If you're so "woke", why are you SILENT (or chanting for my people to be wiped out)?

The Times of Israel article I've linked below is hard to read and to share, but the world must know.  The world must see.  The world saw what unfolded on October 7th and yet almost immediately chose to look away and to chant slogans about wiping Israel off the map.  The world trained its misguided righteous wrath on the victim, not the perpetrator--Hamas.

And now the world calls "Ceasefire now!  Ceasefire now!", not "Hamas:  release the hostages now!  Release the hostages now!" (By the way, that is the way to get a ceasefire now:  demand that Hamas release all the hostages NOW.)

And where are the self-described feminists, and progressives, as more and more the horrors of the sexual violence, the rape, the torture, that was perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th, and continues to be perpetrated on at least some of the hostages, continues to come to light?

Your SILENCE speaks so, so many disgusting volumes.  I don't know which is worse, when you are silent or when you are chanting for my people, the Jewish people, to be wiped out (alternating with gaslighting us with labels and words that do NOT apply to our actions and which DO re-traumatize us and cause us harm in ways you can never, ever begin to imagine--so much for "woke" progressives never wanting to cause harm to, or re-traumatize, indigenous peoples, which you supposedly are SO big on:  you are an EPIC FAIL on that front, as, guess what?  WE--Jews--ARE indigenous people, and to where?  Three guesses and the second two don't count:  ISRAEL, look it the rhymes-with-duck up!).  You know that wiping us out is what you are oh-so-self-righteously chanting for, right?  You know what your chants mean, yes?

So a pogrom, slaughter, massacre, shooting babies in the heads, beheading them, dragging Holocaust survivors and families and other babies and hundreds of other innocent people from their homes and from a peace-promoting music festival and into dark tunnels, and raping people, this is all okay with you, yes?  Thought so, okay, so I just have to say:  you may want to get checked out because you have a confirmed case of antisemitism and it has reached extreme fever level.  Your actions are therefore not rational whatsoever and you are a danger to others.  Please go hydrate, rest, and read some HISTORY BOOKS.

But even without doing that, you should be against RAPE, period, right?  I mean, if you are so progressive and such a feminist, do I speak the truth?  Because if you are, then take your febrile self out into the streets and/or onto social media and speak up against Hamas raping people, or do you not care because said people are Jewish?

Click this link for Times of Israel piece: "Released hostage Amit Soussana tells NYT she was sexually assaulted by Hamas captor in Gaza"

Dream Weaver

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of my handful of true heroes.  Today, I have the day off of work, which I profoundly need.  I'm under so much pressure and have a lot of upsetting things going on with my job.  So this is a welcome day off.  But it is so much more.  Today is a day to stop, in my case, all the "adulting" (checking my bank balance on line, paying bills, doing laundry, cleaning the cat box--already did that one but anyway, etc.) I do need to do also today, take a pause, and reflect on the importance of Dr. King's actions and legacy.

In 2024, we have a Governor of Texas lamenting that it is too bad he can't just shoot people attempting to cross the border.  You have the Republican frontrunner for President of the United States running ads appealing to the xenophobic (his base) demographic of voters, referring to "illegals".  Not "illegal immigrants", no:  that would make them human beings.  Just "illegals".  This is a blatant (and sadly, effective) attempt at othering:  at reducing human beings in a given group other than your own to a sub-human status.  This has been done successfully throughout history by, for example, Hitler and the Nazis in the Holocaust, by America throughout slavery, and by 45 during his previous administration to, among others, all immigrants.  This man and his administration kidnapped babies at the border, did not keep records of who they belong with, put them on the floor in literal cages, with mylar "blankets", and left them alone (babies, alone) in those concentration camps (and yes, they were concentration camps--that is not an exaggeration, as I do not throw that term around carelessly or lightly, only when it is accurate) for YEARS in some cases.  45 kidnapped, orphaned, neglected, tortured and traumatized these babies and children, as President of the United States of America, so in all of our names.

45 now campaigns on the same successful, xenophobic, "othering" platform/fuel that he used to win in 2016.  In 2016 he talked openly in his primary campaign--in fact, he "vowed" to do this--about "banning all Muslims from entering America".  That, my friends--that right there--was vowing to violate the constitution.  I posted at the time, in 2015 or 2016, whenever he said that, that the Republican Party should disqualify him as a candidate in their primary field because he was openly vowing to violate the constitution that he would be taking an oath to uphold if elected POTUS.  I have since realized (in fairness to the disgusting repug party) that I'm not sure a political party can disqualify someone from running on their primary ticket, once they are in the race, but anyway:  I clearly saw back then what a threat Trump was to everything America stands for at its best, every ideal of America I was raised to love and aspire to make more and more real instead of ideal, and to our constitution itself.  And, as we saw play out during the 45 era and now beyond, 45 is indeed a fascist, and a treasonous traitor.  And scarier than that:  there are a significant number of Americans who are all for that, in a big way.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an eloquent, inspiring, courageous person who not only gave the most amazing speeches I've personally ever heard (I was just a baby and a tot when he gave them, but I have listened to them many times since and, *every time*, I cry, during "I Have a Dream" in particular), but who put his life on the line time and time again to advance civil rights for African-American people in this country, where they have been so terribly oppressed (even to the point of being brought here--kidnapped and brought here--against their will and kept as slaves, as we all know) throughout American history.  This alone makes him heroic.  But who he was, what he did, and what he stood for, was so much more and bigger than even that, which was so big and awesome in itself.

Martin Luther King believed in the principle of creative, non-violent resistance.  He believed in the POWER of it.  He believed in the righteousness of it.  He got me to believe in it.  He was inspired by Gandhi.  He knew it worked and it is, like I said, a righteous path.  And honestly as I write this, I find myself in tears because (perhaps like Dr. King himself in the last few years of his life, from some things I have heard yet never wanted to think/believe were true), I no longer think creative, non-violent resistance is *always* the path.  But I DO still think and feel and passionately believe is it *always* what we need to think of *first*, and try whenever it is even at all possible.  It's the go-to.  And he taught me that.  His words rang out (they did that--they positively rang, like inspiring music) when I was just a baby/tot, from my parents' radio or television.  They absorbed into my very DNA.  And I was raised to believe in bringing about social change via the path of love, of creative, non-violent resistance.

I've been in so many protests and marches and rallies.  I've been teargassed.  I've had a gun brandished and pointed at me/us.  And some of the social change I've engaged in creative non-violent resistance to bring about has happened.  Quite a bit has not.  Quite a bit has stayed the same or worsened.  Yet I still believe in the power of creative, non-violent resistance.  It is still my go-to.  Even though I'm older and I'm way sadder and I'm utterly dismayed.  Even though things may seem hopeless (as I'm sure they did to Rosa Parks and all those who broke barriers that seemed hopelessly impossible to break), I still believe in TRYING.  Even though I now also know that sometimes the path of utter non-violence not only seems but is impossible.  Even though I feel like that is a betrayal of MLK and Gandhi and Herman Wrice, even to say/write/feel... know that.  Yet even though now I am not the idealist I once was, and it breaks my heart to say that, I still always want to TRY for that.  I still carry the music and the substance of Dr. King's idealism and practical idealism in my heart, soul and imagination.  And there was something else he taught, another part of his idealism besides non-violent resistance, that is a part of me:  we may have differences on the outside but human beings are all the same inside and we all share that common, universal humanity.

It's not okay to shoot immigrants as they try to cross into our country, or to stop people from rendering aid to them as they drown trying to get here.  It's not okay to kidnap babies at the border, keep no records of who they belong to/with, and put them in cages.  It's not okay to take away women's rights, or the right of consenting adults to marry who they love.  We still have have to put in the work to bend the arc toward justice.  And love.  Even in this violent, disheartening world, we can't give up.  We have to keep trying.  When I listen to "I Have a Dream" again today (and I will), it won't be with such a pure, flower child, idealistic heart and soul as I used to come to it with, as I used to hear it with.  Honestly, it will be with a heavy, disillusioned, sad heart.  But I will still listen to it.  And I will still love it.  And I will still know that Dr. King's highest ideals are my highest ideals and the ones I believe lead to a healthy world and what in Judaism is called "tikkun olam" (to mend, heal and repair the world).  I will still know that we have to keep trying.  We have to keep dreaming and *working for the dream* in everything we do.

100 Days

100 days.

100 Days since the October 7th massacre.  The most Jewish people murdered in one day since the Holocaust.  Babies beheaded.  Holocaust survivors murdered.  Women raped.  And the perpetrators cheered and celebrated.

Hundreds also were taken hostage 100 days ago.  Only a few have been released.  Over a hundred hostages are still in Gaza.  In dark tunnels.  And in other places.  Enduring an unimaginable hell, as are many other innocent people who now are victims of the resultant war caused by Hamas' actions on and since October 7th.

The evil, genocidal murderers who slaughtered over a thousand Jewish people because they want to wipe out Jews and Israel refuse to talk about a deal to release all the hostages, even if it would also include their (Hamas') ability to have safe passage out of Gaza.  Why?  Because they are only interested in genocide against Jews and wiping out Israel, and they have stated again and again that October 7th was only the beginning.

Yet the world began gaslighting Israel and the Jewish people virtually the moment the massacre and kidnappings happened.  Where is the worldwide condemnation of Hamas for their genocidal rampage, slaughtering the most Jews in one day since the Holocaust, raping women, and kidnapping babies and holding them hostage for 100 days?  WHERE is the outcry?

The only outcry I heard immediately was "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!"  The only outcry I hear is people gaslighting Israel and the Jewish people, trying to erase our history, calling us "white colonizers" and saying we are not indigenous to Israel when we are, when we have been colonized throughout history, when the world told us we should "go home" as we (my own ancestors--my own very recent ancestors) were being systemically gassed in death camps in Germany.  Six million of us "white colonizers" (I guess we weren't "white" enough for Hitler) were slaughtered as the world turned a blind eye.  No one wanted to take us in, they just all said, go home, go back where you came from.  That would be Israel.

So I ask tonight, on the 100th day of babies in tunnels, where is the outcry for Hamas to release the hostages?  Where is the outcry against genocide against us, the Jewish people?  The only outcry I hear and see are people, like I said, gaslighting us, saying we shouldn't defend ourselves, we shouldn't be trying to take out the terrorists, we shouldn't be trying to rescue our people.  Our Holocaust survivors.  Our BABIES.  Our men, women and children.

Where is the outcry?  All I hear is the aforementioned slogan that calls for wiping out Israel, and a traumatic and overwhelming degree of gaslighting untruths.  That is all that punctuates the deafening silence.

#BringThemHome

To quote the fictional Dr. Ian Malcolm's Famous "Jurassic Park" understatement: "I'm fairly alarmed here."

Good morning, friends.  I have to get to work in a few minutes but just am popping on my little Chromebook here to say:  have we all become so numb and/or glazed over re anything 45 does or has done that we just now learn of, that we are incapable of complete, or even a modicum of, outrage at the man, and are too exhausted to even fathom taking to the streets to demand he be removed from the ballots of every single state in this precious union on account of his utter criminal lawlessness and constitution violating?  What am I on about specifically?  Well, I'll tell you:

So CNN is reporting this fine a.m. that 45 called Wayne County, MI election canvassing board members (oh, and, by the way, THERE ARE TAPES) and pressured them not to certify the 2020 election results.  One of the people he called said that he told her he was "concerned for her safety" if she certified the election results.  Folks, have you ever heard of a little something called THE MAFIA?  That is a straight-up mob tactic of the most classic variety!!!!!!!!!  That's the quintessential:  "It would be a shame if anything happened to your family..." threat!!!!!!!!!

Let this all sink in because the POTUS was personally calling and threatening the Wayne County officials NOT to certify the results of a free and fair presidential election in this country.

Now, I know what you all are thinking:  "And?  How is this different from any of the zillions of other calls and actions and tweets in a typical day of the 45 presidency?"  And you are right:  it's not different.  It's the same, and we SHOULD get riled up about it, not just finish our breakfast and off to work, normal day.  THIS MAN CAN NEVER BE PRESIDENT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know how he always projects his terrible traits onto others when he attacks?  Well another way he projects is that he always says that if "they" (othering at its finest) win, "we won't have a country anymore".  Wrong, 45:  if YOU win, America will only be the same in name only.

Get alarmed, people.  Get active.  VOTE in 2024.  We can't afford numbness and exhaustion.

Nes Gadol Haya Po

I'm starting Chanukah before Chanukah this year, musing-about-it-wise. It takes on such an intense poignancy this year. So here is my musing for/about Chanukah 5784:

The miracle is that we are still here.
We are the light that won't go out.
Despite everything.
Despite that this year people are trying to rewrite history.
And rewrite the present.
We refused to let our light go out thousands of years ago.
We refused be extinguished.
We refuse to let our light go out now.
We refuse to be extinguished.
The candles stay lit.
Nes gadol haya po.

Cue music!

(The song linked below, Bohemian Chanukah, by Six13, has many lighthearted and even utterly hilarious moments, yet also moments that convey the deeper meaning of Chanukah which, like I said at the top of this musing, is feeling very intense this year to me.)

Bohemian Chanukah, by Six13

Shloshim: 30 Days of Grief

I was young, yet I well remember, when the American hostages were taken in Iran.  Not only was it the top story in the news for the duration (and it was a long duration), it 100% gripped the nation.  America had never (in my young lifetime at that point, anyway) felt so helpless before.  And America, a superpower, was not used to and did not like feeling helpless.  Yellow ribbons adorned trees in every yard, in every park, everywhere.  Many people (not I, but many--mostly Republicans--who didn’t like President Jimmy Carter anyway) were clamoring for President Carter to do something drastic, and tee-shirts abounded that said bellicose things like “Nuke Iran”.  The American people—no matter whether you favored diplomatic channels, full on nuking of the hostage takers and the entire country (including all the innocent civilians in same, presumably) they were in, or anything in between—felt completely committed to getting the hostages back.

Yet now, when the brutal terrorist group, Hamas, has invaded Israel and massacred 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians, including babies in their cribs (shot through their heads and/or worse), elderly Holocaust survivors, entire families, entire (or nearly so) kibbutzim, kids at a peace-oriented music festival, and taken approximately 240 hostages, many of the adult children of those same Americans who, back during the Iranian hostage crisis, wore “Nuke Iran” shirts, are opting to take to the streets to cheer the terrorists who slaughtered innocent Israelis, and who took and still have approximately 240 hostages (including about 20 Americans, by the way).  And people are mischaracterizing Israel’s actions of self-defense after they were attacked brutally and are in an existential fight, and their actions to try to free all the hostages, using terrible and terribly inaccurate words to mischaracterize them, and words which are not only unfair, ignorant (at best) of what those words actually mean/what the actual definitions of them are, and inaccurate, but which are very triggering, to use a pop psychology word de jour which is very apt here, to the Jewish heart and soul, given our history.

Just ask yourselves this:  what would America do if a terrorist group, bent on our destruction (in their written charter, and obviously by their actions), invaded our country via Mexico or Canada, proceeded to massacre 1,400 innocent civilians as I described in more horrific detail above, but it bears repeating that it included babies:  let this sink in, they intentionally massacred babies—and also kidnapped 240 hostages—also including babies, again, let this sink in, please—and proceeded to take the hostages to underground tunnels, strategically and *intentionally* located under civilian-infused places, such as hospitals, apartment buildings, etc.?  Would we have been happy if, *the next day*, people in other countries were out in the streets, cheering for the terrorists?  What if people kept telling us we should stop trying to eradicate the terrorists, who not only did all of the above and are still holding the hostages (did I mention there are BABIES, that there are many CHILDREN, and many are not with their parents, they are just with the terrorists, in God knows what conditions and enduring God knows what treatment?), because innocent civilians—which the terrorists have intentionally put in the line of fire—are getting hurt, and we should have a ceasefire?  What if that terrorist group had been in charge of a territory on our border for YEARS, and had been firing rockets into the US for all those years, even before the above-described massacre/slaughter/pogrom?

I know that there are so many Palestinians who are innocent victims in all this, but it is not doing them any favors to leave a brutal terrorist group that only looks at them as human shields in charge.  Hamas has got to be eradicated from Gaza, period.  What would we do if a terrorist organization on our border had infiltrated America, massacred a bunch of innocents in very brutal fashion, taken HUNDREDS of hostages (did I mention including children?), and was talking loudly about doing more of the same, as well as still firing rockets into the US of A as they did that?

Would we appreciate people cheering in the streets for the terrorists, and telling us to stop trying to save our people (and all the other hostages) and eradicate the terrorists and destroying the terrorist haven they had built on our border?  Would we appreciate people going to City Council meetings, for example (this happened in my city) and saying the Council should not have passed a resolution against hate toward us, and that they should repeal that and another one they passed later that simply stands with us and against the terrorists who attacked us?

I’m just asking.

Am Israel chai!

I was going to take the weekend totally off of being on my laptop, as I finally finished a project at work on Friday, which I've been working arduously on since 6/16/2023.  The project involved overusing my "mouse hand" so much, and I really want to give it a well deserved and needed rest this weekend.  No computer mouse, no trackpad on my personal Chromebook here, nothing, just rest and recovery.  Yet here I find myself on Sunday, unable to take care of myself the way I was hoping to, as I'm unable to stay off this dang thing for even one weekend right now.  Why?

Because I'm so horrified, dismayed, frightened and furious.

I watched a recording of this past week's City Council meeting last night, in which quite a few, mostly quite young, and 100% extremely ignorant of history, and clearly antisemitic people stood up and demanded that the City Council rescind a resolution it passed a few weeks ago, which was against antisemitism.  The resolution was proposed and passed a few weeks ago, after a local synagogue received a threat, and was in response to that and to the rising tide of antisemitism in our city (and country, and the world).  These people, which horrifyingly, disgustingly and infuriatingly to me included the minister of the local UU church, stood up one by one and asked Council to rescind their resolution against antisemitism.  But that's not all.  They also asked them to rescind another, subsequent resolution, passed in response to the horrific October 7th Hamas terrorist attack/massacre/kidnappings, and that resolution which they also asked to have rescinded was in support of Israel.

One by one, I saw people stand up and rail against Israel, and call it a bunch of horrific names which I refuse to even give oxygen to by listing here, but they are all FALSE, and based on a very clear and shocking ignorance of history and facts.  So let me just say this:

1.  Israel is not a colonizer.  You cannot colonize your own home, from whence you originate.  Both Jews and Palestinians come from the same place.  We are cousins.  There is genetic evidence of this--scientific proof:  "Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian peoples in ancient times. Thus, Palestinian-Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences."  (Source:  NIH National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, readily accessible with two seconds of Googling).  Repeat:  we're cousins.  Therefore:

2.  Jews are not, as I just said, "colonizing"/"colonizers", and are not "white supremacists".  We are from the land, just as our cousins are.

3.  We didn't just decide to leave, we were driven out by *truly* colonizing, occupying powers.

4.  Fast foward to 1948, the then British territory which they dubbed Palestine was going to be split in two, between the Jews and the Arabs, but the latter said no, we want it all and we will drive the Jews into the sea.  So the original boundaries of the modern state of Israel instead were larger than what they would have otherwise been, had the Palestinians accepted the original, fair, two-state partition plan.

5.  In response to being attacked in later years, by neighboring states going to war against Israel, and the subsequent self defense response of Israel, yes, Israel's territory expanded.  Because Israel won those wars which they did not start.

6.  Israel is still a tiny nation, geographically, surrounded by enemies (except Egypt, which has been living in peace with Israel for some time now, although clearly they are still not huge fans).

7.  I had a great, very wise teacher in college.  She told us that, often in life, people will try to tell you that a given situation is "either/or".  But really it's "both/and".  To be for Israel, you do not need to be against Palestinians.  And, please hear and understand this, to be for Palestinians, you do not need to be against Israel.  The two are cousins.  The two are both from the same land.  The two both have the right to live there.  No one is some "colonizing" group of "white supremacists" and no one is, or is doing, the other horrific labels and words I heard flung around City Council chambers by clueless mostly 20-somethings in this horrific and frankly seriously traumatizing City Council meeting, after which I personally will never be the same.  I've now gone completely tribal and no one is going to hurt my tribe if I have anything to say about it.  But I digress.  Wait, no, actually, I don't digress, because that's precisely the point of this post:  I DO have something to say about it:  stop all the ignorant, history-denying, antisemitic, LYING disinformation and misinformation!  Israel and Israelis have a right to exist, to be there, to be HOME.  So do the Palestinians.  We have to find a way to shut out all the noise from ignorant, hate-inciting, clueless, history-altering outsiders such as those speaking (and yelling) at the City Council meeting I saw the recording of yesterday, and we, Jews and Palestinians, have to find a way to realize that we are family.  We have to start from realizing we both have a right to be there.  Then, somehow, we have to figure out a way to make it safe and rights-infused and healthy and wonderful--let's aim for the stars--for us to be there.  Together.  There's no other way but together.  We have to get it together, literally.

I'd love to end this post there but, honestly, realistically, I have to add that I know it is going to get a whole lot worse before we get to that much better place--if we can--that I just dared hope for in that last paragraph.  Frankly, this ex-flower child doesn't want a ceasefire right now, and I don't think it is right that some are asking Israel to "consider a pause".  Frankly:  eff that, Israel was attacked and massacred and the attackers and massacre-ers, namely Hamas, MUST BE TAKEN OUT OF THE EQUATION.  Now.  Also, Hamas took 210-ish hostages and we must try to get them out of there alive, if possible, too.  Do I want innocent Palestinian civilians to be hurt in the process?  NO, but that is the fault of Hamas, they (Hamas) created this untenable situation in which Israel has to act in self defense.

There is a difference, I have concluded after decades of wrestling with this, between self defense and violence.  Not that the former doesn't unfortunately involve the latter sometimes, but they are not the same, morally.  If you walked into your house and saw someone there murdering your child, would you stage a non-violent protest?  Would you "take a pause" and try to work it out?  Or would you stop the killer from killing your child by any means necessary?  That is self defense, which in my strong and long-thought-about opinion extends out from one's self to one's family, and really to one's people/country/tribe.  Are we all one human tribe?  Yes.  But do we have "families" within that?  Also yes.  And no one is going to hurt my Jewish family without me speaking up and saying:  we have the right to exist, we have the right to exist in our homeland, and we have the right to defend those two rights.  And anyone who says we don't, and who further decides to hurl a bunch of horrific, ignorant of history/facts/reality, inaccurate and attacking labels and names at us, doesn't know what they are talking about, and is also WRONG.

Am Israel chai!