Jerusalem Weekly – Feb 11, 2021

This week in (th)INK! it was great to reconnect in person (although we had one join remotely since she was still in quarantine!) with snacks to begin to explore some of the deep and hidden secrets of Purim. We discovered that much of what we thought about Purim as a sweet children’s holiday is really hiding the true meaning of Purim. We also began to learn about what is unique about celebrating Purim in Jerusalem in general, and in particular this year as it is what is called “purim meshulash” (Threefold Purim) since the festivities begin on Friday and finish on Sunday. We will go deeper into Purim next week!

This Week in Academics

The Zionism 101 class is off to a great start. We had an in-depth conversation about “What are the Jews?” and how that feeds into defining Zionism. We took turns looking for memes and other social media posts that both promoted and attacked Zionist claims, and then we discussed them as a class.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict class is diving into the Zionist narrative. We are currently discussing the significance of the Jewish people as being indigenous to the land of Israel and how the connection between Jews and their historic homeland has been maintained even during long periods spent in the Diaspora.

In our Jewish Medical Ethics class we have begun to explore ethics and how ethical norms are set. We looked at the statement of ethics published by the American Medical Association and we are now investigating what defines a medical ethic as being Jewish. We discussed how defining a medical ethic as being Jewish has to take into account the tradition of machloket (disagreement).