remembering pearls of music

Posted on 2010/10/08 by davka

this week Daniel Pearl would turn 46

Daniel Pearl was born on Shab­bat Noah: Octo­ber 10, 1964 = 4 Chesh­van 5725.

If, metaphor­i­cal­ly speak­ing, all those ani­mals (car­ni­vores and her­bi­vores) were able to coex­ist on the Ark why can’t we? And this week, when we learn that a new lan­guage has been found among a tiny group of peo­ple in the Himalayas, per­haps it is the lat­ter part of the por­tion on which we need to focus. Can we learn how to coop­er­ate more than compete?

How might we respond to Daniel Pearl’s life?

proverbs 26:4

Do not answer a fool accord­ing to his fol­ly, or you will be like him your­self.
…or as reworked lat­er by Matthew (7:6):
Nether caste ye youre pearles before swyne.

Var­i­ous ver­sions of his griz­zly exe­cu­tion videos remain on YouTube where, to date (Octo­ber 2010, 8 years after his behead­ing), they have received more than 800,000 views. I will not link to them here. I respond differently.

Rather, there are ways we can think and act pos­i­tive­ly, not in response to Daniel’s death, but in con­tin­u­ing his life’s work.

pearls of music

Many pages on the Web sug­gest that music is a uni­ver­sal lan­guage. Daniel Pearl knew and loved this lan­guage. He com­mu­ni­cat­ed in music wher­ev­er he went.
Per­haps we can each find some way to par­tic­i­pate in the 9th Annu­al Daniel Pearl World Music Days — Octo­ber 1st — 31st, 2010.

This page is dedicated to Harmony for Humanity

This week I wear a but­ton call­ing atten­tion to Daniel Pearl. The cashier at my mar­ket read the text and asked what it was about. I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share with her some­thing about a good man whose life was too short. She paused, thought about Daniel Pearl for a moment, a man she had nev­er known of before, and thank me. I was able to make his mem­o­ry a blessing.

The but­ton was made in 2002 by But­ton Bro­kers of Rochester, N. Y. and was dis­trib­uted dur­ing the Israeli Oper­a­tion Defen­sive Shield encour­ag­ing Pres­i­dent George W. Bush’s sup­port for Israel.

daniel pearl

Daniel Pearl’s final words

Date: 2002
Size: 5.5
Pin Form: clasp
Print Method: cel­lu­loid
Text “I AM
A JEW,
MY
MOTHER
IS A JEW”
Daniel Pearl 1963–2002

your lapel buttons

Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jack­et you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any lay­ing around that you do not feel emo­tion­al­ly attached to, please let me know. I pre­serve these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point they will all go to an appro­pri­ate muse­um. You can see all the but­tons shared to date.

Posted in judaica, lapel buttons, music, personalities, Uncategorized, who | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

the new year; traveling for chocolate… and much more

Posted on 2010/10/04 by davka

Switzerland was actually “Plan B”

We had hoped to get to Fire Island (Long Island) at The Pines for Rosh haShan­nah to be with a col­league and at the beach. How­ev­er, because “the sea­son” at The Pines was still going strong, the two estab­lish­ments where we tried to book rooms could not com­mit, bare­ly even return­ing our calls or emails.

So, Plan B; Chocolate research and Jewish adventures in Switzerland.

Our Amer­i­can Air­lines miles had accu­mu­lat­ed enough for us to fly to Zurich and back from Gene­va so we rent­ed a small car and devel­oped a plan to spend time in Zurich, Basel, Gruyères and Gene­va. I booked sim­ple hotel rooms. I also con­tact­ed the rab­bi in Zurich who arranged for us to join his con­gre­ga­tion Or Chadash.

Deb­bie thought through the choco­late stops. We had heard about the choco­late train from Mon­treaux to Broc and back. Tan­ta­liz­ing as it was, on clos­er research it was expen­sive and it lim­it­ed our time at Cailler. Since we would have a car, we decid­ed to for­go the train. This turned out to be a great decision.

On shar­ing these thoughts and what actu­al­ly hap­pened with Libbe, she respond­ed that they seemed like a won­der­ful mix­ture of care­ful plan­ing and serendipity.

Our Activities:

posted on October 4, a month (minus a day) from our departure

  • …on the Gre­go­ri­an cal­en­dar which Pope Gre­go­ry XIII imple­ment­ed on this date in 1582. So, while we went to cel­e­brate Rosh haShan­nah in Switzer­land, these pages appear on yet anoth­er new year of sorts.
  • …regard­ing trav­el­ing, this date is the anniver­sary of the death, in 1859, of Karl Baedek­er. And while in no way author­i­ta­tive, these pages are offered as our own mod­est guide to those who might fol­low us.
  • …and it is the anniver­sary of the death, in 1947, of Max Planck, one of the first who rec­og­nized the sig­nif­i­cance of Albert Ein­stein’s the­o­ry of rel­a­tiv­i­ty which was writ­ten while liv­ing in an apart­ment in Bern… which we visited.
    • at Einstein's desk

    Mark wear’s his Ein­stein but­ton while stand­ing at Ein­stein’s Bern desk.

    Einstein button

    Albert Ein­stein

    Date: 1960s
    Size: 4.43
    Pin Form: straight
    Print Method: cel­lu­loid
    Text [pho­to­graph of Albert Einstein]

    your lapel buttons

    Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jack­et you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any lay­ing around that you do not feel emo­tion­al­ly attached to, please let me know. I pre­serve these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point they will all go to an appro­pri­ate muse­um. You can see all the but­tons shared to date.

Posted in family, food, holidays, judaica, lapel buttons, travels, where | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments