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.

Ready.....Set......

a shofar...kinda like Dr. R's

Well, Rosh HaShana is a scant week away, and I'm already entering chicken-without-a-head mode. Not like this is anything new, that I haven't done this for the last 40+ years, but every year brings its own challenges. That Dr. R blows the shofar every frickin' morning at minyan...a traditional wake-up call to remind us we have a whole lotta thinking to do...is a given and today was enough to make a 2 year-old scream in terror. It's not like she hasn't heard the shofar almost every day since the beginning of the month of Elul that began weeks ago, but Dr. R was on a roll this morning and boy, was it loud! 

No matter how many times I hear a shofar, the initial sound always pierces me. I know this is a visceral reaction; I've been having the same reaction since I was a kid. Is it the sound of 5000 years of Jewish history in a series of 3 distinct blasts? Is it the battle cry we hear before confronting our enemy? Is it the sharpness of the blast that grabs my attention and turns my innards toward the ten days of repentance? Whatever it is, it happens at daily morning minyan during Elul, every year on Rosh Ha'Shana (when it doesn't fall on Shabbat) and at the last moments of Yom Kippur when the gates of the prayer are closing. 

Some years are easier than others. I tend to turn inward to examine the pluses and minuses of the last year. To be sure, there were some high points and some pretty low ones. I'm beginning to believe I will never see Barcelona. Going to Israel is off the table again this fall. I really need to pop down to Delray to see my aunts, but even that is looking less likely. I can't believe my big brother is coming next Sunday for the holiday. At least, at this moment I have his flight information and every expectation this country will not have shut down again by next weekend. 

With the arrival of Hurricane Ida, hospitals along the Gulf Coast are in real danger. All of New Orleans is blacked out. Other parishes are flooded. The situation is dire; people will be in need of medical attention for a variety of maladies, not just COVID-19 and the Delta variety. ICU beds are already scarce. In states with the lowest vaccination rates in the country, can you make decisions that take vaccination status into account? (For the record, Louisiana has a fully vaccinated rate of 41.4%, Mississippi is at 37.7% and Alabama is at 37.9%. All three have been hit hard by the storm and are experiencing medical shortages.) 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about hospitals and the unvaccinated. Dr. Tom, who I cited in the last round, sent me an article that appeared in the Washington Post: When medical care must be rationed, should vaccination status count? The author, Dr. Daniel Wikler, is a professor of Ethics and Population Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The article takes you through his thought process and it's quite compelling. So, I will stipulate this guy knows what he's saying when he writes:

When patients like these are evaluated for health care, their priority depends on how serious their condition is, how urgently they need help and how well they are likely to do if they’re treated. What does not matter is culpability, blame, sin, cluelessness, ignorance or other personal failing. Doctors and hospitals are not in the blame and punishment business. Nor should they be. That doctors treat sinners and responsible citizens alike is a noble tradition, an ethical feature and not a bug. And we shouldn’t abandon it now.

As much as I would like to say vaccination matters, I cannot. Treating all comers is the ethical and correct action. In other words, it's the right thing to do.

And speaking of ethics, I cannot help but be relieved our troops are officially out of Afghanistan. The ISIS bombing was just one more reason not to be there. I thought President Biden's "We'll hunt you down," remarks were a bit over the top, but I suppose he had to say something. Look, the guy inherited a lose/lose situation and nothing he did was ever going to make it completely right, so let's take a breath here...and try to ignore the xenophobic/schizophrenic GOP as they carry on about Afghan refugees. Yes, we must rescue them; no, we cannot bring them here; yes, we've failed as world leaders; no, we need to put them in immigration camps. Please. Make up your minds the rest of us can get on with helping those who risked life and family to help our troops. 

POTUS has enough on his plate between increasing COVID rates and now Hurricane Ida to keep him busy. Oh, and let's not forget that North Korean appears to be firing up their nuclear arsenal again.  

The older I get, the more I think being POTUS is about morals and ethics. I don't mean the Christian right kinda morals where IOIYAR is the line in the sand, the kind that thinks it's okay to grab a little pussy on the side, or have serial wives and mistresses, some concurrently; I mean the classic kind, the ones about doing right by one's neighbors, community, nation, and the world. Maybe a little bit of repairing the world, leaving our campsite cleaner than we found it, caring for the health of the planet? Turning health care into a for profit industry manipulated by insurance companies is morally reprehensible. Taxation that favors 2% of the population while shifting the major burden to the middle and lower classes is highly unethical. Allowing large corporations to pay virtually nothing in taxes is both morally and ethically bankrupt. If POTUS can begin to address the ongoing inequality experienced by the bulk of America, he will have taken a step in the right direction. I do not think President Biden can fix it all with a wave of his magic pen, but what I do believe is that he can open the conversation. 

As I head into the 10 days of repentance, I will once again evaluate where I have fallen short, and where I can do better. Even if you're not Jewish, take a moment to think about the same thing. Take an inventory; it's a good thing. Maybe you'll find something you want to change. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Always start a diet the day after Yom Kippur.