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On Gilad Shalit and Media Manipulation
February 08, 2010 | Sam Melamed

[caption id="attachment_2553" align="aligncenter" width="680" caption="A woman holds a sign pleading for the release of Gilad Shalit. February 5, 2010."][/caption]

Today is the 1,324th day of Gilad Shalit's captivity. In fact, as I write this, it's been 1,324 days, 14 hours, 19 minutes, and roughly 31 seconds since Shalit walked free. I know this not because of any particular concern on my part, but because everyone in Israel knows this. It's impossible not to.

Along the side of the Ha'aretz website, there's a photo of Shalit and a ticker tallying each second of his incarceration. This constant, morbidly fascinating reminder of one young Israeli's terrible plight tells you all you need to know about today's Israel -- about the checkpoints, the ID cards, the soldiers, the terrorists, and, of course, last year's Operation Cast Lead.

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A Thousand Leagues From Hillel (Part II)
February 07, 2010 | Carly Silver

Huh. Hare Krishna. Before the Bob Dylan song set me straight, I had associated the "hare" with some sort of Bugs Bunny cartoon. Well, I could set all my rabbit-related thoughts to rest, I supposed, by getting up early on a Sunday morning, grumbling my way down to the Lower, Lower East Side (it's on Second Avenue and First Street), and finally discovering the truth about the movement.

Having woken up moderately early for a college student--less than an hour before the event began--I figured that hopping in the shower and dressing conservatively would be enough to get me to the temple unscathed. However, the icy January wind seemed to have other ideas. Thanks to my lack of a hair-dryer, my damp locks turned into mini-icicles as soon as I hit the pavement. I looked like Bob Marley at the Winter Olympics.
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The Global Citizen: Helping Haiti and the Importance of Grassroots NGOs
February 05, 2010 | Natalie Goodis
The Global Citizen is a joint project of New Voices and the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Throughout the year, a group of former AJWS volunteers will offer their take on global justice, Judaism and international development. Opinions expressed by Global Citizen bloggers do not necessarily represent AJWS.

I forgot to bring a flashlight, rain jacket, and extra pairs of socks to Uganda, but somehow, three clunky novels made their way into my duffel bag. I did not expect the rest of my group to be equally passionate about reading. The nineteen of us collected a sharing library of about forty books. As soon as we finished our own reading material, we browsed the shelves to see what our friends brought. Discussions during meals often turned into Oprah's book club; we argued about our favorite characters, defending their actions and choices. The non-fictions works sparked political debates--we did not shy away from controversial subjects. If anything, the books provided us a reason to share what was really on our mind, especially as we encountered some of those topics in real life. It was interesting to read about microfinance, HIV/AIDS, and poverty alleviation and then experience it on the ground through our volunteer work with a local Ugandan community.

One book that unanimously won the approval of our American Jewish World Service Volunteer Summer group was Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer Prize winning non-fiction account Mountain Beyond Mountains. It's an intimate portrait of world-renowned professor and humanitarian Dr. Paul Farmer. Through intimate interviews and personal reflections on time spent with the doctor abroad and in the US, Kidder introduces readers to a remarkable thinker and visionary who humbly dedicated his life to revolutionizing healthcare practices in the developing world. His organization, Partners in Health, focuses on treating infectious diseases in the world's most impoverished countries, and his work has saved the lives of millions. I immediately bought both my parents copies when I got home.
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