Acceptance committees

There’s another article in the newspaper about an “acceptance committee” – i.e. a committee in charge of selected new members to an Israeli community. This one is about Nes Ammim, the Christian Zionist project in northern Israel which in recent years re-zoned some of their agricultural lands for building. They declared that they wanted to settle there both Jewish and Arab members, regardless of their religion. In practice, though “not enough Arabs” have registered, as the article says. The Arab couple highlighted in Amira Hass’s article were rejected, apparently because their views were regarded as confrontational by the Jewish and foreign members of the committee.

A similar article appeared about a couple who had been rejected, this time by Wahat al-Salam – Neve Shalom, a couple of weeks ago. In that case, the “rejection” took place 23 years ago and apparently didn’t reach the stage of appearing before a committee. The case involved a “mixed” Arab-Jewish couple. The person they spoke to, similarly Jewish, had said that she would personally be opposed to accepting such a couple due to the blurring of national identity. According to the article, the woman had said “you need to understand where we live. What will happen with the kids, and when they reach the age of military service, what will they do? And to what religion will they belong? And we are not naive, in the background there’s the Jewish Arab conflict.”

So, depending of the accuracy of the two articles, they describe opposite reasons for rejection. In the case of Nes Ammim, the couple were rejected due to their confident Palestinian identity and critical view of Israeli society. In the case of the couple who wanted to live in Wahat al-Salam, they faced the possibility of rejection because their sense of national identity was suspected of not being strong enough.

I’ve never sat on Wahat al-Salam’s “acceptance committee”. Applying for membership in the community was one of the few times in my life where I had to apply to be accepted anywhere. I’ve heard accounts that not everyone was in favor of accepting us, so I’m grateful of the privilege of living here. I would never want to be placed in the position where I might have to reject someone else.

Personally I would prefer that our community would accept anyone that is in accord with the ideals of the community. I’d like to see more ethnic and gender diversity than we have today. But in practice, for a community like Wahat al-Salam, the issues are quite complex.

Probably Auroville, itself no utopia, is yet closer to the kind of community I would really like to live in. If I’d known more about it thirty years ago, there’s no question in my mind that I would have prefered to live there, if possible. Today, I’m not sure I have sufficient motivation or courage to face another “acceptance committee”, even if it were possible for me to live there.

No patience for stuff that “almost” works

A number of times I’ve tried out new apps for my Firefox OS phone and they haven’t worked. The latest was an ftp program – the only one in the app store. I got it to work once, and then not. Really, I’ve no patience for applications that are more trouble than they are worth, so I tend to give up on them, rather than struggle with them. The FF phone is all right for making phone calls, checking email and a few other things. That’s enough for me, and the price I’m willing to pay not to have to use Android or IOS.

If a better operating system or phone comes out anytime soon, I won’t be exchanging the one I have for it either. When the battery eventually dies on this thing, I’ll just go back to my Nokia. In fact, I’ve already tried to buy a new battery – the one suggested by Geeksphone. It came, nicely wrapped in cellophane from Hong Kong, but doesn’t work in my phone. Another unhappy buyer said that he had conducted a voltage check on the pins, and found that their output differs. It’s the sort of minimal check one might expect Geeksphone to make for their customers before making recommendations, but they’re a small outfit – not necessarily incompetent or greedy: they fixed and shipped my phone back without charge. But I guess they are investing their energies in trying to stay afloat in a market ruled by cutthroat competition.

The carbon footprint factor

It’s becoming immoral to fly. Plane trips squander energy; so maybe I shouldn’t do it. There’s no way to get out of Israel without flying and, anyway, the only way to get to India or the US for me is to fly.

It’s necessary to go see my Dad once a year. It would be possible to combine that with a European trip, but not with a trip to India so maybe that’s what I ought to do.

This year I could accompany Dorit to Europe and then, when she’s in Germany, go see my Dad and Andrew. That would also save a bit of money, perhaps.

Next time I might be able to do something similar with a trip to India and the US, but I’m not sure that would save anything on fuel and CO2 production.

Another thing, is to choose the shortest routes (which don’t always correspond to the cheapest flights). Like maybe going through the Gulf States to India is shorter than through Turkey. El Al’s route goes down through the Red Sea and is therefore quite long.

Was checking the online visa situation for India – looks like that’s coming soon for the UK as well (though only 1 month).