"Who was Mary Magdalene?" reads a National Geographic headline tucked behind Apple News to entice me, continuing, "Historians are still trying to figure that out." Been years since I've had a subscription to National Geographic. Never a subscription to Apple News and not biting now, so I'll miss that article. Besides, you and I can speculate just as well as historians and scholars, not to mention theologians, eh? She's named Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala to tell that she's from Magdala. Where is/was that? There are lots of maps, including (above) a NASA map of the Sea of Galilee, marked with towns to show maybe which town was meant.  Obviously, she was a Jew or she wouldn't have been hanging with Jesus in the first place. If Jesus and family had relocated from Nazareth to Capernaum by then, maybe Mary Magdalene was in the group of families with kids who joined up as they traveled to Jerusalem for festivals. Boys and girls did have crushes and

  Shot by Israeli troops while getting aid, a boy in Gaza fights for his life Editor's note: This story contains descriptions of violence. RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Nimer Saddy al-Nimer is 12. His first name means "Tiger" in Arabic. Wavy locks of sandy brown hair rest just above his large brown eyes. He's skinny and tall for his age. He calls himself a "soccer addict," he's a fan of FC Barcelona, and Lionel Messi is his hero. He'd pretend to be the Argentine superstar when he played pickup games with his friends in the alleys behind the mosque near his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City. But that was before the war. Nimer now lies inside a makeshift tent propped up by two-by-fours. The roof is a sheet of transparent plastic. The walls, old billboards and other scrap found here among the refugee camps of Rafah, on the opposite side of the Gaza Strip from his home. Nimer is in pain. It comes in waves. He's just had surgery on his st

  My conscience jerks me around every Time I turn on the faucet and let the water run to get warm, mindful that in Gaza sufficient water is not available to sustain human life, much less worry about its temperature.  Which side am I on? Does it matter? What difference does it make? Neither. Both. I am always on the side of whoever is being bullied; and my sole certainty in life is that All Government is All Ways, Always, All Bad. Governments are evil, composed of humans whose concern is self-interest, to hold on to power.  Even democracy in the form that we thought we had it until January 2020 only worked so long as everyone treasured and honored its precepts, including honorable, peaceful transfer of power according to established rules and practices. Yesterday and today I read then copy, paste, and published different points of view about what is going on in Israel Gaza. In mind, barring Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, it would not be possible to find a government more evil and le

  Israel War on Gaza ‘Fire and forget’ in Gaza Those who survive Israel’s genocidal bombardment may not survive the sight of the death and destruction it leaves behind. Ghada Ageel Professor of political science Published On 23 Apr 2024 23 Apr 2024 Nima, the author's sister-in-law, hugs two relatives in a photo taken in Khan Younis before the latest Israeli war on Gaza [Courtesy of Ghada Ageel] Earlier this month, the Israeli occupying forces withdrew from my hometown of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, presumably to prepare for an attack on nearby Rafah. Now, those civilians who won the lottery of life and death are on a trail of broken dreams back to Khan Younis. It is a pilgrimage – hajj in Arabic – but one of grief not of faith. Danger still lurks in every corner, but my cousin Ikram and her husband, Awad, felt compelled to join the hajj and venture to the al-Qarara area in the north of Khan Younis to check on Awad’s brother Mohammad and his family. What they disco

What if I asked them why they support murderers and rapists?  Many fear that it’s like the 1930s, when age-old hatred resurfaced ahead of the murder of six million Jews. It isn’t. It’s worse Demonstrators protest against the Israel-Hamas war in front of The New School university in New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. (AP/Patrick Sison) APR 23,  2024,  4:00 PM  A young woman danced and whirled like a dervish, another sat cross-legged, beating on a drum; around them, 28 dupes marched in a circle chanting every vacuous slogan. I set my iPhone on video to ask: “What does it feel like to be the useful idiots of Palestinian murderers and rapists?” Then I rephrased it in my mind. Not Palestinian, but Hamas. After all, not all Palestinians agree with the Islamic killers. But these young Americans clearly do. It was a mild little demonstration of students outside The New School on New York’s 5th Avenue and East 13th Street. Of course, they chanted from the river to the sea, and divest, and we w