Jewish Loyalty Should Not Be Questioned

Amid the never-ending fusillade of Trumpifications, it is hard to keep up with the outrage of the moment that requires comment. Perhaps most upsetting to me is the tumulter-in-chief’s assertion that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats—in other words, any Jew who doesn’t vote for him—are dumb and guilty of disloyalty to America, to Jewish people and to Israel.

For the better part of a year several high school chums and I have engaged in email debate on Trump, Israel, which party to support, and social values in general. It has gotten so intense, at times, that one of the group no longer wants to read my blog or my responses to what I consider some of his outlandish beliefs. 

Recently another fellow theorized that secularism has become the new religion of American Jews who vote Democratic. To which the first one piled on by stating, “Their parents raised their children to be just like any American child. They (many, not all), made sure to speak English at home so the children would not talk like “greenery”. They wanted their children to assimilate into the American culture. Just like the Israelis stoke (sic) the Yemenite children from their parents, the European-born Americans removed their Judaism from their children. Since the parents worshipped FDR, who actually sold out that generation and refused to help the Jews fleeing extermination, the next generation felt they had to uphold their parents’ decision. Many of us woke up and went right; many have remained with the same mindset.

“Trump was right in what he said; the problem was HOW he said it.”

No way I could remain silent after that broadside. I started to type a response: “Secularism seems to be the reason given for Jewish support of Democrats. I guess they identify with civil rights. With labor and union rights. With voting rights. With environmental rights. Not too many Republicans favor those initiatives these days. I guess it didn’t hurt that Truman, a Democrat, recognized Israel. Maybe they didn’t like the fact Eisenhower forced Israel to give back the Sinai in 1956.”

As for blaming FDR for slamming the door on Jewish refugees, it behooves us to look to the proponents of the 1924 immigration bill that restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The sponsors were Congressman Albert Johnson and Senator David Reed. Both were Republicans! Who fought against it? Rep. Emanuel Celler, a Democrat! 

I was about to continue when another high school buddy asked for comments about an article in Tablet magazine on American Jews and whether the Democratic Party is becoming unsalvageable (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/289871/democratic-party-becoming-unsalvageable?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=ed6da33e59-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_22_04_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-ed6da33e59-207772409). 

Here’s what I wrote: 

It is unacceptable what some—some—Democrats are saying and the failure of leadership to strongly admonish them, including removing them from committee assignments. 

That said, a few bad apples will not destroy the Democratic party. Just as McCarthy and Goldwater and Nixon and Agnew and Bush II didnt destroy the Republican party. 

The Israel of today is not the Israel Democrats embraced. As I think about it, it increasingly resembles Republican traits—discrimination against segments of Jewish society (Ethiopians), discrimination against Israeli Arabs, forced expulsion of foreign workers, repression of Palestinians (we can argue if that is justified at least part of the time), efforts by the government (of Bibi Natanyahu) to fear monger votes based on Arab-Israeli voting, actions by Bibi to try to curtail the rule of law by reducing the power of the Supreme Court, cozying up to autocrats and despots. The list could probably be expanded but that’s enough for starters. 

So without denying that Palestinian intransigence is the reason no peace has broken out between the two groups, let’s keep in mind that the Camp David accords were signed when Carter was president. The Oslo accords when Clinton was president. Clinton again for the Camp David summit which Arafat sabotaged. The point is, Democrats have labored hard to broker a deal. 

Trump and before him Bush II unchained Sharon and then Bibi to do as they please. 

Israel today has a public relations problem. It needs to transmit to the world, daily or at least weekly, the following statistics:

*How much food is sent into Gaza assuring no one is starving. 

*How much medical supplies are provided Gaza residents. 

*How many Palestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals and doctors’ offices. 

*How many Palestinian workers from Gaza and West Bank work in Israel. 

*How many Palestinians attend universities in Israel, Gaza and West Bank. 

*Examples of the anti Jewish curriculum taught in Palestinian elementary schools and beyond. 

*How many acts of terrorism are perpetrated throughout Israel daily/weekly/monthly. 

*How many times Palestinians rejected specific peace proposals. 

*How speeches in Arabic are different than what Palestinian leaders say in other languages. 

*How Palestinian newspapers and radio/TV/internet sites portray Israel and Israelis. 

*How the standard of living and employment and education in the West Bank and Gaza compare to those in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. 

I am sure there are other statistics that would all but eliminate the impression that Israel has been a repressive ruler. To change perceptions this data must be constantly transmitted. Letting the world know about its high tech industry, its agricultural and ecological gains, its scientific and medical advances, etc., will not change the trajectory of opinion on Israel as long as it has the image of a cruel oppressor.  Congressional visits must be targeted at Palestinian actions to show that they live better than under Arab leaders and that it is not Israel that holds them back. 

The American people time and again have supported freedom fighters around the world. The challenge Israel faces is to flip the narrative that the Palestinians seek freedom and Israel doesn't.  

Congresswoman Tlaib and other Democrats are winning the pr war because Israel is losing it by failing to tell its side and because Bibi is doing all he can to stay in office including embracing actions that turn off non orthodox Jews around the world. He is drying up the reservoir of good will Israel has among tribe members. 

So, in short, Democrats don’t want to abandon Israel. They want Israel to live up to the ideals of its founders and the early pr success it had as a country of limitless possibilities for all. 

The Oy Factor

During her time with us last week Ellie noticed what she says is a disturbing habit of mine—almost all of my morning movements are accompanied by moans or “oys.”

Now, anyone who knows me well knows I “complain” a lot about my physical infirmities. If asked how I’m feeling, I invariably respond with the truth, the full truth. Any aches or pains are catalogued in vivid detail. Hey, if you don’t want to know, don’t ask. I won’t be offended if you don’t ask. But if you do ask, don’t be offended if I respond to your innocent inquiry under the belief you really do care about me.

Oy, or ugh, conveys more in one syllable than any full-throated sentence. You can look up what oy means. But until you’ve lived with me you will not appreciate what Gilda (and for a week, Ellie) goes through daily.


Exodus Redux: Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.—Exodus 1:8

How poignantly wondrous that the overthrow of a modern day Egyptian dictator occurred just weeks after the annual synagogue Torah readings of the exodus of the Israelites from bondage and the vanquishing of Pharaoh’s army at the Sea of Reeds.

Several friends sent along a short joke making the Internet rounds—"Israel to Egypt: do not destroy those pyramids. We will not rebuild!”

Cute, but not historically accurate. Jewish slaves built the Coliseum in Rome, but not the pyramids in Egypt. The pyramids are believed to have been erected hundreds of years before Jacob and his clan made their way south to Egypt during the famine Joseph forecast when interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh. The Bible recounts how the enslaved children of Israel built the store cities of Pithom and Raamses. No mention of any pyramids.

After the exodus, the Israelites had few military entanglements with Egypt until the modern era, until 1948. Since the Camp David Accords were signed in 1978, a fragile peace has existed between Israel and Egypt, a peace reaffirmed for the present by the Egyptian military now in control. What could have been 30 years of tranquility and prosperity devolved under Hosni Mubarak into 30 years of repression and economic stagnation for the masses in Egypt while the elite grew fat. Israel, meanwhile, prospered, becoming a high-tech beacon.

The world, and especially Israel, trembles while it awaits the evolution of the Egyptian revolution and its impact on the Middle East. Will future Egyptian leaders choose continued peace or a return to a belligerency that sapped the country of its pride and youth?


Grandpa Who? I slowly made my way up the stairs from the garage Friday evening. Finley heard my footsteps. As he does with most visitors, he smiled in anticipation. But upon deeper observation of my bearded countenance, he grimaced and cried. In the near two months since we last saw each other, he had virtually forgotten me.

While he instantly re-bonded with Gilda and played with her, he’d warily look towards me from across the room. I figured the best course of action was to bide my time. It was hard waiting for my turn. By the next day Finley was more comfortable with me. He’d bring books over to read, but stayed for just one page. I didn’t take it personally. Even his mother could get him to sit still for just one page at a time.

By the end of our visit on Sunday he’d come full circle and even let me butt heads with him when we departed, our signature good-bye ritual. Our next time together is Passover in April. Two long months from now. Too long a time.

A Time for Every Purpose

My birthday is March 6. It’s not too early for those who don’t have that date circled on their 2011 calendar to do so now, though that is not the reason I am giving you six months’ notice. Rather, I am reacting to a story in this morning’s NY Times, “This Life: A Day To Dance Or Weep?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/fashion/05ThisLife.html?_r=1&hpw)

As a New Yorker, I reflect almost daily on the void in lower Manhattan where the Twin Towers stood. Now that I’m no longer commuting to an office, most days I’m listening to WCBS880 radio news as I putter around in the morning. With uncanny persistence, the announcers each day call out the time exactly at 9:11. They probably don’t realize they repeatedly are piercing the hearts of so many listeners. Perhaps no one who was not a New York area resident that fateful day nine years ago can fully appreciate the ongoing assault to our sensibilities.

The Times article raised an important point. When is it proper to return to normalcy, to celebrate happy occasions that by coincidence, or planning, fall on September 11? In a larger sense, in the context of the current debate on the building of a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, when is it proper to just...move on?

If we wanted to always dwell on the past, there are ample reasons to live a cloistered and melancholy life. A few years ago, some enterprising(?) souls put together a daily calendar listing calamities that befell Jews throughout the millennia. How comforting to know I’m part of a people with so long and rich a daily history!

When I tell people I was born on March 6, I usually say I share the date with the fall of the Alamo. I don’t mention that Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, as well as a hundred or more other Alamo defenders, died that day. I was a big Davy Crockett fan as a child. I adored Fess Parker. Even had a ‘coon-skin hat for a while.

The Alamo wasn’t the only infamous event to happen on my birthday. Of far greater import was the Missouri Compromise that President Monroe signed into law in 1820, permitting the Show Me territory to enter the Union as a slave state. Thirty-seven years later to the day, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most egregious decisions. In the Dred Scott case, the court ruled, according to Wikipedia, “that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves—whether or not they were slaves—were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. It also held that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process.” How would you like that legacy as part of your birthday heritage?

Of course, some less traumatic occurrences happened on my birthday. In 1475, Michelangelo was born. Lou Costello (1906), Alan Greenspan (1926) and Shaquille O’Neal (1972) also took their first breaths on March 6. Life ended for Louisa May Alcott (1888), John Philip Sousa (1932), Pearl S. Buck (1973), Ayn Rand (1982), Georgia O’Keeffe (1986) and many more luminaries on March 6. In short, every day has its pluses and minuses.

September 11 is no exception. Did you know that in 1609 Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan on September 11? Or that the British Mandate of Palestine began in 1922 (the Mandate might have been detested when it ended in 1948, but it was the first concrete step toward Israeli statehood). One year earlier, the first moshav (cooperative farm) was settled in Palestine. In 1978, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat came together on September 11 to sign the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt. In 1989, the first breach of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary allowed thousands of East Germans to flee repression, hastening the fall of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies. In 2005, Israel unilaterally completed disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

On September 11, 2001, a day of crispness and bright sunshine, 2,977 innocent people were killed in the terrorist attacks. We should never forget them. We should never forget, or forgive, the murderous band that rained death on our country. But it’s time to move on. As it says in Ecclesiastes, “A season is set for everything...A time for weeping and a time for laughing, a time for wailing and a time for dancing.” Every day has its history of tragedy. Our spirit demands we infuse September 11 with added meanings, new hopes, new reasons to celebrate, not just commemorate.