CHERRIES, ANYONE?

  Oh yeah! Uh-huh. Sometimes the right thing happens. But then reality sets in and the right thing is not so simple. Not so clearcut nor permanent. Too much room for harmful change. Yesterday, I waited with bated breath for the jury verdict. Would the unbelievable teflonic ability of that criminal work its perverted magic yet again, or is justice     finally to be served? What would ensue? What effect would there be around the world and here, in America?   

Why is that? As I stood in front of the screen counting off each guilty, I fervently hoped that this was the beginning of the end, the closing of a shameful chapter in American history. Maybe we're done with this and can draw a line under it all and move on, forward. Nor is it a possibility. Those cherries on top are not looking as luscious as they were just a few minutes ago. 

Why is that? Why is it not clear that a person convicted of 34 felony counts is not prime material for a leader? Why is prison still only a possibility? And uh-oh, there is now a fuzz growing on those cherries and a whiff of rot now permeates the air.  That corruption spreads, grows quickly. It corrodes the brain, the very air we breathe. Why do some continue to support a convicted criminal? Think of that - a former president of the United States of America who never should have been, believes he is still in Office and running as a candidate for another term. Outrageous! A felon cannot always vote so why is he allowed to run!!!  The fog of confusion and 'just does not seem right' fills the air. Common sense has disappeared. Now the question: where do we go from here?

It should be simple but is not. In trying to make sense of this whole mess. we apply the principle of guidelines, using. the five W's and one H. Who? What.? When? Where? Why? How? Seems simple. Who did what? To whom? When did that take place? In fact, where was the 'what' and the actual physical where?  Why did it happen and how, in what manner, using what delivery of that 'how'?  All facts to find place within the answers are open to misinterpretation; hence, how to insure truth. In fact, the representation what is presumed to be the truth can be disputed, tainted by the individual's eye and interpretation. The view of an elephant is quite different when viewed as a whole as compared to the version of an elephant as seen by the 'seeing' fingers of the six blind men. How do we know the truth? Remember Jack Webb of Dragnet and his iconic statement: "just the facts, ma'am"?  But think about it. Are facts to be separated from interpretation? Is that even possible? Do facts happen in a vacuum? Recall those six blind men and the elephant. again. Their 'facts' differed as did their interpretation. Correct, yet so very, very wrong. And yet those are the facts.  

The remainder of the questions are equally as confusing. None of them has a pure outline or category. which is as it should be, for neither does life. There's no straight line - people color out of the line. There's no containment within a box for people think out of the box, again as it should be. But as such how do we find the truth? How do we prove the truth? Beats me!       

The necessary firm base of support for a moral, good life is shaky, and as we tread upon it, it trembles beneath our feet. We become hesitant. We become unsure about our thoughts and opinions. We begin to step voluntarily and involuntarily along the unbeaten path. The miasmic air clouds our vision and our missteps grow in number and consequence. Sight of the proper road grows dimmer, until finally, we are lost.  Answers to all questions, the validity of the guidelines have proven inadequate. And so here we are. Nowhere.   

Anyone for cherries? I think we need new farmers and better agricultural procedures. Certainly, the rotten fruit and the terrible farming of such poor. agriculturalists as Trump and his laborers should never have risen to such heights. Never been able to pervert justice so egregiously and so endanger Democracy.  

Who - what - when - where - why -how? I think I'm going to find one of my books and read. Shut down all media. Obtain a few moments of peace.

We need strong, wise, generous, compassionate leaders with clear eyes and firm tread. With moral fiber and strong back.

Helloooooooo! Anyone there? 

------------------------------------------------------------

Yitzy, your little nephews ae growing beautifully, as I am sure you can see. One is already old enough to mimic your laugh and sense of mischief. WE await the gifts of joy from the newest, not yet a month old. It would have been so wonderful to have you here so we could all rejoice together. I still do not understand why we had to lose you - I never will.

Love you, sweet boy - 

Always and forever. Always and forever.

  

 

SHALL WE?

  Shall we? Should we? Can we actually believe at this stage that linking arms of proponents of both sides would disintegrate the enmity between? That Peace would break out, that we would actually and successfully "give peace a chance"? Thinking, thinking ... nah, never happen, especially at this stage of hostilities. Hamas thinks it is winning this race of the right to exist and to carry out its nefarious plans to in fact cancel Israel. Cancel world Jewry as well. 

They arrived at this certainty of victory as the media of the world spews out venom and accusations against Israel, assigning to Israel deeds and consequences they had never wrought. As Israel sacrifices the lives of so many of its soldiers in the name of "limiting casualties among the Gazan population", presumably "innocent" of joyous participation and support of Hamas, though there is a plethora of proof which negates that egregiously false idea. 

Hence, we are fighting an existential war which will determine whether Israel as a Jewish state continues to exist or does not, its population and that of world Jewry written off, thrown to the merciless, evil creatures of Hamas and allies - of which there are many; and wouldn't you be surprised - or not! The truth is that Israel is fighting an existential war controlled by a nation which demands mastery over its destiny, a lose - lose situation. Pure Evil manifesting its power, intensifying its attraction to those who esteem power, its maintenance, as the height of ambition.       Wars of other nations are conveniently forgotten as Israel is pressured to fight a war impossible to win under current circumstances and demands.  Bret Stephens once again gets it right - (Bret Stephens for President). Israel is being instructed, demanded to acquiesce in its own destruction for surely, that will bring about global peace! As if!    Frankly, that's a load of hogwash, accompanied by a powerful state of hubris.

To return to Mr. Stephens who knows that the Hamas War is and will continue to be unwinnable   unless and until the 'allies' truly take the truth to heart and turn aside from convenient falsehoods.   See the truth and accept it. Hamas lit the matches of warfare. Gazans civilians are dying because Hamas hides among them, brilliantly, coldly, evil plans and eminently successful strategy.  Even as Israel is faulted for doing what it must to ensure its continued existence as a Jewish state and a home for all Jews in good times and bad.   

The choice is clear. A choice between the Devil and the deep blue sea. But any nation engaged in an existential war, as is the current state of Israel must make a difficult soul-destroying choice. To choose wrong is to negate the honor of a nation, to discount the sacrifices made. and the deaths incurred. To accept loss and all that comes with it. America has done that with every war beginning with Vietnam. Think about it. 

In any case here is the ugly choice: “morally compromised victories over morally pure defeats". When that defeat leads especially, clearly, to a permanent erasure, there is no choice. Every time Israel has been pressured to pull defeat from the mouth of victory, it has allowed, encouraged the inevitability of yet more war. 5 times now with Hamas, and not to forget the northern one yet again to go head-to-head with Hezbollah. 

The world remains willfully blind, deaf and silent, unwilling to acknowledge and condemn the necessary   evacuation of the northern and southern sections of Israel. Remains silent to the slaughter of her civilians, to barrages of missile, drones, and rockets deliberately aimed at civilian targets, people and infrastructure, at fields and businesses, at schools and houses of worship. Deliberately. Coldly, with Evil afoot there, clearly present as its nauseating toxic reek permeates all. 

Evil is as evil does. Humanity too often turns a blind eye and cold shoulder to evil and its manifestations. It is easier that way. However, definitely much more harmful in the long run, as those long runs become shorter and shorter and shorter. Humanity has a choice. We need to make that choice now. Delay, indecision and cowardice serve the purposes of Evil. and increase the severity of the resultant consequences. Are we brave enough? Smart enough? Instinctive enough to know the truth? Or do we deny it all? 

Disgrace and discount the deaths and the efforts of those who came before us. Those who fought in the wars. The civilians who sacrificed. The butchered of the Holocaust. The brave dead along the beaches of Normandy and Anzio. Those who never returned from the Chosen Reservoir and the jungles of Vietnam or the sands and mountains and cities of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. 

What are we doing? What is broken inside of us?     Is it not time to banish Evil from the plains of this earth? 

     "just look". The importance of education and critical thinking cannot be understated here, as well as combating misinformation to foster a better understanding of our world." 

This response. to another absurd situation and ridiculous statements is as applicable here as there. Read it and understand it. Take it to heart. Seek out the truth. Discard. the falsehoods now rife within the minds and hearts of too many. Seek the truth and share it with others. 

-------------------------------------------------------------- Yitzy, Sweet boy. the world down here remains in a vicious quandary. No answer in sight. All that seems to be ahead is more bloodshed, more agony, more loss. Got any answers? Any hints? Knock on the door of the One who knows those missing answers.  We need those answers. We need help.  Time's up? We need help NOW.

Now, then, forever - we love you.  

Always and forever. Always and forever.       

ULTIMATE QUESTIONS

 “These are the Times that try men's souls.” Very much so. These are times that introspection and self-evaluation have apparently lost all appeal and acceptance of the necessity to be in place and in honest use, applied to behavior and thoughts and deeds falls by the wayside. Mankind, in its arrogance, has deemed moral introspection antiquated at best and an impediment to progress, not so much societal as individual. 

Increasingly, we have manifested a growing lack of a functioning moral compass. We have driven it into obsolescence along with its rather uncomfortable questions of assessment re morality. It has grown rusty with disuse, as we built a wall insurmountable, a wall which hides our blackened souls from our inner eyes. The soul withers and dies from lack of attention and proper nourishment.  Leakage of its disintegration seeps through but is shrugged off or swept away. The neighborhood of morality and practitioners has become unfashionable, to be avoided. Its main bus route has become unpassable as the wheels of that bus are clogged with the detritus of those thrown beneath them.

Why has this become the current state of affairs? I have thought long and hard in my search to find an answer which would at least help me understand. The search has not led me to a definitive answer nor solution, but perhaps I have gained a glimmering of understanding, not a pleasant achievement. I have harked back to the earnest discussions of high school and college days when we knew the answers. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, a word surfaces, flashing before my eyes, ringing the bells of my mind. In our time of arrogance, of knowing we knew it all, we. ignored the truth. There it was, right in front of us but we refused to acknowledge it. It could not possibly be. Certainly, we were better than that, had more control over our lives, and would not repeat the errors of our parents. We knew better; of course we did. 

No, we would not. allow that 4 letter word to rule our lives. We trashed it. We would drive it into obsolescence. It would die of starvation. We were better than that. And so, we turned out backs to the truth that did not mesh with our idealistic oh so hopeful thoughts. Unfortunately, in ignoring it we merely strengthened it to the point where it could not be contained any longer. The ugly bubble burst. Out poured a stinking ugly stream. and we could not fix that leak. There was no finger large enough to plug the hole of the dike. It would not, could not, be returned to containment. Its poison was free and clear to spew forth and share its ugliness with any open to it. 

So simple. Yet we continue to deny it. Too simplistic. Not possible. We are far too sophisticated for that to be true. But it is true. Evil is a reality. It consumes the soul, warping it for eternity. Far more than simple wrongdoing. It derives from and is driven by desperate need to satiate the bloodlust consuming it from inside out and the constant necessity to feed it. Ever hungry.

Evil. - "profoundly immoral and ". " Morally reprehensible.” “Pernicious " And my all-time favorite, encompassing all, is “a cosmic evil force, something that brings sorrow, distress and calamity." And there you have it. Within our very challenged world there are forces of evil and calamity. The impartial evil of disaster of floods or fires is Nature - unless set in motion with deliberate act. Those disasters belong in the House of the Lord. The Evil that scares the dickens out of me is the evil that comes from people who do not know anything else. Who seek out only that which will enhance these desires, these needs and cravings for evil. For the disaster it imposes upon others. For the cruelty with which it treats others, any sentient form of life.

 Such proponents of evil have no soul. Only a darkness within, impossible to measure, define, and isolate and destroy. Defeat over Evil is in a constant state of activity, for its seeds of ugliness always find places in whom to grow. These incubators of Evil will have no soul, no humanity, no positive emotions and lives for ugliness. It inspires   emulation via fear or the liberating feeling when all restrictions are lifted. There is simply no good side of Evil and its presence in people.  There is only the potential and the activation of Evil, and nothing of   empathy or sympathy, any humanity to be found within these broken dangerous shells of humans.       They are capable of great deceit and can convince anyone of anything. Understanding and discernment must be clear.   

We live in a time of evil. We have given it nourishment. We have allowed it to flourish. We have made heroes of those embodying that Evil.  Humanity has chosen too often to follow the Evil, fooled by its surface attractiveness. Do we have a natural affinity towards evil? I can't answer that for sure, for everyone. I do know that evil is rampant, growing in influence and territory day by day. It must be acknowledged and addressed. If we refuse to accept that, to know that in the very narrow of our bones - we are lost. Evil will consume us. We will wake up as I did tonight. Multiple times. Shouting with fear. For Evil stood at my door and knocked powerfully.

------------------------------------------------ Yitzy yesterday was your Hebrew birthday. Yet another plunge of the knife into our hearts. Every turn brings a memory. there is a memory of you. A longing for you.  An absence which grows wider, longer every day. 

 For sure your grin, your eyes, your hugs, would be so beneficial to us now. They are only in our imaginations and that is where we must find you. Only there. can we hug you. 

Always and forever. Always and forever.      

           

UH HUH, UH HUH, YA' THINK!

  ... And that's a duh! Have you found of late there are more and more statements that actually require not an answer, but a comment. Well, several comments from which one can choose, but all indicative of the same thing. One shakes a head and thinks, silently or aloud - where the hell have you and/or your brains been? In fact, do you have a brain - at least one with some capacity to work?

I believe that for the most part too many of us have shifted our brains into idle. They are in stasis, though there is a definite indication of slippage to the rear. The brains are awaiting input, which is actually incoming; however, the recognition and acceptance areas are rusty with disuse and unfortunately too often fixate on the false narrative rather than on the more painful displeasing and discomforting truth.  The motivational factor here being that why opt for the unsettling when there are other choices. hence - GIGO - garbage in, garbage out and as good citizens we recycle diligently.

 Here are some rather obvious statements. and the temptation to say 'duh!' is front and center. However, for the sake of a civil discourse and society, patience, patience is advised - for one's own sanity.  However, be alert, for at times there is a hidden important element of truth beneath the irritating surface duh factor.

 " ... something is deeply broken in American schools." 

With rioting crazy students exhibiting the rabid mob pattern of the unthinking mobs of the Red Guards in one of China's most brutal periods; with professors forsaking the principles of their profession, blatantly inciting hate, vicious and toxic; with basic history remaining ignored or distorted within our elementary and high school classrooms; with a constant flooding of idiocy bombarding the developing brains of our young - uh-huh. There is certainly something wrong with our educational system today.  

One very definite area of deprivation is the glaring in its absence and insufficiency, that is the area of faith, trust, loyalty, in and of our nation, the United States of America. In fact, at this point in time, too many do not have any connection. to that statement of "our" nation. Frankly, I am just about at that point at this point. How can this be my nation when I am rejected on all sides, even, especially by those who are in positions of authority and presumably of knowledge. How can I trust this nation to have my back, to be there to protect me and ensure the permanence of my rights as a citizen of America? Certainly not now, when JewHatred and the ugly revival of ancient false despicable canards grow and target me and mine with the speed and force of a rolling snowball down a steep slope. Taught and aimed, promulgated, Aimed by errant teachers within our rotting inadequate educational system.

"You look at every (US) war, and it's the same. We create regrets."

Actually, it matters not one wit whether the war is a US war or the war of another nation. If we did not have regrets in the initiation, ongoing and aftermath of a war, we would have ceded an enormous aspect of our humanity. When unfortunately, a war is inevitable or instigated by those of retrogressive and aggressive tendencies, it must be fought and fought hard. The goals must be to end it decisively. and quickly, the sooner the better. so as to eliminate or limit “regrettable” thoughts. A war fought hard, with intensity, is a war of shorter duration and certainly of fewer deaths and fewer dire consequences. Certainly fewer “regrets”. Why then do we hamper those who know war, study war, hate war? Because we are dumb? Deluded? Engaged in wishful naive thinking as we conflate our ugly wars with the illusionary values of the Knights of the Round Table? Whatever, that is a false road to follow. 

Actually, if we could have those regrets prior to the onset of combat, perhaps we could avoid those awful years of bloodshed and that hatred so resilient, so determined to continue to exist. Our efforts to put aside these various hates are weak, too often regrettably futile. The apparently ageless ugliness seems to have developed permanent deep roots in the darkest portions of our souls and hearts and we cannot or will not extirpate them from within.     

Why are there constant attacks by one group against another? From the onset, our first residents brought with them the seeds of ugliness from Europe. The hatred of one who is different. Who perhaps looks different, who worships God in a different manner or who dresses differently, or who lives a lifestyle outside the box.  America, the land of the free and the home of the brave continued to walk the trails of Europe even as some resisted. And America erred time and time again. 

Reneged upon treaties with Native Americans. The Trail of Tears. The Fugitive Slave Act. The McCarran act of 1924 and earlier related legislation condemning millions. to death. And the 'educational' process continued. The incarcerated Japanese Americans citizens in World War Two. We overlooked the sins of Nazis in our frantic competition with the Russians in the Cold War. 

And today? No better. Perhaps even worse. We should know better. We should have learned from history. However, we continue to ignore it and continue to allow the ugliness. of dank souls to bleed through. If our elected leaders are actually reflective of us as a people, as a society, then woe upon us. When a criminal aspirant to the highest office in the land tells us that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country”. 

  Frank Sinatra sang “Regrets. I have a few. Too few to mention." Too bad we cannot all say that with convincing honesty. Mankind has become the perpetuator of its ugliest facet. It refuses to shed it. It sees only within it the advantages for itself and discounts the disadvantages which affect not only the enemy, but also ourselves. Learning from history is honored in the breach rather than in the keeping. It is a great huge giant oversized DUH!!!!! that governs our behavior. Shame upon us. We gotta' do better.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Yitzy, what the world lost when we lost you is unfathomable. The outsized positive effect that you had upon others is now both there yet gone missing. So glaringly missing, so necessary. Perhaps you could send down a few quaffs for people to drink. The world is definitely quite thirsty for it.

We love you, sweet boy. 

Always and forever. Always and forever.

  

       

A POTPOURRI OF GRIPES ...

  ...but first a word from the rather shrinking, challenged optimistic corner of my mind and heart. Is it in fact possible any longer to take heart from rare words of support, or even visible via deeds in action, to think that no, we are not behind efforts, perhaps last-ditch efforts, to revive the errant traits of humanity? Is it true that we can resuscitate the withered altruistic, positive traits of humanity? Perhaps only modern-day versions of the "cock-eyed optimist" of South Pacific" must be found to lead the way.  Search we must if we are to successfully brace the global sized elephant in the living room of our minds. 

So, to the present doorstop in my mind, hopefully viable enough to counter the enemy forces trying to force open the door, allowing the vitriol without to enter and remain within, crushing hopes ruthlessly.

Last night we attended the 28th Yachad Festival held at Broward Center, a festival of pride and unity, of hard work and achievements. A festival of pride and unity, a reminder to the world at large, and to world Jewry that we are here and here we will remain, despite any and all indications otherwise. We are, in fact, Am Echad, Lev Echad - One nation, One people, One heart. 

We know too, very well, that all the temporary homes we found over the millennia, were just that - temporary. To any and all trying to deny that core of our belief, our religion, our history, know it remains within, immutable. Solid and never disappearing. We know deep within our very marrow, with the flow of blood within our veins, with the feelings of the heart, a permanent tenet of our belief, an identity, that We, the People of the Book, the People of Israel, have an Eternal Homeland, gifted to us by the One Above. 

We have fought for it, left behind oceans of our blood, and rent the skies of heaven with the agonized screams of men, women, children slaughtered in the name of Hate and denial of Truth. We are Eretz Echad - the People of One Land, forever, for eternity. One nation, one people, one homeland. So it is now, so it has been in the past, so it will be in the future. 

These statements, these emotions, these facts were powerfully presented to a packed theater, via groups of dancers, American and from other nations, from kindergarten to postgraduates, who shared the vision, the pride, the love and their heritage. Thus, in your face all who would demean, isolate, and destroy us.  Still here, folks. Still here and going strong.  

We know that into each life, some rain must fall. But into our lives, maelstroms have fallen. It has encouraged the growth of a rather reeking bowl of ugly potpourri. Hence to gripes. Why and wherefore are we to accept that rather empty airheaded false business of 'task forces against anti semitism' established by universities, staffed by Arabs, JewHaters, and self-denying Jews, who caved to twisted demands of hate filled chanters shrieking with ugly faces of globalization of intifada, a blatant call to slaughter ALL Jews. 

Why and wherefore are we to accept calmly the growing number of evil corrupt politicians imbued with hate, who speak loudly, with tropes and memes of hate. They speak of the positive qualities of a 'Unified Reich". They endorse politicians and justices who twist and turn the strands of justice until they are unrecognizable. We are crucified in public by bastards such as Kristof who calls Israel a nation "governed by brute force". Candidates who speak openly about Jews as the "linchpin of global conspiracy", of practitioners of blood libel. Today. When will this ever stop?

And of course, we have those who try to portray. the terrorists who prey upon us, upon our children, upon our citizens, who slaughter babies in their cribs not only on October 7 but for years past, as good people. These shameless apologists try to portray these terrorists as the cute babies they once were, giggling on their blankets. Well, Kfir giggled and smiled on his blanket. As did brother Ariel. As did the other brutally slaughtered and butchered children of the attacked communities. Does the blood and agony of our kids count for naught? Are we to accept it quietly? And what of the hostages and their ongoing disappearance, fading into the background. A sidebar of little importance or validity, so deemed by the nations of the world who even abandoned their own hostages. Alive or dead, in agony? Apparently, it matters not a whit.

What matters to the world is that the situation must be turned around, and Israel must accept the blame for October 7. Israel must declare ceasefire without any rescue of their hostages, without any compensation for the damage or the destruction of the southern communities. Hezbollah continues its open-ended brutal shelling and the devastation, and the abandonment of northern Israel is ongoing, but nary a word to be found. Israel is to concede defeat. It is to write off its people and its damage. It is to be held to standards of total unreality, singularly applied only to Israel as its leaders are conflated with the savage leaders of the bestial Hamas - and all those oh so not starving, emaciated, dehydrated, innocents. All of the areas of the world where conflict and slaughter are ongoing are ignored for this war of Hamas captures the attention of the world. Ever so much more soul satisfying to them. For perverted reasonings of their own.    

Chief concern. Chief fear. Not only in my heart, not only in my head, but also in the heads and hearts of so many others. Jews round the world are seeking refuge, a safe place. Is there in fact any such safe place in this world? I'd like to know. Will there ever come a time when we do not have to update our passports and have a go bag at the ready? Will Israel, can Israel remain aloof from the isolation? Will it indeed be a place of refuge for world Jewry oppressed and persecuted, attacked in the streets, vilified in law. These questions, these hopes, these fears - I have no answers; nor unfortunately do others. At least those who acknowledge reality.       

 Gripes. Solutions few, possibly none. How to resolve this. How to stop this eternal bloodshed. How to stop the hate. The constant stupid self defeating hate which leads to bloodshed and violence and more bloodshed and more violence and on and on and on. Have we nothing better to do? Can we not turn our energies that will combine brain power to saving the world that we have destroyed with careless use and treatment of the environment? Why can we not see through the fog and detritus that fills the air? Why do we not see what should be plain to see?

Any answers, folks? Willing to hear. 

Hearing nothing.  

------------------------------------------------------------

 Yitzy, it is an ugly world down here. We are making the environment, the physical world, uglier. And we are certainly polluting, creating ugly chaos. in the emotional world. We enable shrieks to climb to the highest heights, to pierce the gates of Heaven, but we see nothing. No results. So, we wonder we down here. Is anybody up there listening? Is anybody up there hearing our cries Have we been able to invoke any tears, any broken hearts? If not, what must we do? Tell us before it is too late. 

But it will never be too late for us to say we love you.

 Always and forever. Always and forever.

   

READ THE ROOM

  I came across the phrase of the title recently and find it extremely apropos for the situation today. We, all of us, need to read the room. We need to see the truth. We need to hear the truth. We need to pull our heads out of the sand. Look around. and see reality. Accept the truth, whether we like it or not, for it is here: with us, among us, around us.

Unfortunately, many of us have been expending our energies in the wrong areas, searching in cold, unfertile areas for answers, for clues to answers, anything that would help us understand what the hell has happened. And what is to happen. Many of the best analysts of the situation have gotten bogged down in a sea of minutia, parsing pence for farthings, or splitting hair where it makes not a difference. We shout out, point out, righteously, the injustices directed at the Jewish people, be they in Israel, or be they in any other country of the world. We plead, we cry, we beg, and are just beginning to push back in the same manner of the foe. Yes, the foe. Understand that. Feel the truth of that. We vainly try to counter the lies spread, the incendiary demeaning tones and words used to describe any Israeli or Jewish input of information. 

Wise and in the know analysts have fallen into the error of parsing minutiae, forgetting to 'read the room' - the world being that room. These are the words of Deborah Lipstadt, a well-known distinguished warrior against antisemitism.

"I’m often asked as a historian, is this 1938? I say no, that’s a bit of an extreme position,” Lipstadt says ... I think it’s more like the early 1930s, maybe the late 1920s,” she added, referencing the destabilization of society that was taking place then and likening it to what is happening in many countries after October 7."

Now, really, is there any significant difference between the two opinions? The point is that the virulent talk for, of hatred, which led to the enabling of the Holocaust and its bloody consequences is our 'present' now as it was then. Is the ugly impetus of hate, the driving force to build upon the foundation of a never dying hatred, actually alive and well, thriving, and empowering ever louder resounding echoes leading only to tears and horror? 

It is in fact 1938. with an amendment making it even more toxic. It is 1938 on crack, Spreading through the airwaves and social media sites. Faster and faster. Adopted, internalized by the morally defective, by lost souls, deluded souls who swallow the poison willingly as they cede their individuality into the personae of the 'mob'. Those people, those mobs. are overpopulating our room. We are being forced in our world into ever tighter corners, the space, the air we can breathe, in shorter supply. We've been denied, dehumanized, delegitimized, isolated more and more from so many arenas of the 'room' of our existence. A growing frightening chorus of hoarse crazed voices raised in calls for the elimination of the State of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants, but also of world Jewry as well. No, 1938 it is. 

A supposed benefit wherein nations of the world support us and join lustily in the fight against Anti Semitism, is quite leaky, spongy, with no backbone. Instead, the same once supposedly allied nations now denounce Israel, recognize our enemies, and invoke the same deadly chants into their repertoire: 'from the river to the sea ...' ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Spoken by Spain as it dipped back into the pool of hate of the Inquisition and expulsions of the 13th and 14th centuries. Still quite healthy and viable. How convenient for the purveyors of hate. 

In this week's New York magazine, there is an article most nauseating, condemning Israel by its words and intonations, its rampant use of snide not so subtle, sharp cuttings. into the soul of Israel. Nary a wisp of positivity to be found. It is a violent on purpose in your face hatred and support of it. 1938? Maybe not. Maybe more like 1941 and the slaughter will begin shortly. Stay tuned.

Here's an example of the use of words twisted so as to convey the exact tone and bent of the author, pejorative to Israel without a doubt. It is an ugly twisting of facts and word use in order to convey the hate contained within the blackened soul of that author. It is an egregious, crude, hijacking of truth.

"Israel declared itself a state in 1948 and immediately went to war."

So true yet so not.

 Israel was declared a state by a vote of the United Nations. It could not, did not declare itself. It was willing to accept any borders, any ridiculous configuration that the United Nations decided upon and offered peace, to live in peace with its neighbors. 

Then and four times more over the decades and again, after the massacre of Oct7, Arabs continue to deny Israel, to wage war against it, to uphold terrorism, and exercise wild violence against it.  No, Israel did not 'go' to war - it was dragged into war, time and time again, forced into war, and when it was beating back the attackers, the nations of the world ran to save the instigators, thus allowing, contributing to the ongoing horror of Oct7 and all that followed and continues to follow.  In 1948 six Arab armies attacked Israel and nothing has changed since then. 

On Oct7, the animals of Hamas attacked the civilians of Israel, slaughtering, raping, buoyed by the craven cowardice of the world, by the weak, by the disinformed, misinformed and uninformed. The old bloodthirst for Jewish blood, was awakened with a roar. And the leaders of the world dived into that lake of bloodthirst with vigor and desire. The ugliness of campus hate was invigorated by an influx of money from Arab nations, from Muslim organizations dedicated to the ending of Israel.

Once again, Jews are attacked in the street, forbidden entry or entrance to their universities, to their theaters, to their concert halls, to events of sport or political discussion. Any contributions of Jews were to be denied. 

 The rest of that article and others similar in tone are ugly and demoralizing. Moreover, if we try to turn to the nations of the world to do the right thing, to suspend their wholehearted purchase of perfidy, where exactly are we to look? Where are help and support to be found? Are we to find any help? The Democratic Party is finally coming to the realization that well, they went after the Michigan vote, but the Jewish vote is seeping at an ever-faster rate away from them. Too many Jewish voters are being forced unhappily into Republican corners, not because they like Trump or are blind to the peril he poses to democracy, nor to the corruption he spearheads, but because it is now an existential question: the loss of democracy, possibly avoidable, or the destruction of Israel yet again-and forced expulsion from within its ancestral homeland and nations of the world. 

Survival of Israel. Survival of democracy. Survival of Jewry round the globe.  Global extinction. Democracy lost, corruption enabled, Justice vanished. You tell me which side weighs more. You tell me how to know what side, what issue to rank of more importance. Why must they be in opposition?  Ugly consequences lurk nearby. I myself have twisted again and again. This, no that, back to this and on and on again.  I am sure though there are thousands just like me, in the same quandary.  

-------------------------------------------------------------- Yitzy, your Tata is so tired, so demoralized. So not understanding of why all this is happening. Why must we have this ugly repetition throughout the millennia of the world? I, we, all need you. Come down. Give us a hint that you are there watching us Give us a hug that we will feel with the touch as light as a feather wafting through the air. Reinvigorate us.  We desperately need it. 

Even as we love you.

Always and forever. Always and forever.

   

 

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

  From a sacred book of Judaism to the version of the Turtles, a rock group of the 60s and 70s, the message is clear: There is a time and place for everything “under the heavens”. History has supported that statement, that belief; however, unfortunately, we are finding that there are among humankind those capable of planning and carrying out scenarios once thought to have been eliminated from the repertoire of even the worst of humanity. We were wrong. So very wrong and the 'wrongness' continues, grows, fed by the egregiously violent, hate crazed twisted minds of the beasts in human disguise. 

For their crimes, for the rampant and glaring violations of both tacitly understood and clearly stated and printed rules, they are rewarded. Hamas, the terrorist crew of sadistic murderers, engaged in bestial attack on the people of Israel. Ironically, the butchered victims of the slaughter were members of communities who believed in creating ties   between Israelis and Palestinians and did so, not only with words. but also, with deeds. 

For this, they were targeted by their 'friends', buoyed by funds from Iran and those raised by haters abroad, ever and always ready to encourage and enable actual assaults upon Jews, especially in Israel.  Supporting the initial slaughter and the continuing horror are the grossly poorly educated non thinking members of campus groups and their puppet masters. Most violating of the soul are the cuts that struck deep and sharp - the betrayals of the nations who turned their backs to Israel. Once again, ever and always, Israel, Jews round the world, are targets of isolation, of exclusion from other nations, denied legitimacy, and are dehumanized, belittled, declared fair game with a perpetual open season. 

The world has convinced itself that the horrors of the Holocaust, the almost complete accomplishment of its goals, is not enough to slake their bloodthirst. No, they need more. Nation after nation falls in line and praises the attackers, the instigators of this war, who refuse to end it or release the hostages. The support of the world allows Hamas to entrench itself even deeper as the slaughter continues. They are empowered to do so. Egypt and Qatar and Saudi Arabia and yes, even the United States of America empower them and fall prey to their deadly false claims and raucous tantrums. Unless the world recognizes the true evil doer here and shouts it aloud, hope dims daily. But that recognition is slow, and too often flows backwards, to become very slow. dishearteningly slow. Hamas is not a hero organization but merely another group of thugs on crack. Let truth be heard. 

Videos of their own filming, in real life, in mid action, are ignored, or praised. Crowding around a young, terrified girl. Terrorizing her. Bloodying her even more is merely a foretaste of what is to come. Statements such as "you are so pretty" or "these are the girls who will get pregnant" hit us with a punch that knocks us down. What torment they must have undergone and are continuing to undergo. What a hopeless, helpless life. Their family members are torn and broken. And just as the victims of the Nazi Holocaust became numbers, almost meaningless and denying full comprehension, these girls and the other hostages have also become numbers, pictures, faces, but their peoplehood, their humanity has gone astray. So much easier to ignore if we cancel their humanity. But they are real, so very, very real. 

The world continues on its own ride to hell. Truth is denied. Facts are denied. Hamas shoots at the gates through which aid enters. They either prevent the trucks moving within Gaza or they hijack them and resell on the black market, earning a great profit. If there is any 'hunger', it falls to the feet of Hamas. The lies grow and intensify even as a 7 month "imminent famine” never materializes nor do we see emaciated victims of starvation among the healthy hordes roaming the streets of Gaza. 

Voices are raised now, declaring recognition of statehood for Palestine and at one and the same time they are calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. What Palestine? Where is Palestine? Where are its borders? Is Israel supposed to disappear in order to make room for Palestine? Will the world once again stand aside as Jews are slaughtered, hunted down? Only this time they will be hunted down in their own nation, in their ancestral homeland, by mobs of crazed Arabs and Muslims instigated by their rulers. Russian pogroms by governmental order - the same thing, merely a renaming of the characters. And the silence, once again, will be thunderous.  

There is such tension, such despair in the world. There are no leaders, no inspirational and wise heads, warm hearts, pure souls. We are left bereft. of leaders, and the despair continues to grow. The outlook is dim indeed. Biden, who might actually mean good is falling short. The demented fiend opposing him invokes terminology. which sends   chills down your spine. He wants a country such as the "Unified Reich". He invokes the names of autocrats from Stalin to Putin to Xi. Neither of them is a good choice and it will hurt me as I fill that box. Which? Still to be firmed up but definitely leaning, reluctantly, one way. It comes down to a choice as to which one can be trusted more to do the right thing.  

I was asked if I was frightened, afraid of the future. My answer was, what future? What future will there be? Nation after nation turns against Israel and there will be a nasty effect on Jews within these erroneous nations. Israel, the designated haven and place of refuge for any and all oppressed and persecuted Jews will be shut down. Certainly, that does not bode well for a positive outlook for Jewry.   The bandwagon of hate will round the world, dripping hate throughout its entire voyage. 

How can I not be afraid? Not for me, but for my kids. For all the little ones that we see walking in the street. Are we raising them so that they can be killed? Are we all working hard so that we generate profit - for those who use us?  What the hell are we doing? What have we allowed? Who and What are we? Why are there no voices raised loud, shouting that Israel is not to be betrayed. It is a nation state entitled and allowed to live, to be strong, to defend its citizens, to be there as a haven and refuge for world Jewry and a home for any who wish to fulfill that millennia long dream. "Next year in Jerusalem" we sing. Why not this year? 

 Yes. I am frightened. No. I am terrified.

 What keeps alive that thin ray of hope?  'The truth of history. There is indeed nothing new under the sun. There is nothing new revealed under the heavens. The hate, torment, the ugliness, the betrayals are always there But - so is the fact that We. Are. Here.  Will always be here. That knowledge, that truth, that fact of history, perhaps we need to send it in a blast of email throughout the world. Bombard them with these emails. until perhaps one cracks open a thick head. and allows the insertion of truth and sense within.

Perhaps. Maybe. I am not holding my breath.  

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Yitzy, my boy, even as we miss you so there is a note of comfort for us that you are immune to this hate and violence, well above it. We know you are doing the best you can. and we love you even more so for that. Our love for you remains strong and we continue to wrap protective arms around you. Arms of love. and sadness. So sad in your absence. As we think of you, even as we miss you, we laugh with you and love you. 

Always and forever. Always and forever.    

  

BUT OF COURSE

  Of course. Foolish me. Despite the reality of the times the lessons never took.  I somehow foolishly dangerously, clinging with the last ounce of deluded belief to believe that there was yet some hope. That for some reason justice and truth would prevail. The enemies of Israel would be revealed as the enemies of humanity. Their crazed demented blood thirsty quest for power would be stopped in its tracks and their toxic mouths muzzled. Foolish me. Silly me. Continuing to wallow in the waters of desperate hope and delusion. 

Perhaps I am emulating in a way the life denying quaffing of Reverend Jones's Kool Aid in its modern-day form. Of course. While I and others have come to realize the truth of our current state of being, there are not enough of us.  Even as its ugliness is revealed, we are too few in number, the volume of our voices insufficient to be heard over the noise, the drumming, the chants, of the mad crowds of proponents of hate and bloodshed.

That half empty glass is now three quarters empty. Supposed leaders have been revealed to the world as fakers and incompetents, proponents of deadly prejudice and bias. The virus of inhumanity. is grown into a pandemic. One that will conquer the peoples of the world as it wallows in their own ignorance and the loosing of the dogs of war. They think the leashes are held by their hands. The truth is that those leashes are powerless. The true leashes are the puppet strings manipulated by the puppet masters and the puppets, us, work ever so hard to fulfill their goals. and malicious plans.

True leaders are an endangered species, scattered through the globe here and there, the last of their kind. Present university heads are cowards who renege on their duties and allow the rampaging chanting drumming crowds of hate to have their way, refusing to apply consequences deserved. Worse, they accede to crazed demands, ceding all to the puppets outside. 

Worst by far is the obvious in your face hatred of Jews in any manifestation, in any place of existence, self-acknowledged or denying, singly or en masse, it matters not. The hate filled monsters, fiends of gnashing teeth and bloody claws will seek out all, from top to bottom, from pillar to post. It is impossible to hide forever from such malignancy.  It is a time when all Jews return to the fold, become active MOT - Members of the Tribe -as they become the stiff-necked people of the Old Testament, of the millennia of human history. Refusing to give in. Always outliving enemies: individuals, countries, empires. There is great genetic return to the memory and knowledge of the indivisible importance of Zionism and its major integral importance to the Jewish People in any form whatsoever.

  Bret Stephens, a columnist from the New York Times, a man who should be president states it clearly. No fool he, no ceder to the toxic lies, he presents the truth to the world even as they deny it. Foolish me as I continue to harbor that shred of hope that these truths will prevail. That they will   accept the truth. But of course, foolish me again, of course.

 Campus protests despite all the noise they make and the terror they engender are merely the appetizers, the first course of a feast of hate. It has grown roots in the ICC which conflates the horror, the criminality of Sinwar, of Deif, of Hamas, with the actions of a nation and its leaders who are defending their nation, preventing the carrying out of planned extermination as their fate. They speak out the truth even as the purveyors of hate and their cohort refuse to acknowledge their roles and participation in the massacre and butchery of Oct7 and the abuse seen in the most recent video released showing very clearly the torment, the abuse, the bloody faces, the bruised bodies, the sexual harassment, Hamas inflicted on 5 18-year-old terrified girls, 15 friends already slaughtered in horrific circumstances. Who are the criminals?  

In your face hatred has now been openly endorsed by politicians and legislatures of numerous nations. They have openly bought into accepted tropes and perpetuate the vile hatred that never seems to die. Bret reminds the world that Israelis, Zionists, Zionism itself are not colonialist, and are in fact an early anti-colonialist nation as they, from the time of Babylonian captivity and on to eternity wish only a return to ancestral homeland. 

Told to return to the lands from whence they came. where exactly are those lands? Is it Russia? The nation of Pogroms? Is it Ukraine, a nation of slaughtering peasants? Is it the nations of Eastern   and Western Europe who participated lethally in the goals of the Holocaust. Is it the United States which closed its gates? Is it to the Arab lands where they were massacred. Is it to outer space? That is just as likely. as a return to those other lands.   

No, they have returned to their ancestral lands, to Israel. There to be a nation, entitled to be accepted by all the nations of the world. Entitled to defend itself without question. Actually, truthfully, they should not have to justify their existence or justify their ability and right and responsibility to defend itself. Will this ever happen? I dare not even express the possibility of that. Would that we could have a life we once had here, basically. secure in our acceptance and our ability to contribute to this nation, to America. That nation is now infected by the same cancers infecting other nations of the world. Its core has become rotten as it turns aside from its values and ethics. Would that we could turn back the clock and wrap ourselves in that confidence once again. A life with the security of knowing that I and my family, my friends, my people are safe, as it should be.

Can this ever be? Too many nations of the world are corrupt. Their backbones rotten with this. cancers they have allowed and encouraged to grow, similar to the rot of America, my country who has rejected me and mine. It is a nation where justice can no longer be trusted to work properly. The legislatures are corrupted and inefficient. We, the people, are left to pick up the pieces and try to fit them back together again. However, more and more are too tired, too anxious to even try. 

But of course, always trouble. Always woes. Always the hate. So tiring. So depressing. So dispiriting and unfortunately so eternal. 

Good Lord in heaven. Why not hear the calls of Your people Why not hear the call of other people aghast at what is going on? Where are You? Come back from the beaches of Heaven. Come back from the mountains of Heaven. Come back to Earth, to Your creations. Before it is too late. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yitzy, what is left to say. I think today is the day to look at the many pictures of you and rejoice in the contagiousness of your grin, in the sparkle of your eyes and the shining purity of your soul,

Always and Forever, Always and forever.

CHECK YOUR FACTS, JACK, CHECK THE FACTS

 Who is Jack? Just a name that rhymed with facts. Jack is the man in the street. Jack is the woman chanting and shouting with crazed eyes in support of those who would erase her from society. Jack is all of those, all of us, who simply refuse to see the facts and create their own facts - which never were, never will be. Here are some facts with explanation: 

542,570-tons of aid: 28,255 aid trucks: 2.3 million Gazans out of whom a claimed, never documented 31 were victims of malnutrition and dehydration in 7 months of a war instigated and perpetuated by Hamas, enabled by Egypt's refusal to allow fuel trucks in or Gazans out:  Keren Shalom - a gate for  aid under constant barrage by Hamas: 89 possibly live hostages remaining out of 136 continuing imprisoned hostages - criminally held, tortured, sexually, emotionally, physically abused civilians  from infant to elderly. 

Are those facts sufficient, powerful enough to allow at least a tiny bit of truth and common sense to penetrate your minds, brains, hearts and souls immured, paralyzed in fossilized muck and detritus of hate? Here are a few more statements which might, against great odds, penetrate the thick high walls of your mind, bore a hole in the walls built high and thick so as to prevent such any truth from penetrating and making a difference.  

The words of the ICC itself are criminal in its false words and accusations, demanding arrest, issuing warrants enabling arrest, of figures of Hamas and Israel. How and why is there any equivalence?  How are their deeds conflated? Two opposing sides - one a gang of terrorists bent on cold blooded murder and mayhem and the other a government defending its integrity, its citizens, against that enemy desirous of its permanent elimination and erasure from the history and memory of mankind. How, where is there any room or reason for equivalence? In fact, there is none. The facts, the numbers, the reality refute that statement of the ICC that Israel "is intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population.”     

How did this all come to such a state of being? Frankly, I believe, along with many others. that the problem begins within our educational system. Over the past few decades, it has grown weak. and inefficient, failed to teach students how to think, to discern truth from falsehood, to resist temptations of evil, to understand morality, to understand the responsibilities, the duties they owe to humanity. Instead, we have allowed others, enemies of people, enemies of a good, proper life, to infiltrate and take over our classrooms and fill the minds of our poorly educated undergraduates with lies that provoke violence and vocalized mad enthusiasm and support for murderers. In this new world engendered. by our faulty education, values are skewed and skewed behavior follows in tandem. Sinwar becomes a hero for murdering civilians, for using hostages as human shields while Netanyahu defending his nation becomes a pariah.   Equivalence? The same? Never. 

Were Israel to redeploy, pull out its forces, October 7, its awful horrors, would be replicated time and time again. If Hamas were to put down its arms, Israel would rescue hostages alive and dead, arrest Sinwar and his fellow criminals. and the rebuilding of Gaza would begin, properly, with new buildings, with a rebuilt economy, a revitalized educational system minus the hate once taught there.      

I ask where is justice in this world? Where are the lessons of history we ought to learn? There is in a museum in Barcelona an exhibit “The Lost Mirror: Jews and Conversos in the Middle Ages”, described as "an illuminating exhibition examining. how medieval Spanish art helped fuel prejudice against Jews prior to their expulsion in 1492. The artworks gathered together bear silent witness to the cultural vicissitudes and the dogmatic zealotry that turned a pluralistic society into a bastion of intolerance". When the leaders of a nation are chosen for their deficiencies. for their incitement of citizens to rampage and ignore morality, it is then "Jews beware!" Troubles ensue, particularly when church and government combine in evil synergy, and it is    ever and again "Jews Beware".  Be it 1492 or 2024 or 2234, though I hope not, I pray not, though I despair not.   

Salmanl Rushdie, not a particular favorite of mine, but still a brave man, stated in an interview on May 19th that “... right now one has to be distressed by what is happening in Gaza because of the quantity of innocent death. I would just like some of the protest to mention Hamas because that's where this started. And Hamas is a terrorist organization and it's very strange for young progressive student politics to come to support of fascist terrorist group... it's very problematic” - an understatement.  The deaths in Gaza are regrettable. But Hamas has enabled those deaths, in fact, desires those deaths. Israel and its armies are the ones who have been trying to limit the collateral damage and have been ruthlessly hindered and blocked in those attempts. By Hamas.

Would that the world would face the facts and accept them. Then, perhaps then, progress, true progress, would be possible. Maybe.        

We have allowed marauders to board our boats to break. the helm and to misdirected into dangerous oceans. High waves are threatening to topple us all, to drown in our own mess that we have created. We need to reject those marauders. We need to retake the helm. We, not anybody else. We are the ones who allowed this. We are the ones who must fix it.  Will we wake up in time? Perhaps only God knows that and I'm afraid perhaps that He does not really care anymore.  

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Yitzy, sweet boy, such evil odorous thoughts are foreign to you in life below as they are in life above. Would that we there were more of you in this world. Would that you were here with us? We miss you so

Always and forever. Always. and forever. 

           

THAT DANG ROCK!!

 You know that rock, pushed up that steep mountainside only to slide back again. A recidivist rock and truly an exercise in futility. Yet, even as that rock, which will persist in its contrary behavior, the pusher of that rock knows he must never concede nor admit defeat. That is so even as the assignment is known to be of eternal duration.

That rock is the eternal rock of the Jewish people and all those of righteous thinking. This is the Rock of Anti Semitism. At present it has morphed into a rock of immense volume and weight so very difficult to keep pushing against the force of gravity, against the lure of hate and the freedom it grants to those wishing to do violence and harm to the Jewish nation and, in fact, to any group subjected to persistent attempts to eliminate it - permanently. At present this Rock is at its weightiest most resistant state since the end of the Holocaust and its post war manifestations.    

Most frightening at present is its rather vigorous disguise as a manifestation of humanitarian concern. Within that rather flimsy thin veneer lies the rotten reeking core of vicious JewHatred, well nourished by huge feedings of hate, virile, viral and toxic - and successful beyond the expectations of its generators and adherents. One rather eager persistent participant in the new hatred is the BBC - as a whole and BBC Arabic in particular. 

While England has always had a rather genteel   Anti Semitism, there have been manifestations of it in violence such as the burning of the Jews in the Tower of York and their expulsion by Edward II. By the rules in place enforcing their exclusion from Parliament. At present, though, this more subtle Anti Semitism has shed its flimsy disguise and revealed its true form. " Since the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, BBC Arabic has been forced to make 80 corrections to its reporting. " No, not an error, but a policy openly violating one of its founding principles -that of impartiality. Celebrating murderers is not impartial. Spreading the lie of a never actually existing October 7 massacre is not impartial. Neither is calling terrorists "resistance” fighters or militants impartial. Insisting that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war is not impartial, particularly as it is neither true nor actually anywhere evident in evidence in any kind of reality other than in the ugly disturbed minds of its purveyors. 

UN has more egregiously than ever endowed this vehement JewHatred with a false patina of justice, righteousness and concern for humanity even as it ignores or even praises true violations elsewhere on the planet, even as the fresh blood drips off their swords and the lakes of blood are refreshed with the new input. True violations round the globe - Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Burma, Mexico, China, Darfur, Somalia, Niger, Tibet, are ignored, and thrive. But of course, never mind, as it is so much more soul satisfying, respectable and approved to repeat old canards, to revive old tropes, to indulge and wallow in an antisemitism on crack.   

The rest of the world is no better. Trump, that demented old man who sits at his trial with ugly pouted face, or eyes closed in sleep, now pushes for a third term, even as the second term has not yet materialized. But never you mind. Treason, violence, always is available. We have Supreme Court justices who are openly, casually corrupt and cowardly and a court system rife with political incompetent stooges.  Our legislatures, Federal and state, are populated by those whose hidden faces challenge that of Medusa and the evil of those faces reflects the true portraiture of Dorian Gray. This errant path, the persistent ongoing and growing Jew Hatred is to be found now all over this planet. Most frightening and so very, very real.  

Mankind as gone way above its previous behavior. It has sat its combined weight upon that rock so as to make it ever impossible to move it even an inch. Mankind revels in its ugliness. We who are   continuously pushing that damn rock up that damn mountainside, only to see it slide down again to the very bottom, crushing those in its path - well, we are tired. Is there never to be an end of this useless effort? Are we ever going to be able to push that rock all the way up to the top, against all opposing forces, and push it over the top? Will we ever watch it crash and break into insignificant pebbles? It seems this will never, ever happen, a dream of no fruition. Always there will remain little pebbles with germinating seeds of hate within, ready to grow, to absorb the hate, until it becomes a huge rock again. That eternal rock.

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Yitzy, hope you're playing baseball up there and striking out the opponents. We need to be able to strike out some opponents down here. We hope that you and all the heavenly residents feel, hear, our calls for aid and advice. Take them to the mailbox of the One Above. We need help. Time is growing short and angry violence grows. Day by day, hour by hour. God's people need help. 

Know that you are loved and missed.

Always and forever. Always and forever.    

    

 

 

THE UNIVERSAL HACK

 We have all been there. We are the one who've been hacked, and weird messages have been sent out as if coming from us. Or we are the recipients of fake messages. Some are obvious. Some just plain stupid or mean, while others, if answered, opened, we are suddenly transported into a foreign land of great risk for ourselves and our sanity. Touted apps promising great security for our individual computers and information within are frequently hacked themselves. Huge systems have been hacked with troubling consequences. Seemingly, this is a problem unique to our times and will get worse before, if ever, it gets better. 

However, there is a bigger problem. It is the hack of the world, a hack of once functioning, thinking, discerning minds. These minds have been hacked and hijacked, much to our detriment. They are under constant bombardment with garbage presented as jewels and with information that is mis and dis information. We have lost the ability to discern which is which and what is what, consequently our behavior, our actions, our speech, even our thought process have weirded out with huge negative consequences roiling the world. 

 We appear to be helpless and hopeless in preventing and combating this hack, in defeating it, in proving its falsehoods, as we stumble and bumble along in mostly useless efforts and results.   We are walking through an uncharted minefield with nary a tool of detection or protection. At some point we have become immune to the insanity now rife in the world, and accept it as truth, swallowing it whole, even as we push aside and reject the actual truths. We swallow whole all that supports our delusions. We reject that which contradicts what we want to be true, to be vindicated in our thinking.       At this point our very thought process has been hacked and hijacked. 

The results are not ephemeral. Nor are they inconsequential. They stick around, polluting our mind. Their roots grow deeper and stronger. They resurface from their dank hidey-holes and wrap themselves around our minds and souls and negate our consciences. We swallow whole their lies, buy wholesale into their venom and hate, and surge forth with no brakes to the worst of urges.     

And so, we bury Shani Louk. a young German Israeli hijacked from her life, from life itself. Dehumanized, discounted, tortured in life and so it was in death -debased and dishonored, flaunted in her death as a sign of glory, a wreath of victory. And so, we release her from the tunnel to which she was shamefully consigned, and we bury her, as we return her home, to her family, to her people, to her nation, Israel. 

Israel, the only nation which remembered her, and never gave up the goal of freeing her from the ignominy her captors forced upon her.  A German Israeli, Germany abandoned her. As did the other nations with citizens in captivity or slaughtered in savage butchery. America was no better, perhaps worse, as her power is immense and could have effected a release for all the hostages, including their own.  But -SHE DID NOTHING. Even as she is doing with another Jewish hostage held within the dark Russian gulag - Evan Gershkovich. Jews are consigned to the category of collateral damage, of little consequence. Meh.

Instead of giving firm continued support to their only true ally in the Middle East, America and her hate filled representatives within Congress decided to throw Israel under the wheels of the bus driven by a Gazan team who rejoiced in the slaughter of infants and elderly, in the rape of women and girls, in the wealth pillaged from homes of those who had befriended them. Oh, for joy, the possibilities open before them. the very same Gazans who cheered as the seminude body of Shani was paraded through the streets. With bloodlust in their eyes, dripping from their knives, emanating from their guns and rifles, from their own genitals. No, not so 'innocent' civilians, were they?!     

 These Gazans betrayed by their own Hamas, supported their own twisted governing party they had elected to office. They claim imminent starvation and dehydration which never actualized. They raided the aid trucks, not because of hunger or thirst, but because those goods could be then resold on the black market, on the shelves of their stores, or to their fellow Gazans at inflated prices. Clever, these 'innocent' civilians.   

And the world allowed itself to be hacked and hijacked. Allowed our highest educational institutions, our campuses, our universities, renowned through the world, to be hijacked via the twisted words and brainwashing performed by the Moslem and Arab professors within those classrooms. The universities, the authorities, stood by as the chants of hate and death to Israel, to Jews, rose higher and higher, as the violence ramped up. as blatant disrespect and disloyalty to this nation became visible, even for the heretofore blind to see. As free speech morphed into threats to life, as Jewish homes and places of business were vandalized. As Jewish students were threatened, chased on campus even as the pathetic authorities wrung their hands and caved to the demands of these lawbreakers.   

Open season all year long for Jews once again. Jews and Israelis to be canceled, to disappear from public appearance, to be refused to exercise their talents, to compete in sports, to do research, to write, to sing - to breathe. Only this time there is a difference for this time we have Israel, our nation, our ancestral homeland. The wise ones among us have updated passports and bought homes within the land of Israel. We are resilient and eternal. History proves that. Again, and again. Always.  We have conquered hate before and we can and will do so again, if we must. 

The gravity of JewHatred will not be allowed to succeed. We are well aware. and well prepared. We will not accept nor tolerate a hacking and hijacking of the world. No more. Never ever again. We have conquered hate before and can and will do so again. Know that for sure.

Hacked and hijacked. Shame on the world.  

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Yitzy, here we are again at the end of another posting. It is a hard life today, hard because we know not where we are going, nor where we will end up. It is hard because we are so confused. I hope and pray that the confusion has not reached the Heavens above and that someone up there, everyone up there, will get through to the One with the final sayso, and ensure that sayso be a positive one - for us and actually, for the world. 

We send our love up to you and hope you feel our arms wrapped tight around you. 

Always and forever. Always and forever.     

     

YOU KNOW WHAT?

  No, I do not know what, nor did my parents every time I asked them that question. Nor did I when my children asked me that particularly phrased question. It is an open-ended question with infinite answers and glaringly absent any guideline as to where one should begin the search for an answer.    'What', precisely, is the 'what' we are supposed to know?  How are we ever to divine an answer which is intuitive, correct, responsive and positive in goal and content? There is no answer which will fulfill all those needs, and in fact, many are not meant to have static, unchangeable answers for they are questions of eternity. Once we understand that, we can begin to formulate answers as to 'what' is 'what'.     

Personally, I myself have many of 'what' questions. Perhaps if I could answer these questions, I could figure out a world gone mad. Alas, these answers remain elusive. I cannot understand, I cannot fathom why certain things are and certain things are not. Do we, anyone, know true definitive answers to these 'what' questions? There are so many it is impossible to list them all.

What is the purpose and value of hate?

What is the reason why it is improper - as it should be - to use pejorative terms to describe certain ethnicities or countries of origin, OK, even praised to use such terms when referring to Jews.

What is the reason for the ever, never-ending waves of   JewHatred even as their contributions are welcomed, but the contributors not?

What is behind the shameful kowtowing of college authorities to the shouts of the raucous minority who invoke the Jew hatred of the question above.

What is the reason why these universities have decided to indulge this prejudice, this fanaticism? Or is it that they themselves buy into it?

What is the explanation for the media hyped incident of 30 people out of approximately 7000 walking out of a graduation at Duke University, as they shamelessly, selfishly, wallow in their hate and ignorance and bigotry?

What or who is behind this evil manifestation of hate? What is the purpose? What is the goal?

What or why do people eagerly, avidly, accept the lies of known liars as gospel truth? 

What is the reason why Jews are judged, held accountable to standards and benchmarks eminently unreachable and unreasonable, nor demanded of any other group?

From the myriad questions of personal needs one can easily slide into universal questions of the "You know what?" category and confront the identical lack of answers.  

What makes the horrifically unacceptable statement from the beasts of Hamas that any hostages kidnapped 8 months ago will only be released - when they are dead. Any remaining alive, if such a life can be alive, will remain in captivity. These brave souls ripped from their lives and loved ones, witnessed bestial acts of horror of unbelievable heights or rather depths of depravity and are now sentenced by these ravening beasts to captivity of unknown duration, perhaps never to end.  In fact, these hostages have been dehumanized and discounted making their deaths acceptable, perhaps even desired. It is rare indeed these days to even hear of their torment.  

Ad infinitum, ad nauseum, from the very onset of a war foisted upon Israel, begun by the breaking of a ceasefire, by the very ones who now cry for a ceasefire, by the horrendous slaughter of young and old, always from day one there was a false claim of "two days to starvation". 8 months later those two days dire prediction have never been realized.   Two days changed to six weeks, then 'imminent' even as the store shelves were well stocked, the black-market of stolen and illegally bought foodstuffs was thriving, and Hamas wallowed in the supply of foodstuffs they had stolen from the aid trucks. Photos emanating from Gaza of the civilian Gazans showed absolutely no indication of starvation or dehydration. Not of adults, nor of children. In fact, the only starvation that took place, that is taking place, is the starvation of the hostages.           

 Furthermore, the data released to the world by Hamas of the supposed death and wounded statistics is highly suspect. It cannot be trusted. It cannot be verified. There is no proof. There is no truth. There is no distinction between civilians and military. Nor have they taken into account the chaos of war and the inevitable disintegration of the family unit until reunited at war's end. 

Even as Israel goes above and beyond the efforts of any other army to protect the civilians placed in danger by their rulers, by Hamas, the world buys into the lies of Hamas. The same Hamas which refused to allow Gazans to shelter within their tunnels. Who did not build one single bomb shelter for the non-Hamas civilians, even as we can wonder as to how many are truly “innocent” civilians. No, it is not upon the shoulders of Israel, but on the shoulders of Hamas that the deaths of civilians are carried. Truth is truth. Fact is fact. Whether one likes the truth and the facts or not.        

Hamas began this war, planned for the deaths of civilians and the predicted response of the world. As Hamas built its own infrastructure and army bases within, among, under, over the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, as planned, the nations of the world bought into the lies. Even as they admitted, how kind of them, that Israel has the right to defend itself, there was a contradictory spate of statements as to how Israel had to conduct the war, even if the enemy remained callously and deliberately among the civilian population.

 Israel according to the opinions of these foreign nations should have denied herself her own defense, the rescue of the hostage, simply write them off, accept the probability of future such attacks and slink back into that broken violated land of burned, destroyed, bloodstained and evacuated communities of the North and the South.     

  And now for the final step - to create a pariah state and isolate Israel from all nations, to condemn world Jewry to a subhuman oppressed population. To become the Untouchables of the world's castes.   To deny them outlets of talent, of research, of life and living. This step seems to be proceeding apace. So, you know what? This will indeed flesh out, become fact if the world remains as it is right now, replete with prejudice and renewed hatred. Governed and inspired by medieval attitudes. Where sharp divisions become even sharper, cutting to the quick, draining the lifeblood of all.

Do I 'know what?' Nope. I do know worry. I do know fear. I also know there are good people out there, but where are they? Where are their voices and objections? Will they wait too long to be of any help?

Do I know what? No, I do not.

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Yitzy, there are good things remaining. We have your Torah ceremony in September. We have the dedication and naming of the new school campus in your name and in your honor.

 We have you in our hearts and in our souls. And we have hopes for a better world. We hope. 

You are so missed and loved.

 Always and forever. Always and forever.           

       

     

   

 

FIVE THIRTY-EIGHT

 In the AM, the morning. The first reaction is OMG. I overslept. How am I going to research for the blog and find a starting point? Over sleeping is not all it is cracked up to be. Very annoying. And now another break - time for great grandsons' pictures sent overnight. Well worth the additional delay but!!!!!!!!  Now 6:27 and not yet really begun. 

 No time to run through the papers or scan the media sites. Hopefully my rather rusty brain will serve me well as I recall readings of yesterday. One that immediately comes to mind is that of Darfur - again. Yet again, echoes of two decades ago when Arab forces rampaged against non-Arab tribes, attempting to wipe them out. Yes, a true genocide and only stopped via troops from the African Union and the United Nations. The killing continued in lesser incidents, never fully contained. Along with that, in lockstep, came the expected destruction, starvation and desperate search for water. However, the world was silent, barely paying any attention to it at all. On a scale small enough to ignore. 

Apparently, the skill of murder of reinstalling genocide. has remained there, with local Arabs funded and armed by the so called "friendly" Arab nations. Hey! Just as they are clearly doing now with the campus 'protesters' misnomered as pro-Palestinian when the true name is pro Hamas and murder or pro hate and death for all Jews, and hell, throw in the added fillip of the death of Israel,

Deja vu all over again as the attempt to eliminate the non-Arab tribes is thriving and doing well in Darfur. The same catastrophic destruction dehydration and starvation. But the world remains silent. Or perhaps they are too busy funding the so-called protesters who have nothing better to do than to accuse Israel of initiating a war foisted upon them as they attempt to keep their nation safe, to retrieve the remaining 130+ hostages, alive or dead, held in tortured captivity for almost eight months, and to stop for once and for all the threat and the actuality of the drums of war emanating from Gaza. So much trendier than to protest the slaughter of non-Arab tribes in Darfur.       

 The world is busy paying attention to a non-genocide going in Gaza, where Israel wages a war of defense, going far above and beyond what other nations have ever done in protecting civilians. But it is not the responsibility nor the fault of Israel to rebuild Gaza. Nor to protect the civilians over and above the safety of their own soldiers. The Gazans are being slaughtered via the actions and purposeful misdeeds and misplacement of Hamas troops within, among, above and beneath civilian infrastructure. Let the Arab nations of the world shoulder the responsibility, the result of their purposeful refusal to absorb their 'brothers' into their own nations. All the better to keep the flames of JewHatred, of Israel alive and well.

Following are two statements of witnesses of murder and true genocide desire. The world needs to open its eyes and mind and know their complicity in the furthering and maintaining of hate. So loyal are the spillers of blood to the maws of the gods demanding blood, blood, ever more blood that they are willing to sacrifice their loved ones in the name of that hate. 

From Darfur. “First, they killed the adults, then they piled up the children and shot them. They threw their bodies into the river." Told to Human Rights Watch. The silence is deafening.

From a civilian of Israel. “... The changed landscape of my neighborhood. Across the street, the home of a soldier killed in Gaza. Up the block those of three more fallen soldiers. The park next to the grocery store: dedicated to the memory of another fallen soldier. Inside an amputee carries yogurt with his elbow because his lower arm is gone. Around the corner, the home of a young man murdered at the Tribe of Nova Music Festival on October 7. Nearby, the home of my former student who defended Kfar Aza until Hamas terrorists shot him. He has been in the ICU for seven months. Past the park, the home of Noa Marciano, a soldier and hostage who was murdered in Al Shifa Hospital. We are still under attack from Hamas and Hezbollah. No one in Israel is out of the crosshairs. We're not sleeping soundly at night. We won't breathe deeply until the hostages and our soldiers come home." 

All this angst emanates from Arab lands, from Arab puppets, bought and paid for, who then spread the infection of hate into other nations of the world. The result is more destruction and with rivers and lakes of blood flooding the plains of the world. 

 All of this can stop if, if the war mongers of the world are quieted. If they lay down their arms,  and return all hostages to whence they came. 

If and if and if and if. Ad infinitum. 

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Yitzy, we miss your glow, your shine, your bright blue eyes sparkling with mischievous glint and your endearing and contagious grin. We need you so; we miss you so; we love you so. Be safe and hold our love for you close.

Always and forever. Always and forever.