1-Issue Voting Behind Jews for Trump. How Sad.

A friend forwarded a video said to be trending all over South Florida, in other words, the retirement home of many Jews, key voters in all elections. It’s a video of Cantor Sagee Goldenholz of Temple Beth Shalom of Boca Raton, speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering last year about why he and others are leaving the Democratic Party and joining the Republican Party (

https://www.facebook.com/michelle.l.terris/videos/10222159708763441/).

My takeaway from this video is the speaker is advocating Jews should be 1-issue voters. Vote for the candidate who does the best for Israel, in their eyes. Anything else is irrelevant.

And so, the strong suggestion is that Jewish voters should turn their backs on decades of support for liberal democratic (small l, small d) values. What matters is loyalty to Israel, not to America.

Never mind that Trump wants to remove affordable health care from millions of Americans. Israel won’t be affected.

Never mind that Trump wants to close down Planned Parenthood. Israel won’t be affected.

Never mind that Trump wants to end a woman’s right to choose. Israel won’t be affected.

Never mind that Trump ordered the separation of asylum-seeking families at the border in a move reminiscent of WWII refugees. Israel not affected.

Never mind that Trump gutted environmental regulations. Israel not affected (not yet).

Never mind that Trump abandoned allies in the field. Israel not affected (not yet).

Never mind that Trump speaks to Jews in anti-Semitic tropes. Israel not affected.

Never mind that Trump has denigrated the office of the president and America’s standing in the world. Israel not affected (it has its own leadership issues).

Never mind that Trump abuses the truth almost every time he speaks or tweets. Israel not affected (not yet).

Never mind that Trump’s immigration policies would have kept many Jews from entering the United States had they been in force when they arrived. Israel not affected.

Never mind that Trump has created an atmosphere that has emboldened white nationalists to openly espouse anti-Semitism. Israel not affected.

The list could go on. 

Yes, Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognized annexation of the Golan Heights. Has the rest of the world rushed to congratulate Israel or Trump on the bold moves? Has it saved any lives in Israel. Has it made Israel safer (let’s be honest—no one presumed Israel would ever give up the Golan).

From my vantage point Trump is playing American Jews for suckers. He is trading on good PR actions to woo Jewish voters. But as we have seen with the Kurds, he will abandon friends and allies when he deems it beneficial not to U.S. interests but his own. 

American Jews have every reason to be bi-partisan in their selection of political parties to support. FDR was not a fan of Jews. Neither was Nixon. The State Department, long a Republican stronghold, preferred Arabs over Jews. Most Jewish congressmen and senators aligned with the Democrats. 

An emotional vote is as valid as a reasoned one. If the Jews of South Florida or anywhere want to back Trump because of his support for Israel, so be it. I only hope they balance their decision by the impact a vote for Trump and Republicans in Congress and in their state houses will have on their social security, their health care, the health of the planet, their dedication to civil rights and other issues they have supported and championed for the last 80 or more years. 

Blogging as an Exercise in Writing

Non use of muscles impairs them. Causes them to atrophy. Singers who don’t practice their chords every day risk losing vocal strength. Professional athletes, be they baseball or basketball players or from any sport, rely on repetitive exercise to instill muscle memory so they can perform at a superior level even under extreme pressure. 

Writers—bloggers—are no different. Writing requires more than a haphazard dedication. I can’t believe it has been two weeks since my last posting. Lots of things have happened since then. I’ve started to write several blogs but laziness, sometimes abetted by real reasons, stifled my creative juices. So, here’s a jumble of thoughts on a variety of topics:

Evening News: Gilda and I eat most dinners while watching the evening news, usually recorded so we can fast forward through commercials. When Dan and Ellie were young we restricted their TV viewing to limit their exposure to violent shows. Yet we justified their watching the most violent broadcast of all, the evening news. 

Perhaps as a carryover from my parents’ home, CBS News was our preferred outlet. From anchors Walter Cronkite through Dan Rather, Connie Chung, Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Scott Pelley and Jeff Glor we remained loyal to the Tiffany Network’s newscast. Until recently. I like the CBS correspondents, but Jeff Glor as an anchor just does not measure up. So we switched, mostly to ABC World News with David Muir. 

After several months of viewing I noticed that compared to CBS and NBC, ABC has a different way of presenting female correspondents when they appear in conversation with the anchor at his glass desk. They sit across from him, closer to the camera, wearing short skirts with their legs crossed to the right, directly at the camera. Am I suggesting this is a woke moment during this #MeToo time? You betcha!

Another Genocide in the Making? Its denials of an Armenian genocide 100 years ago notwithstanding, Turkey seems poised to undertake another fateful exercise in ethnic eradication. Emboldened by Donald Trump’s capricious decision to withdraw 2,000 American troops from Syrian territory near the Turkish border where Kurdish forces have been fighting ISIS, Turkey has signaled it will launch an assault against the Kurds (https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-masses-troops-kurdish-held-syrian-town-59984033). 

It is to the everlasting embarrassment, shame and dysfunction of America’s political standing in the world that Trump cares more about the wishes of foreign tyrants than the counsel of American politicians and experts. Trump ordered the troop withdrawal after conversation with Turkey’s despotic leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan despite his own advisors’ strong recommendation to maintain a military presence in Syria.

Vigilance for the Truth: I was reminded again of the need to be forever vigilant in pursuit of the truth during this era of instant mass communications. A friend sent an email suggesting the alleged disrespect for the American flag and the national anthem can be traced to Barack Obama. So I checked its veracity by googling “Snopes: Obama Explains National Anthem Stance?” Of course the claim proved to be false.

“Disinformation campaigns, whether inspired by Russia or any extremist entity, succeed only when recipients of such emails fail to research their authenticity. Any democracy demands vigilance and a healthy skepticism. John McCain provided the best (now viral) demonstration of what we all must do when confronted with salacious untruths. During a campaign town hall meeting in 2008 he respectfully disagreed with a woman who claimed Obama was a Muslim and unAmerican. He corrected her misinformation. Maybe it cost him some votes. But he stood up for the truth,” I wrote my friend.  

Is It Christmas Yet? CBS Sunday Morning reported a survey that found 51% of Americans said they have sent a letter to Santa Claus. I chuckled when I saw that, but truly snorted when I read a Facebook post shared by my sister Lee: “Before you mock children who believe in Santa Claus, remember that there are still adults who believe in Donald Trump.”

Over a picture of takeout Chinese food, my cousin Stan posted on Facebook: “Ok......Hanukkah is over, time to start planning a traditional Jewish Christmas Eve !!!!”

Why do many Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve? Here’s a defining reason from an article in Tablet:

“Whether they have fully thought it through or not, Jews who eat Chinese food on Christmas are proclaiming that, for them, Jewishness is what philosophers call a second-order value. In contrast to valuing Judaism on the first order—enjoying the rituals themselves, sincerely adhering to the tenets themselves—they value the fact of their Jewishness. They go out of their way to do it. They may or may not enjoy General Tso’s Chicken, but if they are eating it on Christmas, their prime motivation is not the general’s sweet, spicy deliciousness, but rather the knowledge that they are doing something that in some adapted way reinforces their Jewishness. They are moved by their hearts, not their tastebuds.” (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/53569/jewish-christmas?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=3b46bc98d0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_21_12_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-3b46bc98d0-207614241)

Gilda and I will be eating Chinese food Christmas Eve.

Mass Shootings, an Intractable Dispute and McConnell's Imprint on Our Future

From a Los Angeles Times article on the killings in Northern California Tuesday: “I thought this only happens to places like L.A. or New York,” Jose Garcia, owner of La Fortune Convenience, told the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-norcal-elementary-school-shooting-20171114-story.html).

Now, why would he say that? In the 16 deadliest mass shootings in the United States since 1949, not one, not one!, occurred in either Los Angeles or New York City (http://cnn.it/1F5wWwy).

Sadly, mass shootings are part of Americana. They happen in schools, in churches, in McDonalds, in nightclubs, on military bases. But not in New York or Los Angeles. 

Numb. Week after week crazed men and the occasional woman perpetrate numbing acts of violence against innocents, many of whom are children. As a nation we are repulsed. But let’s put our reaction in historical perspective.

From our earliest days as colonists to European monarchs, to our formation as the United States of America, we have rarely done anything but accept, and even condone, mass killings, either on our soil or in foreign lands, by our citizens or other peoples. Consider our treatment of Native Americans. Or the death trips chained Africans endured crossing the Atlantic below decks aboard slave trading ships. Or the way we turned our backs on thousands of desperate souls fleeing Nazi Germany. Or how we mostly ignored the ethnic warfare in Rwanda and the Balkans? 

It is hard to find solace in our historical record. 

From a Sunday New York Times article on Trump administration efforts to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, here’s a quote: “After 10 months of educating themselves on the complexities of the world’s most intractable dispute, White House officials said, Mr. Trump’s team of relative newcomers to Middle East peacemaking has moved into a new phase of its venture  …” (https://nyti.ms/2ji06GG).

Now, Jews for decades have been pleased to be recognized for outstanding feats. Entertainers, scientists, Nobel Prize winners, athletes and so on, including a remarkable victory in the Six Day War, they all evoke cultural pride among the “chosen.” But there is no joy in associating Israel with “the world’s most intractable dispute.” Israel, for one, would argue it has sought peaceful co-existence from day one of its statehood in 1948 and even before. But let’s not argue that point.

I’d rather focus on the highlighted phrase. Should we not consider the friction over Kashmir between Pakistan and India, two nuclear powers, an equally, if not more, intractable, and potentially more dangerous, dispute? What about Korea? What about the Kurds wanting their own country and stifled by Iraq, Turkey and Syria? 

I’m sure there are other hotspots around the globe that could share equal billing with the Israeli-Palestinian discord, so let’s not be so quick to label any dispute the most intractable.

As long as we’re talking Israeli-Palestinian issues, earlier this month, November 2, marked the 100th anniversary of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration that stated the British government’s support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”  

Rather than go into a dissertation on the history and pros and cons of the document, let me be personal about the Balfour Declaration. Several years ago, as part of my part-time work as a real estate agent, I had the extreme good fortune of seeing a draft of the Balfour Declaration, with handwritten notations and edits, hanging in the home of a client. That was a priceless moment.

He’s the One: Stephen Bannon wants him thrown out of office, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is arguably the politico most responsible for the rightward shift America will undergo for the next several decades.

McConnell’s unprecedented obstruction of judicial nominations during the last year or more of Barack Obama’s presidency has resulted in the appointment of conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and a slew of like-minded jurists to lower federal benches. These lifetime positions will set a reactionary tone for decades putting at risk hope for progressive, humane decisions that favor civil rights and individuals versus corporations and government (https://nyti.ms/2hqRzk3).

The Bannon trope against McConnell is a public relations fight that obscures what is really happening in Washington. Congress may be crawling along but the real deconstruction of government is happening at the cabinet department level where regulation after regulation is being rescinded or amended to eliminate or reduce safeguards intended to protect workers, the environment and consumers.

The avuncular McConnell is a tempting target, in appearance and legislative accomplishment, but keep in mind it was his strategy that made a vote for Trump synonymous with a choice for the next Supreme Court justice.