Remembering

A lot of Facebook posts started by reminding people that today is Yom Hashoah, a day to remember. In those words and the subsequent lists of murders and atrocities, an underlying concern seems to emerge: Holocaust survivors and eyewitnesses are dying, and we feel a heavy obligation to hold onto memory and make it our own.

Unlike Passover, which was so long ago that it has truly become a story open to interpretation, the Holocaust is still relatively recent, the harm done still very tangible, and it feels right to stick closer the hard facts. At the same time, we today are blessed with much fortune and find ourselves in a very different situation. So what are the lessons of such brutal suffering today? The answers are very charged, and their implications highly politicized. The mixture can be heavy handed; it's hard to hit an authentic note.

Popchassid posted photos that tried to alter that narrative http://popchassid.com/photos-holocaust-narrative/ in a way that was respectful and thought provoking.

Here are three manifestations of remembering that I find surprising and for which I'm grateful:

1. At lunch today, a friend told me about  her experience with two teachers in the countryside of Utah who had decided to do a unit with their students about the Shoah. She explained that they had little context and wanted to relate through the lens of a religious Christian rescuer. They also knew little about Judaism; when she visited the class, the students' first question was whether Jews believed in Jesus (as a wise man and reformer but not a god, she responded). But she was astounded by the teachers' curiosity, by how much her invitation to Shabbat dinner meant to them, by their interest in learning more and teaching their own children. That interest by others who are not Jewish and have no personal or collective history tied up in the Holocaust is amazing.

2. I'm hopeful about changes in Germany today, not because I think popular option is so vastly more enlightened, but because some people in the subsequent generations really do "get it" and care deeply about creating a better Germany and society, and they are spending much of their life on doing so. They include the friend who teaches people how to effectively counter neo-Nazis, others who work in government, others who write. It's not extraordinary that there are foolish, racist, antisemitic people (sadly), but it is extraordinary that there is such a robust cadre dedicated to a better way and willing to stand up tall and loud for that.

3. And finally, today at JDC our Yom Hashoah commemoration was dedicated to the incredible creative acts that survivors, aka victors, accomplished in the aftermath of the Shoah. That resilience, ability to build on, and incredible creative and generous impulse that inspired so many is the most inspirational of all.

Games

Games are amazing. We had two birthday parties today and the key to having fun was playing good games together- variations on tag and catch, and most important- run. When they were really involved in a game, the kids were fully absorbed- they weren't fighting, hungry, nothing was hurting (even when they actually fell), they weren't cold, and the rain made no difference. 

And after they were done, they were hungry and happy. Pizza and cake and call it a really nice day.

As adults, we don't really play those games anymore (though I paid an adult - and I'm not complaining! - a pretty penny to do so with my kids). The few times I've participated in tag- even of the simplest variety - it's been immensely appreciated and, though tiring, it's hard to say no fun. So maybe it's worth trying again. Or maybe dancing, apropos the last post, is a good grown-up substitute.

I discovered grown up games in Berlin, where I learned a few great card games and spent many nights - for much of the night - sipping wine or beer and playing. Skat or doppelkopf were favorites, variations on bridge (or vice versa?), but even the simple game of canasta was  fun.

It was a great way to be together without talking about all the regular stuff- to do something together, and to appreciate  talents of friends that are not always readily apparent. 

I also love that cards can be played easily among the generations- not just older people with older people, but kids with grandparents and everything in between. Once you get the rules, cleverness quickly rivals experience.

It's the same with chess. I used to marvel at how little kids could possibly be so good until someone told me that the reason children are not as good as we are at most things is not because of their lack of brain power, but their lack of experience in the world. With chess- there are a limited number of rules and once you master them, grown ups (at least normal ones, not of the chess master variety) have an equal chance to kids.

Games are really social and educational, and many people are increasingly looking to them as keys to better learning and societies. I appreciate that children and adults learn a great deal from play- about both the world and objects, and each other. And they are fun- it's such a great combination.

Dancing - a lesson from Cuba

Sort of depressing to read the recent news, especially in light of my last post on hope. 

But I'm overdue to write a much more light hearted blog about my recent trip to Cuba and dance- something about which the people there know a lot - and something for which I am, frivolous aside, very very grateful. 

I went to Cuba on an Ambassadors mission with JDC in early April. It was a wonderful trip- great people, beautiful weather and stops, and fascinating stories to contemplate.

Someone remarked that Cubans are the happiest poor people she'd ever seen. That might sound like a crude caricature, but there's something to it. 

We had a chance to visit the Jewish community and were blown away by the wry mix of humor and realism of community leaders (the way they poked gentle fun at the "pin" obsession in Jewish donor circles was memorable, as was their pleasant ironic reflection on their own "schnurring"- a performative self contradiction). They were grateful but with comfortable pride. When questioned about what she would dream of for the future, Adele, the longtime head of the main Patronata synagogue, said she'd like others in Cuba to have some of the same opportunities that the Jewish community has been lucky enough to enjoy thanks to visitors who care, like ourselves, and to the ongoing support of the JDC. 

It was also great to see Cuban ingenuity at work. People have to figure out how to get by on less than enough, and they do so in incredible ways- innovating, squeezing and "borrowing": repurposing newspaper to wrap gifts, using emptied bottles to make art, using every part of everything- animals at the butcher's table (a slab of stone with raw meat, no refrigeration), every leaf at the cigar factory....

It mirrored the way Cubans seemed to repair their houses: without funds for overdue fundamental structural work but instead in a patchwork style that somehow, mostly, did the trick, even if it leaves the once magnificent Havana a shadow of its former self.

I bought a few pairs of earrings and marveled at the fanciful repurposing of the natural materials. One pair is a flat wooden flower with a round wooden bead, painted red, in the middle. Another uses beautiful red (poisonous- who says I'm not living dangerous) seeds strung together in a circle, and the third - small colored shells hung in interlocking circles together. Red was in- my favorite color.

And finally, it was impossible not to notice the dance. Music was all over for us tourists- but that felt authentic. It was playing until very late in the night in the bar (where at the famous Floridita, I saw the same two singers performing- one with a most memorable tragic face, and the other a happy one), at the poolside, in the synagogue (though the tunes for Friday night services were oddly off key, a strange reminder that they have not had much training in spite of what felt otherwise fluent and smooth). 

At Havdalah, marking the end of Shabbat on Saturday night, each age group from teenagers, to the middle aged contingent, to seniors- showed us their moves. That was their way of demonstrating joy, of celebrating, of showing off, of being together. 

It was fabulous ... and catching. I had forgotten how much I like to dance (with the notable pleasant exception of a recent half hour at a 40th birthday, which blew the more ubiquitous talking parties out of the water). Cuba was contagious.

Two days ago I wore the shell earrings for the first time. Yes, they fell apart and I had to keep hooking pieces back on to the main frame. But to my surprise, they did something else too. As I walked, the small shells jangled together lightly; they made music. I picked my daughter up close so she could listen - the music was like a reminder, a secret between me and Cuba and whomever was very near.

Hope vs Hope

The NYTimes article I quoted in the last post about fruitless hope and its ill-effects made me want to distinguish that sentiment from something else that also goes under the title of hope.

I remember having lunch about six years ago with a German diplomat and friend. He was very skeptical about the latest plans for Mid East peace and suggested people were basically giving lip service to something that they were not planning to do anything to realize.

I was actually very taken aback. To me, the talking points according to which I was working still had a significant kernel of substance.

It was important for me to explain that neither I nor anyone I knew were just biding time with excuses. In fact, none of us would still be involved if there were actually no trajectory - realistic even if difficult - that would lead to peace.

Yes, it was unlikely that xx and yy would happen making zz concessions possible, and aa outcomes probable. Nevertheless it was that path to which we were totally committed and doing what was in our power to realize. And we needed friends like him on board since any real move forward would require understanding and concessions on both side, and our credibility with the other was limited.

Maybe he had been in the field too long, but I'm not sure I convinced him of anything other than my own naïveté.

And now, having been in the world a few years longer, I  also wonder myself. I wonder about how realistic I was, how clearly I was seeing.

But I don't wonder about the principle. "Hope" in this constellation, meant a possible if not probable way forward that was better than the present situation. That sort of hope, I retain, is totally crucial. It's not all that different from attainable dreams, inspired ideas or innovations.

It is different from the "hope" in the NYTimes because it is not a way of seeing the present (gratitude is that), but rather of contemplating the many possibilities of the future and picking a best.

Gratitude vs Hope

I just read a hard-hitting and disturbing piece called "Abandon (Nearly) all Hope" http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2014/04/19/abandon-nearly-all-hope/ and had a moment to contemplate the vast differences between gratitude and hope, and also between two different types of hope.

The author of the article, a professor at The New School, Simon Critchley, ruminates on the nature of foolhardy hope, hope in the face of truth, as a method of ignoring reality, and describes grim consequences in classical literature of its effects (the Melian people are killed and enslaved as they hope beyond hope for salvation that does not come).

Such hope- and Critchley claims, with an eye toward the Easter holiday, that religious hope is generally of this variant- is not only self-delusional and foolhardy, but also de-motivates possible, positive, action. Real action must be based on a solid understanding of the here-and-now and of real possibilities for change.

The article rang an important note for me as I feel when faced with challenges of our world today (environmental degradation, for one) - people either have a tendency to ignore altogether or hope vainly. (Another interesting article this weekend highlighted a man in the UK who has become very critical of the quick fixes that cannot possibly really fix the big problem but that are nonetheless offered to followers of the movement as if hey could, and therefore bound to end in a sort of hard crash landing for anyone who truly heeds them.)

On the other hand, hating things and complaining about them, even if it is laudable to be honest with oneself and others, doesn't solve any problems either (that was of course the critique of the somewhat nihilist ex- environmentalist).

Gratitude in the way I've become interested in, is not an opposite, but maybe something of an alternative. It is about looking at the world with open, honest eyes and identifying what is good, what has been accomplished (so easy to forget across generations), and what must at all costs be preserved. What is it that is worth fighting for, actually?

I have thoughts on the importance of another kind of hope as well... For next time. Curious if anyone has thoughts on this.

Dads who cook

It was sweet when it was just the two of us, now that we have kids, it's lifesaving:  Men who cook.

Preparing food and eating is such a major part of life- timewise and for the share of mental space it takes.

I like cooking sometimes, I manage to do it often, but there are times- many- when I just can't. Takeout is one answer, but it's nice, and healthy, to have another. 

When I can't stand the taste of my own food anymore, "dad's" food, enjoyed at home, beats the best chefs in my book.

I'm so appreciative that my husband learned how to cook and that he chooses to do so. And while I give him lots of credit for doing so, I'm grateful that we live in a society where, if it's not quite normative to have a man cooking regularly, it is at very least totally acceptable and often appreciated as something positive.

We went to a Seder at dear friend's house where the husband also shares in the cooking, and sometimes does the lion's share. I want to bet that every woman, every person whose partner is a man who cooks- shares my gratitude.

Freedom?

Passover is the ultimate holiday of gratitude. 

It took me a long time to get it, but it seems so obvious now. 

When I was a kid, we read the Maxwell House Hagaddah and Seders seemed  interminable and almost punishing. It was fine when my turn came to read out loud, and my grandma's cooking was good, but the Seder as a whole felt like something we were obligated to go through. The text pontificated endlessly on the four sons and quoted various rabbis discussing something I could never focus upon and about which I have no idea even today. 

We never deviated from the text, we never talked personally about anything, we never made a connection between the Seder and our lives. Not surprisingly, I never had a sense that it actually spoke deeply to anyone at the table- beyond, at least, a firm conviction that if this is what Jews had to read at Passover, then we darn well were going to read every last word before so much as touching our lips to the waiting matzo ball soup. 

Later, Seders were quaint, tasty, pleasant opportunities to be with friends, occasionally even places for interesting political expressions- but never actually personally meaningful.

And then one year, It clicked for me. I'm not sure when exactly, but it makes sense that it  coincided approximately with me having my own kids and thinking about the turning of generations. I think it also happened around the time that I hosted a Seder myself instead of just passively going along with the way someone else chose to do it. 

The revelation for me was that the Seder is an effort to solve a tremendous human problem: that it is impossible to effectively transmit the experiences and lessons of one generation to the next.   

Slavery is something that we haven't personally experienced, but it was the experience of Jews living thousands of years ago (and making it more poignant still, of many others, even today). How can we value freedom when we don't know what it means to live without it? How can we stand up for it if we don't understand what a privilege it is in the first place?

The Passover Seder to me should be a reenactment of the slavery to freedom experience. Just as when we see a good movie or read a good book-- our ability to understand in a visceral way is strengthened, so too the Seder should act as a sort of superimposed physical reminder of what it is that we have today in our freedom. I'm fascinated by teaching that incorporates reenactment a of history for the same reason, or games that have people immersing themselves in completely different roles. But this is special because it is an annual ritualized reminder, because it uses food, because it involves different generations of the same family. Incidentally, I have also come to appreciate the importance if having kids at the table with their questions and interest in understanding the bottom line.

The most fitting part of the ritual to me is the instruction to lean rather than sit up straight. I can't wait for the day when I let my kids eat sitting or lying down on the floor, cozy.

For me, Passpver is really about appreciating what we have, knowing to value it.

Today my son asked me what all the elevated praising God rhetoric means- he didn't realate. This is coming from someone not too religious- I said the the praise of God is really just the effort to direct that gratitude and personify the recipient. 

Today, the question also came up of what freedom and slavery really are, a level deeper. And I want to give that some more time. Here are some of the questions I have: is freedom the ability to work at all, to earn money? To work for a living wage? To enjoy time off? To make ones own ultimate decisions (but aren't all decisions prefaced on context, so that if I have to work today or starve, how different is the to having to work for fear of punishment)? Who are the people who are not free about whom we think? When are we free vs not free? 

Thinking about security on the 20th anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda

I wrote a short post from Cuba on Monday about something so fundamental to our ability to live and plan beyond the moment: our most basic dependence on security. But my internet card must have run out before I finished, so I'm adding my two cents late.

Monday was the international commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda, which started 20 years ago. The well known facts center around a mass and very brutal murder of Tutsis over a 100-day period-- somewhere from 500,000 to 1 million people, men, women and children, according to Wikipedia; numbers are not confirmed.

Propaganda definitely preemted and accompanied the genocide, but the sheer brutality and speed of the mass murders were shocking. Most of them were perpetrated hand-to-hand, and stand as disturbing and very contemporary testament to the possibility of completely shutting down any sense of human empathy.

A lot has been written and said on genocide by some incredible people whom I have had the honor of knowing a little, and it seems like there is still much more to understand and come to terms with even today.

My objective with this post is to remind myself how very lucky I am to live in a country where that fundamental security is in place, and how that shoud not be taken for granted and is still not a given in many parts of the world.

What are the hallmarks of the sort of security I mean here? I'm not talking of living free from crime, or personal tragedies, or even stock market fluctuation - all of which can be personally momentous in the worst ways. I mean a more overarching societal security - the relative confidence that there is no war, the individual bad behavior may be unjustly handled, but mass violent crime will be dealt with severely, and that even non-violent crime, though it may persist for a time, will ultimately, on one real day that we are likely to see, be subject to a more just reckoning.

In Cuba, we heard about how most people don't put money in banks. What if there is political change? No one knows what would happen next. What if withdrawals would be limited to a small minimum per day, if inflation happened and currency were devalued, or if fund were taxed massively from one day to the next or even nationalized? On a less existential level, this economic uncertainty also creates very fundamental insecurities that can paralyze action.

It's true that even with a great deal of lived security, I have inherited some collective sense of fear. Perhaps everything is different from how it looks after all, maybe the stability I feel will still prove itself a mirage. Rabid Antisemitism, a meteor, food insecurity- things could change. Or ruining the environment for good- that's a very realistic one. It's hard not to notice the many recent popular films thematize these underlying catastrophic possibilities because they play to our deepest fears.

But the fact is that I've lived 40 years with this fundamental security already and that there are no signs I can divine now of radical departure, even if we allow that the future is, by definition, always open....

Maybe what I am really writing about is not truly a fundamental societal security- perhaps that is putting the bar too high. But a security great enough to create inner peace that enables a person to focus on any and all other things to be accomplished. I'm grateful for that.

Security

April 7 is the official day to commemorate the genocide in Rwanda. It's a moment to step back to mourn losses of that specific, brutal conflict, and to marvel again at the remarkable ability of people to turn against their neighbors, to ignore what I believe is an inborn human instinct of empathy for others and revert instead to our most brutal state.

I enjoy a great deal of security, certainly relative to many other parts of the world. That is the case even with problems of gun violence, strongly perceived inequality and a prison system that badly needs reform. 

There is a certain wonderful predictability about life that is based on an understanding of what the risks and rewards are of certain behaviors and a lack of existential fear - at least the type that emanates from a force in power- government or otherwise.

Sometimes I feel like it could all be a grand illusion- go up in smoke at any moment, revealing a much more brutal reality. And watchfulness can't be bad. But realistically, I think it is just that. And that's good- very good.

Phoneless conversations

These days, you've got to be grateful when you have a fully phone-free conversation: resisting the urge to check email, calendars, to do "research."

I recently participated in a full 2 hour conversation on a very intense topic and a participant said the beat part of it was the absence of mobile devices.

How do you deal with the pop-up phenomenon. Explicitly I think. That's what I get at home, and maybe because I'm guilt-addicted... But it feels right. It's annoying and offensive. An addictive part of me I expect friends and family to call out.

And if it needs a diplomatic treatment- I've seen humor go a long way. Ah hum.. I'm over here... Straight ahead.

What's the antidote to this negative phenomenon? A lot of people are looking for that. On the Jewish circuit, it's Shabbat. On the environmental one, Nature. Culinary, Cooking (but aren't all the best recipes online!?) or maybe enjoying a good meal together. On the travel circuit, Cuba?!

And what's the opposite of the phone- free conversation? The eye-contact-blocking iPad meal. Check out this picture. I was actually blown away...

 

Pre-k

Our family is so lucky to have had professionals involved in rearing our children. I'm thrilled that it looks like many other New Yorkers will get that chance too. I definitely believe "it takes a village" - thanks Hillary Clinton.

I was thrilled this piece appeared in chalkbeat today.

http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/03/20/what-my-family-got-out-of-daycare-that-public-pre-k-could-provide/