The Secular-Religious Divide

JEWISH CURRENTS is sponsoring a weekend retreat on "The Secular-Religious Divide in Jewish Life," July 17-19 at Circle Lodge (the Workmen's Circle's resort) in Hopewell Junction, New York; teachers include Rabbi Alissa Wise, Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton, Prof. Billy Yalowitz, and me. Check out the flyer (click it to read) and visit www.jewishcurrents.org.

Jews, the Beach and the Boardwalk

Dear Friends, for a full-color summer supplement to Jewish Currents magazine, we are seeking visual artworks, poems and short writings on themes related to “Jews, the Beach and the Boardwalk.” Please e-mail submissions to me at lawrencebush@earthlink.net by the end of May.

Thanks!

The Future of Jewish Currents

The March-April issue of Jewish Currents, just off the press, is the last that The Workmen's Circle will be publishing. The current recession has hit the organization hard and made it impossible for WC to sustain the magazine. Jewish Currents is therefore once again an independent magazine — as we were before 2005, for nearly 60 years. (The Workmen's Circle is giving us a great deal of support in the form of meeting and event space, office help, and more. This is a sorrowful parting, and both institutions remain in a mutually supportive relationship.)

Now, my father, a cynical man, used to keep a cartoon on his desk: two guys in a dungeon, chained wrists and ankles to the wall on which they are hanging, with beards down to their pupiks. Caption: "Now here's my plan . . ."

Nu, here's my plan — notwithstanding the crisis of print media, notwithstanding the marginality of secular Jewish identity, notwithstanding all the challenges —

Right now I'm fundraising like mad — one-on-one, and through a mailing of a Passover tabloid featuring a rhymed Hagada-in-verse, a magic trick, and a tsedoke appeal. (If you're reading this blog but you're not a subscriber to Jewish Currents — tsk tsk — and would nevertheless like a copy of this Passover tabloid, write to me at this blog, including your address, and I'll send it.)

The next issue of the magazine, May-June, will be a special issue featuring only two items: a lengthy article by April Rosenblum that casts an analytical, historical look at the decline of Jewish secularism, and a full-length comic book (of sorts) by me that searches for a future for Jewish secularism. These features will be widely circulated in advance of publication to prompt discussion within progressive, secular Jewish circles (and beyond) and to some written responses, which will be published in the same issue with the April's article and my cartoon. The issue will, in essence, constitute a discussion of "Whither Secular Jewish Identity?" — which is not irrelevant to the question, "Whither Jewish Currents?" (If you'd like to see a pdf of these items in order to respond, please write to me at this blog.)

We won't be putting out a summer issue (though there will be a special "Jewish Currents at the beach" mailing to subscribers that will be highly entertaining) — and then, starting in the new year, the magazine will be produced as a quarterly, with a new look and 16 new pages (64 instead of 48). These new pages will be devoted mostly to visual art, semiotic irreverence, poetry and fiction, and more — as well as to a new column on Jewish approaches to environmental issues.

All of the current Jewish Currents features will be preserved — the Israel column, the Mameloshn column, Concealed/Revealed," "Our Secular Jewish Heritage," editorials, and all the rest — but there'll be this new aspect of art, creativity, playfulness, and environmental consciousness that will be unique in Jewish publishing and highly attractive, I'll wager, to younger readers, as well as to the Jewish artistic community.

Artists and writers, consider this a call: Send your stuff to Jewish Currents!

We welcome your tax-deductible contributions (you can use PayPal at our home page). In the past month, we've raised $13,000 towards our goal of $20,000 by this summer. It's a reasonable goal, and I hope you'll help us to get there. In addition, we especially need your gift subscriptions, to help build the Jewish Currents circulation to the level we deserve.

This is a 64-year-old institution that is well worth preserving and expanding. As we wrote in our March-April editorial, our magazine has "a basic message that is alive in the hearts of thousands of American Jews who have never even heard of us. It is the message that Jews 'who wish to be true to ourselves,' as the classic Yiddish writer Y.L. Peretz said, must ask 'vital questions' about 'conscience, freedom, culture, ethics.' At Jewish Currents, we believe that there is something fundamental in Jewish thought and experience that fuels dissent and a countercultural perspective, and that seeks, in the words of Leon Blum (socialist prime minister of pre-war France), 'the ideal reconstruction of the world.'"

Jewish Currents will endure and grow. I'm confident of this, and I'm working my tush off to make it so.

Henry Foner Turns 90!

It's calendaring time!

First and foremost, Henry Foner, our beloved labor activist, songster (and Jewish Currents editorial board member) will become 90 on Monday, March 23. Come celebrate: 5:30 to 8:30 at the 1199/SEIU Penthouse in NYC, 330 W. 42nd St., 33rd floor. The event is free. If you’re in the NY metro area, be there or be square!

The day before, on Sunday March 22nd, my second “platform” as a fellow at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture takes place at 11 AM. The topic: “Socialism and Spirituality.” Newsweek magazine headlined a recent cover, “We’re All Socialists Now.” As the current economic crisis makes “socialism” a bit less of a dirty word in America, what spiritual and ethical insights can we bring to the discussion? The Society is located at 53 Prospect Park West (2nd Street, right across from the park, in Park Slope). Lunch and discussion to follow the platform. If you haven’t been to BSEC, this is a great day to check out one of the Ethical Culture movement’s finest and interesting societies. For more, visit www.bsec.org.

Third, Jewish Currents will be sponsoring a weekend at Circle Lodge, July 17-19, in Hopewell Junction, New York, focusing on the line between secularism and religion in Jewish life today. Leaders and participants from both sides of that line will be on hand to make sholem (peace) and to challenge one another to deeper thinking. Details to follow, but save the date for a wonderful, leisurely, provocative weekend. (Daytrippers will be permitted.)

Inedible

A listing of the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream flavors that never happened:

(made up by various folks, including me)



- Bush Mush
- Constitution Crush
- Chock 'n Awe
- Cheney Chocolate Heart Attack
- Torture Torte
- Iraqi Road
– Rubble 'n Ash
- Nut'n Accomplished
- Grape Depression
- Abu Grape
- Impeachmint
- Good Riddance You Lousy Mofo Swirl
- Heck of a Job Brownie!
- Neoconpolitan
- Bastard Offspring of Hell Delight

I'm a Brooklyn Ethical Culture Fellow!

I have the honor of being a Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture “fellow” for the next year and will be presenting one platform each month, among other responsibilities. My first platform, next Sunday (February 15th), is titled, “Faith Without God: Finding Courage in Hard Times.” One of my goals is to explore how “non-religious” people can take on certain disciplines, inspired by humanism, that can help us deal with challenges and overcome hardships. This is not a self-help or motivational lecture; my practice as a writer and speaker is more along the lines of self-examination and confession, in expectation that we all share a common human condition.

The platform takes place at 11 AM next Sunday at 53 Prospect Park West (between 1st and 2nd Streets). For more information, you can call (718) 768-2972. If you’re in the New York area, I’d love to see you there.

Ditto the following night, on February 16th, when I’ll be reading from my books, WAITING FOR GOD: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, and BESSIE: A Novel of Love and Revolution, at the Stanton Street Shul, 180 Stanton Street, between Clinton and Attorney, as part of the Stanton Street Café series. The other reader is Yori Yanover, author of a really interesting Jewish sci-fi novel, The Cabalist’s Daughter. His books and mine are published by Ben Yehuda Press, the director of which will be on hand to be interviewed and questioned about Jewish publishing in this day and age. Information: 212 533-4122.

An Interfaith Declaration for Mideast Peace

Can be viewed at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/interfaithdeclarationforpeace/


We, members and leaders of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities in Greater Boston -- all having deep and symbolic ties to the land and peoples of the Middle East -- are anguished by the events unfolding in Israel and Gaza. Recognizing the legitimate needs of all peoples, including all those living in the Middle East, for dignity, peace, safety and security --regardless of religion, race, or national origin -- we issue this joint statement with the hope and belief that our interfaith voices will be heard clearly, above the din of war.

As guiding principles,

We acknowledge the long, complex, and painful history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

We acknowledge the wide range of deeply-held beliefs, and intensely-felt narratives on all sides

We acknowledge that all sides are capable of assigning blame to others, and asserting justification for their cause

We observe that violence by any side begets more violence, hatred, and retaliation

We deplore any invocation of religion as a justification for violence against others, or the deprivation of the rights of others

We decry any use of inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes the other and is intended, or is likely, to promote hatred and disrespect

We believe the conflict can be resolved only through a political and diplomatic solution and not a military one.

In the face of many competing narratives, we recognize that the overriding common need of the peoples of the region is the prompt implementation of a just and lasting peace. Toward that end, and particularly in response to the current hostilities,

We call upon the United States and the international community immediately to intercede to help reestablish a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, toward the goal of a permanent cessation of hostilities

We call upon Hamas immediately to end all rocket attacks on Israel, and upon Israel immediately to end its military campaign in Gaza

We call for an immediate end to all strikes on civilian centers and citizens, both Israeli and Palestinian

We call for lifting of the blockade on Gaza as to all non-military goods, for an immediate and significant increase in humanitarian aid to address the needs of the people of Gaza, and for all parties involved to join in taking responsibility to address those human needs

We call on all parties involved in the conflict to work sincerely and vigorously toward a just and lasting peace that addresses and promotes the national aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples

We call on President-elect Obama to make clear that as President he will urgently assert US leadership to achieve a comprehensive diplomatic resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts

Through this joint statement we affirm our commitment to engage with one another, even, and especially, during times of great stress. We also affirm our common humanity and our common belief - as Jews, Muslims and Christians - that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must cease, that there is no military or violent solution, that all human life is valued, and that all parties must cooperate to make the peace - a just and lasting peace desperately needed and deserved by all the peoples of the region.

Signed:

Salwa Abd-Allah, Executive Council, Muslim American Society of Boston (MAS Boston), Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC)
Tariq Ali, President, Harvard Islamic Society
Hossam AlJabri, President, MAS Boston-ISBCC; Trustee, Interreligious Center for Public Life (ICPL)
Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, President, United Church of Christ Mass. Conference
Abdul Cader Asmal, Past President, Islamic Council of New England and Islamic Center of Boston; Trustee ICPL
Rabbi Al Axelrad, Hillel Director Emeritus, Brandeis University
Diane Balser, Executive Director, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
Dorothy C. Buck, Ph.D., Director, Badaliya
Rev. Nick Carter, Ph.D., President, Andover Newton Theological School
Dris Djermoun, President, Islamic Center of Boston (Wayland)
Diana L. Eck, Professor, Harvard University
Imam Talal Eid, Islamic Institute of Boston; Chaplain Brandeis University
Ashraf Elkerm, Board Chairman, Islamic Center of Greater Worcester
Rev. Dr. Terasa G. Cooley, Unitarian Universalist Mass. Bay District Executive
Mercedes S. Evans, Esq., Committee on Contemporary Spiritual & Public Concerns (CSPC Committee)(Civil Rights)
Imam Abdullah Faruuq, Imam, Mosque for the Praising of Allah (Roxbury)
Michael Felsen, President, Boston Workmen's Circle
Lisa Gallatin, Executive Director, Boston Workmen's Circle
Zekeriyya Gemici, President, MIT Muslim Students Association
Rabbi David Gordis
Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector, Rabbinical School, Hebrew College, Newton
Rev. Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., Instructor, Conflict Resolution, Boston College
Arnold Hiatt
Rev. Jack Johnson, Executive Director, Massachusetts Council of Churches
M. Bilal Kaleem, Executive Director, MAS Boston-ISBCC
Anwar Kazmi, Executive Council, MAS Boston-ISBCC
Alexander Kern, Executive Director, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries
Nabeel Khudairi, Past President, Islamic Council of New England
Idit Klein, Executive Director, Keshet
Margie Klein, Co-director, Moishe/Kavod House
Mary Lahaj, Muslim Chaplain, Simmons College
Geoffrey Lewis
Imam Taalib Mahdee, Imam, Masjid Al-Quran, (Dorchester)
Rev. Bert Marshall, Church World Service, New England Director
Jerome D. Maryon, Esq., President, CSPC Committee
Michael J. Moran, Pax Christi Massachusetts
Sister Jane Morrissey, SSJ, Pax Christi Massachusetts
Merrie Najimy, President, American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, MA
Imam Khalid Nasr, Imam, ICNE-Quincy
Imam Basyouni Nehela, Imam, Islamic Society of Boston
Rashid Noor, President, Islamic Center of New England
Rabbi Sara Paasche-Orlow
Rabbi Barbara Penzner, Temple Hillel B'nai Torah
Rev. Rodney L. Petersen, Ph.D., Executive Director, Boston Theological Institute
Dr. Asif Rizvi, President-Elect, Islamic Council of New England
Rabbi Victor Reinstein, Nehar Shalom
Rev. Anne Robertson, Executive Director, Massachusetts Bible Society
Qasim Salimi, President, Boston University Muslim Students Association
Robert M. Sarly, Trustee, ICPL
Rev. Mikel E. Satcher, Ph.D., Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church
Professor Adam Seligman, Boston University
Rabbi Sanford Seltzer, Chair, ICPL
Enid Shapiro, Trustee, ICPL
Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Episcopal Bishop, Diocese of Massachusetts
Alan Solomont
Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Congregation Dorshei Tzedek
Rev. John K. Stendahl, Pastor, Lutheran Church of the Newtons
Sidney Topol
Rabbi Andrew Vogel, Temple Sinai
Peter D. Weaver, Bishop, United Methodist Church, Boston Area

James Brown's Yortsayt

Today is James Brown's second yortsayt. The graphic accompanying this little blog, which will appear on the next cover of Jewish Currents to celebrate Obama's victory, includes James Brown as one of the 36 lamed vovniks (righteous souls) of African-American life, all crowned with Statue of Liberty tiaras. (Click on it to enlarge.) I could have easily come up with 36 others.

I saw James Brown when I was 18 years old and had hitchhiked to Penn State University to visit my girlfriend. During the afternoon, she and I spent long minutes kissing in the middle of a twenty- foot-long tunnel of lilac bushes. After forty years, still haven't gotten the scent and the thrill out of my mind. Then, at night, came James Brown. A similar thrill, only it lasted two hours!

I never had the guts to go see him at the Apollo Theater, fool that I am. That would have been the place to hear him sing, in call-and-response with the crowd:

Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!

Some people say we've got a lot of malice
Some say it’s a lot of nerve
But I say we won't quit moving until we get what we deserve
We have been bucked and we have been scorned
We have been treated bad, talked about as just bones
But just as it takes two eyes to make a pair, ha!
Brother we can’t quit until we get our share

Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!
One more time!
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!

I worked on jobs with my feet and my hand
But all the work I did was for the other man
Now we demand a chance to do things for ourselves
We're tired of beatin' our head against the wall
And workin' for someone else

Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud

We're people, we're just like the birds and the bees
We'd rather die on our feet
Than be livin' on our knees

Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud

Great lyrics, no. Explosive lyrics, oh yes! Add in the rhythms and the shouting and you've got one hell of a statement.

James Brown was the most African of African-American music makers, and an extraordinary singer. There was and is nobody who could scream more pleasingly than Mr. James Brown. Often, when I'm in a really good mood, I'll suddenly quote the opening to "Make It Funky, Part 1":

"What you gonna play now?"

"Bobby, I don't know — but what's'n ever I play, it's got to be funky."

Funky Christmas, everybody!

Gifts for Hanukkah/Hanuka/Chanukah/Khanike/However the Hell You Spell It

Check out my catalogue of scandalously creative Jewish gifts. Click on the images to enlarge. All profits benefit Jewish Currents magazine. The images are available as posters or greeting cards. To make a purchase, send a check (with your mailing address) to Jewish Currents, 45 East 33 Street, New York, NY 10016 or call (212) 889-2523 with your credit card. Shipping is free. Sorry, no Paypal purchases are possible. Giving a gift? Let us know to whom, and we'll include a lovely gift card. C'mon, buy something! It's good for the Jews.

Give Me Back My Name! — and My Country!

A Partial Chronology of the Bush Administration’s
Savaging of America (with Thematic Color-Coding)
Read it and Weep, Gang

January 22, 2000
On his first day in office, the anniversary of Roe v Wade, Bush reinstates the Global Gag Rule, prohibiting funding of any international entity that performs abortions or advises women about them.

January 29, 2000
Bush establishes by executive order the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which channels federal funding to religious organizations for the work of social improvement.

February 8
Bush sends a $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut sent to Congress.

March 28
Bush declares the Kyoto treaty on climate change “dead on arrival.”

April 9
In his first budget, Bush strips contraception coverage from federal workers.

May 1
A U.S. ‘Missile Defense Shield’ is proposed by Bush in a speech at the National Defense University in D.C. He doesn’t explicitly withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, but says there is a need to move beyond the “adversarial legacy of the Cold War” and “replace this treaty with a new framework.”

May 26
Congress approves a $1.35 trillion ‘tax relief’ program — despite a Democratic majority in the Senate, thanks to Senator Jeffords’ abandonment of the Republican Party to become an Independent.

August 9
Bush limits stem-cell research funding to established lines of cells.

September 14
The Senate votes 98-0, the House 420-1, to authorize Bush to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to retaliate against the 9-11 terrorists.

October 7
War against the Taliban in Afghanistan is launched.

October 26
U.S. PATRIOT ACT is enacted, expanding the FBI’s ability to obtain records through secret court orders and giving government investigators greater authority to track e-mail and telephone communications, among many other expanded powers.

November 13
As Kabul falls to the Northern Alliance, Bush issues a military order establishing military tribunals for ‘enemy combatants.’

December 13
Bush withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

January 8, 2002
Bush signs “No Child Left Behind” (aka “No Teacher Left Standing”) into law.

January 10
Bush signs a $372 billion military budget.

January 18
Bush declares this “Sanctity of Life Day,” on behalf of a society that will “embrace its essential moral duties, including . . . caring for children born and unborn.”

January 29
Bush delivers his “Axis of Evil” State of the Union address

January 30
Bush outlines Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information Prevention System), which will enable “millions of American transportation workers, postal workers, and public utility employees to identify and report suspicious activities linked to terrorism and crime.” Meanwhile, some 10,000 non-citizens have, by this point, been arrested and detained in FBI sweeps.

February 12
Colin Powell testifes before Congress about plans for regime change in Iraq.

February 20
Donald Rumsfeld responds to public outcry by announcing that the Office of Strategic Influence will not lie to the public or plant disinformation in foreign or U.S media. Six days later, the office is closed.

May 8
Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen, is arrested for plotting to build a dirty bomb. One month later, he is transferred to military custody as an “enemy combatant.” He will not be tried for years.

June 14
Bush calls preemptive military strikes a “new doctrine.”

August 1
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issues his memo justifying torture of ‘enemy combatants.’

August 2
The Washington Post reports that the FBI has questioned nearly all 37 members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in its probe of leaks of classified information related to the September 11 attacks. Most of the lawmakers have refused to take a lie-detector test.

October 10-11
Congress approves the use of U.S. military force in Iraq.

August 14
Bush refuses to participate in the Earth Summit (UN World Summit on Sustainable Development), attended by 100 heads of state.

August 26
A federal appeals court declares secret deportation hearings unconstitutional in ACLU lawsuit.

October 10
Congress passes Joint Resolution authorizing force against Iraq.

November 22
Bush eases clean air rules for utilities and other industry.

December 19
WTO talks break down after Bush Administration refuses to support an agreement that would have expanded the range of low-cost generic drugs countries could import besides drugs for HIV/AIDS and 15 “tropical diseases.”

January 28, 2003
In his State of the Union address, Bush lies that “Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

February 7, 2003
The General Accounting Office abandons its legal quest to force Dick Cheney to publicly disclose information about industry involvement in the Bush Administration’s secretive energy task force.

March 2
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that of 62 terrorism indictments by the New Jersey U.S. Attorney, 60 are against “Middle Eastern students charged with paying others to take their English proficiency tests.”

March 8
A contract for Iraqi post-war construction is secretly awarded to Halliburton the company formerly headed by Dick Cheney. Requests for no-bid and limited-bid contracts were sent by the Pentagon as early as November, 2002.

March 14
The Department of Justice issues a memo to Pentagon justifying torture methods.

March 19
The war in Iraq is launched.

April 1
Bush raises SUV fuel standards just 1.5 miles per gallon — by 2007.

May 1
“Mission Accomplished” on U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.

July 1
Amnesty International condemns the administration for subjecting Iraqi prisoners to “cruel, inhumane or degrading conditions” at Abu Ghraib prison.

July 14
Valerie Plame “outed” as CIA agent by Robert Novak.

July 16
The Washington Post reports that during his first two and a half years in office, Bush has catapulted the nation from a $127 billion surplus to a projected deficit of $1.9 trillion by 2008. Joshua Bolton, White House Budget director, attributes 23% of the deficit to Bush’s tax cuts.

July 21
Bush accuses Syria and Iran of harboring terrorists.

July 30
At a press conference, Bush says he is exploring legal steps to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

November 5
Partial Birth Abortion Act is signed.

November 6
The Washington Post reports that a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, was detained and sent to Syria by U.S. officials, where he was tortured for 10 months before being released. The public thus learns about CIA “rendition.” Arar is never charged with any crime by any government.

November 17
Bush attorneys argue that Bush has the authority to detain anyone, including American citizens, on the basis of an unreviewable finding that the person is an enemy combatant.

December 8
Medicare drug benefits added, with a ban on the federal government doing any cost-saving bargaining with drug companies.

December 19
U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco rules that Guantanamo Bay detainees have a right of access to American courts. U.S. Court of Appeals in New York determines that Jose Padilla cannot be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.

January 22 2004
Alaska’s North Slope, adjacent to the National Artic Wildlife Refuge, is opened to oil drilling by Gale Norton, EPA director.

February 24
Bush calls for constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

April 26
Court-appointed investigator Alan L. Balaran resigns from his job of examining the federal government’s management of sums owed to Native Americans, accusing the Interior Department from blocking his work on behalf of energy companies that were underpaying land-use royalties to the tribes.

April 28
Sixty Minutes airs expose of Abu Ghraib abuses.

August 4
A Pentagon audit finds that Halliburton failed to account for more than $1.8 billion of $4.2 billion received to provide logistical support to troops in Iraq. The audit is not made public, but is leaked to the New York Times.

August 13
The International Red Cross reports evidence that the U.S. is holding suspected terrorists in secret detention centers around the globe. The government refuses to provide a list of terrorism detainees.

October 14
An EPA engineer, Weston Wilson, applies for federal whistleblower status after decrying EPA’s study of the effects of hydraulic fracturing, a methane and natural gas drilling technique, on water quality. Halliburton invented the technique, which earns the company 20% of its energy-related revenue.

October 19
Alternet reports that the Bush administration has raised or established new fees on immigrants in 40 instances, so that the tax on becoming a citizen rose 55%.

October 27
Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Center, charges the Bush government with suppressing evidence of global warming. “In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now This, I believe, is a recipe for environmental disaster.”

January 10, 2005
Bush touts the “environmental benefits” of nuclear power.

April 15
“Some people in America . . . think that the federal government all these years has been collecting your payroll taxes and we’re holding it for you. And then when you get ready to retire, we give it back to you. That’s not the way it works.”

August 29, 2005
Hurricane Katrina makes landfall three days after Gov. Bianco declares state of emergency. Within five hours, FEM director Michael Brown requests 1,000 additional rescue workers from the Department of Homeland Security “within 48 hours,” and 2,000 more within seven day to deal with this “near catastrophic event.” The workers should be trained first in Georgia or Florida, Brown says, then sent to the disaster effort when “conditions are safe.”

September 1
Bush: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

September 2
“Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” Brownie is removed from the job one week later.

September 5
John Roberts nominated as head justice of the Supreme Court.

October 31
Samuel Alito is nominated as a Supreme Court justice.

March 1, 2006
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez sends a confidential message, not published in the Federal Register, giving authority to senior Department of Justice staff Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson to hire and dismiss polical appointees and some civil service positions.

July 19
Bush uses his veto power for the first time to veto the Stem Cell Reseach Enhancement Act.

December 7
Seven U.S. attorneys are fired by the Dept. of Justice for political reasons.

January 10, 2007
Bush announces the surge, adding 20,000 U.S. troops to the force in Iraq.

May 1
Bush vetoes a bill that links war funding to a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

August 22
Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would recapitulate the U.S withdrawal from Vietnam, the price of which “was paid by millions of innocent citizens.”

October 3
Bush vetoes SCHIP expansion of health insurance for kids. He vetoes a modified version of the bill on January 23, 2008.

December 4
Bush tells reporters that “Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” following release of a declassified National Intelligence Estimate stating that Iran had stopped working toward a nuclear weapon in 2003 andwass unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until at least 2010.

March 8, 2008
Bush vetoes HR 2082, a bill that would have expanded Congressional oversight over the intelligence community and banned waterboarding and other torture techniques.

March 20
Overthrowing Saddam Hussein was “the right decision,” Bush says in a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

June 18
Bush calls on Congress to end a 27-year ban on drilling for oil in U.S. coastal waters.

July 3
Bush commutes Scooter Libby's jail sentence in the Valerie Plame affair.

July 31
A U.S. district court judge rules that administration advisors are not immune to Congressional subpoenas.

September 20
Bush hails the U.S. economic rescue plan as “unprecedented action” to meet “unprecedented challenges.”

Last Call!

This Sunday, Jewish Currents, The Workmen's Circle and The Shalom Center are cosponsoring "Jews Uniting to End the War and Heal America," a day-long conference featuring a remarkable list of speakers and representation from a broad, liberal Jewish spectrum.

Central Synagogue, 123 East 55th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues), NYC, 9:30-5:15 (registration pens at 8:30)

Room is limited; preregistration is recommended! Visit http://www.circle.org/jewsuniting/ for information and access to online registration.

If we think of each human life as an entire world, as the Jewish tradition urges us to do, then the war in Iraq is a black hole swallowing galaxies. Yes, the war has moved to the backburner of public consciousness because of all the other ways in which our country is suffering from the radically ideological, and radically incompetent, Bush government. Nevertheless, ending the Iraq war and reckoning with the damages it has caused is a critical foundationstone of the “change” that Barack Obama urged throughout his campaign. Few public voices are saying so, however, and few voices are challenging the "preemptive war" doctrine or other military policies that have held sway since 9/11.

Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for Obama, despite all the predictions of Jewish liberal "slippage" and all of the lies and rumor-mongering that tried to provoke that slippage. Now is the time for the Jewish community to follow up its vote by breaking its silence about this war. One key purpose of the conference is to explore the complex reasons for that silence and finally release our community from its grip. We have weighed and largely withheld our words for more than five years; it’s time, now, to lift our voices and direct our resources towards the healing of America.

Worth a Thousand Words

Some wonderful cartoons about the election, from around the country.

Our Rulers Make Their Adjustments

For thirty-six hours, the media people from NPR rightwards have been emphasizing two things about this historic and wonderful election:

First, that Obama's black. The man ran a "post-racial" campaign in which he entirely disdained identity politics — in which he embodied, in fact, our prophet Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 proclamation that white or black, our destinies "are tied together," our freedom is "inextricably bound together," and “we cannot walk alone.” But now he's the first African- American in office — period. I have not heard a single comment from a "rising-of-all- boats" perspective. Interesting . . .

Second, there's been a steady drumbeat (Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, etc.) about not letting our expectations to get out of hand. That's the new rightwing slogan: after eight years of gleeful export of violence and torture, after eight years of shoveling gold into the coffers of America's richest stratum, we should now patiently sit on our hands. Interesting . . .

Not to be a party-pooper — I'm still dancing in the cow pastures up here in rural New York! — but it's interesting to watch our rulers make their adjustments.

In Glorious Black and White

Torah for November 4th

Concealed/Revealed

The new edition of Jewish Currents, November-December, 2008, is off the press, with a "Concealed/ Revealed" column that focuses on "Jerusalem." The next edition of the column will focus on the theme, "Justice, Justice." Write for us, up to 350 words, telling a personal story on this precious theme. The deadine is November 21st. Send to me at lawrencebush@earthlink.net.

My Mother-in-Law

My mother-in-law, an unreconstructed radical, turned 90 years old yesterday and here's what I wrote to her, as a fake telegram.

"JEWS UNITING" — Why Now?

The Workmen's Circle, The Shalom Center, and Jewish Currents magazine, who together are organizing the November 23rd conference in New York City, “Jews Uniting Against the War and to Heal America,” stand firm in our conviction that amplifying the voice of protest against the war within the American Jewish community, immediately after the presidential election, is of vital, timely importance.

We urge you to register and/or donate now at: https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/7445/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=3732

We realize that the potential meltdown of the U.S. economy has shifted the war in Iraq to the back-burner of public concern. We realize, too, that daily violence in Baghdad and beyond has been significantly diminished — which the Bush Administration, candidate John McCain, and conservative media figures have all attributed to “the surge” and claimed as evidence that the U.S. is “winning the war” and will be able to withdraw troops from a stable Iraq within two years.

The reality in Iraq is far more complex, however, and far less “victorious,” than the cartoonish portrait that defenders of the war present. Moreover, the lessons that need to be learned from this war, for America and the world beyond, extend beyond its ultimate military and political outcomes.

Writing in The New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21935), Peter W. Galbraith, a former ambassador to Croatia and an expert Middle East analyst, observes this week that as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, “Shiite religious parties that are Iran’s closest allies in the Middle East [now] control Iraq’s central government and the country’s oil-rich south.” Neither President Bush nor Senator McCain, he continues, “has explained how he will transform Iraq’s ruling theocrats into democrats, diminish Iran’s vast influence in Baghdad, or reconcile Kurds and Sunnis to Iraq’s new order. Remarkably, neither the Democrats nor the press has challenged them to do so. . . . It is hard to understand,” Galbraith concludes, “how this can be called a success — or a path to victory.”

Other knowledgeable analysts have made clear that U.S. policy in Iraq is no better guided today by a solid understanding of the complexities of Iraqi culture and history than it was at the start of the war, when U.S. intelligence was terribly flawed and gross ignorance was the rule in Washington. Instead, the war is still being treated by politicians as a black-and-white affair with two options: “surrender” or “victory.”

Beyond this simplistic scenario, moreover, the launching of the war — as the first round of the arrogant “preemptive war” doctrine enunciated by the Bush Administration in 2003 — needs to be investigated, with an eye towards formally renouncing that disruptive doctrine. The unilateralism of American policy, in total disregard for international opinion, law or legitimacy, needs to be amended. The violations of human rights and constitutional law that have accompanied the war must be halted, condemned, and compensated. The easy resort to military violence to enforce U.S. policy and guard U.S. “national interests” needs to be fundamentally challenged. The war has delivered America to an historic crossroads, and our country must reckon with the recent past in order to change direction, or else prepare itself for further tragedy and ineptitude.

“There you go again, Joe, looking back to history.” That’s what Governor Sarah Palin threw, sneering, at Senator Joe Biden during their one and only debate. But the fact is that the Iraqi debacle is not “history” and will not end on January 20th, 2009. American troops will not yet be home, and wounded veterans will not miraculously rise from their wheelchairs. The CIA torture machine will not suddenly break down, and the Muslim world will not suddenly admire us. Schools, roads and bridges will not suddenly become shiny and new, and medical offices will not suddenly open their doors to the uninsured. The dollar will not suddenly rebound in value, the national debt will not loosen its stranglehold on the federal government, and the globalized economy will not suddenly become socially responsible. The United States is bleeding heavily from multiple wounds, and it’s going to take intensive care, not over-the-counter treatment, to restore our country to health.

The election will be, at best, a beginning. The new President will have to be confronted and pressured into showing forceful, progressive leadership. The “Jews Uniting” Conference on November 23rd constitutes a critical new opportunity for the liberal Jewish majority to place ending the war high on our national agenda. We have weighed and largely withheld our words for more than five years; now is the time to lift our voices and direct our resources towards the healing of America.

Crash Test Dummy

I was rear-ended yesterday on the New York State Thruway, which threw my car into the fender of another.

Civilization came to life with cell phones, state troopers, firemen, tow trucks and insurance adjusters. The guy in front of me was a Satmer hasid, who took out his prayerbook while the cop was writing his accident report. I thought: This is a warning from the God of Vengeance because I skipped shul, once again, on the Day of Atonement.

The guy behind was a white working-class guy from Pennsylvania whose car was a total wreck. He apologized for smashing into me, and I thought: Vote for Obama, he'll fix everything.

No one was seriously injured, and I managed to drive home with my muffler kissing the pavement. But I did feel banged up, and told the insurance company that I'd see how I was in the morning.

It's now the morning, and I see in the New York Times that China is allowing peasants to own land for the first time in decades, while the U.S. government is buying shares of ownership in private banks. Gay couples can get married in Connecticut, and the Republican-dominated Alaska legislature is accusing Sarah Palin of ethics violations as governor. Manny Ramirez said nice things about a pitcher who threw at him and John McCain defended Barack Obama against the vitriol of his crazed supporters.

Maybe I'd better report a head injury to the insurance company.

Ralph!

Saturday morning. Susan's in the shower, I'm emptying the dishwasher, Scott Simon's on the radio in the bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen, and Ralph Nader comes on for an interview.

As soon as he's done, I head to the bathroom, open the door, see Susan in her towel, and we both cry, "I want to vote for him!"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95633572

The Lennonzen

Today is not only the Day of Atonement, it's John Lennon's birthday (October 9, 1940). Here's a tribute to Lennon that I wrote in Jewish Currents in March-April, 2005. I think it bears repeating.

When it came to fame, the Beatles stood apart from all the rest. early in the '60s, Lennon described the group as "more popular than Jesus," and he wasn't half wrong. But John used that top-of-the-world celebrity status to broadcast a wonderfully democratic message. When the Beatles were featured in the first international satellite television broadcast, viewed by many millions of people around the globe, John pooh-poohed celebrity and the cult of the individual by singing:

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. . . .
All you need is love.

And long after the Beatles broke up, he persisted in telling his fans: Never mind idol-worshipping. I'm just a pained, uncertain, evolving human being, like you — and each of us should be valued and given the chance for fulfillment. "Because we all shine on/ like the moon and the stars and the sun . . ." ("Instant Karma," 1970). Because "Whatever gets you thru the night, it's all right" (Whatever Gets You Thru the Night," 1974). Because:

Why in the world are we here?
Surely not to live in pain and fear.
Why in the world are you there
When you're everywhere!
Come and get your share! "Instant Karma"

And rather than responding to the emptiness of celebrity by turning to mysticism, Lennon took the existentialist plunge: "God is a concept by which we measure our pain," he wrote ("God, 1970). "I don't believe in —" and he listed every idol imaginable, including the Beatles themselves. Yet his skepticism was never despairing, for he could imagine a world "of no heaven . . . no country . . . no possessions . . . no religion . . ."

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world "Imagine" (1971)

When John Lennon died (December 8, 1980), I was 29, working as assistant editor of Jewish Currents, and trying to understand my elders, who formed its backbone community. Paul Novick, the 90-year-old editor of the Morgn Freiheit, wrote in that paper about the public outpouring of grief over John's murder. In an amazed and humble tone, Novick confessed to ignorance and wonder about how beloved a figure John had been. I was reminded of another great democratic artist, Sholem Aleichem, who had been similarly mourned in 1916. The "generation gap" was thus bridged by love — and here I am, still mourning for John and working, once again, for Jewish Currents.

My Yom Kippur Ball

On Yom Kippur eve
I walk in the forest
with my little dog
And cut a new path
to the fast-flowing river
Where I admire
the upside-down trees and clouds
And feel
the rightside-up perfection
of my life.

I do not want
to sit indoors
or hear the bleating
ram's horn
The gates
are already wide open
the sky is full of sheep
And there is nothing to regret
as the sun descends
into the weeds.







published in Jewish Currents, September-October 2004
photo by Zoë Griss-Bush

Such a History!

Here's how the Jews have voted since 1916:

1916: Wilson (D), 55% . . . Hughes (R), 45%
1920: Harding (R), 43% . . . Debs (Soc.), 38% . . . Cox (D), 19%
1924: Davis (D), 51% . . . Coolidge (R), 27% . . . LaFolette (Progr.), 22%
1928: Smith (D), 72% . . . Hoover (R), 28%
1932: Roosevelt (D), 82% . . . Hoover (R) 18%
1936: Roosevelt (D), 85% . . . Landon (R), 15%
1940: Roosevelt (D), 90% . . . Wilkie (R), 10%
1944: Roosevelt (D), 90% . . . Dewey (R), 10%
1948: Truman (D), 75% . . . Wallace (Progr.), 15% . . . Dewey (R), 10%
1952: Stevenson (D), 64% . . . Eisenhower (R), 36%
1956: Stevenson (D), 60% . . . Eisenhower (R), 40%
1960: Kennedy (D), 82% . . . Nixon (R), 18%
1964: Johnson (D), 90% . . . Goldwater (R), 10%
1968: Humphrey (D), 81% . . . Nixon (R), 17% . . . Wallace (I), 2%
1972: McGovern (D), 65% . . . Nixon (R), 35%
1976: Carter (D), 71% . . . Ford (R), 27% . . . McCarthy (I), 2%
1980: Carter (D), 45% . . . Reagan (R), 39% . . . Anderson (I), 14%
1984: Mondale (D), 67% . . . Reagan (R), 31% . . . Others, 2%
1988: Dukakis (D), 64% . . . Bush (R), 35% . . . Others, 1%
1992: Clinton (D), 80% . . . Bush (R), 11% . . . Perot (I), 9%
1996: Clinton (D), 78% . . . Dole (R), 16%) . . . Perot (I), 3%
2000: Gore (D), 79% . . . Bush (R), 19% . . . Nader (Green), 1%
2004: Kerry (D), 76% . . . Bush (R), 24%

Bums and Babes

Here's a link to Ahmadinejad's speech at the United Nations yesterday. In view of my last few of posts, it's mandated that we raise alarms about the man's anti-Semitism — even if we don't care to do it in the company of Sarah Palin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxSN-rIazjo

And then there's Israel's attempt to change its image. As I wrote in my "Viewpoint" piece in the current Jewish Currents, "Israel has done little to cultivate its state-to-state relationships, except through arms sales. . . . The model that Iran presents — armed, isolated, and indifferent to hostile world opinion — needs to be contained, not emulated, by Israel."

So here we go. Someone in the PR department must be reading Jewish Currents. They've given us babes instead of bombs. Ahad Ha'am (not to mention Golda Meir) must be spinning in the grave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa1LwuS4lhw&feature=related

Iran's Ambitions, Israel's Fears

More than 20,000 people signed the J Street petition that I posted here last week ("Oh, Malcolm!"), with the result that Sarah Palin was disinvited to the Iran event.

Meanwhile, here's the the "Viewpoint" piece that I wrote for the current issue of Jewish Currents (to which you can subscribe, between now and September 30, for only $15 — just send me an e-mail at lawrencebush@earthlink.net). I welcome thoughtful comment; it was not an easy piece to write. Iran's ambitions deeply disturb me — but preemptive war disturbs me even more.

IRAN'S AMBITIONS, ISRAEL'S FEARS

The fact that Israeli Jews, across the political spectrum, seem to view a nuclear-armed Iran as both an likelihood and a mortal threat has given me great pause as I’ve waited, protest sign in hand, for the Bush Administration to launch a military strike against Iran. Unlike the U.S., with its “sole superpower” mentality, Israel has every reason not to get involved in a gratuitous war. So I take Israel’s warnings seriously. They force me to look into the abyss and assume that the Iranians are, indeed, seeking to obtain nuclear weapons — and are as hostile to Israel as their vile rhetoric suggests. Only by pondering such a pessimistic scenario can I clear my head of bias (against anything and everything Dick Cheney says, for instance) and take a credible stand on what is to be done.

Does such ‘realism’ mean that I’m ready to add my voice to the neoconservative war cry, which is getting louder and nastier now that the Bush Administration seems, at least temporarily, to be emphasizing diplomacy over military strikes in its approach to Iran?

Far from it. I am doubtful that Bush and Cheney have changed their minds about a preemptive strike; just as likely, they are simply laying the groundwork for calling military action a ‘last resort.’ Whatever the reality in Washington, however, I’m for negotiations, combined with economic pressure. Writing in the Jerusalem Post June 25th, Chuck Freilich, a former national security advisor in Israel, saw likely success in economic sanctions:

Iran imports 40 percent of its refined gasoline products. If the West banned these sales, its economy could be brought to its knees. Oil exports make up 80 percent of Iran’s state budget; were imports of Iranian oil banned, its economy would be brought to a standstill. Iran’s automobile industry is domestically produced, except for engines; cut sales of engines and its economy would be greatly weakened. . . .

Apart from such deprivations, there may be other developments that could influence the Iranian regime in the immediate years to come. These include Israeli-Syrian peace talks, an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, domestic unrest in Iran, a scientific breakthrough in renewable energy, a decision on the part of China or Russia to get serious about curbing Iran’s power, and the election of a new American president, to name a few. Each of these seems far more plausible and close at hand than the nightmare scenario of a nuclear-armed Iran inaugurating the mother of all suicide bombings.

Diplomacy brings the ability to respond to events as they unfold, and keeps the possibility of peace alive. By contrast, a preemptive military attack would send events spinning out of anyone’s control. At minimum, it would bring intense retaliatory attacks against Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah — and probably far worse.

It is time for Israel’s leaders to widen their search for allies, influence, and remedies to the contagious animosity that plagues the region. Too often, Israel has done little to cultivate its state-to-state relationships, except through arms sales. The opening of a conversation with Syria (with Turkey as the courier), and the welcome extended to France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy, are significant steps that should be built upon. Diplomacy is “the missing component in Israel’s foreign policy,” argues Eytan Gilboa of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Israel Affairs, October, 2006). “[A] grand strategy in international conflict requires the integration and application of . . . force, diplomacy and communication. The last component, communication, may even be the decisive factor.”

In short, the model that Iran presents — armed, isolated, and indifferent to hostile world opinion — needs to be contained, not emulated, by Israel.

Oh, Malcolm!

Received the following message tonight from J Street, the new progressive, pro-Israel lobby in Washington, and forwarded it to a whole bunch of people.

"This is ugly!!

"Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak at a rally of American Jews of all stripes about the threat Iran poses to the U.S. and Israel.

"Not ONLY was she invited, but she was expected to speak alongside HILLARY CLINTON. Smartly, Hil pulled out.

"I wrote a letter to the chief organizer of the event, Malcolm Hoenlein, and told him to pull Sarah Palin from the schedule. Will you join me?"

http://action.jstreet.org/t/3584/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=467"


Malcolm Hoenlein, I would note, is the long-time Jewish organizational executive who has overseen the rightwards shift of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations for the past two decades and seems to love to hold hands with neoconservatives.

As for J Street, there's a really good article about them by Nicholas Jahr in the new issue of Jewish Currents. There's also a good "Viewpoint" piece by me (if I do say so myself) about Iran and Israel and what to do. Nu, here's an offer for the new year: Subscribe to the magazine for half-price, only $15. You can give gift subs at that rate, too. Interested? Contact me directly at lawrencebush@earthlink.net. Offer runs out as soon as I cast my bread crumbs on the water on September 30. (Click on the artwork to see what I'm talking about.)

Blessed Are the Buttonmakers . . .

Who say so much with so little.

I can't take credit for this button; apparently it was designed on the West Coast and is based on a witticism that is making the rounds. See, f'rinstance, http://www.cafepress.com/jco

Speaking of community organizers, if you haven't yet signed up for the November 23rd event in NYC, "Jews Uniting Against the War and To Heal America," please visit https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/602/t/7445/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=3732 and do it today!

Speakers include Amy Goodman, Elizabeth Holtzman, David Saperstein, Arthur Waskow, Jerrold Nadler, a load of other important activists. Be there. You're an important activist, too!

Moment of Silence, Moment of Shrieking

I was in a hospital waiting room while my wife had surgery on September 11, 2001. I was trying to read and ignore the television. Then the first plane hit.




Seven years later, I'm in the waiting room again while my country has surgery.



Click on the graphics to enlarge them.

Disturbing Events in Lithuania

In the next issue of Jewish Currents, which will be out in the first week of September, we have two important articles about Lithuania — specifically about anti-Semitism and the investigation of three elderly Jewish partisans that has been undertaken by Lithuanian prosecutors concerning a 1944 military action by Soviet and Jewish partisans that took the lives of Lithuanian villagers.

One article is by Rokhl Kafrissen, our “Rootless Cosmopolitan" columnist and website editor, who is currently in Vilnius (Vilne) at the Yiddish Institute. Two days ago, the Jewish Community Center in Vilnius was defaced with swastikas, anti-Semitic slogans and other repellent graffiti. You can see photos and share Rokhl's thoughts by reading her “Rootless Cosmopolitan” blog at our website (http://rokhl.blogspot.com/).

The second article is by a former Jewish partisan who lives in Toronto, Sara Ginaite. It was forwarded to us by Dovid Katz in Vilna, and we have agreed to post it to our website before it appears in print. What follows is Sara Ginaite's opinion piece on the Lithuanian situation. She is pictured here in 1944.

Sara Ginaite, a native of Kaunas, was incarcerated in the Kovno (Kaunas) Ghetto and lost almost her entire family in the Holocaust. She escaped into the forests and joined the anti-Nazi partisans. After the war, she was a professor of political economy at Vilnius University for almost twenty-five years before emigrating to Canada in 1983. She published ten books in Vilnius and another two in Toronto,where she taught social science at York University. She was instrumental in arranging for Yad Vashem to honor a Lithuanian family that saved a Jewish child during the Holocaust and has recently negotiated exchange student agreements between Vilnius and Toronto Universities. Her best-known work on the Holocaust is Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community of Kaunas, 1941-1944 (2005).

‘Investigating’ Jewish Partisans in Lithuania

The Protest of a Veteran Jewish Partisan
Sara Ginaite

Recent actions by the prosecutor general in Lithuania, who seems to have been pressured by some to discredit Jewish anti-Nazi partisans, are regrettable. Three elderly Jewish partisans are today being investigated in connection with events at the end of January, 1944 — a military action against an armed village, Koniuchy (now Kaniukai), in the Rudnicky forest area, in which thirty-eight villagers were killed.

Lithuania declared independence in 1918 and became a democratic republic. If Lithuania had been allowed to select its own future, I would surely not be writing this article today. Unfortunately, Lithuania suffered from two cruel annexations.

During the Nazi occupation (1941-1944), over two hundred thousand Jews in Lithuania were murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian henchmen, totally destroying a vibrant community once famed as a center of Jewish culture. Among the victims was almost all of my extended family.

During the periods of Soviet repression (1940-1941 and 1944-1991), over 74,500 Lithuanian citizens perished, including Jews, Russians, Poles and people of other faiths and ethnicities. Many more were oppressed.

About twenty years have now passed since Lithuania freed itself from Soviet occupation and once again became an independent, democratic republic. Its informal, unspoken position has been not to prosecute either the Nazi war criminals or the Soviet oppressors: Lithuanian courts have convicted only two or three of those who participated in killing the Jews and two or three active members of the Ministry for Internal Affairs of the Soviet regime. Taking into consideration the huge number of victims, it looked somewhat strange. Yet the majority of Lithuanians have agreed with this pragmatic approach. It hardly makes sense to begin the prosecution of Nazi war criminals today, since almost all of them are dead — and the Soviet collaborators are too old.

In this context, it is hard to understand the strange new action of opening, in 2008, a pre-trial investigation of the anti-Nazi partisans’ wartime actions. It is also very strange that the prosecutor did not explain the aim of the investigation and his special and very public attention to the Jewish partisans. All this has alarmed me, as a former partisan. It has alarmed, as well, many other Jews around the world, especially Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans of the Allied forces. It has made us suspicious that the prosecutor intends to prosecute (or, at least, intimidate or publicly defame) those who suffered the most and are guilty the least.

Jews did not join the partisans as a normal act of choice. We were forced to fight the Nazis to save ourselves from extermination. We took the gun in our hands in a desperate situation, when our parents, brothers and sisters were murdered, when children were grabbed from their mothers and sent to their gruesome death. We fought in order to survive; we fought against fascism, which was our enemy, the enemy of all democratic forces and the enemy of Lithuania.

The activity of the Jewish partisans was self-defense — in the face of the most overwhelming instance of genocide in human history. In contrast to Lithuanian collaborators, who volunteered to put to death their unarmed civilian Jewish neighbors, and Soviet collaborators, who also volunteered to kill and oppress the Lithuanians, the Jewish partisans’ aim was not to kill anyone, not to ‘inherit’ the property of a murdered people, but to fight our common enemy. However, in a military action, you cannot avoid civilian casualties and death. That is the ugly reality of war, particularly a war of partisans who live in the forest and do battle against a world power.

During the events in Koniuchy, I was not in the Rudnicky forest. I was on assignment to return to the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto to prepare a group of ghetto fighters to escape to the forest. I cannot comment, therefore, on the details of the event. I can say this, however: In our own interest, we tried to keep friendly relations with the villagers in the Rudnicky forest. We were never encouraged to harass or hurt them. In order to survive, we did have to collect food wherever we could, often from hostile villagers, but we tried as far as possible to seize food from German food storage areas or transports of food headed for Germany.

But we didn’t always have the luxury of choice. If not for the war, I would have preferred to eat together with my family the dinner prepared by my mother, not to risk my life confiscating a cow from a local peasant. Such a confiscation, and the attack that followed by hostile villagers, during which two of our partisans were killed and a third captured and handed over to the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian police, is described in my book, Resistance and Survival.

There were many villagers, hostile to the partisans, who were organized into armed groups, supplied by the Germans. Yes, they were villagers, but no, they were not unarmed civilians. Such a conflict was most likely the reason for the tragedy in Koniuchy.

Prosecutors can easily turn into agents of injustice if they begin campaigns on ethnic or political grounds that have little to do with the work of identifying specific crimes and seeking to bring to a fair trial their alleged perpetrators. I invite the general prosecutor to put everything into its rightful context and not pursue a policy that appears to be based on ethnic targeting. The first step is to stop and ask: Why now, in 2008, schedule the pre-trial investigation of the circumstances of the event in Koniuchy, instead of examining the murder of 74,500 Lithuanian citizens during Soviet rule — and, yes, into the issue of who took part in the murder of two hundred thousand Jewish citizens of Lithuania during the Holocaust? Any request for bringing to justice the Nazi war criminals and the Soviet oppressors and killers is described as “too late.” Strangely, however, it has just become not too late to use the Lithuanian justice system to discredit those who fought against the Nazis.

How can one not be humiliated by this selective justice, which is, in practice, directed exclusively toward the few surviving Jewish partisans? Investigation of the Koniuchy case is not justice. It is a manipulation of justice, with the goal of forming a negative image of the Jewish partisans and of Holocaust survivors generally.

A state prosecutor need not allow himself to become the instrument of some Lithuanian factions who support the idea of collective guilt and collective responsibility. But it looks as if the prosecutor has surrendered to pressure and has begun this useless investigation knowing perfectly well that he is not going to charge any concrete person with any concrete alleged crime.

The proceedings will only heighten tensions between Lithuanians and Jews, and pave the way to hatred and accusation. The defacing of the Vilnius Jewish Community Center with swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on August 10th is a disturbing example of what may follow. Perhaps certain organizations and the extreme right-wing press welcome such an outcome, but I doubt that this is so of the Lithuanian government.

Over sixty years have passed since the defeat of the Nazis, and almost twenty since the restoration of the independent democratic Lithuanian Republic. According to my understanding, significant motivations for conflict and tensions between Lithuanians and Jews do not exist anymore. We have to face the reality: Virtually all those who committed genocide against Lithuanian Jews are dead.

At the same time, no one should forget the contribution of the Jewish community to the development of the first Lithuanian Republic between the two world wars. Jews were a most loyal ethnic minority in Lithuania. Serving in national infantry battalions, Lithuania’s Jews actively participated in the country’s 1918-1919 battles for independence. They defended Lithuania’s interests and political aims during the Polish ultimatum of 1938 and the Klaipeda (Memel) crisis. Jewish organizations and many Jewish authorities helped to enhance Lithuania’s international stature and contributed to the development of its culture and economy.

Unfortunately, the seeds of anti-Semitic poison left by Hitler managed to survive and are still active in Lithuania. The best way to overcome the old and contemporary prejudices and hostilities is to reach a better understanding and mutual respect. I urge the prosecutor to resist those urging him to pour more potent drops of poison onto Lithuanian-Jewish relations. He should abandon these absurd proceedings and assure the last of the last Holocaust survivors, internationally, that they are still welcome to visit their native country without fear of interrogation or “interviews.”

It is high time to pass the investigation of Lithuania’s 20th-century history to historians and educators, not to prosecutors and judges.

The Twinky in My Eye

Driving to NYC yesterday, I saw a truck marked "Wonder Bread" and "Hostess Cakes" — and I realized for the first time in my life (56 years!) that Hostess Cupcakes and Hostess Twinkies are related to the word "hostess."

By gosh.

The Hostess brand is a name I learned so early in life that my brain locked in on it and never unlocked to make the association. I bet other people have words and phrases like that — there's there's probably a word for the phenomenon, too. If you have something to share about it, please write.

U.S. Out Now! (?)

In response to my blog, "Meanwhile, Back in Baghdad," a friend wrote:

“I don't accept the word of 'experts' who say the surge in Iraq is working, and that life there has become stable, and withdrawals is a mistake or now potentially destabilizing. Our troops are the main destabilizers, along with insurgents who want the troops to leave. The experts who say the surge worked tend to be current or past supporters of the invasion, openly or secretly justifying their past errors. If you read Tom Engelhardt's website (tomdispatch@nationinstitute.org) with its many columns by very smart but under-circulated lefty writers, you get the other side of the argument which mainstream press (and the New Yorker) don't carry: Iraq remains in terrible shape, and talk of stability or successful surge is very far from reliable. So please don't take talk of the successful surge as fact, even if Obama or his would-be advisors do.”

Which prompts me to clarify: I don't accept the surge's "success" as fact; I wrote about it as a hypothetical. I don't know the truth about it. What alarms me is that I sometimes find myself wishing the surge to be a failure, wishing for the violence to reignite, wishing for the chaos to continue so the fundamental U.S. strategy of muscling its will onto nations does not prove successful.

I do think anti-war people have to be future-oriented. If a troop withdrawal is likely to reignite slaughter, do we still support it? Is there any sense in our demanding reparations to the Iraqi people, though we know it’ll never happen? Do we support UN intervention, an “internationization” of the conflict? What should we be agitating for? Can we unite around a proposal?

Meanwhile, Back in Baghdad . . .

What if the "surge is working" in Iraq? How should those of us who have opposed this war from the start respond? Jewish Currents is currently working with the Workmen's Circle and the Shalom Center to organize a November 23rd activism conference, "Jews Uniting Against the War and to Heal America," at Central Synagogue in NYC. I'm excited by the organizing effort that's going into this event and by the prospect of helping to make ending the Iraq war a national Jewish priority. But the question — what now? — needs the attention of those of us who hope to constitute a Jewish peace movement.

In this week's New Yorker, for example, George Packer — who consistently supported the invasion way back when and has been somewhat chastened by the chaos that has ensued since — writes about "Obama's Iraq Problem" as follows: Iraq, "despite myriad crises, has begun to stabilize. . . . The improved conditions can be attributed, in increasing order of importance, to President Bush's surge, the change in military strategy under General David Petraeus, the turning of Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda, the Sadr militia's unilateral ceasefire, and the great historical luck that brought them all together at the same moment." Obama's original 16-month withdrawal plan, Packer continues, might "revive the badly wounded Al Qaeda in Iraq, reenergize the Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia's recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a state of collapse." Obama should, therefore — and is likely to, says Packer — pursue a "conditional engagement policy," with troop withdrawal depending on "political progress and on the performance of the Iraqi Army" (which, I might add, is essentially John McCain's position).

A couple of months ago in the Atlantic Monthly, on of their staff writers (I think it was Jonathan Rauch) added another element to the pot: a precipitous withdrawal and the likely chaos that would ensue in Iraq, he said, would be interpreted by the right-wing in America, Rush Limbaugh and company, as a "stab in the back" by liberals. It would hurt the political prospects of liberals and Democrats for decades, he wrote — therefore the withdrawal should be slow and steady and, again, conditional . . .

I think it was Colin Powell who warned about Iraq, If we break it, we own it. And while I disagree vociferously both with George Packer and the Atlantic Monthly writer, I do recognize that there are weighty moral considerations for peace activists to address here. We can no longer simply protest what has gone on in the past (this aggressive, hubristic war, fostered with lies; this terrible waste of lives; this cesspool of corporate graft and unaccounted-for billions; this exacerbation of tension with the entire Muslim world; this justification for torture, for secret wiretapping, for an aggrandized presidency; etc. etc.). We also have to analyze and address the here-and-now, and pose alternative scenarios to an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq. Frankly, I find that hard to do in a way that emphasizes Iraq's well-being. But surely there are progressive analysts who could begin to pose such scenarios. As the Workmen's Circle statement about Iraq in the May-June Jewish Currents put it, "Withdrawal from Iraq will, no doubt, be a complicated business, both strategically and morally. The time has surely come, however, to contend with it as an inevitable reality and start making our plans."

One essential element for long-time critics of this war, I believe, is to state clearly that a stabilized Iraq, even if that were to come to pass, does not justify Bush's policy of preemptive military violence or justify the neoconservative strategy of forcibly "transforming" the Middle East. The ultimate "success" of this war would not make it acceptable. We do not accept America's "right" to refashion world politics through military violence; we do not accept the costs to our country of maintaining that level of capacity for military violence; we do not think war as an easy-resort tool of policy is acceptable; we insist on diplomacy, negotiations, deal-making, compromise as the better path to a stable world . . . But is there a way to weave all of this together in an idealistic package that will appeal to American sensibilities?

Way back in May, 2003, when public support was high, I noted in an editorial titled, "Challenging Bush, Challenging Ourselves," that "it is misguided patriotism as much as misinformation that has led a large majority to support this war. As long as Bush has missionary rhetoric, the support of most corporate media outlets, and military firepower to offer in response to wickedness in the world, while peace forces seem limited to demonstrating and protesting, American idealism will be Bush's to exploit. The left, including this magazine, must now deepen the conversation."

Public Opinion Is On His Side

I appreciate the comments to yesterday's blog. (To read them, click on "comments" at the bottom of the entry.)

I'm not suggesting, mind you, that Obama needn't reach out to the red states. He needs to go easy on socially charged issues, and he needs to show that he has a grasp of military and foreign affairs. Politics in America means cobbling together coalitions; that's what democracy demands. I just want him to remember the following stats:

65% of Americans currently think the U.S. should "decrease" or "remove" troops from Iraq (pollster.com).

69% of Americans "think it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure that all Americans have health care coverage" (Gallup).

72% of Americans describe the economy as "only fair" or "poor" (Gallup). Yet 49% believe that environmental protection should be given priority, "even at the risk of curbing economic growth," compared to 44% who favor economic growth over environmental protection (CNN).

Even in 2005, 69 percent of Americans thought “investing in education and training would be a more effective way to grow the country’s economy than cutting taxes" (Feldman Group poll).

The American public supports federal government assistance to homeowners “caught between rising mortgage payments and falling home values” by 60 percent to 25 percent (Center for American Progress). 63 percent agree that "lack of regulation is partly responsible for the current financial and housing crisis."

The point is that there is a broad base of dissatisfaction with rightwing economic and foreign policy. Obama should be tapping into that dissatisfaction with some visionary proposals, not spending his time responding to McCain or tinkering with conservative policies. Obama needs to attack the failures of modern conservatism: the incredible polarization of wealth and poverty, the lack of economic progress for the middle class, the unchecked costs of college education, the 48 million uninsured (and the rest of us battling with a bureaucratic "marketplace" system that even our doctors despise), the collapse of U.S. infrastructure, the unmonitored, graft-ridden spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, the beefing up of presidential power, and so forth and so on. He needs to press his primary campaign onto the larger stage, not rewrite his script.

Here's what Paul Krugman has to say in The Conscience of a Liberal: "To be a progressive. . . means being a partisan — at least for now. The only way a progressive agenda can be enacted . . . [is by making] opponents of the progressive agenda pay a political price for their obstructionism . . .”

July 3rd

Baruch Obama came from nowhere to win the nomination — and he seems to be headed back to nowhere, fast.

Where’s the vibrant speech on universal health insurance as the bedrock of a new New Deal? Last year, eighty percent of Americans said they thought it was more important to provide universal access to health insurance than to extend the Bush tax cuts, and sixty percent — including 62 percent of independents and 46 percent of Republicans — said they’d personally be willing to pay higher taxes to achieve universal health insurance coverage in the U.S. (New York Times). So why is Baruch spending his time talking about faith-based instead of government-based services, and Kansas cornfields instead of Kansas City hospitals?

And where’s his exposé of those Bush’s tax cuts? Letting them expire would restore about $140 billion per year to the federal treasury, according to Paul Krugman’s wonderful book, The Conscience of a Liberal. That’s enough to pay the toll on universal health care. Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi making speeches every day, all summer, on this subject?

Am I being impatient here? Forgive me, but I don’t want to move to Canada. While I stand fully prepared to be disappointed by an Obama administration and to be reminded of the fact that the Democrats are no friends of working people, what I can’t tolerate is to see him defeated through underestimation of the enthusiasm of the American people for an effective government, and through a misbegotten strategy of pandering to the right/center.

Baruch, have you read Krugman’s book? Are you not convinced that the rightwingers who utterly control the Republican party have nothing to say, as Krugman puts it, but to “compete over who sounds the most like Ronald Reagan, and who is most enthusiastic about torture”? “To the extent that the Democratic Party represents the progressive movement,” writes Krugman, “the Democrats have become the party of ideas.”

Nu, let’s hear the ideas! Wear the flag pin, go ahead, but let's hear the ideas!

Tomorrow is July 4th. Can we see some fireworks, please?

“And This Is Its Fruit . . .”

The weekly Torah portion, illustrated as an American Sephirotic Tree. Gotta love that kabbalah! Click on the image to enlarge.

My book, American Torah Toons: 54 Illustrated Commentaries, is now available for just $10, postpaid. All profits go to support Jewish Currents. Purchases: lawrencebush@earthlink.net.

More important, if you're serious about nurturing the American tradition, come to the event described below: November 23rd. Click the image to enlarge — and save the Date!

Happy Memorial Day

May we fly the flag proudly, for a change, next year.

Sholem Aleichem Down Under

Check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4eQPyIv5fY
It's a YouTube clip of our Sholem Aleichem Bobblehead Doll in action in Australia, sent to me by Rokhl Kafrissen, our Rootless Cosmopolitan blogger and organizer, who provides transliteration and translation below —

Nu, if you want a Sholem Aleichem Bobblehead of your own, visit www.jewishcurrents.org!

We love Yiddish because it is THE language
Here we come, it's the weekend and we're speaking Yiddish non-stop
It rings in our ears and warms the heart
Because Yiddish is... the new black!

Here we come, here we come

From Czernowitz to Melbourne isn't too far
Even though it takes a long time on an airplane
So you say you have Yiddish in your blood
Then sing with us our refrain!

Here we come...

We're bringing from Australia to the rest of the world
this rap which has been a hit everywhere
Mameloshn blooms here from generation to generation
Together we sing it with one voice, high and clear!


Mir hobn lib yiddish vayl es iz di shprakh
mir kumen on di sof vokh redn yiddish a sakh
es klingt undz in di oyrn varemt undz di hartz
vayl yiddish iz...di nayer shvartz!

mir kumen on etc

fun czernowitz keyn melbourne iz nisht zeyer vayt
khotsh af an aeroplan doyert es a langer tsayt

yo ir hot gezogt az ir hot yidish in di tseynto lomir itster zingn undzer refrayn

mir kumen on

Mir brengen fun oystralye tsu der gantser velt
undzer rap vos hot umetum gefelt
mameloshn blit bay undz fun dor tsu dor
tsuzmen in eyn kol zing men hoykh un klor

Tales to Tell of Rabbi Akiva

I've never pushed my springtime Jewish observance past Passover to mess around with counting the omer during the forty-nine days that lead from peysakh to shvues (Shavuot). I have friends who do so and get all involved with kabbalistic associations with each day of the omer, associations involving the sefirot (mystical aspects of God), colors, personality traits, foods, and so on. But for me, the post-seder clean-up begins when the guests leave and doesn’t end until I head for Cape Cod in August. Like most faithless Jews, I tend to view Jewish holidays not as opportunities but as impositions — alas! — and so my personal Jewish calendar becomes a large, blissfully empty block between Nisan and Elul . . .

In other words, I won't be observing Lag B'Omer next week — how about you?

Judging from what I've read (If you really want to walk on the wild side, there's an interesting 'Jewish Messianic' take on the holiday at http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/parashah.html), Lag B'Omer is actually an emotionally powerful observance, as it centers around the figure of Rabbi Akiva, one of the most compelling figures in Jewish history and lore. Lag B'Omer focuses on the end-days of his life — but for me, Akiva, it's his earlier days that have amazing appeal, as exemplified in three stories:

The first tells of his being forty years old and entirely untutored — until one day when he is standing by a stone well and wonders, Who cut a hole in this rock? Someone quotes to him a passage from the book of Job about water wearing away even stones, and Akiva thinks: If something so soft can cut something so hard, then surely the words of Jewish knowledge can engrave themselves on my heart. So he takes himself and his son to a teacher of little children and says, "My teacher, teach me Torah!" And he goes on from that humble state to devour knowledge, so that, as Avot DeRabbai Natan (a fabulous midrashic text) puts it, “Rabbi Akiva began to study Torah at age forty, and thirteen years later he was teaching Torah to crowds of people." And he was featured in People magazine, etcetera. Is this a cinematic story, or what?

Another of my favorite Akiva stories has him sleeping on straw with his new wife, who is the daughter of the richest man in town but has been disowned by him for marrying this ignoramus, Akiva, his former shepherd. "They were married in the winter," says the Talmud (Nedarim 50a), "and they used to sleep on straw."

Picking straw out of his hair, he said to her, "If only I had the money, I would buy you a Jerusalem of gold" (a tiara wrought in the shape of the city walls).

At that moment, Elijah the prophet came outside their gate, calling for straw. "My wife is about to give birth, and I have nothing for her to lie on."

Says Rabbi Akiva to his bride: "See — there is someone who doesn't even have straw."

Oh, my goodness . . .

In a third of my favorite Akiva stories, he approaches Rabbi Tarfon, who is wealthy but does not sufficiently give tsedoke. (This is the Rabbi Tarfon who famously said of social responsibility, "It is not for you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it." Hypocrite!) Akiva says: "My teacher, would you like me to purchase a city or two for you?"

Tarfon is enthusiastic and gives him 4,000 gold dinars — which Akiva goes and distributes tok the poor.

"A while later,” says the Talmudic tractate (Massechet Kallah), “Rabbi Tarfon found him and said: Where are the cities you purchased for me?"

Akiva brings him to the study house and opens the book of Psalms. They study together until they come to the verse, "If a person gives freely to the poor, his tsedoke will stand him in good stead forever." "This is the city I bought for you!" Akiva declares.

But Tarfon does not call his lawyers. Instead, he kisses Akiva on the head and says: "My teacher, my hero! My teacher in wisdom! My hero in the essences of Life!" And he gives Akiva more dinars to distribute.

(These passages are translated by Danny Siegel in his wonderful compendium, Where Heaven and Earth Touch. Nu, are you telling me that these stories wouldn't work just as well as the "Three Little Pigs" or "Cinderella" as beddy-bye or campfire tales? Jews, you have a wonderful folklore tradition!!)

It's too bad that as a relatively new blogger, I didn't think of counting the omer until today, twenty-five or thirty days in. Counting the omer by chattering my head off for 49 straight days would have been an interesting approach. Sitting down to write blogs, after all, is a kind of Jewish observance, for me, involving time and concentration and study and self-reflection and anxiety and at least some shards of inspiration — plus the prayer that there'll actually be readers!

So — if I hear from any of you, I'll tell more Akiva stories before Lag B'Omer...

Concealed/Revealed

The May/June issue of Jewish Currents includes a new feature, "Concealed/ Revealed," in which readers are invited to share their personal experiences pertaining to a wide variety of subjects. Essays should be limited to 300 words and focus on a specific experience that was transformative, provocative or just plain unforgettable. The first topic was "Jews and Shoes." The next topic is "Doctors," with a deadline of May 21st. After that, "Rabbis," with a deadline of July 21st. Essays should be sent to the magazine at jewishcurrents@circle.org.

What Obama's Up Against (Besides Hillary)

In the January-February issue of Jewish Currents, our editorial offered the following statistics:

“In the wake of the ongoing noose case in Jena, Louisiana . . . a CNN poll showed that only 47 percent of white respondents think that the criminal justice system discriminates against Blacks, a view held by 79 percent of African Americans. Similarly, a 2001 survey showed that 40 to 60 percent of whites (depending on how the question was framed) considered the average African American to be doing as well as, or even better than, the average white. A 2006 survey reported in Harvard’s Du Bois Review (www.fas.harvard.edu/~mrbworks/articles/2006_ DUBOIS.pdf) showed a preponderance of whites of different ages and geographic regions saying they’d be willing to spend the rest of their lives as an African-American for ‘compensation’ of only $10,000 — while requiring $1 million to spend the rest of their lives without television!”

Racism is so deeply ingrained in the U.S. that as soon as a black man (even a mixed-race man raised by a white mother!) shows himself to be cognizant of racism, or in any way devoted to the black community, he becomes a “race man.” Hell, America doesn't want “change,” America wants absolution — without repentance or reparations. Thus the race-transcending Barack Obama has now become the black candidate.

I remain optimistic about his prospects of winning only because of his overwhelming support among young people. Here are the stats, from Pew Research Center: 58 percent of voters under 30 lean towards the Democrats, compared with 33 percent who identify as Republican — a 14-point jump for the Democrats since 2004. Most important, voters under 30 have doubled and trebled their turnout in primaries across the country, and they are very much for Obama: in Georgia, 77%; Virginia, 76%; Mississippi, 73%; Wisconsin, 70%; Illinois, 69%; South Carolina, 67%; Louisiana, 66%; Missouri, 65%; Pennsylvania, 60%; Maryland, 64%.

These are the people who are going to bear the burdens of George Bush’s disastrous presidency for the rest of their lives. These are the people who can restore the Democratic party to majority status. These are the people who will either take on the responsibilities of citizenship — or not — in the decades to come. These are the people whose worldview has most truly been affected by the gains of the civil rights movement and the multicultural reality of America. And these are people for whom a Clinton victory will be most deeply alienating.

Go, youth, go! Don't trust anyone over 46.

Never Say Never Again

Today's intersection of May Day and Yom HaShoah has me feeling ashamed. Ashamed because the clenched fist of May Day, attached to my arm, becomes a hand covering my eyes at the spectacle of Jews being herded into gas chambers 65 years ago, and at the spectacle of other mass slaughters in the decades since.

Last night I watched the National Geographic Channel piece called "Nazi Scrapbooks from Hell," which dwelled for an hour on two sets of photographs: one showing the Nazi officers of Auschwitz (including Mengele) at their leisure, singing, smoking, flirting, playing around; the other showing some of the nearly half a million Hungarian Jews who were transported to the Auschwitz compound over the course of 54 days in 1944. The commentators, mostly staff at the National Holocaust Museum, kept telling me how to feel: stunned and outraged and disturbed. But mostly I felt shame.

Shame even for watching the show — with its slow, tear-jerking pans of those sad photographs of worn-out Jews, men, women and children, who were fresh off the cattle cars and about to be sent to the gas chambers. I've seen their faces before; I've spent time with those photographs; I recognize these people! What was I gaining by looking at them again, besides indulging my grief as I sat there on my comfortable couch?

I felt ashamed for having to explain to myself several times how it was possible that six million people could be done to death in five or six years by handsful of killing squads: how the Nazis staged the process and broke us down, and how I would have been right there on line with them all, taking off my clothes rather than biting the throat of an SS guard ...

I thought about The Partisan Hymn, Zog Nit Keyn Mol, 22-year-old Hirsh Glik's anthem, which we stood to sing, as always, at our first-night seder this year — on the very night of the start of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, 65 years ago. "Never say that there is only death for you," says the opening line. But maybe acknowledging that "there is only death for you" is the critical realization that enables you to fight back. So it went in the Warsaw Ghetto: It was not until there were only some 50,000 left, with no real chance for survival, that the Uprising was finally sparked. (Even then, I would have probably headed for the sewers instead of the bunkers.)

Oh, I am so attached, not only to life, but to my comfort, my habits, my egotism, my self-interest. On a daily basis, I get a lot more disturbed about my Internet connection misfunctioning, or about my book not getting reviewed somewhere, or about the temperature outside being a few degrees colder than I want on May 1st, than I get about the fact that 250,000+ people have been murdered in Darfur ... or that people are starving in Haiti ...

And you, are you much better? By what degree?

Killing and apathy have their own force of inertia. Things in motion remain in motion; things at rest remain at rest. The National Geographic Channel will be slow-panning that camera until kingdom come.

That, at least, is how May Day/Yom HaShoah is making me feel this year: that "Never again" is bullshit.

Nevertheless, I'm headed this weekend to a Jewish activism conference in Boston — and already I'm muttering about the four-hour drive . . .

For Abbie Hoffman, in Loving Memory

As we leave peysakh, but before we leave the month of April, I'm taking this moment to remember the irrepressible Abbie Hoffman, one of my heroes, who died of his own hand on April 12, 1989. When I reviewed his book, Soon To Be a Major Motion Picture, in Jewish Currents in January, 1981 (“Hoffman's ultimate antic,” I wrote, “is his sobriety, which is intense and personal and confirms the best hopes we may have had about 'the real Abbie'"), I was very happy to receive an approving letter from him, which we published in the March issue. Years later, when I heard of Abbie's death, I wrote the following poem, which was published in The Reconstructionist::


The Whole World Is Watching

At three a.m.
Jonah calls to me
from his disordered crib.
I scold him back to sleep,
then stand alone in the dark bathroom,
listening to the free splash of my pee
and thinking about "Steal this Urine Test."

The kitchen light
is like the guru's touch,
shooting sparks through my forehead.
I peel one of the ripening bananas
from Jonah's stockpile.
When our grandparents were introduced to these things
at Ellis Island
they didn't know to peel them first.
Not even the rabbis knew.

The sprig of forsythia above the sink
is becoming a green-leafed twig.
I wonder how many of my friends back in the city
understand how forsythia changes.
Until I got a dog
I didn't realize it myself,
only vaguely thought I was walking a different path
not seeing those yellow bushes anymore.
Then the dog led me to the same places each morning
and I saw what happens,
flowers passing into leaves.

The whole world is watching
as my forsythia turns green above the sink.
I am a greenhorn,
trying to learn the names of things:
forsythia yielding to lilac, lilac yielding to peony,
peony yielding to lily.
I am an immigrant from the Woodstock Nation,
throwing out my banana peel,
giving my soft belly a squeeze
and turning out the light.

Two hours remain
before Jonah will cry again
and I can lie with him beneath my blankets
until morning.

Jimmy Carter Made My Mother Rich!

The Forward this week ran a pretty nasty editorial condemning Jimmy Carter for meeting with Hamas and citing his presidency as “slightly ahead of Millard Fillmore but trailing Herbert Hoover."

I object!

The inflated interest rates during the Carter years that the Forward editorial whines about, rates that reached 20 percent at one point, actually turned the savings account and money-market funds of teachers, civil servants, cops, firefighters, social workers and other middle-class people into substantial nest-eggs and small estates for their children and grandchildren to inherit. Jimmy Carter, in short, actually made my mother rich for a few years! Wall Street hated those high interest rates, which drove the little people away from riskier stock investments, but for a lot of working people, especially retirees, Carter's term was a time of wealth redistribution that didn't hurt one bit.

Carter also introduced human rights concerns to American foreign policy after decades of realpolitik brutality on the part of the State Department, Pentagon, CIA, and other centers of U.S. power. He established diplomatic relations with China, negotiated the Salt II nuclear arms treaty with the USSR, overcame rightwing fury to achieve the Panama Canal Treaty — and, of course, brokered the only modern peace deal between Israel and an Arab power, the Camp David Accords. To boot, he was the only presidential candidate in history to quote a Yiddish proverb (in his 1980 concession speech)! I'm not saying he was a great friend of the people, but the Forward's description — “he left Americans so soured on their government that the door was opened to a generation of rule by the far right” — is really misplaced.

Carter’s life-after-the-White House has included turning Habitat for Humanity into a household word and serving as an impartial international elections monitor. He is also a cofounder of The Elders, an impressive group of elderly international citizens dedicated to bringing moral suasion to bear on our planet’s most stubborn problems. (Jewish Currents was the first Jewish publication to editorialize about the Elders, in our September-October, 2007 issue.) Carter won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize as a honest broker of peace who acts consistently with his belief that dialogue is a cornerstone of peace-making. He is not alone in calculating that there can be no meaningful Israeli-Palestinian peace established if Hamas is not party to it.

Henry Siegman, the former head of the American Jewish Congress, has reported on his conversations with Hamas leaders (in the New York Review of Books), who state that Hamas "is prepared to abide by a long-term hudna, or cease-fire, which would end all violence. . . . [C]omplete reciprocity must prevail, and Israel must end all attacks on Palestinians. If Israel agrees to the cease-fire, Hamas will take responsibility for preventing and punishing Palestinian violations, whether committed by Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Intifada, or its own people. Hamas understands that it cannot demand recognition as the legitimate government of Palestine if it is not prepared to enforce such a cease-fire, in the context of its responsibility for law and order."

Efraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad, Israel's CIA, wrote the following (quoted by Siegman):

"Hamas constitutes about a fifth of Palestinian society. Because they are an active, engaged and aware group, they have more political weight. So anyone who thinks it's possible to ignore such a central element of Palestinian society is simply mistaken. . . . I think that in the end there will be no way around Hamas being a partner in the Palestinian government. I believe that if that happens there is a chance that it will be domesticated. Its destructive force will be reduced."

And Robert Malley and Hussein Agha wrote in the very latest NYRB: "Israel and the Palestinian Authority cannot make real progress on a peace agreement if they are determined to keep Hamas out. The Islamists can turn to violence, mount a campaign to deny backing to Abbas and any accord he favors, or prevent a credible referendum from being held in Gaza, which they control, and in the West Bank, where they retain considerable influence. As long as Hamas is shunned, as long as peace talks are intended to further marginalize it, Hamas will perceive an alliance between Abbas and Israel as a mortal threat and react accordingly."

There is nothing more idiotic, in my opinion, than the Bush administration's policy of refusing to talk with governments to which it is opposed. Carter is striving to help move the U.S. — and the Israeli government — beyond the politics of the playground, where Nah nah nah nah nah passes for diplomacy.

Yes, I read Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid when it was published, and I found it one-sided. Carter failed, in that book, to empathize with Israeli victims of terrorism and to describe the terrible impact that terrorism as a tool of struggle has had on the prospects of peace for both peoples. But the cold shoulder that the Jewish community has showed him ever since brings shame on us, not on him.

Mid-Day Philosophy: Science and Boundaries

I'm an old-fashioned leftist in that I'm a fan of science. I hate it when TIKKUN magazine blames half the world's ills on "scientism." I share in my parents' and my grandparents' humanistic sense of science as a Promethean, as opposed to Frankensteinish, enterprise. As I wrote in Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist:

"Our parents' scientist was a world citizen, a messenger of prosperity and household ease, a crusader for truth against superstition, and a conqueror of hunger, disease and fascism." By contrast, to my own generation of progressives, "the scientist appears to be a corporate citizen, an idolater tampering with the very forces of creation for petty purposes, an amoral technician, and, in anthropologist Loren Eiseley's words, an 'extreme reductionist . . . so busy stripping things apart that the tremendous mystery has been reduced to a trifle . . .'"

Science has always represented, to me, the glory of humanism. Look at what we can do!

Two recent developments, however, have had me up in arms about the dangers of science unrestrained by anything but corporate managers and the military-industrial complex. The first was a New York Times discussion a week ago about atom-smashing, and whether it is conceivable or not that one of these experiments in subatomic physics might create a black hole in the laboratory that could suck us all to kingdom come. The article dealt with the "impending startup of the Large Hadron Collider” near Geneva, which "starts smashing protons together this summer . . . in hopes of grabbing a piece of the primordial fire, forces and particles that may have existed a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang."

The odds of a catastrophic outcome are a gazillion-to-one (or a bazillion to one or a foofatillion to one, depending on which physicist is estimating) — still, I was arrested by this article into thinking: Who gives them the right? ESPECIALLY since it seems to me that their research is so purely theoretical (string theory, etc.) that it will take decades to have practical application (teleportation, who knows what?) — and then the question arises, who determines the value of those practical applications? The General Electric Company? The Pentagon? There is a glaring lack of vital centers for discussion about the ethics of decision-making in our world, a glaring lack of discussion about not only what we can do but what we should do! Even scientists themselves — whose knowledge base is increasingly exclusive and privileged, and whose powers to manipulate reality seem increasingly magical to the rest of us — are in no position to claim a leadership role on questions about the social or ethical impact of their achievements. But without those kind of "vital centers" in our globalized world, decisions are left in the hands of corporate managers, politicians and others among whom the scoundrel quotient is terribly high!

The second alarm was sounded on the question of nuclear power, which is being debated within the Workmen's Circle as I write. Increasingly I hear from progressive-minded people that because of global warming, nuclear power must be considered a viable, clean-energy source. Rutgers professor Norman Levitt has written (in Prometheus Bedeviled) that nukes are opposed only because of "factors that go far beyond scientific skepticism," including its "mere association with nuclear weapons" and "a widespread feeling that atom splitting in its own right constitutes a primordial crime against the natural order." Yet my own earnest opposition to nuclear power is based far less on technophobia than on the half-life of plutonium and other nuclear fission byproducts, which persist in the environment for tens of thousands of years — an eternity, as far as human society is concerned.

Yes, the very fact that fission produces such powerful poisons gives me pause and makes my sense of taboo tingle — but even if I don't permit myself to make a metaphor out of "unnatural" plutonium, the idea that we, in the 21st century, shold feel entitled to do anything that will burden thousands of future generations with large amounts of poison seems morally unconscionable to me. However assured the arrogant scientist may be of his or her capacity to safeguard these substances technologically, the sheer span of time involved makes all predictions about the maintenance of that technology ridiculously hubristic. What knows what tens of thousands of years might produce in terms of war, political and environmental change, and social stability? At least, therefore, we should do EVERYTHING within our powers to reduce our energy consumption and find alternative ways to slow global warming before we resort to atom-splitting! No nukes as long as there are SUV's on the road!!

Does this make me religious? I certainly do think about the Biblical injunction about blessings and curses when I think about nuclear power — that we, like the Biblical God, should "extend kindness to the thousandth generation" while visiting "the iniquity of parents" only "upon children and children's children, upon the third and fourth generation" (Exodus 34: 7). Even as a staunch humanist and a fan of science, in other words, I do feel over the limits of where human beings should permit themselves to trespass when it comes to atom smashing.

By the way, for a really interesting discussion of the difference between building a golem and building a Frankenstein monster, I recommend Byron Sherwin's Golems Among Us. Fabulous and fascinating book, which I reviewed a couple of years back in Jewish Currents. I'll do some blogging about it in the near future.

Rootless No More

Our "Rootless Cosmopolitan" columnist, Rokhl Kafrissen, is now a bona fide employee of The Jewish Currents Universe, and you can click through to her fabulous new blog at our website. Rokhl has left a career in corporate law to do this (mental illness or a quest for authenticity? Only the future will tell). She will be blogging like crazy and also serving as our New York area organizer/events-goer/rrrrrepresentative. Yay for her (YIVO spelling: yey), and yay-yay-yay for us!!

Celebrate

My dear friend Esther Cohen alerted me yesterday that it was National Carry a Poem in Your Pocket Day. Here’s the poem I carried, by another dear friend, David Marell, called “Celebrate Meditation.” It’s from his book, Be Generous. May it put you into the mood for Passover if you’re not, and enhance your mood if you are.

CELEBRATE MEDITATION

Celebrate early
Celebrate often
There is plenty of sadness
There is plenty of disappointment
Celebrate
Celebrate
Celebrate

The Rolling Stones

Saw them at an IMAX theater tonight. Martin Scorsese is one hell of a concert filmmaker. His last concert film, Lightning in a Bottle, was outstanding, definitely worth a rental if you're a fan of the blues (the house band alone features Dr. John & Keb Mo') — and this Stones film is a terrific follow-up. The energy of the Stones, their masculinity/ femininity, Jagger's sharp professionalism, their astounding songwriting abiity (you realize how refreshing it can be when a singer like Jagger is hard to understand so the songs never get memorized, never become rote), their snaking guitar sounds (Keith Richards says of himself and Ronnie Woods: Neither of us are great guitarists but put together we're better than 10 others combined), the experience of Bill Clinton in the IMAX flesh (the concert is at the Beacon theater to benefit a Clinton charity) — it's all wonderful and fascinating. The Stones are not only the self-described "greatest rock and roll band in the world," they're also tremendously challenging to rightwing American culture — and they're consummate artists. Yahoo!

Early-Morning Philosophy

And here's what I've been saying to secularists, Ethical Cultural groups, and the like, when I speak to them about Waiting for God:

You know, the great triumph of capitalism, and perhaps its most surprising impact, has been how it has obliterated all obligatory community ties and made it possible — and even enjoyable, or at least tolerable — to be alone. For many people, community has been reduced to a purely voluntaristic activity that we can easily do without. Gordon S. Woods has called this "the radicalism of the American revolution," observing that from the very start in this country, the involuntary bonds of community that were once determined by class, gender, ethnic and caste status, religion, birth order, and so on, have been steadily supplanted by the advent of a freewheeling consumer culture in which money does the talking. Today, those powerful identities of class, race, religion and geography are more and more being replaced by a single identity, that of the consumer, who is offered incredible tools of self-sufficiency that privatize our lives and remove all sense of interdependency from our relationships. The problem is this: While we have very much been liberated from the oppressive bonds of involuntary community, we human beings cannot afford to stray too far from the awareness of interconnection or to get stuck too deeply in the illusion of independence and separateness without doing ourselves great harm. I say "illusion" because while both interconnection and separateness are REAL, interconnection is more real — or at least, more important to cultivate in our awareness if we are to preserve this world of ours.

"Interconnection" is not spiritual gobbledygook. Ecological science, genetics, astronomy, physics, and chemistry all testify to the shared origins of all matter and the ongoing symbiosis of all life systems. Human economies are certainly interdependent, and all activities that create sustenance and wealth, from invention to production to distribution, are deeply collective. Our very bodies are collectivities that include once-independent organisms such as mitochondria and still-independent bacteria of all kinds. And our capacity for love and mutual support — which is surely as powerful, on a day-to-day basis, as our capacity for war and domination — is further testament to the existential reality of our interconnectedness.

I define spirituality, in fact, as the emotional surge we feel when our apprehension of the reality of interconnection is enhanced — enhanced by singing together, talking together, loving together, whatever; the arc of interconnection is a broad arc, and the spirituality of interconnection is a wide-ranging experience. Still, it is my hope that such a secular, baseline definition of "spirituality" can help non-theists and atheists like myself perceive spirituality and spiritual practices as part of the tool kit for building a better world.


Many of us tend to dismiss all spiritual practice and all religious ritual as "opiates of the people," and we pride ourselves on not "needing" such opiates. If we belong to "religious" communities at all (such as Ethical Culture, or the local synagogue), we tend to treat our membership as less-than-important, less-than- compelling — as a pleasant diversion rather than as an important, and highly political, commitment. This is a pity, because in our alienation from God-concepts, in our alienation from "old-time religion," we have leadership capacity: We have no religious inertia or conservatism to overcome in ourselves, and so we can help lead religious communities into meaningful ritual, meaningful discussion, and genuine encounters with the “We” instead of the make-believe "You."

We need to shift our perception of spirituality: from a mere boutique version of the "opiate of the people" to a significant tool of social transformation. History has presented us with so many examples of hopeful political change being corrupted by power-hungry, paranoid or otherwise "unenlightened" or "unawakened" leaders that it should seem obvious that the creation of a more equitable, merciful and environmentally responsible social system requires not only the forceful reorganization of property ownership and power relations — the classic Marxist formula — but also the cultivation of compassion and higher consciousness in human beings. The maternal, loving, trusting sides of our nature need to be developed; the lustful, egotistical aspects of our nature need to be tamed and directed into socially constructive channels. Our perception of interconnection needs cultivation; our perception of separateness — which is so easy to access! — needs to be diminished and confined.

You want to overcome, say, police brutality? Well, the other day on NPR I heard a cop who had taken a four-day workshop with Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk-poet. She described the heart-opening effect of that workshop, how it had transformed her policing, including her perception of those whom she arrests — and I thought about how some years ago, I would have sniffed and thought, "Reformism! Spiritual gobbledygook!" But instead, I thought, "Ah, yes. We need to train human beings to be more fully human."

And then I say, Nu, what do you think?

Late-Night Philosophy

Here's essentially what I've been saying to rabbis and congregations as I go around peddling my book, Waiting for God.

You seem to have no idea of how important you and your communities are in today's world — as centers where questions can be asked about what we, as human beings — with awesome, unprecedented power — should be doing. Not only what we CAN do, but what we SHOULD do. And what is the should based on? What does the should reach for? Why don't we always follow the should? What conflicts exist between the collective should and the individual should? Who's leadership can we trust? How do we judge authority? And how do we think for ourselves? All of these can be defined as religious questions — or, at least, religious institutions are the spaces where conversations about these questions can flow most naturally (there's too much pass-fail static in the classroom, and too much commerce in the media).

And instead you use your precious community time repeating rituals that bring comfort (for those who are comfortable with them) but little insight, certainly little new insight, about the should.

Why do you do that? Why do you go for the predictable instead of the creative and unpredictable? Especially when, in most liberal Jewish communities, there is really no God to serve, there is little belief in a commanding God whose commands are embodied in the Torah. Why do you spend time praising God, therefore, instead of encountering one another? Why do you address the You that is, in truth, a proxy for the We?

It is a strange thing: The tradition that we honor, Judaism, wisely saw human beings in a balanced way, as containing the possibility of goodness and also the possibility of negativity; the possibility of interconnection and the possibility of selfishness; the possibility of I-Thou and the possibility of I-It. The rabbis didn't just say, Human beings are evil, tainted with sin, and they didn't just say, Human beings are good, made in the image of Goodness; they recognized that we are bundles of contrary instincts — but that even the selfishness can be channeled to be socially constructive with the right set of life rules! “We know that you're going to be selfish, we know that you're going to be driven by fear and greed — so we're going to make you say 100 blessings a day so that you can also remember, constantly, the interconnected reality of your life, the interconnection that brings you your good fortune, your survival.” But most modern Jews, including Jews in most modern congregations, have declared themselves, at least in their hearts, to be free of the "must" behind those 100 blessings, as free of most of the Jewish rules that were devised to channel us towards the social good. Yet we spend our time, when we're together, repeating the old rituals, the old prayers, as though we still were making use of that system in our lives! In fact, we should be spending our time discussing our own modern perceptions of human good and human evil, and defining our own rules to channel us towards the social good. Yes, those rules should be ripe with Jewish content — it's good content, some of that old stuff! — but first and foremost, we have to make the space to have the discussion. That means, DON'T take the Torah out of the ark every single Saturday! Reading from the Torah is not all that edifying! Why not take a globe out of the ark one week — pass the world around, let people hold and kiss that? Take a baby and pass her around, let people hold and kiss her. THAT'S Torah! And then talk about it!

We need to talk about our moral foundations, our knowledge about human genetics and human social nurture, about how who we are gives rise to our institutions and how our institutions shape who we are. About the possibility of transformation — and the impossibility of transformation. About how to stop war — really! About how to love the stranger — really! About mindfulness, about our mothers and our daughters, about genetic engineering and atom-splitting, about the reaches and limits of humanism . . .

We need to make our religions oh-so-worldly, in a world that is oh-so-troubled.

And then I say, Nu, what do you think?

Forgive Me for Boasting . . .

A yummy review for my book, WAITING FOR GOD, in Library Journal.

See also http://www.jewishliteraryreview.com/post/2008/03/Review-Lawrence-Bush-Waiting-for-God.aspx

Leroy Hommerding - Library Journal

As editor of Jewish Currents magazine, Bush has a reputation for independent and unpretentious thought and dialog. Here, he continues that tradition, exploring factors that converted Woodstock-era nonbelievers into passionate spiritual seekers and aiming to surmise the psychological and cultural impact of the nuclear bomb, psychedelic drugs, environmental issues, and the synthesis of science and mysticism. In the book's second half, Bush probes the writings of Matthew Fox (liberal Christianity), Mordecai Kaplan (Jewish reconstructionism), and Starhawk (feminist aspects of Wicca), bringing a rational skepticism to each liberal thinker's perspective. Bush asks the right questions — of himself and of the reader — which leads to a deeper understanding of an individual's relationship with God. In the end, he senses an interconnection between life and God, one that continues to pose challenges for skeptics and humanists. Libraries carrying any of Bush's earlier titles (Bessie: A Novel of Love and Revolution) will definitely want to add this to their collections. Those having titles by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, or Christopher Hitchens will find it continues and extends these books' arguments. For both general readers of theology and more seasoned readers looking for a convenient grappling of the issues.

April 6-7, 1903: Kishinev

This is my song of sorrow for the victims of the Kishinev pogrom . . . and of the Wounded Knee massacre . . . and the killing wastelands of Darfur . . . Click on the image to enlarge it.

'Twas the Night of Our Seder . . .

by Lawrence Bush
Printed in last year's March-April issue of Jewish Currents
Illustrations by Rod Morrison

A family dinner? What’s the big deal?
Let’s skip all the talking and get to the meal!
It’s Passover — why not pass over the chatter?
And pass out the matzo balls! Hey! What’s the matter?

Sorry! Okay, I’ll be quiet, I promise.
I’m listening. Yes, I remember you warned us
that this is a seder, and “seder” means “order.”
I’m calm now. I’m ready. (I’m starving! I’m bored!)

That plate in the center — is that what’s for dinner?
If so, I’ll be going to bed ten pounds thinner.
That lamb bone looks scrawny and burnt, and the rest
makes me think that my parents forget we have guests!

Ahh, but this part I like, when we all sip some wine.
(Mine’s really grape juice, but that suits me fine.
I’ve tasted that sweet wine — it really tastes yuck.
I hope they put grape juice in Elijah’s cup!)

Mom lifts her glass. “To Moses,” she says.
“Who’s that?” wonders Petey, our non-Jewish guest,
though I warned him: No questions or we’ll never eat!
No wonder he’s skinny, my curious friend Pete.

Dad clears his throat and says, “Good question, guy.
Let’s read the hagode —you’ll hear by and by.”
Sigh! Here goes! He’ll tell the whole story of Moses
while we sit with nothing to eat but charoses

And matse and horseradish . . . What? It’s my turn?
Oh, yeah! The Four Questions! I worked hard to learn
to pronounce them in Hebrew, to make it sound right . . .
“Why’s this night different from all other nights?”

In the land of old Egypt, centuries ago,
Our people, the Hebrews, were slaves to Pharaoh.
Oy! How he worked us, from morning ‘til night,
building garrison cities of towering height.

Although we were slaves, this Egyptian king feared us.
“What if a war came, and with all the fuss
the Hebrews rebelled, and our enemies won?
There are too many slaves! I’ll kill off their sons!”

Yocheved, a slave mother, hid her new baby
for three months until there was no time for “Maybe . . .”
Desperate, she floated her son in the Nile
in a basket that bobbed close to shore. Meanwhile,

Miriam, sister of this poor baby boy,
hid in the reeds, and saw, with great joy
that Pharaoh’s own daughter had come to the river.
The cool, lapping tide was about to deliver

the dear little sailor to royalty’s feet!
Her maids fetched the basket. She cried out, “How sweet!
“This must be a Hebrew slave baby,” she said.
“By my father’s command, this child should be dead.

“But I will adopt him and raise him as mine.”
She saw Miriam. “Girl! Do you think you can find
a nurse for this baby?” “I sure can!” she said,
and ran for her mother, who came fast and fed

her hungry slave baby, who now would be free —
a member of Eygptian nobility!
“His name shall be Moses,” said Pharaoh’s kind daughter.
(“Moses,” some say, means “pulled from the water.”)

So Moses grew up in the palace, but knew
from his nurse that his people were slaves, the Hebrews.
He must have felt guilty, living so high
while the rest of his folk just barely got by . . .

One day, as a grown-up, he went for a walk
to visit his people. Moses was shocked
when he saw an Egyptian guard beating a slave.
His guilt and his anger rose in a great wave

and he killed that Egyptian, and buried him there
in the sand. Then he realized, “I’d better not dare
go back to the palace! When Pharaoh gets wind
of the fact that I did this, he’ll ask for my skin!”

So Moses ran off to a neighboring land
where he worked as a shepherd, and asked for the hand
of Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro. They married.
Until he was eighty years old, Moses tarried

there, far from the palace, far from the cries
of his people, the Hebrews, and their bitter lives. . . .
One day, as he herded his sheep on a mountain,
He saw a weird sight — it was really astounding.

A bush was aflame. The fire burned high,
yet the bush did not burn, its leaves did not die.
How could this happen? Moses drew near —
and then a great Voice made him tremble with fear.

“I am the God whom your ancestors knew
and now there is something I need you to do.
Go back to old Egypt, and tell the Pharaoh
that God has commanded him: Let the slaves go!”

Moses was nervous. He feared for his life.
“Please,” he said, “I’ve got two kids and a wife.
I lisp something awful. I’m really quite old.
Can’t you find someone else?” But the Voice hollered, “No!

“I’ll supply words, and magical strength.
Pharaoh is stubborn. He’ll go to great lengths
to ignore my command and hold onto his slaves,
but I will defeat him with horrible plagues!”

So . . . Moses, quite bravely, went back to the land
and stood before Pharaoh to made this demand:
“Let the slaves go!” “Go jump in the mud!”
“Then you’re cursed! The Nile River will run red with blood!”

The river turned bloody, and all the fish died.
The people of Egypt were thirsty. They cried
out for water. Their king gave them shovels instead,
to dig wells — while to Moses he just said: “Drop dead!”

Soon after, Moses came back with a warning:
“You’d better start listening, or frogs will start swarming
all over the place! Let my people go free!”
Pharaoh just sneered at him. “Try and make me!”

Frogs on the table! Frogs on the floor!
Frogs in the homes of the rich and the poor.
Frogs in their shoes! Frogs in their beds!
Frogs in their underwear! Frogs on their heads!
Then lice, flies, and illness! Boils, hail and locusts!
And darkness so thick that no one could focus.
All Egypt was suffering, but mean old Pharaoh
kept changing his mind about letting the slaves go!

The last was the worst plague: the death of the child
born first in each family. Egypt went wild
with sadness and grief, as they buried their kids.
Even Pharaoh’s son died — and the king flipped his lid!

“Get out!” he commanded the slaves. “Get out now!
Don’t even pack up! Just leave now, and how!”
Well, the Hebrew slaves found Pharaoh’s words so surprising
that the bread they were baking had no time for rising,

Which is why matse sits on the Passover plate . . .
Mm, matse! I thought — but Pete made us wait!
“Why’s it called ‘Passover’? And how come the slaves
Didn’t lose their kids, too? How come they were saved?”

“The story,” Mom said, “is that God gave instruction
that homes marked with lamb’s blood would see no destruction
The Angel of Death knew which houses to spare . . .”
“To pass over!” Pete shouted, ignoring my glare.
They fled to the sea. . . . Meanwhile, Pharaoh rued
his decision to set the slaves free, and pursued
them with chariots right to edge of the water.
On one side, the sea — on the other side, slaughter!

A Hebrew named Nakhshon plunged into the sea.
“I’m not going back! I’m going to be free!”
Then the ocean split open! A bridge of dry ground!
The Hebrews ran through; the army stormed down.

And as soon as the freed slaves were safely across,
The waters crashed down upon chariot and horse!
“Another ‘pass over,’” said Pete. “What a tale!
Is it true, or just make-believe? How can you fail

“to believe in a God who makes miracles like these?
And why talk about it, if you don’t believe?”
I sighed. I stood up. I explained to my friend:
“Y’see, Pete, the question that counts, in the end,

“is not whether Passover’s just an invention,
but how come we Jews choose to celebrate redemption!
Nobody knows if we ever were slaves.
Nobody knows if there ever were plagues.

“But year in, and year out, we take this occasion
to talk about how we can seek liberation!”
“You sound like a rabbi — I’m proud of you, dear,”
said my mom, while Daddy proclaimed me a seer.

“Good! Now that the whole story’s finally told,
can we please eat before the matse grows mold?!”
“Sure,” my mom said, “we can finish up later
with singing and so forth — please, would you play waiter

“and bring out the matse-ball soup, with a ladle?”
Faster than grandma says, “A sheyne meydl!”
whenever my big sister floats within sight,
I dashed to the kitchen, thinking how this night

is different from others because eating so late,
makes all the food special — even fish glop tastes great!
And if Moses came, saying: Let’s fly the coop!
I wouldn’t get up before finishing my soup!

"At My Seder Table”

An offering of two artworks for Passover. Click to enlarge!

Eliot Spitzer and Male Sexuality

"It is told of Rabbi Eliezer ben Dordia that there was not one courtesan in the world whom he had not patronized. Once, on hearing that there was a certain courtesan in one of the cities across the sea who demanded a purse of denars as her fee, he took such a purse and journeyed forth, crossing seven rivers for her sake . . ." Avodah Zarah 17a

Eliot Spitzer, though no longer governor, could still be a leader and a brave man. Let him step up again to the microphone and apologize to his family for keeping secrets from them. Let him apologize again to the public for his law-breaking and his hypocrisy. Then let him talk honestly about his taste for prostitutes — and urge the decriminalization of prostitution in New York State. He wanted to be a reformer who shakes up the system? This is his chance to do it.

I’m seven years older than our 49-year-old ex-governor, and I’ve been married for eight years longer than the Spitzers, and I’ve never paid for sex for several reasons: a) I can’t afford it, at least not to hire really attractive, healthy women; b) I’d be much too intimidated to respond to solicitations (it’s hard enough for me to call out for pizza); c) it would distress my wife enormously, unless I kept secrets from her, which would damage the intimacy I cherish; d) I can’t comfortably participate in a criminal business that involves a lot of involuntary servitude, exploitation and dehumanization of women; e) I want to have sex with women who actually desire me. Sex for hire would probably not deliver the ego boost that I crave.

Obviously, not all of these are morally-grounded calculations; some are simply expressions of my cowardice. While they have kept my sex life fairly simple and well-sublimated, they haven’t granted me much claim to moral superiority over my several friends who have paid for sex — at least, they’ve paid the extra twenty bucks to have a masseuse deliver “the special” — or over Eliot Spitzer. The former governor may be a hubristic fool for indulging his desires and endangering so much, and a hypocrite for participating in a crime that he has loudly prosecuted — but I can nevertheless relate to Spitzer’s drive to have “power sex,” or whatever it is he was having through the Emperors Club, even if I feel deterred from seeking it myself.

When it comes to sex and monogamy, most heterosexual men seem to be in the same leaky boat. The great majority of the guys I know seem burdened by a sex drive that contradicts civilization’s rules. We want to have sex with more women than we have access to. We envy the bathhouse culture of the pre-AIDS gay community. We waste hours in idle and thwarted fantasy. We have an itch we can’t scratch, and it is stoked by the shamelessly sexualized commercial culture.

Those of us who settle into a monogamous marriage feel emotionally somewhat fulfilled and sexually somewhat thwarted — and we want our lives to contain fewer somewhats, to seem more extraordinary, which the feel and taste of a new sexual partner can certainly deliver.

So I would bet that most of the men I know would like to see prostitution decriminalized and the culture of sexual desire and fulfillment radically altered. Most of them would not go and consort with prostitutes, as they are truly committed to cultivating sexuality as a kind of sacred encounter between loving human beings. But there are men I know and love who probably would find it enlivening and therapeutic to pay for sex out of the context of romance or committed relationships, if they didn't feel shame about it; who would prefer to spend money on sex than on the movies or the opera or a health club or a restaurant or a therapist, if they weren't unnerved by the prospect of the paddywagon or the newspaper headlines; who would love to respond to enticing ads if they didn't believe the women on the other end to be the slaves of gangster rapists.

Of course, decriminalization would not instantly solve the problems of sex-slavery and trafficking, sexually transmitted diseases, or other elements of dehumanization and exploitation that hover over the sex trade. These problems persist, in varying degrees, in Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, and numerous other countries that have decriminalized prostitution, and will persist as long as women have less power, wealth, status and freedom than men. Criminalization, however, only boosts the criminality and the suffering that surrounds the sex industry — and turns the “itch” of men into a plague.

These matters deserve to be discussed. If Eliot Spitzer were the leader I want him to be, he would redirect the spotlight that has had him squinting to cast light into the dark recesses of men’s sexuality. He would urge decriminalization, urge men’s consciousness raising, and set an example for full disclosure and personal growth — instead of simply falling on his sword like some disgraced, tragic king.

Waiting For God: Brief Audio Introduction on Youtube

Waiting For God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist from a talk given on 021708 at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture.

For an insightful review dated 030308 visit The Jewish Literary Review.com
The Jewish Literary Review.com is a blog that covers Jewish writing, philosophy, history and law.

From Gelt To Tzedakah

Candlelighting has begun, which in my house also means nightly check-writing or on-line contributing. The following article by me and Jeffrey Dekro, originally published in Tikkun, tells why.


For a festival consigned by the Talmudic rabbis to “minor holiday” status, Hanukkah has asserted itself over the past generation as hugely popular folk holiday. Among contemporary American Jews, menorah-lighting at Hanukkah is second only to the Passover seder in popularity (77% of all-Jewish households and 59% of inter-marrieds light candles; the figures for seders are 86% and 68% respectively, according to the last major Jewish population survey, the 1990 Council of Jewish Federations study).

There are two obvious reasons for this success. First, Hanukkah’s largely secular/historical nature spares many Jews the struggle with doubt and ambivalence that they feel during most religious holidays. Second, the gift-giving, dreidl-playing, “child-friendly” atmosphere of Hanukkah put it on a par with its competitive twin, Christmas, as a “season to be jolly.” For Christians at Christmast, however, jolity is ideally a channel to generosity — the redemptive kind shown by Jesus to nearly all comers. By contrast, Hanukkah speaks of national redemption through ferocious military struggle. What is there in this tradition to turn jolity into generosity — particularly towards the non-Jewish world?

I suggest that the custom of giving Hanukkah gelt, small gifts of money, be transformed into a major Torah of Money effort during this Festival of Rededication. Each night, a different Hanukkah theme can be explored for the purpose of guiding a tzedakah decision. By combining end-of-the-tax-year charitable giving with Hanukkah themes, families can be true to the rabbinic tradition (which emphasizes both Torah study and tzedakah during this season) and greatly heighten the tikkun olam element of their observance. For example:

1. Hanukkah coincides with the darkest nights year and has roots in ancient winter solstice festivals. Devote a discussion to Judaism and ecological issues — and give tzedakah to an environmental group.

2. Hanukkah embodies its symbolism through foods, especially fried potatoes (Ashkenazic) and dough (Sephardic) to represent the “miracle of oil” at the rededication of the Temple. Talk about the symbolism of food brands and the realities of food budgets. What does it mean to try to feed a family for 63¢ per person per meal (estimate for a family of four living at the federal poverty level of $15,100)? Give tzedakah to a hunger relief project.

3. “Women are obligated to light the Hanukkah menorah,”’ says the Talmud (Shabbat 23a), for they took part in the miracle.” One story tells of the daughter of the high priest, facing violation by the Syrian-Greek governor, who shames her brothers into revolt. A second story “borrows” the saga of Judith cutting off the head of the Assyrian tyrant Holofernes. Dedicate one night to a discussion of women and resistance — and give tzedakah to a feminist organization.

4. Hanukkah was truly a minor holiday until the new Zionist movement at the turn of the century began promoting an ideal of self-defense. Talk about the meaning of Jewish self-defense and security today — and give tzedakah to an Israeli peace group.

5. The Hanukkah menorah is to be publicly displayed in a window or doorway. Discuss the realities of pride and persecution for Jews, gays and lesbians, and other minority groups — and give tzedakah to a civil rights organization.

6. Hanukkah is briefly debated in the Talmud: Shammai urges lighting the candles in diminishing order, while Hillel urges increasing the light each night. Discuss the role of interpretation and creativity in Judaism — and give tzedakah to a Jewish arts or renewal organization.

7. Hannah and her children suffer martyrdom; Mattathias and his children make the revolution. Discuss issues of generational differences and continuity in Jewish life — and give tzedakah to a youth-empowering organization.

8. The Miracle of Oil — one day’s worth burning for eight days — is a wonderful metaphor for how human beings must pool resources to create prosperity. Have a discussion about the meaning of community — and give tzedakah to a low-income community development project.

In the days of extensive Jewish poverty in Eastern Europe and Lower-East-Side America, Hanukkah gelt brought a moment of opportunity to children who rarely had a penny of their own. In contemporary times of Jewish prosperity, a reconstructed custom of Hanukkah gelt can bring moments of insight to both kids and adults, as they spread the light of Maccabean activism to the world beyond.

God Is Punishing Me

On Thursday more than $1,500 disappeared from my checking account and I got hit with six bank charges. (I think I must've entered one electronic paycheck twice in my ledger, but I'm not sure.) On Friday, I went to bring my 87-year-old mother to my house for her birthday and found her in her assisted living apartment, dazed and lying on the floor. Some stupid new medicine had totally buckled her legs and messed her mind. I brought her home anyway for "observation" and now I'm having to spend much of my weekend in the bathroom with her.

I was really feeling begrudging and hateful. . . and then today (I almost wrote, "Therefore,"), as I was backing my stick-shift Subaru out of my driveway, the gear shift got stuck; I thought the clutch cable had snapped (the car has logged 180,000 miles). I was blocking my own driveway, and in fifteen minutes I was expecting a shipment of lumber.

It all worked out. Capitalism bailed me out with a 0% until February, 2009 cash advance (you know, I could actually make money on these credit card companies if I'd take the advance and put it in a CD and be very careful about monitoring it, but I won't); my mother is recovering (and so am I); and the car popped back into gear (hopefully it was early morning frozen condensation, said the wood delivery guy; I haven't yet taken it for a test drive).

My magical mind nevertheless read it all as ominous. I felt as if God were punishing me for my evil thoughts about my mother. And thus I realized for the umpteenth time that one of the reasons I don't believe that there is a cosmic law of accountability and consequence (though there certainly IS a material reality to accountability and consequence — witness global warming!) is that this would be one hell of a scary world in which to be my very imperfect self.

Most folks I know, including the religious ones, don't think in such terms, about God's punishments and such. They have little relationship to what used to be called "the fear of God" (yirat shamayim). What they seem to seek is to get high on God, to get high on the spirituality of interconnection. For me, however, the God I don't believe in is a God who makes demands and commands my fear, and whom I would not want to meet in a dark alleyway.

Nu, most of that last paragraph was culled from p. 143 in my new book, Waiting for God, which you should all buy, to make up for that $1,500 shortfall and for all of my suffering.

It makes for good bathroom reading, with or without your mother.

Waiting for God

My new book, Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, has just been published by Ben Yehuda Press (you can get it from Amazon.com or www.benyehuda press.com). Though I began writing it and collecting rejections more than seven years ago ("Great stuff, but how can we market an atheism book?"), which landed me at the tail of the atheism publishing boomlet instead of at the head, I am completely thrilled to see it published — and I hope my friends and associates will read it and have good arguments with me. Here's the first write-up, by Andrew Silow-Carroll, editor of the Northern New Jersey News. He explains why my book is different from other atheism books . . . http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/092007/edcolTheRabbiAnd.html

Make Love Not War

On September 25th, the ADL took out a full-page ad in the New York Times raising alarms about Iran’s nuclear program. Back in March, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, umbrella for more than 100 Jewish organizations, passed a resolution calling for “stepping up pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program” — and the American Jewish Congress, a JCPA constituent, went a step further by advocating that “military action” against Iran “be considered.” Not one of these groups has mustered an ad or resolution in opposition to the war in Iraq; instead, they seem to be bucking for another “adventure.”

Gevald! Ahmadinejad (cursed be his name! if only we could pronounce it!) is not the only dangerous fool playing in this game, it seems. So here's one response. Click on the six images below to enlarge them for reading. And please don't report me to any UnAmerican Committees.

The photos were taken by Bob Cartwright, who spent 16 days in Iran recently with Global Exchange. The narrative is mine (and so are the warplanes). Bob is a math teacher in New Jersey who spends his summers traveling in a vain attempt to get away from the class struggle. He is grateful that the U.S. didn't bomb Iran, try to restore the Shah to the Peacock Throne, or finance any overt wars against Iran, during his visit there.

Head of the Year

The birthday of the world. To enlarge the artwork, just click on it.


Head of the Year

While they praise God
I send out new year cards to Jews.
While they sit and stand, stand and sit in shul
I walk Wolly through the sun-splotched forest.

The dog keeps me from feeling lonely.
It's a one-way conversation with Wolly:
Sit. Stand. Come. Good boy!
But everyone else is in shul,
praising God.
Come, Wolly. Sit, Wolly.
Good boy!

The Sholem Aleichem Bobblehead!

They'll be arriving for shipping in September, folks, and once they arrive, the discount for early orders — a $6 saving on shipping and handling — will disappear. So order yours now! It's the Sholem Aleichem Bobblehead Doll — fabulously packaged, and with a new translation of one of his finest stories in miniature book size. To order, go to bottom of the Jewish Currents homepage and use our PayPal account — or call (212) 889-2523.

The Elders

In my new book, Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, which will be out in September, I spend a fair amount of ink discussing a proposal by Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers. In Prometheus Bedeviled, his fascinating book about public perceptions of science, Levitt suggests that a scientific equivalent of the Federal Reserve Bank be established, to grant science a “social authority commensurate with its astonishing success in living up to its own ambitions.” Such an “extra-constitutional” branch of government, he argues, would empower our society to develop sound environmental policies motivated not by profit, nor by political or religious ideology, but by objective, expert opinion. Participating scientists would, of course, have to renounce political ambitions, limit their advisory role to their scientific fields of competence, and credibly distance their judgments from any financial or institutional self-interest. The goal is to develop greater freedom for scientific opinion by insulating it from both the anti-scientific and pseudoscientific prejudices of the majority and from the profit-motivated sponsorship and manipulation of corporations.

I take issue with many aspects of Levitt’s proposal in my book, but I also use it as a springboard for discussion of what I call “the lack of a vital center for ethical discussion and decision-making in our globalized world.” The issue is basically this: While we are all agog over what we can do, scientifically and technologically, there is hardly a coherent discussion about what we should do with our power. For example, I write, “we will soon have the capacity to extend the lifespan of human beings to 200 years or more . . ."

but should we? In a world in which thousands still die of highly preventable diseases every hour, should we permit the development of man-made evolutionary enhancements that will be available only to a privileged sector? What would be the cost to our species-consciousness, our empathy, our capacity for global cooperation?

Yes, we can design a house like the one Bill Gates made famous in his book, The Road Ahead — a computerized abode programmed to know the residents’ tastes and anticipate their desires — but should we? What forces of cultural evolution do we set in motion by having an utterly domesticated environment that serves us hand and foot? What, if anything, is lost to the imagination and the artistic impulse if we never have the experience of groping to find a light switch in a dark room?

Governments, corporations, universities, religious institutions, NGOs, mass media, the United Nations — all of these power centers are somehow too compromised or too inadequate to serve the leadership role I’m describing here. The various elite gatherings of world leaders that have formed over the past twenty years are also not trustworthy because they are in the hands of highly interested parties. But “surely,” I wrote in my book, “there must be effective ways to honor, organize and ensure the dispassionate service of diverse people who combine expertise and wisdom — Nobel Laureates come to mind as one highly respected pool of talent — in order to shape an objective world advisory board that could serve as a counterweight to the self-interested, unaccountable forces of political and economic power that currently dominate our planet.”

As I was indexing Waiting for God over the past two weeks, I learned that on Nelson Mandela’s 89th birthday on July 18, 2007, exactly such an international advisory group was formed, called “The Elders.” The inaugural members include Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Anan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland. “This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken,” said Mandela, according to the International Herald Tribune. “Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.”

“The Elders,” Jimmy Carter added, “won’t get involved in delivering bed nets for malaria prevention. The issue is to fill vacuums — to address major issues that aren’t being adequately addressed.”

Nu, I'd like to ask readers of this blog: Who should be asked to serve on this new council? What should be the requirements of “disinterestedness”? And do you think the Elders can help solve the classic, tragic conundrum of power: that those who seek it are usually unworthy of it? We’ve seen throughout history how it is most often the alpha gorillas of humanity, the “might-makes-right” types, who rise to leadership and abuse their power. Mostly they lack the character traits that make for truly creative and benevolent leadership; as Eric Fromm wrote in Escape from Freedom, “the lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.” Can the Elders a difference?

Long Beach

Summer time and the living is Jewish . . .

Reparations for Slavery: The Question Reemerges

It took seven years from the end of World War II for Germany to begin making reparations payments to the Jewish people. The 1952 Luxemburg Agreement brought a total of $715 million in German money and goods to Israel, and an additional $107 million to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims for the rehabilitation of Jewish survivors and institutions worldwide.

Some on the political left viewed the Luxemburg Agreement as an insult — $1500 per murdered Jew! — and a capitulation to America’s postwar recruitment of the Nazi-ridden West German government to the anti-communist cause. But the fact is that the moral currency of Israel and the Jewish people received a boost from the reparations agreement that has yet to be fully spent. The very concept of the Zionist state as an “affirmative action” for Jews, and the recent efforts by survivors and their allies to press claims against corporations, banks, and other beneficiaries of Jewish suffering, were given lasting credibility by Germany’s payment of reparations.

Here in America, it is now 388 years since the first enslaved Africans set foot in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. In honor of the 400th anniversary of founding of that settlement, the Virginia state assembly in February unanimously passed a resolution expressing “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery. Similar resolutions are being discussed in Maryland, Missouri and Georgia — and in the U.S. Congress.

Steven Cohen, a freshman representative from the predominantly black Ninth Congressional District in Memphis, Tennessee, has introduced a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for “the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow” and calling for a “commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans.” Cohen’s H.R. 194, which currently has more than three dozen cosponsors, joins H.R. 40, a bill designed by John Conyers (D-MI) in 1989 to create a commission to analyze the effects of slavery and review whether “any form of compensation to the descendants of African slaves is warranted.” (The name of Conyers’ bill is meant to invoke the unfulfilled “40 acres and a mule” promise of Reconstruction.) He has introduced the bill every year since 1989; now he is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on which Rep. Cohen also serves. Conyers intends to wait, however, until the days of the Bush Administration are through: His bill calls for the President to appoint three members of a seven-member commission (the House Speaker would make three, while the president pro tempore of the Senate would choose one). Now 77, Conyers has said that he does not want Bush appointees to have such a role on a panel.

Slavery endured in America for nearly 250 years — only to be transmogrified by racist systems of law, education, jobs, housing and culture into another century oppression. Still, not a penny has been paid in reparations, nor has any agreement been articulated, let alone signed, that would establish America’s moral obligation to rehabilitate the African-American community. And when you cruise the Internet in search of commentary on the idea, you over and over encounter protestations of Why should I be responsible for something that happened when I wasn’t even born? and Tough luck, every group has suffered.

Randall Robinson, author of the remarkable book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks (2001), sees it differently. His vision of reparations resembles Martin Luther King, Jr.’s concept of a “black renaissance” that would benefit us all. “Imagine,” Robinson writes . . .

all the liberating insights rising to the surface in the tear-washed foam of this long-suppressed national discussion on slavery, its unjust economic penalty, and its searing social price. Billy [a Black child] could learn now why there is no slavery museum on the Mall, no monument to Harriet Tubman, no memorial for Nat Turner — indeed, why he and everyone he knows are poor . . . The catharsis occasioned by a full-scale reparations debate could . . . launch us with critical mass numbers into a surge of black self-discovery. . . . We could disinter a buried history, connect it to another, more recent and mistold, and give it as a healing to the whole of our people, to the whole of America.

When I first read and wrote about Robinson’s book, I was reminded of certain prophetic Zionist manifestos of the 19th century — writings haunted by bloody pogroms and the degraded quality of life for Jews in Eastern Europe. Robinson, too, is haunted, by the viciousness and insidiousness of American racism for the past 400 years, and by “the long term psychic damage” that the black community has suffered. In his short book are the details of racism that seem to slip from America’s memory on a daily basis: the kidnapping and killing of millions from Africa, the erasure of ancestral memory from African-American identity, the debilitating burdens of illiteracy, poverty, and brutality extended over generations, and the begrudging quality of every concession made, every advance permitted.

As founder of TransAfrica, Robinson was the leading U.S. activist against South African apartheid throughout the 1980s and fundamentally understands the critical nature of coalition-building. Throughout his book, he presents Jewish Holocaust reparations as the touchstone for his own concept of reparations for black community-building — in particular, for the establishment of a trust fund, with a limited life, that would help build the institutional strength of the African-American community, just as the State of Israel and the Jewish organizations funded by Holocaust reparations have done for Jews.

Implicitly, Robinson is asking the Jewish community for the solidarity that we are uniquely qualified to give:

• Uniquely qualified because, as late immigrants to the U.S., we have a somewhat less guilt-ridden history vis-a-vis black oppression, thus less of an instinct to shove away calls to conscience with reactionary anger;

• Because we know first-hand the renaissance of Jewish vitality that worldwide historical reckoning with the Holocaust has engendered;

• Because our religious tradition commands us not to “stand idly by your brother’s blood” (Leviticus 19:16) — and to grant the freed slave “from your flocks, and your granary and your wine press, with which the Lord your God has blessed you” (Deuteronomy 15:14).

• Because we have tremendous expertise in the kind of community development and institution building needed to set things right.

Representative Cohen’s resolution does not call for reparations, but it should help reopen the subject. Here’s the text:

Whereas millions of Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and the 13 American colonies from 1619 through 1865; Whereas slavery in America resembled no other form of involuntary servitude known in history, as Africans were captured and sold at auction like inanimate objects or animals;
Whereas Africans forced into slavery were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized, and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage;
Whereas enslaved families were torn apart after having been sold separately from one another;
Whereas the system of slavery and the visceral racism against persons of African descent upon which it depended became entrenched in the Nation's social fabric;
Whereas slavery was not officially abolished until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865 after the end of the Civil War, which was fought over the slavery issue;
Whereas after emancipation from 246 years of slavery, African-Americans soon saw the fleeting political, social, and economic gains they made during Reconstruction eviscerated by virulent racism, lynchings, disenfranchisement, Black Codes, and racial segregation laws that imposed a rigid system of officially sanctioned racial segregation in virtually all areas of life;
Whereas the system of de jure racial segregation known as `Jim Crow,' which arose in certain parts of the Nation following the Civil War to create separate and unequal societies for whites and African-Americans, was a direct result of the racism against persons of African descent engendered by slavery;
Whereas the system of Jim Crow laws officially existed into the 1960's--a century after the official end of slavery in America--until Congress took action to end it, but the vestiges of Jim Crow continue to this day;
Whereas African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow--long after both systems were formally abolished--through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity;
Whereas the story of the enslavement and de jure segregation of African-Americans and the dehumanizing atrocities committed against them should not be purged from or minimized in the telling of American history;
Whereas on July 8, 2003, during a trip to Goree Island, Senegal, a former slave port, President George W. Bush acknowledged slavery's continuing legacy in American life and the need to confront that legacy when he stated that slavery `was . . . one of the greatest crimes of history . . . The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destiny is set: liberty and justice for all.';
Whereas President Bill Clinton also acknowledged the deep-seated problems caused by the continuing legacy of racism against African-Americans that began with slavery when he initiated a national dialogue about race; Whereas a genuine apology is an important and necessary first step in the process of racial reconciliation;
Whereas an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs committed can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront the ghosts of their past;
Whereas the legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia has recently taken the lead in adopting a resolution officially expressing appropriate remorse for slavery and other State legislatures are considering similar resolutions; and
Whereas it is important for this country, which legally recognized slavery through its Constitution and its laws, to make a formal apology for slavery and for its successor, Jim Crow, so that it can move forward and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all of its citizens: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow;
(2) apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and
(3) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.

My Novel BESSIE in Paperback

My 1983 novel, BESSIE, loosely based on the life of my revolutionary grandma, is about to be published in paperback (as BESSIE: A NOVEL OF LOVE AND REVOLUTION, by Ben Yehuda Press). When I wrote it, I was 28-29 and the old lady was alive. Now I'm 55, and she's about 15 years gone. When my daughter was visiting from college last weekend, I read some passages from the novel aloud to her, and kept on choking up. These were passages written in 'her' voice, at age 88, and reading them aloud is one of the only ways I have to visit with her any more.

To visit with her love for me:

"I think these Saturday mornings in St. Albans were the happiest times of my life. The house got very beautiful sunlight in the morning; you could play with the shadows from the venetian blinds and you could see little bits of dust floating in the sun like a million planets. This I remember. When I sat with my grandson, I felt content. He was an affectionate boy, he hugged me all the time, and I would hug him right back. And I hug him to this very day. I get more exercise from hugging him than I do from anything.

“And when I came home from work in the morning, I would sit on the porch and I fell asleep most of the time in one of those beach chairs . . . And I would see my grandson with his friends: black and white, they were playing and yelling and running around. And these sounds would come into my dreams — I must've looked like a real old lady, sitting on the porch fast asleep! — but I would have these wonderful kind of a dreams, about a new world where everyone is playing, everything feels good, and people are all kind of a colors: white, black, brown, red, green, purple. It's true, all kind of a colors, and it didn't make no difference, I wasn't even surprised, I wouldn't even think about it until I woke up."

To hear her kibitzing:

"When you feel helpless about something, sometimes you get a little cuckoo, so you think you actually got influence just by sitting there thinking. F'rinstance, when I watch the president on television, he has his press conference, and you can just tell when he's lying, you know. So I pretend that I can make him speak the truth just by sitting there in my rocking chair and concentrating with my mind. If I think hard enough, he's gonna suddenly drop his hands and say, 'Boy, am I sick of telling lies!'

"That would be something! He would take off his tie, maybe open his belt, let out a big belch, and then he would denounce the corporations!"

To remember that 'revolution' was actually her lived experience:

"To live as a revolutionary means you got to trust yourself. 'Cause you're always gonna be persecuted — until you win. And you're gonna have a career that nobody pays for it. So you got to work a job, and it's like working two jobs, y'see, 'cause making revolution is full-time. Probably you'll be poor despite. And always with a hungry kind of a feeling, excepting it has nothing to do with food, if you know what I mean.

"You got to be crazy. You got to believe that you, a little stinker, can take to be your enemy the most powerful men in the world — and beat them! You got to believe you're a hero, even when in the mirror you see a bum.

"To me, kinderlakh, the world looks so sad. Like when you see a child with polio. The child that she should walk and run and dance, and instead she sits and suffers. Y'see, we got the potential in America that we shouldn't have to worry about things. About food, clothing, health, disease. We got so much wealth in this country! We got machines that they can make miracles, we got farmers that they can grow food faster than you can eat. It's true, we got thrown out from the Garden of Eden a long time ago, but this new place we built for ourselves, it's not so bad! You may take it for granted, but I'm still looking with a peasant's eye. Every time I see an airplane fly, I still give a look, I still say, 'Oh, boy, look at what human beings can do!'"

To get in touch with the spiritual dimensions of my atheism:

"Why do you think people go to church or to synagogue? You think it's because they believe all the meises about God and sin and all that kind of a nonsense? I don't think so. I think it's 'cause they want to be together, they want to sing together, they want to share a feeling that life is worth living, together! They want to get away for a minute from the life that they can't control at all. Who knows, any second an atom bomb might fall in your backyard. Or a chemical that it gives cancer might spill into the water you drink, if it's not there already. Or the stock market might crash on all our heads all over again. Or a computer might get a little rusty and the whole world will disappear. Isn't that what life feels like today?

"It's like everybody in the world should be as old as me We all go to sleep and we're not sure we're gonna wake up in the morning. So we become desperate to believe in something, y'see. And if we get scared enough — if the economy gets fahmisht, if we can't tell where to go, where to live, where we belong — if this kind of a alienation grows big enough, then the entire population becomes ready to take up horrible political ideas, just so they can feel a part of something, of a movement. And then they'll be able to strangle little babies with their own two hands, 'cause when you believe crazy ideas, you're ready to do crazy things.

"But there's another kind of belief: the belief in human beings. It's the feeling that you have when you're a child that you want to play with other children, you want to make, like, a gang, a team, you want to be with them all the time. It's the understanding that human beings can be responsible for each other, to share and to give and to learn, and from this we're gonna gain, we're not gonna lose. It's the belief that there's nothing the Messiah can dok for us that we can't do for ourselves.

"It's true, kinderlakh. I know it's true. I was there a dozen times, I saw the miracles that human beings can do."

And to remember that I have ancestors, and will have descendants:

"I guess this is my job, that I should be everybody's bobe. To show that you can live the way you believe and you won't end up a bum. You can join with other people to win back a part of your life from the system. My generation, we were fighters and poets. We worked for twelve hours in the sweatshops and still we had the strength to stand up and sing and remember who we are. We never made a revolution, no, but at least we never lost the spark of life.

"So we can talk about mistakes if you like, but I'd rather talk about what we learned from our mistakes. And we can talk about disillusionments, but I'd rather talk about the beauty of our ideas, y'see. We can talk about failures, but I'd rather talk about a heritage, a legacy to the younger generation."

If you'd like to visit with my grandmother, too, you can buy BESSIE: A NOVEL OF LOVE AND REVOLUTION for $19.95 from Ben Yehuda Press at (800) 809-3505, or from amazon.com or other online booksellers within a week or two.

The Shalom Center: Out of Iraq Now

I've just become a signatory to this campaign, conducted by Arthur Waskow’s Shalom Center, and I urge readers of this blog to do the same.

What better time than Passover
to begin the Exodus from Iraq?

And what better time than 9/11,
Rosh Hashanah & Ramadan, to complete it?

Dear Folks,

We at The Shalom Center are sending you what will become a piece of history: the first national Jewish call for a specific time-table for ending the Iraq war -- a call for Congress to put real funding teeth in its criticism of the war. We intend to publish it as a full-page ad in the New York Times.

We call for beginning the "exodus" from Iraq by Passover and completing it by 9/11, with Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan beginning September 12 / 13. The four steps we consider necessary include de-addicting America from over-use of oil -- an addiction that helped bring on this war, and is helping to bring on global scorching.

We ask for your signature and your support in publishing this call. We have set up The Shalom Center’s Donate page to do both. It is at --

https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=3273

The Donate button is also on the right-hand margin of our Home Page at www.shalomctr.org

Among the signers are Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Gerry Serotta, Rabbi Nancy Flam, Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Rabbi David Shneyer, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Rabbi John Friedman, former Knesset member Marcia Freedman, Shefa Fund founder Jeffrey Dekro, James and Sonia Cummings, and many others.

Please be sure to write "ad signer" in the "On behalf of" box, or if you want to support our peace work but not become a signer of this specific statement, write "peace" in the box.

We also ask you to consider carefully giving a minimum of $180. (IT'S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE.) Here's the arithmetic: The ad costs $55,000. 300 signers giving an average of $180 makes $54,000. Giving more than $180 will help balance those who really can't afford that much.

Once the ad appears, it will bring in support to make possible more action to voice a clear Jewish insistence for an early end to the war. Our voice has been missing from the chorus of opposition. Now is the crucial time.

YOUR CONTRIBUTION PRIMES THE PUMP, TO BRING FORTH THE WATERS OF COMPASSION. Please sign, and please forward this message to your friends and to other lists. This morning’s list of signers — it’s already many more -- is beneath the Call, and then a coupon for those who prefer to send a check instead of donating on-line.

Here is the full text. -- With blessings of shalom for you, and for us all.

Arthur
(Rabbi Arthur Waskow)


What better time
than Passover
to begin
the Exodus
from Iraq?


An American Jewish Committee survey reveals that two-thirds of American Jews now believe the Iraq War was a mistake. It is time to act.

We ask you to join in calling on our government to bring safely home – as many members of Congress have urged, on a six-month schedule -- all American troops now in Iraq. This Exodus should begin by Passover and be completed by 9/11.

For just as Passover celebrates freedom from ancient slavery and the Pharaoh's military mindset, so today we seek freedom for both Americans and Iraqis from the death and destruction imposed by stubborn attachment to a destructive occupation. Our grief on 9/11 calls us to move beyond violence, not to escalate it. And upon the heels of 9/11 comes the wisdom of Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan, also calling us to Turn Toward Peace in our world as well as in our hearts.

Our representatives in Congress must:

1. Use their constitutional power of the purse to support our troops by ending this armed occupation and bringing them all safely home. "The king shall not amass an armed cavalry nor multiply gold and silver. Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellow-citizens." (Deut. 17: 16-20).

2. Ask the UN, regional bodies, and non-governmental organizations to offer their services to help Iraqis peacefully resolve their future. "Justice, justice, shall you pursue." (Deut 16: 20. Tradition adds: Why “justice” twice? To achieve just ends, we must use just means.)

3. Commit fifty billion dollars -- a mere one-tenth of what the war has already cost the US -- to be spent for reconstruction, under international supervision and by Iraqi decisions. "Do not harden your heart and shut your hand against the needy. Give to them readily and have no regrets when you do so." (Deut. 15: 8-10).

4. End the American addiction to oil that was one of the main causes for this war and threats of others, for corrupt bargains with some oil-rich governments, and for global scorching, Use conservation, renewable and sustainable energy sources, emission caps, a carbon tax, and other carbon-control measures to ensure that our children can achieve the Hanukkah standard: requiring only one day's oil to meet eight days' needs.

Tradition teaches: “Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:15) means we must pursue peace even if it is running away from us. We expect no less of our government.

Signed: (Affiliations noted for identification only.)

Rabbi Rebecca Alpert
Trisha Arlin
Kitty Axelson-Berry
Michael Basseches
John Blass
Ross Brann & Eileen Yagoda
Shoshana Brown
Cherie Brown, Natl Coalition-Building Inst.
Gerald Coles, Congregation Tikkun v'Or / Ithaca Reform Temple
Jim and Sonia Cummings
Jeffrey Dekro
Rabbi Elliot Dorff, University of Judaism
Reva Ekba
Rabbi Michael Feinberg, Greater NY Labor-Religion Coalition
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Colorado
Ellen Frankel, Jewish Publication Society
Marcia Freedman, Former Member Knesset
Rabbi John Friedman
Rabbi Laura Geller, Los Angeles
Murray Goldstein
Rabbi Leonard Gordon Philadelphia
Sallie and Alan Gratch
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Zeek
Marilyn Hacker
Jay Hamburger
Paul J Joseph
Marilyn Kaggen
Beth Kaimowitz
Howard Kaplan
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Tikkun
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, The Shalom Center
Rabbi Ellen Lippman, Brooklyn
Steven David Masters, Esq
Jules and Ruth Mermelstein, Reconstr. Cong. Or Hadash, Ft Washington PA
Emma Missouri
Richard Neff
Carl and Susan Offner
Rabbi Marcia Prager
Heena Reiter
Ken Roseman
Harold & Sue Rosenthal
Rabbi Jeffrey Roth
Rabbi Michael Rothbaum
Richard Rudnick
Patricia Salomon
Max Samson
Sarah Saul
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi ALEPH
Rabbi Gerry Serotta Rabbis for Human Rights, North America
Jeffrey Shapiro
Deborah Shapiro
Rabbi David Shneyer, Ohalah
Marc Sklar
Eliezer Sobel
Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
Libby and Len Traubman, Co-founders, Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogues
Judith Tuller
Rabbi Arthur Waskow , The Shalom Center
John & Elsa Weber
Noah T. Winer
Francie Wolff
Paul Zulkowitz

My Jewish Name

I SHOULD'VE SAID. . . For the past six years, whenever I have to announce my name "Bush" in a store, there's been someone to say, “Any relation to . . . ?”

And I should've been saying, “Yeah, he's the stupid cousin in the family."

Instead I've been saying, kind of lamely, “No — and that's another reason I want to get him out of office, to get my name back." Tally ho!

It's usually a political and social nonstarter. Then again, all I want at that point is my credit card receipt. And world peace.

My grandfather's name was Hyman Babushkin. A very cute name that now seems postmodern. High Man Babushkin. Hymen Babushkin. Hi, Man Babushkin. Human Babushkin. Any way I spin it, the name has more pizzaz than "Bush" — which is what his sons shortened it to when they opened a pharmacy in the 1920s.

Nu, if not for anti-Semitism, I'd have a very cool postmodern name, instead of sharing one with the worst president in U.S. history. So next time I'm asked by a rabbi or Israeli tourist guide if I have a Jewish name, I'll skip the secular Jewish glower and announce, "Yeah. L.D. Babushkin, known to my friends as Eldy."

Makes me sound like an Amish elder. Or an old Jewish magazine editor. Which I am.

As for Douglas Feith, I hate him. I don't even know what he looks like and I hate him. He's now #2 on my Jewish excommunication list, after Henry Kissinger.