Search

Santiago Slabodsky's Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking returns to a history of Jewish persecution, but unlike other attempts to trace the tradition of the Jewish “conscious pariah,” it does not aim to identify an “essence” of Judaism (say, “exilic consciousness”). The book's underlying goal is to think through the failures of previous Jewish projects to turn to the history of Jewish persecution, in order to form successful and meaningful political alliances with other, equally persecuted victims of Western hegemony. In this review, we position Decolonial Judaism in conversation with contemporary debates on exilic or diasporic Judaism and discuss the usefulness of a decolonial versus a postcolonial framework for evaluating the modern history of Judaism. Finally, we gauge the potential of reading decolonized or barbaric Judaism into the contemporary settler-colonial Jewish condition in Israel/Palestine.

This article engages with three films by the Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari: The Roof (2006, 61 minutes), Port of Memory (2009, 62 minutes), and Recollection (2015, 70 minutes). My rea...

(2016). Review: The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge, by Ilan Pappe. Journal of Palestine Studies: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 73-75.

In his seven-minute film Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints (2003), Palestinian artist Sharif Waked introduces a slew of beautiful young men striding down a catwalk to the sound of heavy beat music, wearing “the latest in checkpoint fashion”: a tight mini black jacket that exposes a flat stomach in a sudden opening of a hidden side zipper, a white T-shirt with a large heart-shaped opening exposing most of the chest, and many more articles of designed clothing, all partially covering, but mostly exposing, the top part of the body. In her reading of this piece, Hochberg argues that in drawing attention to the body of the Palestinian who is stopped daily at Israeli checkpoints for long and humiliating searches, and resituating this body in a radically different context (fashion show, or perhaps strip show?), Waked resists common representations of the Palestinian as (always and only) a victim of military inspection, turning him instead into an object of desire well aware of his desirability. Furthermore, focusing on the most common search routine practiced by the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint, the lifting of Palestinian shirts to ensure that they are not strapped with explosives, Waked gives this practice a new, and explicitly homoerotic, interpretation, presenting it as a means for Israeli soldiers to “check out” Palestinian men, who “dress up for the occasion.” In Waked's film, Hochberg concludes, the Israeli soldiers' treatment of the Palestinian body as a “security threat” and the Palestinian's forced cooperation function as pretexts for underlying hidden and forbidden (homoerotic) desire, here exposed as the subtext of a toxic national conflict sealed in heteronormative sexual perceptions of masculinity and its absence.

One of the most important contributions of this special issue of GLQ is the forum for three queer Palestinian activists to speak about the complexity of their identities and politics. In this roundtable conversation, these activists make clear that while they do not speak for all Palestinian LGBTQs, and that they do not necessarily agree among themselves on strategies or details (the women's rights approach of Aswat is different from the queer activism of Al-Qaws), they do succeed in laying out the major challenges facing their work and the strategies they employ to address them. Most central among these challenges is the need to forge a queer agenda in the context of military occupation and state-governed racism.

This essay is dedicated to the writings of Sayed Kashua, the young Israeli Palestinian novelist, journalist, and screenwriter who has become a central, if controversial, figure within the Israeli public domain: a target of both political and literary praise and blame. Specifically the essay examines Kashua's active participation in the Israeli (Hebrew) public sphere and the way in which his writings take part in the construction of a critical minority discourse. By this I do not simply mean the obvious: that, as a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Kashua occupies a minority position, which is therefore “reflected” in his writing. To the contrary, I argue that what is significant about Kashua's writings is that they seem to engage in the destruction of the very perception of coherent and natural “national affiliations” as they call attention to the discursive processes through which the Israeli Arab/Palestinian is created as a national minority who as such is also (and necessarily so) a traitor, an inauthentic Palestinian, a wannabe Jew, in short, a failed identity. Indeed, Kashua's insistence on his “Israeliness” (by writing in Hebrew, referring to himself as an Israeli Arab, and rejecting the demand that he be more “authentically Arab”), while repeatedly documenting the impossibility of actually being an Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Palestinian, draws attention to the limits of any national discourse as such to successfully account for the question of minorities. Regarding the experience of the Israeli Palestinian as a site of productive ironic performativity, Kashua's texts, I conclude, break open the monolithic image of the nation, exposing the inherent violence and contradictions involved in positioning Israel as a “Jewish State” and in situating Israeli Palestinians as incomplete members of either Israeli or Palestinian (national) collectives.

Objectives: The goals of our study were to review all cases of urethral and bladder trauma that presented to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center between January 1998 and August 2005 and determine (1) the clinical characteristics of patients with urethral and/or bladder injuries as well as the sensitivities of those clinical characteristics; (2) whether or not a blind attempt to insert a urethral catheter was performed; and (3) whether there is any evidence that a blind attempt to insert a urethral catheter worsened the initial urinary tract injury. Methods: This is a retrospective chart review. Results: The study cohort comprised 46 patients with a mean age of 30 years, including 36 men (78.2%) and 10 women (21.8%). Bladder tears were found in 33 patients, 10 patients had urethral lacerations, and 3 patients had combined bladder and urethral lacerations. The most sensitive finding for urinary bladder or urethral injury was the presence of gross hematuria in the urethral catheter (100%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.63–0.89). Blinded insertion of a urethral catheter was attempted in 30 (90.9%, 95% CI 0.75–0.98) patients who suffered from urinary bladder injury, 6 (50%, 95% CI 0.26–0.87) patients who suffered from urethral injury and 1 (33%, 95% CI 0.0–0.9) patient who suffered from a combined urinary bladder and urethral injuries. We did not find evidence that a blind attempt to insert a urethral catheter worsened the initial urinary injury. Conclusion: Gross hematuria in the urethral catheter was the most sensitive sign for the presence of a urethral or urinary bladder injury in our study cohort, and often the only sign of such an injury. We found no evidence that a blind attempt to insert a urethral catheter in patients suffering from urethral and or urinary bladder injuries worsened the initial injury. Larger studies will be needed to determine the safety of blind urethral catheterization in patients that are suspected to suffer from a lower urological trauma. It is our opinion that the current guidelines should be revised to better reflect the current knowledge, technologies, and clinical practice.

Objective Diagnostic errors in the emergency department (ED) are harmful and costly. We reviewed a selected high-risk cohort of patients presenting to the ED with abdominal pain to evaluate for possible diagnostic errors and associated process breakdowns. Design We conducted a retrospective chart review of ED patients >18 years at an urban academic hospital. A computerised ‘trigger’ algorithm identified patients possibly at high risk for diagnostic errors to facilitate selective record reviews. The trigger determined patients to be at high risk because they: (1) presented to the ED with abdominal pain, and were discharged home and (2) had a return ED visit within 10 days that led to a hospitalisation. Diagnostic errors were defined as missed opportunities to make a correct or timely diagnosis based on the evidence available during the first ED visit, regardless of patient harm, and included errors that involved both ED and non-ED providers. Errors were determined by two independent record reviewers followed by team consensus in cases of disagreement. Results Diagnostic errors occurred in 35 of 100 high-risk cases. Over two-thirds had breakdowns involving the patient–provider encounter (most commonly history-taking or ordering additional tests) and/or follow-up and tracking of diagnostic information (most commonly follow-up of abnormal test results). The most frequently missed diagnoses were gallbladder pathology (n=10) and urinary infections (n=5). Conclusions Diagnostic process breakdowns in ED patients with abdominal pain most commonly involved history-taking, ordering insufficient tests in the patient–provider encounter and problems with follow-up of abnormal test results.

Background Palliative sedation to treat severely distressing symptoms in those with a poor prognosis is well-accepted. Objective We discuss palliative sedation in the Emergency Department and the use of ketamine. Case Report We present the case of a patient with angioedema of the tongue and severe respiratory distress. The patient's nursing home was unable to control her symptoms and she was transferred to the Emergency Department. The patient received fentanyl 50 μg i.v. and ketamine 50 mg i.v. every 5 min until adequate palliative sedation was achieved. Conclusion Ketamine can be considered for Emergency Department palliative sedation in selected patients. Identifying and caring for unmet palliative care needs is an important skill for Emergency Medicine.

Background Evans' syndrome is an uncommon condition defined by the combination (either simultaneously or sequentially) of immune thrombocytopenia purpura and autoimmune hemolytic anemia with a positive direct antiglobulin test in the absence of known underlying etiology. Objectives We present a case of Evans' syndrome following influenza vaccination. Case Report A 50-year-old man with no prior medical history developed Evans' syndrome 4 days after receiving influenza immunization. The patient improved following treatment with oral prednisone and intravenous immunoglobulin. Conclusion Influenza vaccine is one of the most commonly used vaccines worldwide, with millions of people being vaccinated annually. Despite its wide use, only sparse information has been published concerning any hematological effects of this vaccine. The rarity of such effects supports the safety of using this vaccine.