Whither the Beloved Country

 

   We have just been through the dirtiest, most acrimonious presidential campaign that I can remember, the acrimony has not stopped on either side, and my mood is down.  Like most American Jews since the Great Depression, my sympathies have been aligned with those of the Democratic Party.  I say “have been” because the party is listing so far to port that it is in danger of capsizing. One of my first political memories was visiting my maternal grandfather ע''ה, who actually lived and raised two daughters through the Great Depression, mentioning or perhaps hearing somebody else mention President Eisenhower, and hearing my grandfather say in substance: A Republican – yuk.  I reached voting age in 1970, with the passage of the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 nationwide.  I did not wait, but went to the Brooklyn office of the Board of Elections to register as soon as possible, before the Orthodox establishment got on the bandwagon and instructed all of us to register and vote, because if we did not then our concerns would not count.  I would have registered even if the gedolim had told us not to; it is my sacred obligation as an American and many good Americans died so that we could choose those who would govern us.  Of course, I registered as a Democrat and remain so registered.  Where I live the Democratic nomination is usually tantamount to election, and I wanted my vote to mean something.  The first Presidential election in which I voted was in 1972, Richard Nixon was seeking a second term against Democrat George McGovern with the war in Vietnam still raging.  As a student at Columbia I was safe from the draft with a 2S deferment, in what turned out to be the last age cohort where 2S (undergraduate student) deferments were given, and I dutifully completed the paperwork to renew the deferment each year.  I voted for Nixon, the Republican, feeling that his Democratic challenger would sell small allies like Israel down the river, and that his domestic ideas were too far left to work.  Answering a pollster at Columbia that I voted for Richard Nixon took some political courage, but that was okay.

 

   The primary season leading up to last summer’s nominating conventions and last November’s general election was a disaster.  The Republican side went pretty much as I expected, the Republicans having been the “party of stupid” for quite a while.  Anybody they nominate could be counted on to be a science denier and/or Christian fundamentalist.  A Republican presidency is inevitably bad news for science (especially biology) teachers, as well as knowledgeable citizens concerned about climate change and members of religious minorities staunchly defending separation of church and state.  This time, however, a businessman with no experience in elective office threw his hat into the ring and proceeded to double down on what has become typical Republican buffoonery.  His name?  Donald Trump. From the beginning he made no secret of his racism and xenophobia.  His utterances about Mexicans and disabled people in particular were what few citizens in this day and age, and certainly no candidate for our highest office, would dare to say in polite company.  This wouldn’t bother me, I being quite politically incorrect myself, if his statements were true, but that was far from the case.  He repeated age-old canards and it was clear that he believed them to be true.  People hearing him were mostly confident that he would have no chance at the nomination, but they failed to reckon with Americans’ (myself included) frustration with a long running war seemingly going nowhere, with terrorist attacks occurring with disturbing frequency, with increasing racial tensions and police violence, and so forth.  Americans, except for those in the liberal bastions in the Northeast and California, were fed up and wanted change.  They got more than they bargained for.

 

   As for the Democrats, they have quite a few men who would have made good Presidents, but they were all afraid to challenge Hillary Clinton, as if she was already a sitting President from their own party.  The only man to run against her was Bernie Sanders, a Jew who grew up in Brooklyn, but an avowed socialist not to be trusted.  He gave Ms. Clinton a better fight than most of us expected, but in the end he lost the nomination to the former President’s wife.  She was widely regarded in middle America as the ultimate insider, too invested in the status quo to make the changes they deemed necessary.  Her victory would be tantamount to a third term for Obama, of whom we were not enamored.  This image was not helped by a scandal involving emails from her tenure as President Obama’s Secretary of State having been stored on her private server where they were vulnerable to hacking.  I, male chauvinist that I am, was not about to support any woman in time of war short of Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher.  So now the major parties served up two lousy candidates and we were expected to choose the lesser evil.  Had I lived in a “battleground state” that could go either way, I would have swallowed hard, held my nose and voted for Trump, who at least advocated a tougher posture toward our foreign enemies.  But I live in New York, and it was a foregone conclusion that New York would be carried by Hillary Clinton.  I therefore cast a write-in protest vote for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, peace be upon them.

 

   Then the impossible happened.  Shades of Dewey vs Truman in 1948.  All the polls predicted a victory for Clinton, who narrowly won the popular vote. However, due to the peculiar method prescribed by the Constitution for electing the President, Trump narrowly won enough states to give him a comfortable majority in the Electoral College.  Therefore, despite some childish political maneuvering aimed at getting enough electors to betray their trust and deny Trump the election, Trump was elected and duly sworn in on January 20.  It has been a frenetic month and, for me, a sad one.  True to his campaign pledges, he appears to be doing an about face in our Middle East policy.  His appointees for secretary of state and ambassador to Israel are friendly to Israel and see it as America’s only strong and reliable ally in a very rough neighborhood.  He is likely to pay lip service to the “two-state solution,” actually a three-state solution since the “Palestinians” already have a state called Jordan that sits on 80% of Mandatory Palestine and has a “Palestinian” majority.  But indications are that he will stand down as Israel’s popular right-wing government creates facts on the ground that will make large land giveaways in Judea and Samaria impossible.  He has a much warmer personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu than President Obama ever did.  But that is where the optimism and satisfaction end.

 

   The rest of his acts in office betray his utter lack of experience in government.  He promised in his campaign that he would “make America safe again.”  With crime at an all-time low, one can only assume he meant safe from terrorists.  He wasted no time imposing, by executive order, a 90-day moratorium on immigration and acceptance of refugees from Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen.  These are all countries that are known either to be state sponsors of terrorism or to export terrorists abroad, or not to have functioning governments that can provide information on prospective immigrants and refugees.  The moratorium was supposed to give the government time to map out the “extreme vetting” that the new President wants put in place to keep out evildoers while letting in legitimate immigrants and refugees.  There is no question in my mind that the President meant well but, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  The President and his advisors used a meat-axe when a scalpel would have been more appropriate.  His order included holders of “green cards” authorizing permanent residence in the country, as well as holders of valid visas.  It resulted in chaos at always-busy airports like JFK in New York and LAX in Los Angeles.  Volunteer lawyers and others hastily made their way to the airports to assist those people who now found themselves in limbo.  Later on, watchdog groups obtained court orders putting the Presidents order on hold; Trump plans to appeal and to pursue other avenues, like using the proverbial scalpel to carve out another order more likely to pass muster.  We know there will be terrorists embedded with the refugees; ISIS says as much.  We also let in, a century ago, tens of thousands of Italian immigrants knowing that we were also importing the Sicilian Mafia.  The difference is that Mafiosi usually kill one another, one at a time, for motives that are entirely economic.  The Muslim terrorists that we’re fighting go in for mass casualty attacks and their aim is to bring down the American government and impose their own tyrannical brand of Islam on all of us; not even the Muslim immigrants that were here for years pursuing the American dream have any use for them.  We have to vet these people in their home countries before they get here.  If they’re coming with families or if they are single older men they are probably legit.  Single men of fighting age are more likely to be terrorists and should be turned away.  Those likely to face religious persecution up to and including murder (i.e. Christians and Yazidis) are most unlikely to be terrorists.  Some would-be immigrants and refugees might have to be quarantined on Ellis Island or elsewhere pending further investigation, as was done at the turn of the 20^th century.  Those that are let in should be let in slowly, so that the communities in which they settle will have time to absorb them and they will have time to adjust to our culture. 

 

   The media in describing the President’s order and the way it was going to be carried out before the courts intervened were most unhelpful.  They kept writing and speaking about a “Muslim ban,” when it was neither Muslim nor a ban (Remember the Holy Roman Empire which was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire?).  The President wanted a temporary breathing space so he could figure out how to admit legitimate immigrants and refugees while keeping us safe from terrorists; by calling it a ban the media implied that it was permanent.  In reality the President sought an indefinite ban only in the case of Syria.  The media also characterized the affected countries as “Muslim majority countries,” as though that was the President’s reason for imposing a moratorium.  The media weren’t lying, but were not telling us the whole truth either.  There are over 20 Muslim-majority countries on earth; the moratorium covered only seven.  Turkey and Indonesia, for example, are overwhelmingly Muslim but they were not included in the 90-day freeze.  Why?  They do not sponsor terrorism or export terrorists, and they have stable governments with which we can do business.  The media will not allow for the possibility that the President might be telling the truth and should be given a chance, having been chosen by the American people in a democratic election.  Who elected the pundits that are pooh-poohing him at every turn?

 

   The new President is giving us cause for concern in other areas too.  Like Reagan before him, his approach to filling his cabinet is to have a lot of foxes guarding a lot of henhouses.  His attorney general gives the impression that he intends to ride roughshod over the Constitution, his chief strategist keeps company with white supremacists, his Secretary of Education wants to divert resources from public schools to private, including charter, schools.  His chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency wants to gut the law authorizing that very agency, his Secretary of Energy wants to double down on coal and oil production, environment be damned, and so forth and so on.  To top it all off, President Trump is a raving science denier.  In what has become typical Republican pig-headedness, he insists that climate change is a hoax and to hell with all the evidence.  He cannot be expected to advocate in international circles for policies that might keep the planet capable of supporting billions of human beings, policies that must be global to be effective.

 

   Last but not least, when the next anti-evolution bill is passed and is challenged in court, we scientists and science educators will not be able to rely on the White House, the Department of Education or the Department of Justice to have our backs.  As a community and as individual teachers we will have to grow “stones” and take risks to be faithful to our obligations as professionals.  I wrote to a Facebook friend at the beginning of the Trump administration that the President’s first 100 days will be a time of watchful waiting.  Developments since then make me change that to “dark foreboding.”  I hope I am wrong, but hope alone will not suffice. 

 

   Since both parties have gone to the extremes and show no signs of slowing down, let alone going back, we are in desperate need of a third party.  This party will be unabashedly pragmatic and centrist, faithful to the Constitution and to the traditions that have made this country great.  It will provide a home to Rockefeller-Javits Republicans as well as Kennedy-Johnson Democrats, neither of whom are welcome in their own parties.  Since it will pitch a big tent, there will be vigorous debate but that debate will be civil, free from the name-calling and ad hominem attacks that have characterized American political discourse of late. The role of third parties in American politics traditionally was to be a gadfly, putting the major parties back on track when they got derailed, as is the case now.  If it succeeds, well and good.  If not, it should displace one of the major parties, preferably the Republicans.  Otherwise I see little hope for the world my grandchildren will grow up in, and we will have betrayed our obligation to leave our children a world in better shape than it was before we came on the scene.

 

 



JFK On Terrorism

  In these days when terror carried out by "non-state actors" to advance a perverted political or religious ideology is a global scourge, it is worthwhile to read and listen to remarks delivered by the late President John F. Kennedy before the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 1961.  Those of us old enough to remember will recall a time when this country had the backbone to stand up to powerful enemies intent on our destruction, and had a charismatic President who forthrightly named the enemy and led the struggle against it on many fronts.  I wish we had a leader with such courage today.

Terror is not a new weapon. Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example. But inevitably they fail, either because men are not afraid to die for a life worth living, or because the terrorists themselves came to realize that free men cannot be frightened by threats, and that aggression would meet its own response. And it is in the light of that history that every nation today should know, be he friend or foe, that the United States has both the will and the weapons to join free men in standing up to their responsibilities.

   52 years ago yesterday that President was untimely taken from us.  Modern technology gives us the consolation of being able to hear his voice long after he is gone; to hear JFK's words in his own voice listen here.

 

Don't be fools - vaccinate your children

 

משוט בארץ ומהתהלך בה. . . .    

From flitting about the earth and traversing it (Job 1:7). . .

 

http://acsh.org/2015/04/rfk-jr-equates-vaccinations-to-a-holocaust-yes-he-went-there


The American Council on Science and Health, a watchdog group that ferrets out junk science and overhyped claims in the media and in the utterances and writings of public figures, released a report recently about a speech by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a public screening of an antivaccine film.  The ACSH report states as follows: 

 

Well-known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the Sacramento screening of anti-vaccine “documentary” Trace Amounts on Tuesday and gave a speech to the audience, and as expected, it was filled with dangerous and unscientific misinformation. In light of the upcoming hearing for California Senate Bill 277, which eliminates the personal belief exemption for vaccines, RFK Jr. told the audience that public health officials and policy-makers can’t be trusted.

“They can put anything they want in that vaccine and they have no accountability for it,” he reportedly told the crowd. “[Children] get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” Kennedy left the stage to a standing ovation.

“Trace Amounts” tells the story of filmmaker Eric Gladen, who believes he suffered mercury poisoning from thimerosal after receiving a tetanus vaccine in 2004. RFK Jr. has long been spewing out misinformation regarding thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that was used in vaccines up until 2001. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Institute of Medicine have all determined that thimerosal is safe, it was removed from vaccines (with the exception of some flu shots) as a precautionary measure due to backlash by misguided parents and the anti-vaccine hysteria fomented by advocacy groups and dangerous demagogues like RFK Jr.

Yet he and his followers are still vehemently against vaccines, even though this preservative that was determined safe was removed from childhood vaccines almost 15 years ago. In response, Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician, and author of SB 277, called Kennedy’s continued activism deceitful. “I think it is dangerous that he is spreading misinformation about something that’s very important for public health,” he said. “Autism rates have continued to rise even though we are not using thimerosal in vaccines for children. We still haven’t figured out exactly what causes autism. We do know it’s not vaccines.”

Despite the facts, “Trace Amounts” and RFK Jr. are unfortunately still making an impact on the vaccine “debate.” Kennedy has credited the documentary with helping to stall Oregon’s mandatory vaccine bill. And although RFK Jr. has no scientific credentials, people continue to listen to him because of his name. 


This is astounding and infuriating, in part because the son of our martyred Senator stated that the alleged damage done to children by vaccines amounted to a holocaust (in fairness to him, the "h" was not capitalized).  The real Holocaust snuffed out the lives of one and a half million Jewish children and their future progeny to the end of time.  Today the Orthodox community seems to be experiencing more than its share of outbreaks of totally preventable childhood diseases like measles and mumps. Rumors fly thick and fast through Jewish media whose editorial staffs are, to put it mildly, not well versed in science, that vaccines are dangerous and cause autism.  Many haredim seldom if ever avail themselves of secular media that might disabuse them of that notion.  Most of the hysteria originates with a report in a medical journal supposedly documenting a link between vaccines and autism.  That report has since been thoroughly discredited and retracted from the journal.  Such retractions rarely happen, but here it turns out that the authors of the discredited report were in cahoots with lawyers who were ready to sue vaccine manufacturers  for millions; the authors presumably were to share in the proceeds (yes, scientists, physicians and lawyers can have a taavah [unwholesome craving] for money).  Of course, many children are vaccinated, some children contract autism (we don’t know why) and the two sets have a small intersection, but that is to be expected.  It does not prove that the two are in any way related.

  We do know that our present situation of most children living to have their own is unprecedented in human history.  The normal human condition was for childhood mortality to be horrendously high.  Some of our siddurim contain selihot l’tahaluei yeladim, penitential prayers to be recited during an epidemic of a children’s disease.  I cannot recall those prayers ever being recited in our community or in any American Jewish community.  But I have visited old Jewish cemeteries in New York and have seen large sections containing little tiny gravestones for little tiny children.  Most of these children doubtless died of childhood diseases that have since, praise God, been conquered by vaccines.  I might add that those vaccines were developed by people, many of them Jewish, who attended college and studied science.  Some of those gravestones are in the process of sinking into the ground; the parents of the deceased were too poor to pay for perpetual care and are long since gone.

Babies’ graves at Union Field Cemetery on the Brooklyn-Queens border

 

  

  Before my granddaughter was born, my daughter told me to get a “T-Dap” shot; pertussis (aka whooping cough) was making a comeback and the vaccine we received as children loses its effectiveness as we grow older.  This was not optional; either I got the shot or I would not be allowed anywhere near the baby.  I got the shot – a very minor inconvenience for my granddaughter’s and other babies’ well being.  Since then, I had my blood tested for antibodies for measles, mumps and rubella.  I still have adequate antibodies against all three and will not need boosters.  I do not want to see tragic sights like the one in this picture in newer Jewish cemeteries and there is an easy way to avoid it: EVERY CHILD MUST BE VACCINATED AGAINST CHILDHOOD DISEASES AS PER PROTOCOLS OF PUBLIC HEALTH AUTHORITIES.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

John F. Kennedy in His Own Words

   It's that time of year again, the terrible anniversary engraved forever in the minds of all those old enough to remember.  But this time it's the fiftieth, and the media are replete with retrospectives.  There isn't much I can add in that genre that I have not written in previous anniversary posts on this blog, so I will simply post one of his famous speeches, the "Negro baby" civil rights speech delivered in June 1963.  One might reflect on the progress we made as a nation since then; that American soldiers would have to be deployed on American soil to ensure that a black American could attend college seems almost unbelievable today, and who would have dared imagine 50 years ago that we would have an African-American president today?  Here is the speech that would bring this country closer to its founding principles:

Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights

President John F. Kennedy

The White House

June 11, 1963 

     Good evening my fellow citizens: 

     This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro. 

     That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way. 

 

     I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. 

     Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Viet-Nam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops. 

     It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. 

     It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case. 

     The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the Nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much. 

     This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right. 

     We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. 

     The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay? 

     One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. 

     We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

 

     Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them. 

     The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives. 

     We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. 

     It is not enough to pin the blame of others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. 

     Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality. 

     Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The Federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the employment of Federal personnel, the use of Federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing. 

     But there are other necessary measures which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session. The old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts of the country, wrongs are inflicted on Negro citizens and there are no remedies at law. Unless the Congress acts, their only remedy is in the street.

     I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public--hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments. 

     This seems to me to be an elementary right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do. 

     I have recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination and I have been encouraged by their response, and in the last 2 weeks over 75 cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities. But many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason, nationwide legislation is needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts. 

     I am also asking the Congress to authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many districts to desegregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes without violence. Today a Negro is attending a State-supported institution in every one of our 50 States, but the pace is very slow. 

     Too many Negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court's decision 9 years ago will enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can never be restored. The lack of an adequate education denies the Negro a chance to get a decent job. 

     The orderly implementation of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to harassment. 

     Other features will also be requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country. 

     In this respect I want to pay tribute to those citizens North and South who have been working in their communities to make life better for all. They are acting not out of a sense of legal duty but out of a sense of human decency. 

     Like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world they are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line, and I salute them for their honor and their courage. 

     My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all--in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, inadequate in education, moving into the large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right to attend a State university even though qualified. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or Governors, but every citizen of the United States. 

     This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. 

     We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that. 

     Therefore, I am asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents. 

     As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have an equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves. 

     We have a right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect that the law will be fair, that the Constitution will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century. 

     This is what we are talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens. 

     Thank you very much.

 

 

In Memoriam: John F. Kennedy

   Last Thursday – Thanksgiving – was the 49^th anniversary of the assassination of our thirty-fifth President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  We were invited by our mehutanim (in-laws) for Thanksgiving dinner.  Somehow it just didn’t feel right to sit down to a feast on November 22; I always feel like an avel (mourner) on that day.  Why can’t Thanksgiving be postponed one week to November 29, the fifth Thursday in November, when the fourth Thursday is November 22?  I wasn’t able to run the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot in Prospect Park; when Thanksgiving coincides with this terrible anniversary I run it with a special custom-made shirt, then repair to the monument at Grand Army Plaza to recite tehilim (psalms) and leave my race number, suitably inscribed.  As it turned out, if I’d known that “be here at 2:00” meant Jewish time, I would have been able to run the race.  It took this alteration of my routine to show me just how much doing that run meant to me; the depression that comes over me every year on November 22 took much longer than usual to lift this year, despite thoroughly enjoying the company of my in-laws.  

 

   During JFK’s campaign to secure the Democratic nomination in 1960, much was made of the fact that he was a Roman Catholic.  Supposedly, if he were to be elected, American policy would be made in the Vatican and not the White House, c.f. the oft-repeated concern of Irish Protestants that “home rule means Rome rule.”  This is what John F. Kennedy had to say about such concerns when he accepted his party’s nomination:

 

 

I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk new, at least since 1928. The Democratic Party has once again placed its confidence in the American people, and in their ability to render a free and fair judgment and in my ability to render a free and fair judgment.

To uphold the Constitution and my oath of office, to reject any kind of religious pressure or obligation that might directly or indirectly interfere with my conduct of the Presidency in the national interest. My record of fourteen years in supporting public education, supporting complete separation of Church and State and resisting pressure from sources of any kind should be clear by now to everyone.

 

I hope that no American, considering the really critical issues facing this country, will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me because of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant. I am telling you what you are entitled to know: As I come before you seeking your support for the most powerful office in the free world, I am saying to you that my decisions on every public policy will be my own, as an American, as a Democrat, and as a free man.

 

 

   The President-to-be must have had a terrific speechwriter.  Nothing could have been clearer.  I first heard it shortly after the assassination, and it still rings in my ears, as does his Inaugural Address.  Contrast this ringing affirmation of American ideals and his own political independence with what I heard sometime in the 1980s from that professional hater and perennial candidate for local public office, Rabbi Yehuda Levin.  During one of his campaigns, asking for the votes of the Orthodox community, he stated that he was a shaliah (messenger) of gedolim (prominent rabbis) and, if elected, would do their bidding.  He said that he was looking for someone to say alai kilelatkha b’ni  (see Gen. 27:13), to take the blame if he, Yehuda Levin, messed up.    The battle lines could hardly be more starkly drawn: a man with wide shoulders willing to take responsibility for his acts in office, and some of them were less than creditable (the Bay of Pigs invasion comes to mind), versus an errand boy for old greybeards.  And ever since, campaigns by Orthodox candidates for public office consist mainly of contests to garner the most haredi Rabbinical endorsements and pabulum about “sharing our values.”

 

   Some sort of yeridat ha-dorot (generational decline) seems to be at play here.  In those days there were giants on the earth (see Gen. 6:4).  Now we have nothing but pygmies.  Heaven help us all.

 

 

 

In Memoriam: John F. Kennedy

Today being the 47th anniversary of the tragic assassination of our 35th President, I wish to direct the reader's attention to an article which appeared recently in the Jewish Press, and to my reply, posted online but not printed in the paper:

http://www.thejewishpress.com/pageroute.do/45857

I purchased a DVD containing written and audio transcripts of President Kennedy's memorable speeches and much more from Media Outlet. Would anybody have imagined 47 years ago that so much useful information could be packed into one inexpensive, easily accessible disc, to have at one's fingertips whenever needed? The following is the full text of President Kennedy's inaugural address, delivered January 20, 1961:

We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom-- symbolizing an end as well as a beginning--signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge--and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do--for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.
To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge --to convert our good words into good deeds--in a new alliance for progress--to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house. To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support--to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective--to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak--and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course--both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.
So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring these problems which divide us.
Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms--and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah--to "undo the heavy burdens [and] let the oppressed go free."
And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.
Now the trumpet summons us again--not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need--not as a call to battle, though embattled we are --but as a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"--a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people of any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but together what we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.


It is a source of consolation for me that, even in 1961, speeches were recorded for posterity and it is possible to hear the President's words in his own voice. Here is a link to an audio recording of the inaugural address taken from the disc referred to above:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KJOJKY0U

It's baaaaaaack!

As people familiar with Brooklyn may know, in 1965 a bust of the late President John F. Kennedy, mounted on a marble block, was placed in the Grand Army Plaza section at the northern end of Prospect Park. It was inscribed with the President's name, dates and the famous quote: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. It became a place of pilgrimage for "people of a certain age," sort of a surrogate grave for those of us who could not get to the real one at Arlington. On May 29, the President's birthday, and November 22, his yahrzeit, people would visit the monument to pray, leave cards and flowers and light candles. I would pass the monument quite often running, and I would always stop to say a few Psalms, standing off to one side so it would not appear as if I was, God forbid, praying to a statue. Over the years the monument was defaced with grafitti, some of it obscene. It was not designed to be vandal-proof (remember, it was put up in 1965 when no one would think of defacing a memorial to a President) and cleaning it would have damaged the inscription. The sight of the monument in its desecrated state was heartbreaking, but I kept saying tehilim when I passed by, and I remember leaving a card shortly after 9/11. Early in this decade the bust and marble block were removed when the entire Grand Army Plaza underwent a major renovation. The renovation was completed, a brand new grafitti-proof pedestal was put in place, but the bust was not returned. Four years ago I wrote a letter to the Prospect Park Alliance (a public-private partnership that manages the Park for the city) inquiring about the monument, and received a response to the effect that a new mounting scheme was necessary and needed approval from the city's art commission among other bureaucratic hurdles. In New York such things can take forever, and I wondered if I would see the bust again before I was old and grey. Then last week I was running through the Park, and lo and behold there was the bust, beautifully mounted on the "new" (by now four years old) pedestal. Incredulous, I ran up, circled the monument, examined the inscriptions (the name, dates and quote were there, but not the name of the Brooklyn Borough President that was on the original), recited a couple of Psalms and shed a tear or two. Several days later I returned with my camera and took the photograph that you see here.

The President's birthday is on Shabbat this year, so I will not be able to visit. I remember when he was in the White House children, myself included, sent him birthday cards. I hope there will be fresh flowers at the monument, as well as at the grave at Arlington.

May the President's memory be an inspiration for generations to come, as his service to the nation was to mine.

JFK and America's talking asses

In the 46 years since President John F. Kennedy's murder on this date, revisionist history has taken to besmirching his memory and debunking his accomplishments. They call him an inveterate Cold Warrior, fixated on the evils of Communism. Well, that is precisely what made him great. He wasn't wearing blinders or rose colored glasses. Communism was the primary source of evil in the world during his presidency, and he acted accordingly. He stood up to the Soviets in West Berlin, Cuba and all over the world. Even when he botched badly, as in the Bay of Pigs, he "failed while daring greatly," to borrow a phrase from my other Presidential hero, Teddy Roosevelt. Think of the kind of world we would be living in if he had allowed the Communists to have their way.

I watched a 60 Minutes episode several years ago about a historian whose name I forgot dredging up dirt about the President that had been concealed from the public when he was in office. Behind the facade of a youthful and vigorous leader was a man gravely ill with Addison's Disease (adrenal insuffiency) and in constant pain from a bad back. We knew about the bad back when he was President. We did not know that he constantly took amphetamines to mask the pain that dogged him constantly. When I heard all that I wanted to slug the television and shout, "Bil'am Ha-Rasha!" Bil'am came to curse the Jews and in spite of himself ended up blessing them. This talking ass came to debunk the legend of President Kennedy and instead magnified it. We always thought that the President acquired a bad back as a result of his heroic exploits on the PT109 in World War II, where he towed a badly wounded comrade to safety after their boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Now we know that John F. Kennedy did what he did on the PT109 with a bad back that he had since childhood. If he wanted to, he could have sat out the war with a desk job, or perhaps even dodged service entirely with a 4-F medical exemption, but that is not what Kennedys do. He did full duty, and even returned to active duty after aggravating his back on the PT109. The pills he was addicted to were standard treatment for his condition at the time, and helped conceal the gravity of his illness from potential enemies. True, he would probably not have been able to conceal his illness from the public with today's media coverage, but that says more about the media than about the President. In the early '60s the media for the most part still put country first, before sensationalism and journalistic coups. That the nature of the President's illness was successfully kept from the Soviets was certainly worth its being kept from us.

Then there is the matter of President Kennedy's widely publicized extramarital affairs, also wisely kept from the public during his presidency. If I had a dollar for every man who had extramarital affairs, I would be a very wealthy man. And if sainthood were a requirement for public office, nobody that we should want in office would qualify. We don't want a Mother Teresa in the White House; we need someone willing to get down and dirty with unsavory characters who seek our harm. There is reason to believe that powerful men are genetically programmed to seek multiple sexual partners and thereby spread their genes; see Our Inner Ape, by Frans De Waal. The wonder is that, sick as he was, he was capable of sexual activity altogether. When I think of the courage and steadfastness with which he guided the ship of state, I am more than willing to forgive him his sexual peccadillos.

The talking asses will continue digging up dirt and throwing it at better men than they. That is all they are good for. I thank God every day that we had John F. Kennedy in the White House for the thousand days we had him, and I wish we had a leader like him as we confront another implacable enemy hell-bent on destroying us and our way of life.

For one brief shining moment. . . .

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 44 years ago on November 22, 1963 (6 Kislev 5724). For those old enough to remember, and I was eleven years old at the time, the day conjures up powerful emotions. It was a loss of innocence; such things were supposed to happen in rinkydink banana republics but not in America. The grief was indescribable; grown men cried openly, in the street (to be sure, our Tanakh is chock full of men crying, but it violates a strong Anglo-Saxon taboo). We know exactly where we were and what we were doing when we got the news. I was in my sixth-grade classroom checking my Think-and-Do Book (the reading workbook just about every kid in America used in the 1950s and early ‘60s) when Rabbi Harry Halpern, headmaster of East Midwood Day School, walked into the classroom and announced that President Kennedy was in the hospital in critical condition following an assassination attempt. Dispensing with the loudspeaker system, he made the same announcement personally to every class in the school. Rabbi Halpern left the class in pandemonium. The teacher tried to get us back to the Think-and-Do Book but nobody was thinking; we were just doing by rote. I was crying so badly that the teacher had to send me out of the room. Soon the bell rang and we went downstairs to the art room. On the way we saw Rabbi Halpern again, and he said simply, “It’s all over.” It was Friday, so we came home and made a gloomy Shabbat. On Monday school was closed and we watched the state funeral on our black-and-white twelve-channel TV.
Somehow we and the country carried on, and perhaps it was inevitable that revisionist history would debunk the legend that had grown up around President Kennedy when he was still alive, but I remember him as a truly great President, the like of which is rarely seen. For one thing, he was young, in a country that had been led by old fuddy-duddies for decades. He had two little children, and we thrilled to little John-John toddling around in the oval office. The touch football games with his brother Robert on the White House lawn also struck a chord in us. He wanted every American child to have one period a day of physical activity in school; today kids are lucky to get one period a week. If we had followed his advice we would not have fat little kids with Type 2 diabetes today.
We were engaged at the time in the Cold War with Soviet Communism, and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev thought the young new President would be a pushover. He tested President Kennedy in Berlin, giving him an ultimatum to evacuate West Berlin, an island of freedom surrounded by Communist East Germany and a thorn in the Soviets’ side. Kennedy did not back down, and the Communists built the infamous Berlin Wall to keep their miserable people from escaping to freedom. The President would be tested again in the fall of 1962, when Khrushchev stationed offensive nuclear missiles in Communist Cuba, ninety miles from home. Kennedy faced the Russians down, guiding us to the brink of nuclear war and back. Khrushchev blinked and withdrew the missiles. Perhaps not surprisingly, Khrushchev acquired some respect for our young and vigorous leader, and the following summer he and Kennedy negotiated a limited nuclear test ban treaty, which banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere that up to then had been spewing carcinogenic strontium-90 and other radioactive poisons into the air.
The President was helped in his conduct of foreign policy by a patriotic spirit rarely seen nowadays. America was right and good, Communism was evil, and Communists were the enemy. Opinion leaders and the entertainment industry were not actively engaged in tearing America down like they are today, when we are similarly engaged in a titanic struggle with an implacable enemy totally committed to destroying us.
Before he became Presient, Kennedy wrote a book, Profiles in Courage, that should be required reading in any American history course. In it, he profiles several political figures who went against their constituents’ wishes to do what they believed was right, even though they stood to suffer politically for it. For instance, Texan patriot Sam Houston refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy when Texas seceded from the union. As President, he became a remarkable profile in courage himself. His greatest act of courage was on the domestic front. As difficult as it is (thanks to him) to believe these days, the American South at the time was essentially an apartheid country. American citizens with dark skin could not attend the same schools, be served in the same restaurants, even drink from the same water fountains as white Americans. President Kennedy ordered federal troops to carry out the court-ordered integration of the all-white Universities of Mississippi and Alabama. Following on that, he sent to Congress the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. He was taking the country where it was not yet ready to go, and the South reacted violently. The legislation in fact was not passed until after his death, but today it is hard to believe that Jim Crow, as apartheid in America was called, ever existed.
Due to his youth and vigor, President Kennedy was something of a father figure to Americans (pater patriae). And every year on November 22 I feel like I have yahrzeit.
Of course there is no halakhic significance to the day, but my mood is one of aveilut. I say extra Tehilim, avoid entertainment and listen only to appropriately themed music such as Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony (which was completed on the afternoon of November 22, 1963 as the news broke). Tears still come, but being a dyed-in-the-wool American male I suppress them. Devout Christians facing a difficult decision often ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” When I have to take a political position or perform a task requiring moral courage, I ask myself what JFK would do. I have little doubt that he would persevere and see our struggle to stay free through to victory.