Israel/Gaza 2023

Democrats aim to get Michigan's environmental agency more power over water quality issues, AI helps to uncover Great Lakes history, and reframing the Israel and Gaza conflict.

The Ann Arbor school board passed a resolution that called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Rima Mohammed joined the podcast to explain why a calling for a ceasefire was necessary.

More back and forth between leadership in the Michigan GOP, a conversation with poet Keith Taylor about his latest publication, and an Ann Arbor school board member explains their resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The resolution appears to be among the first times that a public school system in the United States has made such a statement on the international conflict.

It’s been three months since Israel's attack on Gaza. More than 23,000 Palestinian people have been killed. In the United States, some people have direct ties through family, ancestry, and culture to this siege. But it's a different mode of existence to see this level of violence interpreted and reinterpreted through media.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 69 journalists and media workers have died in Gaza since the conflict escalated in October.

In a letter sent Tuesday to UM President Santa Ono and General Counsel Timothy Lynch, the civil rights organization said the school’s actions reflect “a rising nationwide McCarthyite wave of retaliation against speech related to Palestine and Israel.” It claims the university’s actions violate First Amendment protections, as well as UM’s own free speech policies.

Detroit's Muslim-Jewish Forum has been barely active for the last few years. The loss of one of the group's founding members and ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip presents a lot of pain and tension for both religious minorities. But a group of new and old forum members say there is an opportunity in that "agony" to build bridges and act to support each other politically.

Council members voted this week on the symbolic street renaming to show their support for the people of Gaza.

A Metro Detroit rabbi shared her perspective on Hanukkah this year, in the context of the violence unfolding in Gaza and the fact that many hostages' lives are on line.