Rosh Hashanah

You're not going to see me at shul.

Then again, I haven't been a member of a temple since the eighties, when I was married.

But what I'm referencing here...

All those parents who are afraid their kids are going to get shot in school...today I feel their pain. The LAPD is sending more officers to guard synagogues, but if they want to get you, you're gone.

Not that I didn't go to services. I did so online, have been doing so since the late nineties. I used to say it was truly a religious experience, just you alone, in front of the screen, but that was back when the service was a special one that lasted less than thirty minutes, as opposed to the livestreams of today, which are nearly interminable.

So I logged on to the Steven Wise Temple stream at six o'clock and the singing had already begun. We didn't have a choir like this back in our era. And we certainly didn't sing Beatles songs. The woman rabbi did a whole sermon on "Let It Be," parsing what Paul McCartney meant by saying "mother Mary" and...

I finally had to turn it off. Reminded me of Rabbi Davidson back at B'nai Israel in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where I grew up. It was sometime in the early sixties, he went on about a tape he'd been sent of sounds from Vietnam for nearly half an hour and to say it was boring...

Now, more than ever, I want first class entertainment. If you're going to stand up there and tell a story, maybe practice at the Moth beforehand.

But I went as a kid. It was an obligation. I never paid attention, just going was enough. Which is why the online services were such a revelation, I actually paid attention, but now I only go out of guilt.

And the guilt has just about died out.

As for believing... Listen to the George Carlin routine and it's hard to. Let me see, there's a guy in the sky, and he's watching all of us to see whether we've been naughty or nice. Yeah, right.

Then again, being Jewish is being part of a community, and I've had great experiences as a result.

Jewish summer camp... Where the focus is on your first love relationships as opposed to how good a baseball player you are. There's less of a hierarchy and more of a togetherness. And you always waited for the counselors to march through the dining hall yelling "The Big O Is Coming!" "The Big O Is Coming!"

That's the Olympics. The highlight of the year.

And ultimately Israelis were murdered at the Olympics, but now they don't even want them at Eurovision. Short memories.

Like the Holocaust. Forget those saying it never existed. If you're a child of the fifties and sixties you were fully aware of it, you knew survivors, never mind people whose relatives had been cooked.

But today we've got Jewish nincompoops like Hannah Einbinder taking the side of the Palestinians...

Talk about a dicey subject. If I don't take the anointed side, my inbox goes wild. Gaza is just like Trump. You're on one side or the other, there's no grey area, THEY'RE KILLING CIVILIANS!

But it's kind of like Charlie Kirk. No one in their right mind wanted Charlie Kirk to die, nor any Palestinians, but when you look under the surface...

I can feel the chilling effect in my bones as I write this. Unless I say Charlie Kirk was a great American deserving of the Medal of Freedom I'm a pariah. One can't even discuss his positions and the division he sowed. Once again, he was entitled to his speech. But is this Mother Teresa? Is this the right person to lionize?

The Palestinians want Israel gone, which is what "From the river to the sea means." They've been offered their own state numerous times and refused...they want it all, and unless Israel is gone, they're sitting out. As for the rest of the Arab countries...they don't want the Palestinians.

So, Hamas attacks Israel and...

Well, now everything is in play. Netanyahu, the West Bank... And the truth is, if it weren't Jews, the rest of the world would not be so concerned, they never are.

How do I know? I'M A JEW!

Is a white person in touch with the racial hatred a Black person experiences? Then how come non-Jews can tell me all about antisemitism? Sure, you can divide Zionism from antisemitism... But I've got a question, when antisemitism gets really bad, where are Jews going to go? Israel, it's the only safe place. But Jews don't know their place, they don't know how to just shut up and be thankful they've got what they do. We as Jews have been hearing this our entire lives. I can't tell you how many times I've been told I'm too loud, too inappropriate, don't fit in. It's about more than personality, it's raw antisemitism. You want to know what it's like growing up in a Jewish family? Watch the beginning of Woody Allen's "Radio Days," where the family is sitting around the table talking over each other, that's what it's like.

Not that you have to behave that way, but you are certainly judging me for doing so.

I just want to be left free to be me.

But that's hard in today's word.

Let me just dig the hole deeper... Hamas has won. I point you to an editorial in today's "Wall Street Journal":

"A Palestinian State for Hamas"

Free link: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/palestinian-statehood-u-k-france-australia-hamas-israel-6df739a9?st=bCNLLv&reflink=article_email_share

This was the plan all along. And Israel played into it. Global sentiment is now on the side of Hamas and the Palestinians. Israel's image will never recover in my lifetime.

Kudos.

However, the pro-Palestinian mobs don't realize they've been played.

All those musicians in the U.K... I didn't see them holding concerts for Israel after October 7th.

Then again, Israel is a wealthy country of Jews, it should know its place.

And if it wasn't Israel, I'd say the war would soon be forgotten, but antisemitism never dies, just like rust never sleeps.

So that's what it's like being a Jew in the world today. You've got to keep quiet, put your head down and feel privileged that you're just allowed to earn a living and exist.

The music industry, over-indexing in Jews? Do you see them taking a stand re Gaza? No, they just want to be out of the fray.

However, Paramount took a stand:

"Paramount criticizes pledge by entertainers to boycott Israeli film institutions": http://bit.ly/46w1I3q

We don't see a concomitant statement from record labels, re the pro-Palestinian concert at Wembley nor acts pulling their music from Spotify in Israel.

Then again, the Ellisons own the company, and Larry Ellison is Jewish.

As for the crackdown on colleges under the rubric of antisemitism... Most Jews don't think that's really what it's about. Then again, how ignorant could college presidents be that they allowed Jews to be targeted and afraid when they wouldn't let this happen to another minority group.

So Jews today are afraid, on guard.

And we want to tell the masses that most of us are not religious zealots in black hats. That we're more culturally Jewish.

And we want to tell the younger Jewish generations that support Palestine that at the end of the day, no matter what they say, they're Jewish too, and not immune to antisemitism. Protest all you want, it's in your blood.

Now in truth Rosh Hashanah is nowhere near as heavy a holiday as Yom Kippur, when you're either written into the book of life for the following year, or you're not.

And it got to the point when I was in high school that we'd go to Vermont on Rosh Hashanah, and go to the temple up there, if we went at all. You see you don't have to go to temple to be considered a Jew, you're always a Jew, it's not something you can wash off, you're reminded of this constantly by non-Jews.

Which is one of the reasons why Jews hang together, because of a commonality. That's got little to do with scripture and a whole hell of a lot to do with persecution. We can handle it, we've been taught to handle it. As for right wing support of Israel...if it also wasn't the home of Christianity, would this be the case?

And the dirty little secret is Judaism is dying out anyway, because of intermarriage. If you just wait long enough, we'll be gone.

But that's not soon enough.

So...

I was planning something more upbeat and sunny, about Jewish traditions and the New Year. But if you're a Jew today, Gaza is not far from your mind.

Once again, I'd say there are no victors, but in truth Hamas has already won. Never mind the masterminds still being alive in Qatar. They got the entire world on their side. They're celebrating. Why give the hostages back when their strategy is working so well?

As for Israel... Just like Jews in general, they should shut up and put up.

Innocent people are being killed. And that's terrible. And at this late date, one can certainly see the cost in status alone should have had the Israelis stepping down, stopping the war years ago. But if you think this would have placated the Palestinians, you just aren't familiar with the history of the region.

So there we have it. Israel is committing genocide. And by the way, Jews run the entertainment industry, the same Jews who've been silent for fear of blowback. All the tropes have deepened and grown, while they're blowing up synagogues and Josh Shapiro's residence.

Just giving you a bit of perspective from the inside. From the baby boomer generation, the bridge from then to now.

Never again?

It's already happening.


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