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Schmidt’s School Sabotaged: A Call for President Abbas to Save the Heritage of Jerusalem


Since my call to the officials of Germany and the PA did not actually work, I at this moment address my pleas to President Mahmoud Abbas. I do genuinely feel helpless. I usually wonder about those call for help for someone who is sick or arrested or needs help in a crucial matter. This matter for me is no different. This is a direct theft of our heritage. To my memories. To a culture of education that I continue to be proud in front of my children. To an identity that not only reflects me, shapes me but makes me. Schmidt’s has never been just a school. It is an essential component of Jerusalem’s heritage. I am not exaggerating when I say that it means to me what the holy sepulcher and the dome of the rock mean to me. An integral part of my being.

I would not say I felt disappointed by the reaction of the administration of the school, or those new people who seem to be working for the school now, or the passivity in responses of people. A passerby would think, why to care for some mummified animals when a whole village is destroyed a few kilometers afar. Why care when all the city is being Israelized. Why bother when the entire world is watching the killings, the violations, the theft of land, the expansions of settlements, the expulsion of people. Why care about a museum that no one outside your own memory knows about?

It is because it is part of my memory, my personal mind. The memory of a hundred years of successive students, graduates, families, educators, that took part in the building of the society through this school. Ambassadors, CEOs, Representatives, Ministers, Physicians, Scholars, Scientists came out of this school. Every single thing related to this place is part of our upbringing, our history, our heritage, our culture, our struggle, and our existence… an existence that we seek to maintain from extinction, from forgery, from expulsion, and from deformation.

The administration fo the school represented by its board of directors wrote an announcement saying the following shallow statement: “about the allegations that the school donated the collection of stuffed animals by father Schmidt to the Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University: Schmidt’s Girls College does not own this collection. IT thus could not donate or lease this collection to anyone. ”

So if the school does not own it, and I, of course, agree with this, because this is a school owned by us, its students and its graduates. Its families and its teachers. IT is us who created and continue to build this school. Unless it is one of us who donated these belongings, which of course did not happen, and the school who is not the owner as they claim to the belongings that resided for more than a hundred years inside its building, in a basement that was designed as a museum for decades and decades. Then who did this?

The museum contents were stolen? Where leaked? What happened?

Who gave whoever did this the authorization to move antiquities from the school’s museum. If this did not belong to the school and the locals, then it belongs to the Palestinian authority in the form of education offices, or archaeology to the least, which the school administration very much know about?

They could have consulted al Quds university who have an archaeology and tourism department, or their Environment and species-saving department, by the way, all these are in the campus of Jerusalem not in Abu dees only.

Dr. MAzen Qumsiyyeh has created a nature museum precisely like this kind of museum to preserve Palestinian environmental heritage, and the museum is in excellent coordination with Palestinian universities and is hosted by the coordination of Bethlehem University. We are not out of options.

The Palestinian Museum, the prominent centers for heritage through the country …

Donating the museum belongings to the Tel Aviv University is a violation to all norms that hold up to the Palestinian identity of this city.

If the school sees itself outside this part of representing Palestinian localities, then let us have an announcement about that.

This school has gained its reputation based on the generations of graduates that represent my generations. If the new administration of the school defines itself differently, it is our right as graduates and as current students, and thus as parents and as a community to know the truth about this new administration.

I still call for the German Representative and Officials to respond to my appeal.

Please sign and spread the petition … maybe we can all become part of pressuring the nonstoppable injustice befalling on this city.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Angela_Merkel_Anita_Schavan_Rami_Hamdalah_S_Saydam_K_Deibes_P_Beerwerth_Save_Schmidts_School_in_Jerusalem_from_Sabotage/?rc=fb&utm_source=sharetools&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=petition-537008-Angela_Merkel_Anita_Schavan_Rami_Hamdalah_S_Saydam_K_Deibes_P_Beerwerth_Save_Schmidts_School_in_Jerusalem_from_Sabotage&utm_term=cwMmnb%2Ben&fbogname=nadia

Tit For Tat Tariffs

Even if you are a Repub you know that Trump has fired the shots of a tit for tat tariff war with China first and others to come…..and China will not roll over for Trump……

The United States hiked tariffs on Chinese imports Friday and Beijing announced it was retaliating against American goods in a technology dispute between the world’s two biggest economies that President Trump says he is prepared to escalate. Washington imposed 25% tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports, a first step in what could become an accelerating series of tariffs. Retaliatory measures “took effect immediately,” said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Lu Kang. Hu gave no details, but the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily said the customs agency was carrying out a plan announced last month to impose 25% tariffs on a $34 billion list of American goods including soybeans, pork, and electric cars, reports the AP.

The AP reports the first exchange of tariffs is unlikely to inflict much economic harm on either nation. Indeed, Asian financial markets took Friday’s developments in stride. Japan’s main stock index, the Nikkei 225, gained 1.1% while the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.8%. But President Trump said Thursday that he’s prepared to impose tariffs on up to $550 billion in Chinese imports—a figure that exceeds the $506 billion in goods that China actually shipped to the United States last year. Escalating tariffs would likely raise prices for consumers, inflate costs for companies that rely on imported parts, rattle financial markets, cause some layoffs, and slow business investment. A full-fledged trade war, economists warn, risks tipping the US economy into recession. See the AP for more, including the impacts the tariffs have already had .

I feel this is all just a feel good war…..there will be NO winners…..just workers losing…..

I would think that if someone was a graduate of the Wharton School they would understand the complexities of a trade war….but then I could be mistaken and Wharton does not teach such things.

The EU will be next on the targets of the Trump Tariff Train…..

Int trade4.jpg

Khan al Ahmar…another daily struggle for being Palestinians

 

For anyone who knows the area, Khan al Ahmar area is more of a trademark to those who go to Jericho or need to use the path to the south towards the dead sea or the north towards Tiberias.

The Bedouin community in that area has been historically residing there. My memories as a child and as an adult continue to see the tents, the tanks, the yards, and the sheep, donkeys and often camels wondering there.

I remember the excitement I the child in me when we passed through the road to see a flock of sheep or a camel in the horizon of the cliff. I continued this habit of excitement as I became a mother, with me the only excited person to see a flock of animals at the seams of the scene.

As Bedouins and their living styles may not be the most appealing image to urban people. They are by all means a natural part of the collective blend of the Palestinian society.

For the last, Bedouin almost two decades the communities in the Khan al Ahmar bedouin families struggled to survive in front a not stoppable attempt to transfer them. While roads and settlements were enslaving their peaceful living for so many decades, they managed to survive.. hardly, with the support of the international community and the locals who continued to support them with minimal aids. Not as a result of the shortage in money or resources, but because of the obstacles and restraints the Israeli government put on them.

In the dreamy time of Oslo, this nightmare was supposed to be handed to Palestinians, something that naturally falls in the 22 percent of future Palestine they agreed upon leaving to us. …well today we are aiming for 2 percent of sovereignty around the Muqata’a in Ramallah.

It is easy to convince the world that some chunks of metal for bedouins are better replaced with traditional buildings somewhere else..after all, they are Bedouin. However, the reality is entirely different. It is about identity, a way of living. Being a Bedouin means being exposed to space. The offers are boxes in comparison to how these people are used to live. It is a way to suffocate them and hence, another way in ethnic cleansing a nation with its different layers.

The EU, the Italians, the French, the Spanish and a long list of countries were involved in saving the Khan al Ahmar along the last decades. Maneuvering sometimes, and playing around other times, and trying to knock on the walls of the system many other times with Palestinians. Building a school for the five communities that live there, continued to be a struggle, in a place where no permits are allowed, and ring roads and settlements and checkpoints are surrounding them and blocking access tot he closest school in the area. The children have to walk around ten kilometers a day to go back and forth to the school at the entrance of Jericho.

A final demolition order to the village was released amid the mess in the surrounding, Ramallah is busy waiting for a new president, and new blocks of negotiations are taking place int he lounges of hotels and offices. Gaza is busy collecting wounded and deceased people while starving to death from lack of resources and brutal blockade. Jerusalem is swinging between Judaization and Israelization, and Kushner is spinning in the area while Trump is blocking the border in his district.

Why would the world feel sympathy for a Palestinian child beaten brutally or watching his parents lynched and prisoned or shot , when children on the borders of the immigration to States are facing the same treatment … in one way or another.. after all Israel has the right to defend itself from Palestinian children and families who are by nature terrorists!.

The struggle in Khan al Ahmar was halted for a week. An achievement amid the brutality of demolitions. A break the Israeli government is making to allow demonstrators and media with their cameras to turn their backs.

A struggle that will not end as long as the opponent is an occupation that has one mission in mind… ethnic cleansing.

 

Schmidt’s School Sabotaged or Misled? Or Just a mis-understanding?



After the overwhelming reaction from the local community about the announcement of the MoHE Jerusalem Unit regarding the transfer \ donation\selling (the truth is still unknown) of the belongings of the School’s museum that consisted of mummified animals and species, I decided to dig in some research. After all, we should always maintain the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s discuss what findings we have in this regard:

– an official announcement from the Ministry of Higher Education condemning the activities conducted by the school and demanding clarification.

– Photos from the exhibition in Tel Aviv University’s Natural History Museum. (3 photos)

– One of the images is entitled: “Father Ernst Schmitz Collection 1845-1922. The History of collecting in the land of Israel.”

The statement on the image is the following: “ Father Ernst Schmitz. A German priest and archaeologist served in Jerusalem as Director of the German Association of the Holy Land from 1908 until his death. He researched the fauna of the land and its environs, established the first nature museum in the Holy Land, and left a collection that provides rare documentation of the landscapes of the country and its biodiversity as it was 100 years ago, including species now extinct in Israel and the region. As a collector, he also obtained animals from different places around the world. For many years the collection was preserved in the basement of the St Paul Hospice(known as Schmidt School) in East Jerusalem where the association established a museum to showcase its contribution to the exploration of the Holy Land in different fields. The collection is on permanent loan and display at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History. ”

– The second photo is about the belongings themselves; A lot of them.

The second photo is very familiar with what it consists. I could relocate most of the items in the vast museum (basement) where it was born.

The first photo reflects clearly on how heritage and history are being falsified.

Going through the Tel Aviv Museum Annual report of 2008\2009, the same Father Ernst Schmidt had a whole chapter about his findings. I think there was not enough coordination with the information provided on the exhibition and the report regarding the data and the outcomes, as the first findings were in Haifa, where the man also died.

In the report quite exciting ideas are there: “In 1908 he was chosen to succeed the Vincentian priest Wilhelm Schmidt (1833-1907) as director of the establishment in Palestine of the Deutschen vom Heiligen Lande”, a German Catholic organization that kept hospices and supported centers for pilgrims in the Holy Land. In September of that year, he moved to Palestine, to direct the hospice of St Paul in Jerusalem,, where he remained until 1914.

In the hospice, he founded a natural history museum, with a section for the specimens collected in Palestine and other example brought from other regions, which included 45 stuffed birds and 157 plant samples brought from Madeira. To enlarge his collection, he organized field trips and asked students and locals to bring him animal and plant specimens. ….with the outbreak of world war 1, he was forced to go to Damascus, where he remained there until he could return to Palestine .since 1920 he ran the hospice of San Carlos in Haifa. He died in Haifa and was buried in the crypt of the convent of the German religious mount Carmel. “+

Why am I mentioning all this? From one hand it is informative. It entirely reflects on a heritage of the place and the species in it . from the other hand, and it says clearly how information is forged in the same source. To start with the naming. The exhibition says it is the land of Israel, and the research keeps repeating the word Palestine.

I don’t want to go to the endless discussion, was in Palestine, was there any Palestine? Even Palestine according to the research above is before the Mandate creation of the state.

This man created according to the research the first museum of its kind in the basement of St Paul, Schmidt’s school, while in the exhibition the reader would imagine a bunch of valuables stacked in a basement.

So here,

We are not talking about a misinformation. The ministry of Education acted upon the situation when they knew about it, and somehow it was only possible to know about it when an exhibition was announced.

It is of course other Authority’s responsibilities and obligations to have been aware of what is happening in the school.

I have to say, that in a rare case with me, I have to defend the PA. The PA can hardly manage institutions in Jerusalem due to the significant pressure that is encountered on the PA and the institutions by the state of Israel. Many don’t know about the existence of the museum inside the school. But it is part of every single graduate heritage. It is part of a collective memory of how we received our education and how we are related to that school. It is not a surprise that the minister of tourism or the environment or education knows about. It is the responsibility of the school administration to maintain and inform and provide information to the officials and families.

The school has undergone significant changes in its administration, which can explain the communication and the understanding of the society. But the link of Shmidt is an integrated relationship between the school and the community. This is why it has not been an impossible task to perform with the new administration. This is one major institution of Jerusalem and Palestine when it comes to education.

As a student of Schmidt’s, and as a resident of Jerusalem, and as a Palestinian who truly believes in a life that can only be better through proper education. Education that is not about books and scientific information just, but ethics, integrity, and morality. Knowledge of such, that Schmidt’s Girls College inserted inside its students for a generation, to bring about the best changes that can be added to this society despite all the difficulties and injustices.

It sounds not only painful , but it feels as if it is part of a treachery , a treason to all of us who consider this school as part of our identity , to go around the heritage, culture, the richness, the growth that Schmidt had helped build together with the locals of this country and the students along his path in bringing enrichment and progress to the different civilizations.

Germans have always been part of what makes us stronger, regardless of the historical responsibility of Germany towards the outcome of the second world war and the immigration of Jews to Palestine. However, this school has always been part of what orchestrates the heritage of Jerusalem.

As we also believe in building peace in this country. Ignoring the Palestinian authority in Jerusalem is violating to the status of Jerusalem. We don’t have to discuss international law here or even local laws. The apparent violation of all regulations is in the statement above that mentions the “land of Israel” to the collection. But I Don’t want to discuss this. It is obvious and does not need clarifications or accusations. It is a clear violation.

But then, how can the school with its administration and with the representative office allow this to happen? How could they jeopardize the trust of the people of Jerusalem for more than a century towards this school with not even thinking twice to consult graduates, or teachers or families or current students? This is an ABC in the status of Jerusalem.

It is of course not a surprise for Tel Aviv University, that is by default standing on the ruins of Sheikh Muawannes. But the

 

 


Germans ?

I hope that the school administration and the German representative office and the German officials elsewhere take responsibility and fix this horrific act immediately.

 

+ Chapters in the history of the National Collections of Natural Histroy of Tel Aviv Universtiy . Annual Reprot 2008/2009

The Shunning, Part 4: Scott Pruitt Edition

grin The Shunning, Part 4: Scott Pruitt Edition:

crooksandliars:

The Shunning, Part 4: Scott Pruitt Edition

In the fourth installment of my favorite series “The Shunning”, we catch up with another Trump White House super villain, Scott Pruitt. For readers who have been away from social media or the news for the last few months, Pruitt is a villain with a Capital V. He is evil. He is greed personified. He IS the actual swamp. He is under at least 56 investigations from crimes ranging from abusing his power to making staff hand wash his $3,500 bullet proof underwear to $5,000 helicopter rides to his favorite fast food place, IHOB.

On Monday, Pruitt was the latest official to be greeted warmly by a member of the public while eating out at a restaurant. The woman, Kristin Mink, posted on her Facebook that she urged him to resign. She said:

“EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something…We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all us, including our children. I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.”

In the video, she is seen holding her young child. She remained calm, but firm. The video was viewed thousands of times within the first house, although that number surely has skyrocketed since.

read more

Resources to help child immigrants & fight family separation

nicolayoon:

via Today.com (How to Help Immigrant Children)

  • Together Rising Love Flash Mob. Organized by best-selling author and blogger Glennon Doyle through her non-profit organization, the fundraising effort will go to provide bilingual legal and advocacy assistance for 60 children, aged 12 months to 10 years, currently separated from their parents in an Arizona detention center. Their first priority will be to establish and maintain contact between children and their parents, with the ultimate goal of reunification and safety and rehabilitation for the children.
  • The Florence Project and Refugee Rights Project. This organization provides legal assistance and social services to detained immigrants in Arizona.
  • The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. This organization works for the rights of children in immigration proceedings.
  • Kids In Need Of Defense (KIND). This organization works to ensure that no child appears in immigration court alone without representation.
  • Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. They work to prevent the deportation of asylum-seeking families fleeing violence.

via slate.com (How you can fight family separation)

• The ACLU is litigating this policy in California.

• If you’re an immigration lawyer, the American Immigration Lawyers Association will be sending around a volunteer list for you to help represent the women and men with their asylum screening, bond hearings, ongoing asylum representation, etc. Please sign up.

Al Otro Lado is a binational organization that works to offer legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S.

CARA—a consortium of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association—provides legal services at family detention centers.

The Florence Project is an Arizona project offering free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody.

Human Rights First is a national organization with roots in Houston that needs help from lawyers too.

Kids in Need of Defense works to ensure that kids do not appear in immigration court without representation, and to lobby for policies that advocate for children’s legal interests. Donate here.

The Legal Aid Justice Center is a Virginia-based center providing unaccompanied minors legal services and representation.

Pueblo Sin Fronteras is an organization that provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S.

RAICES is the largest immigration nonprofit in Texas offering free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families. Donate here and sign up as a volunteer here.

• The Texas Civil Rights Project is seeking “volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’ or K’iche’ and have paralegal or legal assistant experience.”

Together Rising is another Virginia-based organization that’s helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona.

• The Urban Justice Center’s Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project is working to keep families together.

Women’s Refugee Commission advocates for the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution.

• Finally, ActBlue has aggregated many of these groups under a single button.

This list isn’t comprehensive, so let us know what else is happening. And please call your elected officials, stay tuned for demonstrations, hug your children, and be grateful if you are not currently dependent on the basic humanity of U.S. policy.

Don’t Shoot!

There always seems to be some wack job on the Right that has to open his mouth and show just how stupid they can be…..and it has happened…..

The far-right provocateur tells reporters he hopes angry conservatives start assassinating them, and the alt-right ’14/88ers’ love the idea.

Apparently, Milo Yiannopoulos didn’t get the memo about the need for civility in our discourse.

“I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight,” the far-right provocateur texted a reporter for the New York Observer this week. When the reporter inquired further, Yiannopoulos explained that he had simply issued his “standard response to a request for a comment.”

But this wasn’t simply a toss-off remark. Yiannopoulos appears to be dead serious – that is, he sincerely believes that right-wing assassins should begin taking out targeted reporters. He’s been saying so on a number of forums, and it’s clear that he isn’t being simply “ironic” in the classic alt-right hall-of-mirrors fashion.

(splcenter.org)

You know you can just ignore these types especially those around the Trump camp…but this time it is just hard to do….

Multiple people were shot Thursday at a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, with a witness saying a single gunman fired into the newsroom. A reporter at the Capital Gazette tweeted that a single individual shot multiple people, the Baltimore Sun reports. Phil Davis, who covers business and politics for the newspaper, tweeted that the gunman shot through the glass door to the office and opened fire on multiple employees, the AP reports. He added, “There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then hear the gunman reload.” The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it was responding to reports of the shooting. Fox News reports that a suspect is in custody.

Anne Arundel County Police Department spokesman Marc Limansky said officers were searching the building where the shooting was reported. He said the situation is “active and ongoing.” On TV reports, people could be seen leaving the building with their hands up, as police officers urged them to depart through a parking lot and officers converged on the building. Lt. Ryan Frashure, another spokesman for Anne Arundel County police, said on WJLA that officers are “doing everything to get people out safe.” He said they must look for other dangers, such as bombs and other shooters. The Capital Gazette and newspapers including the Maryland Gazette are owned by the Baltimore Sun Media Group.

I am not saying that this incident has anything to do with the stupidity of this Milo twerp……coincidental?

Sorry but I do not believe in a coincident.

Plus you were wondering just what would get Judge Kennedy off the front page…..and now you know.