Or The Longest Day. Or, for that matter, Blowing With or In the Wind. All would be titles for the world of today's Jewry. Actually, in a strange way I can sort of manage to understand the import of the first titles. However, when it comes to being blown about by a wind, ever erratic, power and direction forever uncertain, though always disconcerting at the least and destructive at the other end, well there I hit my brick wall.
It hurts, leaving behind a huge bruise which never loses its punch nor its hurt and strikes from every which way. There is no path free of danger, no walkway to a more serene world. That, my friends, is America today, England today, France today, every country today, for Jews living within the borders of any country. Nor should one think that being a hidden Jew, a basically closet Jew, an identity actually meshing with the title, present in the absence of it, will allow one to escape whatever befalls the Jewish nation as a whole.
That thinking is way out of date. It is now a time when every Jew must Think, with a capital T. Drop the cup of Rev. Jone's Kool-Aid and drink of the cup of a bitter reality. No sugar added to disguise the bitterness nor slow sipping so as to delay consequences. Those consequences are loaded at all ends with long and short term effects. If we do not understand our plight, the bitter reality now facing us yet again, then we are in for a huge body blow. Whether we can survive such a body blow remains to be seen.
Bari Weiss, a most interesting young woman, well-armed with the power of her convictions, has it right. " ... as an American Jew, she’d always felt she could hold her head up high, in contrast to those of us in the Old World. “I had an arrogance, a sense that, you know, anti-Semitism was for Jews of other times, certainly, but also other places. And I remember reading about things that would happen, and places, especially like France, and thinking that could never happen here. I have been disabused of that idea.”
That feeling is not hers alone, instead is shared by many. Despite Schumer's claim of representing the voice or 'nuances' of American Jewry, and his self-assigned position as "shomer, guardian", of American Jewry and by extension all world Jewry, he is punching way, way above his weight. He has espoused the worn out proven false trope of "I am a (fill in name of country") first and my family has lived here for (fill in number of years or centuries) and then, I am a Jew. "The unstated but clearly implied corollary follows, "that my country will never desert me" is so ragged with holes in its fabric that it sinks beneath any challenge to its integrity. Still being sputtered from the mouths of too many through the millennia, as they were deported, killed, take your choice. He is not my shomer. I am my shomer. My understanding of history is my shomer, as is my sense of reality. Antennae are my shomrim.
I used to tell my students, my own kids, that if one could not live in Israel, America was the next and best choice. I pledged, sang anthems, secure in my delusion. But now, well now my country no longer wants me. It desires my presence be denoted by my absence. Schumer remains under that leaky umbrella and its total collapse will hit hard. Oh, we can hope that Americans, all people will once again be aware of the contributions Jews have made to every facet of society. The ugly policy now of isolation of Jews from life and relevance, enforcing that policy with violence and arrogance will halt.
Maybe. Someday. But not yet. Not now.
Much of Schumer's early speech was positive as he tried to convey the connection between Israel and Jews. And then he blew it, allowed all to take away his shifting of blame upon Israelis, especially Netanyahu, equating them with Hamas, with Abbas, aggression paling before consequences, defense conflated with crimes and on and on. Not too good a shomer. People took away that which they wanted. Not a good result for us and hopefully not what Schumer had anticipated; nevertheless, there it is. He failed us, Jews and Americans. A wrong door opened, and another shut, giving succor to the enemy even as fear and uncertainty ramped up astronomically among American Jews, the once upon presence of a feeling that we were finally home, safe, accepted and valued is now noticeable in its absence. A Golden Age for Jews, this one not to end in blood and gore as did prior ones.
Oct7 has become the Longest Day, its horror, the death, the hatred, the acid to the soul of not knowing, simply not knowing about a loved one. feeling helpless, unable to protect, to hold, to know more will die during this extended day of humanity losing its mind. Not yet regained -if ever.
One person opined yesterday that we must go where the wind takes us. Absolutely NOT! We must resist those nasty winds and gales. No more to allow the haters to decide our fate for us, to be the winds blowing us elsewhere. No more pillars to posts for we have the right to be a sovereign nation in our own homeland. Period.
Below are two statements which say it all.
"Look, of course, none of us want to see death and suffering,” ... “We want to see the violence come to an end. The way to solve this humanitarian crisis and achieve a cease-fire is for Hamas leaders to immediately release every single one of those hostages. And then, they should surrender and be held accountable."
"Our wounds are centuries old, but so are our resilience and strength,” We have been through this before. We have overcome before, and we will again ...bear witness to Hamas atrocities with (their) own eyes, but also to observe the resilience of the Israeli people,
The Jewish people have many built-in circuit breakers that enable us to take on the tragedies of life knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” We will survive. We will overcome.”
Let people take that away with them.
Am Yisroel Chai.
--------------------------------------------------------Yitzy, you are so present in your absence. No more to hold you physically, only in our memories. But there. Here. Present. Always.
Always and forever. Always and forever.
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