Joel Schalit

Frozen Pope

The last time I flew back to the US, I had the good fortune of ending up on a flight with the most remarkable video offerings I’d ever seen. News, (France 24), art house films, European sitcoms, the works. For once, I enjoyed having to sit still for twelve hours.

This time I had the exact opposite experience. Turning on the television following takeoff, this image, of the late Pope John Paul II, appeared. When I tried to change the channel, the screen froze. When I tried to turn off the TV, the display refused to darken.

For the next nine hours, every time I looked up from the book I was reading, this is the image I saw. All the way from Milan to New York.

No Need For Translation

Our neighborhood Christian resource center. In Spanish, "Llamada Final" means "Final Call."

A block south, local proponents of secularism let their their feelings about religion be known.

Help Wanted

A ghostly plea for assistance placed outside Mission Dolores late last year. Encountered just before entering an adjacent synagogue in order to take part in a panel discussion on social justice work.

Click on the image for greater detail.

A Faustian Bargain?

When Benjamin Netanyahu served as Israel’s Prime Minister during the late 1990s, I can distinctly recall the physical revulsion I would read into Israeli faces when they would hear of the ties that Bibi had been cultivating with Evangelist Pat Robertson. Told that American Christians were quickly becoming Israel’s most devoted Diaspora supporters, I still remember how disappointed even my most politically conservative, Likud-voting friends were to hear about this. Of all people, why them?, everyone seemed to respond. It was as though, in our struggle for recognition and support, even conservatives bemoaned the fact that the only foreigners we could reach out to were people who sincerely hated us.

Granted, there are Israelis who value this ‘affection’, and see it as a sign of character. But, more often than not, one will find that Israelis of nearly every conceivable conviction, on one level or another, take issue with Americans. Some, for what is perceived to be a provincial approach to Middle Eastern politics, others because they suspect that Israel is a tool for American interests in the region. Though it’s hard to imagine Israel’s existence without the support of the US, it is equally difficult to stomach the idea that Israelis will learn to indefinitely live with this situation. If we have such ambivalent feelings about our closest ally, what will we think of ourselves if we continue to rely so heavily upon them?

He Loved Us, Too

My vinyl copy of Johnny Cash‘s now out of print 1969 account of his visit to the West Bank’s holy sites. Briefly reissued by Harmony records in the late nineties, right after Cash died in 2003, I investigated licensing it on behalf of my former label. From what I recall, the cost would have been far too prohibitive.

Needless to say, this thirty-eight year old half-spoken word, half-sung recording of Johnny & June getting off in places like the Garden of Gethsemane is at its peak of cultural relevance. Christian, Zionist, basking in the significance of Israel’s June ’67 victory, The Holy Land is in serious need of a critical revival.