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Posts Tagged ‘current-events’

Windows and Doors

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on February 5, 2016| 2 Comments »

Let’s be perfectly clear. When you become a parent, your job description cannot be Googled. Your pediatrician doesn’t hand you a handbook. Here’s my one big piece of advice – don’t try and be your child’s “friend.” She or he will have grandparents, cousins and friends of their own some day to complain to about all the stupid rules they grew up with; no belly rings, no tattoos; no crying in public – what you didn’t have those rules?

If you’re lucky, your adult child may become a friend. Someday they will thank you for those rules! But I can tell you one thing I’m really glad we didn’t have when my kids were little – smart phones! Because teenagers have been breaking our rules since time immemorial and sneaking out of windows in the middle of the night. Only right here in Blackburg, VA, a thirteen year old girl, a vulnerable liver transplant recipient, arranged on her phone to meet with two VA Tech students outside her window in the pre-dawn light.

And after finding her body across the state line, prosecutors found out about her murderers, both student predators, David Eisenhauer, 18 and Natalie Keepers, 19, by searching their cell history:

But the prosecutor said messages on the girl’s phone led to the suspects, and accused the college freshmen of deciding together in a fast-food restaurant that Eisenhauer would cut her throat. Defense lawyers argued that Keepers’ mental health could unravel behind bars.” http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/state/both-tech-students-plotted-to-kill-girl-prosecutor-says/article_0ea7ac28-cbb3-11e5-8e92-ef91c22cfffe.html

Now this young college woman, Keepers, someone with such promise who wanted to study aerospace engineering, is asking the court to allow her to take ALL her anti-anxiety medicine in jail…so she can get a tattoo?! Of a semi-colon…maybe she’ll write the next Orange is the New Black screenplay?

I had never heard of the App Eisenhauer and his victim were using to disguise their communication, but Kik is basically a way to disguise messages and photos, so naturally teens love it, it’s virtually impossible for parents to monitor. And there’s the problem. Because if I did have a teenager now, you can bet I’d have all their passwords and be randomly monitoring them! I may masquerade as a liberal, free-thinker type, but my inward tiger mom would take over for sure. And I’m not just talking about girls, young boys can be fodder for digital predators too.

“When you give your kid a phone, ‘it’s almost like taking your front door off your house'” http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/02/04/kik-messaging-app-scrutinized-wake-va-teens-murder/79826224/

Last year it was Snapchat, and you can be sure next year there will be a new messaging App for teens, a way to evade their parents’ eyes and rules. While we were in Puerto Rico, we visited a man who was expecting his young grandchildren to arrive soon from Maryland. I looked at his tropical oasis with a beautiful, completely open, unfenced pool. Wasn’t this a hazard? He said of course they kept eagle eyes on the children, but he only had three rules for them:

  1. Be a good listener
  2. Be careful
  3. Make good decisions

My brother Michael had a saying for his kids, “Always do the right and proper thing.” In this day and age, when young women may now have to register for the draft along with young men, http://bigstory.ap.org/a3a36a7b1fa74379910088d9220994b8 I would only add one more rule about smart phones.

Do something, anything people. Put them down at dinner? Leave them charging in the living room and not next to their bed? Delay giving your child a phone for as long as humanly possible? If we parents and grandparents can’t model sane, non-addictive cell phone usage, why should we expect the same from them?

The snow is almost gone, the mountains are back into focus. I am heartsick for those parents. I’d like to not write about anymore missing girls, or some stranger luring them out of their house through an open window.  IMG_3804

 

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The Big Squeeze

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 8, 2016| 2 Comments »

Last night I ventured out into the rolling hills of Albemarle County to attend a cocktail/get-together/girl-fest at an old friend’s farm. It was billed as a “Squeeze,” to reference a term associated with Dolley Madison.

With an astute sense of purpose and considerable charm, Dolley Madison navigated the waters of Washington society in an unprecedented way. She brought together disparate groups of politicians, diplomats, and local residents in a social setting. Weekly parties, called “Wednesday drawing rooms,” or “Mrs. Madison’s crush or squeeze,” provided a relaxed atmosphere for politicking and mingling. With no invitation required, these parties sometimes attracted four hundred guests. Some individuals who rarely associated with one another found themselves together at the White House. Even a boycott by President Madison’s opposition party, the Federalists, fizzled when members realized there was no political advantage to staying away.  http://www.whitehousehistory.org/teacher-resources/saving-history-dolley-madison-the-white-house-and-the-war-of-1812

I met a past Mayor of Charlottesville, an art and fashion historian, and the woman who ran the county’s social service network for thirty years. I talked with a lovely young woman who coordinates Planned Parenthood’s educational initiatives. It was an incredible evening jam-packed with energy, enthusiasm and best of all, fun.

Since I knew I was among “my People,” I asked almost everyone one important question – Hillary or Bernie? And I must say that Bernie was winning in my anecdotal poll. His approach to politics hasn’t changed; he’s deliberate and determined, much more progressive than Hillary. And they all liked his wife, who kind of reminds me of Dolley.

So while Planned Parenthood put their considerable support behind Hillary, and the President was in NOVA schooling the nation about guns at a Town Hall meeting, Trump was vowing to get rid of gun-free school zones. I was dumbstruck!

At least this will be an election year where the stakes are very clear. Would you like the NRA to continue influencing public policy? How about writing bills according to one’s religion? Or would you rather elect someone with integrity, someone who won’t mock disabled people. Someone who actually believes in science?

I’ve been thinking about Dolley this morning. She was thrown out of her Quaker religion for marrying outside her faith and never looked back. She and President Madison retired right up the road apace at Montpelier. Her reputation was secured in 1812, when was brave enough to stay at the White House while the British advanced, saving many of the nation’s art treasures, including that famous portrait of Washington. But it was that indescribable something that set her apart, her “joie de vivre.”  Her …”social skills, charm and personal popularity to win over her husband’s political opponents and help advance his career.”

Dr Jim always says it’s personality that can cog up the works in any business. But it’s also personality that can help a system as big as the federal government run smoothly. Above all else, we need another Dolley (or the male equivalent) to get our legislators talking and in the same room, if not on the same page. A civil discourse, is it too much to expect?     IMG_3722

 

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Are You Hungry?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on January 5, 2016| 2 Comments »

If you grew up in a certain type of household, you would never enter or leave your home without being offered food of some sort. The usual response from my stepfather, the Jewish Judge,  would be, “I *could* eat!”

Fast forward to now, and just try to get out of Great Grandma Ada’s house without a bag of snacks for the journey. Seriously, she will tackle you with Buffalo Cake! It doesn’t matter how long you’ll be on the road, you *might* get hungry, right?

Well who whoulda thunk that the Oregon militiamen would have saddled up their pick-ups with guns and ammo to occupy a federal wildlife sanctuary gift shop and – wait for it – forgot to bring provisions. I mean really? Obviously there are no white guys in this group of Middle Eastern or Italian descent! Here is the tweet that one guy named Blaine sent out, expecting the US Post Office to deliver a package to their well-armed doorstep.

“ATTENTION…SHARE…ATTENTION…SHARE!!!! Anyone that wants to send any supplies (or snacks) can send them to General Mail, Burns, OR”

Here is my solution. You’ve got guns, so go use them as God intended. Shoot a pheasant and roast it outside, on a fire, you guys know how to make a fire right? Make squirrel stew, forage for greens and berries (I know it’s January, but try) and once you run out of soda from the vending machines, melt some snow.

Pundits are saying this would never be tolerated if a bunch of Muslims or African Americans took over a federal building. Let’s see, first of all they would have thought ahead and brought food. And most importantly of all, they would not have brought GUNS. The whole point of a Gandhi/MLKing type protest, or school sit-in like we Boomers used to do in the 60s, is that you sit down and don’t move.

The point is the non-violence part! You bring your own snacks and wait to get dragged out by those police or the national guard. This is what makes a good visual on TV or your nearest hand held device. This is what changes hearts and minds! Not a guy in a cowboy hat with a gun saying he doesn’t want to die here. Guess what, we don’t want you to die there either.

On second thought, maybe we should send him food?

We lived on the border of a bird sanctuary in the Berkshires. And I’m just guessing, but if these guys came to Canoe Meadows in MA, the whole town of Pittsfield would have run them out in a heartbeat. With picnic baskets from Lenox.

Rough-Meadows-credit-Alan-B-Ward

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A Study In Money

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on January 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

Purely speaking, we all know money can only get us so far. The finer things yes, like cars and homes and private schools. But I always thought it can’t buy you happiness. Rich people can be just as miserable in their second home as somebody in their rented walk-up. Optimism is available to one and all. And I like to think we can all still aspire toward that American Dream with enough hard work and luck!

What money certainly can buy you, in this country, is legal representation should you screw up.

Which is exactly what happened to Ethan Couch, that “Affluenza Teen” in Texas. How many of us have done something dreadful, used poor judgement in whatever shape or form, at the age of sixteen? Admit it. Bob has often said he would never get away with some of things he did then, if his sixteen-year-old self tried them now.

My point is that the Texas teen may or may not know right from wrong when he royally screwed up, killing four people while driving drunk. His parents hired a great legal team that came up with that defense, and he was tried as a juvenile. Which is as it should be, we’d all want our child to have a second chance at life. To find redemption eventually once his brain stops growing at around age 25. To become a mensch. We are a country that believes in second chances.

But let’s face it, Couch received probation because he came from a wealthy family. Let’s think what might have happened to a poor boy of color. In Texas.

I thought a lot about him while I was reading this article in The Atlantic at the gym: “The Silicon Valley Suicides” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/ It was all about the stress of top tier high school students wanting to go to Stanford, taking lots of AP classes, not sleeping and some are jumping in front of trains. In fact, they have a second cluster of high achieving teen suicides in Palo Alto, California. What I found fascinating was a secondary Yale Psychiatry study that was referenced.

In the inner-city school, 86 percent of students received free or reduced-price lunches; in the suburban school, 1 percent did. Yet in the richer school, the proportion of kids who smoked, drank, or used hard drugs was significantly higher—as was the rate of serious anxiety and depression. This anomaly started Luthar down a career-long track studying the vulnerabilities of students within what she calls “a culture of affluence.”

The researcher, Suniya Luthar, found that in comparing students across the board along socio-economic standing, she came up with a statistical U curve, ie the poorest students and those from the wealthiest families had the highest incidence of discipline and behavior problems. Aha, so someone actually is researching what’s going on in our schools! But surely it’s not ALL about the money.

To paraphrase F Scott Fitzgerald, the very rich are very different from you and me. I would only add because they can afford a good defense. Why should we expect their children to hold any better virtues, to have a moral compass,when their parents do not? A mother who runs to Mexico with her fugitive son, and pays his tab at the strip club, deserves our sympathy. And maybe some counseling while she sits in a jail cell awaiting her right to due process.    5p0fkm-L

 

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May the Force Awaken

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2015| 3 Comments »


“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”                

Willa Cather

I wonder about the Star Wars hype this weekend, will Star Wars: The Force Awakens live up to its name? To be honest, I was enamored of the first trilogy. In fact, we took the Bride to “see” her very first movie when she was six months old, 1980s The Empire Strikes Back. She was enthralled with the lights for the first half hour, then fell promptly asleep in my arms.

We know that this is really an old fashioned morality play, a fight between good and evil. George Lucas and writer/philosopher Joseph Campbell were friends, and we know that Campbell’s book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” helped Lucas flesh out his sci-fi plot. But the story is as ancient as Aristotle. A young hero arises, is given a test, finds a mentor, must go into a cave to fight the dragon, returning victorious. Of course in each telling, the journey becomes infused with different details, but the story remains the same.

Carl Jung also detailed creation myths and archetypes of universal characters from around the world long before the internet helped to flatten it. The Swiss psychologist wrote about “… constantly repeating characters who occur in the dreams of all people and the myths of all cultures (and) suggested that these archetypes are a reflection of aspects of the human mind – that our personalities divide themselves into these characters to play out the drama of our lives.”

Jung spoke to our “collective unconscious.” A place where every culture invents its own religion and set of rules in order to make sense of the vast universe, to answer some old existential question like how did we get in this mess?:

” A young hero, the wise old man or woman, the shape-shifting woman or man, and the shadowy antagonist.”     http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero’s_journey.htm

Listening to the GOP debate this week, it all sounds too familiar. ISIS is the Evil Empire, and for some reason it will take one of these conservative hawks to defeat it. But they are not the heroes in my playbook. Because they can’t see what’s happening right here at home. The bloodshed our own home-grown terrorists have caused, our own mentally ill with guns – killing themselves, accidentally killing their children, murdering unarmed people on the street. Killing a nine year old boy for the “sins” of his father.

When the whole LA County school system has to shut down because of a threat, we may be too late to the battle. One thing Campbell’s hero would have done, he would have recognized these GOP tricksters for what they are. He OR She would have found a way to change our collective perception of Evil.

I heard a refugee from Syria on NPR say the jihadists are all young men buying candy bars and Cokes with American dollars. We need to fix our American dream, in order to sell it to them. We need to reawaken the hero in us all.

Here is my hero in the aviary. He just got a new iPhone, after years of refusing to come over to the Light Side of Apple. May the Force be With You!  IMG_3616

 

 

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Thinking Aloud

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on December 8, 2015| 1 Comment »

Good Morning Yiddish fans! And Happy second day of Hannukah. As a lapsed Catholic, I tried to compete with Christmas for my kids. I’d have Santa leave a present, I’d wrap up something big for the first and last night, and continue to wrap smaller presents for all the nights inbetween. We played the dreidel game with M&Ms. I fried latkes, potato pancakes, because there is always a special food item associated with each Jewish holiday. I really really tried…

Needless to say it was a mistake. There is no competing with Christmas as I learned after attending Rockefeller Center’s Holiday Extravaganza with the Bride when she was about 7 years old. Walking up Madison Avenue, tears streaming down her face, because Hannukah wasn’t even mentioned. They had a camel on stage, but no menorah. “It was ALL about Christmas!” she wailed. And I was stumped since I love the Rockettes and expected her to love it too. Which leads me to today’s expression:

Vos ahfen lung iz ahfen tsung

Which means, “What’s on his mind is on his tongue.” We all know someone like this. They are childlike in that every thought gains expression; on the Monopoly board of their mind, words tumble out, they do not pass Go at all, and sometimes this lands them in Jail.

As we age, this kind of short circuitry may happen more often. We forget social cues, our super ego steps aside and we say whatever pops into our head. Doctors call this a disinhibition, as if the filter in our brain is too full, so all our thoughts tumble out without mercy. Ada’s husband Great Grandpa Hudson is notorious for this. At 90 years of age, of course it’s allowed and amusing at times.

Like that Jim Carrey movie “Liar Liar” about a lawyer who can’t stop telling the truth, thinking aloud can be an affliction. Maybe this is part of Trump’s appeal. He is saying what his followers would like to say, only they know it would sound horribly fascist, except wait, Trump is saying stupid things so maybe their bigoted belief system has merit? This morning even Dick Cheney denounced Trump’s rhetoric. Will wonders ever cease?

I no longer try to compete or fight with Christmas. Here we are at the hospital “Holiday Party.” Note the beautiful red and green holiday wreath behind us!

IMG_3577

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Unbearable

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on November 28, 2015| 2 Comments »

It’s been a whirlwind week. On Thursday, we cooked up a storm of scrumptious sides for Thanksgiving in Richmond. On Friday, the Great Grandparents boarded their Amtrak chariot and arrived home safely; for the first time ever, because of a Bar Mitzvah, Ada stayed with us more than three days! This had always been the rule when visiting us in MA, she would stay no more than three days, and I’m happy she broke it.

Later we managed to stop at friend’s farm so the Grandbabies could see her miniature horses. Then off we drove to Culpeper for a double duty day of two sets of Grandparents. The Groom’s parents and his brother and sister live in Northern VA, so a meeting for brunch midway between Cville and our nation’s Capital was on the docket. It was wonderful to spend time with Grandma Shavaun and Grandpa Mike, and fantastic to see the love for these miniature miracles spread around town.

Against my better judgement, I even slipped into a small toy store while walking around town. Christmas spirit was evident in Master Card swipes and helpful elves.

But when we got home, ahead of the Bride’s family, I heard the news about another shooting in Colorado. About Planned Parenthood. It was the same newscasters, the same nouns, the same verbs, the same phrases were used to describe an unbearable and all too common event in our culture.

“A LIVE SHOOTING!”

Come one, come all and gather round your TV to watch the event unfold – like a modern day scene from a Civil War battle with people picnicking on a hillside overlooking the battle. And I just couldn’t. I can no longer listen to the slaughter or onslaught of talking heads trying to find rhyme and reason. I’ve said it before, it’s the guns. Period. And I fear our homegrown/nutjob/terrorists much more than a refugee with a different religion.

Today is a free day. There will be no more news on any device. We will visit with old friends and play with Grandbabies. No more cooking. We will dine at a kid-friendly place tonight. And later, when it’s time for bed, I will try and explain to my Love Bug that monsters are just pretend. That the noises she hears are just our house creaking and pipes carrying water. Or maybe there’s a fox in the woods? I will fib when I tell her that the gunshots we hear from hunters in the valley are just cars backfiring.

I could not bear to tell her the truth. We have accepted active shooter drills in our schools, what is next?    IMG_3548.jpg

 

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Expeditionary Diplomacy

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2015| 1 Comment »

He sent his wife and child to the country so they could eat fresh strawberries. He hoisted the Union Jack above his residence, which he calculated was about three miles from a Federal garrison. In April of 1861, he actually boarded a dinghy in Charleston Harbor to get closer to the shelling of Fort Sumter.

Robert Bunch was the British Consul in Charleston, SC during the years of secessionist talk leading up to the Civil War, and I’m smack dab in the middle of reading the non-fiction novel by  Christopher Dickey, “Our Man in Charleston: Britain’s Secret Agent in the Civil War South.” I thought it would help me understand the city while we were visiting it, but I was wrong. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-undercover-abolitionist-1437160470

Britain’s attitudes toward slavery were complex. In 1807, Britain and the United States had outlawed the trade, but unlike the Americans, the British were serious about it: The Royal Navy was charged with capturing slave ships off the African coast. In 1833, the U.K. freed all of the slaves within its empire. And yet, Mr. Dickey writes, “England hated slavery but loved the cotton the slaves raised [in the American South] and British industry depended on it.”

The African Slave Trade had been illegal for over 50 years. Now the North was enforcing the law, captured slave ships were being towed into the harbor for all to see; Dickey’s description of one is enough to make you sick. But Mr. Bunch was tasked with repealing the “Negroe Seamen’s Act,” which meant that any ship docked in the harbor, under any flag, must hand over every Black on board, free or not, to the jail until said ship left the port. The conditions of the prison meant that many men either died from disease or torture, while the lucky ones escaped to be captured and enslaved.

Still last night, during Hillary Clinton’s impressive marathon grilling on the Hill, I was struck by how many times she referred to Benghazi as a “19th Century posting.” So I wondered how present day Libya might compare to the pre-Civil War South. And it seems that communication is fraught with peril now, as it was then. That sense of distrust; Bunch (who was accepted by the aristocrats in the city, while he abhorred their sentimental reasoning for slavery) sent private couriers to Washington with his dispatches in code. He was a diplomat, a spy, and his own security force rolled up into one man.

All that badgering of Mrs Clinton, about how her email messages were received, if she was alone on the night in question, why Blumenthal had access, had she signed a waiver, if her diplomat had her private phone number…? It was maddening, and it was sad. Because it showed us, the American people, the antipathy, the malicious partisanship our leaders have wallowed in for so long.

I was reminded of Bunch’s “Smile of Indifference.” Hillary is our woman in Washington – a 21st Century presidential candidate, in a sea of Republican nonsense. “The frightful evil of the system is that it debases the whole tone of society — for the people talk calmly of horrors which would not be mentioned in civilized society.”  

The sign outside an H&M store in the Kress building

The sign outside an H&M store in the Kress building, Charleston

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Southern Comfort

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 9, 2015| 2 Comments »

When we first moved to Virginia, I heard about a police shooting in our community from the EMT who responded to the scene. The black person who was shot in the back, made the unfortunate choice to try and rob a house and then kill the K9 dog who was tracking him. The dead dog got more press than anyone else attached to the incident. The criminal didn’t die, but he was paralyzed for life and though I’ve lost track of that case, I’m pretty sure we taxpayers are now paying for his incarceration and medical bills.

“Blacks are about 12 percent of the US population. But 41 percent of UNARMED people killed by police.”

This was the Tweet I woke up to this morning from Nate Silver referencing the South Carolina murder of a black man running away from a policeman. Was he stopped because of his tail light, was there really a struggle over a taser, or was he shot in the back because he was guilty of driving a Mercedes while black?

Ten years ago, I remember thinking that NJ/NY police would never shoot someone in the back. Was I naive? I thought Amadou Diallo was an aberration, a one-off. http://criminaldefense.homestead.com/diallo.html

I’ve been laid low by a spring virus courtesy of my sweet grandson. Between naps, and a runny nose, I heard that the police chief in SC is calling for more body cams on police officers. Let’s face it, if that guy didn’t whip out his smart phone to record the latest shooting, we would never have heard of Walter Scott, a 50 year old father. That officer would not have been arrested. And technology trumps justice again.

But technology, body cams are not the answer. If you belong to a race that is 3 times more likely to be killed by a cop; a race  the DOJ says one of every three men can expect to spend time in jail; a race that is 60% of the prison population, akin to apartheid in our country, the facts are in. The Ferguson factor is real. Michael Brown at least wasn’t shot in the back. That is cold southern comfort.IMG_2438

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Seder Time

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on April 2, 2015| 2 Comments »

What is it about this time of year? I realize it just recently snowed some up North, but traveling from VA to TN yesterday Bob and I witnessed Spring in all her glory. White Bradford pear trees are in bloom, and forsythia are bursting into their yellow coats. Last night birds were trumpeting us into the Music City; later, we played on the front porch with the Love Bug and said “Hey” to neighbors walking children and dogs.

Great Grandma Ada and Hudson will arrive today with Uncle Jeff for Friday night’s seder. With Cousin Sue gone, it doesn’t make sense for Ada to slave away in the kitchen for days just to celebrate a holiday about leaving slavery behind. In her 90th year she deserves to relax, it’s about time the younger generation took over. This year we skipped the Blue Ridge mountains   because the Groom is on call in the MICU. For the first time in 36 years, I bequeath the haroses to the Bride!

Here is my recipe:

Mix together 2 or 3 chopped apples with chopped walnuts, raisins, dried apricots and dates. Add a smidgen of Kosher wine and honey and voila, you have the condiment of condiments. The stuffing for your Hillel sandwich.

I brought along my seder plate from the Berkshires. It was thrown by a friend’s husband, Thomas Hoadley, http://thomashoadley.com/bio an exceptional potter. I remember when Bob was chasing after a cat and accidentally knocked it off a shelf in Windsor, MA. I was so heartbroken because it was the very first piece of real art I had ever picked out myself, and it was someone we knew, someone we sat with on a blanket at Tanglewood. Luckily, his wife Stephanie supplied me with another! https://www.hoadleygallery.com

We won’t hide eggs, but we will hide matzoh for the children. Cousin Jenny’s new baby girl will have to wait to meet the Love Bug’s now 5 month old brother. I am always surprised to think that right at sundown, all over the world, Jews will be sitting down to this dinner theatre. The equivalent might be if Christians everywhere sat down to dinner at the exact hour all over the world on Christmas Eve, but before they ate someone would recite the story of how they managed to survive all these years. No junior, no food for you until we recite all the saints and what they had to endure to remain Christian.

Only eventually Christians became the dominant religion in the West. After reading the Atlantic’s front page article, “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?” http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leave-europe/386279/ about the rise of hatred and anti-semitism, I feel bereft.

The previously canonical strain of European anti-Semitism, the fascist variant, still flourishes in places. In Hungary, a leader of the right-wing Jobbik party called on the government—a government that has come under criticism for whitewashing the history of Hungary’s collaboration with the Nazis—to draw up a list of all the Jews in the country who might pose a “national-security risk.” In Greece, a recent survey found that 69 percent of adults hold anti-Semitic views, and the fascists of the country’s Golden Dawn party are open in their Jew-hatred.

Is it possible that in the future the only safe place to be Jewish will be in Israel? The ratio of Jew to Arab in France is 1 to 10. Instead of saying Je Suis Charlie, one commentator said, we should be saying, “Je Suis Juif!”

And instead of fighting over which Islamic sect has dibs on their prophet, has dominance and power in the Middle East and Africa,, maybe Muslims around the world should begin to remember their shared values over dinner at Ramadan. I’m pretty sure they would not include flying planes into buildings or suicide vests.

When we break bread together, or matzoh, we can see into each other’s souls. Have a peaceful Easter/Passover weekend. I can only wish that my grandchildren – that ALL our grandchildren – will be able to live without fear. To not always have a bag packed.     IMG_2398

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