Category Archives: World Affairs

Global Peace Index

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Global Peace Index

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love, mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”Talmud

The Global Peace Index measures each year the national peacefulness of a country based on  perceptions of criminality, security officers and police, homicides, incarceration, access to weapons, intensity of internal conflict, violent demonstrations, violent crime, political instability, political terror, weapon imports, terrorism impact and deaths from internal conflict.

I’ve done blogs about it before rating the safest countries and the not  safest countries to visit.

But what really shocks me  is that the US  is a slacker when it comes to promoting positive peace. It is rated 103 on a list of 163 countries. This means that there are are a 102 countries that are safer to visit and live in than the US. Our performance  number is lowered because of the number of people in our prison system and our involvement in conflicts overseas.

There are the usual but many were surprising to me. Uganda is rated 101. Uganda is safer to visit than the US – apparently. Jordan (where I just was) is much safer at 96. Angola, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Gambia, are all in the nineties. Haiti, Burkina Faso Peru, Cuba, Bangladesh  and Paraguay  have a rating in the eighties. Liberia, Benin, Oman and Senegal are in the seventies. Nicaragua, Argentina, Mozambique, Lesotho, United Arab Emirates, Bosnia and Herzegovina are in the sixties.  Madagascar is above Italy  which is rated 39. Chile and Botswana are in the twenties.

According to the data, we are further away from World Peace then ever with the Middle East dragging us down. 

The most peaceful countries continue to improve their rating while the least peaceful ones are getting worse. Violence and conflict are escalating.  The world continues to spend enormous resources on creating and containing violence but very little on peace.

In case you just woke up from a coma, the world is less peaceful this year than it was last year.

Fly safe,

JAZ

#StandWithALeppo

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#StandWithALeppo

A monk was teaching a meditation class. He said “if you hear bombs in a neighboring village and your first thought  is where is my family?” Oh they are not there. Everything is ok” than continue to sit and meditate.” Vietnamese Buddhist Monk

There is a striking similarity between the Jewish refugees of World War Two and the Syrian refugees today. Then as now, skepticism of religious and ethnic minorities and concerns that refugees might pose a threat to national security deeply influenced the debate over American immigration policy. The most obvious parallel between the 1930s and today is popular opposition to the admission of refugees. It was strong then, and it’s strong now.

My parents were older. I often asked my mother why no one helped  to save the Jews from being killed in concentration camps.  She said that we really did not believe it was happening. They couldn’t comprehend that the citizens of a cultured and civilized society in modern times were putting people in ovens. It did not sound real.” We heard the rumors. The articles were written on the back page of the newspaper. If was really true, we thought it would be on the front page.”   When the mass extermination and atrocities became public knowledge, she said, ”I did not believe it at the time and had not done anything. I should have chained myself to the White House fence. I should have done something.” They did not have hashtag holocaust back then.

I am reading the heartbreaking twitter voices of Aleppo, watching the videos and seeing the Facebook messages. The words are eerily similar to the things people said in the concentration camps. The waiting to die messages come from parents, children, teachers and journalists. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach as I read the last contact messages. We don’t have the excuse that we weren’t sure it was true. Advanced technology is allowing us to watch innocent people die and is doing nothing to stop it. The world follows Mr Alhamdo, the young English teacher. His video has gone viral and millions of people have seen it. Yet, no one is saving him or his wife and little girl. I read his last message.

It does not make sense that all we can do is #StandwithAleppo. A hashtag is no solution to another humanitarian catastrophe. Big tragedies have big consequences. Are we becoming numb to all the terror in the world? #killingfieldscambodia  #deathcampsdarfur  #sarajevo #rwanda. I thought that since everyone knew what was happening in real-time, they would somehow be saved. The International community and humanitarian organizations would be able to help them. The repercussions for inaction will end up being far worse than the choice to take action would have been. The world missed yet another call from God by ignoring Aleppo. 

Fly safe,

JAZ

Xenophile

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PRONUNCIATION:

(ZEN-uh-fyl, ZEE-nuh-)

MEANING:
noun: One who is attracted to foreign things or people.

“Americans are very friendly and very suspicious, that is what Americans are and that is what always upsets the foreigner, who deals with them, they are so friendly how can they be so suspicious they are so suspicious how can they be so friendly but they just are.” Gertrude Stein

I have just learned this word which is the opposite of xenophobe a word I know and have heard too much lately. I am a xenophile. As soon as someone speaks to me in a foreign accent, I want to know where they are from, how long they have been here and how do they like it. I want to know about their country as well. The longer I speak to someone who’s first language is not English, the more I begin to sound like English is not my first language either. It is a bit of traveling in my day without leaving the country. It sparks a memory or makes me think about planning a trip.

Im overly friendly when I meet someone who is from a country I have just visited – a waiter, a parking lot attendant, a sales clerk or the person on-line behind me at the grocery store. I’ll just randomly start talking about their state or village. It’s definitely awkward. I don’t have a fear of saying the wrong thing because I usually do. I smile, not like a prom queen, but because I’m genuinely interested in anything they are going to say about their country. It usually goes well. People like to talk about themselves and like that you know their part of the world.

You get to hear their impressions of America and Americans. One of the things people have to get used to here is that we use over the top adjectives and smile a lot. We are not happy all the time and all the smiling is cute but confusing to cultures that don’t smile a lot or New Yorkers. Everything is not awe-inspiring or awesome to people who know the meaning of the word.

We like to say we are “Irish or “South African” or “Italian” to people who are actually from those countries. They don’t like it.

They think it is funny that we write the month before the day. I always get annoyed with the rest of the world for not doing that.

I notice that when I talk about politics to people who are not American I am very PC but I get defensive when they criticize our government even though I feel the same way.

Around the world, they are starting to say that we are a people who are always shooting at each other like we have nothing else to do. We are a scary country to visit now.

I met a nice looking man who had been here for three months legally and looking for a job. He had a beautiful accent and I couldn’t figure it out where it was from.  He had always heard Americans liked people from different backgrounds because that was who we were, yet he felt his accent was keeping him from finding a job. Though he had a business degree, he was willing to take any job and start at the bottom. i said it was probably that he had no work experience here. With the condition of the world these days, being a xenophobe is definitely becoming more popular than being a xenophile.

Fly safe,
JAZ

Pray For Paris, Pray For The World

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Pray For Paris, Pray For The World

“It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.” Tim O Brian

The justification for terrorist killings is that there are no civilians. The people in a country pay taxes and fund anti terrorism. According to the terrorists, we are all at war. Terrorism is an abstract noun. It is hard to be at war with an abstract noun.

Terrorism happens when one group faces a much more powerful group where they have no chance of winning. Instead they attack other targets in the hopes that will put pressure on the governments. They attack the powerless. They create fear and chaos. They go after people on planes returning from a holiday, people in restaurants, watching a concert, at work or at a soccer match  –  all different ages, races, nationalities and in all different cities. The terrorists convince themselves that their targets are less than human. They use religion, history, past offenses, current offenses and always the bottom line is the pursuit of a more important goal than human life. Is it easier to kill when you don’t call it murder?

The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong. There is no argument and no excuse that can ever make it right. Terrorism is not part of faith.

We need to stop supporting the countries who fund terrorism. We need to stop our own  secret torturing, killing and cover ups. They don’t seem to be doing any good and give reason to the creation of more terrorists. We do need to defend ourselves.

Turning away refugees, xenophobia and fear of immigration is not an answer either. Didn’t we once return the persecuted back to Germany and Europe? Did we learn anything from closing our borders or putting the Japanese in camps  during World War II? We need to find a way to deal with the threats while honoring our ethical and moral obligations.

There was a surreal feeling in watching the footage of the events in Paris. It wasn’t a movie. People were dying who were just going about the business of life. The blood was not fake. The pregnant woman hanging on the wall saying she couldn’t hold on anymore was not acting. The guy hopping down the street was really shot in the leg.

I have always been fearful. I have the kind of brain that could put together hundreds of worst case scenarios on the way to anywhere. I mourn with the people of France. But fears in hand, I’m still going to Paris in the Spring. I realize that it is important to be aware, but to give in to the fears that random acts of violence create, is to let the terrorists win. #Dontbeterrorized.

Fly safe,
JAZ

Ten Reasons Why I Love Pope Francis

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Ten Reasons Why I Love Pope Francis

“The media only writes about the sinners and the scandals but that’s normal, because ‘a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows.”  Pope Francis

Its true. I have a crush on the Pope. Every story I hear about him reminds me that I can do better. He leads by example. I was lucky enough to see him in Argentina and if he came to Los Angeles, I would be one of those people in the crowd.

1. When he was in Buenos Aires, he was known to eat with the homeless in the street. He often leaves the Vatican at night to hang out with the homeless. Why is it surprising that he chose to eat lunch with them in Washington DC?

2. In his first year, he refused to move into the 16th-century Apostolic Palace, had his old black shoes replaced by the cobbler instead of buying fancy new papal slippers, and opened his door to three homeless men and a dog named Marley (after Bob Marley).

3. Pope Francis has an “intense fondness” for tango dancing. In 2014, over 3,000 dancers from all over Italy celebrated his birthday by dancing tango in Saint Peter’s Square. A lifelong fan of the Argentine soccer team San Lorenzo, he celebrated the team’s victory by hoisting the trophy over Saint Peter’s Square for the crowd to see.

4. The Popemobile is a Ford Focus or other non luxury car. He refused to drive in a bulletproof car with glass up. He said “its true that anything can happen but at my age (78) I don’t have much to lose.”

5. He studied philosophy at the Catholic University of Buenos Aires and also has a master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. He was a teacher of literature, psychology, philosophy and theology before becoming the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. It seems like he was interested in everything.

6. He is the first Pope to deal with the “political” issue of the environment and climate change. “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years,” he wrote. He has been criticized for meddling in a non religious issue.

7. Pope Francis is a porteno, a man of the people. He wants the church to be available and accessible to all people and he knows that it begins with him. His focus is less on sin and more on love. He is less about judgement and more about open-mindedness. He talks about gay marriage and abortion in a way that the Church hasn’t dealt with it before.

8. The reason that the Pope has never been to the Unites States before is because he has made a point of prioritizing the third world countries.

9. He is unusually multilingual, speaking Spanish, Latin and Italian fluently and understanding German, French, Portuguese, English, and Ukrainian.

10. Pope Francis is exactly who he appears to be, which is so often not the case with a public figure. He doesn’t “play the Pope.” He is 100 per cent sincere.

Fly Safe,

JAZ

The Iran Nuclear Arms Deal Or Why It Is Still Unsafe To Visit Iran

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The Iran Nuclear Arms Deal or Why It is Still Unsafe To Visit Iran

“The only people who should be allowed to govern countries with nuclear weapons are mothers, those who are still breast-feeding their babies.”
Tsutomu Yamaguchi

This is how I feel about the Iran Arms deal. You don’t give nuclear weapons to an unstable country in an unstable part of the world. I don’t care about the political ramifications. I care about the human ones.

Isn’t this the same Iran that when the Ayatollah came into power, he kidnapped the Americans there? Isn’t this the country that thousands of people were forced to evacuate and can never come back? Isn’t this the same Iran that funds terrorists groups? Isn’t this the Iran that is holding American journalist Jason Rezaian and others on trumped-up charges? Will the Mullahs suddenly decide that an international community is the way to go? What happens when a new even more unstable regime takes over? Do they return the weapons to us?

I recently wrote a blog on the ten most dangerous countries not to visit now and there are many more than ten. I was torn based on my research on the tenth one between Iran and North Korea. I ultimately chose North Korea but Iran was a good choice as well. I am confused about why we would give nuclear weapons to a country that is very dangerous for us to go to without the nuclear weapons.

I imagine from a financial point of view it is profitable. If Iran buys nuclear weapons the surrounding countries will need  more weapons to defend themselves. Everyone in the Middle East will be buying more weapons.

We are the self-proclaimed “watchdogs of the world” and giving Iran nuclear weapons is not protecting our world in any way. Is the hope that if we trust them they will behave with integrity? I believe Winston Churchill thought the same about Hitler when he signed the Munich Agreement in 1938 to avoid war. The Munich Agreement has become synonymous with the futility of giving power to totalitarian states.

Hate is irrational and there appears to be a lot of hate in these countries – especially for Jews and Israel. I imagine the Jews who signed a petition in favor of the Nuclear Arms Deal with Iran probably would not have left Nazi Germany in time. Many intelligent wealthy Jews held out hoping that the threat of persecution and death would pass. – that rational, intelligent thought would prevail over the death camps.

Have any of the Jews who signed the petition or people in favor of the Arms Deal with Iran been to the Hiroshima museum in Japan? Every Japanese school child has to go. The motto is No More Hiroshimas. The symbol is the Hiroshima Dome (Genbaku dome), the only building left standing in the area where the bomb exploded. Anyone who has spent time in this museum and listened to the stories and continued health problems would know the only good use for nuclear weapons is to keep people from using them. Ultimately what would be our defense against Nuclear Weapons? Nuclear Weapons.

IMG_1025

Fly safe,
JAZ

Can You Blame Your Parents If You Turn Out To Be A Terrorist?

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Can You Blame Your Parents If You Turn Out to Be A Terrorist?

“Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what kind of tea?” Neil Gaiman

Parenting is the one job that anyone can do. There is no age requirement, training or qualifications necessary. As human beings, we bring our pasts, fears and our baggage into our children’s lives. We give up our dreams, desires and independence and put our children’s needs before our own. We try our best to shelter them from harm and point them in the direction of morality and compassion.

We can only steer them toward the good and hope they don’t get caught up in the bad. We wish that they will find their path. I think we do the best we can with the resources we have. Whether it is nature, nurture, hard work, inherited, genetic or environmental,  most of us just get on with the job of being parents.

There are many people walking around with diagnosed and undiagnosed mental illness. When a teenager or young adult commits a horrifying act many times on themselves as well, it does not always turn out to be a kid from divorce, single parents, violence or abuse.  All parents have moments where they lose their tempers, say things they regret, and create unloving situations that they want forgiven. There are some evil parent stories out there but most are not like this. Are kids just born hardwired? Or were they good and something just set them off?

Every one of us has the capacity to make good and bad choices. Do you love and protect your child no matter what or do you take a harder line when you see them acting out?Times change people. I believe we are all hardwired.  Dysfunctional, abusive and broken families always make a kid with problems worse. Our choices are ultimately who we become. When I see a teenager/young adult open fire on a school or mall, a suicide bomber or a terrorist, I always think, “that’s somebody’s kid.”

Fly safe,

JAZ

Killing Cecil The Lion In Africa

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Killing Cecil The Lion In Africa

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is — whether its victim is human or animal — we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity.” Rachel Carson

There is a scene in the movie Dances With Wolves that I always remember. The “savage, wild Indians” come across many rotting dead buffalo killed by the white men. They stare in sadness and disbelief because they only killed an animal for food, took as much as they needed to survive and used every part of the animal. Killing them for any other reason was shocking to their culture.

I don’t understand killing unless it is in self-defense or for survival. To lure an animal out of a protected game park, for the reason of killing him slowly and painfully with a bow and arrow, and following him for forty hours to finally shoot him sounds diabolical.

Sport hunting is a violent form of recreation. I don’t get it. Why is it fun to kill innocent unsuspecting animals who have done nothing to you? Hunting has contributed to the extinction of species, disrupted migration and hibernation patterns, devastated animal communities , caused hours of unnecessary pain and suffering to animals before they die, and broken up families.

When the leader of a pride of lions is taken out as a trophy, the current pride must find itself a new male lion to fill this now empty role. When the new male lion comes in, he will systematically kill every lion cub that the old male lion produced, ensuring the future of the pride is his own lineage. If you are taking out male lions from prides even on a one per year basis, it’s not hard to imagine how cubs would have a hard time flourishing.

Big game hunting in Africa is trophy hunting, It contributes nothing to the African community development and seems to be about feeding the egos of the hunters. We are the only species that tortures and kills for amusement. Animals are being killed with devices such as guns and bows and arrows that they have no natural defenses against. If it is really about the beauty of a dead animal head on your wall, next time take a photo of a live one instead.

I heard that the American dentist was in hiding. He has become the prey that the predators are looking for. As he well knows, a man on a hunt is an animal to be feared.

Fly safe Cecil,

JAZ

We are Jews. We Bring Food. We Sit.

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We are Jews. We Bring Food. We Sit.

“My feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but I shall go on living.” Pablo Neruda

I went to pick up my friend for a movie and her 30-year-old son was found dead in bed minutes before I got there.  I have to process another senseless death. There are orphans and there are widows but there are no words for parents who lose a child.

Senseless deaths always stir up the questions of faith and fate for me. I guess it must help to believe god has a plan in the face of tragedy but that saying never works for me. It helps to have a tradition – a set of rituals to go through at a time when your brain shuts down, a religious structure to follow, to get through the unthinkable.

I am very close with my friend. I knew the son that passed away – but not the other kids or shocked family members who had started to arrive. I said to my other friend who was with me. “I’m not sure that I should be here now.“ She said “We are here for a reason. We are Jews. We sit.” That is our tradition.

This is a pretty religious Jewish family and they will follow the laws strictly. Jewish people believe in a season of sorrow. We take a lot of time to mourn and heal our souls. Normal life seems over and it is a struggle to deal with the new reality. We need time. The mourning rituals are about the great value that we place on the life of each person.

I didn’t grow up understanding the Jewish traditions and the death ritual seemed bizarre to me. After a funeral service you go back to the house and laugh and tell stories about the person who passed away. Everyone is eating, deli platters and dry Jewish pastries. In fact, every Jewish event in Brooklyn, came with a deli platter. – the births, after the bar mitzvahs and the deaths. There was some weird cycle of life familiarity when I saw them bringing in the platters of corn beef, turkey, coleslaw, potato salad, pickles and lox of my childhood and family events.

It is an ancient custom for loved ones and friends to visit the mourners after the funeral.  The mourning period is called shiva and it means seven. The mourners sit and have visitors for seven days. It is a time to remember and tell the stories. They sit in my friend’s house which carries her son’s spirit so  that the memories will come more easily. It is important to do this to let the family know he will be remembered in our hearts always. Bobby  would have wanted us to be laughing. Bobby would have loved the stories.  It is emotionally and spiritually healing to have mourners and friends around for this time. If you are religious, you sit on small stools, to show that something has changed and to be close to the earth.

The first meal after the funeral is the most important. It is brought by friends and family. You must eat now to affirm life. You must eat because it signifies that you must go on.

We have a prayer that we say called the Mourner’s Kaddish. It is not in Hebrew but in Aramaic, which was the language of the people at that time. It has been said for centuries and there is some comfort in that link to the past. Praying is not easy for me, yet I have no problem saying this one since my mother passed away. I say it and talk to her at the same time. We have the same conversation each time. She says ”What are you doing in temple on such a beautiful day?”

But I also say it for other people who have died. I said it last week for the people in Charleston. I said it and thought however painful and unfair life can be, I hope their families can find a way to make their life good again. Not to forget their loss but to go on different than before.

I will say it often now for Bobby and his family, for the HUGE empty space in their hearts and for a sorrow so big it feels like it will never go away.

Fly safe Bobby

JAZ

Countries That I Used To Know

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Countries That I Used To Know

‘Be the change that you wish to see in the world”. – Mahatma Gandhi

If you are looking for missing countries from the maps of your school days, here is a list of all the names. Countries have split apart, gotten back together, gained/lost independence or just didn’t like their names. How do we understand our place in the world if we don’t know about other places? Americans typically score very low in geographic literacy. What happens in the world is connected to where it happens in the world. We are supposed to be a “global village.” We should know the correct name of our neighbors and be interested in why they changed them.

. Used to Be                                                    Now

Burma                                                             Myanmar

Ceylon                                                            Sri Lanka

Czechoslovakia                                               Czech Republic, Slovakia

Rhodesia                                                         Zimbabwe

Southwest Africa                                              Namibia

French Somaliland                                           Djibouti

Tanganyika and Zanzibar                                 Tanzania

French Sudan                                                  Mali.

Basutoland                                                     Lesotho

Zaire                                                              Democratic Republic of Congo

The Gold Coast                                             Ghana

Dutch Guiana                                                Surinam

East Pakistan                                               Bangladesh

Western Samoa                                            Samoa

East Germany and West Germany               Germany

North Yemen and South Yemen                  Yemen

North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam           Viet Nam

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)       Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan

Yugoslavia                                                  Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia                                       and Montenegro, and Slovenia

Tibet                                                          Xizang Autonomous Region Of China

We can’t afford not to pay attention to the world anymore. We have to change the story.

Fly safe,

JAZ