Sex and the City (Politic), Curse of the Cursive, Summer Memories

I blame the Yankees. 

You might have noticed I'm blogging less often these days. It's not for lack of something to say, but rather because I'm spending hours watching NY Yankees baseball games. I had every intention of blogging Sunday afternoon but wound up hooked on the Yankees-Orioles game. After Mariano Rivera blew his second save of the season by giving up a two-run homer to Adam Jones in the top of the ninth, I was too depressed to write. 

That explains Sunday. What about the rest of the week? Well, most Yankees games are in the evening, so I while away (some would say, waste away) my time staring at the TV screen. I better finish this blog and post it before the first pitch this evening. ...

Sex and the City: Now that Eliot Spitzer has declared his candidacy for comptroller of New York City on the heels (stiletto heels?) of Anthony Weiner’s bid to become mayor, it is not too presumptuous to say the Big Apple has a taste for scandal-plagued politicians. I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I never really followed Weiner’s rise (pun intended) to stardom, but I was a fan of the former governor. Two years ago when Spitzer appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and began writing Op-Ed pieces I foresaw his return to politics. You might not agree with his zeal or holier-than-thou attitude (not really tempered since his fall from grace), but one cannot deny that his positions are progressive and that he voices noble sentiment for the masses not often heard from most politicians.  

Will Weiner’s and Spitzer’s sexual indiscretions hamper their electability? Doubtful. Even in socially conservative areas like South Carolina and Georgia voters supported Mark Sanford and Newt Gingrich despite their failure to live up to their wedding vows. And many New Yorkers still like Rudy Giuliani despite his less than faithful allegiance to his former wife. 

Bottom line—As long as their campaign platforms don’t undermine their name recognition advantage, Weiner and Spitzer are in strong positions to win their contests.

Curse of the Cursive: When I went off to journalism graduate school at Syracuse University back in the late summer of 1971, I took along for hanging on my apartment wall a copy of the Declaration of Independence reprinted on the full back page of the first section of the July 4th edition of The New York Times. (Time out for a short history lesson: for those who might not be aware of it, the Declaration was not in fact signed on July 4, 1776. Independence was voted on and declared on July 2. The text of the Declaration was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4. Most of the signatures were affixed on August 2. And that famous picture of the delegates signing the document, which hangs in the rotunda of the Capitol—never happened. A figment of the artist’s imagination.)

Back to the point at hand. It was, admittedly, not easy reading the text of the Declaration. Written in script common to the colonial era—a large lower case “f” where an “s” would normally be, and other oddities of the day—the document is dense reading, in its appearance and content. When I left Syracuse the following June with my diploma I didn’t take the Declaration with me. No matter. Each July 4 The Times would reprint a copy. Sometimes at Independence Day barbecues my friends and I would read the text out loud, haltingly, to be sure, as we struggled to decipher the cursive writing. 

I’m not sure if this was the first year The Times did it, but it was the first time I noticed the newspaper no longer reprints the Declaration in its original form across the full back page of the first section. Instead, the reproduction is an inset while the text is printed in regular type. Sure, it’s easier to read, but is The Times sending a subtle message that our population’s script-reading skills have deteriorated to the point where a majority of us cannot read cursive writing? For a look at some of the debate on the value of cursive writing, check out these articles and opinion pieces: http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/cursive+handwriting/365days/

Summer Memories: While we’re on the subject of the Fourth of July, I was reminded that for 15 years I attended summer camp but cannot recall with any clarity any celebration of our nation’s birthday. True, these were Jewish, Zionist, sleepaway camps in the 1950s and 1960s, but we did raise the American flag every day and pledged allegiance. 

What I do vividly recall is another commemoration, more somber. Tisha B’Av. The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, the day attributed to many calamities that befell the Jewish people through the ages, including the destruction of the First and Second Temples in, respectively, 586 BCE and 70 CE. 

Tisha B’Av is a fast day, and since Jewish days begin at sunset, we’d eat dinner early. After the meal the staff would rearrange the dining hall, turning benches over on their sides. Lights were shut off. On top of every bench, four to a bench, candles inside scooped out potatoes, were placed, to provide light by which we sang the Book of Lamentations. You can imagine the first impression this austere ceremony had on a boy of seven, and my subsequent years at camp. The fireworks of the Fourth of July did not hold a candle to the evocative sorrow of Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av will begin next Monday night. 

Calamity Mitt

There’s an exegesis that major calamities suffered by the Jewish people occurred through the ages on the ninth day of the month of Av, known in Hebrew as Tisha B’Av. Calamities such as the destructions of both temples in Jerusalem 656 years apart, first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans. 

Tisha B’Av was commemorated over this past weekend, coinciding with Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel and Jerusalem. Need I say more? No, but I will.

Despite what Sheldon Adelson and other near-sighted people, including some of my friends, think, the worst development for Israel would be Romney’s election. As he so mis-ably demonstrated yet again on his “world tour” of England, Israel and Poland, Romney has no idea how to speak diplomatically. After publicly insulting the British, he publicly insulted the Palestinians. No amount of backtracking can remove his lack of diplomacy. Perception is reality in the eyes of the Palestinians. He has given them no reason to believe he would be an honest broker of a fair and equitable peace (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/us/politics/romney-angers-palestinians-with-comments-in-israel.html?_r=1).

Palestinians are industrious. Educated. They have been productive citizens and residents wherever they have been given an opportunity. The tragedy of the Mideast is that too many Arab countries used them as pawns, consigning them to live in squalor instead of absorbing them into society, as Israel did with Jewish refugees who had to flee repression in Arab countries. Romney naively attributed the economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians to “culture.” That’s but one of the reasons.  I don’t have the time or inclination to expound on the full set of reasons. Perhaps, given all his money, Romney can hire experts who could educate him on the differences between the two peoples.

As could be expected, Romney was well received by Israeli hawks for his no-questions-would-be-asked-nor-criticism-leveled should Israel decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Just as candidate Barack Obama in 2008 expressed sympathy for those living near the Gaza Strip under constant danger from missile attacks and condoned retaliation, Romney scored points when he said, “We respect the right of a country to defend itself.” Romney also fawned on the Israelis, and further angered the Palestinians, by saying Jerusalem was Israel’s capital. 

Interestingly, Romney, and for that matter, most other politicians, have chosen to stay silent on a more imminent threat to Israel and other Western countries, namely, the huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction in Syria that could fall into the hands of terrorists or unstable factions should the government of President Bashar al-Assad tumble. Would Israel and the United States risk a foray into Syria to secure these stockpiles? Israel is already distributing gas masks in its northern regions, but the threat would be far wider to the Jewish state, indeed, to the world at large if groups like al-Qaeda or Hezbollah had access to these WMDs. 

Romney always seems to be trying to say what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Back in Great Britain he opined he would restore the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office. Sounds great to an Anglophile. Churchill was the symbol of British grit in World War II, the staunch anti-Communist thereafter, originator of the term “the Iron Curtain.” But what do India and other non-Caucasian members of the United Kingdom think of Churchill? Reading about the fall of the British empire, Gilda has related to me stories of how racist Churchill was, how he felt Indians were inferior people, and thus could be sacrificed (read that, starved) so Anglo-Saxons would have enough food during WWII. Millions in India died after their foodstuffs were shipped to the British Isles. 

Perhaps Romney wasn’t aware of this “small” fact. I, for one, wasn’t aware of it until recently. But I’m not running for president. My comments won’t anger a nation. 

Sinat Chinam

Today, according to the Jewish calendar, is the 17th of Tammuz, historically significant because 1,941 years ago the Roman army breached the walls of Jerusalem, effectively presaging the end of the Jewish revolt and Jewish government in Israel for nearly 2,000 years. Three weeks later the siege of the city concluded with the destruction of the Second Temple, on the ninth of Ab, Tisha B’Av.

The 17th of Tammuz is considered a minor fast day by observant Jews. Minor meaning the fast lasts from sunrise to sunset, unlike the fast of a major day, such as the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) or Tisha B’Av, which lasts sunset to sunset. Most Jews, I’d confidently venture to say, don’t know much about the 17th of Tammuz, aren’t aware it is today, and, even if they did, wouldn’t pay it much heed. I, myself, only became cognizant of this year’s commemoration because of a reference to it by one of our rabbis this past Saturday (for those curious, no, I am not fasting).

I bring this bit of Jewish religious lore to your attention because of its applicability to modern times. You see, the fall of the Jewish revolt in 70 CE, according to our sages, was not so much a triumph of Roman military superiority but rather the result of infighting among Jewish sects, not to the level of a brutal civil war, but sufficient to command God’s attention and determination to punish his chosen people. The sages characterized the misbehavior endemic to the sects of first century Judea as a sin of “baseless hatred,” known in Hebrew as sinat chinam.

Increasingly, I find the actions of leaders in both Israel and the United States today rife with sinat chinam.

In Israel, coalition governments have given religious-right parties power beyond their numbers. In wielding their influence, these ultra-orthodox parties have or have tried to impose religious practices anathema to a majority of Jews living within Israel and the Diaspora. Their ideas include proposals to amend regulations governing conversions, marriages, and the definition of who is a Jew. Rather than instill universal support for Israel, these devilish designs have fractured Jewish solidarity.

Here in America, we are experiencing a profound period of intellectual intolerance. Nasty does not come close to describing the tenor of political discourse. The lack of respect both for the person and for the office held by the opposition is palpable.

We are, in short, wallowing in the sin of baseless hatred. You don’t have to be Jewish to acknowledge sinat chinam; Christians believe in it, as well: http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Summer_Holidays/Tishah_B_Av/Sinat_Chinam/sinat_chinam.html.

There are too few democracies in the world. It would be tragic if sinat chinam led to their reduced ability to contribute to another Jewish concept, tikkun olam (repairing the world, often through social action, community service and social justice).