Author: Karl Möller

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Jewish Quarter

On our second day in Venice, having spotted the sign below, we ended up in Venice’s small Jewish quarter.

Thus we discovered a wonderful Jewish restaurant that we went back to later that night, but we also came across a small exhibition of Jewish art. The people staffing the place were quite happy for us to take photographs, so here are some examples:

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Noting that we were taking a good look at the exhibits, one of the staff eventually approached us, and so we ended up getting some fascinating insights into their reading of certain biblical texts, especially from the book of Genesis.

Below are some examples of illustrations of the weekly Torah readings, designed to be used in the teaching of children:

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All in all, the whole experience was an unexpected, delightful treat.

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Slave

If someone takes your freedom to choose, you have become a slave of their cultural values.

Lydia Cacho, ‘Not in the Name of Love’, in Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes and Susie Orbach (eds), Fifty Shades of Feminism

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We liberate a man

I have found Walter Wink’s brief little book on non-violence a thought-provoking read. He makes it quite clear that non-violence does not imply passive acceptance of an inhumane situation. Here’s an example of what non-violence does not mean:

How many a battered wife has been counseled, on the strength of a legalistic reading of [Matthew 5:38-41], to ‘turn the other cheek,’ when what she needs, according to the spirit of Jesus’ words, is to find a way to restore her own dignity and end the vicious circle of humiliation, guilt, and bruising. She needs to assert some sort of control in the situation and force her husband to regard her as an equal, or get out of the relationship altogether. The victim needs to recover her self-worth and seize the initiative from her oppressor. And he needs to be helped to overcome his violence.

(From Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way)

The last point ties in with Margaret Mead’s comment that ‘every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man’ (quoted in Lisa Appignanesi, Rachel Holmes and Susie Orbach [eds], Fifty Shades of Feminism). How true!

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Cioccolato

Chocolate. I thought this deserved an extra post …

… just to draw attention to this chocolate salami, already much reduced in size,

Chocolate salami

… and this hot chocolate, a proper one, so thick that the spoon almost got stuck.

Hot chocolate

On one occasion, in a place whose name I have forgotten, our poor Italian earned us a special treat. Having found and pointed at a chocolate cake we fancied, we were not a little surprised when that was exactly what we got, not just a piece, as we had assumed, but the whole cake, neatly cut up into seven or eight pieces. As there’s only four of us, one of whom didn’t want any, that was a lot of chocolate cake to get through. But we didn’t leave a crumb behind …

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The very essence of Christianity

I don’t think that violence is Christian. … the very essence of Christianity is the cross. It is through the cross that we will change.

Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way