Israelism, Liberating Your Newsfeed, CNN Censoring Itself
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi everybody,
This week, our media highlights to help us leave colonized faith include:
- A documentary on Jews pushing back against Israel’s treatment of Palestine
- A new book resisting perfectionism and the importance of innate talent
- An African news podcast to help de-westernize your news intake
- An interview on the similarities between DEI trainings and evangelical discipleship
- A report on how CNN slants its coverage of Gaza
- An article on the electoral implications of protestors interrupting Biden at Mother Emmanuel
For those of you around D.C. this weekend, Jonathan will be headed to the March on Washington For Gaza at 1:00 pm on Saturday followed by a candlelight vigil at 4:00 pm hosted by Churches for Middle East Peace. KTF is one of the sponsors of the events. Hope to see you there!
Jonathan’s Recommendations
Jewish Filmmakers Ask Hard Questions about Palestine
The documentary “Israelism” chronicles what happened when two young Jews started asking hard questions about Palestine that their community could not answer; and the knots of indoctrination started to come undone. The filmmakers bring you testimonies from deradicalized IDF soldiers and the stories of other young Jewish people standing up to the propaganda they received from the earliest days of Hebrew school. Most notably, the film centers Jewish perspectives, making a point to understand and articulate why Zionism is attractive especially given the historical trauma Jews have faced. This documentary is a must-see to understand the current violence in Palestine.
- Rent the Documentary to Watch Online
Adam Grant Pushes back against Perfectionism and The Importance of Innate Talent
Professor Adam Grant’s, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things is a New York Times Best Seller for good reason. I started reading it and couldn’t stop. It pushes back against ideas of perfectionism and the importance of innate talent. The book invited me into a posture of constant learning while dismantling preconceived notions I had about everything from race to the game of chess. I daily pray to be blessed with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships (per “A Franciscan Blessing”), and this book shows us how to embrace discomfort and growth as a discipline, which many churches unfortunately do not model. Grab a copy to get on track this new year.
- Read More about the Book and Buy It
African News to Liberate Your Feed
If you’re like me, you might need to liberate your newsfeed from narratives centered on the dominant powers and people of the world. So I’ve been steadily streaming the daily African news podcast, Focus on Africa. Their fantastic final episode in 2023 reflected on the brutal civil war in Sudan that has displaced over a million people, but that hardly exists in Western media. It shouldn’t be wealth, influence, and US interests that dictate the content of my newsfeed as a citizen of the Kingdom of God.
Sy’s Recommendations
How DEI Trainings and Evangelical Discipleship Are So Similar
This week, Sojourners published an excellent interview with Jonathan Tran, a professor at Baylor University, about the similarities between corporate DEI trainings and evangelical discipleship. He critiques their individualistic approach which cannot produce true communal, economic transformation in society. Additionally, Tran has some fascinating things to say about resistance to oppression—namely that we should not frame our fight against oppression that way at all. We do not resist forces like racism that are the drivers of history; those forces temporarily obscure God’s purposes which are the foundation of the world and will have the last say.
How CNN Slants Its Coverage of Gaza
The IDF has a media censor which propagates rules governing what subjects news organizations operating inside Israel cannot cover. Outlets that do not comply can lose press passes. The censor also sometimes stops publication of articles it believes are unsafe or otherwise unworthy to print. This is why many news outfits run their stories about Israel through offices outside the country. But CNN is an exception because it routes all Israel stories through its Jerusalem Bureau, a practice company insiders say noticeably slants the network’s coverage in favor of Israeli government action in Palestine. We should know all we can about the ways information about important news gets to us, and the linked article goes into a helpful amount of detail about how one of America’s largest networks is bending the truth.
Gaza Protestors at Biden’s Emmanuel AME Speech
Terrell Jermaine Star is a journalist whose work covering foreign policy an international news through the lens of race we’ve highlighted before. His recent article about President Biden’s trip to Emmanuel AME Church looks at the relationship between the US’s actions in Gaza and Biden’s reelection chances given the importance of the Black and Arab-American vote to his 2020 victory coalition. Protestors interrupted Biden’s speech about the anniversary of the massacre at Emmanuel eight years ago, and the reactions of Black voters to that protest and the president’s response have been decidedly mixed. Arab voters, who have significant numbers in a few swing states, have grown tepid compared to their support of Biden in 2020. It’s a great read on one of the less-covered implications of the administration’s decisions in Palestine.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Jonathan and Sy