From Generation to Generation

At this year's break fast, an interesting conversation was had about things we take forward, dor l'dor,  from generation to generation: the things we pass on. 

The next morning, I got a text from the Junior Son, asking if I still have the meat slicer. I do. The thing is older than me, still in excellent condition, amazingly enough, and just needs to have the wheel sharpened. and the crank oiled just a tad. The last one to do slicer maintenance was Ziggy....so it's been a while.

Admittedly, the thing is a pain in the ass to set up, but worth it. You set it on newspaper to catch the drippings, then attach 2 c-clamps to the counter to hold it in place. Ziggy even notched the spots where the clamps would easily attach because otherwise you spent more time trying to figure the best location and angle than slicing. Even with the c-clamps, you still had to hang on. I remember being pressed into service to hold the slicer steady. That job came with lots of warnings about where fingers did and did not belong. 

I remember the slicer in use when we lived in Bayside. I'm not sure if Mom bought it, or if it came from Grandma Bessie. Since she was originally the wife of a butcher, her having one is not out of the question. It was just always there. In North Bellmore, it was kept in the cabinet under the oven which, for reasons I never understood, had a little built-in desk right there making it virtually impossible to get anything outta the cabinet underneath without crawling on the floor. 

When the slicer finally made its way to Minnesota Ziggy used it all the time for salami...dried, hard and regular...and whenever I made turkey breast. Something good always came off the slicer. I suspect that's why the kids want to appropriate it; there's dried salami involved. 

But it's not just about the slicer. At the Yom Kippur break fast, we were talking about the weeks to come, and what will follow this election. Would we be safe? Would there be a civil war here? Would the Jews be held responsible for Feckless Loser's loss as he insisted? I got to thinking about what I would take with me if we have to go elsewhere. My house is full of pieces of my history, pieces I would want to pass on to Little Miss and Young Sir. 

There's the rolling pin my Great-grandmother and doppelgänger Nechama brought with her from the shtetl near Minsk. We know it's milchig (dairy) because there's a notch on the end. My Aunt Yetta's shabbat candlesticks were passed to me by Aunt Rose (her sister) and Grandma Sarah (her sister-in-law) at her specific request, held by Grandma until I had a home of my own. And later, Grandma Sarah and Grandpa Moishe's 50th wedding anniversary Kiddush cup found its way to our table...along with other family cups.

Not to be neglected was Grandma Bessie's favorite deco vase, a silver teapot Ziggy's grandmother brought from Wales, and a Belleek cake plate from my very elegant Aunty Florrie's house. There's a bone china pickle dish from Mrs. Junior Son's Grandma Mildred's house, but we made it pesadik (kosher for Passover) so it's packed away with the Passover dishes, or it would be pictured here. 

Each of these things, along with the others that I do not show, has a story. I have a whole breakfront full of stories. Just as I learned the little histories from my mother, grandmothers, and assorted aunts, I hope my grandkiddos will take those stories forward. Already they love Grandma Bessie (aka Grandma Don't) stories. It's a beginning. 

I think about how my grandparents left Europe to escape pogroms and persecution. I hear the rhetoric coming from the far right and the far left, and I find myself hoping I will be proactive enough to remove my family from danger. Will there be time to pack and ship, or will it be like my grandparents with a single suitcase and not much else. What are the absolute musts that must go with us? The candlesticks and Kiddush cups? ✅ The teapot? ✅ The rolling pin? ✅ The vase and the plate?❓Breakable. May have to be left behind. Someplace safe, where we may be able to arrange for shipping when we land. As for the slicer...if I can make it happen it will come with us.

I know this may sound silly to some of you, gentle readers, but better to think some of this stuff through than to be caught off guard and without some kind of plan. And yes, it's all just stuff, but it's the stuff that tells our stories. Stuff we can hold in our hands just like our grandmothers and grandfathers did. Knowing generations before us have cherished these things enough so that they come down to us. At the same time, we fully understand we are not the first generation of Jews to face down hate, nor will we be the last. 

As for me in Tel Aviv next week? There are a whole bunch of moving parts that have to stop moving before I can go. If I don't go next week, I'll just rebook for something later, but go I will. I have to. Someone has to scout new neighborhoods. 

Look, we have survived as a singular, identifiable people for over 4,000 years. We are nothing if not tenacious. We have faced adversity and we remain Jews. We are stubborn, stiff-necked, and determined to stay that way. We don't seek converts or followers. We just want to be left alone to be Jews. We're not here to change how you believe or what you believe or how you believe. That's none of our business and we'd like the same respect from everyone else. Leave us the hell alone where you find us, especially when it comes to our homeland.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day!

From we who are

THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL. 

A Year and a Day

Odessa Pogrom 1905

When I was little, I knew my Russian grandmother came to this country to escape Cossacks. I knew she and her brothers had hid from the Cossacks, and pogroms were not exactly an out-of-the-ordinary occasion. I also knew we had family left behind in Russia, and that very few of them were alive. And I knew ours was not the only family like this. 

auto-da-fé

By the time I was in 2nd grade, I knew about Masada, the flaying of Rabbi Akiva, auto-da-fé at the Spanish Inquisition, Nazis, ghettos and gas chambers. I knew lots of other gory, gruesome stuff, too, but those were the biggies in my mind. I knew our neighbors had numbers tattooed on their arms when they arrived at Auschwitz.  My parents assured me that wasn't going to happen again, not to me or my family or my friends, that America, with its Constitution and Bill of Rights was a safe place for Jews. That the lessons of the holocaust had been learned by the world. 

As if. 

I saw bits and pieces of anti-semitism growing up. I was confronted by it head-on in graduate school. But I believed that these were all outliers, that basically we were safe. Accepted as part of the fabric of American Society. 

Until we weren't. 

In the last 365 days, we have learned that we are not part of the American social fabric. Okay, maybe we're on the edges, but we are not safe. We all watched as American students turned against the Jews of America with their encampments, their slogans, their chants, and their desire to bring the intifada here. Do they not know Intifada is a form of terrorism, violent and bloody, indiscriminate in its targets? Do they think intifada is some sort of peaceful protest movement? 

Apparently.

Do they not understand that Hamas, ISIS, Islamic State, Islamic Jihad, Taliban, and Houthis are all proxies? Do they think that 9/11 happened in a vacuum outside the support and encouragement from Iran? Or perhaps they're okay with the death of 2,977 people on that day? Or because my two cousins who died who in the the collapse of the North Tower were Jewish made it okay? Are the pro-Palestinian protesters now dancing at the site memorials for the 9/11 victims? 

Possibly so, since some of them believe the Mossad was responsible for the attack....to make Islam look bad. 

One year ago, according to the secular calendar, Hamas crossed the border to brutally murder at least 1,139 people. More than 240 men, women, children, babies, and elders were taken hostage. Of that number, it is believed about 100 hostages remain in the tunnels of Gaza. Of that number, it is unknown how many are alive and how many are corpses left to rot.

My world changed radically one year and one day ago. Gone is the belief that Jews are safe here, or just about anywhere else in the world...outside of Israel where they are, at the moment, decidedly unsafe, but at least they are in their own land speaking a language that has been spoken, read, and written for over 3000 years. 

Israel is so small, 21,649 square kilometers, about the same size as New Jersey, that it's barely a percentage of measurable land mass on a globe....0.0139%. The number of Jews in the world, thought to be about 14,000,000, is 2% of the world's population.  According to recent data, the Muslim population of the world is about 24%. According to the Pew Research Center, the landmass of all Islamic countries is about 20%. 

Keep in mind, the number 14,000,000 is WORLD Jewry. Only about 7,300,000 of those Jews live in Israel, so the percentage in the Middle East is even smaller, by about half.

Here's a comparison by percentage:

There are so few of us, in such a small land area, why do they hate us? We don't take up much room. Maybe it's because we have survived for 4000+ years as a single, fairly unified identity? Have we poisoned their wells? Have we forced conversion to Judaism on them? Have we barred them from education, occupations, or the ability to earn a living? Have we told them they can't own land or livestock? Have we forced them to wear clothing that identifies them as Christian or Muslim? 

Nope. 

All we have ever wanted was to be left alone in the country where some tombstones written in Hebrew are over 3000 years old, a written testament that this is our country. The Temple Mount is called The Temple Mount because our temple was situated there long before Islam was even invented. We don't stop anyone from having holy sites....Al-Aqsa Mosque, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Bahá’í World Center, the Druze holy site Nebi Shu'ayb. Everyone gets to pray however they want....even Jews which is still not permitted in some countries.Our dream was to have a Jewish state, but one that would welcome all people. 

We may be tiny, but we are fierce. For over 3000 years we have faced east to Jerusalem when we pray. Our most ancient prayers are directed at Jerusalem. We sat by the rivers of Babylon in exile and wept, crying If I forget thee, O, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth....written almost 600 years before the Common Era. 

But despite all the evidence, we have never been permitted to defend ourselves in our homeland. It took the birth of Israel to learn that skill. In over 70 years of statehood, we have NEVER started a war. 

For a while, we were an amusing anomaly as we beat back armies bigger, stronger, and more populous than our own. During the War of Independence, the tiny Israeli Air Force ran out of bombs so they used empty seltzer bottles thrown from planes because the noise was terrifying and the bottles exploded on impact. 

In this war, the IDF used exploding old fashioned pagers. Not exactly what one might think, but, like the seltzer bottles, it served its unique purpose...which is to defend the State of Israel from the monsters who come in the dark to rape and murder. 

But here's the bottom line: what happened on October 7th is exactly what Hamas promised it would do. Their charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the removal of the Jewish people from that land. It does not matter to them that Israel decamped from Gaza in 2005, at which time the IDF removed everyone and everything, leaving Gaza to the Gazans. By September 22, 2005, disengagement was complete right back to the Green Line.  There were no settlements, no IDF, no nuthin'.....including peace. By 2006, Hamas and Fatah were back to firing rockets at Israelis over the border. They have never stopped firing. 

Don't we get to fight back? Don't we have a right to defend ourselves? 

Yes. 

When Hamas used tractors on October 7th, 2023, to break through the border, another kind of line was crossed. Tractors? Low tech. Seemingly innocuous.

Or not.

Israel did not ask for the massacre. Jews around the globe did not ask for the massacre. 

This is Shiri Bibas with her sons as they were being taken. Kfir was 9 months old and Ariel was 4. They were kidnapped at their home at Nir Oz. No one knows if they are alive or dead. Her parents were also taken. They were confirmed murdered on October 21st. Her face, and the faces of her red-headed children are etched into our collective soul. We demand to know where she is, where the children are. She is us.

Hamas continues to hold citizens of the world hostage, both alive and dead. No one knows how many there are; no one knows how many are still alive. We are not apologizing for defending our citizens. Israelis in Israel come first, be they Jews or anything else. Of the approximately 100 hostages that remain in Gaza, not all are Jews, not all are even Israeli citizens. But that really doesn't matter. And the world thinks this is okay.

Apparently. Just ask the UN. And most student populations. 

Our people were slaughtered on October 7th, but within days, Israel was declared responsible for the slaughter. As Bari Weiss noted in today's FREE PRESS column, A Year of Revelations:

As news of the scope of the slaughter was still registering, and the tally of hostages still being made—the final count: 240 people from 40 countries carried off like barbaric spoils of war—progressive groups here at home and across the West began to celebrate.
 
More than 30 student clubs at Harvard put out a letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for the massacre. Israel. Not Hamas. Israel. This was on October 8, as Hamas terrorists were still roaming Israel’s south, and Hezbollah began its assault on Israel’s north from Lebanon.
 
Surely it had to be some terrible mistake, a sick prank. But the statement was sincere. And it wasn’t an anomaly.
 

In October 2023—just in that first month—George Washington University students projected the words “Glory to Our Martyrs” and “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea” in giant letters on campus buildings. At Cooper Union in Manhattan, Jewish students had to hide in the library from a mob pounding on the door. At Columbia, Professor Joseph Massad called the slaughter “awesome.” At Cornell, Professor Russell Rickford said it was “energizing” and “exhilarating.” At Princeton, hundreds of students chanted “globalize the intifada,” which can only mean: open season on Jews worldwide. At NYU, students held posters that read “keep the world clean,” with drawings of Jewish stars in garbage cans.

I watched Hamas tapes of the incursion tonight. We know this attack was carefully orchestrated. The tractors, the gliders, the motorcycles, the scooters, and the trucks. The film crew. The sound crew.It was so coordinated. So on top of the attack. Like a movie set. And the editing! Masterful. That didn't happen on the spur of the moment. They had equipment ready. They had skilled operators on hand. The Leni Riefenstahl-esque quality of the shots...almost like a shooting script had been done in advance. And why not? They were planning this for months. Why not have a film crew ready to go? Ready to release footage of the carnage almost as streaming action? That's a whole lotta advanced planning.

And the crowd went wild. Or so it seems according to the media.

The global celebrations of Israeli deaths were the least expected outcome. My director-brain finds it very interesting that the protests and the encampments and the hate spread like wildfire almost immediately. All those identical looking tents. All those keffiyehs, All those slogans and chants shouted in unison across the country. I understand social media works fast. I understand grass-roots and groundswell. There was no lag, no time to foment. It was fast. Too fast. Too tidy.

Almost as if it were planned in advance. 

If they can pre-plan a live-action war movie, why not a second, civilian wave? I remember Tommy the Traveler. Do you? Agent provocateurs are as old as history. With all that careful planning of murder and rape, why not plant agent provocateurs to make sure Israel is demonized in case we fight back? 

They made sure no one heard about the tunnels under Gaza, the tunnels under schools, the tunnels under hospitals that had launchers on the roof. They hid their weapons amidst their civilians, knowing any action would sacrifice their own people...men, women, and children...and Israel would be excoriated. 

They made sure no one heard about the relief funds pocketed by Hamas instead of allowing the Palestinians to build an economy. Whatever they did to structure that takeover of common sense and decency worked. Israel became the villain. The truth about the only democracy in the Middle East is rendered irrelevant. That Israel is a nation with successes and failures like any other nation is rendered irrelevant. That Israeli society is not defined by conformity is rendered irrelevant. 

They who support Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis ultimately support Iran and somehow manage not to understand that unless they embrace Islam, they are next. Gays for Palestine?

Great. Go to see how welcoming they are to your community in Palestine. Like the Nazis, Hamas and Hezbollah will make sure you, too, are dispatched to the world to come sooner rather than later. 

Yossia Klein Halevi made an interesting observation in his blog at The Times of Israel: The end of the post-Holocaust era:

The post-Holocaust era of the last eight decades was defined by optimism about the Jewish future. However improbably, we had emerged, stronger than ever, from the event intended to destroy us. For all its fluctuations, the post-Holocaust trajectory pointed forward. 

 

Through two thousand years of exile, the Jewish people were sustained by two dreams. The first – considered so fantastic that it was relegated to messianic times – was that a dispersed and powerless people would somehow reclaim its ancient homeland. The second was that, in the long interim before the coming of the Messiah, Jews would find a welcoming haven in the diaspora.  

 

After the Holocaust, both dreams were fulfilled. Two great centers of Jewish life emerged – a sovereign Israel and a self-confident North American Jewry, the most successful diaspora in history. Together, Israel and North America contain close to 90 percent of the world’s Jews. These two centers presided over the post-Holocaust renewal of the Jewish people – which moved from its historic nadir to the peak of its military, economic and political power.  

The post-Holocaust era may be waning, but that does not mean we won't grow into something stronger. We are no longer asking permission to exist. We are no longer relying on the UN to intercede on our behalf. We are not waiting for anyone to ride to our rescue.

Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah have demonstrated they give a damn about their own people. Oddly enough, we do. We want the killing to stop. We want the people of Gaza to find their way to a stable nation and economy that will contribute to the region. Therein lies all the difference in the world. 

Or not. It's up to them.

Our anthem is HaTikvah....The Hope. I am supposed to leave for Israel in a couple of weeks. Just my usual trip to see friends. I don't know if I'm going yet. I can cancel, but that would mean giving up hope that I'm getting on that flight. I'm not ready to do that quite yet.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Never stop hoping

With High Hopes For 5785

Ever hear of something called Rewards For Justice ? It's a federal program, part of the Department of State, and falls under the aegis of Bureau of Diplomatic Security. I kid you not. 

Our Mission is to lead worldwide security and law enforcement efforts to advance U.S. foreign policy and safeguard national security interests. Our Vision is to be an agile and proactive intelligence-led security and law enforcement organization to further diplomacy around the world. 

 

Rewards For Justice is exactly what it sounds like: a bounty system. 

Rewards for Justice (RFJ), the U.S. Department of State’s national security rewards program, was established by the 1984 Act to Combat International Terrorism, Public Law 98-533 (codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2708). Administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, RFJ’s mission is to offer rewards to obtain information that protects American lives and U.S. interests and furthers U.S. national security.  

It even has a button at the top of the page for Submit A Tip . The drop-down menus will link to a variety of information in each of the global areas the office covers. Go read through the list under Terrorism. Quite the education there.

But that's neither here nor there. I'm just pointing out that these things do exist and there are "public enemy" lists for terrorists as well as for cyber criminals. I didn't believe this was true when Bill Maher suggested the State Department pay the IDF the reported $7M bounty on Hassan Nasrallah and just say thank you. So I went looking and tripped across this bureau. On the other hand, I don't think I was surprised that it exists. 

screenshot from Al-Manar TV

What did manage to surprise me was how Hassan Nasrallah was portrayed as some kind of jolly father-figure with a Santa Claus beard in news organs all over the place. Many of the pictures show him in social situations, smiling, glad-handing... happy politician poses, but don't go into detail about the number of people he has killed. They neglect to mention that his sole desire was to remove Israel and her people from the map...even though he claimed to have no problem with Jews. The BBC described him as having

...steered Hezbollah's evolution from a militia founded to fight Israeli troops occupying Lebanon, into a military force stronger than the Lebanese army, a powerbroker in Lebanese politics, a major provider of health, education and social services, and a key part of its backer Iran's drive for regional supremacy. 

He also steered Hezbollah into murderous and destructive conflicts that impact all of the Lebanese population. He altered their government and attempted to replace it with an Iranian puppet rule. If you're of a mind to learn more, read Foreign Affairs article, What The Lebanese People Really Think of Hezbollah from July of this year. It's eye-opening.

Israel has just begun a "limited" ground incursion into Lebanon. Like everyone else on the planet, no one knows what that means. For this writer, it may mean my departure for Israel is delayed. And no, I am not happy about that at all. 

At this writing, there is no additional word on the hostages as we approach the one-year mark. The UN has, once more, proven itself to be worthlessly toothless, and an elegantly written op-ed piece on that subject in the Jerusalem Post is worth reading.  The BBC is finally being called out publicly for its blatant anti-Israel bias, something long overdue. I've completely given up on NPR; their subtle anti-Israel bias, like that of the New York Times, isn't as glaring as the BBC, but it's the lack of criticism of Hamas, the missing recognition of the hostages still in Gaza. It's as though they are the nice Germans who just close the curtains. Ignoring the reality on the ground doesn't make it go away; it just lets it fester. It's okay to complain about Israel's actions but not okay to hold Hamas or Hezbollah for embedding its command posts in civilian neighborhoods, in hospitals, and under children's bedrooms.

The exploding pocket pagers, a surgically precise operation that probably saved far more lives than it took, was still castigated from all sides. It doesn't matter what Israel does to defend itself...whether it's bombing known terrorist compounds, or just castrating a few thousand known terrorists....the results are the same: Israel is condemned. Which should tell you, to be perfectly frank, Israel is NOT entitled to defend itself no matter what the UN or anyone else says. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. There is no path to self-defense for Israel that would meet anyone's approval. And Israel is the only nation held to that standard...but you knew that already.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're getting ready for Rosh HaShana. There's a whole lotta cooking going on, and that is actually comforting. My Big Bro is coming for his annual Minnesota sojourn and I'm looking forward to sitting with him in shul. 

There is one Rosh Ha'Shana tradition, however, that I both love and hate: kever avot....visiting the graves of our parents. It's a tradition to place a stone on top of a headstone to show that someone has visited the grave. Years ago, my dad began the tradition of painting a rock green for his mother, my veddy British Grandma Sarah who happened to be born on Saint Patrick's Day....and died the day after her birthday back in 1979. I have carried the tradition forward, and now we paint rocks to put on headstones. 

My folks may be in New York, but Ziggy is here. As is FIL. This year was the first time Little Miss and Young Sir came. I had prepared white painted stones and brought markers to the cemetery, but when they got out of the car, they already had painted stones in their hands. I was verklempt. I love that they have adopted this silly little family minhag (custom) as their own. Dad would've loved that. So we put our painted rocks on Ziggy's headstone, talked about him for a while, then took a walk around the older parts of the cemetery and talked about the interesting headstones. They saw family names that are familiar to them because they are family names of their friends. There were questions to be answered and even jokes to be shared. They were comfortable there.

It wasn't scary. It was life. Ziggy woulda hated that we were visiting him, but he really woulda loved the painted rocks. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Wishing all my dear readers, Jewish or not,

שנה טובה ומתוקה

a good and sweet New Year.

May 5785 bring an end to hostages and hostilities,

and the beginning of peace throughout the region.

The Elegance of Low Tech

Toon by Rick McKee/Cagle Cartoons

A couple of things happened this week that are worth mentioning. 

First: Exploding pagers and other electronic devices. Let me go on the record as saying this was an incredible, positively elegant use of technology. 

According to Arutz Sheva, Israel National News, the detonation occurred earlier than planned:

Israel only intended on detonating the Hezbollah terrorists' pagers if war were to break out, but decided to execute the plan early due to suspicions by some of the terrorists, Al Monitor reported on Wednesday. 

According to the report, two Hezbollah terrorists suspected that something was wrong with the devices leading Israel to quickly decide not to wait for a war. 

On Tuesday night, the New York Times, citing American and other officials, reported that Israel hid explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon. 

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, some of the officials told The New York Times. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment, the report said.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

At 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, two of the officials said. Instead, the message activated the explosives.

 Could an attack be any more precise, targeted, or almost surgical in scope? I think you'd be hard pressed to find another one quite like this. Since Hezbollah leadership had downgraded to pagers because they were convinced smartphones were tracking their every move (duh,) Israel's ingenuity was dazzling. Pagers in hand blew off hands. Pagers in pockets blew up other body parts. Here are two things to think about:

1. There was some interesting collateral "damage" for the pager-caper. Anyone who went to a hospital with injuries consistent with a pager explosion was now easily identifiable as a member of Hezbollah leadership. All sorts of data would've been captured in admitting. And I am certain Israel would have no trouble hacking their medical databases to gather that information. 
2. It sent a really interesting message to terrorist fighters: if you're gonna use rape and sexual abuse as tools of war, expect to get your dick blown off. There is some poetic justice in that. Over the last few decades, ISIS, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas have all used sexual abuse in war. Whether it was the forced marriages and pregnancies during the Iraq/Syria period or in the tunnels of Gaza, one thing was consistently clear: rape was a method of control and terror. I do not believe for one New York minute that the developers of this plan did not have that thought cross their minds. Especially if there were women on the project which there most certainly were. 

Some would make the case that this was bringing the war into homes, but I would disagree. These explosions did not bring down buildings or collapse towers; these were small detonations which caused personal injury. People standing around were not automatically in harm's way in the same way a grenade or a missile would explode. No. These were small, lethal explosions that sent a very serious message: "We're on to you."

Of course, the retaliation will not be nearly as clean or surgical, and that will be a price Israel will pay. But overall, this pager-caper was beyond brilliant. 

The second item on my list is a statement by Feckless Felon. Let's put reality into perspective before we go there. According to the Pew Research Center, about 2.4% of the US population identifies as Jewish. Identifies is an interesting word that is, in many ways, meaningless. It does not take into account people who may be Jewish by birth but consider themselves something else, or people who just claim to be Jewish but really aren't, or even people who might actually be Jewish and don't know it. But 2.4% does sound about right. That means, 97.6% of the population is not Jewish. So it's a little strange when, at the Israeli American Council's summit, he says:

If I don't win this election - and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens because if 40%, I mean, 60% of the people are voting for the enemy - Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years.

But if Jews don't vote for him, we're gonna be responsible for the loss? How did he draw that conclusion? Are we in charge of the ballot boxes or voting machines in such a way that our votes are worth more? What kind of narishkeit...nonsense is that? 

Ah, but it's not nonsense. It's another one of his dog whistles putting Jews in the cross-hairs of his militia movement. While claiming to be our protector, he has painted a target on us, over us, and around us so that we will be the scapegoat, the fair game for his coup d'etat. 

Interestingly, his constant and continual denigration for our military has not gone unnoticed by our military. He seems to be under the impression that in order to overthrow the government he can a) do it without the Joint Chiefs and military support, and b) he only needs his Proud Boy et als militias to take control. Which, when you think about it, is just as doable as 2.4 % of the US population costing him the election. 

Now, the powers-that-be in uniform have noticed this flight of fancy and are starting to come forward about their position on his rhetoric. Remember, they have all sworn to uphold the Constitution. The leadership of the NSL4A have written the following :

 September 22, 2024

To the American People,

This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them.

We do not make such an assessment lightly. We are trained to make sober, rational decisions. That is how we know Vice President Harris would make an excellent Commander-in-Chief, while Mr. Trump has proven he is not up to the job. As leaders, we know effective leadership requires in-depth knowledge, careful deliberation, understanding of your adversaries, and empathy for those you lead. It requires listening to those with expertise and not firing them when they disagree with you.

Vice President Harris has proven she is an effective leader able to advance American national security interests. Her relentless diplomacy with allies around the globe preserved a united front in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. She grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military’s status as the most “lethal” force in the world.

The contrast with Mr. Trump is clear: where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, he is impulsive and ill-informed. He has heaped praise on adversarial dictators like China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah. Conversely, he has publicly and privately excoriated the leaders of our most steadfast allies, including the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, Canada, and Germany. He abandoned our Kurdish allies while ceding influence in the Middle East to Russia, Iran, and China.

Further, Mr. Trump denigrates our great country and does not believe in the American ideal that our leaders should reflect the will of the people. While Vice President Harris follows the democratic norms we expect of any political leader—including promising to abide by the outcome of the pending election and respecting the rule of law—Mr. Trump is the first president in American history to actively undermine the peaceful transfer of power, the bedrock of American democracy.

Mr. Trump threatens our democratic system; he has said so himself. He has called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution. He said he wants to be a “dictator,” and his clarification that he would only be a dictator for a day is not reassuring. He has undermined faith in our elections by repeating lies, without evidence, of “millions” of fraudulent votes.

He has shown no remorse for trying to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th, promises to pardon the convicted perpetrators, and has made clear he will not respect the results of the 2024 election should he lose again.

That alone proves Mr. Trump is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.

We believe, as President Ronald Reagan said, that “America is a shining city on a hill.” Yet in this election, one of President Reagan’s more ominous warnings is equally relevant. “Freedom,” he said, “is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

Our endorsement of Vice President Harris is an endorsement of freedom and an act of patriotism. It is an endorsement of democratic ideals, of competence, and of relentless optimism in America’s future. We hope you will join us in voting for her.

Sincerely, 

President of National Security Leaders for America:  Rear Admiral Michael E. Smith, USN (Ret) 

Steering Committee of National Security Leaders for America:

Ambassador Charles C. Adams, Jr. (Fmr)

Ambassador Jeff Bleich (Fmr)

Ambassador Judith Beth Cefkin (Ret)

Major General Peter S. Cooke, USA (Ret)

Thomas M. Countryman, Minister Counselor (Ret), former Acting Under Secretary of State

Ambassador Cindy L. Courville, Ph.D. (Fmr), former Special Assistant to the President, National Security Council

Rear Admiral Scott Deitchman, M.D., M.P.H., USPHS (Ret)

Brigadier General John Wade Douglass, USAF (Ret), former Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Linda Jackson, Spouse of retired Senior Military Leader

Rear Admiral Katharine L. Laughton, USN (Ret)

Lieutenant General Charles D. Luckey, USA (Ret)

Major General Randy Manner, USA (Ret)

Brigadier General Mark A. Montjar, USA (Ret)

F. Whitten Peters, former Secretary of the Air Force

Ambassador Robert Annan Riley, III (Ret)

John C. Rogers, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense

Rear Admiral Todd Jay Squire, USN (Ret)

Jack Thomas Tomarchio, former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Homeland Security

Brigadier General Daniel P. Woodward, USAF (Ret)

Senior Military Spouse Advisors:

Theresa T. Buchanan, J.D.

Becky R. France, MEd,

Dale Allen Hamby

Mary Jo Myers

Brook Rich

Rebekah Sanderlin

Ellen Waterfield Smith

Anne M. Squire 

You can read the rest of the 700 names here: NSL4A Endorses Kamala Harris for President of the United States 

See, here's the thing: if these guys thought Feckless Felon's threat was serious enough to warrant this kind of statement, perhaps we should take them seriously. As they state on their website:

We are a 501(c)(4) bipartisan organization comprised of individuals who served in various senior leadership positions that include all six military branches, elected federal and state offices, and various government departments and agencies.  Our members bring a diverse and unique perspective on what a healthy Democracy needs to thrive. Our experts can also recognize the most remote warning signs that signal when a Democracy is in danger.

I think January 6th, 2021 was a trial balloon. Dismiss it at your own peril.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

The plan is to be out of the country for the last two weeks prior to the election.

Ergo

Stuff On My Mind: Recent Ramblings.

That Taylor Swift endorsed the Harris/Walz ticket should come as no surprise to anyone with a functioning brain. The woman is unquestionably and passionately feminist. The timing of the endorsement was pitch perfect, coming immediately after the debate concluded. If you have not seen the text, here it is. I really just want to have it on record in this blog for posterity:

Like many of you, I watched the debate tonight. If you haven’t already, now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most. As a voter, I make sure to watch and read everything I can about their proposed policies and plans for this country.

Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.

I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.

I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice. Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make. I also want to say, especially to first time voters: Remember that in order to vote, you have to be registered! I also find it’s much easier to vote early. I’ll link where to register and find early voting dates and info in my story.

With love and hope,

Taylor Swift
Childless Cat Lady

Possibly the most important thing she says is right up front, in the first paragraph. She states, unequivocally, DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK. Whatever you think about her, her music, or even her boyfriend, this is a woman who has a powerful platform and who uses it judiciously. You gotta admire that woman's smarts.

Now, on to the real episode

Three disparate things crossed my brainpath this week. One, of course, was the debate. The second is an essay penned by playwright Tom Stoppard. The third was Ukraine. At least they seemed disparate to me until I started putting this week's episode together. Maybe. Maybe not.

The debate was a spectacle of gladiatorial proportions. Yes, I used the mute on occasion, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. The split screen was totally brilliant. I don't know how she managed to keep as straight a face as she did, but her grins and pursed lips (worthy of Meryl Streep or Sidney Schwaidelson) were fantastic. 

My favorite moment came when Harris was talking about how Feckless Felon invited the Taliban to meet at Camp David. Watch the video, you see her lips purse, clearly forming an "M" word before she quickly changes it for former president. I fear she misspoke there. She has said more than once what her favorite inappropriate word is, and I think she was about to say "Motherfucker." I am not alone in that supposition.

I think she shoulda said it. Not really. But it woulda been the most memorable moment of the debate.

What I will remember is the aftermath; how Feckless Felon claimed all the polls declared him the winner. Only that wasn't true. Even FOX said Harris won. Only Newsmax. If you want to scare yourself silly, go read the "news" on that website.

Tom Stoppard
photo by Matt Humphreys

On to the second thing that crossed in front of me today: an essay by Tom Stoppard, the English playwright. Born in what was then Czechoslovakia, Stoppard did not discover that he was a Jew until he was an adult. The essay Tom Stoppard: On Turning Out to be Jewish,  written for The Huntington, a theater company in Boston was published on September 11th, 2024. Yes, it's very recent. It's long, frank, sometimes brutal, but well worth your time to read because it's also timely. For me, the most devastating revelation came near the end of the piece:

A few days after my mother died [1996], Ken [Stoppard’s step-father], whom from England onward I had called “Daddy” or “Father” or “Dad” (though he objected to “Dad,” which he thought was lower-class) wrote to me to say that he had been concerned for some time about my “tribalization ” by which he meant mainly my association, 10 years earlier, with the cause of Russian Jews, and he asked me to stop using “Stoppard” as my name. I wrote back that this was not practical. 

Leaving aside the anti-Semitism and, frankly, the dottiness, I know what made Major Stoppard, himself the father of two half-Jewish children, so angry. Whatever his opinions about Jews, his prejudice had an obverse side, a paternalism toward other races who were grateful to adopt English ways and modes of thought. Blacks were admirable when they were Anglophile Indians. Gurkhas were especially admirable. But when it came to Jews (or Indians) who to their good fortune received honorary membership in the club but persisted in their “tribal” ways nonetheless – that was sheer ingratitude, an insult to his country. Don’t you realize I made you British?

Stoppard's recognition of "tribalism" really signals just how deep tacit anti-semitism goes. It is so deeply rooted in the culture that it's tacitly accepted as the norm and what's worse, expected. Is it any wonder that the British behaved as they did when they fundamentally ruled the world? They were roundly hated by every population they occupied.

Not really. My British grandmother used to tell me it was okay to love Shakespeare, Keats, Austen, and Carroll, but I needed to understand that in their world, in the real world of British life, I would never be their friend because I was a Jew. I got the same warnings from my Odessan grandmother who, while she loved to see the Grand Duchesses arriving on the Imperial Yacht Standart, you could not trust the Tsar to keep you safe...because we are Jews. "Never turn your back on a Cossack," she used to warn me. To her, anyone in uniform (except her cousin Sammy who was NYFD) was a Cossack and could not be trusted. 

You know by now, of course, that Odessa is not in Russia although it was when Grandma Bessie lived there. But it really is Ukraine. And that means there are Cossacks there. Times, however, have changed a bit, and now Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew, is the President of Ukraine. 

And that's the third piece. Editor-at-Large for the Jewish Chronicle, a UK based paper, Stephen Pollard wrote a fascinating piece: If Ukraine must be allowed to fight, why isn’t Israel?

I've been wondering the same thing myself, lately, especially after the debate when the candidates did a whole lotta posturing about Ukraine. Pollard points out that Putin's push into Ukraine does not demonstrate Russian strength, but just the opposite. 

After two and a half months Russia has still not managed to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region. The Russian economy is in chaos – interest rates are now 19 per cent and inflation is off the charts. It is now effectively economically dependent on China (and militarily dependent on weapons from  Iran and North Korea), which also limits its freedom of action. However much Putin blusters about red lines and hints about using nuclear weapons, the Chinese will not allow it. So let’s please stop hearing any more about the risk of Russian retaliation. The only risk comes from our refusal to let Ukraine do the job of repelling Russia. The future of the century depends on Ukraine.

Ring any bells? You can substitute Israel for much of the above. While Ukraine is fighting Russia on behalf of the rest of Europe’s security, Israel is doing the West’s dirty work fighting Islamists on our behalf. 

Pollard also points out that at the end of the 2019 summit, Macron and Merkel stood on one side of the room chatting up Putin while Zelensky watches from the other side. Not exactly a member of the club. But we know all about that sort of thing, don't we?

It's pretty clear to just about everyone in any government....but not the pro-Hamas puppet protesters here in the States, that the 3-Hs are proxies for Iran. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are financially incapable of maintaining their fighting forces without outside assistance. It's pretty clear from the machinery in use that it's all coming from Iran and its allies, Russia and China. The UN talks a great game about Islamist attacks in Africa and the Levant, but their own people are openly aiding the Islamist regimes. What's a country to do? Warning them is pointless. Sending them on a free trip to Gaza isn't happening. They just keep drinking the Kool-Aid because Jews are not telling them the truth about anything. 

Nowhere else in the world is a sovereign population told to march themselves into the sea. No other nation is told not to defend itself from rockets, missiles, or terrorist incursions. Only Israel. And that, without question, is because we are Jews. 

So here's what I think is gonna happen. We will survive as a nation and as a people. Israelis of all backgrounds know their lives are infinitely better in Israel than any other country in the ME. We'll figure this all out, and if we're real lucky, the residents of Gaza will figure out it's not Israel preventing them from having an economy. 

I keep hoping. Seriously. What's Plan B?

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Early voting begins on Friday in Minnesota. 

Vote like your life depends on it.