BAKHMUT HOLDS

  If you are like me, once you never knew there was such a place as Bakhmut and why should you. It was a small place of 70,000 or so population, a city where people went about their business, just like you and me. While I knew much about historical Ukraine, given the history of my people and my family, modern Ukraine was a place on the map and in the Russian area. Today, well, today we have different times and different needs and different values - or are they truly different values?

Bakhmut holds. Against a torrent of never-ending artillery. As wave after wave of men, freed from Russian jails, a misery all by itself, to come and fight, perhaps even live, on the front line with Ukraine. A brutal repetition of the wars of old where the biggest weapon one had was the people one could throw at them, to charge, to die, perhaps gain a yard or two. 

From time immemorial through the Greeks and Romans and Vikings, the British, the French, the bloody trench warfare of WWI, the prior battles memorialized by the Charge of the Light Brigade and the sentiment of "Ours but to do or die". Hungary sent waves of Jewish prisoners against minefields and enemy forces, the Chinese sent waves of their own in Korea and see how far we have come in our 'civilized progress'!

Look in the mirror and feel the shame of humanity.

In fact, we have been ever so busy turning back the clock, returning not to the days of old glorified by the Lone Ranger and Tonto, but to the days of death, of stinking, ash filled air, of bones gritty beneath one's feet, of starvation and brutality, a nightmare world, unreal, yet ever so real. A world to which too many now wish to return, a world which we are beginning, actually more than beginning, to emulate in the most perverted return to the past as ever seen before.

Evidently, the idea of concentration camps has never lost its appeal. Through all the area wars. Bosnia, Kosovo, etc., etc., - and ain't that a blot on humanity - the concentration camp has never lost its appeal or place, front and center. Today, time and sickening time again, Jews are threatened with a return to those 'glory, bloody' days of yore. The brutality. The bloodshed. The inhumanity. The viciousness. The pervasive horror and fear. 

So ... the fourth time that antisemites have strewn pages of hate in the driveways of Jews right here in Palm Beach County. Countless synagogues across the country have been defaced. Scarce funds are being expended on defensive measures such as bollards and armed security guards. Jews are attacked and cursed in the streets -and killed where they pray.

Not to worry, I am told. It cannot happen here. We are different. Really? Same difference as far as I can see. In the camps, the Nazis used other prisoners as the first line of attack upon the Jewish prisoners. These Kapos were brutal beyond words. To keep their privileges, to remain alive. Today, we have Black on Black in a brutal never ever justifiable beating unto death - by our own "kapos", who spoil the barrel for the dedicated law enforcement personnel who are not Kapos. How long do you think it would take to either change minds, co-opt them, or replace them with willing substitutes. Not very long at all. The line forms to the left and curls around ten blocks down. Think not, think never, - think again. And again.

 Today the country is ever so busy replacing officials in political offices, governmental workers are facing job insecurity and discomfort, freedom of speech has become quite selective and discriminating, educational areas, from universities to the preschool are rapidly being attacked or 'reformed' - you take your pick! New political outlook, new policies, censoring all thoughts not considered acceptable by those newly empowered. Truth has nothing to do with it at all.

Perhaps some things are terrible enough to censor, deserving of it. Perhaps. Here are two interesting facts and statements. You choose the one you want to censor, if any. You see if you agree with any of it. 

You see yourself in your choices.

Bysheim was arrested by Atlantis Police on Jan. 21 for obstructing a law enforcement officer without violence after receiving a littering citation for “throwing antisemitic hate speech flyers” on residents’ lawns,"

" ...telling a Bucks County school librarian to take down posters with a famous quote by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winning human rights activist, professor, and Holocaust survivor, just days before Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented,” Wiesel said.

Evil succeeds when good people are silent.

Bakhmut must continue to hold - in so many meanings, in so many contexts.