politics

Memorial Day 2025

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I’m feeling very nostalgic this Memorial Day. The part of Memorial Day where we are called to remember our war dead. It used to be called Decoration Day and originated a few years after the Civil War ended. One in fifty Americans died in that war and Decoration Day began as a way to respect the sacrifice of those soldiers both North and South with the decoration of their grave sites in 1868. The term Memorial Day grew popular after WW I and became the official name of the holiday in 1967 with the intent of remembering the fallen of all American wars.

There is a part of me that likes the original name of Decoration Day. My mind goes to how do we decorate their memories. What are the terms of respect we can give them? I know they didn’t die for mattress sales. They died because they believed in our country. The values we hopefully all share of freedom for all, dignity and respect for each other, the promise of justice and due process, the pursuit of the right to be our truest selves without  government’s dictates.

I happened to have served in one of America’s Wars. The one we call the Vietnam War; the one the Vietnamese call the American War. When Eileen and I visited Vietnam as tourists ten years ago, one of the very impactful places we visited was the American War Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Impactful, instructive and immensely sad – how this war that still makes no sense cost the lives of almost 60,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese and for what. How the government consistently lied to us – yes, the American government and it didn’t matter which political party. These men and women whose graves we decorate this weekend died for the idea of a country we are still struggling to live up to.

Yesterday I went to a street festival in our little town of Brevard, NC. There was blue grass music, food trucks with a lot of smoked meats, cotton candy, funnel cakes and open-air booths with t-shirts, ceramics, jewelry and lots of things we didn’t need. People were walking around with all kinds of outfits and hats – people of all different sizes, shapes, shades. One woman wore a Trump 2028. I sighed (deeply) and reminded myself – they died for her right to wear it – no matter how abhorrent to me.

So how do we remember and how do we decorate? With respect for their sacrifice; with a commitment to the core values of this country no matter what the administration; with a pledge to preserve the promise of our founding words – we are all created equally; we are all deserving to pursue our vision of happiness in whatever form or modality we choose. And it is all about “ we the people…”

So let me remember one – he died when a helicopter was taken down by the Vietcong in the Central Highlands. He was from the Upper Midwest, a JAG officer who befriended me and reminded me of  my rights as a Chaplain but that’s another story. He also gave me a gun and told me no matter what the regs said, I should keep it near even if I couldn’t officially carry it. His name lives inside of me as well as his kindness, caring and compassion. His memory is a blessing.

So eat hot dogs; find good sales; but remember, our freedom comes with sacrifice.

I Was Cautiously Hopeful

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I’m not surprised; I am disappointed. I’m anxious and hopeful at the same time. I’m reticent to even write these words, after all I am living relatively securely in Florida and the things that worry me do not include missiles raining on my head from as close as Gaza and as far away as Yemen. The cease-fire news yesterday was a blessing. But even then, I feared optimism was somewhat premature.

Maybe we know too much; maybe we think what we know is really not the truth. As of this writing, Netanyahu is saying that Hamas is reneging on part of the deal and the Israeli cabinet meeting to discuss and hopefully ratify the agreement has been postponed. That was 14 minutes ago according to the Times. What will happen next is unknown to me although given President Biden’s announcement last night of the work that his administration has been constantly doing to achieve cessation of hostilities and a return of the hostages it is hard to imagine that it will fall apart again.

But there is Monday and the inauguration of President Elect Donald Trump. It so echoes Carter/Reagan and the freeing of the Americans from Iran in 1981. Who wants to give whom what? Who is afraid of whom? Is Netanyahu ready to give Trump the gift of making the deal? Is Hamas afraid of Trump’s threat to bomb the hell out of them?

Sad. Disheartening. I hope by the time you read these words, my fears, anxiety, disappointment will be something of the past and there will be a new day dawning with the hostages returning home and guns silencing as hints of a permanent peace rise out of the darkness. It’s probably going to take something the Bible would call a miracle. It’s immensely risky because the forces of evil are real in this world and everything I know says that its name is Hamas.  It’s definitely going to take courage and faith. But I am not so sure there are any other good alternatives  – so read these words as a prayer.

A prayer for peace; a silent petition to all that is good or God in the world for sanity; a petition for joy to come in the morning even though we all know it will be tinged with sadness for all those whose deaths we mourn.

Israel Diaries 8

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At the Mount of Olives

Waze was having a tough time finding a better route to the airport. There was a demonstration on the road. Every Saturday night, as Shabbat ends, they begin to gather. Drums, signs, flags, young, old: Make a Deal Now; Bring Them Home Now. All the vehicles were being channeled into one lane as the demonstrators made their way to the residence of the Prime Minister. We were eventually returned to our hotel and sent to the airport through East Jerusalem. No worries (except we did) and we got to the airport on time. Of course the VAT office on the main floor was closed but it seems there is always some reason you can’t get your Value Addeed Tax refunded. I hope my donation goes to a good cause.

But back to the demonstration. This what I love about Israelis. There is a concept of civic engagement and a belief that your voice is important. You can make a difference no matter how much the cards are stacked against you through a convoluted and probably outdated political system. They are not alone -we have our own peculaarities in our democracy: think Electoral College and the lunacy that winning the majority vote doesn’t guarantee one the Presidency.

We came in hard times. Don’t think we didn’t think twice about postponing. There were plenty of reasons to do so including United Airlines cancelling all our flights two days before we were supposed to leave. But we couldn’t have come at a more important moment. Time after time people thanked us for being there. They need to feel and see our support. I am not talking politics when I say “support”. I mean Jew to Jew – people to people – you are not alone.

So I am going to leave you with that enigmatic picture above. According to Google the letters are in Mandarin Chinese and mean “Jesus Is”. They are Christian pilgrims following the footsteps of Jesus. A few moments later, they took out their shofars blowing long and loud blasts with an admirable amount of expertise. Some lay on the ground; several had visible tears. It was surreal and also reassuring.

Just like our visit. It was a hard time, a strange time, an important time, a sad time. Leaving Israel with lots of questions and a fear for the future but with love and hope and most of all the blessing of having been together three generations – what a gift.

Israel Diaries 4

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Our security guard put on Tefillen.

We are on our way to the Gaza Envelope. That means we are visiting the sites that were directly attacked by Hamas on October 7th. They are within miles of the Gaza border. We have Rafael (our security guard) with us today; we have helmets with us today; we have had a security briefing on what happens if there is a red alert. (Siren that warns of incoming mortar or missles). Perhaps I am totally naive, but I am not overly anxious.

Why are we going? To learn; to bear witness; to show solidarity; to understand what was and what is; to experience a small piece of the nightmare of 10.7. As we were driving down from Tel Aviv, Rafael put on a Kippah and Tefillin. My guess is that Rafael is in his twenties; when Eileen was introduced to him, she said, “You’re too cute to be a security guard.”  I am going to try and ask him how he identifies religiously.

It is many hours and many experiences and many tears, anger and laughter later. We are back at our hotel in Tel Aviv. I need time to process it all. Our first stop was Kibbitz Nir Oz and then the Nova Festival Site. Both were ground zero for the morning of October 7th and visiting them you mourn, remember, witness the pain and have too many unanswered questions.

At the end of the day, we visited an Army base, home of the engineer corps of the IDF. They asked us not to take pictures of their faces or parts of the base. They are responsible for exploring, discovering and clearing the tunnels in Gaza. We walked through one of their training facilities and provided and shared a barbecue dinner. The picture above is one of the volunteer cooks and me. Quite an experience and a better way to end our day – showing our appreciation and gratitude to these young men and women who are on the front line defending Israel and us.

There are signs all over Israel: We Are Stronger Together.

 






















































































































































 

 

Simple Truths That Are Very Complicated

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I don’t think I have ever reposted something on this Blog. But this needs to be said and read and reread and remembered and told time and time again. The attack on Israel yesterday is not business as usual. The attempt to blame a failure of Israeli intelligence may be fair but it is premature. The explanation that Hamas is using a perceived weakness in the fabric of Israeli society because of the demonstrations against the current government may be true but it is irrelevant. The pontification that this attack 50 years after the Yom Kippur war is linked to the nascent Saudi – Israel “deal” is speculation. We all want to make sense of the senseless. This is what is true. Hamas wants to destroy Israel. And that means kill Jews.

So I am reposting an article by Bari Weiss. This is from “The Free Press”, described by Bari herself as “A new media company built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of American journalism.” It is described by others as conservative and progressive, controversial and incendiary. It always gives you something to think about. I am a paid subscriber – just so you know where I am coming from.

An aside: On Friday night I was at Temple Israel. The Rabbis were unrolling the Torah Scroll in the Social Hall and we were all standing in a circle as the parchment reached around the room and came into our white gloved hands. We were celebrating the Torah’s unending gift of ancient stories and moral truths, poetry, exhortations, unpleasant facts, history and ritual that some call God’s truth. I was joking with the person next to me that we were going to run out of Torah or that here I am standing on the outside of the Scroll. We thought that either of these were good Blog titles.

And the next morning we woke up. And our enemies (yes – our) reminded us of one of the oldest truths. But not now – now – read this and know:

ISRAEL AT WAR.

“You are about to withstand a barrage of lies about the war that broke out today in Israel.

Some of those lies will be explicit. Some of them will be lies of omission. Others will be lies of obfuscation. Or lies of minimization. Lies told by people who are simply too afraid to look at such an ugly, barbarous reality. And lies told by people whose true beliefs are too ugly to quite say aloud. Turn on cable news and you can hear some of them right now.

So let’s get some facts straight.

Israel was attacked last night. It was attacked by Hamas terrorists who streamed over the border from Gaza. They came on foot and on motorbikes. They came by truck and by car and by paraglider. They came to Israel to murder and maim and mutilate anyone they could find. And that is what they did.

It is impossible to know the numbers of the dead or the missing or the injured. 

The official numbers as of this writing: 300 Israelis dead; 1,590 wounded. And dozens—maybe many more—taken hostage into Gaza. They include women, elders, and children. 

But none of those words or numbers capture the evil of what unfolded today. 

Young festival-goers running for their lives. Teenage girls dragged by their hair by terrorists. An old woman forced to pose with a Hamas rifle. A mother—a hostage—cradling two redheaded babies in her arms.

I have friends in Israel. Each one of them has a story of someone they know who is missing. Or injured. Or killed. This was not a tit-for-tat. This was not a justifiable military response, or just another day in a cycle of violence. This was the slaughter of innocent civilians.

New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America today announced a protest in honor of the attacks. It’s called All Out for Palestine: “In solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist 75 years of occupation and apartheid.” The anti-Zionist group IfNotNow explained the attacks as Israel’s fault and said of the dead Jews: “Their blood is on the hands of the Israeli government.” 

You will see a lot like this in the coming days. Ancient lies told in new language whose end is always, strangely, the same: a justification for genocide. 

Think about 9/11 and the kind of shock and terror we felt. That is what Israelis feel today. That is the level of devastation Israel is now experiencing. 

We are left with so many questions:

How did this happen?

Who is to blame for this catastrophic security failure? 

How will Israel respond? How will the country save the hostages in Gaza? 

What was the extent of Iran’s involvement in this sophisticated operation? 

Will this change the Biden administration’s policy toward the Islamic Republic? 

And so many more.

Those are the questions that require answers. But for today, while others offer mealy-mouthed pablum, we want to do something simple: to tell the truth—plainly—about a catastrophic day.

https://www.thefp.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp9zEvxIiuApM6gQQ_JXMwKwGgwYXs4lJMUmFLJDT5b3Ndvxm0YXn9MaAs7vEALw_wcB

Herzl Crying

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It is Tisha B’Av – the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av and for many Jews it is a fast day; it is a day of mourning – remembering the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem and some say the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Maybe because of its placement in the middle of the summer this is not one of my top ten holidays. Maybe because I have that old Reform theology in my head that asks where would we be if we were still offering animal sacrifices on a centralized altar in Jerusalem. Would we have synagogues; would we have Rabbis; would we recognize ourselves?

But this year Tisha B’Av snuck up on me and said: pay attention. When the Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem laid waste, our national identity was destroyed. The second Jewish commonwealth disappeared and although not erased from history, we began our dispersion, our wandering, our dependence on the tolerance of emperors, monarchs, religious leaders, dictators, and political systems we were not a part of. And so began the slow and tortured march to the Inquisition and the Holocaust.

It took us almost 2000 years to regain Jewish sovereignty. When Theodore Herzl championed a national homeland for the Jewish people and created modern political Zionism, he envisioned an open society where Jews of all stripes and colors, all beliefs and cultures could feel at home. You can read about it in his utopian novel, “AltneuLand” (Old-New Land), published in 1902. If you are following the current Israeli political crisis, you know that many observers believe that the crisis concerning the “judicial overhaul” is about Israel’s national identity. Will it continue to be open and innovative, pluralistic, democratic? Will it be the Israel we are so proud of?

Tali texted me yesterday and asked – are we an ethnicity? I don’t know if she was filling out a form or where this came from. (Texts are limited in the amount of information they impart.) But I answered: “Yes, and more. Its complicated.” Well, it is and it isn’t. We are a people; we care about each other; we care what happens to Jews wherever they live. Do we care more than we care about non-Jews in Asia or Africa or Central America? Well language tells a little bit of the story. We divide the world into Jews and non-Jews. We care about people in need everywhere, but we begin by caring about our own.

And so Tisha B’Av. If nothing else, tells the heartbreaking story of Jewish powerlessness. It reminds me how much and why I care about the future of Israel society. I am so proud of the scope of the Israeli protesters who are writing a new chapter in Herzl’s novel. They are fighting for the soul of the nation. They give me hope and that’s not a small thing. I am proud of every step they take in their march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in their willingness to stand up for their ideals. I may be idealizing them and maybe a little naïve, but I think they could teach us a thing or two.

Musings

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I don’t know about you but every day that I get up in the morning and see the sun rising I know I am blessed. I don’t know about you but every day when I get up in the morning and get out of bed without pain in unexpected places, I feel lucky. I don’t know about you but anytime my nose runs or my throat tickles or I cough I fleetingly ask myself is this COVID. We live in unsettling times. There is almost no such thing as normal. We think we are in control of what will happen tomorrow or the day after and the airlines throw a curve ball, or the weather does a number, or the rapid test shows two lines, and you are screwed.

It’s not that I am in a bad place. Not at all. I am aware how amazing my life is and that I live in interesting times. Not that they are perfect. Not that they aren’t worrisome. Not that sometimes I feel like we are living on the edge of a precipice. And tomorrow is either free fall into an unknown abyss worthy of depiction in a movie about the apocalypse or we are on the border of a new epoch about to soar into horizons we can barely imagine. There are so many things I don’t know.

I don’t know what it felt like to live as a Jew branded with a yellow star or cone or hat in some European ghetto or Middle Eastern Mellah. I don’t know what it felt like to live as a serf on land that was not my own in a time when life was valued by what you could produce and not by who you were. (Although we are not so distant from the same kind of yardstick). I don’t know what it was like to live without antibiotics or modern medicine when a simple cut could end your life. Or maybe I do – maybe we all do. This pandemic has certainly humbled us and taught that the simple act of covering your face can keep you safer. And things we once took for granted like sitting in a theater or dancing the hora (I just came from a beautiful wedding) or dining inside a restaurant can’t be taken for granted. Neither can attending a 4th of July parade.

I don’t even know what there is to say about all these guns. I don’t know why anyone needs semi-automatic weapons. There are no dinosaurs roaming our streets. There are no lions lurking in the tall grasses. There are no marauding masses breaking down the barricades. Most of us live in relative safety. Why the guns, the guns, the guns? The politically correct thing is to applaud the “bipartisan” gun bill just passed. But this is what I know. It is not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And I feel powerless to make effective change. I know: VOTE. I know: SPEAK OUT. I know: GIVE MONEY/TIME. But in the words of the prophet called Pete: “When will they every learn; when will they ever learn?” I don’t know about you but the fireworks didn’t do it for me the other night.

from the bottom up

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I feel so stupid starting off with a couple of stalks of flowers, when children are being killed in classrooms; the newest television series is produced by the January 6th committee; the rights of women to control their bodies seems to be eroding; there is a war in Europe and Ukrainians are dying for our freedom; and every day the cost of everything seems to be rising. I bought two ice cream cones yesterday at over $5.00 each. (Granted they were waffle cones, but they were classified as smalls.) And there is nothing complete about this list.

There is so much happening in our world it is hard to focus on the simple things that remind us that we are not the only living things that inhabit this orb that is steadily hurling through space in a predictable arc. I am looking at the last flowers of the Hollyhocks proudly blooming. They seem to bloom from the bottom up which by the way takes me right back to the politics of this fragile democracy we call America. It too blossoms and flourishes from the bottom up. My reading of American history is that the framers of our political system wanted our representatives to be responsive to us. They are not landed gentry; they are not noble men and women who are entitled to power based on their class. They are us and are supposed to be listening to us. When they don’t, America is precariously close to being broken.

I remember the wild hollyhocks from my youth when they would grow alongside the grey cement walls of the apartment building in Dorchester or maybe even the one we lived in before that in Roxbury. It’s a long time ago and almost the length of the Atlantic seashore away. I doubt if anyone planted them. In the world I remember no one had time to plant flowers. If you planted anything it was vegetables – most likely tomatoes – or am I confusing my Jewish upbringing with an idealized version of our Italian neighbors. And is all of this memory pieced together from the movies and stereotypes?

I didn’t plant these hollyhocks where they are growing now. When I bought them at a local nursery, they told me they would blossom every other year. So, I placed them near the house where I would remember to watch over them and patiently wait. But they had a mind of their own and somehow, they wound up happily flourishing near the tree halfway down the hill. I guess the world has a mind of its own; we probably should listen to it more often.

Lessons from the Paint Can

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White Dripping Paint On White Surface Free Stock Photo and Image

We watched Survivor last weekend on HBO MAX. We chose it as one of the ways we would observe Yom HaShoah. I was surprised how graphic some of the concentration camp scenes were and how bloody the boxing matches. It is the story of Harry Haft who survived Auschwitz by boxing for his captors and after the war lives in New York searching for his pre-war girlfriend. Near the end of the movie, one of the characters sings “God Bless America” in Yiddish. I found that moment especially touching. Maybe it was its inherent softness winding down this tough and sometimes brutal film. Maybe I was just manipulated by the story line and the film editor or director.

Or maybe it made me think how lucky we are to have been born in this land filled with so many blessings and so many challenges. My grandparents who left their home and left their past must have been desperate to risk so much to find a better life. I think there could be a film made of all our ancestors who began the long walk from dusty villages and oppressive cities to these shores that promised freedom. I think we underestimate their courage.

I only remember my father’s parents. My mother was an orphan by the age of 12. She was raised by her older sister, Aunt Molly whose husband was a house painter. He sat on my shoulder this afternoon as I painted squares of different colors of white on the walls in our apartment so we could decide which shade of white to paint. Here’s an easy confession and an obvious statement. I am a messy painter – I know there’s a way to keep the paint on the walls and off my hands, floor, and clothes, but Uncle Harry isn’t here to teach me. Thank God for water soluble paint.,

And what is it that we are being taught these days? That you can paint over truth? That you can whitewash the sometimes harsh and sometimes unsettling realities of the past? That you don’t have to pay attention to the way things were and if you have the power, you can paint the present with the colors of your choosing? My grandparents didn’t come to a land where the streets were paved with gold. They come to a tough country where you had to claw your way to survival. All of ours did. They fought with all their beings to realize their dreams. So what if the paint drips. Clean it up and try again.

Things are getting dark and dirty here. I guess my lesson to myself is – can’t step back and disengage. I hear Rabbi Tarfon: It is not your obligation to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it. The fight for freedoms just got harder: time to get back into the ring. I am starting here:  https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

And So I Begin (Again)

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Eileen does not do digital fluidly. So, we have a drawer full of recipes she has printed from any number of internet sources. Yesterday I decided that I would begin to enter them into a recipe file on my desktop. I began by typing them. Then I figured out that I could take a picture of them with my phone and air drop them to my computer. That works with those recipes that are one pagers. I don’t know how to combine multi-page recipes into one doc. We all have our limitations, that’s for sure.

Now it is amazing to me that I have decided to go back to blogging and begin with food. Well, it is Passover and for some reason I am always hungry. And believe me I eat plenty of Matzah: Matzah with whipped butter and salt; matzah with thick strawberry jam; gluten free onion matzah with just about anything that isn’t sweet. Left over Sephardic charoset (the kind that is pasty) as candy. And those dark chocolate covered apricots they sell in Costco…. Don’t ask.

Which brings me back to why I am beginning again with food. Cause I can’t handle the world. There is a reason why some of my sunflowers hangs their heads in shame. They can’t look. It is too painful. The weight of the nightly news oppresses. Better to look away and find other distractions. I am guessing that if there are any of you who are still willing to read my “unplugged”, you are disappointed.

I am also. I don’t believe we have the luxury or a right to “look away”. Isn’t that the sin of all good people? And I’ve made my donations to Ukraine and HIAS and candidates I believe in; and I wear a mask on a plane; and I got my fourth booster; and I follow the news both morning and night; ….

But this is just almost too much. Maybe I’m just old. And it is easier to do wordle than to engage the world. Yea…. I agree. I need a more up lifting ending. But maybe you begin by recognizing where you are. And I am ashamed of the state of my mind, the state of my state and the state of our world. And I don’t see myself as depressed. I feel I am just stating what is real.

Enough. Tomorrow is a new day and a new dawn and the possibility of new blessings.

sunflowers-1-1Download
sunflowers-Download

IMHO 2

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We came home from LA last night and turned on CNN to see if the world had changed while we were flying across the country. Cuomo was hosting a town hall conversation with Bernie Sanders from Charleston, South Carolina. We tuned in somewhere in the middle so I didn’t hear all the questions but there were enough that were good and telling and I like the way Bernie answered many of them fairly directly and unapologetically. I think that distinguishes him from lots of the other candidates. That doesn’t mean I like all of his answers or think he is “smart” to insist on using the word “socialist” in his description of himself as a democratic socialist. But you “gotta” admire his grit.

But there was one response to a question from a Jewish student that bothered me as much as some of his other answers. He was asked about his Jewish identity and what it means for him to be Jewish. I do not doubt the authenticity of his answer which was Holocaust based. He remembered growing up in a neighborhood where people had tattoos on their arms. He recounts that his father’s family was wiped out by Hitler and when “my brother and I, and our wives, went to Poland to the town he was born in. He fled terrible poverty and antisemitism. The people in town, very nice people, took us to a place where the Nazis had the Jewish people dig a grave and shot them all; 300 people in there….”

It isn’t that he was profoundly affected by the Holocaust. There is barely a Jew who consciously or unconsciously isn’t. For me, it is that Jewish identity can’t be linked to Auschwitz and death alone. I wanted to hear about values and principles that are informed by Judaism and the Jewish experience. I wanted to hear about a vision and a dream that was primed by a Jewish engine that would look forward and not backwards. I guess it’s the Rabbi thing in me.

That doesn’t mean I don’t admire him. It also doesn’t mean that I have decided to vote for him either (but I will have to make up my mind fairly soon as my mail in Florida ballot is sitting on my desk). His recent tweet about AIPAC is terribly disturbing. He writes that “The Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security. So do the Palestinian people. I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason, I will not attend their conference.”

Sad. Disturbing. Painful. Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security. True! Israelis deserve to live in peace and security. True! But not attending an AIPAC Conference as a leader of the Democratic party sends a terrible message. According to AIPAC leadership he has never attended an AIPAC Conference. One wonders how committed he is to a viable Israel. One wonders (and this is terrible) what he learned standing at the grave of 300 Jews in his father’s Polish town. Go to the conference Bernie.