5 word meme (from mofic)

Here's the deal, comment and I'll give you five words. Write one paragraph on each.
Mine are: Israel, music, New York, computers, and writing.

Israel--The only place where Jewish employees don't have to ask permission or give advance notice to bosses in order to take time off to observe our holidays. There is, however, a certain provincialism to Israel; Israelis travel abroad in such great numbers to compensate for this, and are always going on about what is trendy overseas. I confess that I have at times viewed Israelis as the descendants of the unfortunate cousins of my grandparents and great-grandparents who did not manage to reach the shores of North America; had the United States not restricted immigration in the 1920s there would probably not be a state of Israel today. That said, I don't see the creation of Israel as compensation for the Shoah; I see it as reversing the Roman conquest and destruction of Judaea. Just as Iraqis are the modern descendants of Babylonians, and the Lebanese are the modern descendants of the Phoenicians, both contemporary Jews and Palestinians are the descendants of the Jewish inhabitants of Roman Judaea, and the modern conflict is a civil war between those who remain Jewish vs. the progeny of apostates from Judaism.

Music--Music is the only art form that physically enters our bodies. Like sex and drugs it goes straight to the brain and we feel it in every corporeal cell. My favorite musical genre is jazz because the combination of improvisation and syncopation create elements of surprise, because it has the intellectual complexity of art music with a sense of structure like folk music, and because I have a cultural affinity to black music; both the fact that the civil rights movement was my earliest awareness of political consciousness and my growing up in an integrated neighborhood half a block away from an African-American neighborhood have contributed to my becoming a lifelong cultural Afrophile.

New York--On one level New York is home, but my home is also the most diverse and sophisticated city on the planet and is continuously stimulating. I'm not sure I'd be happy living anywhere else. I do wish its summers were less humid. I fear that as the poor and middle class are priced out into the surrounding suburbs that the city will lose its vitality and may actually become boring.

Computers--Computers have gone from being merely labor and drudgery savers to communication devices that make the world much smaller and interconnected. They have also exponentially speeded up scientific research. I find myself less and less patient with technophobic luddites.

Writing--My talent for verbal composition is a gift, and to not use it is a form of ingratitude to the cosmos. I wish I had more time in my day to devote to both reading and writing (the two are connected, though when I'm writing intensely reading or even other people's spoken diction can be a distraction from my own voice and style). I may actually have a greater native ability for music, but practicing music is far too repetitive and boring, and now osteoarthritis is also an issue. It's a pity that literary writing and now even journalism are less and less remunerative.

5 word meme (from mofic)

Here's the deal, comment and I'll give you five words. Write one paragraph on each.
Mine are: Israel, music, New York, computers, and writing.

Israel--The only place where Jewish employees don't have to ask permission or give advance notice to bosses in order to take time off to observe our holidays. There is, however, a certain provincialism to Israel; Israelis travel abroad in such great numbers to compensate for this, and are always going on about what is trendy overseas. I confess that I have at times viewed Israelis as the descendants of the unfortunate cousins of my grandparents and great-grandparents who did not manage to reach the shores of North America; had the United States not restricted immigration in the 1920s there would probably not be a state of Israel today. That said, I don't see the creation of Israel as compensation for the Shoah; I see it as reversing the Roman conquest and destruction of Judaea. Just as Iraqis are the modern descendants of Babylonians, and the Lebanese are the modern descendants of the Phoenicians, both contemporary Jews and Palestinians are the descendants of the Jewish inhabitants of Roman Judaea, and the modern conflict is a civil war between those who remain Jewish vs. the progeny of apostates from Judaism.

Music--Music is the only art form that physically enters our bodies. Like sex and drugs it goes straight to the brain and we feel it in every corporeal cell. My favorite musical genre is jazz because the combination of improvisation and syncopation create elements of surprise, because it has the intellectual complexity of art music with a sense of structure like folk music, and because I have a cultural affinity to black music; both the fact that the civil rights movement was my earliest awareness of political consciousness and my growing up in an integrated neighborhood half a block away from an African-American neighborhood have contributed to my becoming a lifelong cultural Afrophile.

New York--On one level New York is home, but my home is also the most diverse and sophisticated city on the planet and is continuously stimulating. I'm not sure I'd be happy living anywhere else. I do wish its summers were less humid. I fear that as the poor and middle class are priced out into the surrounding suburbs that the city will lose its vitality and may actually become boring.

Computers--Computers have gone from being merely labor and drudgery savers to communication devices that make the world much smaller and interconnected. They have also exponentially speeded up scientific research. I find myself less and less patient with technophobic luddites.

Writing--My talent for verbal composition is a gift, and to not use it is a form of ingratitude to the cosmos. I wish I had more time in my day to devote to both reading and writing (the two are connected, though when I'm writing intensely reading or even other people's spoken diction can be a distraction from my own voice and style). I may actually have a greater native ability for music, but practicing music is far too repetitive and boring, and now osteoarthritis is also an issue. It's a pity that literary writing and now even journalism are less and less remunerative.