Art is 80

As we near the end of the Passover holiday (sundown tomorrow), I thought a few words about my earliest Passovers would be in order. Until I was 7 or 8, we went once a year for a seder (normally the first seder, I think) to a house on Princeton in University City, Missouri (aha, I bet you didn’t know that streets in University City tend to be named after universities – there’s a Harvard, a Yale, a Princeton, a Pennsylvania, a Dartmouth, a Stanford, a Tulane – you get the idea; by the way, no MIT). Five people lived in that house – there was Neil (he was younger than I), Myrtle and Oscar Roufa (they were Neil’s parents), and Fetter David and Mima Gitel Ridker. I always called the house Mima Gitel’s house, although sitting here today, for the first time maybe, I realize that it was Myrtle and Oscar’s house, and their elderly parents were just living with them. I think.

Thinking back, I realize that I know very little about these people. Neil and I had nothing to do with each other; he wound up dying very young having been involved with drugs and who knows what else at an early age. Oscar didn’t live very long, either, I don’t think. He was quite heavy and he was in the liquor business (I assumed at that time that this was a disreputable business to be in) and had a shop called Happy Hollow Liquors in Wellston Missouri, even then a suburb you knew to stay away from. Myrtle lived forever, but I never saw her in later years. I am sure she passed away in her 90s.

Myrtle and Oscar were Americans. Gitel (pronounced “geetle”) and David (pronounced “duvid”) were from deepest Europe. They spoke with heavy accents. My memory of David is that he was stooped, thin and short, with gray hair. Gitel was also short and (again in my memory) always had a hair net or its equivalent on. I thought then that they were ancient – but looking at the years of their deaths, I see they were then in their mid-70s. Gitel died at 90 in 1967, but I don’t think I ever saw her after, say, about 1952. Probably, it would be more accurate to say 1953, because that was the year that my grandfather, Abraham Margulis, died (at 66), and he was the connection.

Gitel Chervitz Ridker was my grandfather’s aunt, or my great-great aunt. She was the younger sister of my great grandmother (my grandfather’s mother), Mochle Rivka Chervitz, who died well before I was born. In fact, she died at 43, ten years before my mother was born. That’s why my mother’s Hebrew name is Mochle Rivka.

According to what I can gather, there were eight Chervitz siblings, five girls and three boys. My family tree is blank on most of them. But I do know that a few (at least a few) of them winded up in St. Louis. I am not sure when. Did they come at the same time, or separately? I am not sure, although this is something I could find out (and probably should). In my early years, we did visit some Chervitz cousins, but – again – probably after my grandfather’s death, they never entered my lives. Perhaps my mother was in touch with them – I don’t know.

I should say that this line of my family does have some yichus. Yichus? That’s a Yiddish word, which means (I translate so loosely) that someone in your family tree was smart or famous.

Yes, there is yichus in that family. You see, Mochle Rivka and Gitel’s father was Yakov Israel Chervitz, and his father was Gedalia Chernovitz (what happened to the “no” between those generations is one more question), and Gedalia married another Mochle Rivka (who also died even younger, at 29 or 30), who became my great-great-great grandmother. Mochle Rivka (I don’t know her last name, or if she had one other than bat-Baruch) had a father named Baruch, and Baruch had a father named Teveuh (not the one in Fiddler on the Roof), and Teveuh’s father was Hersh (we are now up to great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather).

Hersh too had a father, Ephraim. Ephraim’s mother was Adel, and Adel was the daughter of a man named Israel ben Eliezer, who lived from 1700 to 1760 and became known as the Baal Shem Tov (or Master of the Good Name), the founder of Hasidism. The Ball Shem Tov was therefore my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and his father Eliezer my great-great-great-great-great-great-great–great-great-great grandfather. That’s the yichus (assuming yichus goes back that far).

Now, how do I know all of this? I know all of this because Myrtle (remember her?) and my mother’s sister, my Aunt Loraine, did keep in contact and Myrtle gave Loraine a “family tree” and told her to give it to me.

Now, the descendants of the Baal Shem Tov have been well documented, as you might imagine, so I don’t have much doubt as to the accuracy of all of this. But you wonder whether this means anything to me, or whether it will be important for my grandchildren, say, to know that the Baal Shem Tov was their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. I think so, for sure. And to go on a little more with this, I think he and I would have got along very well; I am sorry that he died 182 years before I was born. We share a lot in common – we don’t like dry religious services, we like to wander around on our own when the weather is good, and we pay a lot of attention to the Jewish world. We would have had a lot to discuss, and I think we would have influenced each other quite a bit.

I guess I diverted a bit from my early seders. Well, we have one more day to discuss them, because this post is already long enough, I think. And if I don’t get to it tomorrow….there is always next year. And maybe, by then, I will know a little more about all these folks, and their lives over 200 years or so in today’s Ukraine, and after they got to America, which at least all the children of my great great grandfather Yakov Israel seemed to have done. And maybe I will trace some of the branches forward – not only those who remained Chervitz, but Yakov Israel’s daughters’ families, some of whom became Rimmels (one of those was my Hebrew teacher before my bar mitzvah), some Rothmans, and some Rutenbergs. I might learn something interesting.

I feel a bit news-numb today. Nothing seems to excite me. What do you think is wrong?

Do you think that I should be concerned that important top-secret documents from the Pentagon were posted on the Internet, and that for about two months the Pentagon didn’t even know?

Do you think that I should be concerned that these documents showed that Russia can indeed wait out Ukraine and that the billions of dollars and euros that the U.S. and Europe are pouring into Ukraine may be wasted after all?

Do you think I should be concerned that the Arab nations of the Middle East may be finally realize that the way to bring about the destruction of Israel is just to sit back and watch the internal firing squad?

Do you think that I should be concerned that the crazier Donald Trump acts, and the more crimes for which he accused, his support in the Republican base just seems to grow?

Do you think that I should be concerned that the better the American economy seems to be doing, the more the Federal Reserve wants to crush it?

Do you think that I should be concerned that Jim Jordan is now the head of the House Judiciary Committee?

Do you think I should be concerned that something like one in every twenty houses possesses an semi-automatic weapon, and that there have been more mass shootings than days so far in 2023?

Do you think I should be concerned that French workers may not be able to retire until they are 64?

Do you think I should be concerned that the FDA may be forced out of business and that the approval of new drugs may be relegated to a judge in Amarillo Texas?

Do you think I should be concerned that Clarence Thomas, who professes to only love traveling in America to RV parks and Walmart parking lots, is being forced to take ultra-luxurious international trips?

Do you think that I should be concerned that the only way to gain public office in the United States is to talk about global warming, and provide support to increasing fossil fuel production?

Do you think I should be concerned about the fact that, of the 33 most developed countries in the world, only 32 have figured out how to provide universal health insurance to its population?

Do you think I should be concerned that the federal courts have decided they have no role in overseeing the mapping of Congressional districts, and that this should be left to politicians?

Do you think I should be concerned that Elon Musk owns Twitter, and the Chinese on Tiktok?

Do you think I should be concerned that major earthquakes in California and Israel are only a heartbeat away?

Do you think I should be concerned that I am 80 years old, and will probably not really live to 120?

Do you think I should be concerned that I am numb to all of these today?

(1) Abe Fortas was a Supreme Court justice. He was even nominated to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Lyndon Johnson. His nomination did not succeed (many thought it was because Fortas was Jewish – this certainly seemed to have played a role), but it also turned out that Fortas had some other problems – he was being paid to give lectures at American University by a bunch of his former clients, and he had entered into some sort of arrangement with a financier named Louis Wolfson, who was to have paid Fortas $20,000 a year (only the first payment was made and it had been returned). Wolfson was accused, and I think convicted, of insider trading. He appealed to the Supreme Court. Fortas recused himself, and the Court did not take the case. But Fortas was convinced to resign from the Court.

Is this very different from Clarence Thomas? He has been sent on luxury vacations by Harlan Crow, also a business man (development rather than finance), and has for years been paid by Conservative groups to give speeches. Equal is equal, no? Should Thomas follow in Fortas’ footsteps?

(2) Sometimes, I have to question even my own memory. I have for a year or so put Charles King’s book “Odessa” on my “one day I will read” list. The day before yesterday, I finally started it – I had picked it up at the Montgomery County Wheaton used book store a few weeks before. I am about half way through it – in the middle of the 19th century. But I have to ask some questions: Why does this book seem so familiar? Have I read it before?

The book was published in 2011, which means it would have been a post-retirement read. I know we don’t have another copy in the house. Where would I have read it? Will I ever know the answers to these questions? Does it make a difference? Probably not. But it is one more mystery.

(3) The Nationals and the Rockies split their 4 game series. Let’s talk about Denver. I haven’t spent much time there and haven’t been there for, I am sure, more than 20 years. Here are my recollections:

a. When I left basic/advanced training at Ft. Ord, California in 1968, I decided to take a Greyhound bus back to St. Louis, as I had never seen most of the west before. I remember going through Sacramento, Reno, Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, the Rockies, and Denver. Deciding not to sit on a bus across Kansas, I flew from Denver to St. Louis, and I made that decision before we arrived at Denver. I had already been on the bus a few days, because I stopped in some of the places named above to have a look around.

When the bus pulled into the station in Denver, I needed to get lunch and then go to the airport (that’s my memory). Across from the bus stop, there was a restaurant with a sign that said “Topless Waitresses”. I went in and, lo and behold, this was a restaurant with topless waitresses. A topless waitress seated me, took my order and brought me my food. I keep trying to remember, but for the life of me, I have no idea how the food was.

b. When I was working at HUD, I took a business trip to Denver. It was a short trip – flying west in the morning, and east late at night. I went with a woman that I was working with. I have no idea what the purpose of the trip was, but I remember after meeting with people in the morning, one of the men with whom we met said “I made reservations at the Denver Club for lunch”. He then turned to my companion and said “….but I don’t think they will let you in. They don’t allow women in the dining room, but I think you can get something to eat in the bar.” Say, what? I never saw the Denver Club.

c. We once drove from Santa Fe to Denver on a vacation. Would you believe that this is a beautiful drive? It was disappointing to reach the end, but Denver didn’t fail us. While we weren’t looking for entertainment, we found it. The most extraordinary lightening experience we had ever seen anywhere (or have seen since). Lightening like fireworks exploding across the sky.

d. Each of these trips involved flying into or out of (or both) Stapleton Airport, now closed. When I was working at HUD, one of my suite mates was a fellow, about my age, named Craig Stapleton. Nice fellow – also a “Special Assistant”, but he was a political appointee (this was the Nixon administration) and I was not. I remember when I got back from the Denver business trip I mentioned above, I asked him if he knew that the airport in Denver was named Stapleton. He looked at me without expression and said: “Yeah, it was named after my grandfather”.

That’s when I learned that Craig’s grandfather had been mayor of Denver. Craig was not from Denver, by the way. I was surprised and, I must say, a bit impressed. I haven’t seen Craig since he and I left HUD (that’s over 50 years ago), but he seems to have done OK for himself – he became the U.S. Ambassador both to the Czech Republic (or maybe it was Czechoslovakia at the time) and to France. Nice guy. I wish him the best.

That reminds me of another fellow who was one of the four Special Assistants – he was of Hispanic descent (I will not identify him here, but will use his initials MS), and I assumed it was his Hispanic background that helped get him the job (it was an era of incipient diversity) and I assumed he came from an immigrant background and was making his way in the new world. I never questioned my opinion. After all, he came from Brownsville TX. Even today, Wikipedia describes Brownsville at 94% Hispanic.

Once after a holiday weekend, I asked MS if he had gone home. He told me he had gone to visit his grandparents. “In Brownsville?”, I asked. “No”, he said, and he named some town in the Hudson River Valley. I was very surprised, asking him how long ago his family had moved North. His answer was something like: “Oh, it was sometime in the late 17th century. They were Dutch. Their name was van __________.”

Whoa, I thought. Who is this guy? And what about his New York Dutch society mother who married a poor Mexican immigrant and moved to Brownsville? I asked a few more questions. “Your father’s family is Mexican, though?” “Oh, no, my father is from Barcelona.”

Now, I was really taken aback. How does a Spaniard (Catalan?) from Barcelona marry a Dutch lady from the Hudson Valley and wind up, of all places, in Brownsville. What misfortune led them to such a place?

“How did they wind up in Brownsville?”, I asked. “Oh, my dad’s business is there”, he responded. “What does he do?”, I asked. “He owns ________ (I forget the number) oil tankers.”

MS did not wind up as Ambassador to France, but he wound up as the Anheuser Busch distributor in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country.

e. One more. I did fly into Denver in 2019 – just before the pandemic struck. But not to go to Denver – just to pick up a car and drive north to Ft. Collins. All I remember is that I liked the ceiling of the new airport – the first time I had been to Denver since Stapleton closed. Does that count for anything?

And there you have it.

First:

I am still reading through my collection of Penguins, and have just finished a very interesting (and well written) book, “The Jewish Problem” by Louis Golding. The book was published in 1938 and written before Kristallnacht that November and, obviously, before the start of World War II in 1939. It describes in some detail the position of the Jews in Germany and, more recently Austria after the German takeover, a subject that most of us know only too well. He spent a lot of time talking about European countries where the condition of the Jews was deteriorating – such as Poland, Romania and Hungary, and discussed the effect of the Nazi success in Germany on influencing these other countries. He discussed the effects of Nazi propaganda and Nazi-inspired movements in Western Europe (he is English), the United States, Canada, Australia and (what he considered a lost cause) South Africa. He did not seem to think that the propaganda in any of these western countries (other than the Union of South Africa) could turn them into Nazi states, but he describes extensive activity and some Nazi successes everywhere. He talked about the USSR as one country offering safety to Jews, but only at the expense of their Judaism. He then talks about Zionism and Palestine, and the support given to Jewish settlement in Palestine by the British, which had been adopted by the allies after WWII, and led to giving the British a mandate after the defeat of the Ottoman empire. He acknowledges that the British forces didn’t know what to make of the Jews in Palestine (who were not, like others that Britain had been dealing with elsewhere, acting like colonial subjects), and stated that Britain needed to maintain control in Palestine for other strategic reasons.

I found the book very interesting for another reason. Again, this book was written before Kristallnacht (so he could not know that the Nazi regime would clamp down on the Jews so much more, and so soon), and before the beginning of the war (he does not speculate on whether there will be any war involving Britain or, say, France or the U.S.). And obviously he doesn’t mention the then unthinkable prospect of a Final Solution.

Or does he? One of the things he talks about is the inability of other nations to take in the Jews that Germany would like to expel. Not only their unwillingness, but their inability in the middle of a world wide depression already straining the resources of virtually every country. And he assumes that not only do the Jews of Germany and Austria need a place to go, but the 3,000,000 in Poland, the 900,000 in Romania and the almost 500,000 in Hungary also need refuge. He talks about previous mass movement against the Jews. After the Romans destroyed the Temple and ended the semi-autonomous Jewish state, the Jews could immigrate anywhere within the Roman empire. The Jews kicked out of England could go to France. The Ottoman empire opened its doors to the Jews kicked out of Spain in 1492. And so forth.

But this time, there is no place to go. He makes this point emphatically. But he really does not go any further. What did he expect would happen? He must have thought about it. And it looks like perhaps he was afraid to write about it. Hard to say, but the missing conclusion is notable.

By the way, the other Jewish Penguins I have read include “Judaism” by Isidore Epstein (which I thought a really good capsule, but somewhat detailed, history of Jews from Torah time onward), published in 1959; “An Enemy of the People: Antisemitism” by James Parkes (another good book written by an Anglican philosemite, several of whose books I have read over the years), published in 1945; “The Jews of Our Time” by Norman Bentwich (a fact filled account of Jews in post-war times) published in 1960; and “Zionism and Palestine” by Sir Ronald Storrs (a defense of the British mandate and its need to maintain impartiality) first published in 1937.

Second:

From the comfort of our family room, we watched the Nats beat the Colorado Rockies, 7-6. The Nats’ hitting hero was Stone Garrett, recently called up from Rochester. He got four hits and drove in five runs.

We saw Stone Garrett in Spring Training and he looked good. Where else has he played? Other than a short time with Arizona, here goes:

(1) Batavia Muckdogs

(2) Greensboro Grasshoppers

(3) Jupiter Hammerheads

(4) Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp

And I always thought my favorite team was the Macon WhoopiesTe.

Team naming is a tough thing. And it’s a thing that everyone thinks they can do without professional help. But in the corporate world, it’s different. They go to the expert branding company with the catchy name….Lippincott and Margulies. Without Lippincott and Margulies, how would Pepsi Cola Company ever thought of Pepsico, just to name one.

Well, the Redskins are now the Commanders and the Indians the Guardians. What will the George Washington University Colonials become? They have narrowed down their choices to four that I find hardly acceptable: Catalysts, Fireworks, Independents, and Monumentals. They have apparently rejected my suggestions:

The George Washington University Slaveholders.

The George Washington University Cherry Trees.

The George Washington Carvers.

The George Washington Powdered Wigs.

Your thoughts?

There is so much going on in the world that I thought I would report on a couple of little known stories that will not enrich your lives or perspectives on iota.

First – the jury is out. Here is the background: when you live in the District of Columbia, you are obligated to appear at Superior Court for possible jury selection once every two years. If you are chosen for a trial, you serve the duration of the trial. If not, you go home the day you were called, and are not required to appear for another two years. All of this was disrupted by the pandemic, as jury trials were not held in the District for an extended period of time, but things are now back to normal. (As an aside, once you hit 75, you can opt out of jury service, but that is frowned upon …. by me, at least.)

I have dutifully shown up whenever called. I have been on jury panel after jury panel, but never been selected to serve on a jury. While I have done my duty, I have also wasted a lot of time. And for several years, I had not received a summons.

Several weeks ago, I received a jury summons for 8 a.m. (that is very early for me, you know) on Monday, April 10. I dutifully registered and filled out the questionnaire. I could not imagine many calls for juries on Easter Monday and assumed, I would report for duty, take a seat in the large waiting room, sit there for 5 or 6 hours and be told I could collect my $30 jury fee (or whatever it is now) and go home.

But no! Yesterday, the court emailed me and told me that I wasn’t needed at all. I could sleep late. No, I would not get my $30. And yes, I have now accomplished my required jury service until April 10, 2025.

Second – the dreams. A very busy night, last night.

First, I was asked to travel to an unusual and dangerous land, hard to get into, at the behest of an American journalist (or scholar or something) who was on a long term assignment there. I was excited to go. I went and presented my ID at the gate of this forbidden land and given a visitor’s ID. I went to the office of the man who had summoned me (it was right at the border) and he told me he didn’t need me after all, that I could go on back home. I wanted to see something of the country. I asked if it was forbidden to walk around. He said that it should not be a problem. I saw that my ID said that I was allowed in from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and it was already after noon. He told me just not to get caught. I knew I had until the end of the day to get back to the airport.

It was a fascinating town. Interesting street and architecture. I remember parks and sculptures. An abandoned soccer stadium (why was it abandoned with such tall grass growing) right in the middle of the city, and the most amazing high rise slums I had ever seen – buildings that were blocks long, maybe 20 stories high, yellow in color, balconies with hanging laundry at every level. Out of place in this otherwise peaceful looking land. I took a lot of pictures.

Finally, the other dream. We were staying somewhere – me, Edie, and our three children, two of whom were young, and one a young adult. We had to leave the next day, and I didn’t know how we were ever going to get everything packed in time and, even if we did, I did not know how I would fit it into our two cars (a big car and a VW bug), or why we even had two cars there. To make the packing easier, I threw out a lot of the kids toys. I knew they would be mad, but what choice did I have?

Our adult daughter was living in an apartment. She told me she needed one more piece of furniture and what she thought it would cost, which seemed a bit high to me. But the next thing I knew, she was coming back from the furniture store with her other father, or father-in-law, and told me they had just bought furniture. She showed me the store receipt. Many items and they cost a fortune.

I then learned that my daughter owned the building her apartment was in, that she was going to rehab it (if she could figure out how to get power into the building for heat) and there were eight condominiums. And that she was going to own three (including the one she lived in), her two sisters were going to own two each, and her other father, or father-in-law, was going to own the 8th. They would all be rented out, and it would guarantee them income for life.

I asked how she had come to own this building, and her other father, or father in law, yelled at me and told me I was suggesting that he was doing something illicit (which I was). I assured him I wasn’t. But he was furious.

I decided to go back to packing. I told Edie I didn’t know how any of this would fit, and told her I had thrown out the toys (she was not happy with me). I also told her that, although I knew we were all supposed to go to the Adirondacks for a a week, I didn’t see how we could do it, and we should just go home. That didn’t go over well, either.

I decided to put gas in the large car, which was parked right out front. I got in, but no one wanted to let me drive out of the parking space. Big trucks kept hemming me in. I decided just to gun the engine and did, roaring out to the street, as trucks were honking and honking. I took a right turn to where it looked like I could get gas, but all I saw were electric charging stations, one both sides on and on, down into a big dark tunnel with no end in sight.

That’s it…..

Whew.

Although there have been exceptions, normally we host two seders every year with family and friends. The past several years have been exceptions because of the pandemic, but this year we expected to be back to action. Hannah and her family were to be traveling to Massachusetts, so we had seders planned with Michelle, Josh and his boys, several cousins who live in town, and one out of town visitor. It would be a lot of work (that means mainly not me), but getting back to normalcy. But…….

First, Edie had what we think was a case of food poisoning three nights before the first seder. But what if it was something else? Was she contagious? Would anyone want to eat the food? What about her energy level?

While we were trying to figure out what made sense, we learned that our out of town guest – for other reasons – decided not to make the trip. But we told our first night guests that we had to cancel.

Then, to top it all off, I got sick and spent Monday pretty much horizontal. That cinched it – we cancelled day 2.

But Wednesday morning, we both felt recovered. Wednesday night, we streamed the Adas Israel community seder (verdict: it’s not the same thing), and mulled over what we should do for the second night.

We decided to uncancel night no. 2, and called our 5 guests and told them. All seemed happy to come. And did.

And somehow, Edie pulled together a dinner of a terrific salad, matzah ball soup, salmon, cauliflower kugel, roasted vegetables, asparagus and strawberry fluff. I was able to make the table look like a seder table with all the trimmings. And our seder – 5 adults, 1 11 year old and 1 15 year old – went like clockwork.

But, oh yes, back to Hannah’s family. On the day before they were to leave for Massachusetts, two year old Izzy developed a fever. So Andrew and Joan flew out, but Hannah and Izzy remained home. Izzy’s fever spiked and even today he just recovering. So they were in DC, but were unable to come to our house.

So – it wasn’t a normal Passover for us (and certainly not for Hannah) – but it could have been worse.

Next year: normal will preside.

I just read William Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun”. It’s an odd book – a combination three act play, with extensive prose introductions of each act providing a stream of consciousness history of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, Faulkner’s imaginary country which is the site of much of his writing. The play (a sequel to his earlier novel “Sanctuary”) involves the strange tale of a bad marriage (with an interesting, and disgusting, back story), which results in two children. The couple hire a Black mother’s helper (with a rather sordid back story of her own), who recognizes that her employer’s main problem is her six month old child, and for this reason she cannot leave her marriage. To “help her out”, she smothers the child, and is convicted of murder. The mother is aghast, but wants the murderer forgiven and her death sentence curtailed.

OK, that’s that. And that’s not what I am writing about. I am writing about Faulkner’s use of the “n-word” throughout the book – not in his narrative, but in the dialogue that appears in the play. I am sure that, if this fantastic sounding story were to have actually happened, this would have been how the characters would have been talking.

My questions, of course, are: Should this book be banned? Should it continue to be published, read and possibly even discussed in literature or theater classes, and if so at what level? Should it be edited, replacing the “n-word” with something more accepted?

This came to my attention once again this morning is a front page New York Times article, “Readers Torn by Push to Revise Classics for Modern Sensibilities”, with references to Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, Ursula LeGuin and Dr. Seuss. Do you rewrite books so that offensive words won’t be read?

It isn’t that different, is it, than certain other of today’s trends? Do you destroy statues of Confederates or which honor dead Confederate soldiers? Do you take names off academic buildings, because the names relate to people who owned slaves? And so forth.

One of the facets of western society today that is striking to me is our willingness to avoid dealing with important problems (of which there are many) and our willingness to spend untold hours and energy dealing with relatively unimportant matters. Not that these are totally unimportant, but related to climate change, nuclear threats, etc., they clearly rank lower.

My own position is pretty straight forward: as to the books, don’t change anything. Whatever was written must be viewed as of the time when it was written, and not rewritten to make things more acceptable today. This is all part of understanding and coming to grips with history. I think we can all deal with this.

Look at the title of this post. Look at the author of this post (that would be me). After stating unequivocally that we can deal with leaving things as they are, it looks like I may give myself very good advice, but clearly I don’t all the time take it. That is worthy of an entirely different discussion.

At the funeral of Rabbi Bill Rudolph this week, I learned things I didn’t know. He was an athlete, a bicyclist, and a handyman. At the funeral of George Johnson, I learned that he not only played the guitar, but also could play the piano, the saxophone, and the cello. Who would have guessed?

What would one learn about me at my funeral? Not much, I would say. And that’s because I have kept most of my talents so well hidden.

Well, I am going to share one of them with you today. Do you know that I have an uncanny knack for finding things (just today, for example, I found both the lost vinegar and the lost pepper grinder)? I learned that I had this unusual talent at a young age, and immediately took advantage of it.

In the summer between third and fourth grade, I and a neighborhood friend Roger McKnight founded the Hessel-McKnight Detective Agency. The agency was so successful that, although we shut it down for the school year, we reopened the agency the following summer before closing our doors (OK, we didn’t really have any doors) for good.

I must admit that I don’t remember a lot about our many successes. I also don’t remember a lot about Roger McKnight. I think he was my age, although he might have been a year older or younger (probably younger; if he was older, it would have been McKnight-Hessel). I think we went to the same school, although I don’t remember him there, so maybe we didn’t (many kids in my neighborhood went to the local Catholic school). I remember he had blond hair, and we hung out a lot together those summers. But that’s all.

I have no idea what happened to Roger McKnight, because he and his family moved out of town. They probably moved (I remember it was to Oregon) right after we shut down Hessel-McKnight. No contact since then.

Our biggest case was our first case, as I recall. The vinyl lawn furniture in the backyard of a family down the street was all slashed. Our job was to find out who did it. We took the job with confidence. We decided that no adult would slash lawn furniture and that it had to be a kid. We then knew we needed to figure out who would have done such a thing. Was it a random attack, or was it done by someone who knew the family whose chairs were destroyed, and had a conflict with them.

I don’t remember the details. I know we talked to a number of people on the block. And I remember we decided who must have done it. And I remember that we confronted him and, after careful questioning on our part, he confessed.

I don’t remember who the slasher was, and I don’t remember his motive, or why he decided to confess. I only remember that the Hessel-McKnight Detective Agency had proven its bona fides, and went on to solve several other (albeit more minor) mysteries over the two years of its existence.

As you read this historical piece, you might have noted one other thing. We were about 10 years old, and we had the freedom to wander around our neighborhood from morning ’til dark at will. As did all the other kids. This would never happen today, as we all sadly know. But in 1950, it wasn’t even a question.

Well, except for one time, when it was a question. That’s when a traveling circus pitched its tents in the parkland on the other side of our street (Topton Way , Clayton MO, now the site of Clayton High School). It was a real circus, with rides, and a side show, and games, and animals. It was also very exciting, and right across the street.

A bunch of us spent a lot of time watching as the circus was being set up. It was a great adventure. But our parents weren’t so excited. When I say “our parents”, I mean everyone’s. We couldn’t understand what they were concerned about. We were very mature kids – probably 8 to 12 years old. And the circus folks were extraordinarily welcoming and warm and instructive. Everything a kid could want.

We were in disbelief, when we learned that our parents were most concerned about us decided to run away with the circus. When we crossed the street, they thought we might never be seen again. We were in disbelief.

That’s the way it was in Clayton MO in 1950. Them were the days.

On this day, April 4, in the year 1968, I was in the middle of basic training for the U.S. Army Reserve at Ft. Ord, California. I think it was late afternoon in California, and my company was at the rifle range, a large area where a number of us would stand in a row shooting at human shaped targets. My company was composed of reservists, serving the first part of their six month active duty requirement, before going home to serve six full years as a reservist (hoping that we would not find ourselves activated and sent to Vietnam). A number of us, like me, were from St. Louis. Others were from Dallas, Hawaii, Arkansas, places I cannot remember, and rural Louisiana. Most of the guys from Louisiana were not like the rest of us, or so it seemed.

Our target practice was interrupted when a voice called out from a loud speaker system that I didn’t even know existed: “Your attention, please. We have just received word that Rev. Martin Luther King has been shot and killed in Memphis.”

It was a shock, to be sure. But the next shock was at least as great. A cheer went up from many of my fellow recruits.

There was one Louisianan who I was quite friendly with during the few weeks of basic training. I don’t remember his name (I have blotted most of the names connected with Ft. Ord out of my memory years ago). He was a tall guy, and fairly heavy. He had not gone to college (at least yet), and had been working at a filling station outside of Lafayette. He was bright, knew right from wrong, and was very nice.

The cheering at the news did not surprise him at all. He was a little surprised, though, at the letter that came from his mother, thanking God for MLK’s death.

As we all know, it was just a few months later that Robert Kennedy was killed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. I was still in basic training, and as lights went off early for those six weeks, we did not learn about Kennedy’s death until we woke up early the next morning. Interestingly, my memory does not recall anyone cheering at that moment. I think we were all, isolated as we were, traumatized by what was going on in that part of the country that was not Ft. Ord – war, assassinations, demonstrations, drugs and music. We were sealed off in basic training – helpless, but somehow protected. Where was the world heading?

Today, we have some of the same feelings, I guess. Our country was divided then; it is divided now, and the future is uncertain today, as it was then. As ex-President Trump heads to the New York courthouse to be arraigned today, a new wild card is being dealt, and we don’t really know what is going to happen. We are told that cameras will not be allowed in the court room, but will be allowed in the hallways. We know that there will be security at all stages of the arraignment. But still, my mind flashes back. Images of Jack Ruby come into my consciousness again and again. I will be so glad when all this is over.

Yes, I know……it never will be.

A high level official from Moody’s was on C-span’s Washington Journal this morning. The subject was the banking system. He told the story of when he started a business 30 years ago. He couldn’t get a loan from a large bank, but got one from a smaller, local bank, provided he give the bank a personal guarantee and a mortgage on his house.

OK, so far, so good. But then he said “I knew the banker because his daughter and my daughter were on the same soccer team.” I assume he said this to demonstrate that local bankers were members of the community, although those who operate national banks’ regional offices live within a community. But I took his remarks a different way: it isn’t what you know, but who you know. Would that local bank have given a loan to someone that the banker did not know, particularly if the borrower were someone of another color? Obviously, I don’t know, but I am pretty sure that statistics would show that such borrowers had a harder time getting this type of start up business loans.

How did get into Harvard? I think it was because I knew the high school guidance counselor pretty well, and I am not sure that my “competitors” knew her that well. How did I get my excellent job at HUD as a Special Assistant to an Assistant Secretary? I got it because I knew someone at HUD who had a similar position, and who shopped around for me to see if any such jobs may be vacant. How did I move from HUD to a law firm? I did it because I knew a partner at that law firm, and he contacted me at a time that I was not even looking.

These may all be small examples. But they tell a story. And it shows how affirmative action might help those who don’t have a clear path to helpful contacts. Now, I have recently read a proposal by someone that affirmative action based on race alone no longer makes the most sense, particularly as it has been used to assist those who may not need assistance irrespective of their race. But rather that there should be some economic or sociological test for affirmative action. I think that makes some sense – but how would it be designed and implemented in a way that would minimize abuses? And, of course the majority of the recipients under such a program would probably, in many or maybe most places, still be members of minority groups.

I guess you could say that schools do this all the time when they offer scholarships. This is true and perhaps most of the schools do provide scholarships to those who really need it most. But when I was on the scholarship committee of a local private school, I had no assurance that we were doing that. Of course, we reviewed not only applications from parents, but also federal and state income tax records. But there were families who had sizeable incomes, but equally sizeable mortgages, second homes and fancy automobiles, and who had no savings. And families with less income who lived in a small house and had been able to save some money simply by being more frugal. There were families with little income or assets, but who had grandparents who were ready to cover any amount that scholarships would not provide. And so on. And then there non-financial issues – “I really like that family”, “He’s such a cute kid”, and the opposite. I resigned from the committee after two years.

Is any of this avoidable? Or, perhaps the question is whether we should even try to avoid any of this. Maybe factors like this are necessary to grease the wheels of society.

It all reminds me of Joseph Henrich, and my post of a few days ago related to his findings that the non-Western world works more on connections and family relationships than the Western world does. It occurs to me that maybe Henrich is wrong. That the West relies as much on connections and contacts, but that the connections and contact on which the West relies are just different from those that fuel Asia and Africa.

One of the Nationals’ young pitchers is a fellow named Mackenzie Gore. We saw him when we were in Florida during Spring Training pitch against the Cardinals; he looked very good. He made his first start in the regular season this afternoon, and held the Braves to one run in, I think it was, 5 or 6 innings. The Nationals won 4-1.

The biggest event of the day was our friend George Johnson’s funeral. His two sons spoke, mainly about his role as a father. A very close long time friend spoke about a number of his interests and accomplishments. And Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, George’s friend and rabbi, talked about George’s intense interest in, and studying of, Judaism. It was a sad day. As recently as less than a week ago – George looked good in spite of his cancer treatment, and was going on with his life with his usual optimism.

Of course, everything I said in this blog yesterday was untrue – it was my not very successful attempt at April 1 humor. One thing was not untrue, however, and that is that we did go to a forum with the four Adas Israel rabbis, who each gave a 10 minute presentation on Passover seders, each focusing on a different aspect. One did talk about Elijah, who comes to the door late in the seder, and who always has a cup of wine waiting for him, and particularly why it is Elijah, a not always successful prophet in the Bible, who was chosen to make his appearance. Another talked about the concept of “order”. The word “seder” even means “order”, and the seder itself begins with a listing of the various parts of the seder starting with the first, and ending with the last. Yet, the seder often descends into chaos, and in fact you can look at part of the typical Haggadah as fostering that chaos. What do we make of this?

The third rabbi talked about how every seder participant is to look at the exodus from Egypt as if he himself (she herself) were present at the exodus. Just like every Jew is said to have been present when God gave the Jews the Torah at Sinai. But, he asked, what does this mean and what can you do to bring this feeling about? And the fourth talked about the famous Hillel sandwich, eaten just before the full meal – generally bitter herbs (usually horseradish) and sweet charoset (in the Ashkenazic tradition, typically made from apples, walnuts and wine), and sandwiched between two pieces of matzah. But when described in the Haggadah and the Talmud, charoset is not mentioned, only the bitter herbs and matzah. How did this change?

I should add that we heard from a 5th rabbi, this one not employed by Adas Israel, but a congregational member who, during the service, talked about the Passover sacrifice of a lamb during the time of the Second Temple (before its destruction by the Romans in 70 C.E.), and why the rabbis, immediately after the destruction of the Temple, forbade the sacrifice of a lamb. Or did they?

But it was April Fools Day yesterday. Did Adas Israel just ignore this important day? The answer is “no”. When we went into the room for the forum with the rabbis, there were no rabbis. There were about 8 chairs set up facing the congregation, each with a rabbinic child on it. Perhaps average age was about 8. In a less than organized way, they announced that they wanted to ask all of us some questions. Like “who can tell us what Passover is?” and similar questions. None of us (at least not I) were sure what was going on. Until one of the children shouted out “APRIL FOOLS”, the kids left the stage and the four rabbis came in.

I had the privilege of attending a program after Shabbat services this afternoon where the four rabbis from Adas Israel spoke, and took questions, about Passover. I learned so much I had not known before. I wonder how I could have missed all of these things for so long. But, you know, you have to keep learning. Learning is so important.

What did I learn today?

Most interesting is how different seders are in different parts of the world. For example, in China, did you know that, instead of hiding the afikoman, there is an age old tradition of hiding an egg roll? It’s true. And, in Macedonia, you hide the afikoman every year, but there is no tradition in finding it, and that some Jewish families have hundreds of afikomans hidden in their houses that may never be found (until the house is sold to another family)? I had no idea.

I had long wondered about how Jews in Egypt celebrate the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt, since they are still there. It turns out that there have been books and books written about this conundrum, and no one knows. This is because the Jews of Egypt have an age-old tradition. They do not start their seders by saying that all who are hungry can join them and eat. In fact, the Egyptian Jews have a practice of having their seders in secret with no guests at all. This explains why no one knows the answer to this age-old question.

Have you wondered why the holiday of Passover lasts 8 days? I always thought that it was because there was only supposed to be one day of oil, but in fact the oil lasted 8 days. I mentioned this to someone a year or so ago, and they laughed telling me that I was mixing up Hanukkah with Pesach. I felt so ashamed. But it turns out I was right. The long lasting oil is an important facet of both holidays. In fact, it appears that in the ancient Galilee they combined both holidays for several centuries, starting Hanukkach with two nights of seders, but lighting a hanukkia each night and giving kids presents of Hanukkach geld. I had absolutely no idea.

There was a lot more, but I will just give you one more example of these pearls of wisdom. Elijah’s glass of wine, which now sits somewhere on the table awaiting the arrival of the prophet Elijah towards the end, and which generally is still full at the end of the seder, has its own interesting history. It turns out that, for the first thousand of years of Judaism, Elijah did come to everyone’s seder and did drink the wine. But at some point, his doctor advised him to stop, he was getting too old and his liver was not in great shape. Elijah didn’t know what to do; he was not going to ignore his doctor’s advice. So, he asked his old friend Santa Claus what he thought. Santa suggested milk and cookies instead. But, for reasons unknown, no one ever substituted milk and cookies for wine at a seder. So the wine cup remains full. But don’t think that means that Elijah doesn’t come. He always does.

One further thing: APRIL FOOL’S

Last week, I reported on the death of Rabbi Bill Rudolph, whose funeral took place on Tuesday. Yesterday, another friend passed away. George Johnson had been battling a rare form of blood cancer for several years, at one point thought he had it beat, and then it came back. He died of pneumonia brought on by a lowered immune system. We still are not sure if the funeral will be Sunday or Monday.

George and his wife Ayah have been friends of ours for many years. George, like myself, had a career as a lawyer, who left it behind when he retired. He was very devoted to Judaism, religiously, culturally and historically. He belonged to an Orthodox synagogue, took classes continually, wrote for (and was an editor on) MOMENT Magazine, and was a fellow board member on the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies. He was a creative intellectual and will be missed.

In other news……we were awakened at about 5:45 this morning as a coyote strolled by and howled several times. That’s a first. I know there are coyotes in Rock Creek Park, but I don’t remember them coming this far out of the park (one of the entrances to Rock Creek Park is about one half mile from our house).

Finally (for today), an incident at Gregory’s coffee shop yesterday. As I was sipping my coffee and writing yesterday’s blog, there was a young woman (maybe she was 20, maybe at a stretch 25), who was sitting down busily typing on her tablet, with a notebook on the table, and a large purse next to her where she was sitting.

After a while, she shuts the tablet, stands up, leaves her table, and goes to the ladies’ room. Well, OK, but she leaves her tablet on the table, and her large purse open on the bench next to where she was sitting. She is gone close to 5 minutes.

Now years ago, Hannah and Michelle took a sisters’ trip to London and went to a coffee shop. Hannah hung her purse on the back of her chair and when her name was called walked up to the counter to get her order. When she came back to her seat, her purse was gone. In it was cash, credit cards, passport, I-Phone and a ring that had belonged to my grandmother which Hannah worse almost all the time, and which my grandmother had brought from Europe. Luckily, someone turned the purse with the passport into the American embassy and insurance covered the loss of everything but the ring (get insurance when you travel!).

I told my coffee shop neighbor about Hannah’s experience. She responded with “You know, I never thought about that. You’re right, I won’t do that again.” Now, I don’t know if she will or she won’t. But she didn’t seem unintelligent, and I’m sure she would have been unhappy if someone had taken her computer and her purse. I would think some things should be obvious.

I would think.

Sitting at Gregory’s Coffee after the Opening Day game, rating Gregory’s dark roast and blueberry muffin A+. Both of them.

The game not so much. Patrick Corbin is still Patrick Corbin, and C.J. Abrams is not yet C.J. Abrams. But three cheers for Joey Mineses and four for Victor Robles. Final score was Braves 7. Nats 2. But the game itself was a bit more even than that. The Braves’ 3 in the 9th was the killer. And Kyle Finnegan sure didn’t shine as our closer. We’ll see how long he stays there.

One other thing. Baseball when it’s in the 40s does lack something. Comfort. And Nats Park still lacks somthing. Edible, affordable food. Why is that so hard?

Let me add to the A+ section of this post. Last night, we had dinner at Bistro Lepic on Wisconsin Ave for the first time since pre-pandemic. How do you say A+ in French?

Our guest last night was an old friend from NYC down here for an international law conference. Always a pleasure to see him. Next time, maybe his wife will join him. We last saw them in New York in October. But that was a quickie.

Final thing for today. It’s Thursday, and that means someone gave an excellent presentation at my breakfast group. Today, it was about Harvard professor Henrich and his book on how Western personalities differ from those of the rest of the world, and how that relates to material and scientific advanced in the West. His book, whose name I don’t recall but which has WEIRD in it, runs 900 pages. Among other things, he appears to credit/blame the Catholic Church for much of the Western differences, and interestingly, finds that Jews in America are different in some respects from other Americans, sharing some qualities with people in other parts of the world. Apparently, he doesn’t specify, and I didn’t get that he was making a value statement. But some of the concentration on “clan”, that you find in other places, you find here, he concludes, among American Jews.

Quite a day yesterday. Lunch with an old friend who started our conversation with the news that his wife has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and is having surgery next week. Her prognosis seems to be good, but – as they say – who needs this?

From there, I went to the funeral of Rabbi Bill Rudolph at Beth El in Bethesda. I was one of maybe 500 (maybe more?) in attendance. It was a two hour funeral, and if it had gone on for three hours, I don’t think anyone would have complained. I have known Bill for more than ten years and we worked closely together on the Jewish Funeral Practices Committee, but there was so much more about him that I did not know. Yes, I knew his basic career – his education at Hebrew Union College, his work at Hillel both on campus and nationally, his decades at Beth El, and his post-retirement work, but that was only a part of who he was. One of the rabbis who spoke shorthanded it by saying that he was giving a eulogy for two people – for Rabbi Rudolph and for Bill. And then there were his two sons and his daughter who spoke – not only with love and appreciation for their father, but with humor that he would have appreciated and that he fostered in them. And to top it off, a eulogy given by his wife of almost 40 years. It was an A+ funeral. And I know that Bill took an active role in planning it. My immediate reaction was to send him an email to tell him how well his planning had worked out.

As a glutton for punishment, I couldn’t let the day stop there. After we picked up 2 year old Izzy from pre-school and had a quick supper, Edie and I went back to Adas Israel and joined about 20 other congregants listening to Joshua Kulp (not someone I had heard of before) speak about shiva (the Jewish 7 day mourning period) and why, when the mourning period is interrupted by a Jewish holiday, you normally cut the mourning period, not observing the customs either during the holiday or after the holiday is over. It was a talk about history, as evidenced in Talmudic writing.

Perhaps this is not a topic of great interest to most, and in fact I thought the session was a bit helter skelter, but I did pick up a few tidbits. For those rabbis and families who have shortened traditional shiva from 7 to 3 days, I learned that there was at least historical precedent for treating the first 3 days of a 7 day shiva differently from the last 4. When I heard that, for Rabbi Rudolph, the first night of shiva was to be for family only, I was surprised; last night I heard there was historical precedent for that, as well. And I also learned that funeral services in synagogues were a relatively recent phenomenon, that for centuries there were no such funerals held, except for perhaps individuals of great accomplishment and esteem. This brought me back to my father’s 1979 funeral, when my mother wanted it to be in the United Hebrew sanctuary in St. Louis, and was told that was impossible and it was held instead in the common room of the temple’s education center. And later when my mother passed away in 1987, and my sister wanted my mother’s funeral in the synagogue and put up quite a stink, finally reaching an agreement that the funeral could be held there, but the casket would be placed in a side aisle, and not in front of the ark. I remember not understanding why United Hebrew and its rabbi (who was close to my mother) objected so consistently. Maybe, this was also because of some historical precedent and synagogue ritual committee standards. Hard to credit this position to such precedents for a quite Reform institution, but…..maybe so.

Yesterday did not go as I had planned. I woke up to hear that Bill Rudolph, my friend, co-board member, and retired rabbi from Congregation Beth El in Bethesda had passed away after a years long battle with pancreatic cancer. His funeral is this afternoon; I spent part of yesterday at the funeral home, helping guard his body as part of the ancient Jewish custom of shmira.

Last night, though, I did get to American University to hear the annual Amos Perlmutter lecture given by Professor Menachem Ben-Sasson of The Hebrew University. He talked about the history of Israel’s lack of a constitution. He should know because, during his short time as a member of the Knesset, he was in charge of the Constitution committee and worked on the development of a written constitution that never got a formal vote in the Knesset. That was 15-20 years ago. He went on to become President of The Hebrew University, where he now teaches.

I am not going to try to summarize his talk. But, as I gave a talk just the week before comparing the judiciaries of two countries (the United States with its constitution and Israel without one), I was particularly interested in what he had to say. And he certainly had details that I had no idea about. I thought it was a tremendous talk – those in the large audience who were only familiar with looking at headlines through their American eyes may have had a hard time following some of it. It was filled with detail.

I saw a lot of people I know at the talk, some of whom I have seen now and then and some of whom I really had not seen since pre-pandemic. That included an old friend, about to turn 94, who is a financial supporter of American U’s Israel program, and who was going to take an Uber home until I offered her a cheaper ride. She is still active (with limitations) and lives in her large house all by herself. Pretty amazing.

I also got home in time to read the third Euripides play – “Alcestis”. This one is very short and (I think) quite silly. A man is told by Death that his time is up, unless he can find someone to take his place. He asks his elderly parents; they refuse. He asks his wife and mother of his three young children; she, as a matter of loyalty to her husband, agrees. She dies. Our anti-hero is visited by his old friend Hercules, who finds it absurd that Alcestis has died for this reason, and he goes to the underworld and brings her back to life. Exeunt omnes (as they never said in Athens). I think it’s a comedy.

Busy day today. Need to send a book to Toronto by Fedex, should take laundry to Zips, having lunch with a friend at Blue 44, going to the funeral, picking up grandson from pre-school.

See you tomorrow.

That is perhaps the worst pun in the history of the English language. It is probably not politically correct (ask Chico Marx?), and is geographically in error, as Euripides lived in Athens (at least until he was kicked out of town), not Rome. But there you go…..you heard it here.

Yes, Euripides was kicked out of Athens, apparently because he, like Socrates, not only liked to make fun of his home town and the people who lived there, but he liked to make fun of the gods. Euripides, it appears, believed the gods as irrational as men and women. And for this, Athens could not forgive him.

My next Penguin book turned out to be a book of three of Euripides’ nineteen surviving plays, Hippolytus, Iphigenia in Tauris and Alcestis. Yesterday, I read two of three three short plays (the entire book is only 164 pages, and that includes a generous introduction and notes in the back), and I assume will read the third, Alcestis, today.

I thought Hippolytus a little light – the king’s young second wife falls hopefully in love with the king’s son, and decides the only way out is suicide. But she leaves a note blaming her death on the son, angering the king, who then kills his son. But it turns out that the son didn’t even know about his stepmother’s obsession until after her death, but is able to forgive his royal father before he takes his final breath. Meh.

I thought Iphigenia in Tauris, on the other hand, a terrific story with a happy ending. Iphigenia is Orestes’ sister, daughter of Agamemnon, condemned to death by her father (as the god ordained cost of being able to retrieve Helen from Troy), but she escapes to Tauris. Meanwhile, her brother Orestes is sent on a search for a relic of the goddess Artemis to Tauris. Iphigenia’s job in Tauris is to prepare any Athenians who wind up there to be sacrificed to Artemis. But she learns her brother’s identity, helps him secure the relic he came for, and escapes with him on his ship, heading back to her homeland. Great adventure, Great story.

Enough classics lessons for today? Wonder what’s going on in Israel? From this morning’s Forward:

“After massive protests overnight, a national strike gripped Israel Monday morning: No flights departed Ben Gurion airport, schools and universities canceled classes, non-emergency care at hospitals were suspended, shopping malls closed their doors and hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets. Some mayors called for a hunger strike. McDonald’s closed its 200 stores in Israel in solidarity.”

This is the result of the latest Netanyahu outrage, the axing of Defense Minister Gallant, who dared to oppose the rapid movement towards a judicial overhaul as threatening Israeli security, as reservists and some active duty military troops are refusing to serve until the coalition’s plans to change the way justices are appointed are dropped. It is really quite something – estimates have yesterday’s protesters exceeding 500,000.

President Herzog of Israel has proposed some sensible compromises that the ruling coalition have discounted, but don’t call them dead yet. It is not clear what will happen. I assume that Netanyahu would be happy to compromise, but not at the expense of losing his job as prime minister and forcing another election (which he would now undoubtedly not win). But failure to compromise might also result in some parties dropping out of the coalition, forcing another election anyway. And the hardliners – the religious Zionists and Shas (let’s call them territorialists) – are not ready to compromise; their agendas depend on the current coalition staying in power.

As Euripides might have said (but didn’t), “Oh, what tangled webs we weave.”

Let’s start with the film. We watched All Quiet on the Western Front last night. I usually don’t watch war films, but after all, this one was based on a classic anti-war book, and just won four (that’s a lot) Oscars. It’s the story of a young German soldier in World War I, anxious to support his Vaterland and join the army, caught in the long, long Flanders stalemate, watching his friends, one by one, fall, saving himself through the undertaking of what even (or especially) he knew were evil acts, only to die minutes before the effect of the armistice at 11 a.m, on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.

The film is primarily in German (with subtitles, of course), and is well acted, and wonderfully made. I think it was worthy of its Academy Awards recognition. I recommend it with the following caveat: It was by far the most uncomfortable film I have watched.

Yes, it’s about the First World War. But all I could think as we watched it: Ukraine.

And, by the way, if you watch it on Netflix, be sure to stay for the “Making of…..”, a 20 minute piece that will make you appreciate the film even more.

OK, the books.

Having struggled for weeks with Dostoevsky, I read two other books over the past few days. First was “All the Horses of Iceland”, by Sarah Tolmie, a medievalist scholar who wrote a nice mini-saga about a young Icelandic teenager, maybe 1000 years ago, who goes to Scandinavia where he meets a Jewish Khazar trader and goes with him through the steppes to Mongolia, where he is deemed to be a magician and is awarded with a herd of horses to bring back to Iceland, trekking through country ravaged by tribal warfare. It is nicely written, and accompanied by a little magical thinking, but is it great literature? Probably not. But it did remind me of “Njall’s Story”, a true 12th century Icelandic saga, which I read early in my Penguin reading, and which tells the story of pagan Iceland in about the 9th century. Iceland back then certainly was a dangerous place to live, but also a surprisingly sophisticated place, with formalized relationships between tribes, with clear practices of both respect and revenge, and with the annual Althing, the gathering for both politics and trade. I opened “Njall’s Story” certain that I would find it a waste of time. But quite the opposite.

The same was the case with the other book I just read, titled “England in the 19th Century” by David Thomson. It turned out that this was a wonderfully written book, a pleasure to read, not organized chronologically, but by subject. The divide between rural and urban England and the various parliamentary reforms, the adoption of a free trade strategy when England was supreme and the change to a form of protectionism, when it not longer was. The development of the empire in competition with much of Europe, the rivalry with Germany with respect to naval strength, the importance of Victoria who made the queen personally more important than the idea of the monarchy, the development of loyal self rule in Australia and Canada, the Irish question, and more.

Not sure what is next.

But of course, I don’t only read books. I buy them. Usually, I look for books that have been signed by the author (you know that), or that are old or hold particular interest.

This week I made an exception and bought (at a used book store downtown) two books that I have just wanted to read. First, Charles King’s book, “Odessa”, and second Bill Taubman’s “Gorbachev: His Life and Times”. When will I get to them?

I also, of course, found some special signatures, and bought for $2.50 each: “The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix”, signed by James D. Watson, “No Dream is Too High”, signed by Buzz Aldrin, and “This Child Will be Great”, signed by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Don’t recognize Sirleaf? She was the first (and I think only) female president of Liberia.

What led me to writing this post? A couple of things:

1. I just heard a House Republican press conference touting their great success in passing a Parents Bill of Rights (with no Democratic votes), knowing full well that it won’t even get to a vote in the Senate.
2. Reading articles yesterday about a teacher in Tallahassee who was fired for showing her 5th grade class Michelangelo’s David, after which a parent complained that the statue is pornographic.
3. How Glenn Youngkin won his election for governor of Virginia after his opponent Terry McCauliffe said that parents had no role to play in school curricula, and Youngkin jumped on that.
4. Knowing that the US never winds up near the top on international educational rankings.
5. Reading continually about the elimination of certain books from school curricula or libraries
6. Hearing accusations, without any basis, that Critical Race Theory is being taught in schools, and that the result is to divide students from each other, and make white students hate themselves.
7. All the issues about gay, non-binary and trans kids, how they are treated and how they should be treated.

And so on.

So those are some of the problems. There are also a few obvious facts.

1. Each child learns differently, and that won’t change.
2. Each teacher teaches differently, and that can’t change.
3. Every school district is different, as is every school board and every school’s administration.
4. Every school classroom is different, with children from all sorts of backgrounds and belief systems.

Now, as usual, I am going to attack the Republicans (but only because they deserve it). As I understand the parents’ bill of rights (and I have not paid a lot of attention to it), it would, among other things, guarantee that parents would receive a lot of information about school curricula for their children, including lists of books that would be read in their classes. Listening to the several Republican House members who spoke at the press conference, they wanted to stress that the Democratic Party’s lunatic left (that was Kevin McCarthy’s phrase) was the cause of all of these problems, and the fact that no Democrats voted for this bill is evidence that the Democrats are simply beholden to evil teachers’ unions. In addition, they attacked the Democrats for everything else in the world, all because of the weakness of the Biden administration.

What gets me is that the Republicans just cannot talk about education without talking about politics. They cannot write an education bill whose basic purpose is educational, not political. And this is true not only with regard to education, but with regard to many other things as well.

Just like Republicans have created doubt in scientists and health care professionals for political purposes, they now want to sow doubt in educators for the same reason. Don’t let them tell you what to do, they say, you tell them what they should do. You know more than they do, so you can tell them how to treat your health, and you can tell them how to educate your children. You know best. But guess what? You don’t.

Take the issue of slavery, or more broadly the issue of how Blacks have been (and are) treated in our country. Let’s say that a teacher tells the kids that Blacks were kidnapped in Africa, sold into slavery in the United States, worked unmercifully, split from their families. That they were kept from voting even after the Civil War, not allowed to marry Whites, not allowed to buy property in or live in certain neighborhoods, not allowed into certain jobs, or to eat in restaurants or sit in theaters. And that all of that was bad, wrong.

What would be wrong with that teaching? How would that divide children, or make White children hate themselves? And, from another perspective, how can you education American children if they don’t know that? I think Republican leaders know there is no reason to oppose this instruction, except that they have political reasons for trying to make a big stink about and cast blame on Democrats.

The issues surrounding gender are admittedly more complicated and more sensitive. Isn’t it obvious that children should not be encouraged to think of themselves as gay if they are not, and should not be encouraged to think of themselves as having been born into the wrong gender? Isn’t it also obvious that children who are gay, or who have inbred gender issues, have to be treated with compassion, so that they can succeed without being targets of hate and bullying? I think the answers to both questions are yes. But the two political parties have set their own positions (and the positions of their opposite) in stone, seeming making such attempts doomed to failure, and maybe even impossible to start.

It appears that there is no way to separate health care from politics (and it’s because of the politicians who belittle the professionals), and there is no way to separate education from politics (and it’s because of the politicians who belittle the professionals).

Well, if I ran the zoo…….

It’s odd, because I used to spend the majority of my waking hours downtown, that I rarely seem to be there now. Not since the pandemic first locked us down, and then changed all of our daily practices. But I did go downtown a few weeks ago. It was a gray and dismal day, and everything looked pretty dismal. The streets were not jammed with traffic, the sidewalks were fairly empty, there were a number of empty store fronts, and generally the place did not look well cared for. I knew of course that downtown activity had been lessened by the pandemic, but I hadn’t thought about how an emptier downtown changed the entire atmosphere of the place. Well, I thought, maybe it really hadn’t. After all, it is a dismal day.

Yesterday, I was downtown again, pretty much in the same neighborhood. The sky was blue, the temperature was in the 70s, a nice breeze was blowing – the weather could not have been better. The feel of downtown, however, was still as dismal as it was on that very dismal day.

I have seen the statistics. Over half of the people who worked downtown pre-COVID have not returned. This includes federal government workers, as well as private sector workers. Washington is a city where working from home caught on, and hasn’t let go. I have also seen the Metro figures which show ridership also down almost 50% (this is par for big city transit, and is apparently a smaller drop than in some cities, like San Francisco and Atlanta).

There are other factors at play, as well. One of the industries that seems to have been little affected by the pandemic is real estate development and construction. And over the past several years, there has been a lot of commercial development in the area, just not in downtown. Those familiar with this area know of the tremendous amount of construction activity in the Navy Yard area and at The Wharf. I have read the Bethesda still has 21 new high rise projects on the boards. And development is still occurring in a number of suburban areas in both Virginia and Maryland. But not so much downtown.

It appears now that employers are assuming that there will continue to be a lot of work from home for the foreseeable future. And a lot of split work – part time from home, and part time at the office. But this means a reconfiguration of office layouts – offices are getting smaller (by a lot), some offices are being shared by two or more employees, etc. This means that as office leases expire, companies are renewing for considerably less space. Vacancy rates are high, and it appears may even climb more.

Mayor Bowser has a plan. Her plan, beyond convincing employers (including the federal government) that they should go back to their downtown workspace, is to have excess commercial capacity reconfigured as residential space. The city would help through tax incentives that would last 20 years. There is at least one such conversion underway now – the building that used to house the Peace Corps offices on L Street is being redone as a multifamily unit building (not sure if it will be rental or condo). We will see how this works.

I do have my doubts. There has been a tremendous amount of high rise or mid-rise residential development in the area, in the neighborhoods mentioned above and many more. I am not sure how much more of this type of development the area can absorb. At least right now, the area’s population, which has increased greatly over the past decade, has been fairly stagnant. The mayor’s goal is to have 15,000 units converted downtown and ready for occupancy by 2028. And for this to be a continuing program after that.

Downtown DC is a large area. By my definition (I do not know if the city has set boundaries for this initiative), it runs from the Capitol on the east, to 25th Street on the west, and from about D Street on the south, to at least M (and some places, maybe P) Street on the north. That’s over 250 square blocks.

The area has a lot of hotels, a few movies theaters (fewer than before), many “fine dining” type restaurants (but fewer lunch places than it had), and a number of museums and tourist spots. But groceries, dry cleaners and the like are harder to find. And, yes, there is some existing residential development, most of which is very high end, especially in the Penn Quarter and City Center neighborhoods, but these are not for the type of “ordinary people” (my term) that the mayor would like to see live downtown. They, at least today, have too many other attractive, and probably more affordable, options.

“Just listen to the music of the traffic of the city, Linger on the sidewalk where the neon lights are pretty……..Things will be great when you are ….. downtown, No finer place for sure…..downtown, Everything is waiting for you…..downtown, downtown, downtown.”

I should add: downtowns are crucial for all sorts of reasons. Anything that the city can do to support downtown development, I support.

I gave my presentation this morning on the constitutional crisis in Israel to my Thursday morning breakfast group. I thought it went well. Gave myself a B+.

I started from the premise that Americans protesting the pending changes in Israel do so from an American perspective, without sufficient understanding of the Israeli situation. I purposely did not express my political positions in my talk – I just wanted to provide context that those protesting so loudly would have a better understanding of what they are protesting.

The areas of concern are (1) how Supreme Court justices are selected, (2) should a Supreme Court have the right to nullify legislation passed by a parliament or Congress, and (3) should the legislative body have a right to overrule the Supreme Court?

I pointed out that the Israeli and American governmental systems are very different. We have 50 states and DC; they have one unified country – no states or provinces, only one court system. We have a separately elected president; their prime minister is selected by their parliament.

In the US, the appointment of Supreme Court justices is inherently political. The president nominates; the Senate approves. In Israel, up until now, the 9 member judicial selection committee is made up of 4 representatives of the governmental majority, and 5 representatives of the Court itself and the Israel Bar Association.

The current proposal is now to have an 11 member selection committee in Israel with 6 members appointed by the governmental majority, and requiring the approval of at least one minority member of the parliament or Court for the third and subsequent nominations within one parliamentary term. During such a term, there are, on average, 2.6 justices selected, so that the ruling coalition would in theory (over a period of 2 terms, or 8 years, have selected 4 of the 5 justices).

The argument of the proponents is that this would make things more democratic, and that justices would no longer be chosen by non-elected individuals. The opposition responds that, without this check, there would be no balance and the majority could select any politicos who would support their cause.

By the way, another difference between the two countries. In our country, a justice serves for life. In Israel, it is a 9 year term (no second term allowed) and there is a mandatory retirement at 70.

The other debate is about the ability of the Supreme Court to have judicial review. Nothing is said in the US constitution about the Supreme Court having the right to nullify a law passed by Congress. But in practice, this has been permitted time and time again since 1802, when a unanimous Court in an opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall (Marbury v Madison) stated that portions of a law passed by Congress in 1799, which gave the Supreme Court the right to hear certain cases as the first court of facts, was unconstitutional because the Constitution stated that the Court was to be primarily an appellate court (I am paraphrasing, obviously).

In Israel, where there is no written constitution, there was no judicial review until 1992, when the parliament then passed a revision to the judicial code which permitted it (again, I am simplifying). It is this 1992 law (or at least its interpretation by the Supreme Court) that is now seemingly being rewritten. Again, the proponents say that parliament, not unelected judges operating without a constitution should be able to pass what it wants (there are a few exceptions in the newly proposed legislation), and that that is what democracy is all about. And the opposition is saying that you need checks and balances, not an unlimied parliamentary right.

Interestingly, for those who are unaware, in places like Canada and Australia, the Courts are limited as to what laws they can overturn, and the Parliaments have a way to revoke the Court’s nullification. In Britain, courts have no right to overturn any laws, to my understanding.

At any event, the point is (a) we in the US do not have the perfect system and (b) powers of Supreme Courts across the world vary a great deal, and (c) no system is perfect. The Israeli system today may be imperfect and fragile, and the proposal by the new right wing governing coalition may make things worse, not better.

We see polarization everywhere, certainly in this country, and certainly in Israel. Legislators of good faith and with practical sense seem to be sorely lacking. We don’t know yet how the Israeli situation will play out, and it may be very proper and appropriate to protest against the proposed changes, but when we do it, we should do with sufficient background and context.

This post describes some, but not all, of the thoughts I brought up this morning. and there are many thoughts that I was not able to bring up in a 40 minute presentation. For example, do you know that many countries have two Supreme Courts – one to handle disputes, and one to handle only constitutional questions. In France, for example, the constitutional court has to look at and pass on all legislation before it is signed into law and becomes effective. And that is just one example.

Israel can learn much from other models. But guess what? Maybe we could, too.

Well, I had just been zipping through my Penguin paperbacks, reading between one and three every week for over a year. And my reading included some rather lengthy Russian novels, like “Crime and Punishment”, and “Oblomov”. But when I got to “The Possessed” (sometimes known as “The Demons”) by Dostoevsky, I was slowed down into first gear, sometimes as if I was climbing a too steep hill, and sometime as if I was just stopped, waiting for the train to pass. I am happy to say that my ordeal is over.

Over the past few years, I have read both “Crime and Punishment”, which I consider one great book, and “The Brothers Karamazov”, which I consider a bit too dense and spotty. “Crime” is the psychological story of a university student who is so alienated from the world that all he can think to do is to plan and execute the perfect crime. And he does so (event though to the reader, the crime doesn’t seem so perfect) in such a way that not only is he able to avoid detection, but even when he wants to confess nobody believes him. Of course, he finally does get his comeuppance, but it isn’t easy.

“The Brothers” on the other hand is an overdrawn and bizarre family saga about a boorish man and his three sons, each of whom has a different view of life and different sense of entitlement. Yes, there is a crime in this one, too, and then punishment and what to do about it. Except for some few chapters, “The Brothers” does nothing for me.

Now we get to “The Demons”. Frankly, I think it is a spoof. But not a quick and cutesy spoof, but one which is so detailed and seemingly so meaningful that you really have to concentrate on it seriously to believe it is a spoof. Yes, there is a story line, and there is an extraordinary collection of characters. And that’s what they are – characters.

If “Crime and Punishment” is Dostoevsky’s psychological novel and “The Brothers Karamazov” his philosophical one, “The Demons” is his political novel. It is 1850 or so, the serfs have been freed, and reform is in the air. But what kind of reform, and how are the Russians, used to living under an absolute czar, supposed to define it and cope with it.

The younger generation, of course, has its ideas – socialism, freedom, religious toleration, equality. All these things that most older Russians (I am speaking here of the aristocratic class) cannot understand, and certainly of which they don’t approve. But it’s in the air.

And when the son of the very wealthy widow and the son of her longtime friend and teacher return to town with progressive ideas, you can be certain that everything will fall apart, and that this small and close community will never be the same. And you can be certain that chaos will lead to embarrassing situations, murder, suicide and mayhem.

This would be a great novel if it was half the size it is. The Penguin version is 648 pages long, with very small print.

Why did Dostoevsky make this book as long as he did? Perhaps, he was paid by the word? Could be. Like Dickens, this novel was first issued as a magazine series over, I think, a few years. But the primary reason is that this is a book filled with diversions. It’s written in the first person, by a character who is never named and rather minor, except that he is always around. And he is telling us this story. And every now and again, he stops in his tracks and says something like: “Before I tell you what happened next, I better give you some background.” And we are off on a multi-page digression. Or he says, when a new character is introduced, “I must tell you about him first”, and again we are sent down a different road.

One other point. As we know, Russian novels can be hard to follow because they do have a lot of characters, and each character tends to have a long three-part name. In “The Demons”, though, Dostoevsky goes one step further. He gives the characters names that are so close to one another that you cannot keep them straight, even if “War and Peace” gave you no problem.

There are two Verhovenskys (father and son), two Stavrogins (mother and son), two Shatovs (brother and sister), but also a Liputin, two Lebyadkins (brother and sister), a Lyamashin, two Lembkes (husband and wife), a Kirillov and a Karmazinov. It’s the L’s that get ya.

OK, enough of that.

Onward. I should switch to some very short Penguins – 200 pages or less for the next, say, 6. I have lost time to make up. But if I go by the pile I have been working on, it’ll be “Life in Shakespeare’s England” (365 pages), Isaac Babel’s “Collected Stories” (333), “The Canterbury Tales” (512), “The Magic Mountain” (716), two books on English History in the 18th and 19th centuries (total of 475). And one short one: “Requiem for a Nun” by Faulkner (only 232, but it’s Faulkner).

I think I need a new strategy.

First, my heartiest congratulations to Saint Rupert Murdoch, who has once again decided that the single life is not for him. And that 92 is the perfect age for marrying. Yes, the patron saint of Disinformation is tying the knot with a young maiden about 25 years younger than he. Should be a crime, I thought until I realized that some 25 years younger than St. Rupert is still Medicare eligible. I hope they invite me to one of their many houses, including the California house. Speaking of houses, did you know that the Prime Minister of the Somewhat United Kingdom has a house in Santa Monica? I sure didn’t. But then About to be Arrested Trump has two golf courses in the S.U.K. So, there. Last night, continuing our Oscar chase, we watched The Whale. You may recall (if your memory is still sharp) that Brendon Fraser won the Best Actor Oscar for The Whale and that someone else won for Best Makeup. OK, let’s put aside the raging controversy as to whether the lead should have been played by someone who really weighs 450 pounds, and let me give you the skinny on this film. I was almost 100% certain I wouldn’t like it. But guess what? I do so like it, Sam I Am. Yes, the plot and all the characters are totally exaggerated, and I am pretty sure that Tom, Tom the preacher’s son, who is sure that Jesus is already in the neighborhood adds much to the story. But all the emotions seem real, and the tangle that everyone seems to find themself in does pull on all the empathy strings. See it when you get a chance. One more thing to mention. According to some group that seems to know such things, Israel has been determined to be the 4th happiest country in the world. My take? This is so …… 2022.

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