Art is 80

Assuming it doesn’t spread, what will happen when the war in Gaza is over? We aren’t very good at figuring out that sort of question, are we? Even when we win a war with relative ease, we find that winning the peace can escape us. Look at Iraq as an example.

Those who are thinking about post-war Gaza talk about the Palestinian Authority, or the United Nations, or an Israeli occupation, or some form of Gaza Palestinian self-rule yet to be determined. Then, they say “but none of these will work”. And they may be right.

After all, the United States – “the world’s oldest democracy” have a hard time governing ourselves and, with Trump rerunning, and the growing right wing groups in Congress, we may have to give up the idea of the constitutional democracy we have been struggling with. And certainly Israel, with a diminished center and a more diminished left, with a coalition which includes ministers who want to annex the West Bank and nuke Gaza, is not today a successful example of a functioning democracy.

In 2010 and 2011, we witnessed Arab Springs – when the possibility of popularly elected governments seemed to stand a chance to reconfigure the Arab world. Of course, the chance turned out not even to be a ghost of a chance, and led to, if anything, less representative governments.

It led to thinking whether any Muslim country can be governed by a representative, elected democracy. The only Muslim democracy is/was Turkey, and that’s because it had its growth as a secular Muslim country with a definitive line between religion and state. As it is now controlled by a religiously oriented Muslim government, its government has become more and more repressive, although in form it has not changed, and could reverse itself.

But clearly there is no true Arab democracy. Every country on the Arabian peninsula is tightly controlled by a religious, tribal or monarchical leader. Iraq is a “democracy”, but a pawn of Iran. Egypt controlled by the military, Jordan and Morocco by a king, Syria by a dictator, Libya by no one. Tunisia comes closest, having adopted a form of democracy after the deposing of its most recent dictator. But it is a shaky democracy.

And none of those countries have the problems that Gaza has. The devastation, the lack of a viable economy, the stated necessity of Israeli border control for Israel’s security (now viewed more important than ever), the crowding of its population, the lack of sufficient resources to come close to self-sufficiency. It’s not even clear if Gaza should stand by itself or if it should be combined with the West Bank.

Let’s assume that, when the war ends, there is no Hamas. That is Israel’s stated goal. But a substitute Hamas, one that believes Israel should not exist, one that believes peace is impossible, one that believes in Palestinians from the river to the sea, would be no better. But is it possible to take the Gazan population, young as it is, educated on the evils of Israel and the illegitimacy of the Zionist state, and put it under the control of people who do not believe that and who hold the respect of the population?

I saw a recent poll of Gazan and West Bank residents. Over 3/4 at this point support the actions of Hamas. Before the war, Hamas support (at least in Gaza) was less. But the overwhelming Israel response to the Hamas atrocities (which Gazans may or may not believe were unjustified) has certainly convinced more Palestinians of the inhumanity of the Israelis.

So any popularly elected government for Gaza (or the West Bank, presumably) would lead to a highly anti-Israeli government. Any government overseen by Israel would be anathema (for good reason) to the Gazans. Any government overseen by an international organization would be anathema to Israel.

Perhaps the only possible course of action would be to have the Abraham Accord governments, along with Jordan and Egypt (as countries with relations with Israel) and Saudi Arabia if it wishes to play a part, propose and oversee a government with sufficient safeguards for the borders of Israel. Such a government would have to be blessed by Israel, but Israel would have to have no day to day responsibilities with regard to it. Along with the establishment of the government, there would have to be massive assistance in rebuilding (an al-Marshall plan, I would suggest), and a complete rewrite of the education programs in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank to build up the legitimacy of and the possibility of collaboration with the other.

If this won’t work, what will? And I don’t know if this would have a chance of working.

First, something that I should admit at the start. I don’t like holidays. I don’t think I ever really have. Some people, of course, love holidays, and can’t wait for the next one. Some people take holiday customs as being very important and wouldn’t let one go by without having a Christmas tree, or changing dishes, or fasting until the sun goes down. My attitude is different. To me, holidays are always an unwelcome interruption of my routine, and generally I like my routine.

But there are some good things about Thanksgiving that set it above other holidays, to my way of thinking. First, virtually everyone in America celebrates it. It is not limited to this religion or that, or this ethnic group or that. Secondly, except for everyone getting together to eat for dinner, there are no rituals involved. I like that. Third, it doesn’t make any difference whether you are a “believer”, or not.

The history of Thanksgiving is interesting and because it is both interesting and history, it is important. But it is not important with regard to how the holiday is celebrated. I find that good. Most people take the name of the holiday literally – we should be thankful for what we have – and don’t look back to see who was invited to the first dinner, were there signs then as to what would eventually happen to American Indians. etc. There is no Thanksgiving Haggadah.

Everyone should be thankful for what they have, and – although this should be recognized every day – it’s nice to have a day where we are reminded of this. It is better to go through life with a positive attitude than with a negative one, and maybe a reminder to be thankful helps us do this. But we shouldn’t become too self-centered when we feel thankful. Even though this is an American holiday, we should feel that we being in America is crucial to our being able to be thankful. We certainly shouldn’t let Thanksgiving feed into feelings of American exceptionalism. By now, I think we know that we are not exceptional.

Similarly, we shouldn’t look at others in other places or other circumstances with pity and think “there but for the grace of God go I”. There are a lot of misguided adages hanging around, and I always felt this was one of the most despicable. It assumes that there is a God who has decided to make my lot better than someone else’s, as a conscious (whatever that means when referring to a God) decision. And of course, it means that God decided I should be better off than that other guy, and that’s OK. Sadly, that may be the necessary consequence of belief in a God, who focuses on and has control over the individual, and many religions are of course based on just that type of belief.

Most of my Thanksgivings have been very nice – with family, with friends, with good food. No complaints. But there were a couple of Thanksgivings that I would have liked to have been able to do over.

The one my children remember is the one we went to St. Louis to celebrate (a lot of Thanksgivings in St. Louis over my life), when my sister was suffering from the lymphoma that eventually took her life. We all flew to St. Louis and I promptly got sick – as I recall it was some sort of a stomach bug. I stayed in a suburban hotel (I guess Edie stayed in the hotel, too, maybe, while the kids stayed with a cousin), and because my sister was immune compromised, I didn’t see her at all. I spent Thanksgiving Day by myself in my hotel room. I had no real appetite, although I knew I should eat something. All I wanted was a Swiss cheese sandwich (on rye? on wheat? I don’t remember) with mustard, and a coke. That is what I wanted.

I think my brother didn’t think that was what I wanted, so he went out and got me Chinese carryout, which he left outside my door. I did not want Chinese carry out, but I opened it up and what I saw was some sort of mushroom and noodle concoction, which (even though I didn’t eat it) set my recovery back several days. Finally, I got my Swiss cheese sandwich, which was delicious.

My most difficult Thanksgiving was during my first year of law school, in 1964. I didn’t want to fly back home, I was invited to a few places, but I didn’t really want to go anywhere. It seemed to me that I should just stay in New Haven, catch up on all my class work (I think I had a paper to write – maybe not). Law school was still new to me and, to be perfectly honest, I was lost. There were classes that I didn’t understand at all, cases that I couldn’t comprehend, and so forth, and I thought this would give a chance to go back and review what we had learned the first couple of months and give me a fresh start.

I was living in a law school dorm (my roommate had gone back to North Carolina), and I figured there would be some people hanging around like me, and that we would get a group together for a Thanksgiving dinner somewhere.

Wrong. As far as I know, I was the only law student who made that dumb choice. When I looked around the campus on Thursday morning, it was deserted. Not just a few people. Zero people.

I went out to get breakfast. Every place within walking distance was closed. I did have a car, but for some reason, I didn’t want to get in it, and just roam around. I remember going back to the law school, and getting something to eat and drink out of the vending machines. And the vending machines were just basic vending machines – candy bars and potato chips. That sort of thing. And that’s what I had for breakfast.

Oh, and I had the same thing for lunch.

I remember at about 5 or 6, I went out again, to get my “Thanksgiving dinner”. With all of the restaurants around the Yale campus, I was sure some would be open. I started walking. Closed. Closed. Closed. Closed.

Finally, I found a Chinese restaurant that was open. I went in and ordered dinner. I was the only customer.

That was Thursday – I still had Friday, Saturday and Sunday in front of me. Food would no longer be a problem, but I was still the only person around, and I will say the feeling of loneliness was surprisingly overwhelming.

That was the last time I ever did anything as misguided as that.

Having bared my soul and written about one of my biggest professional embarrassments yesterday, I thought it might be appropriate to talk about a success. Then, tomorrow, we can think about turkey (or whatever you have instead of turkey, like a …… turkey sub).

So, in 1989, my first law firm imploded (another story waiting to be told anew), and I – along with about 20 of my fellow lawyers joined the Washington office of a large, multi-national, New York based law firm (still another story to be told anew), which I hated.

Putting my hatred aside, our new office was composed of the 20 or so of us from the old firm (maybe not quite that many) and an equal number of lawyers that had been with the new firm previously, or who came to the firm from elsewhere. We were an odd mix.

Now to my triumph:

The client was a Pittsburgh based construction company that had acquired a multifamily property in Pasadena, TX (suburban Houston) directly from HUD. It was a failed property. HUD had foreclosed on the original mortgage, and taken title to the property. Now it was selling it to the highest qualified bidder, providing (as I recall) both financing and a subsidy so that the property could serve low income families. The property required a significant amount of rehabilitation before it would be ready for occupancy.

When HUD put foreclosed properties up for sale, it issued a prospectus which described the property and the terms of the sale. One of the terms of the sale, as described, was that HUD was going to provide rent subsidies under the Section 8 program to the buyer, and that these subsidies would be available at the time title transferred to the buyer.

Our client bought the property and was told by HUD that the subsidies would not be available until after all the rehab was completed and the property inspected and approved by HUD. They said that, notwithstanding what they said in the prospectus, this is what they meant to have said. This would have made the purchase infeasible.

We sued the government for breach of contract (I don’t remember the details of the claim exactly) in the United States Court of Federal Claims. While I never was, nor wanted to be, a full time litigator, I have been involved with a fair amount of litigation over the years, and from time to time argued cases in court, but I never did it solo, and usually not as the lead counsel. I was often the strategist, the one most versed in the facts and the law, but never the one most versed in courtroom procedures, so I relied on someone else to make sure motions were filed when appropriate, deadlines weren’t missed, and the opposing counsel’s filings monitored.

In this case, I worked with a senior associate who had been with the new firm for a number of years, and was very highly regarded. I was the partner on the case, and therefore in charge, but I was very reliant on him for the procedural details. We also decided that he, since he was a full time litigator, would do the actual arguing, although I had written all of the briefs, etc. He and I carefully went over what he was going to say, and rehearsed. I went into the court room confident of our position and of his ability to present it.

The judge, whom I had met on a few pre-trial meetings, was quirky. That’s all I can say – he was a quirky guy. When it was time to put forth our case, he called on my associate, who went up to present it. After he said a sentence or two, the judge interrupted him with a question. It was pretty quick for that kind of an interruption, but as I recall, I thought the question itself reasonable. My litigator fumbled around a bit trying to answer it (I am not sure if he really ever did), and when he was finished fumbling, it was time to get back to his presentation of our position. But something happened. It was like the question threw him completely off-track, and he had no idea how to get back on course. Like he forgot everything we talked about. Like he forgot what the case was about. He finished and sat down.

I couldn’t believe it. Our winning case went down the drain. I was aghast. And it must have shown on my face, because the judge looked down on me and said, “Mr. Hessel, you look unhappy. I don’t want anyone in my court room to be unhappy. If you want to add anything to Mr. ______’s presentation, come on up and address the court.”

Wow! How often does that happen? I got up and explained what we were trying to say. I knew the situation cold, so it really wasn’t an effort. I was just explaining it, the same way I would explain it to you. And then I sat down.

Some time later, the judge issued his opinion. We won the case (as we should have). But, quirky fellow that he was, his opinion was equally quirky. I have read many, many judicial opinions, and none of them mention a lawyer, unless the lawyer is being targeted for some malfeasance. But in this case (and I am not looking at it now, so my language will not be exact), the judge said:

“In fact, I was about to rule in favor of the government, but then Mr. Hessel stepped up to the podium and convinced me of the correctness of the position of his client.”

Yes, this is written in the published opinion of the Court of Federal Claims.

So, this was a success. And the lawyer who almost lost the case for us? No, he did not become a partner in the firm. And, no, I don’t know that I ever spoke with him again. Happily, I have completely forgotten his name, his appearance, or anything else about him.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday who is a regular reader of my blog. He wanted me to write something about my legal career – what did I do? How did I do it? I told him I had hesitated only because I didn’t think it was interesting, but he tried to convince me I was wrong, so here I go.

And, dear reader, promise me something. Please read this post to the end. I know that some of it may seem uninteresting, but reading it to the end will be worth it.

I first started the private practice of law in 1972. I had previously done several years of government work, first in St. Louis and then with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington. I went to the office for my last day of law practice on December 31, 2011. During that time, I practiced with three different firms, and the majority of my practice involved representing clients who developed, managed or financed affordable housing. And most of the housing I worked with were multifamily housing developments which received either FHA mortgage insurance, federal subsidies, direct government loans, low income housing tax credits, or a mixture of two or more of these.

The work was interesting, had a public benefit aspect to it, and was often frustrating, of course. Dealing with the government is never easy. Because I had worked at HUD for a few years before entering private practice, I had the advantage of knowing how the government worked, how government employees thought, and I knew many of the officials with whom I interacted personally.

What should I tell you? Maybe I will start with one of my most embarrassing moments. Then, if I sense any interest in this, I can later talk about my successes.

Probably my most embarrassing moment involved the first real estate construction closing I was ever involved with, only a few months after I left HUD. I had just started with a small 7 man firm that was only two years old and was created to do this type of work. One of the partners assigned me to represent a developer from New Jersey. I don’t remember my client’s names or anything about them, except that the FHA world was new to them as well. This would be their first FHA project, and I sensed they didn’t know very much. The firm had never represented them before.

The project was a federally subsidized property with, as I recall, maybe 20 townhouse units, to be built with an FHA insured loan that came from Wachovia Bank in North Carolina. It was being built in a small town in southwest Virginia, Chatham VA. And yes, I did have a local lawyer to work on all of the zoning and other local law aspects of the transaction.

The closing was held in Richmond, at the HUD office there. Oh, you may not know what a closing is. Basically, it is when the financing is put in place, the construction contract signed, and the first funds released by the lender, so that construction can start. I wasn’t too nervous, because I was going to the closing with a partner in the firm, and I assumed I would just listen to what he said and see how he handled the closing. I figured that after doing this a couple of times, I’d be ready to do it on my own.

At least this is what I thought until the night before the closing when the partner told me that he decided he wasn’t going to go (or maybe something had come up and he couldn’t go), and I would be the only one there from the firm. What???

I drove to Richmond and met with the client and then with everyone else, including a lawyer representing the lender, an employee of the lender, the architect, the contractor, people representing the title company, and a slew of people from HUD. I soon realized that I was in charge of the closing, but really didn’t know what to do. There was a pile of documents that had to be reviewed and signed, and I just guessed that I should identify each and pass them around. That seemed to be the right thing to do.

The group was friendly enough and I was stumbling through the closing, looking more confident than I was in fact (obviously), and I began to relax a bit. And then a question came up. It had something to do with the title insurance, and the question seemed like something you would learn in Title Insurance 101. I thought I knew what the answer must be, but I had not thought about it before, and I didn’t want to blow it. Although I don’t remember the question, and although I thought it basic, I also remember that a wrong answer could raise all sorts of future problems. So I punted, and said that although I knew the answer, that there was something that I wanted to check, if they would give me a couple of minutes to call my office.

I called the partner to confirm my thoughts on this clearly very basic question. I asked him, and his answer was: “I have no idea. I have never done an FHA closing.” “What?”, I responded, “Can you switch me to someone who has?” And he said, “No one here has. This is the first one the firm has ever done.” I didn’t faint, but I did feel all of the blood drain out of my head down into my feet. I took a deep breath and went back to the closing room.

“It’s as I thought”, I said, “there’s no complication here. The answer is _________.” Everyone shook their head up and down.

The closing was completed. I drove back to DC. I felt relieved. I had completed the closing. On to other things.

One day, about nine months later, the phone in my office rang. It was the lawyer who represented the lender, the bank, at the closing. He told me that my clients had defaulted on the loan, and abandoned the project mid-construction. I hadn’t known that, but it didn’t surprise me – I hadn’t any confidence in them.

When this type of default occurred, a lender would “assign the loan” back to the FHA. The FHA (a division of HUD) would then become the lender, and HUD would pay the lender the amount it had already loaned out under the FHA insurance contract. Assigning a loan is not difficult. The most important thing is for the lender to take the mortgage note, and to endorse it on the back over to the FHA commissioner. Not difficult at all.

But one thing. In order to do this, the lender must have the original mortgage note. And the lawyer representing Wachovia didn’t have it. He asked me if, perchance, I had taken the original note by mistake at the closing. I told him that was impossible (and I thought “Jeez. He lost the mortgage note?”), but I would check my file.

I hadn’t looked at the file since the day of the closing and within its several inches of documents, there it was. The original mortgage note – the most important document for the lender to have in his possession as he left an FHA closing.

I called the lawyer back and told him that, in fact, I had it (I was a bit embarrassed). I told him I had swept up all the papers left on the table after the closing and put them in my file, without looking at them. But I asked him how it was possible that he (or his client) hadn’t made sure to take the mortgage note. “Well”, he said, “you didn’t know this, but it was my first FHA closing”.

Let’s start with an aside: Happy birthday to Joe Biden, 81 years young. As it seems to be every year, he remains six days older than I am, and he is gearing up for another presidential run, something that frankly has never occurred to me. But I must add that an old friend (you know who you are, obviously) who I have known since college and who is already 81 has just announced that he is running for the Florida state legislature on the Libertarian ticket. Now, I doubt that a Libertarian will win his election, but I do think that it blunts any criticism that he has of Biden on account of age. I am sure being a Florida state representative is as hard a job as running the country. I wish him luck and – if anyone can figure out a way that I can vote for him absentee – I will.

Now, for Argentina. I have never been to Argentina, and would love to go there. I feel an affinity for two reasons stemming from my childhood. My grandparents used to go to Miami for a couple of weeks in the winter, and made friends with a couple from Buenos Aires. Their daughter was getting married and my grandparents debated whether to take a trip to Buenos Aries for the wedding. I was probably 6 or 7, and tried to get them to go, but they didn’t. And then, when I started to collect stamps at about age 8 or 9, I had all these stamps with pictures of Eva Peron. I wasn’t used to seeing women on stamps and that intrigued me, too.

At any rate, Argentina always seemed like a nice place. Pleasant. Big cities. Beautiful countryside. Mountains. What could be bad? It turned out a lot could be bad and, economically and politically, it often was. And it has been such a mystery – Argentina seemed to have everything it needed, but it could never quite put it all together. If I were 40 years younger, and fluent in Spanish, I would like to study Argentina. No one has really been able to figure it out.

The post-Covid years have not been kind to Argentina. We complain about inflation here when it goes above 3%, and in fact it went as high as 7%. But in Argentina, inflation this year has been 140%. Just for one example. Half the population is considered to be living in poverty, for another.

At any rate, Argentina had a presidential election yesterday. The winner was a younger Donald Trump. Javier Milei is in his 50s, he is a former TV personality, and he is a far right right winger. His platform: get rid of the central bank (Argentina’s Fed), peg the currency to the US dollar, outlaw abortion, gut government spending, slash welfare, eliminate several government agencies (like the ministries of culture, health, women and education), liberalize gun ownership, and more. His vice-president is a woman from a military family, who wants to shutter the museum that memorializes those thousands of Argentinians who “disappeared” during the years of military dictatorship.

Former/future President Trump and former/future Brazilian president Bolsinaro have both praised the election results. The pre-election polling showed it to be a close race, with Milei projected to win by a small margin. In fact, he won 56% to 44%.

For the Democrats who want to ignore the current and consistent polling showing a slim popular vote victory for Mr. 78 over Mr. 81, this should be a clear warning. The world is not what we would like it to be, and we must adapt our tactics to keep it from falling further down the proverbial rat hole. Time for President Biden to graciously bow out, and for the Democrats to get together (perhaps without a great deal of public oversight) and select a new candidate for the 2024 presidential election.

How many times must I say that?

Ending with another aside: has anyone else noticed that the NYT is changing from a daily news vehicle to more of a magazine, with articles that reflect general issues, but are not necessarily germane to the day of publication? Today, for example, there’s a front page article on 30 year mortgage loans, and internal front section articles on Morocco’s choices in how to rebuild after a major earthquake and how they are still looking for survivors after the terrible storm in Acapulco, climate changes in Death Valley, the “iron monkeys” no longer in Harlem, a mother who finds her son’s grave in a pauper’s cemetery, a cancer victim who is providing posthumously help to other cancer victims. All interesting, to be sure, but not “news”.

At the same time, the Washington Post has announced that it is cutting 240 jobs and trimming back its expenditures.

Without the Times and Post operating at full throttle (is that a term that works here?), how will we keep up with anything? Most other newspapers have already failed to meet their responsibilities.

This one is important, but complex. You may want to read my Nov 16 post first, if you haven’t already. It’s about the course I am taking to help me understand the world of post-modernism, decolonization, intersectionality, oppressor/oppressed, white/non-white which permeates so much thinking in the humanities and social sciences at universities today. And how the departments which teach these subjects are set up in such a way not to have an open search for “truth”, but to start with a “given” and look for supportive facts. And how Jews are classified as “white” and therefore are in the “oppressor” class, and that Israel is a place that is illegitimate and must be “decolonized”. If you do not believe this, you are not “woke”, as this term in used by the proponents of this way of thinking.

[As an aside, it may be that Jews are classified as “white” by these post-modern intellectuals, but they are classified as “not white” by white supremacists. Beginning to see the problem?]

Now, let’s dig a little deeper. You may have seen that Brandeis, Columbia, Fordham, George Washington University and all Florida public universities and colleges have suspended or decertified an organization called Students for Justice in Palestine, which is one of the most active of the anti-Israel “from the river to the sea” groups, on campuses nationwide.

[Another aside: In Florida, Gov. DeSantis banned these groups from public institutions state-wide. He and the State have been sued on the basis that this is a violation of members’ free speech. Who brought the suit? The ACLU. This is one more reason why I just do not like the ACLU, and haven’t since the Skokie Nazi march incident decades ago. I view the ACLU’s putting free speech on a pedestal the same way I view all those organizations which put religious expression or the right to own guns on a pedestal. Sorry, ACLU supporters, but that is how I feel.]

Let’s go back to Students for Justice in Palestine. It may surprise you to know that this organization (which keeps its address, officials, members, and financial supporters a secret – or tries to) has between 200 and 300 (another secret) active branches on US campuses. And that it does have a website: http://www.nationalsjp.org. (By the way, it is not a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization)

Five days after the Hamas attack on Israel, SJP declared a “Day of Resistance” on more than 200 campuses. It issued a toolkit instructing local chapters on how to act and react. It called Israel a vassal state of the United States, and a state that has been engaged in genocidal activity to its founding. It clearly supports the destruction of “the Zionist entity”, although it has not – to my knowledge – threatened Jewish genocide, and it welcomes Jewish supporters. On its website, Students for Justice for Palestine also supporters various black, feminist and Latino/a movements for freedom, saying all of these movements are closely related. This, of course, is consistent with the post-modern, woke, decolonizing teaching described above and on my blog post of two days ago.

In the toolkit, the SJP declared that October 7 was an “historic win for the Palestinian resistance”. Some of its campus branch organizations went further. For example, Michigan: “Power to our freedom fighters. Glory to our martyrs.” John Jay College: “Do not let the Western media call this terrorism. This is DECOLONIZATION.” Swarthmore: “There exists only the colonized and the colonizer, an oppressed and an oppressor. To resist is to survive and it is our right.” [These statements were quoted in an excellent article by Judy Maltz in Haaretz on Friday]

The origins of Students for Justice in Palestine is a bit murky, but it is clear that one of the founders is a man named Hatem Bazian, originally from Nablus in the West Bank and now on the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. It is of continual interest that so many leaders of this pro-Palestinian movement are at Berkeley, at San Francisco State, at U Cal Davis – and other branches of the California public university system.

If you were to grade Hatem Bazian on his level of activity, you would have to give him an A. Just look at the Maltz article (if you can get beyond the paywall) or better yet, look at his own website (www.hatembazian.com). This is one active fellow, and he has started a number of organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine. Maltz talks about attempts to link these organizations itself to Hamas (Bazian denies any direct connection) to see if there are any funding links. Her conclusion is (to paraphrase) that it’s possible to see the smoke, but no one yet has found the fire. She also cites a few statements by Bazian that go beyond criticism of Israel and seem to target Jews more generally – such as the influence Jews have on American Universities, which can be seen by the names on so many university buildings.

I am not going to go further into Bazian’s many writings and activities – he is one of the ultimate “woke, post-modern” intellectuals, who sees Israel and Israel’s supporters (which include not only the United States, but many “Zionist Arabs”, those Arabs, mainly from the countries party to the Abrahamic Accords) as colonialists, occupying Palestinian land, pure and simple. He concentrates, as you would expect, on the West Bank as well as Gaza, and (this time perhaps more understandably) rails against Israeli settlements, and annexation threats. But he sees it all in the context of his overall theory.

From all of this, one can see the difficulty universities have in policing organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, which are national in scope, have available teaching or action resources, and which may or may not be well funded. But identifying SJP and the people and forces behind it, is clearly a first step. The question is, though: what is step number two?

I am not one of those people who go through life angry. I rarely think of myself as angry at anyone. When I sense anger, it generally melds with disappointment. I decide I am more disappointed with what someone did than I am angry at them.

But today, I find myself angry. Not disappointed. Just angry. Disappointment has got me nowhere. Maybe anger will.

(By this way, this may become a long post, I am angry at so many people. Tomorrow, I think I may list the people that I am not angry at. You will be able to breeze through that one.)

Let’s go down the list, one by one.

(1) I am angry at Donald Trump. I am angry at him for making the world so much worse than it was (and it had a load of problems before he even came along). I am angry at the way he has torn the country apart politically, at the way he has threatened our democracy, at the way he gives bigots permission to be bigots, at the way he believes himself above the law, at the way he speaks to and about others, and so much more. I am not disappointed in Donald Trump, I am angry at him.

(2) I am angry at Vladimir Putin. I am angry at him for destroying what forms of democratic values were taking place in Russia, at the way he punishes his political enemies and anyone whom he deems a threat to him and his regime, and to his unwarranted invasion of Ukraine. I am not disappointed in Vladimir Putin, I am angry at him.

(3) I am angry at Hamas, its leadership and its supporters. I am angry at them for their unwillingness to admit to the legitimacy of Israel, for their disregard of the safety and welfare of their own people, and most of all for their sponsoring the October 7 attack on Israel with the death of 1400 Israelis and the capture as hostages of another 150 or so. I am not disappointed in them, I am angry at them.

(4) I am angry at Elon Musk. I am angry at him because of his purchase of Twitter, his weakening of Twitter’s already weak policing of hate speech, and his willingness in fact to engage in hate speech itself on the platform, which he renamed X. I also think Musk has too much money and too much power – between Space X, Twitter, Tesla, Starlink and other entities that permit him decide on the future of the U.S. space program, whether or not certain war zones can use communication devices and so forth – but I am not angry at any one for this, although I probably would be if I knew how to direct my anger.

(5) I am angry at Bibi Netanyahu and the members of his current coalition government for their lapse of security on the country’s Gaza border, on their failure to utilize their intelligence in monitoring activity in Gaza, for their riling up the settlers in the West Bank against the Arabs living there and supporting potential annexations, for their attempts to reconstruct Israel’s court system, and for their kowtowing to the country’s Orthodox religious establishment.

(6) I am angry at Joe Biden for not keeping to his promise to be a one term president and recognizing that his perceived physical age is going to mean that Donald Trump will become the next president, and not bowing out of the race early enough so that the Democrats can unite behind and prep an alternative candidate. OK, here I guess I am disappointed at Biden as well.

(7) I am angry at the Ayatollah Khamenei and his religious followers, who have been supporting, financially and otherwise, proxy groups around the Middle East to threaten and destablize Israel and the region. I am not disappointed in him.

(8) I am angry at politicians in Brazil, Argentina, and various African companies who have decided to emulate Donald Trump and falsely claim fraud in election results, threatening democratic institutions in their countries. I do not know them well enough to be disappointed in them.

(9) I am angry at virtually every Republican in the Senate and the House of Representatives for their stated or tacit support of Donald Trump, and their disregard to normal American governmental practices. I am disappointed in some, but not most of them.

(10) I am angry at right wing radio and TV commentators, who inundate their listeners and viewers with regular hate filled and inaccurate information about policies of those officials with whom they disagree. I am not disappointed in them.

(11) I am angry at the American voting public, which continues to support Donald Trump and dismiss Joseph Biden, so that every poll shows that Trump will win the 2024 election, base on the nonsense that Trump kept the world at peace, that Trump’s economy was much stronger than Biden’s, that Trump will control the border better, and the Republicans are better stewards of the national debt than Democrats, as well as ignoring Trump’s first term divisiveness, his continual lying, his 91 felony count indictments, his vindictiveness, his claims of election fraud, and so forth. And yes, I am disappointed with the American public.

This is my 368th daily post, without a miss. But who’s counting?

I am sitting in my home office, looking out a window, seeing so many trees in transition, some green, some yellow, one red, some barren. But I know where this is all heading, and what I will see out of my window, say, two or three weeks from now. I am confident what will occur.

With the rest of the world, I have no such confidence and have, in fact, no idea where things are heading. Nor do you, nor anyone else. Sure, there’s a thrill to that – it keeps you interested. But – at times like this – there is fear.

Where am I going with this? No idea. So let’s veer off this subject, but just a bit.

Ukraine. As I understand it, there are many Russians who simply think that Ukraine should not exist as a separate country. Can this view be justified by history? I turn to Wikipedia, which informs me that:

1. From the 9th through the 13th century, there was a Slavic, proto-Russian empire, centered in Kiev and including much of what is now Ukraine and Russia.
2. In the 13th century, after this Kievan empire weakened, the Mongols took it over, and for the next 600 years, today’s Ukraine was ruled by outsiders – Mongols, Poles, Lithuanians, Austrians, Ottomans, and Russians.
3. In the 18th century, today’s Ukraine was divided between Russia, Poland, and Austro-Hungary. After the partition of Poland, it dropped out of the picture and today’s Ukraine was divided into Russian and Austro-Hungarian sectors.
4. In 1917, after the Bolsheviks defeated the Romanovs, a Ukrainian Republic was formed, but only lasted for five years.
5. In 1922, Ukraine was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Crimea was a separate autonomous district, designated as part of the Russian, not the Ukrainian, SSR.
6. In 1954, Crimea was transferred by the Soviet Union to the Ukrainian SSR.
7. In 1991, Ukraine became independent.
8. In 2014, Russia occupied the Crimean Peninsula, and started a campaign that culminated in a full scale invasion and occupation of the eastern Donbas region in 2022.

Obviously, this is a simplistic outline. But what you can see is (discounting the period ending 800 or so years ago, when the large Slavic empire was Kiev, not Moscow, led), Russia itself has never ruled over or included all of Ukraine, and since the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Ukraine has been separate from Russia, both SSRs in the USSR.

So, when the Russians invaded in 2022, they invaded a sovereign nation – and, in fact, one whose sovereignty they had specifically pledged to respect at various times, including in a binding treaty, signed after the breakup of the USSR, when the nuclear military weapons stored in Ukraine were moved to Russia.

So, my first rhetorical questions of the day. Why all those who are condemning Israel’s action in Gaza not condemning equally strongly Russia’s action in Ukraine? Why are all those demanding a ceasefire in Gaza not demanding a ceasefire in Ukraine?

On the other hand, when the Russians marched into Ukraine and began to destroy roads and towns and kill civilians, millions of Ukraine were granted temporary or permanent permission to relocate in neighboring countries – Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and more. When, however, Israel moved into Gaza, no other country (neighboring or not) has stated its willingness to accept, on even a temporary or transit basis, a single Gazan? My second rhetorical question is: why not?

Moving to still another hand, when Russia kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children and moved them to Russia, out of contact with their families, to “reeducate” and Russify them, the world (through the international criminal court) responded by naming Vladimir Putin as a was criminal and has continued to demand their release. When Hamas kidnapped about 250 Israelis and still holds them, there is no action at the international criminal court, and demands for their release seem to be limited to Israelis and their American supporters. My third rhetorical question is:

When Hamas invaded Israel, its goal was to begin the process of destroying the State of Israel – exactly what that would mean is unclear – but it could certainly lead to a “leave or die” order to Israeli Jews, while a Palestinian run government would control the land from the river to the sea. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it was not to wipe Ukraine off the map, but to make its government subservient to the Russian government, and to lop off parts of Ukraine and incorporate them into Russia. Other than the war casualties, there was no threat to the very lives of the Ukrainian people. So, the Hamas invasion potentially has more dire consequences than does the Russian invasion. Rhetorically, speaking: why doesn’t the world see this obvious difference and react accordingly?

That’s probably enough for today – but one more thought. And one more question (not rhetorical): is Hamas the government of Gaza? If so, why are they doing nothing to protect the citizens of Gaza – why don’t they simply return the hostages in return for some sort of ceasefire agreement and more? It’s because they are not a normal government. They are a pan-Muslim movement dedicated to ridding Muslim soil from the Zionist entity, and Gaza is a handy base. Gaza has no government. And until Hamas is neutralized (and structures are in place to keep them neutralized), Israel will have no rest.

That’s definitely enough for today.

I am taking a four part Zoom course titled “Ideological Antisemitism and Progressive Politics” taught by David Bernstein of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values. The course is sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Governmental Antisemitism Policies. I had heard of neither of these two groups until last week.

The first segment was yesterday afternoon. Its title was Radical Roots: How an Extreme Ideology Took Roots in Institutions. I thought it extremely worth while – it built on what I have been thinking about and concluding, and added – of course- much I did not know.

I took notes. Let’s see if I can make sense of them.

We started with a video of a young blond, blue-eyed woman, hair covered, a student (apparently) at the School of Social Work at Columbia University, talking about a pro-Palestinian “die-in” her school’s main building. In this brief video, among other things, she spoke of the need to “decolonize” social work. This then took us to the website of the School itself, which explained the Columbia approach to social work: intellectual decolonization, understanding social work as working towards the elimination of societal systems of oppression as viewed by the oppressed, as implementing Radical Social Justice. This is a paraphrase – even more than a paraphrase. And you thought social work was making sure low income people were able to secure their governmental benefits.

Bernstein stated (probably should be obvious) that you can look at any area of study this way, not only social work. Any could center on the relationship of the oppressed to the oppressors.

He then discussed the concept of “post-modernism”, which he described first as “going beyond what we now have”. He said it is an ideology that denies that there are “truths” and “knowledge”, which it describes as only the creation of the powerful, privileged classes.

In other words, post-modernism tells us that we (not being post-modernists) look at things not objectively, but through the view points of the elite. The white. The privileged.

And that our looking at things from the biased way, makes it very hard for us to talk with post-modernists, because not only our perspectives but even our choice of words and language betray our lack of understanding. Therefore, we can say things that we might feel as neutral (or even as something to discuss or debate), but which in fact are not neutral, but betray our “white” mentality. And, we Jews, we are considered by post-modernists to be white and privileged, so we obviously lack understanding of the world.

He traces this ideology back to the 1950s and 1960s, and the writings of three men: Foucault, Marcuse and Derrida. Two Frenchmen and a German? Perhaps, but three Jews, of course.

But these three talked about post-modernism as an intellectual activity, a philosophical activity, an alternative way to see the world. They had their followers, however, who took it a step further – and decided to combine their philosophies with activism. And they took a still additional step and said that those who are the “oppressed classes” were the only ones who had a true understanding of their position in society and of the workings of society. The privileged classes were blinded by their privileges. In other words, only Blacks understand the position of Blacks; only the disabled understand the disabled. (But you don’t have to say that only Jews understand Jews, because Jews are white and are privileged, so this generalization does not apply to them).

Professor Edward Said, who also taught at Columbia, carried this forward with his students, claiming – all this is according to Bernstein – that to understand the world, you had to learn to decolonize your mind.

And of course all this related to the colonization of other races, and other locations, by the privileged whites, and that can make the United States, and certainly Israel, as States which continue to exist as exemplars of this phenomenon. Another example is Australia, of course.

What if you disagree with this entire theory of looking at the world? Tell this to a post-modernist, and he will give you his answer. That means you are a racist. And he (I am not making this post gender neutral, I know – and that does not make me a member of the patriarchy) will tell you that you are not “woke” (i.e., you have not awakened to this important concept) and have no understanding of the study of Critical Social Justice.

He then turned to San Francisco State College (now University), which became in the late 1960s, the center of these studies, with the creation of an ethics department dominated by post-modernists. The chancellor at the time was S.I. Hayakawa, who later became a one term U.S. Senator. He was against the creation of this department, but gave in to continual pressure, by activists such as Stokely Carmichael.

Bernstein says that the ethics department was not a normal academic department – it was not built on a basis of intellectual neutrality to be a place of research and debate. It was a department built on the basis of a particular ideology, with answers given and with research limited to studies which would support the predetermined ideological conclusions of the department’s ideology. Neutral research and debate were rejected, he says, as simply a cover for white privilege and supremacy.

Since then, Bernstein continues, post-modern department after department in certain study areas have proliferated. And in some places, post-modern curricula have been developed, and are being implemented, in K-12 schools.

Bernstein finds all of this very dangerous, of course. He finds it uncomfortable that Jews are considered white and privileged, with no credence paid to their history of being the victim.

In the next session, we are going to begin to hone in on the relationship to this antisemitism. Bernstein ended by suggesting that, if you are looking for societies where Jews do well, you have to look at liberal, open societies, where debate is encouraged. And that this is just the opposite of post-modern (and I guess woke?) societies, where debate is looked upon as a tool of the enemy.

My score is 50-50. I thought there would be well more than the originally anticipated 60,000 at yesterday’s Rally for Israel, and more than the updated estimate of 100,000. It turns out that there were 290,000 who attended (unofficial estimate) and that, if we had not been drafted for unexpected grandparent duties, there would have been 290,002. Score one for me.

On the other hand, I was concerned that there was a lack of clear focus, that a rally for Israel, for hostage release, and for antisemitism might get confused. The confusion never seemed to arise. Hostage release and antisemitism were separate, but not conflicting, subjects, and each of the speakers, as far as I could see, stayed away from talking about the current war in ways that could antagonize others. In other words, no one talked about an immediate ceasefire, and no one talked about nuking Gaza. So I lose on this one.

I don’t know how many watched the rally from afar – I assume it was televised by C-Span (it’s their sort of thing), but we watched it streaming on the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington website. I didn’t watch every minute of it. Or rather, maybe I did watch every minute of it, at least out of a corner of my eye, because the computer was on, but I didn’t listen to every minute of it, because I only turned up the sound when there was something I thought would be interesting.

I didn’t watch, for example, the relatives of the hostages talking about the necessity to get their loved ones back. I have heard enough of that over the past month. I didn’t listen to any of the music (although I started to several times) because I didn’t like any of the music.

I did hear most of the other speeches, I think. I missed Van Jones (I am sure he gave a good talk), and I couldn’t understand most of what Natan Sharansky said. But I thought that Deborah Lipstadt gave a very good talk, as did all of the Congressional representatives, and even Rev. John Hagee.

Hagee, a Christian Zionist with very strong feelings, was – I believe – the most controversial of the speakers, and I can only assume that there was a good reason to invite him to talk. He gave a fine rally pep talk, avoiding the stridency of some of his views and the details of his theology. I was relieved at that. I had earlier read that no rabbis or other Jewish clergy were invited to speak. I can’t say that I understand that, either. But I also can’t say that they were missed. This was a political event (with sociological overtones) and not a religious gathering.

I was also pleased to see that logistics (even with such great numbers) created no problems, although I did hear that a number of bus drivers at Dulles decided to refuse to carry attendees from Detroit to a rally for Israel. I hope they found other ways to get to the Mall.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the fighting in Gaza continues, and skirmishes with Hezbollah threaten the north of Israel and the south of Lebanon.

Israel continues to be criticized for its activity near Gaza hospitals (or within them), including recent criticism from Trudeau in Canada. This is understandable, of course, because both the images and the facts are hard to grasp. But this is war and I don’t know that you can hold back from what you think needs to be done, just because people will be hurt. As I have so often said, we firebombed Dresden and Tokyo and Hamburg, and dropped atomic weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and look what we did to Vietnam. Just sayin’.

And, of course, Hamas is egging Israel on by using people, including children, as shields, traveling in ambulances, and having major headquarters and warehouses beneath schools and hospitals. This, I don’t think is speculation; by now, it seems clearer than clear. And it is not normal, although neither is Hamas’ statements that it is not responsible for the welfare of its people – let Israel and the UN worry about them, they said.

Plus, although attacking hospitals seems like a terrible thing to do, is it any different from other attacks? Does it make sense to say that a healthy civilian can be collateral damage, but an injured or ill civilian shouldn’t be? Does that make any sense when you come to think of it? Why would sick people be treated differently from those who are well? OK, this is a rhetorical question – no answers required.

Last night, I began to read through one of the C-Span Booknotes volumes, and I was reading an excerpt of the program with Elliot Cohen (Director, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University) about his book Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime (I don’t know the book). He wrote about, among others, Churchill, Lincoln and Ben Gurion, as exemplars of wartime leadership. Each of these leaders of different countries at different times were confronted with military necessities that required decisions that would result in many, many deaths and injuries. In all three cases, where military necessity required it, the leaders did not shy away from authorizing the actions. Sadly, this is just what war requires.

We will see what happens in Israel. And we will continue to see what the repercussions will be for Jewish communities outside of Israel. In an hour, I am going to attend the first session of a four session class on the development and increase antisemitism on American campuses. I hope to learn something and, if I do, you can be sure I will write about it here.

But not today.

It’s about 10 a.m. In about an hour, we are scheduled to leave for the Rally for Israel on the National Mall. Maybe I will divide today’s post into two posts – a short one now, and a short one after we return from the Mall. I don’t know exactly what to expect.

Here is what I know: There has been a lot of publicity, not only locally but around the country. And there are a lot of people, a lot of buses, and a lot of groups heading here for the event. I had read that the organizers had originally expected 60,000 people. My guess is there will be more. There have been much larger rallies over the past week or two in London and Paris for example – over 100,000 in Paris at an anti-antisemitism rally last weekend. I know there are many coming to town from the New York area (as always), and I am sure from elsewhere.

We are meeting up with a group from our synagogue, Adas Israel. Now, we are a very large congregation, and located a few Metro stops from the Mall, and I expect there will be a few hundred in our group alone. And if we are having a synagogue group rallying together, you can assume that all other local synagogues are doing the same (that would be 50+), as well as all sorts of organizations, including the local Jewish Federation, which is I think (maybe along with the Jewish Community Relations Council) is the lead organizer.

The problem as I see it (I always seem to see the problems) is that this rally has three foci, which are not necessarily congruent. One, it is a rally to have Hamas release the 240 or so Israeli hostages it is holding. This is something that I assume everyone in the rally is supporting – and it is the least likely of the three to be influenced in any way whatsoever by the rally. It will be a good showing, of course, but – as the Bard would say –
probably “signifying nothing”.

The second goal of the rally is to denounce antisemitism. This again is something that everyone rallying will be in agreement on. Who wants antisemitism? (Of course, the antisemites do – or perhaps they just can’t help themselves) And reducing (you can’t eliminate, can you?) antisemitism is crucial nationwide and worldwide. We do, as a nation, have to figure out the relationship between antisemitic talk or action, and freedom of speech and expression. With a Supreme Court that has been anxious to call everything “speech” (like political contributions are speech) and to give entities (like corporations) the right to free speech as well as individuals, we have not only become victim to the goals of the rich and powerful, but we have become confused as to what the First Amendment really protects. We need to get over that – religious or ethnic or national bias should not be allowed. Full stop.

The third goal of the rally is to “support Israel”. This is where, I am sure, things will get confusing. And, of course, we are all confused about this anyway outside of the rally. There may be general agreement on this point, but no overall agreement. And the rally does not itself have a political slant. The organizers went out of its way to make this an inclusive event. The right wing Zionist Organization of America will be present, and the left wing Americans for Peace Now will both be represented. One group wants blind support for Israel; the other conditions its support on the nature of Israel’s military activity. Potentially, there will also be some of the fringier Jewish groups which are even more pro-Palestine, and would like to see major changes in Israeli policy or even the elimination of the Jewish state and the substitution of something else.

To me, this will make for confusion. There will be disagreement on this point amongst those rallying, and there will certainly be disagreement in the audience directed towards those making speeches. As I understand it, there will be a “variety” of speakers – we will see how that works.

Is it also possible for antisemites or pro-Palestinians to get into the rally grounds on the Mall? Of course, but everyone will have to go through metal detectors (you know what that means for a crowded rally) and, in theory, nothing that looks dangerous will be allowed in. That means not only no guns (ha, ha), but no lasers, and no selfie sticks, and no signs on sticks or poles, etc. This should make the rally safe. As should the hundreds of security officers (police and others) who will be both on the site and at the periphery.

BULLETIN: Our daughter Hannah is going out of town for several days today, and – as our son-in-law Andrew is a high school teacher with a rather inflexible schedule – we have partial responsibility for grand child care. It was to start with picking up our 3 year old grandson from pre-school around 4:30 or 5. But we just heard that our 8 year old grand daughter is being sent home from school because of conjunctivitis. We will pick her up and bring her here and that means two things: (1) We won’t be going to the rally after all, and (2) Probably no need for a second blog post this afternoon. To quote Kurt Vonnegut: “so it goes”.

“Joan Baez: I am a Noise” is a new documentary on the life of now 82 year old Joan Baez. We saw it Saturday night at the Avalon. We were really looking forward to the film, because, as I have said, everyone loves Joan Baez, and, although we knew that the film delved into her psychology, we expected to be uplifted by her music and, in general, her life.

The film, however, is not what we (or at least I, and I think we) expected. It does have clips of her singing, of course, but this is not a film to celebrate her talent as much as it is to dig deeply into what is, as it turns out, a very complicated mentality.

First, here is why I think everyone loves her. Her voice is (has been) perfect in tone and pitch. Her politics have been brave and generally on the side of humanity and human rights. She was, and remains, very physically attractive. And her way of carrying herself just makes it appear that she would be someone who could be friends with you. What more could you want in a person?

Apparently, this film was first conceived of as a film dedicated to her “farewell tour” of a few years ago, but it became something else. Much of this was, it appears, because it turns out that her mother, who died not that long ago at, I think, 100, had been a hoarder of Baez family memorabilia. She had a storage locker, which Joan had never been in but which she had access to, that had boxes and boxes of tapes, clippings, school records and assignments, drawings, and so forth, that seems to have been so complete and so interesting that they overtook the idea of just showing the tour performances.

And at some point, the filmmakers and Baez herself decided that, instead, the film should be a biography, almost a memoir, of her success and the frustrations that accompanied her success. And so we start with her childhood, and end with seemingly somewhat isolated, but quite comfortable, life today.

Her family was accomplished. Her father, born of Mexican parents, had a PhD from Stanford and was a co-inventor of the x-ray microscope and a university professor. Her mother was born in Scotland and was, as her daughter, a very engaging person. The family, consisting of three girls and their parents, traveled the world and lived quite comfortably.

But during high school, Joan apparently felt like an outsider, a Mexican, someone who didn’t fit in. She was talented in many ways – her voice, for sure, but she was also an artist, sketching her life cartoon-like, from an early age. Her mother, of course, kept those cartoons.

Joan suffered from high anxiety and underwent therapy during those years, but then something happened and she became famous, and by the age of 18 and 19, was the toast of town wherever she went. The film doesn’t precisely detail her social life, but does spend a lot of time talking about, and speculating about, her relationship with Bob Dylan (she was responsible for introducing Dylan to the world, and at some point, he seemed to have outgrown her and left her behind), and with her husband of something under ten years, David Harris, who went to jail for 20 months during her marriage for avoiding the draft (or something like that) and with whom she had her only son.

Her career continued to sky rocket. Record albums, concert tours in the U.S. and abroad, and through all of this she had incredible emotional ups and downs, all of which are detailed, including several years when her main food seemed to be quaaludes. A real roller coaster about which we (certainly I) knew nothing.

The film also talks about her relationship with her older, and more reticent sister, Pauline and her younger sister Mimi (known as Mimi Farina), which was both close and fraught, and with her father (from whom she was estranged for a time) and mother. Both her parents lived to what they used to call a ripe old age; both her sisters have passed away.

At some point not that long ago, she decided to have more extensive therapy to determine what caused her emotional problems and to try to be able to mitigate them. During this period, she and her therapist focused on recapturing childhood memories. Although the film (and probably the therapy as well) somewhat was blurry on this topic, there seems to have been some sort of conclusion that she, and her two sisters, were all most likely/probably/perhaps the victims of childhood sexual abuse by her father. This isn’t detailed and even she, I think, does not know if her memories are real – her father consistently said – it appears – that she has “false memories” and that nothing like this could possibly have happened. I think, I think, the film is inconclusive on the point.

At any rate, Joan Baez, her farewell tour done, lives in a comfortable, somewhat jumbled house in California where she tends her garden, does her art, and searches her memories. She looks terrific for 82, and admits she is in much better shape than most her age, and still looks like she become your good friend. Her emotional turmoil, it appears, is largely behind her.

I think we all found the film a bit too intense and too packed with too many aspects of her life. But I am not telling you to stay away from it. Joan Baez is just a very complicated person – much more complicated than you or I could have imagined.

One personal note: years ago, Joan had a concert at George Washington University’s Lisner auditorium. She had just released a new cassette and she was having a “signing” at Tower Records, then just off the GWU campus. My daughter Michelle, who does a lot of singing and does it very well, was in high school, I think, and I took her to the signing to meet Joan Baez (I don’t think Michelle knew who she was at the time). After we bought the cassette, I told Joan Baez that Michelle might be the next Joan Baez (I know, tacky, huh?), and she was very gracious and said “just a minute”, calling back to one of her aids, saying “get me two tickets for the concert tonight”, which the proceeded to give us. Wonderful house seats.

You see why I think we could have been friends?

(1) CNN had some heartbreaking scenes from Gaza yesterday afternoon – once again. I don’t mind that. After all, that’s important. And it’s news. But it does get you thinking (or at least it gets me thinking): you can find the same scenes, even more widespread, today in Ukraine, in Yemen, and elsewhere. But you don’t find CNN, or anyone else, there showing similar things. Again, not that the situation in Gaza is unimportant, but it shows the degree to which it is the war most concentrated on by the western media, and it is clearly one of the reasons that Israel is targeted as so evil by so many.

I know I sometimes repeat things, but I looked up current wars and current war casualty figures today. Here is what I found regarding wars still going on:

Ethiopia: 300,000 to 500,000 dead

Kivu/Congo: 100,000 dead

Darfur: 300,000 dead

Mexican drug wars: 150,000+ dead

Nigeria/Boko Haram: 50,000 dead

Syria: 400,000 dead

Ukraine: 200,000+ dead

Yemen: 250,000 dead

All of these conflicts are recorded, but none of them (not even Ukraine/Russia) with the intensity that the Gaza conflict is.

(2) Before the war erupted in Gaza, we know there had been ongoing and enormous protests in Israel about the current government’s attempts to tamp down on the independence of the Israeli Supreme Court, and to bring about other changes to the government that would give the Knesset more power to make major changes. As you undoubtedly know, the current coalition, under Prime Minister Netanyahu, is comprised of very right wing elements of Israeli society. In Israel, right wing means people who want to lessen the more democratic elements of the government, and give more voice to those elements who want to annex the West Bank, populating it with more Jews and (truth be told) actively encouraging Arabs to leave, and those who want the Orthodox religious establishment to have even more say than they do, especially in domestic social aspects of Israeli life. Netanyahu, who would like to be PM for life, I am sure, is – like good old Donald J.T., under indictment for various crimes and wants to stave off any chance of punishment by remaining in control.

By increasing the divisions in Israeli society, the government weakened certain aspects of Israeli security. Had Israeli security been as strong as it professed to be, Hamas would never have been able to spend over a year planning the Oct 7 attack, and had government expansionism not stoked so many problems on the West Bank, the army on the Gaza boarder would have (or at least should or could have) been enough stronger that the border would never have been able to be breached the way it was on Oct 7.

But once the attack occurred, with so many deaths and casualties and so much destruction, all of traumatized Israel put aside their differences (more or less) and went to the defense of their country. And Netanyahu was able to tout that Israel was again united and strong, while criticism of the government (both in Israel and abroad) diminished.

But perhaps this isn’t the way things should be. There is a government that bears quite a bit of responsibility for the invasion’s success in power, and it is directing the Israeli Defense Forces in a massive invasion of Gaza, determining that the extermination of Hamas officials must be accomplished, even at the expense of Gaza civilians. That means that over half of the residents of Gaza have left their homes (and most will never see any of their possessions again) and those that remain are under constant bombardment, including the sick and very sick who are hospitalized, women and children who won’t or can’t leave their homes, health and safety providers, and so forth. Whether or not such intensity is required for Israel to accomplish the destruction of Hamas (or if such destruction is even possible) is hard to say, especially from afar. But I can’t imagine that their aren’t other ways (and I haven’t even mentioned the 200+ hostages Hamas still presumably holds).

Where am I going with this? Maybe it is a mistake for center and left Israel to show solidarity with Netanyahu and his coalition even at this time. Maybe within Israel, even during the war, there should continue to be the protests against the government, even to the extent of calling for new elections. It would be complicated, to be sure, but I am not sure it would be a mistake.

(3) The Wednesday rally on the National Mall will be big. I have read that the organizers have estimated that there will be 60,000 people. My read, based on what I have seen and what I have heard, is that it could be at least twice that big. And the rally does not have any “sponsors”, so that there is no one who can tell any group (Jewish or otherwise) that they cannot participate. And, so we don’t know who will show up. Except we know the participants will represent a wide array of positions.

But I think everyone will support return of the hostages, and fighting against antisemitism, here and everywhere. Probably virtual all will agree on more military aid for Israel, or at least sufficient military assistance. But there will be great disagreements as to how this war is being fought and how it should be fought. There promises to be a broad array of speakers on all of these topics. I would hope that each of the speakers will say things that I am 100% in agreement with. Sadly, I know that will not be the case, and I would guess that there will be some speakers who will make me cringe. We will have to see.

(4) Again, my plan this morning, was to write about some different topics. Including the film “Joan Baez: I am a Noise”, which we saw last night. But it will have to wait. Gaza wins out. Gaza uber Alles.

(Let me preface this with exciting news. For the past 80 years or so, when I looked at a list of most popular baby names, I would never find the name “Arthur”. Alright, so I didn’t look that often, but I did look maybe 5 times over those 80 years, and the answers were always consistent. Very few Arthurs were being born.

But yesterday, I looked at two such lists (no, no news of that type, I promise), and found that on babynames.com, Arthur came in as number 33. I was overjoyed, as you would expect. And then I turned to thebump.com, and guess what? Arthur is number 26.

I welcome all these Arthurs to the world, and wonder how they will navigate the Art/Arthur/Artie/Arturo conundrum.)

Now, let us proceed.

Of course I am thinking about Gaza. Not only about the conditions Gazans find themselves in today, and questions that must be crashing through the brains of Hamas officials (if Hamas has officials), but the practical things, the post-war things. And I am also trying not to think emotionally, one way or the other, about these things. Just, as I said, practical matters.

As we know, the population of Gaza has been exploding, with I have read the average Gaza woman having 5 children (the average European woman now has, I believe, fewer than 2). It is now 2 million plus, with half of the 2,000,000 under the age of 18. As children continue to be born at this level, if they will be, the population of Gaza will soon be 3 million, 5 million, 8 million? The sky’s the limit as they say. (I have seen actual projections of 3 million by 2030 and close to 5 million by 2050.)

But the geography is also the limit. The District of Columbia (and the city of St. Louis, for that matter) is about 60 square miles. The entire size of the Gaza Strip is only about 120 square miles. That is just a little smaller than the size of the city of Philadelphia. The population of Philadelphia (a fairly crowded city) is about 1.5 million. Imagine if Philadelphia (within the city limits) had a population 50% larger today than it has, and it was going to grow at a Gaza rate. Want to find an American city whose boundaries are even more precisely aligned with the Gaza strip? Try Brownsville, Texas.

So, even assuming the war is going to enr assd, or that the war had never even occurred, how is Gaza (or Israel, or the Muslim world) going to cope with that many people on that amount of land?

OK, let’s move on a little further. I have read that about 1/2 of the residential dwelling units in the Gaza Strip have now been destroyed. And I would assume that there has been damage to some (or much) of the remainder. And we know that commercial buildings have been demolished, as have hospitals, other public buildings, and so forth. And of course, even before the war, Gaza couldn’t generate on its own sufficient power or electricity or clean water. Even if the war ends today, how will the population maintain itself with so much of its infrastructure destroyed? And how long will it take to restore it?

Of course, there have been wars before, and massive destruction before, and after peace, there has been restoration – usually taking a matter of years. But these have been larger countries, with more resources, and usually with external help. Who is going to help the Gazans?

And in the meantime, who is going to feed the Gazans?

And (I know – all of this is obvious), what about the Gazan economy? Offices have been destroyed, shops either have been ruined, or have no way to replenish their stock. Commuting to Israel for work is now off the table. We know some people will make a fortune on account of the needed reconstruction of the area, and needs of the people, but this will be a small number and probably not all Gazans. But, in such a small area, with imports limited, how will Gazans survive economically?

The fact is that Gaza cannot recover on its own – it is too small – its resources are too limited – its isolation too great – it is dependent on its neighbors. Its neighbors currently have exclusive control over access to Gaza, through two Israeli gates, and one that goes to Egypt. Gaza has no airport (it could, but it does not, thanks to a previous war with Israel) and has no operating port. Israel says its security requires that their be no independent port or airport (but now Israeli security seems sort of joke, too,right?).

When the war is over (I keep saying that), what will be the result? Will there be no Hamas, and no Hamas redux? (I really like the word “redux”) Will all the Gazans accept Israel as an appropriate neighbor? Will Israelis believe Gazans want to be their friends? Will they work together to build a strong Gaza next to a strong Israel, without fear or suspicion? Will Gazans be able to freely travel to and work in Israel, and will the beaches of Gaza become filled with Israeli (and other) tourists? And everyone live happily ever after?

I think you know the answers to these questions.

There is a summit of sorts going on right now in Saudi Arabia – Iran, Saudi Arabia, and I am sure others. I hope Egypt. What are they talking about? Are they talking about the destruction of Israel? Of Palestine from the river to the sea? Or are they talking about helping the Gazan people post-war, or allowing some to emigrate (to or through Sinai) during the war? Are they talking about health care for Gazans during the war? Are they talking about how to build a lasting peace with Israel? Or are they talking about opening another front – in the north, in the east?

I think you know the answers to these questions, too.

The Gazans are trapped. There is now no Gazan government. They are getting minimal support from outside. They are being attacked wherever they may be, or at least being threatened. Their jobs are gone. Their homes and businesses have been destroyed. Their minds have been poisoned by those who think that Israel (and perhaps Israel’s population) should be destroyed.

What do we need? Leadership. Where will we get it? _________

I want to say this tactfully. Normally, I wouldn’t talk about this, but I think it important.

We had dinner last night with the son of old friends who was here on a business trip from Houston. His parents were from India, but he was born here, and spent his first ten years in the DC area, when his family moved to Ohio. We last saw him 20 years ago at his wedding.

He is a physician , spent years at M. D. Anderson in Houston, and is currently the medical director of a Japanese based international pharmaceutical company. He travels internationally on a regular basis. He is about to turn 50, has a wife and two sons. He is a Jain, an ancient Indian religion. His wife grew up Hindu. He is very bright, very personable, and a very nice guy.

We sat at dinner for two hours (Masala Art in SW), and our conversation was far ranging – extended families, careers, and so forth. And then he changed the conversation. He said that he was doing this reluctantly, but he wanted to understand something. Why was there so much antisemitism? Not only today, but throughout history. Why were the Jews always attacked the way no other minority religions were attacked?

There are, of course, many ways to answer this question. I wanted to find the right way. I said something (I don’t remember what), and he responded. And then I said (to myself, this time), Whoa, I have to go way back and start at the beginning.

The reason is that he had none of the background that we take for granted. He doesn’t know the Bible (Hebrew or Christian) and to an extent that is understandable because he is of a totally different religion – but he has lived in this “Judeo-Christian/largely Christian” country for 50 years. He didn’t know that Rome ruled Judea or that the Temple was destroyed (he didn’t know there was a Temple). He didn’t know about the diaspora. He didn’t know Jews lived in Muslim countries. He didn’t have any idea about the Jewish situation in pre-20th century Europe (we didn’t discuss ghettos per se , but we did discuss various limitations on Jewish economic and social lives). He knew about the Holocaust – but probably not about its background. He didn’t know anything. (And by the way, his international travel has included at least one trip to Israel – he thought Tel Aviv a wonderful city.) He understands that the Israel/Gaza/Hamas/Palestinian situation is a mess – but certainly doesn’t understand any of the nuances.

When I finished my unrehearsed mini-lecture, he thanked me and told us it was very helpful. That he had never had this context to help him understand antisemitism.

Is his lack of knowledge exceptional? I don’t know – even if someone else had some, but not all, knowledge (like someone who grew up with the concept that the Jews killed Christ for example), would they still be as clueless as to the position of Jews, and the growth of antisemitism, today? Perhaps so.

My point? My point is that we often take too much for granted. We assume that those saying things (or doing things) that we find antisemitic are operating with basically the same factual knowledge that we have. And that is probably wrong. That does not mean, of course, that they want to sit down and hear a lecture on the history of the Jews, but it does mean that we can perhaps respond to them in ways different from those which we instinctively use.

I saw a TikTok (I think) reel the other day. There was a young man wearing a kippah and a suit, who may have been presiding over some sort of formal meeting/session at which others were able to make a statement. One such statement was made by a young (teen age? 20-something?) woman wearing a hijab, speaking perfect British English. She was criticizing the Israeli response in Gaza for targeting civilians (remember, this was a short reel; I don’t know what preceded what I saw) in a very strong way. She said that it was terrible that so many more Palestinians were being killed than Israelis.

The Jewish man responded (politely) with a question: In World War II, he said, the British killed more Germans than the Germans killed British – does this mean that the British shouldn’t have won the war, and the Germans were in the right? In her response, she tried to shift to different statistics and said “But the British didn’t kill German civilians”. Of course, we know that hundreds of thousands were killed by air attacks on Hamburg and Dresden alone. But this young woman obviously didn’t.

We just shouldn’t assume that those taking strong positions have the background that would support their positions. (And of course this may be true regarding ourselves and our positions, so we must be careful there, as well.)

That’s it for today. Just something to think about.

One other point. So Joe Manchin is giving up his Senate seat? Why would he do this? Probably because he knows he would lose. WV will elect a Republican senator in 2024, whether Manchin runs or not.

Will Manchin be the No Labels candidate? And, if so, who would he take votes from? The latest poll I saw showed that the avowed potential third party candidates would hurt Biden by 10 points, and hurt Trump by 7. Which way would Manchin influence these numbers? (At any rate, like virtually all current polls, it’s trending the wrong way.

Will Biden drop out? I think there is a good chance. Pundits and consultants and editorials are beginning to talk about it more. Maybe there are behind the scenes conversations among Democratic political leaders and funders? Lyndon Johnson didn’t announce he was not running for reelection until the end of March in election year 1968. There is still time.

I watched the Republican debate last night, minus the several candidates who didn’t make the cut, and minus the elephant in the room, Donald Trunk. Oops, I meant Trump, I was thinking about elephants.

Wait a minute – aren’t they all elephants?

I thought that the three NBC moderators did a good job – they asked meaningful questions, they tried their best to keep the answers within the allotted lengths of time, and they controlled responses when a candidate could respond to being targeted by one of the other candidates. Often the candidate was not permitted to respond – but when Ramaswammy meentioned Haley’s daughter, all bets were off. That’s when Haley called Ramaswammy “scum”.

I thought they could, though, have asked more pointed questions in a couple of ways. First, it was almost like Donald Trump didn’t exist. Yes, they did ask why each candidate felt himself more qualified than Trump to be president. But they didn’t ask what they thought about the aftermath of the 2020 election, or about the 91 felony indictments, or about some of the very controversial things Trump has said. And they didn’t ask anything about what has been going on in the House of Representatives or whether or not they supported some of the antics of the Republican crazies in the house, such as the Biden impeachment or even tying Israeli aid to cuts in IRS personnel.

They did ask about Israel and Hamas, and about the growth of antisemitism, though. That was the first set of questions – and here you got what appeared to be unanimity. The Republicans were all strongly pro-Israel – the U.S. should give them everything they ask for (and more, perhaps) and let them use it any way they want. The U.S. should only give advice to Israel when asked for it, not gratuitously. The responsibility of Israel and its prime minister (who the candidates wanted to appear close to – so several of them called him Bibi) is not only to secure Israel, but to wipe out Hamas. Wipe Them Out!!

And as to antisemitism in American universities? Cut off the funding of all universities that don’t cut off the activity of campus antisemites.

What about anti-Muslim activities? Meh. “Not interested”, seemed to be their response.

As to Ukraine, their responses were more nuanced – four of the five were in favor of more support for Ukraine, although the support for Ukraine was to be sending them war materiel that would be made in America and help our economy (no such conditions seemed to be put on Israel aid). Nikki Haley was probably the most pro-Ukraine. If we back down on Ukraine, she thought, not only would Russia be emboldened, but China and Iran would be as well. Ramaswamy, however, disagreed with his fellow Republicans and would pull out of Ukraine tomorrow, it seems. He thinks we have no national interest there – and that to look at it as Russia = bad guys, and Ukraine = good guys is just wrong. And then he went full Russian-like attack on Ukraine, its corruption, its lack of free speech and democracy and the fact that is run by a “Nazi”, a “clown in cargo pants” named Zelensky. Wow!

Of course, there was some Biden bashing. His environmental policies led to the increase in gas prices (wrong). The border should be closed so fentanyl won’t come in from Mexico (not coming in that way). Negotiating with Iran and releasing resources to them is a sign of weakness and appeasement (who cares about the four American hostages who were released?). And so forth.

On abortion, each of the Republican candidates considers themselves to be pro-life. But they are not all in agreement that abortion should be up to the states, although Christie and Haley are comfortable with that. Scott claims that he can, in week one, sign a something that will restrict abortions to situations where a pregnancy is under 15 weeks. Just like that. Don’t remember if Ramaswammy said anything on that one.

Every thing else is as expected. Our national debt is too big, we must build up our Navy, the border should be closed, entitlements must be amended (but not for current oldsters like me, and so forth. This part was pretty much as expected.

But Ramaswammy had more to say:

First, he thinks that Haley is just an old fashioned liar, while she thinks that Putin and Xi would love to see him become president. Second, Ramaswammy would like the Democrats to stop the charade that Joe Biden is going to be their presidential candidate. Biden isn’t even in charge of the presidency now, he says. He is just a puppet of the elite classes. Why don’t the Dems go straight with the people: “Just tell us who your candidate will be. Will it be Michele Obama? Or that guy from California?”

Finally, we learned the Christie hates Tiktok. It gives China all the info it wants about us, it spreads antisemitism, it corrupts minors. He is probably right. And it’s addictive (even I know that).

What did we learn? Scott is outclassed, Ramaswammy is a nutcase, DeSantis is a non-personality (I didn’t even mention him yet, did I?). Christie is a viable candidate in another era. Haley is probably the most likely of the bunch to be able to do the job – although how relevant will any of this be?

What a whacko Ramaswammy is. Really.

But we know, don’t we, that Donald will be the candidate, campaigning either from Mar-a-Lago, or from jail. Lawrence O’Donnell said it best on the MSNBC after-debate panel: These guys are just hanging around in case Trump chokes on a cheeseburger.

Amen.

I really like watching election results. Generally, I go back and forth between Steve Kornacki on MSNBC and John King on CNN, each operating their magic boards, with the latest state by state, county by county, district by district, precinct by precinct results. I like listening to their analysis – when one candidate looks to be heading for an easy victory, until they say something like “But we haven’t heard from the city of _____, where we expect a big margin for _________”.

Alas, this year I couldn’t do that because of a problem we are having with the cable box in our family room. We are unable to pick up any of the cable channels, so I had to walk back and forth from the family room (where we were doing some other things) and my office (where the cable is fine) to try to keep up to speed.

By and large, the results were positive for the good guys. I think it does show how important female reproductive health is and will continue to be. In Ohio, for example, the right to abortion will now be a constitutional right (as I understand it, abortion will be permissible up to 23 weeks, and then – if the legislature wants to – later abortions can be banned, but not if the woman’s physician declares that the continuation of the pregnancy would be harmful to her life or health – something like that), but 1,675,728 Ohioans voted against this provision – that was 43.4% of those voting, and they were voting in a state where the Republicans (who control all aspects of state government) were toying with a 6 week ban.

There was also, on the Ohio ballot, a provision to legalize marijuana. This also passed. Interestingly, 2,186,962 voted for the constitutionality of abortion, and 2, 183,734 for the legalization of marijuana. You have to wonder if these were all the same people. In any event, a “red” state voted “blue” on these policy issues. Whether it is meaningful beyond these two issues – that’s another question. There was no Trump on this election, and no Biden. Could it be that the existence of these two controversial politician distorts what would otherwise be very different voting patterns? I don’t know.

There were two other “red” states where there were governor races. In Kentucky, Democratic Governor Beshear won a second term. I find him an impressive fellow (I watched his victory speech last night), and clearly even the red blue-grass state can vote blue on an ad hominum basis. In Mississippi, on the other hand, there was some hope that the Democratic contender could upset the Republican incumbent. No such luck there.

Virginia is the other state of interest – where the State Senate remained under Democratic control, and the State General Assembly flipped out of Republican control into Democratic control. The state Republicans had hoped, and maybe expected, that both houses would wind up Republican and Governor Youngkin, who has had some success in his first two years and who may have presidential ambitions, was hoping that a friendly legislature would help his program, which includes a 15 week abortion ban, would go forward. No such luck.

Not that the Democratic victory in Virginia was overwhelming. It looks like there will only be a one seat majority in each house. I decided to do a little calculating. I took the 40 member State Senate, where there will be 21 Democrats and (it appears) 19 Republicans. I looked at the results in each of the 40 districts – some were very close, and some where won by up to 80-20 differences. I counted the overall state vote and (if my numbers were correct), I came up with 1,196,000 Democratic votes and 1,167,000 Republican votes. Boy, that’s close, and mirrors the 21-19 party split. But there were three Senate districts where the Democrats didn’t run a candidate – so the vote there was all Republican. Had the Democrats run a candidate, the Democratic vote would have been somewhat higher – based on contested very red districts, maybe a total of 30,000 Democratic votes would be added to the list. All I was doing was seeing if I could foretell the likely winner of the 2024 Presidential vote in this purple state. Not surprisingly, I can’t.

OK, let’s switch to Saddam Hussein and Israel. I just finished reading a book called Saddam’s Secrets, by Major General Georges Sada of the Iraqi Army. Sada was a high ranking officer in the Iraqi army, and someone who was often in close contact with Saddam, but also an outsider, because he is an Assyrian Christian, not a Muslim, and not a Baath Party member. He has been a very dedicated patriot of his country, a talented pilot trained both in the USSR and the United States, and he wrote a scathing book about Saddam, published in 2006. I have no reason to doubt that he is speaking honestly – he is well respected and the books highly regarded.

His career is very interesting, and his telling of Saddam’s upbringing and reign is frightening, but one thing he said, I had not heard before (obviously, it isn’t a secret today, since the book has been out over 15 years). He said that when Iraq entered Kuwait (which Sada said had basically to do with oil resources, shipping networks, and supply and pricing), Saddam did not expect the United States or the rest of the west (which Saddam thought weak) to do anything about it. When it became clear that George H.W. Bush was putting together a coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait, that Saddam decided that if the West attacked, he was going to respond by having an all-out attack on Israel. He wasn’t even going to tell Jordan that he was about to use their airspace to fly over (illegal to do without permission); he was just going to do it. And he got his military to prepare for the invasion, until he was talked out of it by Sada and others.

One more thing, I didn’t know. And one more thing that puts an emphasis on the fragility of Israel’s security. There was a lot of interest in this book and the proposed attack on Israel only takes up about two pages, but it certainly is memorable. Does anyone else remember hearing about this over the past 30 years?

On Sunday, I wrote about the first half of my trip to the Soviet Union 50 years ago. Today, I complete that journey. If you didn’t read Sunday’s post, you may want to start there.

We took an overnight train to Moscow. I don’t remember much about it. It was, of course, dark the entire trip, so I didn’t get to see anything and I remember regretting that. But I don’t remember if we sat up in our seats all night, or if we were able to lie down or lie back. I don’t remember the food on the train. I remember nothing.

I do recall that one of the men on the trip had in the past worked for Sol Hurok. Remember him? He was a promoter of entertainment shows and one of the first to bring Soviet performers to the United States. And my companion had been to Moscow several times before (but never to Leningrad). I remember he was met at the station by a woman with whom he had worked when he was a Hurok representative, who first greeted him warmly and the began balling him out – for not having a hat on. I don’t know if any of us Americans had hats on, but as I looked around from then on, I don’t think that I had seen any Russian men on the streets with a bare head.

I do have a lot of memories about Soviet Moscow. Let me just list some of them.

1. It was very cold out, but the streets were still filled with pedestrians, and all of them seemed well dressed for the winter. Heavy and attractive coats, both cloth and fur, scarves, and of course fur hats. The men’s hats were the round ones, with chin straps on the bottom. If you expected to see poor, struggling people in rag-tag outfits, you’d be disappointed. Every one looked OK.
2. Even though it was cold, there were a lot of food vendors on the streets. Vareniki and blini, to be sure, but more surprisingly, ice cream, and people in their winter outfits walking around eating ice cream.
3. There was plenty of this type of street food, but the restaurants, including the hotel restaurant, were very limited in what they had to serve, and the food lacked taste as well. On the other hand, there were various ethnic restaurants that catered to tourists only, and they had more than enough food. I remember we went to a Georgian restaurant as a group – the food and liquor were plentiful, and everyone who worked there wanted you to have a really good time.
4. When you went into a restaurant on a theater, etc., you had to take off your winter outerwear and check it in the cloak room. This wasn’t an option – it was a requirement. All the buildings in winter Moscow and Leningrad were steam heated, and if it was too cold outside, it was always much too hot inside, so it was fine to get rid of your hat and coat. But, it sure slowed things down. After the performance, or meal, you had to stand in very long lines to retrieve your coats and hats. There was no tipping of course, and the cloak room workers were always older, perhaps pensioners.
5. Clearly, everyone had a job. That included the older (and generally heavy) women who swept each street clean before the crack of dawn. Of course, the crack of dawn was about 9 a.m.
6. We went to a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet. The building was quite elegant. I wish a remember what we saw, but I don’t. I know it was a classic ballet, but I don’t know which one.
7. We also went to the Moscow Circus. This surprised me for three reasons. First, because it was a one-ring circus, and the venue was completely round. Secondly, because there really were dancing bears. Third, because there was a lengthy clown skit in the middle (between the animal and acrobatic acts), where the setting was a remote village with happy villagers, and a clergyman entered the village to try to convince the villagers to attend church. This led to a massive display of anti-religious feelings among the villagers, who chased the priest out of town. I was amazed, because it was so blatant, and so upside down from what you would see the America.
8. Red Square at night, with St. Basil’s multi-onion domed cathedral was beautiful with a light snow cover. Lenin’s tomb on the right as you looked at the cathedral and the big department store (GUM) on the left. Behind you, at the other end of Red Square was/is an attractive red brick building that housed the historical museum of the USSR. It featured much about Lenin’s life, and it had an exhibit of pre-Communist Russia, which made fun of – among other things – early 20th century advertisements (from newspapers and magazines) which were said to show the corruption of capitalism; again, topsy turvy.
9. It was in Red Square that I met Edward Okepnik (I do remember his name; I think I do). Edward was a Jewish medical student. This was the time when being outwardly Jewish in the Soviet Union was dangerous, if you were at all associated with the Refuseniks, or with pro-Zionist feelings. None of this seemed to bother Edward – he introduced himself to me (and my dentist friend and her daughter) at night in Red Square by marking in the snow a Jewish star and the words, in Hebrew letters, “am Yisroel chai”, which he quickly rubbed out. He then offered to be my guide the next day, and I accepted.
10. Edward told me that one day the Jews would be allowed to leave and that, somehow, his sister had already left and was a nurse in Los Angeles. He told me about Jewish life in Moscow, and then did some (to me) really stupid things, but they all worked out fine. I had told him that, at home, I thought I could generally tell who was Jewish and who wasn’t, but that in Moscow, I had no clue. He told me he could tell, and he started pointing out people, and going up to them and asking them if they were Jewish. I didn’t know what to think, but he was always right. Everyone said “da”. When we went into a restaurant to get some lunch, Edward even asked the Jewish maitre d’.
11. Edward also took me to the offices of Yiddish Homeland – the official Soviet Jewish publication, although I told him that didn’t seem wise. We went to the office of the editor and he told the editor’s secretary that he was with a guest from the United States who reads each edition of this magazine (I think it was published in Russian and in English for export) cover to cover and thought it a remarkable publication. I was sure we would be thrown in jail, but no, we had a short, but civil, meeting with an elderly man, who presumably ran the place. I also remember Edward pointing out to me a 5 or 6 story building in Dzerzhinsky Square and telling me that if I went to the top floor, I would see Siberia. I looked at him puzzled and he told me that was because it was the home of the KGB. A little Soviet humor. What has happened to Edward since, I don’t know.
12. I remember visiting the Tretyakov Gallery, which I liked more than the Hermitage. I have always liked 19th century Russian realistic art, and this gallery was filled with it. And of course, we visited the limited parts of the Kremlin that were open to tourists. I also remember the parks, which were filled with winter activities, including outside swimming pools, again heated by steam heat, so that smoke arose from them – not only was the water apparently warm enough to swim in, but the pool decks too were warmed by teh steam heat coming up from the vents in the ground.
13. I remember going into a small grocery to buy some souvenirs – I bought a tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, a box of toothpicks – that may be it. I was adding up the cost as I went along, and I thought the clerk had overcharged me and asked her if her addition was correct. Sure, she told me, and pulled out her abacus from below the counter, did some very fast tricks with the strings and beads, and said “See”? I said I saw. Who knows?
14. I also went into a bakery. That was a big surprise. It looked just like a Jewish bakery here. The same rye and pumpernickel breads, the same strudels and other pastries. I thought I was home. You didn’t see a bakery like this anywhere else in Europe.
15. And speaking of Europe, I had expected my trip to the USSR to be a trip to Europe. But no, it wasn’t. Leningrad is sui generis – nothing like any other place – certainly not like your typical European city; it’s too new and too majestic. And Moscow? Not Europe either. Certainly not America. A third world – a type of place I had not been to before. Lacking European charm, and featuring a heaviness and feeling of power that reminded me then, for some reason, more of Chicago than of London or Vienna.
16. Finally, the plane ride back. We took off from the Moscow airport on Pan American once again. We were served dinner. After ten or twelve days of Soviet food, I must say that this was the tastiest dinner I have ever had.

For some time, as you may know, I have been hoping that Biden bows out of the 2024 presidential race in favor of a younger candidate. I still have that hope, and perhaps the recent showing of his general current unpopularity will push him in that direction. According to this morning’s New York Times, a recent NYT/Siena College poll shows him trailing Donald Trump among likely voters in 5 of the 6 battleground states.

Many of us find this hard to believe since Donald Trump is Donald Trump and nobody in their right mind could possibly vote for him, but there you have it. They say they will.

There are those who say that the election is a year away and that presidents in general at this time during their terms are unpopular. They cite Barack Obama, who apparently had similar popularity ratings to Biden’s at this point in his first term. But it’s hard to rely on that, especially since certain groups necessary for a Democratic win (at least in the battleground states) are falling short – Blacks, Hispanics, young voters and so forth.

When asked why they are not going to vote for Biden, many cite his age and supposed mental decline. I don’t sense a mental decline, but you can’t deny his age. As I have often said, he is a week older than I am, and there is no way that I think I would be able to function as president for the next 5 years.

They also cite the economy, which is a mystery, to be sure, considering the numbers, which – as they say – do not lie. But many people say that they are in worse shape now than when Biden came into office. This, I assume, is the result of inflation, which influences their thinking more than the job and wage growth, the low unemployment, the rise in manufacturing and the other things we have been seeing. And, the fact that inflation is now down to a 3.5% or so level doesn’t change the perception. After all, the price base is now higher (and won’t be declining materially), and there are still surges in specific sectors, like some grocery products. Put this together with the always visible gas prices and with the high interest rates that the Fed has created in its fight against inflation, as well as the continual Republican talking points, and you can see how some people can be fooled all of the time.

I have also often said that the one thing that Trump has said that I tend to agree with is that the “American people are stupid”. This is not, however, to be taken as an assertion that Americans are more stupid than other peoples. No, not at all. They just are not any smarter.

There are many reasons Trump should never again be president. First, his record as president over his four year term. Second, his being indicted on 91 felony accounts, and the legal attacks on his businesses. But the Republicans will nominate him, and even though he is 78, he does give the impression of being able to go on for a long time.

That brings me to the late Madeleine Albright, someone who always impressed me in her various high level public positions (UN Representative, Secretary of State). I just finished reading her lasts book Fascism: a Warning, published in 2018, two years into the Trump presidency. I’d give this book at A, and suggest you look at it. It is not a difficult read.

Albright acknowledges that the word “fascism” is not always defined in the same way. She defines it basically as being a system of government led by a strong man, who brooks no opposition, is willing to use violence when he feels appropriate, who has disregard for existing governmental institutions, and who relies on nationalist feelings and demeaning of outsiders. And, to be a successful strong man, you need one other characteristic. You need charisma, or at least sufficient charisma to attract wide spread support.

While Albright has chapters devoted to 20th century fascists, such as Mussolini, Hitler and Franco, she also has chapters dealing with those who have come to power in the 21st century. She talks of Putin, and Erdogan, and Orban, and Kaczynski. She talks of Chavez and Madura. She even identifies the three generation leadership of North Korea (Communist though it is) as fascist. (For some reason, she does not discuss China at all, nor any Arab or Iranian leaders in the Middle East – only so much space, I guess).

And, yes, she talk about Donald Trump.

None of these fascist or semi-fascist leaders are clones of each other, but clearly and publicly none of them are sui generis, and all show where they have been influenced by others of the same strain. Even Trump, of course, seems to glorify strong fascistic leaders, whether it be Putin or the Kims or Erdogan or Orban.

Showing how Trump fits into her definition of a fascist (or as he was called by New School Professor Finchelstein in the recent JBS panel show, a fascist-wannabe), she shows how the American public can be attracted to him, to his confidence, to his supposed nationalism, to his strong man persona, just as Germans were attracted to Hitler, Italians to Mussolini, Turks to Erdogan and Hungarians to Orban. And how, in each case, even if the first years seem encouraging to their supporters, things inevitably turn out bad.

Will the United States re-elect a fascist-wannabe over an serious minded, but perceived mentally declining, 82 year old? I would like to think we would never have the chance to find out.

You know, there isn’t any index on this blog. So, in my 350 or so posts to date, I really don’t know what I have said and what I have left unsaid. When I started, I assumed that I would concentrate mostly on events from my past. But it hasn’t turned out that way, has it? The present has stolen the thunder from the past and most of what I have been writing has been material which could come from an amateur op-ed writer. In fact, I guess that is what I have become for better or for worse.

Today, for some reason, though, I thought about my first trip to Russia in the early 1970s. Maybe I have written about it here before? I don’t recall, but if I did and you are alert enough to remember, you can fact check me against myself and tell me how I did.

I was a young lawyer in my first year or two at my first law firm – that means that this must have been 1972 or 1973 or so. The firm was small then, so I knew everyone who wandered the hall (note: the hall, not the halls), including the fellow who sold us our insurance policies. We were chatting and he told me that he had just come from another of his clients, a travel agency that specialized in trips behind the Iron Curtain (such trips being then a big deal), and that they had a trip going to Leningrad and Moscow in ten days, and they were holding a “fire sale” because it was far from filled. It was being sponsored, he said, by the Georgetown University Alumni, but that wasn’t important and that they were offering the ten day (?) trip for $250 all included. My phone tells me that $250 in 1972 is about $1800 today – but I will tell you that $250 in 1972 sounded like a bargain basement price for a trip to the Soviet Union. All I needed to do, he said, was to get the agency my money, and get myself a visa. But I was told that Soviet visas usually took about six weeks, so it would probably be impossible.
I decided to give it a try. I don’t remember the details, but I remember I had to contact an expediter, and lo and behold, two days or so before the trip was to start, I had in hand a very fancy visa for the Soviet Union.

I was very excited. I had studied Russian in college and knew quite a bit about the country, but had never been there. I didn’t know what to expect from my tour. All I knew is that I better pack for cold weather – I didn’t say this above, but it was January.

As our group got on the Pan American plane at Dulles, one thing was clear: no one seemed to have gone to Georgetown. So, my fear of being an outsider faded away. I sat on the plane next to a young (as I recall – maybe my age, maybe a bit older) African American woman who was a recent graduate of the Howard University Dental School, and who came across this trip much as I did at the last minute, and decided to take it with her very cute 7 year old daughter.

We flew to Leningrad. Leningrad looked cold and gray, the airport and the first area we bused through looked quite unpleasant, with tall Soviet-style (surprise?) apartment blocks. But then – all of a sudden – we were in a fairly land. Still cold and gray, but beautiful buildings, water everywhere you turned. Magical.

We stayed a big tourist hotel – the Moskva. On each floor, there was a concierge lady who sat at a desk near the elevators. Like a house mother, I guess, she knew who came in and who went out. We had been warned in advance that hotel rooms were all bugged, and that we should be careful what we said inside them. This lady added to our paranoia.

On the one hand. On the other, she made you feel secure, because she had everything under control. Until one night, she didn’t and I had someone banging on my door, yelling and yelling at me in Russian that I couldn’t understand at all. I assume it was someone drunk and at the wrong room (or maybe in the wrong hotel), but it was frightening, and it made me realize that our lady was more for show than for action.

I also saw that everyone couldn’t come into our hotel. You had to be a foreigner or have special permission. There was one group of Russians who did seem to have special permission. They were a group of very attractive young women who were allowed in and allowed to hang around the bar. It became clear to us that they were there to hang around with us, and that our hanging around would them would be a first class mistake. So they were ignored.

Because it was winter and cold in Leningrad, it wasn’t ideal touring weather. In addition, because Leningrad is pretty far north, the sun came up about 10 a.m., and it began to get dark by about 3 p.m. A short day, to be sure, and even during the day, there was a heavy cloud cover while we were there.
On the first morning, I got up early, and decided to take a walk. Seemed safe enough. I really didn’t know where to go, and I decided to stick near the water. Not one of the canals of the city, but the Neva, the river, and I wandered into an area that was filled with small buildings, seeming more like warehouses or workshops or something. It was dark, there were no people, I was a bit concerned that I was being stupid, but it was all so interesting. It was very cold, the ground was snow covered. I felt like I was in Russia.

Then all of a sudden I heard people talking and laughing. I got concerned. Who were they? What would they do if they saw me? It sounded like a large group of people.

All of a sudden I saw them. They ran in front of me, from my left to my right. They paid to attention to me. Had other things on their minds. They were all dressed in bathing suits, men and women, all ages, all running, many laughing. Then, all was quiet again.

This was the last sight I expected to see that morning. I decided to try to see where they ran to. I left the road I was on (all small roads) and found that they had run up a road that led, on the next block, to a small wooden building with a simple sign that said: “Winter Swimming Club”. Welcome to Russia.

Interestingly, I remember little about what we saw in Leningrad. I remember we went to the Hermitage, but little about the art. The Hermitage is in what had been the tsarist Winter Palace, and there is a lot of history on that spot, and I found that interesting. I remember seeing the statue of Peter the Great as the sun set mid-afternoon. I remember walking on the Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping street of Leningrad, going into a beautiful building that had been (and now again is) the Kazan Cathedral, which had been repurposed as a Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism. It was a fancy museum and, albeit in derogatory terms, taught about religion in the pre-Bolshevik country. And I remember the part of the museum that dealt with Judaism. The Judaism exhibit, itself interesting with a lot of exhibits, was not called an exhibit of the Jewish religion, but rather (and unlike anything else in the building) an exhibit of the Cult of Judaism.

Nearby on Nevsky Prospekt, I went into a very large (no, a very, very, very large) bookstore (it too is still there), and I was surprised at the variety and the amount of available reading material. I did my part – bought a few small books showing the progress of Communist Russia and a Victory Calendar and of course a print of Lenin – and went on my way.

My other memory of Leningrad is visiting Vasilevsky Island, of course. But what struck me on this trip was not the high steepled church or the other famous landmark buildings, but the inside of the Museum of Anthropology (I think that’s what it is called) and the preserved woolly mammoths, which are still there on display.

What I don’t remember is the food – that’s because it was so bad. Meat you couldn’t chew, the only vegetables being cabbage and potatoes. Good tea. Pepsi Cola. Paper napkins at each restaurant torn in quarters – you only got one quarter. Maybe that’s all you needed.

And I only remember one restaurant visit. There was a single woman on the trip, about my age, who also could speak pigeon Russian, and she and I (her name was Joan) went off on our own several times, leaving the group and missing out on some of the official tours. We did that one day for lunch in Leningrad and stepped into a restaurant on one of the canals. As in most European restaurants in those days, if there were two of you, and there was a table for four with two others sitting at the table, you would be seated there, as well. No privacy of tables in the Soviet Union.

So we were shown to a table that had a woman in her 30s or so, and her young son – maybe he was 9 or 10. After a while, we started talking, and the woman became nervous, rather than excited, when she learned that we were American and not from England, which she had first assumed. Why became clear when her son said “My father is in America!” Thinking he was joking, I asked what he was doing there. He then told us that he was in a submarine going up and down the American coast!! With that, and with no words, his mother grabbed the boy, and they were out of that restaurant as quick as can be.

After four days or so in Leningrad, we got on an overnight train to Moscow.

To be continued.

I am preparing a presentation about Christopher Columbus, which I need to complete by the end of the month. Yesterday, I was reading about his death, which happened in the city of Valladolid. I am happy that he died in Valladolid, because I always thought it a weird name for a Spanish city (still do) and I never really knew how to pronounce it. I guess I never cared enough, but now I know that it is pronounced Vei-ya-do-LEED. Once you know, it seems obvious.

He was only 54. Did a lot in a few years. Also wrote a lot, as you probably know. If he were alive today, he might have a blog “Chrisis54.blog”. Possible.

Speaking of Spain, do you know that 500,000 people were killed in the Spanish Civil War? Quite a large number, right? But remember that over 600,000 were killed during our Civil War, and about 700,000 died in the Battle of Stalingrad (USSR v Nazi Germany in WWII) alone. And of course, close to 100,000,000 in World War II (yes, you read that right).

In fact, if you go to the wonderfully titled Wikipedia article “List of Anthropogenic Disasters by Death Toll” (and by the way, my computer does not recognize “anthropogenic’ as a word), you will find listed 116 wars in which more than 100,000 people were killed. You can break this down and find that in over 20 of these wars, more than 100,000 civilians were killed. You will also find that over 170,000,000 people have been killed by major outbreaks of disease or famines that humans have caused or failed to stop when they could have. And you will find a listing of over 4,000,000 people in China alone who have died by human caused floods.

Gee, Art, you say. You must be in a good mood this morning.

Well, I go through this listing for a number of reasons. First, to imagine the large scale horrors that human beings have brought on each other throughout recorded history. Second, to put today’s tragedies into perspective. For every death we see today is no more tragic than each of the deaths, say, in Chinese floods or Russian famines, or Spanish Civil Wars, or European wars of aggression. Each of these deaths is an equal tragedy – whoever they are, wherever they lived, whenever they were killed. And of course, I am talking about deaths here; I am not talking about injuries, or dislocations, or property destruction, or anything else. We could repeat these numbers in other categories (if we had the data, which we might) and see the numbers grow so much higher. For example, the United Nations estimates that there are over 115,000,000 today worldwide, who have been displaced by war.

Yes, war is an awful thing. And every war is started by human beings, and carried on by human beings. This includes, of course, the war today in Gaza.

Will there ever be a time with no wars being fought? My guess is that that time will never come. But there will always be striving for such a time. Remember, in Vietnam, where you had to destroy a village in order to save it? Remember World War I, the war to end all wars? And I am sure there were other wars where such sentiments have been expressed. Even today, Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the Gaza war is to ensure that an invasion such as occurred on October 7 will never occur again. And that the way to do this is to obliterate Hamas, whatever the cost.

Well, guess what, Prime Minister Netanyahu. You may win this war, but your ultimate goal will not be met. Hamas will sprout up again, maybe as Hamas, maybe under a different name, and will continue to threaten Israel as long as Israel exists. And to ensure its continued existence, Israel will be required to respond, and each response will polarize the world – for or against the Israelis, and for or against the Jews. And each time Israel has to defend itself, it will in effect lose each war that it wins.

And of course Israel, by ever increasing West Bank settlement for the most part, simply attracts more of these wars. If Israel wants the land to be Jewish “from the river to the sea”, it invites the Arabs to want the land to be Muslim “from the river to the sea”. The only way to stop this from continuing recurrence is to set boundaries for Israel and say “no further” – and that of course may mean telling some settlers to leave the land they have settled, or to tell them (per some sort of agreement) that they can stay, but that they will be governed by Palestinians, not by Israelis.

We have seen, more and more over the years, how impossible this is. So what is to be done?

Years ago (decades ago), we went to a lecture given by the late George Washington University professor Howard Sachar, a scholar of modern Jewish history. The subject was, of course, the Palestinian-Israeli problem. He boldly declared that the two populations were unable to solved the problem on their own, and that they would never be, and that there would be a never ending cycle of violence, time and time again.

He said, and I really disagreed with him at the time, although now I think he was probably 100% right, that the solution would have to be designed by parties other than the two parties to the dispute. That the United States, Europe, the Muslim middle east – all would have to work together to come up with a solution to the problem and then would have to inform the parties : This is the solution and this is what each of you have to do. Full stop.

Now, can this be done? Probably not. But maybe. And it is time to give it a try. Let’s have conversations regarding solutions, leaving Israel and the Palestinians outside of those talks. Maybe we can actually get somewhere.

Yesterday – Thursday, November 2

(1) So I’m driving home from deepest Fairfax County. I come east on Highway 50 (Arlington Road) and decide to go north on the George Washington Parkway and come over Route 120 to Chain Bridge. But I forget that I had read that part of the GW Parkway was under reconstruction. Innocently, I start to drive north-ish, toward 120. It’s rush hour, the traffic is fairly heavy, but moving. All of a sudden, I see some equipment, and then I see a sign that says “divided road ahead”, and I have to make a choice. It seems I can take the left lane or the right lane – the left lane being normally coming south, but I assume changed at rush hour to accommodate traffic heading for McLean. I take the left lane (I am already in that lane) and am separated from the other lane going north by a barrier – in fact the three open lanes on the Parkway are each separated from each other.

I continue, moving at a respectable Parkway speed of about 40 mph sufficiently behind the car in front of me. Slowly, I begin to realize something. I realize I am stuck in this lane – how will I get off. My plan, of course, is to get off the Parkway and cross Chain Bridge into the District. But how am I going to get there? I can’t cross into the other lane; I see no way out. I think of Sartre (as I often do): No Exit.

And then I see it. The exit to Route 120. But I can’t get there. I know what that means – I have to go all the way to the end of the Parkway, at the Beltway. The Beltway at rush hour.

Let me end it this way. I was driving home from the Virginia Jewish Community Center. When I had driven to the JCC from home about two or three hours earlier, the trip took 32 minutes. My return trip took one hour and 35 minutes. I drove an extra 14 miles.

Was I supposed to know not to get into the left lane? Did I miss a sign? I really don’t think so.

(2) Why was I at the Virginia JCC? In my role with the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee of Greater Washington, I was meeting with a funeral director from Texas who is thinking of opening (actually more than thinking – he seems intent on opening) a funeral parlor in Northern Virginia serving the Jewish community. I liked him, and it appears that he has two very nice funeral homes in Dallas and Houston. I think he would be a fine addition to the local community here.

Now, there are five funeral homes in the DC area serving the approximately 300,000 Jews in the area. Two of these funeral homes are in Virginia (both, it happens, in Alexandria), two in Maryland (one in Silver Spring and one in Rockville), and one in the District of Columbia.

So let’s say a sixth funeral home serving the Jewish community is opened. Who will be its customers? Its customers will be families who would otherwise use one of the five existing funeral homes. If it has any degree of. success, it will hurt the financial stability of one or more of the others (each of which provides very good service). There won’t be any other customers – in other words, more people aren’t going to die just because there’s another funeral home.

I know I don’t have a vote – but should I be for it? Or against it?

(3) The presenter this morning at my breakfast group was a retired physician – very well respected, very bright, very well spoken. His topic was the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade, 18 months later. And he presented a dire picture, bemoaning the poor women living in the “pro-life” states, wondering why legislators are allowed to practice medicine without a license, and bemoaning the impossible positions that so many doctors now find themselves in, or potentially in.

He talked about the doctors leaving the conservative states, the students choosing their medical schools and internships elsewhere, and the hospitals which are finding it hard to hire. Then he added something that I hadn’t thought of. He said that he had been talking to someone at M.D. Anderson in Houston, who told him that oncologists in Texas were afraid to treat women of child bearing age who have cancer. The fear is that they might get pregnant during their treatment, and they might be in a condition where having a child would be dangerous to their health, or perhaps their condition would threaten the viability of the fetus.

This was a brand new thought for me. But, by coincidence, next week Edie and I are having supper with an oncologist from Anderson. He is coming to town for an NIH conference, and staying in Bethesda. The last time we saw him was at his wedding. Probably over 20 years ago. He is the son of people we know. Now, we will have something to talk to him about.

(4) Last night, we attended a benefit concert sponsored by the Jewish Federation, and several synagogues (including ours), to raise funds for Israel relief. The concert was promoted as having 15 local cantors, and one local Jewish choir. But – in fact – there were only 14 cantors. False advertising it was. And – what was interesting – is that 10 of the 14 cantors were women. Maybe that’s the way it is generally now in the non-Orthodox world? Beautiful voices – every one of them.

Some of you know that on Thursday mornings, I meet (sometimes in person and sometimes on Zoom) with about 30 old Jewish men (also known as friends), one of whom gives a 40 minute or so presentation on a subject of their choice, followed by a question, answer and comment period. A number of people ask me: So what kind of things do you talk about?

I thought today would be a good day to answer that question. Why? Because I can do it without thinking, and some days you just don’t want to have to think.

So, I will open my Daily Planner, and see how many of these I remember. I don’t take notes, so sometimes my memory fails. But for most, after the session, either a textual copy or a Power Point presentation is shared, so I can always go back and look at what was said.

Of course, I am not at every session – conflicts, vacations, etc. But here is a list of those which I attended in 2023.

Here goes.

1. Martin Luther and the Jews.
2. Ranked Choice Voting
3. Perfection/Imperfection
4. Felix Frankfurter
5. Stuyvesant Town
6. Mushrooms
7. Trip to Ukraine
8. Evil
9. Chicago
10. Israel and its Supreme Court
11. Joseph Heinrich
12. Do plants feel?
13. Joseph McCarthy and the Planned City of Greenbelt
14. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean
15. J.P. Morgan
16. Artificial Intelligence
17. “The Angel of Death”
18. The Jewish Music of Leonard Bernstein
19. Saul Alinsky
20. Ethical Wills
21. Jewish Humor
22. National Service
23. Jewish Farmers
24. Holocaust Reparations
25. Generation Z
26. The Capital Jewish Museum (field trip)
27. The 1973 War
28. The Dobbs Decision and the Downfall of Roe v Wade.

Now you have it. Want info on any of these? Let me know, and if there is Power Point that I have, and if the speaker says “sure”, I am happy to share it. But only if.

To start with a diversion: how can it already be November? 26 more days, and Art will no longer be 80.

Last night, once again, we turned on Jewish Broadcasting Service and watched another panel discussion. This time, the subject was fascism, and the panel members were Professors Ruth Ben-Ghiat of New York University, Helmut Walser Smith of Vanderbilt, and Federico Finchelstein of the New School of Social Research, each professors of history specializing in fascist regimes. Ben-Ghiat is a specialist in Italian fascism, although her fairly recent book Strong Men is more broad. Smith is a specialist in German fascism, and Finchelstein, originally from Argentina, specializes in Latin American fascism.

Where to start……

The general questions under discussion were, first, the proper definition of fascism, and second – are we moving in that direction today?

One of the panelists said that fascism has four elements – Violence, Racism, Lies, and Dictatorship. Violence not the way other governments look at violence – a means to an end – but violence for the sake of violence itself, showing strength, machismo, and solidarity. Racism, because you need someone to hate in order to bring everyone else together. Lies – not the kind of lies that most politicians tell – but big lies, lies that can change history. And lies that the fascist politicians actually believe to be the truth, or would become the truth under a fascist regime. Dictatorship – the ultimate, and the only way to move history forward and for an indefinite period of time. He stated that these four elements must come together to create a fascist government.

And how does a country become fascist? There can some sort of a coup (military or otherwise), or there can simply be an election. Some fascists may pose as populists, representatives and defenders of the people, and use populism to gain power through a democratic election. But once elected, their true colors show.

European fascism developed after the First World War. The war had torn society apart, turned everything upside down. New countries, new ideas of ethnic or national separatism replacing large, multi-ethnic empires, men returned from the war used to violence, trained in weaponry, uncertainty how to move forward, looking for a new beginning, ready to create a new society from chaos, a society which would avoid more chaos.

Mussolini was the first – and he did something that was totally foreign to prewar European thinking. Mussolini was originally, and for a while remained, a socialist. And Italy was filled with socialists. But socialism was a universalist, cosmopolitan ideology, out of sync with the emphasis on ethnicity which was one of the main points of Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points. So, Mussolini took socialism and combined it with Wilsonian nationalism, a first. And Italian socialists, in the new post-war world, abandoned universalism and swung over to Mussolini and Italian socialism, which morphed into fascism. Hitler, who came to power later than Mussolini, wasn’t an old style socialist. Yet, following Mussolini, he called his movement National Socialism (Nazi), demonstrating the combination born in Italy. Take one national group, and make it one for all and all for one. Certainly, the “socialism” part never resembled traditional European socialism, just as the “national” part was limited to status at birth, never to a cosmopolitan nationalism.

Each of the panelists thought that the Trump phenomenon was reminiscent of the early twentieth century fascists. But they thought similarly about Netanyahu and a number of other current world leaders, including Berlusconi in Italy, Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil.

It is easy to place Trump into the mainstream of fascism, using the four elements described above. But one of the panelists said that Trump wasn’t really a fascist – yet – but that he was fascist wannabe, and who knows what another term in office would do. (There were some brief references to whether or not the United States was too strong and diverse to really become a fascist country, or whether – on the other hand – democracy here was weak enough that it would be possible.)

Ruth Ben-Ghiat was the most outspoken of the three panelists. In addition to the above, she talked about how fascist leaders tend to think that they will be the leader forever, or that they are starting a forever movement. That they all have a degree of charisma. That often they are crooks and need to take power to keep themselves out of jail – the lawless controlling the laws, is the way she put it. She talked about Trump and Netanyahu as two contemparies in this position, and mentioned several others. She talked about how fascism in many places started as decentralized, localized movements – local militias, groups taking over individual communities or states, etc. She talked about Steve Bannon’s political approach of starting locally and moving upward as being emblematic of this. She talked about how fascist leaders need to portray the enemies of the leader as representing pure evil, enemies of the people. Dissent cannot be tolerated.

She also said that she thought that the United States might be considered to be in particular danger because we weren’t a parliamentary country, where a number of parties create a coalition to help ensure that a fascist party’s influence would be limited (I wondered if this were true). She thought that because we had only two parties, and because one of those parties was no longer a democratic party, our situation was subject to rapid change if an election went the wrong way and we would find that we lacked sufficient protection within the government. On the other hand, Finchelstein said the opposite – he thought that because we were such a politically divided country, even a fascist-wannabe president could not succeed in exerting sufficient control to turn the country against democracy in the long run. But he thought that charismatic fascist leaders do become very popular. For example, he believes that in Germany, if you had had an election at virtually any time before 1941, Hitler would have easily won that election.

So……is Donald Trump, or others in the MAGA movement, fascist wannabes? Trump is 78 years old, so he can’t see himself in control for long (or can he?), but are there others ready to fly the MAGA flag and lead another “thousand year Reich”?

What is clear is that we all must be careful. Very careful.

(It was hard to select a topic for today – what about the absolute danger of our new House Speaker? what about Israeli overreach and the influence on American antisemitism? Or its influence on the 2024 elections? Many topics. Including: Was Chicken Little right, and did she just not speak out at the right time?)