So begins the plaintive heartbreaking song in West Side Story. The second time around, in the most recent film version, I found that song, one of my favorites of the movie, to be far more plaintive, heartbreaking and so reflective of the world today, the desperate seeking within of a hope that "somewhere, sometime, there will indeed be a place for us."
Who are the 'us'? Well, compare the two versions, both sung by Rita Moreno. The first is a version of a despairing mourning young girl who has lost her first love in a spate of violence. It is touching, tears are elicited. Now compare it to the version sung by an older Rita Moreno, singing as an older woman, disillusioned, signing off from hope of better times, as yet more violence, more death, more senseless losses continue. Semi spoken, it is a heartrending plea for an actually existing place, that somewhere, sometime place where love can flourish, and violence be unknown. This version reached deeper into the soul, for this version is a life destroyed, love trashed, a finality so sad, so disillusioning, so representative of the majority of life's lessons.
The second presentation hit home like a bullet to the heart. Rita was the wife of a murdered Jewish pharmacist, killed in yet another racial murder. Among Jews there is a saying, 'Hamayven yaven'. The understander will understand. In other words, the unwritten yet far more important statement is there; one only has to understand, feel, the message implied, unstated in words, yet ever so real.
So apropos of the times today, we Jews are also asking ourselves, asking G-d, demanding an answer: is there, will there ever be, a time, that somewhere sometime place, a failsafe place, where racial and religious strife are no more? Where Jews can breathe free? Where we do not have to constantly look over our shoulder, parse every word and statement, decipher the meanings implied? Will there ever indeed be a place where we are safe. SAFE. After millennia of unsafety, of homicidal madness directed at Jews, of vicious Jew hatred, never ever disappearing?
We Jews thought we had finally found that place, The United States of America. Where words written by a Jewish poet were etched into the Statue of Liberty, welcoming the survivors of centuries of brutal hatred against Jews, where governments sanctioned that violence. Here was safety. Here was a place where we could direct our efforts to succeed, to build better lives for our children, to contribute to the world. Here, indeed, was the sought for, longed for place. That somewhere sometime place.
Unfortunately, it has proven otherwise. At first it was mumbling and grumbling, the ever existing accusations. Jews are always on the wrong side, whatever was the wrong side of the time. They were rich. Controlling. The spawn of evil. Blood libel accusations. They were unnatural and vicious, after you and yours. Wearily, we faced the truth, so ugly and despairing, and forged on. We would dig in, be strong, good citizens, and perhaps, just maybe, the magic aura would return. That place would reappear.
It was not to be. Worse, the poison grew in depth and spread. It incorporated threats and actual violence. It took on faces of ugliness in daily life. Suddenly it became dangerous to walk as a Jew, to practice the religion, to speak out, always accused of whatever worked for diseased minds, for easily led minds, for those seeking to be part of the mob.
The vitriolic poison spread. It began to appear to be coordinated, with growing unity of hate, of an energy boding no good for Jews. Once again, we wondered, is there that place, that somewhere, sometime, somehow place we had sought through the millennia? If so, where was it? Where? How? The chants against Israel grew in intensity and exposed ugly truths.
From the river to the sea - an indigenous homeland of Jews now to be denied, wiped free of Jews, and then-the world. Jew hatred. Open, ugly, bringing and leaving hate, despair, hopelessness, confusion - and a growing desire, a need within, to combat these developments.
The educated minds, the minds we were hoping would understand the ugliness and oppose it, once again proved again that education could be coopted and corrupted. Once again, the educated elite of countries of the world adopted the fallacies of Jew hatred. Disappointing, but not surprising. Our kids were threatened on campus as administrations did nothing, dismissing complaints of antisemitism and an unsafe campus. Professors felt free to demean students in classrooms and these complaints too went to deaf ears and blind eyes, and even approving minds. A newer version of elite scum. Complaints and events were minimized, conflated with islamophobia, which never seemed to have an actuality other than that crazed murderer and motivation was not clear at all.
Chants grew and continue to grow in intensity and threats. More than mobs, this is a new category of thousands enraged, maddened, driven by an all-consuming bloodlust and hate. Entities unto themselves. They dragged along all the haters, the losers, the self-hating Jews who could not, would not see themselves as Jews, subject to the same fates accorded to their brethren.
Posters of brutalized victims of Oct 7, the kidnaped, the murdered, the missing, were vandalized. Even the infants were considered dangerous and butchered as well, perhaps in even crueler manner. Such is the manner of crazed minds.
Once again Israel did what she must, and once again the world raged against her. How dare a Jewish army defend its people? How dare they paint the truths on the screens of the world. How dare they not accept the blame of deaths upon their shoulders when responsibility derived from Hamas? Why are Jews to be victims, not allowed to raise a hand in defense? Why? Unfortunately, there are no answers. Perhaps, if not in this lifetime, that somewhere, sometime, somehow place. will appear. For us now, the doubts are strong.
Together we can defend ourselves and deny ugliness and hate and existential danger. Today we can present truths to open minds and defeat those who now post Holocaust 2.0 on walls of Jewish institutions and homes.
Today and tomorrow and for all the tomorrows, for the hope of finding that wonderful somehow, sometime, somewhere place we must persevere. Perhaps Israel in our lifetime or our kids, but there has to be that place. Must be a place. Else G-d has a lot of 'splaining to do.
About Yitzy. We are waiting for definitive answers. We hope they come soon and are of the positive. We simply have to wait, pray, do good deeds. And pray some more. Challenge G-d to do the right thing. For Yitzy and for all Klal Yisroel.
May our soldiers come home safely after a victory for once and for all and may they carry on their shoulders, in celebration, the rescued hostages.
AMEN. AMEN.
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