Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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CAIRO—Muhammad Rizq slowly ascended the pulpit at the Al-Munira mosque in Imbaba, a poor northern Cairo neighborhood. His brusque leg movements made the wood creak with every step. “What do the people want?” he asked his flock rhetorically. “Do we want Islamic law or what the (Muslim) Brotherhood offered—civil strife?” As Egypt splits into two rival camps pitting secularists against Islamists, the puritanical Salafis are on the sidelines unsure of their next move. Salafis are Sunni Muslims associated with a strict, literal approach to Islam. T...
Ahmad Kamal took a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The searing summer heat was taking its toll on the 31 year old’s stamina. The obligatory fast from dawn to dusk pious Muslims observe during the month of Ramadan further weighed him down. “Our president was legitimately elected,” the mechanical engineer exclaimed as his passion spurred on a momentary burst of strength. Around him at the Raba’a al-Adawiyya mosque a crowd of men nodded in agreement. Though the Egyptian military has deposed President Mohamed Morsi and key figures...
The streets in the Aleppo neighborhood of Hannano are piled high with garbage. Flies buzz around putrid bags that extend farther than the eye can see. The refuse has not been collected for months nor are there any plans to do so. Garbage collection is merely another casualty in war that has pulverized everything in this country. Throughout rebel controlled Syria, state services have ceased only to be replaced with hardships. From running water to electricity, services taken for granted have stopped operating. Staples such as medicine and baby f...
SALMA, Latakia, Syria—The village of Bayt Swalkha in the coastal province of Latakia bears the physical scars of the Syrian civil war. Piles of stones are all that remain of rows of houses. Municipal buildings have been reduced to blackened skeletons. But while the destroyed infrastructure will eventually be rebuilt, it is the emotional wounds that are irreparable. For in villages like these throughout Latakia, the sectarian harmony that prevailed for decades has been shattered by a civil war that has increasingly taken on a religious bent. Of...
Idlib, Syria—Nine-year-old Salima Hamid jerked her hips to the musical chants as the older male youths clapped their hands. Behind them in the crowd, Amal Nuran and her head-scarf-covered friends exchanged cell phone pictures snapped at the day’s anti-regime rally. “We all have a role to play in this revolution,” the 19-year-old law student tells The Media Line. “Even we girls can help by coming to the protests.” Later, however, outside of earshot of suspicious men, Nuran expressed her real feelings. “There is little for us to do beyond making...
