Weekly Perspective

 As 2023 is coming to a close, our team chose some uplifting news out of the Middle East courtesy of the team at the National as we look forward to being of service in the new year: The Hirbawi factory in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron - the last Palestinian factory producing the keffiyeh. Reuters This week’s collection of beshara led to a little trip down memory lane – all the way back to a big adventure across the world via all modes of transport including a plane, a bullet train and a charming mountainside cable car. Years ago, when I was young and lucky enough to take myself off travelling with friends, I found myself standing in wonder atop the Unesco World Heritage site Mount Koya in Japan. I was about to spend the night in a temple learning about the ancient Shingon form of Buddhism. In that awe-struck moment, a pair of Japanese women – themselves tourists to the site, travelling the same journey – asked to have a photograph of   me   in front of the Unesco sign. It surpr

  Our team is preparing for 2024. As the wars in Gaza and Ukraine rages with no apparent end in sight, our team chose a recent note from Heather Cox Richardson:       On Wednesday, November 29, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) delivered a landmark speech on American antisemitism, inspired by the fact that protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza after the October 7 attack by Hamas have descended into an embrace of Hamas’s stated goal of the complete destruction of Israel. From there it has, for some people, been a short step to attacking Jewish people in general.  “I feel compelled to speak because I am the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America; in fact, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official ever in American history,” Schumer said. “And I have noticed a significant disparity between how Jewish people regard the rise of antisemitism, and how many of my non-Jewish friends regard it. To us, the Jewish people, the rise of antisemitism is a crisis—a five-alarm