is a monthly Magazine called The Jewish Chronicle. It´s partly funded by The Jewish Congregation, and hence, as a member, I receive it every month. This month they have a theme on the Anti-Israel protests during the Operation Cast Led in Gaza. During these demonstrations, signs were carried with the text "Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud!", a slogan that was also chanted at mass demonstrations in Malmoe, the third largest city in Sweden, with the largest percentage of newly arrived Muslim immigrants from the Middle East. Now what does this slogan mean? Is it something about freedom to Palestine? Ending the "occupation"? Not so. Khaybar was a small city in present day Saudi Arabia, where Muhammad clashed with Jewish Bedouins in the year 629, as it seems primarily for political reasons. The fight ended up with 3/4 of the Jews being slaughtered. And this is now chanted in a protest against the Davis Cup match between Israel and Sweden? This is a demonstrati...

words simple as trees simple as rain simple as bucket simple as the dirty hands of a child after hours of playing under a clouded sky simple as book simple as care simple as ease simple as an old man smoking his pipe on his front porch watching the autumn foliage words simple as home simple as train simple as night simple as the tired gaze of an inner city cop shedding his uniform after the night shift simple as whisper simple as mourning simple as love simple as the trembling hands of an abandoned man reaching for the bottle as the night grows blacker words simple as death simple as sun simple as water simple as the sorrows of an early summer morning the city broad streets empty to the singing birds simple as wing flaps simple as grace simple as end simple as the hand of light that touches your heart and make you struggle each and yet another day words when I die even if I never said a single thruth if everything I ever uttered was a lie I’ll take them with me

I. you chose another I can’t blame you it took me ten years to understand why and that the time and the man you chose had made you someone i couldn´t have loved had made you another woman and ten more years for me to see that life had made me another man than the one you fell in love with so at age forty now I know what happened half a life ago or do I the tears of joy you showed me running like the summer rain that made your face a window drove the scents of deep green lawns that etched forever in my heart this picture a green park a yellow bench on it a woman that is gone a smile no longer yours behind the camera an aching heart a man no longer me a loss no longer mine

a man a sun beating beating beting burning the surface of stone every single cliff every ounce of breathing air every browning blade of grass far below scorched a man climb a mountain the sweat of his forehead his burning palms his wild eyes every sinue like viola strings gasping fire the third time the last time and the sun blots out every purpose every thought every last bit of pride and vanity even the memory of his own name and what it meant climbing towards hope death redemtion and every moment and every movement and every burning perception thirst sweat pain and there is no more time and there is no more man and there is no more and it is all white and it begins

the world is everything that is falling people leaves debris black stars and drunks from bar stools dices and dead mans hands and queens of hearts like flashlights in mining shafts the world is everything that is falling bodies loosing all humanity in the iron grip of gravity frozen in a leap of eternity the world is everything that is falling the angel of light the god of might our faith the world is everything that is falling our scrolls the splendid universe that we were given and hearts and faith and a 1000 day fast won’t make it better won’t atone for it the world is everything that is falling falling from the towers of babel and the heights if innocence choices, tools, the working hand men – women – children the wisdom of the very old and very young the past and future the world is everything that is falling petals books in empty nigh-time libraries and children finally – our last words an open place where every language failed every world a lie, an imprint every letter over a sc...

she secretly found herself a new lover didn’t like his colour painted him another a short glance to the mirror he noticed said nothing took a shower him his wrist watch corduroy trousers blue and sun ray dancing dust his reflection in the dark computer screen finishing a cigarette for an eternity gets up he says: i’m leaving the door - the thud - the end act II: from him: a letter: i know you know been there to and im older so listen see that corridor? white the end a door? when you decide to leave i say when close it don’t look back no more that’s all me? no fear i met someone to her i am another now try to rest epilogue: still lifes: beeper - cellphone - handheld she secretly grows herself a new colour laughter cars and auction hollers ocean mountain desert: she

So, Noach. Obviously he was a rightous man and had faith in Hashem, and once he was ordered to build the ark he did so with much tenacity, according to our sages during a period of 120 years, and probably accompanied by the ridicule of others, and this is admirable. But his faith didnt make him an activist it seems. Before the flood, he was rightous and probably his family too, but we are not told that he actively tried to change the behaviour of his peers, or preach rightousness to others. He is also a bit fatalist if you compare him to Abraham (which seem to be the thing that is often done) or Moshe. Because once he is told that Hashem intends to wipe out humanity, he simply accepts it ans start building the ark. Compare that to how Abraham starts to haggle with Hashem over Sodom or Gemorra or how Moshe tells Hashem after the Golden Calf incident that if Hashem blots out Am Israel then he might as well remove Moshe from the book Hashem i writing. So when it comes to Abraham and Moshe...

We are a people of bullhorns we cry out in the night we cry out in the dusty sunlight but nobody really listens its not that we don’t care but all this digital shouting craving attention recognition has dulled out our memory and we have lost the art the actual knowledge of sound the craft of litening one reed floating on the water surface the hissing of atumn leaves the pounding of our own hearts a creaking wooden floor in an old house long time ago but there is an analogue wisper in the night its present in the vast and lonely coountryside can be heard above the din in the big cities and if you listen carefully over all our bullhorns it speaks of birth death and of rebirth of childrearing and of sowing and reaping od shelter for the very young and the very old of loneliness and leaving room for those to follow it has the power to teach us to direct our voices it has the power to teach us to direct our voices it has the power to teach us to direct our voices and so i will try to listen...

come closer have a look at this picture a black digital military style watch in oil paint tic tac time that’ll pass and passed will pass look - trees on fire bright yellow bright red leaves falling streets dark air dark leaves yellow sky dark blue breathing cool autumn breaths of higher space tic tac time dark blue streets smell of winter like the childhood scent of gas stations cars and petrol tic tac time the soothing sound of diesel engine dunking nights and memories of highrise concrete neighbourhoods asleep and reaching for the ever distant stars as if snow now winter and cloud of ice and snow i feel the biting cold inhaled with every draw of smoke i see this line of people at the end and step away from this picture the dry knacking of a grandfather clock an open coffin closes sound of wooden screws a rite taken place steps on gravel with one swift move reclaim the ever stolen words and fail: night love rain

I was a young man, of course I didn’t think so so at the time but I was, and as we came in for landing I remember feeling intimdated, the deeply green trees surrounding the first stretch of the runway ,and the wooden schacks lining the the outskirts of the AirPort, all seemed so foreign. The heavy Boewing touched down in Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. The AirPort was cluttered with heavily armed police and soldiers. The scents were those of dirt, of noice, dust, heat, machineguns and palm trees. This was in July 1993. I was a very long way from home. I found a home though. After three months I moved in with a married couple in a house in a working class neighbourhood. The house was a rundown miracle. leaking trough badly during the regularly recurring deluges that turned the streets into rivers. The couple was Just a miracle. The house was situated at the foot of the Andes mountain ridge and the non heated water was freezing. I paid 50 $ a month for room and board. Doña Leonors and Don C...

When blaming Atheism for the rise of moral relativism, are we to some extent confusing Atheists with Agnostics of the kind that hardly even think about it? As far as I undertand true Atheists are people who are standing in a constant, and often painful, relation to G-d, albeit negative. As atheism as we know it it is a relatively new phonomenon, I don’t think it wrong to call it sort of a reverse-image Monotheism. Serious Atheists must make a hard effort to grasp what they are denying. Among such atheists I would count Albert Camus (Especially The Plague and The myth of Sisyphos). He accepts Nietzhes idea that “G-d is dead”, but rejects the conclusion that “All is permissable”, and fortwith dedicates his life to prove that there still are motives to act morally, and this with an almost desperate air to it. When I studied Ethics at University, I noticed that most of the Die-Hard Atheist Utilitarian Philosphers still demanded a metaphysics that contained some sort of objective “Value Eni...

So how exactly should you behave in Shul? I mean on one hand it is fairly simple: Just pick up any standard “Judaism for dummies” book and it will tell you that during service s Shul is a house of prayer, period, and the only conversation that should be going on is the individuals and the congregations conversation with the Almighty. On the other hand we have the facts of reality, maybe best summoned up by the following comment: “Well....Feinstein goes to Shul to speak to God....me I go to Shul to speak to Feinstein.” I guess at least in small Diaspora communities, there is only so much you can do about it. We tend to have enough problems to get a Minyan together as it is. So as long as people don’t start babbling during the Amidah, babbling is more or less tolerated. Then again, severe conflicts of interest occur, specifically during High Holidays. Because then a lot of people who otherwise never attend Shul turns up, bumping into other more or less secular Jews who they only meet on...

tunnel the shifting: light shadow light shadow light light shadow soothing like a lullaby the scent of leather drunk and smelly father and son the son asleep on his shoulder his eyes tender she covers her heart in makeup trembling hands pays cash wrinkeled bills her heart a knitted baby hat her eyes longing her hands to hold the distance from terminal to future closing and from the hospital the short distance to their lodging becomes the final rift over which no words can wander old hands and old rings holding on holding warmth old glasses and an old inscribed gold gold retirement watch it is a lullaby they fall asleep no more tunnel and it’s dawn and it’s daylight and it’s dusk and night and i will own the shadows and this light

in darkness one source of light the tip of my cigarette a soothing smell of gasoline a sleepiness of many miles behind the wheel a voice in the dark a girl on my bed asking me to follow her on the last leg of a long journey tell her a story of the lifes of albatrosses give her one more blanket for the evening cold to buy her a yellow toy car with red pedals sometimes she is my fathers mother sometimes she is the girl from the lost and found department sometimes she is my future daughter the metal taste of off loss and longing in my mouth the warm smell of summer night i bid her farewell stamp out the cigarette but it is warm here and i am waiting