We, the Jewish People, do remember. We, the Jewish People, do not forget.

Well, being on the triennial cycle and all, Friday was UP MINE Day. I've written about colonoscopies before...twice....for my previous two, ergo I will make short note of the one last Friday. All I can tell you is that things looked just fine. Of course, I wasn't looking becauses the good anesthesia fairy came and knocked me on my butt while respecting my raging IV-phobia. "You're not the first and you certainly will not be the last," she told me with a grin. I like that woman. And my hot GI guy told me (before he looked up by butt) that I looked terrific and when he saw my name on the list, he knew it was gonna be a good morning. Apparently, I'm funny.

Come on, folk. What's Plan-B when someone announces he's gonna stick a probe up your butt and he's not even an alien?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

As I write this, I am acutely aware that  יום השואה - Yom Ha'Shoa began at sundown Sunday night and is observed all day today, Monday.

Yom Ha'Shoa is a recent and necessary addition to the Jewish calendar. We remember the Holocaust every day, but on Yom Ha'Shoa, we take time for silence, a silence that echoes the voices lost, never to be heard again. 

I grew up in a world where it was not in the least bit unusual to see numbers tattooed on arms because the arms were Jewish arms. Where friends had no grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins not because they were never born, but because Jews were not allowed to live. Where Volkswagens, BMWs, and Mercedes Benz cards were not merely frowned upon, but they were often spit at. Where 8-year old me followed the Eichmann trial closely, along with my friends and their parents, knowing in horrific detail what he ordered for our people. 

I knew all about genocide by the time I was 8. What it means. How it works. How it's done. How it's managed. From first hand testimony. From my neighbors and my parents' friends. And from my dad who was there in the aftermath.

As an adult, I knew other survivors, and I even knew a sonderkommando. I spent time listening and learning their stories. So I could transmit them to my kids.

We, the Jewish People, know about genocide. If we wanted to rid the land of Palestinians, trust me when I saw they would already be gone. 

But they're not, nor should they be. They deserve to have their own state, a state they have been offered multiple times...only to have their leadership reject it in favor of prolonged terrorism.

Yes, what's happening is grotesque and horrible, and a tragedy. But that's what happens when chooser hate, murder, and terrorism over self-determination, an economy, and peace. When you start a war, people die. When you use your population as human shields, your population dies.

Israeli soldiers didn't crawl beneath a border through tunnels to massacre children in their homes or kids at a music festival. Let's not lose sight of the rape and carnage of October 7th.  

Photo Credit: X/@taliahkhan_MIT

And let's not lose sight of the Hamas charter that DEMANDS the wholesale destruction of Israel.  What makes it all so sad for the Palestinians is that with Hamas, they have never had a chance to be a nation, to have an economy. They scream for the destruction of Israel when isn't being Israel what they really want?At MIT, the lady in the red keffiyeh is chanting in Arabic. This is what she says:

 

 

We wish to say it loud and clear: we don’t want to see Zionists here

From water to water, Palestine – Arab.

From water to water, Israel destroyed

We will sacrifice our blood and souls for you, Palestine

Free Palestine - Israel  get out.

Free Palestine – Zionists get out

The iron gates of Al-Aqsa – open for the martyr

From water to water – death to the Zionists

From water to water? Are we supposed to throw up our hands and just walk into a river or a sea? You don't happen to know which river or which sea, do you?

Most protestors have proven through interviews and conversations that they really do not know. Just like LGBTQ for Palestine makes no sense whatsoever. What do you think happens to LGBTQ people in Gaza? Rainbow parades?....Right off the roof, maybe. One might think that's attempted genocide against LGBTQ people....but then again...why would they think that?

Because they don't know what genocide is. 

When Germany began its war against the Jews, they began by chipping away at our identity as Jews. Jews were barred from attending schools. Jews business were taken over. Synagogues were ransacked. Yellow stars were mandated for clothing. The conscious attempt to shame, humiliate, and degrade Jews were core to the erasure of us from Europe. The camps were only cleaning up the mess. 

The so-called "anti-Zionist" protesters are attempting to do the same thing. They are trying to bar us from entering educational institutionls. At UC Santa Clara, they are demanding the removal of Hillel from campus. Other schools will follow. By removing Hillel, they are removing Jewish communal presence from campus and denying Jews a place of their own. If we have no safe place to gather, Jewish students will leave campus....and isn't the desired outcome

This is not about land or government. This is a war against Jews. We are .02% of the global population. Surrounded by 22 Muslim nations, Israel takes up .1% of the Middle East land mass. Not 1%....POINT ONE percent. Here's an interesting graphic. 

Countries ranked by land mass:

Israel doesn't even take up .01% of the global land mass. So why is it such a big deal to wipe it away?

One word: JEWS. 

Take another look at the protests, the signs, the slogans, and the chants. 

If you have family or friends who are out there protesting on behalf of Hamas and Gaza, ask them what they think the end game is? 

Ask them if they believe Hamas will make life better for the Palestinians. 

Ask them if they understand what intifada and jihad mean in terms of their own lives. 

Honestly, they probably don't even know.

But we've lived through this before: we know what it is and what it looks like. And we will live through this again. The difference this time is that we are better prepared. 

Almost all the Holocaust survivors I knew are gone now. I miss guys like Henry Oertelt who witnessed Krystallnacht in person as it was happening. I miss Sam Saide who had some of the scariest, most hair-raising experiences after his family was deported from Lodz in Poland to the concentration camps. I miss Phil Biel who survived because he went into hiding, and always did the prayer for Rosh Hodesh, the New Moon, because he was alive and he could. And I miss Rene Slotkin, a Mengele twin, who, over pastrami sandwiches in a kosher deli, told me about seeing his mother murdered in front of him when he called out to her across a fence. 

If anyone is committing genocide in Gaza, it's not the Israelis. Hamas is doing a fine job with Iran's backing. They are murdering their own people and blaming it on Israel. They reject every ceasefire deal by upping the ante to a place where it cannot possibly be met. Hamas doesn't want peace. It doesn't want a two-state solution that would be supported and nurtured by just about every nation on the globe. 

Hamas does not want that. They want dead Jews. 

And apparently, so do a lot of American students. They chant, "intifada now!"

So you should ask them:

Once the Jews are gone, who's gonna be next? 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you know any Holocaust survivors, talk to them NOW.

    Do not put it off.

All too soon, there won't be any eyewitnesses left.