'Twas the Night After Christmas...

Over the years, many Jewish customs have formed around the celebration of Christmas. Some families have Erev Christmas Board Game Nights. Some have Read-A-Loud Night where short stories by Jewish authors like Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer are shared in Yiddish or English. On Christmas Day we would go bowling in the morning and to the movies in the afternoon. At the local move house, you'd run into everyone from shul...unless it was shabbat....then we would convene at someone's house to do jigsaw puzzles.

Note for fussy people: Yes,
those are Japanese udon noodles.
I wasn't in the mood for rice. 

But of all the Jewish Christmas traditions, the best known is the eating of Chinese food. This is a peculiarly American tradition. Again, everyone from shul would be at Kwong Ming in Wantagh or Hunan Gourmet in Merrick. Here, we would meet up at The Great Wall in Highland by Lund's. Today was not one of those days.

Today, it was 55°F and raining. In Minnesota. It was like the worst kind of day in March or November. Besides, since Ziggy left the building, I'm not much in the. mood for going without him, even after all these years. So I make my own Chinese  food, and I gotta tell you, I'm pretty good at this. This year was crispy chicken with red, green, and chili peppers and Hoisin Sauce (ICYDK: Kikoman's has an OU hechsher.) Anyway, it was particularly good on this miserably chilled night. 

In the middle of the Kansas City Chiefs game (they lost,) we had a power outage. I guess a chunk of our little village was dark. My first thought was who plugged in the Christmas tree?  When I was a kid, one of our neighbors annually went dark when the dad plugged in the Christmas tree. As we got older, we kinda took bets on which string of lights was the fuse-blower. But power was back in time for the Eagles game (they won,) so it wasn't a total loss. There are only so many sappy Christmas movies I can stand!

Despite the twinkling lights and the udon noodles, I cannot get away from obsessing about the disaster that is the war between Israel and Gaza. It takes much of my headspace on any given day,  and I find myself turning off the national news, something I have never really done. At a press conference at the State Department on December 20th, Secretary Anthony Blinken said:

 

What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying – demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that. How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim?

Why is that? 

I don't think there is a Jewish person in the country who is not aggrieved at plight of Gaza civilians. Once upon a time, I would've thought there wasn't a Jewish person in the country who didn't understand what is at risk in this dispute, but now, I'm not so sure about that. 

The spin doctors are working overtime to make sure Gazans are portrayed as the only victims of aggression without any responsibility for the massacre of October 7th. Does it make sense to hold all of Gaza's civilian population responsible for this war, or is there any way to get people to understand the vicious cycle of human shields? And what does everyone think will happen if Israel stands down? Golda Meir once warned:

There cannot be quiet on one side of the border and shelling on the other. We will either have peace on both sides or trouble on both sides. I understand the Arabs want to wipe us out, but do they expect us to cooperate?

Blinken's observation, coupled with Meir's, brings into focus the dichotomy faced by Israel. And that's where this war get particularly ugly. The bombing of Gaza has killed over 20,000 Palestinians. In the eyes of the world, Israel has become the aggressor, the one who has come to kill. In a newsprint world, this would be black or white issue, with no grey in the middle. But how is Israel supposed to respond after 75 years of attempts to get the Palestinians to form a state have failed? After 4 declared wars, in which Israel prevailed each time, there has not been a significant change for the Palestinian doctrine of annihilation of Israel and its population. Golda Meir also said:

You cannot negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.

But everyone needs to know the war will stop when the hostages are returned and Hamas stops hiding behind its civilians. It's just that simple. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

There may not be a new blog next Monday, a lousy way to start the year. Something significant is happening next week and while I can't write about it quite yet, I promise full disclosure after the deed is done.  

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week 

Sometimes, you have to be brave,

step out of your comfort one,

and take the leap.