http://blog.al.com/living-times/2010/03/shifting_sands_stories_of_life.html

'Shifting Sands': Stories of life in Palestine and Israel

By Kay Campbell, The Huntsville Times

March 19, 2010, 5:46AM

"Those who would silence doubt are filled with fear.

The house of their spirit is built on shifting sands."

-­ From "Cherish your doubts," in "Gates of Prayer," used in Jewish services.

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- When Osie Gabriel Adelfang celebrates Passover in her Huntsville home beginning March 30, she will emphasize, as do most Jews, how the feast celebrates the liberation of oppressed people.

But the oppressed people her own children will learn about will include not only the ancient Israelite slaves in Egypt and modern genocide victims in Darfur, but also Palestinians squeezed into shrinking spaces of land and liberty in Israel, the place where Adelfang was born.

Equating modern oppression of Palestinians with the story of Passover is an imaginative leap many Jews and friends of Israel cannot make, Adelfang says.

"Part of why this subject is so hard to talk about is because Jews are so used to seeing themselves as the victim," Adelfang said last week, referring to historic attacks on Jews such as the Inquisition and the Holocaust.

Adelfang was explaining her new book project, "Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation," a collection of 14 essays and poems...READ MORE