FASHIONS OF THE DAY

  There are so many fashion demands on anyone out there. An African might be dressing in traditional clothing and vary greatly from a member of another tribe. The same goes for so many countries, particularly where populations are heavily mixed, with members coming or originating from separate, disparate cultures. Even here in America, one's dress often signifies one's association with a group or two. A traditional Amish dresses in one way, yet varies within Sects. The same with Mennonites. Or varied sects of members of the Jewish faith. The same goes for the youth of the day. Just think hippies, Goth, grunge, etc. As one grows, one changes, as do the clothes. Just go to your closet and find the remnants of the stages of your life. Even the clothing of a woman, in the before, now and wishful categories, change with the years and experiences undergone.

The question then is - does clothing truly make the person? Do we behave differently as we change manner of dress or not? Personally, I believe we do. Casual dress sets us free from some constrictions that more formal dress imposes upon us. Good and bad, but certainly significant, differing in impact and dress within varied societies. What we must remember though is that old, but telling adage: Wolves dressed in sheep's clothing.

See, we must look deeper into the minds and mores of clothed people. We must imagine them as within, dressed accordingly, as befits their inner beliefs. The red MAGA hats, the black clothing of protest groups, the angry slogans that accompany them, as part and parcel of expression. Or the sane looking people in everyday clothing, their winter jackets closed tightly around them, who stormed our Capitol and stood as the first armed rebels in this country for lo these many a year.

But what of those who wear one set of signs and belonging but speak another tongue, one meshing with almost completely diametrically opposed groups? What do we do, how do we recognize the changes that people have gone within, or even without, as they bow to the various "fashions" of the day politically, socially, religiously. As they spout yet more of the same drivel - just change the names they now supposedly espouse even as they desert long time allies and friends, marching to the drum of others, the popular other fashion of the day; be hypocritical, hypercritical, as long as it draws the powers that be to your side.

The frightening part is that while people change clothing to match the day, these changes are lifechanging for some. Even as the 'changed' people deny it, deny the facts, the facts create their own reality and the harm is done, ongoing, given a new lease on life when it should have been long ago buried, deep and irretrievable. But we humans tend to hold on to dark trends and thoughts, irrational feelings and philosophies, particularly when they give us comfort, false as that comfort might be, in times of great uncertainty and danger. Particularly when these strange thoughts are revived and renewed by powerful voices within the community. Their espousal of these dark trends leads to the acceptance and even rabid support of others.

Anti - Semitism. An ugly head that insists on eternal life, even if outer expression of it becomes unfashionable for a while, a hypocritical while, for there it remains growing steadily in fertile, fetid soil, implanted there by either ignorance or political experience but always with a tragic result. The same, actually, for all prejudices, always waiting to tear a country apart. Look at Sarajevo. Look at the society at large in Israel where so many, Arabs Jews, Druze, Christians, all, work together as in hospitals, treating the thousands wounded by the shells of the enemy, be they of one ethnicity or religion or another. Even as outside the doors the horror ranges, within, there is a harmony and a complete and whole society. All wear the dress of the hospital. Does that impose and inform them of the required behavior for that fashion, for that clothing? Perhaps. Seems logical. Does that harmony within  follow them outside? Perhaps. Makes sense.

And now for the false clothing worn by anti-Semites. Anti Zionism is anti Semitism. It is merely a differing layer of clothing which reeks of the same rot. How to tell? These are the same people who sniff at the Jewish family moving into their enclave. The same ones who make sotto voce comments re 'jewing' someone down, or that is "what they always do", or they are too much in control in -----fill in the blank as to your opinion, but there are too many who espouse these thoughts and even act on them. They are the same people who go further, act in violence, as they chase Jewish people down in the streets, deface Jewish institutions, kidnap and kill Jews, cut them no slack anywhere, and deflect the hatred of Jews to the category of anti Zionism, all to gain the wholehearted support of society. 

How else does one explain the frightening burgeoning of acts of anti Semitism all around the world. It amazes me how powerful we are supposed to be, this minority wherever they live, a minority whose need, whose existential need, whose right, inheritance and tradition, written within a book that the world supposedly espouses and follows, yet refused by so many, denied, washed with the blood of Jews through the Ages.

Nope. Fashions of the day are not harmless and give many clues as to the standing and level of society. Where are their values? How do they do they indeed, uphold and support these values, pass them on to the next generation. Does their clothing, within and without support one view or another, expose hypocrisy or truth? 

Where is the world in this Project Runway of life? I think it is in not such a god place, with the runaway rotten to its core, with the mold eating away at its underpinnings, with people overwhelmed by the odor, the rot, the supposed benefits of the oncoming ugly fashions.

So you decide what fashion you espouse. Do so in all honesty. Lies do not hold up too well in the long run, do they? Even as they leave havoc behind them, there is no future in them either. Folks, we have got to do better, for this hatred of others, this increasing tendency to extremes, the use and approval of violence, these lies denying the truth, will only harm us - unto death and tragedy, for hatred knows no bounds. Remember that, for they will come for you as well when they run out of others. Hatred needs to feed on something and all of us are eligible to be that something.