“As a late-in-life grandfather, I had my two young grandchildren in mind as the target audience. I imagined them as grownups, reading about the life and times of the man they called ‘Eeepa.’ Perhaps this was important to me because I knew so little about my own grandparents and their immigrant journey from Yiddish-speaking shtetls in Europe to an America that was indeed a promised land for them.”

Stephen B. Shepard’s memoir is called Second Thoughts – On Family, Friendship, Faith, and Writers. It is a compelling New York Jewish story and an important read for anyone interested in the liberal secular American Jewish experience in the last half of the 20^th century and the opening decades of the 21st.

Shepard is the Founding Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, a former senior editor at Newsweek, editor of Saturday Review, and for twenty years the editor-in-chief of Business Week Magazine.

A disclaimer – Steve and his wife Lynn Povich are good friends to my wife Barbara and me. That aside I couldn’t put down the book. I was inspired and touched by it, impressed with Steve’s raw honesty and courage in speaking so truthfully about his life, his capacity for self-reflection after years of psychoanalysis, and the beauty, easy, and crisp flow of his writing which is at once personal and journalistic as if recording contemporary history in which Steve is the protagonist.

Steve writes about his roots as a poor second generation American Jewish kid growing up in a tiny Bronx apartment and his return visit with Lynn and their adult children on his 80^th birthday, his disabled older sister about whom he carried so much guilt, his conflicted relationships with his working class Jewish parents, a near-death experience he suffered as a young man, his evolving and complicated relationship to most things Jewish including Israel, his boyhood love of classic cars that he calls “car lust,” his shared passion with his father for the NY Yankees, his envy of friendships that come so easily to women but with such difficulty to men, his journey from his first career as an engineer to the heights of the journalistic profession that took him to the center of American political and financial power, his critical assessment of what has become of journalism in the digital media market, his love of American Jewish fiction and fascination with the lives of the best of 20^th century Jewish writers, and his trips with Lynn to Israel, Hitler’s Berlin bunker, the Normandy Coast, Vietnam, and the racist American South.

Steve offers a comprehensive, thoughtful, clear-sighted, and morally infused reflection on contemporary Israel, its history, relationship to the Palestinians, and his dimming hopes for a two-state resolution of the age-old conflict. He understands well the political, historical, psychological, and cultural complexities involved, the inhumanity of the occupation, and the impact that the increasingly entrenched right-wing Israeli government and its policies are having upon the soul of Israel as a Jewish and liberal democratic state. He worries about Israel’s future as a Jewish moral beacon light to the world as envisioned by the State’s founding generation.

Steve writes more about his personal life and professional career in his first book, Deadlines and Disruption: My Turbulent Path from Print to Digital (publ. 2012). There he tells of meeting the love of his life, Lynn Povich, an award-winning journalist who helped to organize forty–six women in the early 1970s at Newsweek (they met there as colleagues and fell in love) charging “systemic discrimination” against the magazine in hiring and promotion. The case was resolved successfully for the plaintiffs by the US Supreme Court. Five years later, Lynn became the first woman Senior Editor in Newsweek’s history. She wrote the full story about that landmark lawsuit in The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace, which was turned into a television series on Prime Video (2015-2016), and went on to a distinguished career in her own right.

Steve’s memoir deserves a wide readership. His grandchildren are now too young to read and understand what their “Eeepa” has written, but one day I have little doubt that they are going to love it, be inspired by it, be proud of him, and likely will regret that they didn’t have the opportunity to better know their grandfather one-on-one as adults themselves.

That said: Steve – to 120!

You are two-thirds there already.

That a major national political party could be taken over by a self-serving racist autocrat and be supported by the vast majority of that party’s congressional caucus with little resistance is only part of what ails us nationally. We can look to the growth of right-wing media, to legitimate economic distress, a sense of powerlessness among large swaths of the nation, bigotry and hate to explain much of it. But, something else is going on that’s more basic – the vanquish of the Judaeo-Christian tradition of ethical monotheism.

I explain what I mean more completely in my blog posted at the Times of Israel – see https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-vanquish-of-ethical-monotheism-from-the-republican-party/

“Can revival of the nuclear deal with Iran spark a new regional security dialogue? Are Americans – and U.S. policy makers – tired of the Middle East? Decades of conflict, along with reduced U.S. dependence on its oil, and a growing imperative to turn toward ‘great power competition’ with China and Russia, have reduced the appetite to stay engaged. … Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has asserted that the Biden Administration ‘…would be doing less not more in the Middle East.’

Yet desire does not always align with the demands of the moment. And the Trump administration’s high level of engagement in the region and disruptive policies have left Biden’s team with a transformed landscape. One element of Middle East policy holds the key: the Iran nuclear agreement, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Biden team likely will make it a priority. But how that plays out will determine if a ‘do less’ approach is achievable – or even desirable – in the coming four years.

President-elect Biden himself is up front about his intentions. He wants to return to the global nonproliferation agreement accomplished under his watch as Vice President, and restore its core formula: constraints on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for economic relief. When President Donald Trump came into office, the international consensus was that the deal was working, verified by multiple reports of international inspectors vouching for Iranian compliance.”

From “Reverse Engineering” – The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2021 by Dalia Dassa Kaye

This carefully written comprehensive review of the issues and players concerning the Iran Nuclear Deal from which President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States in 2018 is a must-read for anyone interested in the complexities of this matter that the Biden Administration now faces.

The author, Dalia Dassa Kaye, is a 2020-2021 Wilson Center Scholar. She was previously a Senior Political Scientist and Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation.

See – https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/back-to-the-future/reverse-engineering/

We, Rabbis, Cantors, and Jewish clergy from across the United States, call on the Biden Administration and all of our newly elected officials to act with urgency to ensure the rights and safety of refugees and asylum seekers. 

Our tradition teaches that there is no higher obligation than to save the life of another. Faced with the largest refugee crisis in human history, we take that mandate seriously and raise our voices for the rights, safety, and the very lives of people who are fleeing genocide, torture, persecution, and war.

Our country must act swiftly to address the policies of the last administration, which severely damaged every pathway to safety in the United States. These policies almost obliterated the U.S. refugee resettlement program and asylum system. They have denied basic human rights to countless people, including at the U.S.-Mexico border. Addressing this damage will take much more than a simple reversal of policies: it will take focused attention on reforming, reinventing, and modernizing our refugee and asylum protection systems, with the goal of treating each person with fairness and compassion.

In generations past, many of our families found safety and freedom in America.  And yet, we have also seen its doors slam shut during times of great need. 

We pledge to be your partners as the United States begins to welcome refugees again. As Jewish leaders, many of us have traveled to the border to bear witness, we have protested outside of airports and detention centers, we have built local coalitions and organizations, we have educated our communities and our youth, and we have made our voices known to elected officials at all levels.  

Today, the American Jewish community sees the struggle for the rights of refugees bound together with other values that we hold close. We are committed to being your partners in healing this country.

Whether we were born in this country or we immigrated here, whether we were refugees ourselves or are the grandchildren of refugees, we are united in protecting the humanity of others, of ‘welcoming the stranger.’ 

We thank you for your commitment to restoring humanity to our refugee and asylum policies and for recognizing the pressing urgency of the current moment. As Jewish leaders, we pledge to hold open our hearts and our doors, and work with you to welcome refugees and asylum seekers as new neighbors and friends.

If you are clergy and have not signed on, please consider doing so.

You can help amplify the letter and bring it to the attention of elected officials by using the attached social media toolkit and corresponding graphics.

Here are the relevant links:

·         Full Letter (plus full list of signatures, and a searchable list)

·         Sign-up form for anyone who would like to add their name

·         HIAS Take Action Page

Watching with (admittedly) unbridled glee as President Biden issues executive orders reversing the most bigoted, oppressive, regressive, divisive, destructive, and illiberal policies of Donald Trump, I’m flabbergasted (though I shouldn’t be) by Trump’s Republican party sycophants’ crying foul that Biden is violating his campaign and inaugural pledge to unify the country. Right-wing pundits and members of Congress didn’t give President Biden even 48 hours of a honeymoon before charging that his executive actions represent a violation of his pledge. Unity, of course, doesn’t mean uniformity, and elections do have consequences, as Republicans reminded Democrats after Trump’s election.

Why the Senate shouldn’t follow through on its constitutional responsibility to try an impeached out-of-office president because it will upset his most ardent followers is also maddening. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it right when she told reporters this week: “The fact is, the [former] president of the United States committed an act of incitement of insurrection. I don’t think it’s very unifying to say, ‘oh, let’s just forget it and move on.’ That’s not how you unify.”

In the midst of multiple national crises, the urgent need to at last address the Covid pandemic (after 410,000 Americans are dead!), support financially states and cities as they struggle to care for the sick and those who have lost jobs and savings and who are food insecure, to address climate change, racial injustice, voting rights and voter suppression, and so much more IS to bring greater unity to the land.

Kerry Eleveld, a writer for Daily Kos, said that “If President Biden continues to rise to the moment, the unity he engenders may ultimately be less about winning GOP votes for his policies than it is about unifying some 65% of Americans against a factionalized but dangerous party of seditionists.”

That’s as good a definition of unity in these times as I think there is.

Go Joe! So many millions are with you.

I couldn’t stop weeping yesterday as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took their oaths of office as President and Vice-President. My heart opened when I listened to the elevated inspired words and rhythmic cadences of a young poet laureate Amanda Gorman. And I felt confident in the reemergence of common decency in the top political and governmental leadership in our nation as I listened to our new President speak about the meaning of American exceptionalism and how we as a nation “can do anything if we do it together.”

Was our national nightmare of the last four years really over?

I watched with a sense of renewed possibilities for our nation the evening inaugural celebration moderated from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King spoke of his dream for this nation.

Has our national leadership really returned to reflect the best of who we are as Americans?

I couldn’t stop saying aloud “WOW!” as I watched the spectacular pyrotechnic display as a crescendo of the day over the Washington Memorial signifying a new era of hope and possibility.

Is there really now reason for hope after so many horrid years?

We’ve witnessed these last few years the truth of the saying that “a fish rots from the head”; but it’s also true that great leaders can inspire the best in us. Great leadership isn’t about power and profit. It’s about decency, dignity, accountability, competency, and a commitment to the common good.

I believe that in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris we have such leaders, and because of this we have reason to hope.

Yesterday was a new beginning, and our tears of joy and hopes for the future were, I believe, a reflection of the truth that deep down we know we’ve embarked on a new beginning.

“Let America be America again. / Let it be the dream it used to be. / Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed – / Let it be that great strong land of love / Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme / That any man [person] be crushed by one above.”

-Langston Hughes, poet and novelist (1902-1967)

“Shakespeare’s Richard III brilliantly develops the personality features of the aspiring tyrant already sketched in the Henry VI trilogy: the limitless self-regard, the law-breaking, the pleasure in inflicting pain, the compulsive desire to dominate. He is pathologically narcissistic and supremely arrogant. He has a grotesque sense of entitlement, never doubting that he can do whatever he chooses. He loves to bark orders and to watch underlings scurry to carry them out. He expects absolute loyalty, but he is incapable of gratitude. The feelings of others mean nothing to him. He has no natural grace, no sense of shared humanity, no decency.

He is not merely indifferent to the law; he hates it and takes pleasure in breaking it. He hates it because it gets in his way and because it stands for a notion of the public good that he holds in contempt. He divides the world into winners and losers. The winners arouse his regard insofar as he can use them for his own ends; the losers arouse only his scorn. The public good is something only losers like to talk about. What he likes to talk about is winning.

He has always had wealth; he was born into it and makes ample use of it. But though he enjoys having what money can get him, it is not what most excites him. What excites him is the joy of domination. He is a bully. Easily enraged, he strikes out at anyone who stands in his way. He enjoys seeing others cringe, tremble, or wince with pain. He is gifted at detecting weakness and deft at mockery and insult. These skills attract followers who are drawn to the same cruel delight, even if they cannot have it to his unmatched degree. Though they know that he is dangerous, the followers help him advance to his goal, which is the possession of supreme power.

His possession of power includes the domination of women, but he despises them far more than desires them. Sexual conquest excites him, but only for the endlessly reiterated proof that he can have anything he likes. He knows that those he grabs hate him. For that matter, once he has succeeded in seizing the control that so attracts him, in politics as in sex, he knows that virtually everyone hates him. At first that knowledge energizes him, making him feverishly alert to rivals and conspiracies. But it soon begins to eat away at him and exhaust him.

Sooner or later, he is brought down. He dies unloved and un-lamented. He leaves behind only wreckage. It would have been better had Richard III never been born.”

-Tyrant – Shakespeare on Politics, by Stephen Greenblatt, the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, pages 53-54

“High though his titles, proud his name, / Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; / Despite those titles, power, and pelf, / The wretch, concentred all in self, / Living, shall forfeit fair renown, / And, doubly dying, shall go down / To the vile dust from whence he sprung, / Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.”

-Walter Scott, novelist and poet (1771-1832)

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Preamble to the US Constitution is not law – it is an introductory aspirational statement that articulates the intent and values of the framers concerning the nature of America’s republic and democratic character. Contrary to conservative “originalist” constitutional interpreters who regard the Constitution as a static document, progressive constitutional scholars understand that the Constitution is imperfect and that much was left unaddressed in 1787.

Five values under-gird our American constitutional system – a democratic government, effective governance, justice, liberty, and equality. With these values in mind, the current state of our electoral system obviously needs reform. The Congress has an opportunity to address many of the imperfections now that both houses of Congress and the presidency are in Democratic Party hands.

There are a number of bills that the House of Representatives passed in the last term but were blocked from consideration by the Senate by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Now, however, the new Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can bring these bills to the Senate for consideration and a vote and President Biden can sign them into law (see https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/8/1840627/-Voting-Rights-Roundup-Democrats-pass-historic-bill-to-ban-gerrymandering-and-secure-voting-rights).

In addition to the many remedies in our electoral system that these bills seek to address including our undemocratic Electoral College system, partisan gerrymandering, Citizens United, excessive money in politics, and voter suppression, the Senate is decidedly a non-representative body. The vote totals in the last three elections covering all 100 Senate races show how this is true:

• 2020 election – Democratic candidates earned 44.1 million votes; Republican candidates earned 42 million votes.
• 2018 election – Democratic candidates earned 53.1 million votes; Republican candidates earned 35 million votes.
• 2016 election – Democratic candidates earned 45.2 million votes; Republican candidates earned 39.3 million votes.
• The total number of votes cast for Senate in these 3 elections is 258.7 million votes. Democratic candidates won 142.4 million (55%) over Republican candidates who won 116.3 million (45%). That’s a difference of 26.1 million votes and 10% of the total, a Democratic “landslide.” Yet, the Senate remained in Republican hands with a Republican Party majority until this year. Today, despite the wide discrepancy in the popular vote, the Senate is split evenly at 50-50 with a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris.

It’s time that the electoral reform bills passed by the Democratic Congress be moved forward for consideration and a vote in the Senate to be signed into law by President Biden. Among the top priorities ought to be the reform of the Electoral College system to make it representative of the national majority popular vote, granting of statehood to Washington, D.C. (700,000 residents) and Puerto Rico (3.2 million residents), and elimination of the Senate filibuster to be replaced by a simple majority vote.

These reforms would go a long way to fulfill more completely the democratic values as articulated in the US Constitution’s Preamble and thereby have a major impact on public policy and Joe Biden’s presidency.