Does Trump Fit The Profile of a Fascist?

Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 amorphous description of obscenity (“I know it when I see it”), fascism is a concept much bandied about lately but little understood. It is often invoked to disparage political extremes on the right or left, leaving its true meaning murky. Most people associate fascism with Hitler and Mussolini and they want nothing to do with it. 

Of course, the reality is more imprecise in our application of the epithet “fascist.” Is Donald Trump a fascist or just an ill-spoken nationalist? 

Here, thanks to an article in Haaretz, a liberal Israeli news organization, by Dan Tamir, author of “Hebrew Fascism in Palestine, 1922-1942,” is a critical analysis of the features of fascism (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-when-jews-praised-mussolini-and-supported-nazis-meet-israel-s-first-fascists-1.7538589). You can decide if some or all strains of the fascist model have invaded our government: 

“... what is fascism? What sets it apart from other right-wing political streams? In 2004, Robert Paxton, in his book “The Anatomy of Fascism” (disclosure: this writer [Tamir] translated that book into Hebrew), listed seven features that collectively might delineate the nature of fascism as an ideology and as a political practice. They are: 

“certainty in the supremacy of the group—national, ethnic—over every right of the individual, and the individual’s subordination to the group; 

“belief that the group in question is a victim of other groups, as a consequence of which there is justification for every action taken against its enemies (domestic or external, real or imagined); 

“fear of harm befalling the group from liberal tendencies or ‘foreign’ influences from outside; 

“the need for closer integration of a ‘purer’ national community, whether by agreement or through violence;

“insistence on the group’s right to rule others without any limitations—a right accruing to the group by dint of its singularity or skills; 

“a sense of the existence of a severe crisis, not amenable to any traditional solution; 

“belief in the need for the authority of a lone and solitary leader, and obedience to that leader based on the conviction that he possesses supernatural insights or capabilities.”

Tamir added an eighth characteristic: “Another trait that some would add is fierce opposition to socialism in all its forms—a characteristic that was especially apparent in the practice of fascist movements active in the second half of the 20th century, even if not in their declared ideology.”

I’m not quite ready to declare Trump a fascist but it is troubling to see features of fascism that may be checked off when reviewing his actions. How many would you check off?

Can "It" Happen Here?

Can “it” happen here?

The “it” is what haunts Jews across America. Could anti-Semitism, always present in the dark corners of our society, grow a public profile acceptable in deed and legal standing? Remembering how integrated and assimilated Jews were in Germany—in commerce and education, in science and medicine, in publishing and the arts, in government and the military—before Hitler’s rise to power, American Jews cannot help but keep in the recesses of their minds the abhorrent thought that this too could, under the direst of circumstances, happen again. Here. To them. 

Where does the slippery slope begin? Remember Pastor Martin Niemöller’s words about the rise of Nazism and the silence of the German populace:

“First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out—

“Because I was not a Socialist.

“Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out—

“Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out—

“Because I was not a Jew.

“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

We are witnesses today to the marginalization of broad segments of the American population and those who would seek to become part of our country. Hispanics. Blacks. LGBTQ. Muslims. Jews. 

Far fetched? Donald Trump spews racist venom against four Democratic congresswomen and barely a peep of protest is heard from Republican lawmakers. Silence has engulfed the GOP. No longer is it the party of Ronald Reagan who, in his last address to the nation as president stated, “We draw our people, our strength, from every country and every corner of the world.” 

Earlier in his presidency Reagan said, “Illegal immigrants in considerable numbers have become productive members of our society and are a basic part of our work force. Those who have established equities in the United States should be recognized and accorded legal status. At the same time, in so doing, we must not encourage illegal immigration.” 

How far Republicans have drifted from following a leader they all used to admire to following a leader they are afraid will admonish them if they waver. Their silence is overwhelming. How sad they do not harken to the words of Edmund Burke, the late 18th century British conservative: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ... All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. ... Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

When a party of great history and tradition becomes one of sycophancy, when it ignores reason and science, danger lurks in the shadows. Remember, National Socialism was a fringe movement in 1920s Germany. Hitler became chancellor after receiving just 37% of the popular vote in 1932. The rest, as they say, is history (look it up if you don’t know how and what happened next). 

I’m not suggesting Trump is a reincarnate of the Little Corporal (Hitler, after all, did not shirk his military obligation). But slippery slopes begin somewhere. After Trump, what excesses will be considered normative behavior?

Consider this: A survey reported in a late June by Haaretz, an Israeli news organization, found “one in five Americans say businesses should be able to refuse service to Jews.”

According to poll results, “24 percent of Republicans, 17 percent of Democrats think small business owners should be allowed to refuse service to Jews based on religious grounds” (https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/survey-1-in-5-americans-say-businesses-should-be-able-to-refuse-service-to-jews-1.7415391). 

Overall, the survey found 19% of Americans thought that way, an increase from the 12% who agreed back in 2014. That’s more than a 50% increase in five years.

The survey of 1,100 adults found increased support for business owners to refuse service to gays and lesbians, transgender people, atheists, Muslims and African Americans.

Trump is part of a march toward an imperial presidency that began in earnest with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (As an aside, it was displayed most comically when Richard Nixon outfitted White House guards in uniforms more associated with European operettas than security professionals (http://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/nixon_palace_guard. After the laughter died down Nixon abandoned the wardrobing fiasco.)

The rise in physical and verbal attacks on Jews is part of an overall increase in hate/bias crimes. Paradoxically, it was our first Afro-American president, Barack Obama, who truly ignited it. White supremacists resented his ascendancy to the presidency. Their anger was fueled by Trump’s birther movement. But they didn’t just focus on blacks. Jews have always been part of the white supremacist hate/bias pedigree.

The white supremacist movement crosses international borders.

Speaking recently after a showing of a film on the last surviving prosecutor of Nazis at the post World War II Nuremberg trials, David Harris, CEO of AJC (American Jewish Committee), said anti-Semitism is on the rise because ethno-nationalists feel emboldened for several reasons: The internet is a factor; Witnesses to the Holocaust are dying, so the Holocaust is receding in collective memory; “Who replaced Elie Wiesel?”

Also, students on campus are not afraid of the Far Right but the Far Left is problematic because of its anti-Israel stance, he continued. 

And, said Harris, there is an Islamist problem. Not a problem with Islam. Jewish deaths in Europe are from Jihadists. 

It doesn’t really matter who killed Jews. Or who killed blacks or Hispanics. Or women of any color. When a population genre is singled out for persecution and murder, all of its members, all of society, are vulnerable.

Sen. Kamala Harris said Trump’s comments about the four congresswomen were racist and unAmerican. Racist, for sure. But, unfortunately, our history contains many similar instances of racial bigotry and discrimination, some even ensconced in our founding Constitution and Supreme Court decisions, which makes Trump’s actions prototypically American. 

Demonization has been an integral political strategy in our development as a country. The good news is that we have been able to overcome momentary power grabs by the forces of darkness. November 3, 2020, will define the next phase of our democracy. Will it be progressive or regressive?  

Detention Centers or Concentration Camps: A Disgrace, Inhumane and a Blot on US Conscience

Most of my relatives on my father’s side killed by Nazis and their collaborator thugs never made it to a concentration or extermination camp. My father came to America in January 1939, two months after Kristallnacht. His family was rounded up in Ottynia and surrounding shtetls in what is now western Ukraine. Back then it was part of Poland. They were transported to Szeparowce Forest near Kolomya to be slaughtered and buried in mass graves. 

My mother came from Łódź in 1921 when she was four. Not surprisingly, she never talked about family left behind, family she never really knew. I’m sure they existed, only to be interned in the Łódź Ghetto, the second largest ghetto after Warsaw’s. Its victims included 210,000 Polish jews. Tens of thousands died in the ghetto. Tens of thousands died in the Chelmno extermination camp or in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

A ghetto under Nazi rule was a defacto concentration camp. Unsanitary conditions. Meager food provisions. Overcrowding. Restricted egress and ingress. Involuntary confinement. Illness often resulted in death. 

If many if not all of those conditions appear strikingly similar to what asylum detainees, particularly children, are experiencing along our southern border with Mexico it is not surprising that activists are labeling detention facilities as American concentration camps. 

Throughout our centuries-long history Americans have not been inclined to view repressive conditions of non whites as problematic. Too few demonstrated against the sardine-like packaging of captured Africans in the holds of slave ships bound for North America and South America. Visit a historical plantation outside Charleston, SC, and you’ll see accommodations were not much better for slaves that survived the ocean crossing.  

Native Americans did not fare better. They were restricted to less than optimal land. If their land later proved valuable they were physically displaced, even in violation of treaty or a favorable Supreme Court ruling. Donald Trump’s hero of a president, Andrew Jackson, disregarded a Supreme Court decision in favor of the Cherokee Nation and marched them in a trail of tears to the Oklahoma territory. To this day life on a reservation—even with new-found gaming income—is not what one would covet. 

Japanese Americans were forced to live in so called internment camps during World War II. George Takei of Star Trek fame spoke out from personal experience, having been interned in two camps with his family from the age of five. He agreed concentration camps have sprouted up along our southern border (https://mol.im/a/7164365).

Here’s another person who knows evil when he sees it: Ben Ferencz. He is 99 and the last surviving prosecutor of Nazis at the Nuremberg trials. Trump’s family separation policy is a “crime against humanity,” he says (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-border-crisis-nazis-nuremberg-trial-ben-ferencz-family-separation-migrants-un-a8485606.html).

Let’s be clear. Though deaths have occurred, there is no government program to kill undocumented immigrants, be they outright illegals or asylum seekers. But there is also no viable program to deal in a humane way with those crossing our border. The answer is not to build a higher, impenetrable wall. 

As my friend Rabbi Robbie Harris posted on Facebook, “These detention centers may not be ‘concentration camps’ in the sense that the Jewish people suffered under Nazi Germany. But they are in any case a disgrace, inhumane, and a blot on the conscience of the United States of America. So it probably does not matter in the end what we call them.”

Sometimes it takes a face, or a body, to aggregate the rage and compassion felt by strangers around the world. So it was when the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, Syrian of Kurdish background, washed ashore after he drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in September 2015 as he was trying to flee his country’s civil war. Earlier this week 23-month-old Valeria and her father Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico, the last leg of their journey from El Salvador.

And, of course, the face of Anne Frank is well known. A victim of Nazi persecution, Anne did not die in a gas chamber. She died from typhus contracted from the unsanitary conditions in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (here are two stories on conditions in the Clint, Tex., border station where children are being detained: https://nyti.ms/2Iw1fEH and https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children).

On Thursday Gilda and I, with her cousins from Israel, spent three-plus hours at Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage walking the special exhibit, “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.” 

I’ve been to many Holocaust memorials, in America, Israel and Europe. New facts always reveal themselves. New images. 

One such image chilled me. It was from 1928. Hitler was at at outdoor event. He was standing next to what became known as the “Blood Flag,” so called because the swastika banner was bloodied during the failed Nazi coup of November 9, 1923, in Munich. He wasn’t just standing next to it. He had a tight grasp on the lower quarter of the flag.

I don’t suspect Trump of knowingly emulating Hitler when he caresses the American flag at his rallies, but his oratory of demonization and dehumanization of his enemies, real and imagined, powerful and weak, is a page right out of Hitler’s playbook. With a melding of such images in my mind, how could one disagree with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee when he said during the Democratic presidential debate Thursday night: “The biggest threat to the security of the United States is Donald Trump, and there’s no question about that.”

Trump Blinks on Family Separations But It's Up to Voters to Thwart His Tyranny

Donald Trump is on the verge of blinking.

After his zero-tolerance illegal immigration policy separating children from parents provoked outrage from the general public, religious and business leaders, naturally from Democrats, and even from some Republicans who have been among his most ardent supporters, the provocateur-in-chief is said to be mulling an executive order Wednesday afternoon to rescind his inhumane, draconian dictate (https://nyti.ms/2I7wWAA).

Just a day earlier, speaking at a meeting of the National Federation of Independent Business, Trump said he wanted “the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit. We have to be able to do this. This is the only solution to the border crisis.”

Surprise, surprise, he already had that authority! According to the “Fact Check” column of The New York Times, “Mr. Trump is (also) wrong that Central American families who enter the United States illegally cannot be removed together. Like individual adults, families with children can be placed under a process known as expedited removal—unless they seek asylum.

“Through expedited removal, immigration officials can quickly remove an unauthorized immigrant from the country without having to go through an immigration court. If the families do make a claim of credible fear and are denied, they are then placed into removal proceedings.

“As Mr. Trump said, his administration could release one or both parents with their children. But it has instead chosen to prosecute people who cross the border illegally under a new “zero tolerance” policy, leading to the separation of children from their parents” (https://nyti.ms/2llMOGE).

To read or hear from a federal public defender what the situation on the southern border with Mexico is, click on this link from NPR Morning Edition: https://www.wnyc.org/story/a-public-defender-on-immigration-cases-and-separations.

If there is any good that may come out of Trump’s abhorrent action against defenseless, scared and now scarred children, it is that it might mobilize sufficient voters to flip one or both houses of Congress in November. Perhaps crying children have awakened dormant emotions within an electorate whipsawed by Trump’s vindictive approach to government. Even as he professes to be heartbroken over the dislocation of family units he repeated unsubstantiated allegations that many of the undocumented migrants are criminals. 

The demonization of outsiders is not  confined to America. In Italy, the new Interior minister, Matteo Salvini, wants to count Roma living in Italy (Roma are also called Gypsies). It is feared he wants to expel those without valid residence permits. 

As reported in The Times, “The proposal for the census evoked distant but still-bitter memories of the racial laws against Jews and the Roma, instituted by Mussolini’s government 80 years ago” (https://nyti.ms/2MDQsZ9). The census made it easier for Nazis to seek them out for deportation to death camps during World War II.

Final, Prescient, Words: A little more than a year ago, four months into the Trump administration, my recently deceased friend George Rosenbaum, who fled Hitler’s tyranny, penned these thoughts: 

“Now, four months after his inauguration, President Trump is being compared to Fascists, the name Mussolini among others, mentioned. Although many Fascists rule for some time–Franco of Spain, a prominent example, they are generally deposed and often suffer a bitter end.

“It is unlikely that Trump will follow their example. He is a skilled showman but not an accomplished dictator. 

“Rather than being a fanatic ideologue his focus is on himself. He is profoundly victimized by his narcism. Like despots he lies, fires subordinates, divides the populace, threatens outsiders and unleashes aggression. But, he is not possessed by an overarching goal; he is only self possessed. Thus, like theatre, the show has limited time span. And like improvisation the audience catches on to the act.

“While for Trump there is no desire to leave the stage, the audience eventually wants to depart the theatre for home. Trump is inexhaustible, but the audience becomes exhausted. So, after four months, his own supporters begin to question him and his approval rating is well below the norm for newly elected presidents after a brief time in office.

“He will continue to do mischief for some time because in America a coup d’état is unthinkable and assassination of an admired actor and improviser is unlikely. His emotional need makes resignation unlikely, and impeachment is a legal process that may last most of his term. Thus, what has been called a melodrama stands to continue unabated until the people speak in the next election.

“Fascist rulers stay in power by fueling control over opposition. They shut down opposing press, suppress opposing parties, arrest dissidents, silence the courts, and control the police. These leanings are also evident in Trump, but none is succeeding within the checks and balances of our system. 

“Those checks and balances stand on deeply embedded pillars. They eventually encourage honor and duty or at least jumping ship from an administration that reveals the emperors clothes.

“The hope is that this happens soon enough to limit the damage and contain its costs. While executive power and its acolytes have the capacity for substantial harm, Congress, now so out of balance, once awakened to the charade and recognizing its self interest in jeopardy, will be bulwark for sensible rule of law.

“History is unlikely to call the present tribulation of America a period of Fascism. More likely it will call it a test of the American system that at considerable cost has demonstrated the strength of that system so carefully designed by our founding fathers to protect against descent into tyranny.”

Time for a Few Good Reads

Today’s a day for some interesting reads. 

Donald Trump made himself into a champion of the coal industry. But his proposed tax reform bill might have a devastating impact on the fossil fuel segment, according to a coal company executive who has been one of his biggest supporters: 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/06/investing/coal-tax-cuts-robert-murray-trump/index.html

There is a romantic view we have of America before World War II. The 1930s was a time of Andy Hardy movies depicting idyllic life in small towns. Racism and anti-Semitism were never mentioned. Shirley Temple could dance up and down a grand staircase with Bojangles. The Marx Brothers were zany. 

Across the Atlantic, however, America was seen as a template for what turned out to be the greatest evil the world has seen. Hitler and his henchmen fashioned their repressive society on American laws:  

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/227396/was-nazi-germany-made-in-america?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=6184106ae5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-6184106ae5-207614353

Just as neo-Nazis have resurrected the culture of oppression, the Ku Klux Klan has experienced its own reincarnation, twice in fact, as described by this book review: https://nyti.ms/2khhHPk

As Republicans in Congress push federal legislation to allow concealed weapons to be carried legally across state lines, thereby undermining the state’s rights issue they have long championed, here’s a graphic that puts in context the carnage wrought by our inadequate gun control laws: 

whiteplainsjournal.ny.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=501ed282c

Not every conservative shares the xenophobic attitudes of Trump and his ignorant supporters. Consider Bret Stephens. From a speech he recently delivered on “American Greatness,” here are some facts about immigration into the United States: 

“Did you know that immigrants account for 35 percent of all U.S. Nobel Prize winners? Did you know that 83 percent of the finalists in the 2016 Intel Science Talent search—widely known as the junior Nobel—are the children of immigrants? Did you know that 40 percent of all Fortune 500 companies—accounting for $4.8 trillion in revenues and 19 million employees—had founders who were immigrants or the children of immigrants? Did you know that immigrants start businesses at about twice the rate of other Americans? Did you know that without immigrants we would have had no population growth whatsoever since 1970, putting us on a path to a Japanese-style demographic death spiral?

“It is, of course, true that immigrants put strains on their host societies. It is also true that in any immigrant population there will be thieves, rapists, killers, scallywags and layabouts—though, by the way, did you also know that the incarceration rate of illegal immigrants is nearly half that of U.S. citizens?” (For a full read of his remarks, click https://nyti.ms/2AW9VBp.)

As the Supreme Court mulls whether a Colorado baker can withhold his services from a gay couple seeking a wedding cake, it might be illuminating to think about what our world would be like without the contributions of confirmed, not rumored, famous people who were or are gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to Wikipedia. Here’s a partial alphabetical list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_A

Hypocrisy in Action: My friend Arthur sent along a cartoon (which I can’t reproduce because of my limited tech capabilities). The illustration shows 10 Republican senators sitting at a conference table. The chairman says, “Before we discuss raising taxes on the poor & middle class, adding $1 trillion to the deficit, taking health insurance away from 13 million, raising premiums by 10%, defending treason and swearing in a pedophile, let’s begin with a prayer.”

Charlottesville: An Eyewitness Account Plus Open Carry Laws and Replacing Monuments

Trump is right. As he tweeted Thursday morning, some of our history and culture is being ripped apart. As well it should be. 

We should not honor men and women who fought to enslave others. We should not honor a culture that lionized slavery and its defenders. Yes, they are part of our history and culture. 

But just as we abhor from a distance Hitler in Germany, Stalin in the Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Osama bin Laden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for their places in history and the offensive cultures they propagated, so, too, must we face up to the history and culture of the antebellum South and its current alt-right manifestations. 

There has been plenty of editorializing on Trump’s open acceptance of alt-right thugs and their philosophies. From a Jewish perspective, read Nathan Englander’s Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, written from the 

“comfort” of living in Brooklyn: https://nyti.ms/2vBecqh

Alan Zimmerman, on the other hand, is president of Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville. His first person account of the trauma experienced on Saturday is a chilling reminder of the poisoned fruit that will emerge when the seeds of intolerance are allowed to flourish and are cultivated by politicians who should know better but for whatever reason—ignorance, political advantage, their own bigotry, or just plain stupidity—let it thrive. 

My thanks to Ned and Marty Lager for forwarding Alan Zimmerman’s eyewitness report that appeared on the ReformJudaism.org web site earlier this week:

At Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville, VA, we are deeply grateful for the support and prayers of the broader Reform Jewish community. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Heather Heyer and the two Virginia State Police officers, H. Jay Cullen and Berke Bates, who lost their lives on Saturday, and with the many people injured in the attack who are still recovering.

The loss of life far outweighs any fear or concern felt by me or the Jewish community during the past several weeks as we braced for this Nazi rally – but the effects of both will each linger.

On Saturday morning, I stood outside our synagogue with the armed security guard we hired after the police department refused to provide us with an officer during morning services. (Even the police department’s limited promise of an observer near our building was not kept — and note, we did not ask for protection of our property, only our people as they worshipped). 

Forty congregants were inside. Here’s what I witnessed during that time.

For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple. Had they tried to enter, I don’t know what I could have done to stop them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them, either. Perhaps the presence of our armed guard deterred them. Perhaps their presence was just a coincidence, and I’m paranoid. I don’t know.

Several times, parades of Nazis passed our building, shouting, “There's the synagogue!” followed by chants of “Seig Heil” and other anti-Semitic language. Some carried flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

A guy in a white polo shirt walked by the synagogue a few times, arousing suspicion. Was he casing the building, or trying to build up courage to commit a crime? We didn’t know. Later, I noticed that the man accused in the automobile terror attack wore the same polo shirt as the man who kept walking by our synagogue; apparently it’s the uniform of a white supremacist group. Even now, that gives me a chill.

When services ended, my heart broke as I advised congregants that it would be safer to leave the temple through the back entrance rather than through the front, and to please go in groups.

This is 2017 in the United States of America.

Later that day, I arrived on the scene shortly after the car plowed into peaceful protesters. It was a horrific and bloody scene.

Soon, we learned that Nazi websites had posted a call to burn our synagogue. I sat with one of our rabbis and wondered whether we should go back to the temple to protect the building. What could I do if I were there? Fortunately, it was just talk – but we had already deemed such an attack within the realm of possibilities, taking the precautionary step of removing our Torahs, including a Holocaust scroll, from the premises.

Again: This is in America in 2017. 

At the end of the day, we felt we had no choice but to cancel a Havdalah service at a congregant’s home. It had been announced on a public Facebook page, and we were fearful that Nazi elements might be aware of the event. Again, we sought police protection – not a battalion of police, just a single officer – but we were told simply to cancel the event.

Local police faced an unprecedented problem that day, but make no mistake, Jews are a specific target of these groups, and despite nods of understanding from officials about our concerns – and despite the fact that the mayor himself is Jewish – we were left to our own devices. The fact that a calamity did not befall the Jewish community of Charlottesville on Saturday was not thanks to our politicians, our police, or even our own efforts, but to the grace of God.

And yet, in the midst of all that, other moments stand out for me, as well.

John Aguilar, a 30-year Navy veteran, took it upon himself to stand watch over the synagogue through services Friday evening and Saturday, along with our armed guard. He just felt he should.

We experienced wonderful turnout for services both Friday night and Saturday morning to observe Shabbat, including several non-Jews who said they came to show solidarity (though a number of congregants, particularly elderly ones, told me they were afraid to come to synagogue).

A frail, elderly woman approached me Saturday morning as I stood on the steps in front of our sanctuary, crying, to tell me that while she was Roman Catholic, she wanted to stay and watch over the synagogue with us. At one point, she asked, “Why do they hate you?” I had no answer to the question we’ve been asking ourselves for thousands of years.

At least a dozen complete strangers stopped by as we stood in front the synagogue Saturday to ask if we wanted them to stand with us.

And our wonderful rabbis stood on the front lines with other Charlottesville clergy, opposing hate.

Most attention now is, and for the foreseeable future will be, focused on the deaths and injuries that occurred, and that is as it should be. But for most people, before the week is out, Saturday’s events will degenerate into the all-to-familiar bickering that is part of the larger, ongoing political narrative. The media will move on — and all it will take is some new outrageous Trump tweet to change the subject.

We will get back to normal, also. We have two b’nai mitzvah coming up, and soon, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur will be upon us, too.                                                                                         

After the nation moves on, we will be left to pick up the pieces. Fortunately, this is a very strong and capable Jewish community, blessed to be led by incredible rabbis. We have committed lay leadership, and a congregation committed to Jewish values and our synagogue. In some ways, we will come out of it stronger – just as tempering metals make them tougher and harder.

Open Carry: The intimidation factor of open carry laws cannot be denied. How to contain violence that surely will come one day from the promiscuous acceptance of lethal often semiautomatic weapons is addressed in the following Op-Ed: https://nyti.ms/2v5BfWB

Replacement Monuments: Trump also tweeted his regret that “the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!”

I have a suggestion. For every Confederate statue taken down, how about replacing it with a statue of a true hero, such as a doctor whose breakthrough discovery or surgical procedure has saved thousands if not millions of lives. Jonas Salk. Michael DeBakey. Albert Sabin. Denton Cooley.

Perhaps we should honor great inventors and businessmen whose creativity and ingenuity have transformed our lives. Thomas Edison. Steve Jobs. David Sarnoff.   

Want to keep a military theme? Commemorate Congressional Medal of Honor winners. 

No, Donald, there is no dearth of deserving candidates to fill the vacancies in our parks and public squares. There are just vacancies where your heart, soul and brains should be. 

The Past as Prologue to a Potential Future

Have you ever read anything that scared you into immediate action? I hadn’t intended to post anything today, that is, until I read a review in Wednesday’s New York Times of the first of a two-part biography by Volker Ullrich of Adolph Hitler (http://nyti.ms/2cAUH9m).

I do not know if the reviewer, Michiko Kakutani, intended readers to assimilate her analysis of Ullrich’s work to our present presidential options. I can only relate I was chilled by the comparison to one of our current choices. Consider, if you will, the following extensive citation:

“Mr. Ullrich, like other biographers, provides vivid insight into some factors that helped turn a ‘Munich rabble-rouser’ — regarded by many as a self-obsessed ‘clown’ with a strangely ‘scattershot, impulsive style’ — into ‘the lord and master of the German Reich.’

“• Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who ‘only loved himself’ — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a ‘characteristic fondness for superlatives.’ His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But Mr. Ullrich underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a ‘keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people’ and an ability to ‘instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.’

“• Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a ‘bottomless mendacity’ that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler ‘was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth’ and editors of one edition of ‘Mein Kampf’ described it as a ‘swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.’

“• Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich reminds readers, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a ‘mask of moderation’ when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, ‘Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,’ Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.

“• Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising ‘to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,’ though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better ‘to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.’”  

How devastatingly familiar all these points are. Want some more? 

“• Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, ‘it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences’ with ‘repeated mantralike phrases’ consisting largely of ‘accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.’ But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing in ‘Mein Kampf’ that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd.

“• Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, in Mr. Ullrich’s opinion. … He benefited from a ‘constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and unscrupulously’ — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an ‘erosion of the political center’ and a growing resentment of the elites. The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction, Mr. Ullrich suggests, and the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed ‘a man of iron’ who could shake things up. ‘Why not give the National Socialists a chance?’ a prominent banker said of the Nazis. ‘They seem pretty gutsy to me.’

“• Hitler’s ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression. Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance, Mr. Ullrich writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating ‘evening’s entertainment.’”

The eminent philosopher George Santayana wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

Trump & the GOP: The Political Embodiment of the Fable of The Scorpion and the Frog

As they try to come to terms with the outrageous, bigoted, xenophobic, misogynistic, unconstitutional ravings of their presumptive presidential candidate, Republican Party leaders would do well to read the children’s animal fable “The Scorpion and the Frog.” (For those not familiar with the parable, the tale goes thusly: a scorpion implores a frog to carry it across a river. At first the frog rejects the idea, fearing it would be fatally stung. After the scorpion explains it wouldn’t do such a thing as it would then drown, the frog agrees. Halfway across, the frog is indeed stung. Before it dies it asks the scorpion why would it doom both of them. Because, replies the scorpion, it is in its nature to sting, regardless of the consequences.)

Donald Trump’s strained, symbiotic relationship with his current party’s establishment—which hopes to control him—is the embodiment of the fable. Despite their often stated distaste for him, the party elite is willing to carry Trump on its back as they navigate the election waters. But, just as the scorpion stung the frog and drowned both of them because it was in its nature, there is little doubt Trump will continue to make flagrantly divisive statements that may well sink GOP efforts to appeal to a base broader than angry white men and women.

Trump has promised a major rip-roaring speech early next week to expose both Hillary and Bill Clinton’s warts. For sure the speech will be colorful and entertaining. He is, after all, a master showman. But as two of the most heavily vetted public figures of the last quarter century, the Clintons have survived years of congressional and special prosecutor scrutiny. It would indeed be news if Trump revealed any new scandals beyond the rumor and innuendo that are his stock in trade. 

On the other hand, can a man currently defending himself in court for allegedly fraudulently bilking desperate, needy consumers into paying thousands of dollars to Trump University accuse the Clintons of engaging in get rich quick schemes? Bernie Sanders, a socialist, might legitimately question Hillary’s fees for Wall Street speeches, but Trump is a capitalist. You would think he would applaud her ability to squeeze as much lucre from the fat cats.

Can a man who cheated on two wives chastise another for infidelity?  Let’s keep in mind two points: Hillary never committed adultery, and many of the holier-than-thou crowd who tried to remove Bill from office wound up admitting they strayed from their marriage vows. 

Can a man who four times had to seek bankruptcy protection for his companies be expected to lecture on business acumen and vitality? Bill, after all, wiped out the deficit he inherited from his Republican predecessors and left a surplus. The stock market enjoyed boom times during his term of office, the budget was balanced, the economy was robust.

Can a man who lauded Putin and Kim Jong-Un, who suggested nuclear proliferation is acceptable, who would undermine longstanding bi-partisan international alliances, opine on foreign affairs? Beyond what is written for him, does he know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims? Does he understand the complex world of Eastern Europe and its relationship with Russia, or the rising threat of nationalist parties throughout Europe? Does he have a plan for the Southern American hemisphere beyond building a wall? 

Can a man who makes racist statements, who claims not to know who David Duke is and who does not disavow the Ku Klux Klan, who evaluates women by their physical appearance, who makes fun of the handicapped, credibly claim to be a unifier? 

Regrettably, to the rank and file Republican voters who chose him in the primaries, Trump’s inadequate resume will make no difference. Nor will it make any difference to the Hillary haters. 

The sadness in all this is that it won’t make any difference to almost all of the leaders and elected officials of the Republican Party. Few if any will listen to South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham’s lonely voice of reason.

“This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” Graham said of Trump’s attack on Federal Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it. There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”

If Hillary had made comments as explosive as Trump’s Republicans would be falling over each other as they rushed to microphones to declare her unfit for office. But, as Thomas L. Friedman pointed out in his Wednesday New York Times column, they have abandoned any principles they might have had:

“It (the Republican Party) is just an empty shell, selling pieces of itself to the highest bidders, — policy by policy — a little to the Tea Party over here, a little to Big Oil over there, a little to the gun lobby, to antitax zealots, to climate-change deniers. And before you know it, the party stands for an incoherent mess of ideas unrelated to any theory of where the world is going or how America actually becomes great again in the 21st century.” http://nyti.ms/1XCdFx7

(There have been numerous articles imagining what the first 100 days of a Trump administration would look like. Here’s one I recommend for your reading pleasure, or rather, discomfort:

http://religionnews.com/2015/11/24/trump-registration-muslims-immigrants-refugees-first-100-days/

If you have more time, listen to Leonard Lopate of WNYC interview Philippe Sands, an international lawyer and professor of law at University College London, on the subject of genocide and crimes against humanity (http://www.wnyc.org/story/philippe-sands-east-west-street/). Among the more interesting points Sands noted was that Hitler and Hans Frank, the former’s personal lawyer from 1928 to 1932, laid the groundwork for the Third Reich by challenging the authority and objectivity of Germany’s courts and judges. Sound familiar?)

Here’s you political witticism of the day, courtesy of whowhatwhy.org:

“We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice.” —Woody Allen

Authoritarianism Threatens Our Democracy

I’m beholden to my friend Cathy Hotka for posting a most troubling but illuminating article on the implications and ramifications of Donald Trump’s rise to prominency in the Republican presidential race. The article from Vox.com analyzed the rise in authoritarianism, its acceptance as a political force not only as it pertains to the United States but also in other countries now and beyond 2016.

I can’t find a link that easily directs you to the article, so you’ll have to work a little to find it. But it will be well worth your time and effort if you care at all about the future. So here’s the drill: go to Vox.com and in its search function type in “The rise in American authoritarianism.”

 It is a long article but disturbingly pertinent to the convulsions emanating from the political hustings this year and perhaps for years to come as our country, and others, try to cope with social, demographic and economic changes and military/terrorist threats from outside and even inside our borders.

With each passing day Trump and his supporters seem to channel behavior last seen in Italy and Germany more than 75 years ago. Could it possibly be that people under 40 don’t truly understand the evil of the Hitler-Mussolini era? My generation grew up watching World War II-based  movies. Many of our fathers and uncles served in the armed forces. We knew why we fought fascism. Today’s young voters grew up on Star Wars. The evil empire was bad but it was a sci-fi abstraction, even if it was a stand-in for totalitarianism. 

Regrettably, too many young voters have little understanding of how life was different before women reached the level of achievement they currently enjoy. Even young women see nothing historic in electing a woman president. They don’t appreciate what it was like to live during a time when seeking an abortion, for whatever reason, was a crime. Many young people have little understanding of how different life was for Afro-Americans before the Civil Rights era (unfortunately, the Supreme Court apparently believes racism has been vanquished, leaving no need for a vigorous defense of the Voting Rights Act). Too many lack perspective on the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian conflict. 

As the Vox.com article explains, Trump’s appeal is not just to the uneducated. Take the time to read the article.

Traveling Through Budapest

How ironic!

Budapest is serving as the transit point for Middle Eastern refugees fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other parts of the Muslim world.

How ironic that Hungary is the clearing house of humanity caught up in the savagery of war. How ironic that the human tide wants to flee to Germany (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3217584/Angela-Merkel-hints-bringing-border-checks-Syrian-refugees-boarding-trains-Hungary-chant-Germany-come.html).

Hungary, specifically Budapest, possesses an infamous history when it comes to exporting casualties of war. During World War II Hungary was aligned with Nazi Germany. Yet, through 1943, Jews were relatively safe within its borders. It was only after the government was replaced by a more Nazi-sympathetic regime in March 1944, after Hitler’s troops took control of the country, that mass deportations of Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp began.

As per Wikipedia,  “On March 19, 1944, German troops occupied Hungary, prime minister Miklós Kállay was deposed and soon mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations. Between 15 May and 9 July, Hungarian authorities deported 437,402 Jews. All but 15,000 of these Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and 90% of those were immediately killed. One in three of all Jews killed at Auschwitz were Hungarian citizens.” 

In all, an estimated 600,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the war. Most of the dead came from the countryside, not Budapest.

When our family visited Budapest during the summer of 2008, we learned first-hand the logistics behind the deportations. Budapest served as a way station for the doomed who were brought in from all parts of Hungary.

Budapest was a central railway hub because of the oddities of the European rail system. Located in central Europe, Budapest had two rail systems with different track gauges and separate railroad terminals across the city, one to serve passengers and freight headed west toward Poland and Germany, one for travel east toward Russia. When Jews would arrive from the eastern provinces of Hungary, they would be marched cross-town to the western-oriented station for immediate transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. An estimated 12,000 souls were shipped out each day with the enthusiastic help of Hungarian Nazi sympathizers.

For centuries Jews had thrived inside Hungary but the country fostered deep anti-Semitic prejudices which linger unto today. It is ironic to see Arab refugees— Semites—flocking to Hungary for a chance to escape oppression. It is ironic to see them trying to reach Germany for a chance for a better, safer life.

Veterans Day Commemorations, Good and Bad

They picked up our garbage today as they normally do on Tuesdays. Last Tuesday they didn’t. It was Election Day. An homage to the right we enjoy in a democratic country to choose our leaders. 

But I am more than a little befuddled by the choice of our local government and union officials (I’m assuming the sanitation crew and the rest of the public works team are unionized) to consider November 11 as just another ordinary garbage collection day. The day we have designated to honor those who fought on our behalf to preserve the right to vote freely and live in freedom should not be a throwaway day. Veterans fought to preserve the rights of workers to unionize. How could any union, or for that matter non-union, worker not honor their sacrifice? 

Garbage collection is suspended 10 days of the year. Memorial Day, when we remember those who died in defense of our country, is one of them. So is Columbus Day. Given all we now know about the impact discovery of the New World by Europeans had on indigenous populations, perhaps we might want to rethink our commitment to the Great Admiral and instead rededicate our devotion to those who served and protected our freedom and way of life by giving Veterans Day its proper respect. 

Despite being of the optimal age for service during the Vietnam War, I am not a veteran. I earned a deferment for being underweight for my height (for details. Follow this link: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/11/veterans-day-salutes.html).

I thought I’d share with you a recent post on the jewishcurrents.org Web site about who served in the Vietnam War:

The first American casualty of the Vietnam War was killed during a training mission on October 21 in 1957. Of the 58,193 Americans in the military who died in that war, only 269 were Jewish. Jews were protesting instead of fighting: In 1964, they were twice as likely as Protestants and Catholics to favor a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam; by 1970, when a majority of Protestants and Catholics still favored fighting or even escalating the war, half of American Jews favored an immediate pullout. A 1966-67 survey by the American Council of Education revealed that the best single predictor of anti-war campus protests was a high proportion of Jewish students.

Have you seen the new Air Force TV commercial? It’s a slap in the face of Barack Obama. The ad features inspirational quotes from four presidents: Reagan, Kennedy, Bush II and Clinton. Not a word from, or even an image of, Obama. Shameful! I’ll resist detailing why each of those presidents had tarnished times as commander-in-chief. Like it or not, Obama has been a wartime president. He should have been included in that ad. 

Speaking of shameful, what’s with all the recent Nazi memorabilia stories? In the last six weeks three tasteless Nazi-related stories surfaced:

First, a supplier to Sears and Amazon placed on their Web sites rings bearing the Nazi swastika. Though quickly removed, it was a stunning example of poor taste topped by the second example, that of a Swiss company that somehow felt it appropriate to put pictures of Hitler and Mussolini on packages of its coffee creamer. 

The third incident is more sinister. Unknown parties earlier this month stole a sign above the gate to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The sign bore the infamous slogan, “Arbeit macht frei” (Work sets you free), that the Nazis placed in their forced labor and death camps. 

It’s a chilling reminder that reactionary forces are on the rise in Europe, again.

One year before the guns of the Great War went silent at 11 am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 my mother was born in Lodg, Poland. With two sisters (a third would be born in America) and a brother, she traveled to New York in 1921 with their mother to join their father who had emigrated earlier. She would be 97 if alive today.

A Dialogue on Freedom and Peace

(Editor’s Note: This is a realllllly long entry as I have chosen to reproduce two blogs from Rabbi Barry Konovitch who I knew as head of the waterfront in Camp Columbia back in the early 1960s. Barry is the rabbi of Temple Anshei Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Delray Beach, FL. For more background on him, click on this link: http://www.templeansheishalom.org/abouttherabbi.html. His blogs are reproduced in italics. My thoughts follow his.)

President Obama’s Legacy

The world is in crisis because the United States has relinquished its traditional leadership position as the most powerful democratic nation on earth. Free people everywhere have always looked to America for inspiration, guidance, and when needed, military intervention to support and protect basic human freedoms and rights. It has been a heavy and sobering responsibility but we have risen to the task each time we were called. We supported our friends unequivocally and unhesitatingly; and we punished the enemies of freedom decisively and unsparingly. For the better part of the 20th century we imposed a Pax Americana that encouraged the spread of democracy and improved the daily lives of all people under our umbrella.

Now our leadership role is being relinquished as we retreat from global challenges instead of facing them head-on. The enemies of democracy are emboldened by our indecisiveness and wavering in the face of serious challenges. The murder of our ambassador in Benghazi and his compatriots produced “what difference does it make” from the Secretary of State. The Russian invasion of the Crimea and Ukraine and the concomitant, threats to the Eastern European NATO countries resulted from the ‘reset of our relationship” with the Russian government. The Iranian program to produce a nuclear warhead with which to threaten the Middle East and the Western world with the avowed promise to “wipe Israel off the face of the map” has produced a sham agreement that will allow the Ayatollahs to move with alacrity toward their nuclear goal. Our red lines threat to attack Syria’s Assad regime if they used gas weapons, evaporated as the gas floated over Aleppo. Our friends are appalled by the American paper tiger and our enemies are emboldened. Islamic terrorists arise in every corner of the globe where we have retreated. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does geopolitics. Everywhere American troops are “drawn down” (a euphemism for ignominious retreat) Islamic terrorists arrive to take their place. They terrorize the local populations into fearful submission and they dare to challenge the might of the American military. When the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists murder men women and children in Nigeria, and they blatantly kidnap several hundred young girls from their villages, we are led in a protest to “bring our girls home” by none other than Mrs. Obama. The protests and the interest from the public lasted no more than a week before it no longer captured our interest, much less our concern, or heaven forfend, any real attempt both politically and militarily to “help our girls”.

To understand what has happened to us, American citizens, we need to be reminded of the presidential agenda clearly set forth for us right at the beginning of the political campaign and underscored, reinforced and elaborated upon in such “democratic” venues as Cairo and Riyadh. We would do well to remember Pres. Obama’s words and, yea his promise to bring the troops home, to disengage ourselves from all wars and conflicts and leave a much smaller American footprint on the world. We will contract into ourselves and concentrate on improving our internal economic and political lives. Conveniently forgotten is the basic lesson of the 21st century; the world is connected, for better or worse, and no nation lives in an isolated vacuum, and no ocean or mountain chain will protect us from our enemies.

“Yes, Virginia,” we have enemies around the world who seek to destroy us, and are just waiting for the chance to take advantage of any perceived American weakness or hesitation. Pres. Obama has projected American weakness and indecisiveness to the world and our enemies are on the move.

No one should be surprised. We elected a president who by virtue of being the first black man to attain our highest office, was immediately granted the Nobel peace prize, for doing absolutely nothing to advance world peace. The award was a sham and an embarrassment to all responsible citizens. This was the president who spent 20 years sitting in a church pew listening to the right Rev. Wright spewing anti-American and anti-Semitic hatred to his parishioners. And the future president sat quietly and without protest and absorbed the lessons of black revolutionary theology. This is the President who apologizes to the Muslim world for the American anti-Islamic transgressions and bows low to despotic Arab potentates. This is a president who promised the president of France that he will “deal” with the Prime Minister of Israel who dares to disagree with his utopian plan for the Middle East. After all, this is the president who was raised in the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, and was sent to school to absorb the lessons of Islam at a young age. A man who accepts the name “Hussein” is clearly trying to tell us something about his mindset.

Our friends around the world feel abandoned and our enemies are emboldened. And we sit quietly waiting for the next 9/11, which is certain to come.

The Ongoing War on Islamic Terrorism

 The latest war against the Hamas terrorists in Gaza has come to an end, but by no means to a satisfactory conclusion. The Negev communities are still susceptible to mortar fire and the major Israeli cities are still within rocket range. The Army has not packed up the Iron Dome and the reserves remain on alert. The ominous quiet is merely a precursor to the next round of attacks and the Israeli public remains uneasy if not downright angry and disgusted. People tread lightly in the streets of Ashdod and Tel Aviv, anticipating the next air raid sirens announcing the start of yet another terrifying round of terrorist attacks. The question is asked in the streets: Why hasn’t the Army finished the job? Why does the government hesitate to give the orders: destroy the Hamas terrorist once and for all? Why should the deaths of the Gaza so-called “civilians” concern us or at least prevent us from doing the job which is protecting Israeli citizens?  The world clearly sees, but as yet refuses to understand, that Hamas terrorists use their neighbors as human shields in the hope that they will be martyred and sacrificed on the altar of public relations. There is absolutely no interest in and condemnation of the tens of thousands of people massacred by Islamic terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Lebanon, Mali, and a host of other countries. Only Israel is singled out for vilification which clearly is the 21st century is manifestation of anti-Semitism.

The civilian population of World War II Germany and Italy and Japan were “enemy populations”, subjected to indiscriminate carpet bombing by the US and British air forces until these enemy governments surrendered unconditionally. There was no hand wringing and mea culpas in the White House or in Whitehall. Clear eyed Western leaders understood that destroying the Nazis and fascists and militarists was the moral thing to do.

The Islamic Jihadists are the 21st century version of the Nazis; they have the same brutal intentions. These barbarians are at the gates of Western civilization, all across Europe and even in our United States. How many warnings do we need before we truly awake and take action? What we have witnessed on 9/11 and at the Boston Marathon is only the beginning of a spreading cancer that will destroy our civilization if we don’t act decisively and unhesitatingly. I fail to understand how known Islamic radicals, or even suspected terrorists are not stopped at our borders, removed from our airplanes and deprived of their visas and passports. How do we tolerate Muslim preachers who exploit their thousands of followers and hundreds of mosques across America, to murder all infidels in the name of Allah?  Infidels, of course, mean all of us; Jews, Christians, Mormons alike and anyone who doesn’t accept Islam.

This is not the time to hide behind political correctness or cultural liberal ideas of personal freedoms. Our first order of business must be self preservation and the preservation of our Western democratic way of life, and if it means giving up some of our personal freedoms to accomplish it, then I for one say so be it.

How refreshing to hear the British Prime Minister layout a detailed and thoughtful program for immediately taking up the challenge of worldwide Islamic terrorism. Would that are own president would follow suit instead of “leading from behind”. The people of Israel are on the front lines of the war against Islamic terrorism. The  names may change across the world but make no mistake about it, they are all the same with the same tactics and the same goals: kill the infidels, destroy western corrupt civilization, impose Islam on the World. Isis, Nusra, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Aqsa Brigade, these are all manifestations of the same barbarians, who wish to erase  thousand of years of Western enlightened civilization and return us to the savage evil caliphate fulfilling the call of the Koran “convert or die by the sword”. How many beheadings do we have to watch, how many exploded bodies do we have to see, how many genocidal massacres do we have to witness before we are galvanized into self-defensive action? The Israeli public continues to feel vulnerable. The Hamas terrorists have not been eradicated; they will resupply, rearm and continue to attack. The Israeli government can surely finish the job, but at what expense? 100 more young soldiers would die in the alleyways of Gaza before every Hamas terrorist would be dead. Israeli parents would be up in arms; it is too costly a proposition. So the terrorists nurse their wounds and make their plans. And Israel waits and prepares for the next round. And so should we, because it is coming to a “theater near you”.

Sorry, Rabbi, I Respectfully Disagree

As head of the waterfront of Camp Columbia, Barry Konovitch saved my life when I, a non swimmer, slipped under the deep water during an ill-fated intermediate swimming course training exercise. But, as a respected rabbi and blogger, Barry Konovitch is misguided in his analysis of America’s place in the world and what should be our response to the increasing rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the terror it has engendered.

Foremost among his missteps is his willingness to give up some of our cherished liberties if it meant more protection from terrorism, as if we would be able to control this downward slope on our freedoms. It is the same compact with the devil Jews, intellectuals and businessmen made with Hitler in the hope he would restore order to Germany and they would be able to control him. Once liberties are ceded to government officials they rarely, if ever, are reinstated. Scapegoats throughout history, Jews should never, ever, be on the side of restrictions.

Yes, we are appalled at the evil that Islam has fostered. But as a country we cannot hope to be the police force to 1.6 billion world-wide adherents to the Koran. We cannot go back in history and become a colonial power.

The world is suffering because of decisions made 100 years ago by the then colonial powers to create countries with borders that made little sense to the indigenous peoples they contained. This divide-and-conquer strategy has come back to bite western civilization. After World War II, America’s corporate and military industrial complex layered on another form of oppression on people who wanted nothing more than we had—a life of freedom to pursue happiness in peace and prosperity. But we supported dictators who strong-armed their subjects while they enriched themselves. 

Militant Islam is found throughout Europe. In France. In Great Britain. In Germany. In Holland. In Denmark. Is America to blame? I think not. 

Barry Konovitch laments the United States no longer is the beacon it once was to the rest of the world, that it “has relinquished its traditional leadership position as the most powerful democratic nation on earth. Free people everywhere have always looked to America for inspiration, guidance, and when needed, military intervention to support and protect basic human freedoms and right.”

Last I checked the United States was still the country most people aspired to enter, both legally and illegally. The U.S. still was the country people called out to for military relief.

Barry is wrong to say we encouraged democracies. Truth is, we repeatedly overthrew or undermined governments when we disapproved of the leaders voted in by their respective electorates. We supported feudal leaders throughout Arabia. Under four Republican presidents we negated the success of the Suez War of 1956 (Eisenhower), abandoned Lebanon after 241 Marines were killed in Beirut (Reagan), illegally sold arms to Iran and illegally supported the Contras in Nicaragua (Reagan), let Assad I gas thousands in Hama (Reagan again), let Saddam Hussein wreak revenge on Shiites after the first Gulf War (Bush I) and started a war in Iraq under false pretenses while ignoring the real enemy in Afghanistan (Bush II). 

Yes, Barack Obama did not deserve the Nobel Peace prize. But it is a canard to accuse him of bowing to Arab despots. Did Barry criticize Bush II for walking hand in hand with the Saudi king, the same king who has supported and funded the extreme Wahhabi form of Islam that is the root for much of the fundamentalism now spreading throughout the Muslim world?

I, too, would have liked Israel to wipe out Hamas. But it would have required a re-occupation of Gaza, with no end in sight for a withdrawal, not to mention the numerous casualties, civilian and military, both sides would have incurred. 

It is most unfortunate that technology has overtaken diplomacy. The means of inflicting destruction and death have outpaced any sincere effort in finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli question. Perhaps, if Israeli leaders had been more imaginative and accommodating (yes, accommodating) in decades past, they would have achieved a solution that would have lifted Palestinians out of the poverty so easily exploited by Islamic jihadists. When your family has few or no jobs, little to eat, no dignity, insufficient housing, sanitation, medical care and education, there is too little to keep youth from committing to the tantalizing dream of the jihadist. 

Palestinian and Arab leaders have repeatedly rejected Israel’s presence. They are more culpable because they rejected offers of peace. And the Arab Street was silent in asking for peace. The latest war in Gaza, however, has demonstrably shown that creativity must be employed to secure a lasting peace because, surely, destructive minds are hard at work creating new means of terror, above and below ground. 

From Transit Woes to Nuns to Super Bowl and Downton Abbey

Transportation Woes: Traffic snarled in both directions of the George Washington Bridge during Tuesday evening’s rush hour, another reminder of the troubles people have getting into and out of New Jersey. It’s the latest example of frustration, coming just two days after fans leaving MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands had their ride home on New Jersey Transit trains stalled for hours, much like the Denver Broncos offense was during the Super Bowl loss to the Seattle Seahawks. 

At least, for now, no one is pointing any blaming fingers at Governor Chris Christie for the latest debacles. But is seems apparent that from here on out any restriction to the flow of traffic will forever evoke thoughts of Christie underlings meting out political payback without regard to the innocents forced to sit in their cars and trucks for hours upon days.

It is hard to swallow Christie’s denials that he knew nothing about Bridgegate. Even if we grant him ignorance of the first day’s congestion on the bridge last September, he cannot be excused for not taking decisive action on days two, three or four. Or for not getting to the bottom of this mean-spirited act. He fostered a climate of retaliation, a small-time Nixon’s enemy list mentality. 

We like it when bullies get their comeuppance. We cringe when they throw one-time friends or colleagues under the bus, as Christie has with David Wildstein, his former appointee on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who orchestrated the traffic jams on the bridge last fall in an attempt to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for failing to endorse the governor’s re-election campaign.

Though more conservative Republicans disapproved of his praise for President Obama’s support after Hurricane Sandy, Christie is repaying the favor by hogging the media spotlight. Instead of focusing on some of Obama’s shortfalls, the media looks to the future for personality or scandal stories rather than stories of policy substance. 

Another Transportation Dilemma: Bathroom graffiti ain't what it used to be, it was revealed to me during a quick trip to visit Finley, Dagny and their parents last week. 

In the westbound Charlton, Mass., Turnpike rest stop, one stall had but a single word written on a wall—Bitcoin. With no other words to guide me, I didn't know if the scrawl was meant to praise or damn the virtual money.

I'm conflicted: Gilda and I saw Philomena last weekend. I must admit I came away with very little sympathy for the nuns portrayed in the movie.

Is that what I'm supposed to feel, or should I be more inclined to associate nuns with the loving, altruistic sisters depicted in the PBS series, The Midwives?

Final word on the Super Bowl: Okay, my prognostication was waaaaaaay off. My only consolation is that nobody of sound mind predicted the one-sided massacre.

But I do wonder about the brains behind this sport. As we all know, playing football is dangerous. In an instant, injury can inject itself into a game with the potential to destroy a career. So I ask you, what coach in his right mind (are you listening, John Fox and so many of your brethren) would continue to play his most important player in a game that is beyond reversal of fortune?

Why was Peyton Manning still quarterbacking the Broncos with a little less than four minutes to go in the game and his team trailing 43-8. It wasn't just improbable, it was impossible, for Denver to come back. Why risk Manning’s already precarious health? Someone please explain why coaches do that.

Where is he? Spoiler alert, Downton Abbey fans. I think I've figured out what has happened to Lady Edith's boyfriend in Munich. 

The time is 1922 to mid 1923, the period when Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party are planning their unsuccessful Beer Hall putsch in Munich in November. It was too good a story for a journalist like Michael Gregson to have passed up. Somehow, he has embedded himself in the conspiracy to overthrow the government. He can't risk letting Lady Edith or any of his colleagues know his plans or whereabouts. 

Eventually he will be reunited with Lady Edith in time to welcome their love child. At least that's the way I would write the plot. Let's see if Julian Fellowes has as dramatic an imagination as mine. (I know I could have searched British Web sites for the actual plot line, but I'm trying to give a surmised opinion on what would happen.)

One more thing. Downton Abbey began its storyline in 1912 when the Titanic sank. Now it's 10 years later. Why hasn't anyone aged?