JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE  |  WWW.DECEMBER18TH.ORG

FREE THE SHMINISTIM – ISRAEL'S YOUNG CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS. The Shministim are Israeli high school students who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in an army that occupies the Palestinian Territories. December 18, 2008 marked the launch date of a global campaign to release them from jail. SHMINISIM 2010: A new Shministim letter has been drafted for 2010, and 88 Israeli young people have signed it. The letter, addressed to Prime Minister Netanyahu, slams the Occupation and asks, “Can military rule of a civilian population be considered anything other than a dictatorship?” To learn about this new class of conscientious refusers, go here.

A B O U T

Who are the Shministim?

Shministim means “twelfth-graders” in Hebrew. Military service is mandatory after high school for young Jewish Israelis. The Shministim are Israeli youth who refuse to serve in the army because it enforces Israel’s 40-year occupation of the Palestinians.

While a number of Shministim letters have been written in the past (read about the first letter sent to Prime Minister Golda Meir here), dozens of youth have signed the current letter for Shministim 2010, and about one hundred signed last year’s 2009 Shministim letter. Each letter articulates the basis for refusal by members of that year’s “graduating class.”

Because of their principled refusal to serve in an occupying army, youth who sign the letter face jail terms in Israeli military prisons. Terms range from 21 to 28 days; those who refuse to wear a military uniform while in jail are sent to solitary confinement for the duration of their term.

After completing their sentence, they are then drafted again and if they refuse a second time, as most do, they face the same sentence. This can be a repeated process in which Shministim return home for a few days or longer and are then drafted and then imprisoned. Even through they refuse to serve, they still in a sense ‘belong’ to the military until they receive their discharge papers. A Shministi may never receive these papers, and although the Israeli military may tire of re-calling objectors into prison regularly, without these papers, an objector’s fate is always uncertain. There is literally no end to the number of times youth might be sent back to jail.

Read the 2009 Shministim blog (in Hebrew) here.

This campaign is sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace, America’s largest national Jewish grassroots peace group dedicated to reaching a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians based on the principles of international human rights law.

Contact us at info-AT-jewishvoiceforpeace.org

We work with activists in Palestine and Israel, and in broad coalition with other Jewish, Arab-American, faith-based, and peace and social justice organizations to support the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians for justice, security and self-determination.

We call for:

 A U.S. foreign policy based on promoting peace, democracy, human rights, and respect for international law.

 An end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. 

 A resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem consistent with international law and equity

Media and blogger inquiries:
Sydney Levy at Jewish Voice for Peace, Sydney@jvp.org  |  510-465-1777

Source: http://december18th.org/about/

This is an incredible must see film.
This has to be the best video of 2009.
I do not know how it possibly could have been shot.
I believe that the cameraman is from France .

Source: http://www.flixxy.com/game-of-survival.htm

“...at the end I want to be sure that there is a social side to my work” (Christoph Schlingensief)

Ladies and Gentlemen:
We are very pleased to be able to inform you that Christoph Schlingensief has accepted the invitation by the Commissioner of the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennial 2011, Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer, Director of MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt/Main.

Christoph Schlingensief is currently busy with rehearsals in Berlin for his VIA INTOLLERANZA II project, which takes as its starting point the action opera “Intolleranza 1960” by Italian composer Luigi Nono and which Schlingensief considers a research project accompanying his project for an opera village in Burkina Faso in West Africa. The performance will be on stage in Brussels as of mid-May and then move on to Hamburg, Vienna and Munich.

With the German Pavilion, Schlingensief is tackling what is for him yet another new task. Christoph Schlingensief commented on his acceptance as follows: “That is a fantastic surprise. I have worked in many areas, as a film, theater and opera director, as a producer, as a stand-up entertainer, as a person, and that includes as a sick person and Christ, not to mention as a politician and performer, and I have always been interested in artists who pursue their art almost obsessively, and in the process do not
necessarily distinguish between the compulsion to have to live and the compulsion to want to live. My work and my life have always been typified by a kind of schizophrenia. If I were only immersed in one thing, then I would get bored, my brain would not get going. Between the music and the image, the person and the language, the healthy and the infirm, the joyful and the sad, I must always have the opportunity to claim the opposite. I do not believe in the world being unequivocal. The task of using the German Pavilion, a dubiously ostentatious building, not for representative purposes but for artistic purposes, is just the right thing: a weighty burden. But art makes what is otherwise heavy light. Perhaps that is exactly what is good about it. At any rate, I love the fissures and contradictions and in the coming months I will find out which
contradiction are most productive for Venice, the German Pavilion and Burkina Faso.”

Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer adds: “For almost 30 years now Christoph Schlingensief has been focusing wholeheartedly and in a radically direct manner on the cultural, social and political state of Germany. In his films, plays, opera pr ductions and art actions he has always relied on the greatest possible range of media and, forever in an unforeseen way, has permanently ridden the line dividing reality and fiction, careful staging and improvization, consistent conviction and provocation; in the process he has developed his very own form of moral and human sensitivity. With his project to found an opera village in Burkina Faso, Schlingensief is imbuing the idea of the national with a cosmopolitan dimension. I consider him one of the country’s truly important artists and can imagine that thanks to his artistic vision the idea of national representation will be transformed and the German Pavilion may become a place of communication and cosmopolitan activity.”

The exhibition in the German Pavilion is commissioned by the German Foreign Ministry and is realized in cooperation with Institute of Foreign Affairs (ifa).

Dr. Susanne Gaensheimer and Christoph Schlingensief will gladly field further questions at the press conference to be held on June 29, 2010 at 11

a.m. at MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt/Main. Attached please find a current biography of Christoph Schlingensief. You will also find additional information and images on our website at www.mmk-frankfurt.de.

Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards
MMK MUSEUM FÜR MODERNE KUNST FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Christina Henneke
Press Desk
Domstrasse 10, 60311 Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Tel. + +49-69-212-37761 or + +49-69-212-35844
Fax + +49-69-212-37882
E-mail: christina.henneke@stadt-frankfurt.de

Hello, my name is Fabiano Gummo, I'm a Brazilian visual artist and develop (with other artists) an aesthetic-behavioral polysemic project entitled Tentacle Ensemble Collective (TEC). In it, we fused various art forms. The number of members of the TEC varies with the performances. These performances usually have a ritual character and topics such as violence, technology, religion, paranoia, society and reality. Besides the intervention group also works with video art, experimental music, noise, urban actions and virtual actions. We were very interested by the proposal of "NO!art" and would like to stay in touch. We believe that art should be used as protest and dissent. We are trying to meet people who have the same mentality and also trying to find places to perform our shows in the U.S., which probably occur in January 2011. If you know some spaces, please do not hesitate to leave us together. Best Regards Fabiano Gummo

Urbanóide Bobby Fischer | July 19, 2009 | Buenos Aires/AR | 4 Tentáculos | An old phone rings in the midst of performance, as a call from beyond. While attending the group member yells to try to make themselves understood. His despair is harrowing. The phone rings again in another member and serves as stentorian laughs, because it is a transcomunication with his master, Bobby Fischer. The affirmation of the spirit world that brings the performers with the intervention of the spiritual plane, that the final offer the chess board, with its surreal and edible parts, the figure of his master in thanks. — A member comes with a umbrella and begins to stare at the wooden skewers in it (starting a destruction that would drag on for three more performances), transforming the object into a porcupine. A members practice action paiting while another launches electro-acoustic music. A new game of chess is played close to the public, with the loser hiding his face in shame with a plastic. In the end, the four members come together as a spiral is projected under them.

My blog with samples of my work as well the site of TEC:

http://fgummo.blogspot.com  |   http://www.tentacles.art.br

NO!art, I wanted to make you aware of my painting which I believe shares the anti-materialism ideology with NO!art. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Michael Fenton  |    www.fentonarts.com
Leonardo da Vinci: "Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world."

Angel Ortiz, LA II is one of the most accomplished and internationally famous Puerto Rican artists the Lower East Side has ever produced.– His work has been exhibited in numerous major museums and is in both public and private collections– all over the world. His work is featured in important books. One problem is his name is often left out of the credits.

I think this link explains the story– in part– identity theft and corruption- at the highest levels of the art world-

Is there something going on between Jeffrey Deitch and Keith Haring?

Angel came to me last night– Now his situation is even more tragic– because of economic pressures– he has been physically assaulted, robbed, forced out of his apartment and is homeless. His front bridge was taken and thrown away– he suffered a cut lip as well as a black eye.

Yesterday NYC had record rain fall– LA showed up soaking wet– all he was wearing was sweat pants– sneakers– no cell phone–

the situation has become desperate and could end up tragic–

NYC has become the city of the great divide– those who have and those who have not– since being mayor-Bloomberg wealth has gone from 7½ billion to over 15 billion– and we are losing our fire protection and school kids are having their metro cards taken away– the best of times and the worst of times– for many people in America– this is the 2nd Great Depression....
thanks clayton

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http://www.jonathanforeman.com/military/nyp_iraq/04192003_chest.html
I want you to tell me how much you will take from this money for the assistance you will give me. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this subject with any body, should you have any reason to reject this offer, please and please destroy this message as any leakage of this information will be too bad for us Combat soldier's here in Iraq.I do not know how long we will remain here, and I have been shot, wounded and survived two suicide bomb attacks by the special grace of God, this and other reasons will mention later has prompted me to reach out for your help,I honestly want this matter to be resolved immediately,
Please contact me as soon as possible with my private e-mail address which is my only way of communication Email:jasoncampbell7667@gmail.com
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Best Regards
SGT) JASON T. CAMPBELL
Email:jasoncampbell7667@gmail.com