Woodstock, Mona Lisa, Red Squirrels and a Jewish Lament

The closest I got to Woodstock was marrying a woman who had a ticket to the 1969 three day festival but chose not to attend. 

With three of her friends Gilda bought $18 tickets to the transcendental festival after seeing a poster in Greenwich Village near where she worked for Hartz Mountain during the summer between her sophomore and junior years at Brooklyn College. Delores, Karen and Gilda would travel upstate to Bethel, NY, in Barbara’s car as she was the only one with a driver’s license and a car. 

This was nearly a half year before I showed up on Gilda’s radar, or she on mine, so the fact that she was madly infatuated with another young man at the time was not a cause of concern to me. During the summer of 1969 I was enjoying another splendid eight weeks as a division head in a sleepaway camp, Kfar Masada, in Rensselaerville, NY. 

As fate would have it, Gilda’s longing for a date with her heartthrob came to fruition on the same weekend as the Woodstock concert. She chose amour over music, sold her ticket, and bid her friends happy times.

They never made it to Yasgur’s farm. Traffic, overwhelming traffic, kept them and tens of thousands others from reaching their destination. Her friends pulled off Route 17 and found a church to sleep in on the floor. They went home the second day of the concert. 

As you undoubtedly figured out, Gilda’s love interest failed to reciprocate. Our paths crossed, repeatedly, during the next school semester. We began dating in December 1969. Yes, 1969 was a very good year.

Mona Lisa, Mon Amour: August used to be a good time to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Parisians generally exit the city during August, leaving tourists to contend just with ... tourists. But these days there’s an abundance of tourists—the Louvre attracted a record 10.2 million gawkers last year, way more than any other museum, anywhere—meaning time spent staring at Mona Lisa’s eyes can be no more than the equivalent of a drive-by encounter, especially now that the Leonardo da Vinci portrait has been moved to temporary quarters 

(https://nyti.ms/2MeyNdn).

I’ve gazed upon the Mona Lise several times, the first being in August 1966 when I was 17 and visiting Paris for the first time. Accompanied by my cousin’s then husband, a struggling painter who spoke no English while I, despite two years of high school instruction, knew barely enough French to ask which way to the library (“Ou est la bibliotheque”), made my way through hall after hall of the Louvre. No doubt I passed by many works by renowned masters. Sadly, I couldn’t take advantage of my companion’s expert commentary. But as I wandered around the Louvre, mostly oblivious to the treasures before me, he did manage to point out the Venus de Milo standing amidst other statues, and, after I had walked past it, he brought me back to view the Mona Lisa. Back then she was treated like any other painting, hanging nondescriptly on a wall with other works of art. 

Red Scare: I spent more than a few minutes today, I sheepishly admit, entranced by the efforts of a grey squirrel to negotiate around a large inverted plastic funnel designed to prevent the rodent and his brethren from gaining access to the bird food I assiduously hang from trees in my side yard. Most of the time the enterprising squirrel backs away or falls to the ground without clutching the suspended cage holding the desired food. If he is successful, I shoo him away, admonishing him that the food is intended for the feathered, not the bushy tailed. 

The attempted incursion is mild compared to what is going on across the pond. Seems North American grey squirrels have taken over the British landscape and are threatening the existence of native born red squirrels, a more genteel species popularized in children’s books. The reds are about half the size of their trans-Atlantic cousins who are more aggressive food gatherers and who carry a disease the reds cannot withstand. 

It’s gotten so bad that in parts of the United Kingdom bounty hunters have been hired to kill grey squirrels. It’s a scenario a nativist like Donald Trump would embrace to safeguard against an unwanted immigrant horde (https://https://apple.news/A78Qbg70wT8-GP4bZSxE-nA).

Oy, Vey Ist Mir: If you are of a certain age and Jewish, there’s an ethnic ritual your parents practiced on you. Whenever a person of distinction, be he or she an entertainment celebrity, a scientist, a professional athlete, a politician, or any position, even a hoodlum, that brought you into the public eye, your parents would point out if they were Jewish. Younger readers may recognize what I am referring to if they are familiar with Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song that highlights members of the tribe. 

Of course, not every high profile Jew elicited pangs of pride. Mobster Meyer Lansky was no source of chest thumping, though he did make life difficult for the pro-Nazi German-American Bund before World War II. Neither was Bernie Madoff a short time ago. And Jeffrey Epstein has clouded Jewish skies of late. Oy, the shame of it all. 

I’ve seen too many episodes of Homeland to categorically discount conspiracy theories surrounding how he was able to allegedly commit suicide in a federal lockup. I’m not willing to name whom I think might be behind Epstein’s demise, but I would definitely grill all the security guards at the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center. Someone(s) had to be paid off. The key, as it was in Watergate, “Follow the money.” Someone is going to start spending dollars way beyond their pay grade. It might take years before the urge to splurge surfaces, but it will. It always does. 

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.”

My Letter in The Times Lights the Way

It took more than two weeks, but The New York Times finally published my letter to the editor, online Sunday and in Monday’s printed edition. 

Back on April 12 two of Thomas Edison’s great-grandsons opined in The Times that “the Department of Energy now wants to roll back new efficiency standards (for light bulbs) signed into law by President George W. Bush and updated, as required, during the Obama administration” (https://nyti.ms/2VDXgtT).

The proposed withdrawal is another example of Donald Trump’s demonic compulsion to eliminate any vestige of progressive action by his predecessors, especially if it smacks of any environmental benefit to reduce the impact of climate change.  

The Edison progeny advocated public and congressional opposition to any plan by the Energy Department to narrow the scope of energy saving standards. 

It was in that context that I sent my letter to The Times. With slight editing to my original submission, The Times ran the following:

“We cannot rely on the Trump administration to do the right thing when it comes to enforcing light bulb energy standards. Instead, private enterprise must lead the way.

“Large chain stores—Walmart, Target, Kmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, Costco and Ace Hardware, as well as Amazon—should exert their public service commitment by not buying or stocking less energy efficient incandescent light bulbs.

“Retailers can shine a positive light on the future direction of our country.”

Naturally, not everyone is on board with any plan that would deny consumers the opportunity to buy cheaper 100-watt incandescent bulbs compared to more expensive L.E.D.s. In response to a friend who brought up the issue after seeing my letter, I wrote back, 

“Yes, it will cost more and the poor would be disproportionately hurt. But just as we have required seat belts in cars at a higher cost, just as we require food safety inspections that raise the price of food, just as we have tolls on roads that make travel costlier, there are some mandates that are put in place for the common good. Call it totalitarianism. Or socialism. Or saving the planet for our grandchildren. Doing nothing is not an option for long term survival.”

Here’s how the Edisons put it: “Few actions can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the planet as cheaply and easily as replacing energy-wasting bulbs with highly efficient ones. The group (the Natural Resources Defense Council) estimates that if every household in the United States replaced just one old bulb with an L.E.D., the country’s overall electric bill would be cut by more than $5 billion in 10 years, and two million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution would be avoided. 

“The savings are so big because the average American household has around 40 lighting sockets, and many still employ energy-wasting bulbs. We need efficiency standards to spur more innovation and ensure that our store shelves carry new bulbs reflecting the latest technology.

“Regrettably, special interests have reared their heads once again. Big bulb manufacturers supported by the Energy Department prefer to take the cheap, inefficient and environmentally harmful path for short-term profits. They would sacrifice our common good for their selfish greed.”

This was not my first letter published in The Times. Eleven years ago, when Allianz was reported by The Times to be near to securing the naming rights to the then new Meadowlands stadium where the New York Giants and Jets would play, I revealed the link between the company and its history of insuring Nazi death camps. To its credit Allianz already had disclosed on its website its association with the Nazi regime. But The Times article merely identified Allianz as a German financial services company (no doubt that is how the company identifies itself in press releases).

After my letter was published The Times followed up with a major story entitled “Naming Rights and Historic Wrongs.” Less than a week after my letter appeared, after intense public rejection of the Allianz overture, Allianz abandoned its bid. Only then did MetLife step in to secure the naming rights (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/01/chain-of-one-person-events.html).

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. 

Memory Unearthed: My Ties to the Lodz Ghetto

Here’s what I know about Łódź (Lodz).

My maternal grandparents were married in that Polish city at the beginning of the 20th century. Separately, they emigrated at different times to New York. First to arrive in America was my grandfather, Louis Gerson. His wife, Sarah, came later with their son, Solomon, and three daughters, Pola, Sylvia (my mother), and Victoria. A fourth daughter, Lily, would be born in New York. Sylvia was four when they landed at Ellis Island in 1921 from one of the last ships before immigration quotas were initiated that would ultimately doom hundreds, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands even a million Jews who would have sought refuge from the darkness engulfing Europe in the 1930s.

My mother and aunts were too young to remember and pass down details of life in Lodz. Except, that their regal mother would complain that compared to her apartments in the Bronx, her house in Lodz had parquet floors and was staffed with servants. Louis was a jeweler in Lodz, a trade he continued in New York. 

And one more story. Pola was once kidnapped by gypsies, but like the boy in O. Henry’s classic tale “The Ransom of Red Chief,” she was soon returned no worse for the experience. 

Unlike the immigrant benevolent society my father joined in New York from his hometown shtetl of Ottynia, to my knowledge and that of my brother and sister, our mother’s family did not keep up with relatives or friends back in Lodz. Accordingly, I was only aware of Lodz as a big city and would comment casually that my mother emigrated from there whenever mention of Lodz came up in conversation, in a film or TV show. 

So I was deeply intrigued by a recent CBS Sunday Morning segment of an exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) entitled, “Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross” (http://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/memories-unearthed-from-the-lodz-ghetto/).

The exhibit would run through July 30. Serendipitously, Gilda and I would be visiting the Boston area last week. Last Friday, we went to see the exhibit with Allison, our daughter-in-law. (There are no immediate plans for Memory Unearthed to tour other cities. The exhibit will return to the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where its condition will be assessed, and a determination made whether another venue is in the best interest of the collection, according to an AGO representative.) 

As TripAdvisor notes, “The third-largest city in Poland, Lodz’s historical and global significance is largely due to the ghetto that was built there during World War II.” 

Lodz fell to the Nazis on September 8, 1939, one week after Germany invaded Poland. According to Wikipedia, “The Nazi authorities soon established the Łódź Ghetto in the city and populated it with more than 200,000 Jews from the Łódź area. As Jews were deported … for extermination, others were brought in. … Due to the value of the goods that the ghetto population produced for the German military and various civilian contractors, it was the last major ghetto to be liquidated, in August 1944. ...

“Prior to World War II, Łódź's Jewish community numbered around 233,000 and accounted for one-third of the city’s total population. The community was almost entirely wiped out in the Holocaust. By the end of the war, the city and its environs had lost approximately 420,000 of its pre-war inhabitants, including approximately 300,000 Polish Jews and 120,000 Poles. ...

“When the Soviet army entered Łódź on 19 January 1945, only 877 Jews were still alive, 12 of whom were children. Of the 223,000 Jews in Łódź before the invasion, only 10,000 survived the Holocaust in other places.”

Two of those 877 survivors in Lodz were Henryk Ross and his wife Stefania. A photographer, Ross had been tasked by the Nazis to chronicle the “good” life in the ghetto, but he also surreptitiously focused his lens on the inhumane conditions in the ghetto and the cruel life its inhabitants endured and succumbed to. 

Ross buried more than 6,000 negatives hoping someone would unearth his documented history after the war. After he was liberated Ross himself dug up his cache. Water had damaged about half of the negatives. The MFA exhibited about 200 negatives and prints. (For a more complete background on Ross and the exhibit, follow this link: http://www.mfa.org/news/memory-unearthed.)

My mother and her sisters never spoke of any surviving relatives. In truth, they never spoke of Lodz, other than the comments noted above. 

Perhaps I was imagining a connection, but there in Negative 268 of Ross’ treasured records, a face hauntingly stares out at the camera. It is of a woman on a bed taking off or putting on a nightshirt. It is a face that to my eye resembles that of my mother and her sisters. A relative? I will never know. It doesn’t really matter. Jews have a saying, “All Jews are related to one another.” 

Lessons Still To Be Learned From the Holocaust

Donald Trump landed in Poland Wednesday but he was not the only bombastic Republican to make news in that country. As you might have heard, Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana had to apologize for making a selfie video inside the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, specifically inside a gas chamber and crematoria where visitors are requested to be silent to honor the memory of the thousands who suffered and died there (https://nyti.ms/2tNmcDW).

For his part, Higgins thought his video would convincingly portray the need for vigilance and greater deterrence of outside threats to America. “This is why Homeland Security must be squared away, why our military must be invincible,” he said, adding at the end of the video, “It’s hard to walk away from gas chambers and ovens without a very sober feeling of commitment, unwavering commitment, to make damn sure that the United States of America is protected from the evils of the world.”

Higgins completely misunderstood the meaning of Auschwitz. It is not a call for more armaments. It is a memorial to what happens when governments demonize the vulnerable, different religious and ethnic minorities and enable persecutions and restrictions on their personal liberties. It is a memorial for the living to remember the past in all its barbaric detail so that “Never Again” is more than a catchphrase.

Auschwitz is a reminder of what could happen when evil thoughts are legitimized by an election, when a leader’s often repeated bigoted statements are discounted by politicians sworn to uphold democratic values, when a populace allows itself to be succored by false promises and jingoistic jargon meant to incite passions not principles.

Higgins apologized for disrespecting the solemnity of Auschwitz-Berkenau and for violating the memorial’s specific admonition not to talk (much less film) inside the gas chamber and crematoria areas.

But if you managed to view his video before he took it down you will be struck by an even more egregious sin. Not once during his five minute film (which might still be viewed by clicking on the previously linked Times article), while recounting the horrors more than 1 million “poor souls” went through, did Higgins say almost all of them were Jews. Not once!

Yes, he ended the video standing before American and Israeli flags, but he was silent, SILENT, about exactly who were the victims—Jews, Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war. 

It is that type of selective memory that undermines the commitment government officials have to the lessons of the Holocaust. Higgins was as tone deaf to the Jewish genocide as Trump was earlier this year when on Holocaust Remembrance Day his official message failed to mention Jewish victims. 

Well, Trump is now in Warsaw, Poland. He will give a speech commemorating the 1944 uprising in Warsaw against the Nazis. But will he also mention the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion by Jews in 1943? 

I wonder …

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.” 

Putin's in the News and so Is Goebbels

Vladimir Putin is in the news for what he might have done and said. The stupid and embarrassing Democratic National Committee email scandal on the eve of the party’s nominating convention may have Russian fingerprints on it. Some are suggesting Putin had his tech spies hack DNC computers earlier this year so they could be released to WikiLeaks in time to discredit Hillary Clinton’s primary and caucus campaign. The FBI said it would look into the matter. 

Can you imagine Republican reaction if the FBI comes to Clinton’s and the Democrats’ defense after deciding there wasn’t sufficient grounds to indict the former secretary of state for her personal email server mistake? I can just hear Donald Trump screaming the FBI is rigged against Republicans as he besmirches another of our national institutions.

Putins also is in the “news,” so to speak, for a speech he allegedly gave to the Russian parliament about the need for Muslims to adapt to Russian laws and conform to Russian customs if they want to live in Russia. Copies of his “speech” have been circulating through the Internet.

However, according to Snopes.com, Putin never gave such a speech. It is another example of people using the Internet to create their own version of history in the hope of influencing a wider audience.

Secretary to the Great Influencer: A new documentary of a 105-year-old German woman, “A German Life,” is making its way around. She is not just any centenarian. Brunhilde Pomsel served as one of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ secretaries during the last years of the Third Reich.

“The people who today say they would have done more for those poor, persecuted Jews,” she says, “I really believe that they sincerely mean it. But they wouldn’t have done it, either. By then the whole country was under some kind of a dome. We ourselves were all inside a huge concentration camp.”

Take a moment to read the linked article from Monday’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/29gL4aH.

Now, understand why some think a Trump victory in November could easily be the first step on a downward path. If a domestic terrorist attack similar in impact to Paris or Nice occurs after he takes office Trump could declare martial law.

It is scary to think of the implications. “The dangers are still alive. It could happen again,” (one) of the directors, Olaf Müller, said. “One of the main aims of the film is to have the audience question: How would I have reacted? What would I have done in her situation for a new step in my career?”

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.

Exodus: Gods and Kings Is No Bible Movie

Went to see Exodus: Gods and Kings Tuesday. This much I can tell you. Ridley Scott is no Bible thumper. He has created an aspiritual movie. The Ten Commandments is in no danger of being supplanted as the ritual annual viewing. 

Now, I’m not against taking liberties with back stories missing in the Bible. It’s what Jews call midrash. A modern example would be The Red Tent. The story of the rape of Dinah by Shechem was sparse, just a few sentences in Genesis, but Anita Diamant wove a fascinating book, recently made into a Lifetime channel movie, around it.

Scott, however, seems to have chosen to ignore Bible specifics included in the Exodus story and replace them with his own narrative. Perhaps that’s why, unlike Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments, which sought to authenticate its treatment by citing sources for its interpretation, Exodus: Gods and Kings provides no source base.

Thus Scott presents no public confrontation between Moses and pharaoh, no “let my people go” moment, no exhortation from God. Whereas the Moses of the Bible wielded a staff as an instrument of god, Scott presents a more militant Moses armed with a sword worthy of Excalibur for its ability to imply military leadership.

Moses used that sword to wage (unsuccessful) guerrilla warfare against the food supply of the Egyptian people, hoping to have them pressure pharaoh into letting the Hebrews go.

Did you know that unlike the Bible’s account of Moses instructing his brother Aaron to strike the Nile with his shepherd’s staff to turn its water into blood, Scott resorted to crazed crocodiles attacking fishermen to bloody the waters?

To Scott, God is more of a dialogist inside Moses’ head than a spiritual figure. His appearance as a young boy is an interesting rendition but there is no depth of anger or empathy for what His people, the Hebrews, have endured for 400 years. He makes no effort to convey to pharaoh and the Egyptians that it is by His power and will the plagues are wrought. Rather, God’s plagues seem to be His weapons in a competition with Moses to win the release of the Hebrews through economic calamities.

Bible movies based on stories of the Old Testament have not been religious treatises. The Old Testament can be rather racy at times, an aspect Hollywood has chosen to exploit in movies such as Samson and Delilah and David and Bathsheba. DeMille’s Ten Commandments fabricated sexual tension—Nephretiri sparring with Moses and Ramses, and to a lesser extent the four-way of Lilia, Joshua, Baka and Dathan—to move the story line along. There’s no such tension in Scott’s Exodus. It’s more of an Arnold Schwarzenegger epic complete with iconoclastic sword. 

The Bible has the commandments written by God. Scott has Moses chiseling them while the youthful manifestation of God brings him liquid refreshment in a cup.

As for the parting of the sea, let’s just say Scott did not employ 21st century computer graphics to improve upon DeMille’s fantastical scene.

One thing I will compliment Scott on is his dating of the events. He uses Jewish, not Christian, terminology. The action is said to occur in 1300 BCE—Before the Common Era. Not BC, Before Christ.

Ridley Scott’s movie is no bible story. Perhaps that was evident in the timing of its release. After all, why would a movie about the exodus from Egypt and the institution of the Passover holiday (oops, there’s another thing Scott chose to ignore) be released at Christmas time rather than in the spring, when Passover is celebrated?

Bottom line: For all its flaws, I’m glad I saw the movie. Gilda’s glad she didn’t.

P.S.: One more thing—I get upset when proper grammar is not used. Scott has Ramses saying to Moses, “This has nothing to do with you and I.” 

The object of the preposition “with” should be “you and me,” not “ you and I.” 

P.P.S.: Just back from a Christmas night screening of The Imitation Game, the biopic of Alan Turing’s unlocking the mystery of the Nazi Enigma code machine. Wow, what a picture!

Torture as a Tool of the Trade

Spoiler alert—for those who might not have watched the latest episode of Homeland, there’s a scene wherein CIA black-ops agent Peter Quinn takes a Pakistani operative into a safe location to unofficially “interrogate” him as to the whereabouts of a top terrorist who has just masterminded an invasion of the U.S. embassy in Islamabad that killed nearly 40 Americans. We’re given a quick view of a table laid out with tools of the counterintelligence trade, sharp reminders that gathering secret information is not always a clean, antiseptic affair. Next Sunday we will find out if and how Quinn extracted the info he is seeking, and how he will leave the operative, dead or alive.

It’s a TV show, but I seriously doubt more than a handful of viewers want Quinn to show restraint. A bullet to the head at the end of the “enhanced interrogation” is what they, really we, want. Revenge, plus the elimination of threats to our people, our way of life. 

The real-life debate on how to deal with terrorism suspects is on with the Tuesday release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA methods and effectiveness in post-September 11 America. By nature, I’m against torture. Wouldn’t want it done to me, or for me. But there’s always that nagging suspicion inside me that if time were a factor, if the “ticking bomb” scenario surfaced, I’d be okay with being less than above board (can you say, “waterboard”) with anyone who might have information to help us thwart an attack that would take lives.  

Let’s put legality aside. CIA apologists say the Justice Department green-lighted their activities. Of course, that’s like Nazi thugs hiding behind the Nuremberg Laws to justify their slaughter of innocents. I’ll leave it to the lawyers to parse the validity of the legal standing CIA agents and their contract players had in handling prisoners suspected of having information vital to our national safety.

It’s the moral compass of our country (and other democracies) that is at stake, a heading that cannot help but be directed by popular culture that shows Jack Bauer saving the U.S. in 24 hours, or 007 having an open license to kill on our behalf. 

Torture or not to torture. Common decency and humanity says not to. But our enemies are not decent. They are inhumane. So I’m stuck in a limbo of practicality vs. idealism. Obama campaigned on a platform of government transparency, an end to torture, the closing of Guantanamo. Geopolitical realities intercepted his follow-through. He’s become the drone president. 

I can’t condone torture, but I know it has been done and most probably will continue to be done on behalf of my safety and that of my fellow citizens. I reject the notion that we are more vulnerable because the Senate committee released its report. Fanatics will target us regardless. 

We are safer for the use of torture, but less the shining beacon of freedom we project as our image. Hypocritical, I know. But to many it’s a comfort to know our vigilance knows no bounds in a world where increasingly there are no boundaries on misbehavior. 

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.

Reflections on Another Mideast War

You might be wondering why I have mostly refrained from commenting on the conflict in the Gaza Strip, restricting my posts to first-hand accounts from either Israelis or American visitors to Israel. 

Even in my private life I have resisted round-the-clock immersion in the war. It’s just too depressing to spend all my waking hours, as others seemingly are doing, monitoring news feeds when everyone knows Israel will not be defeated.

Israel’s fate was not always a certainty. On June 6, 1967, I spent harrowing hours with friends at the Knight House “fraternity” table in the Brooklyn College cafeteria, not knowing if Egypt and Syria and their allies were on their way to conquering Israel. The Arab media were trumpeting huge successes, tank columns driving on Tel Aviv. 

I had particular reason to be apprehensive. My sister Lee was nearing the end of her second year in Israel studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Our family had no idea where she was. Was she safe? 

As the world soon learned, Arab media were not to be trusted. Israel had achieved a stunning, lightning victory in the Six Day War. In her own way, Lee contributed by volunteering to pack foodstuffs for the troops. 

Three years ago Gilda and I visited communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, the ones that, until the recent onslaught of long-range missiles aimed at larger population centers, were the targets of spontaneous and repeated attacks by, thankfully, often inaccurate Katyusha and Qassam rockets. Trauma, however, does not need a direct hit to be experienced. 

We were the guests of 16 trauma care first responders from the Sha’ar Hanegev area who had been brought to New York in 2010-2011 for two weeks of rest and relaxation by Shalom Yisrael (24 others came from the Eshkol Regional Council over the last three years). 

They have no rest or relaxation now. As long as the tunnels from Gaza into Israel exist, no Israeli, particularly the residents of the Sha’ar Hanegev and the Eshkol region, will sleep comfortably.  

When I do check Facebook and see the postings, I am surprised by some of the deeply hidden stories that surface. Here are a handful I found fascinating:

Do you know who Ismail Haniyeh is? He is often named as the Hamas leader in Gaza. Israel fired a missile at his home on Tuesday. But that’s not why I bring his name up.

Turns out three of his sisters live in Israel and are Israeli citizens. Moreover, several of their children have served in the Israeli army (http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/07/27/hamas-leaders-three-sisters-live-secretly-in-israel-as-full-citizens/).

Here’s another interesting fact about Haniyeh. Last fall, when his granddaughter was critically ill with an infection of her digestive tract, he sent her to Israel for treatment (http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24258/Default.aspx#.U88LM4kmfDs.email).

I got a chuckle out of this recently revealed fact. The British newspaper The Telegraph reported that the photograph of the perfect Aryan baby chosen by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was, in fact, a picture of a Jewish infant! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10938062/Nazi-perfect-Aryan-poster-child-was-Jewish.html

Finally, for those who cringe and despair at deaths of civilians in Gaza, it is important to keep in context several points. First, the voters of Gaza chose Hamas, knowing full well its commitment to the destruction of Israel and all Jews. Second, instead of building a productive land, Hamas invested in tools of war. Instead of building schools, hospitals and, yes, bomb shelters, Hamas built a network of tunnels to kill and terrorize Israelis. Third, there is no equivalency in war. Civilian Israelis haven’t been killed because Israel invested in defensive measures, such as safe rooms and the Iron Dome missile defense system. It seems sometimes the world is waiting for one of Hamas’ missiles to penetrate the Iron Dome and kill masses of Israelis. Only then would they, possibly, feel Israel has been justified in curbing Hamas’ power. Fourth, even as the war progressed, Israel continued to send food and other supplies into Gaza. What other country at war has been quartermaster to its enemy? Fifth, though the inevitable mistakes and tragedies of war have occurred, Israel has been more careful and considerate than any other adversary would be, warning Palestinians to vacate target areas. 

On Monday, Theodore (Dutch) Van Kirk died. He was the navigator and last surviving crew member of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He died nine days before the 69th anniversary of the catalyst that hastened the end of World War II.

Did we have to drop the bomb? I’ll leave that answer to historians and to your own conscience. But here’s what Van Kirk had to say about war. Read it knowing what Hamas thinks about Israel and Israelis: 

“We were fighting an enemy that had a reputation for never surrendering, never accepting defeat.  It’s really hard to talk about morality and war in the same sentence.”

“Where was the morality in the bombing of Coventry, or the bombing of Dresden, or the Bataan Death March, or the Rape of Nanking, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor? 

“I believe that when you’re in a war, a nation must have the courage to do what it must to win the war with a minimum loss of lives.” 

Facebook Posting Saddens Two Dates

I go on Facebook sporadically, mostly to inform when I’ve posted a new blog entry. On those occasions I scroll down to see if any friends or relatives have anything interesting to say or show. A cousin in France, Laura, writes in French, naturally;  sometimes Facebook offers translation services. One of those times was Thursday, and though I am intrigued by what she wrote, it no doubt will sadden me for years to come.

Laura has been on a mission of more than 20 years to research her family history. Her maternal grandparents and some of her extended family emigrated to France in the 1930s from Dora, a shtetl in the Galicia region of Poland, not too far from my father’s home town of Ottynia. They settled in Lens, in northern France. Before Nazi Germany’s invasion, Laura’s grandfather urged his relatives to move south. Only his immediate family went with him to Lyons. But they weren’t safe there, either. 

Warned they might be picked up in a roundup of Jews, Laura’s grandparents and their two daughters fled to the border with Switzerland. (The younger girl, Bonnie, is Laura’s mother.) Because Bonnie was a baby, the Swiss allowed the family to enter, but they were placed in three separate refugee camps, one for the father, one for seven-year-old Miriam, and the third for Bonnie and her mother. 

Miriam was able to see her mother from time to time during their three years of internment. An enduring memory was receiving food thrown by Swiss children over the camp fence. One of those children grew up to become her husband. Yes, it’s a story that sounds stranger than fiction, but it’s true, so real life, in fact, that like so many couples, Miriam and her husband couldn’t sustain their marriage. 

After the war ended the family re-united. They returned to Lyons. But their family in Lens were gone. Their fate was the subject of Laura’s Facebook post.

The Nazis rounded up the Jews from Lens on September 11th, 1942. It was Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Among them were Laura’s grandmother’s elder sister, Rosalie, and her daughter Betty. They were sent to Belgium, to a place called Kazerne Dossin (now a memorial, museum and documentation center on Holocaust and Human Rights in Mechelen, Flanders) where they waited two days before being shipped out on Transport 10, arriving in Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 17. 

There is no archival record of how or when Rosalie died, but official papers show Betty was selected as a forced worker. She died of unknown circumstances on October 20, 1942. Portraits of Rosalie Fursetzer and her daughter Betty Mohr are part of the memorial and the Memorial Wall at the barracks of Kazerne Dossin.

According to Kazerne Dossin, “X Transport included 1,048 deportees, including 229 children less than 15 years … The youngest was Josef Jozefowicz, aged one month and a half.”  Only 17 survived the war. 

A remarkable but not that unique story, given the annals of Holocaust experiences. So why will I be sad? Because of two dates: September 11, already a date forever scarred, and October 20. October 20 has been one of the happiest days for our family. Dan was born that day in1978. Going forward, however, I will always also remember October 20 as the day my cousin Betty died during the Holocaust.