Most of the time, the posts I put up at ROICommunity.org aren't my personal reflections. But during my Pesach prep this week - which included everything from flying cross-country to catching random ROIers in NYC to helping my parents to prepare their house for the holiday - it occurred to me how relative oppression can be, and how our desire for freedom is therefore, also relative.
During the second ROI Summit, I spent some time with the Visions of Israel track - and during their session, several of the Latin Americans in attendance sat for the first part of the panel's presentation, as panelists talked about how to combat anti-Israel sentiment on campus. Then one of them raised her hand and said, very respectfully, that the discussion about American campuses was totally worthless to Latin American Israel advocates - in Argentina, Venezuela and other locations, standing up for Israel wasn't just uncomfortable or unpopular, it was dangerous.
Recently, another ROIer from a Middle Eastern country recently relocated to the United States - I asked him what motivated the move, and he said it was dangerous to be Jewish where he was from, and he wanted a better life.
Freedom is...well, different things to different people.
Last month, thanks to the generous support of the
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