Video link to Following the Footsteps of My Father
24 Sunday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Following the Footsteps of My Father
24 Sunday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
American World War II Master Sargent Roddie Edmonds was captured and became a Prisoner of War held by the Nazis along with 200 Jewish soldiers in 1944-1945. As their leader (among 1275 others), Roddie saved all of their lives by refusing to follow Nazi orders to separate Jews from non-Jews which would have meant certain death for his Jewish soldiers. He never spoke to his son about what he did.
After Roddie’s death, his son researched his father’s story resulting in this 14-minute documentary that includes the testimony of many of the men (now very elderly) under Roddie’s command who survived due to his courage and heroism.
Roddie Edmonds has been honored as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Why I Endorse Wholeheartedly Chris Bubser for Congress in CA 8th District
22 Friday May 2020
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve known Chris Bubser for 20 years as a friend, and when she told me that she was running for Congress I thought – ‘Now THAT is a great idea!’
Chris is smart, engaged, honest, kind, and an effective leader. She cares deeply about people, the environment, healthcare for all, and human rights, and she has a vision for what our democracy ought to be, inclusive, compassionate, and just.
Though Chris decided to run for Congress before this awful virus emerged, the devastation that it has wrought strengthened her resolve to flip a district to Democratic that’s been Republican for decades. See the second link below for an analysis of the district’s demography and why Chris has a good chance of success in her campaign.
Chris has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, the California League of Conservation Voters, the Inland Empire Central Labor Council, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights, and the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Please take a few minutes time to read these two pieces. If you agree with me that Chris would be value-added in the House of Representatives please consider contributing to Chris’ candidacy in any way you can. Go to ChrisBubser.com.
Meet Chris Bubser, Democratic Candidate for Congress, CA 08
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nNuUv40YsgfQQj4w-MuRH29s6CLQq3pF/view?usp=sharing
Chris Bubser is well-position to flip CA 08 from Red to Blue
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jBWGyleVv0H2fXJyiD5e6xLcKxTP7Cye/view?usp=sharing
The Sun of Auschwitz – for Yom Hashoah 2020/5780
19 Sunday Apr 2020
Posted in Beauty in Nature, Holidays, Poetry, Tributes, Uncategorized
“You remember the sun of Auschwitz / and the green of the distant meadows, lightly / lifted to the clouds by birds, / no longer green in the clouds, / but seagreen white. Together / we stood looking into the distance and felt / the far away green of the meadows and the clouds’ / seagreen white within us, / as if the colour of the distant meadows / were our blood or the pulse / beating within us, as if the world / existed only through us and nothing changed / as long as we were there. I remember / your smile as elusive / as a shade of the colour of the wind, / a leaf trembling on the edge / of sun and shadow, fleeting / yet always there. So you are / for me today, in the seagreen / sky, the greenery and / the leaf-rustling wind. I feel you in every shadow, every movement, and you put the world around me / like your arms. I feel the world / as your body, you look into my eyes / and call me with the whole world.”
Tadeusz Borowsky (Translated by Tadeusz Pioro), from Holocaust Poetry, Compiled and Introduced by Hilda Schiff, (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), p. 119.
Tadeusz Borowsky was a Polish poet and prose writer (b. 1922) in Ukraine. He was imprisoned in Dachau and Auschwitz (1943-1945) but survived by helping, in a lowly capacity, to administer the death regimes in these institutions as did many other survivors. Having survived the war and given expression to his agonized view of the human condition, he committed suicide in 1951.
“Coronavirus: The Haredi Response in Israel” – Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, Editor-in-Chief, “Tzarich Iyun”
16 Thursday Apr 2020
Posted in Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Israel/Zionism, Uncategorized
Half of all those hospitalized with coronavirus in Israel are Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jews).
The key questions before the Haredi community (11% of all Israeli Jews – about 800,000 people) are who gets to decide public policy and who has the authority to determine the regulations with which all must comply?
Some of the basic principles that underlie the Haredi response to the virus that Rabbi Pfeffer elucidates include “suspicion of the State and its institutions, isolationism from non-Haredi society and culture, and a strongly institutionalized society. They are certainly not the whole.”
This article (5000 words) is long, but it is an inside look at how the extremist Israeli ultra-Orthodox community thinks vis a vis Jewish law and the secular state, and how the consequences affect all Israelis and the Israeli health-care system.
I am grateful to Rabbi Uri Regev, the founder of Hiddush in Jerusalem, who sent me and a few other rabbis this piece. It is an important essay.
https://iyun.org.il/en/article/coronavirus-the-charedi-response/
A Most Remarkable Act of Global Solidarity
14 Tuesday Apr 2020
Posted in Health and Well-Being, Uncategorized
“When you go out and see the empty streets, the empty stadiums, the empty train platforms, don’t say to yourself, ‘It looks like the end of the world.’ What you’re seeing is love in action. What you’re seeing, in that negative space, is how much we do care for each other, for our grandparents, for the immune-compromised brothers and sisters, for people we will never meet.
People will lose jobs over this. Some will lose their businesses. And some will lose their lives. All the more reason to take a moment, when you’re out on your walk, or on your way to the store, or just watching the news, to look into the emptiness and marvel at all that love.
Let it fill and sustain you. It isn’t the end of the world. It is the most remarkable act of global solidarity we may ever witness.”
“Coronavirus Crisis: A Different Way to Look at these Empty Streets,” author unknown, This is Glamorous, March 30, 2020
“Bosch” to drop on Amazon – April 17 – Comedic Teaser written and produced by my son
12 Sunday Apr 2020
Posted in Film Reviews, Uncategorized
“Bosch,” Amazon’s retro-noir contemporary police drama set in Los Angeles, starring Titus Welliver as hard-driving LAPD detective Harry Bosch, is one of our favorite series, adapted from the Harry Bosch novel series written by Michael Connelly.
My son David, a social media producer at Amazon Prime, wrote and directed this funny teaser focusing on “Detective Coltrane.” David appears ala “Alfred Hitchcock” twice (he sits at a table and walks in front of the dog). Enjoy!
https://twitter.com/boschamazon/status/1249004782775234567?s=21
“Coronaviorus – Out of Many One” – by Tomas Pueyo
10 Friday Apr 2020
Entrepreneur Tomas Pueyo offers a comprehensive analysis of the pandemic covering every concern and issue as thoroughly as any I have seen. It is filled with graphs and explanations of those graphs, and he offers conclusions based on the history of pandemics generally and on the one we are facing now specifically.
This article is worth sending it to your congressional, state, and city representatives. If you know anyone in the Trump Administration, send it to them as well.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-out-of-many-one-36b886af37e9
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Wishing the Jewish World – Hag Sameach
07 Tuesday Apr 2020
Posted in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Uncategorized
Listen and distribute. If this doesn’t lift your spirit – well… I don’t know what will.
Hag Pesach Sameach! https://www.facebook.com/israel.philharmonic/videos/2709305146052088/?v=2709305146052088
Reflections on this Passover – 2020
06 Monday Apr 2020
Dear All:
This is as difficult a year to celebrate Pesach as any of us born after WWII has ever known; but this year is not an anomaly in Jewish history. We’ve known as a people years of suffering before that the Haggadah itself documents in Midrash, rite, ritual, and song. As we do every year, we ask especially now what is the meaning of Passover.
The traditional Haggadah has a statement inserted during times of great oppression that calls upon God to “pour out Your wrath” upon the enemies of our people who caused us such suffering. Many modern Haggadot, however, deleted this reference and replaced it with “pour out Your love” upon Your people and all peoples, especially upon those suffering from oppression, illness, and want.
That being said, it’s entirely appropriate for us to be angry at those federal, state, and local government officials who have been derelict in their duty to follow the advice of medical experts and scientists who early on advocated taking aggressive steps to stem the tide of this pandemic and thereby protect, as much as possible, the well-being of our citizenry. Though many of our nation’s governors, mayors, health-care professionals, first-responders, and community leaders have stepped up to protect us, history will judge harshly those who failed to be the leaders we so desperately need.
Our Seders should include prayers for the healing of every person across the globe who is ill with this virus. Here is the shortest prayer in the Hebrew Bible (Numbers 12:13) that Moses offered on behalf of Miriam who had been struck with leprosy – “El na r’fa na la – Please God heal her.” We can put it into the plural for all those afflicted – “El na r’fa na lahem – Please God heal them.”
This year our Seders likely will be the smallest gatherings we’ve ever experienced. But we can still celebrate our festival of freedom and renewal, be grateful for our families, friends, and tradition of hope, and say dayeinu – that may be enough.
Hag Pesach Sameach.
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 