tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28990863311074456182024-03-18T13:14:08.378-04:00Sarah Siegel StoriesAnything worth experiencing is worth reliving through writing about it.Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.comBlogger662125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-88955937322853398002024-03-12T10:24:00.018-04:002024-03-18T13:13:36.763-04:00Scrapbook<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Part 1</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> of my perspective on the recent
Memphis Jewish Federation Israel solidarity mission:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Moshav Netiv HaAsara, Gaza Envelope, 27
February 2024:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">They paraglided into the
moshav/cooperative village. Three paragliders, two pilots each. Two Tuesdays
ago, Harel led us through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiv_HaAsara_massacre">Nativ haAsara</a>,
his former moshav, in the terrorists’ footsteps. He looked like a movie star
with Paul Newman’s build and height. Wearing suave sunglasses and Swiss-style
hiking boots, Harel led us past grasses like Germantown planted last season,
and which bordered the back yard of one of the houses, where one family was
murdered. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Over the grasses, in the not-too-far
distance, we saw a northern Gazan city.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">How did the paraglider pilots know
where to go? Harel said the Gazan worker of one of the families, who worked for
them for many years, told Hamas where to find one of the top leaders of the
community, and according to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxlSthv7TQ&t=2s">video</a> shared in
our mission’s Whatsapp group, shared the names of his wife, kids, cat and
dog, except the dog wasn’t even theirs, but their neighbor’s, and the dog just
always hung out in their yard.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">What would it have been like to be one
of the six pilots? Could I put myself in his shoes, in his harness? Could I
imagine what he was thinking, wishing, planning? I could try:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Allah-forsaken infidels! Stealing the
land! Building fancy houses! Living like royalty! We’ll shoot ‘em, but save
their kumquat trees. We’ll rape ‘em as the opportunity arises. We’ll show ‘em
who’s boss.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I’ll take what’s mine, their homes,
their wives, daughters – I don’t even like women, but I can never let on. If I
have to rape a couple yahudiun whores along the way to throw my brothers off
the scent, I will. No one can ever know I’m gay. I’m the toughest of the bunch.
They don’t realize I have the most to prove. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Hey, here’s an aquarium to shoot up!
Yahudu’ fish’ll be squirming all over the floor. We’ll turn the village into a
ghost town. Make ‘em never want to return. No more working for them. No more of
them at all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Here, or at another war-torn Israeli
locale, Rabbi Jeff Dreyfus of Memphis’ Temple Israel invoked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Ell_Persons">Ell Persons</a>.
If I remember correctly, Rabbi Jeff compared standing in Memphis, where a mob
murdered Ell Persons on 22 May 1917, with standing where Hamas massacred
Israeli families and individuals on 7 October 2023: “An eerie feeling….”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I didn’t know the gruesome Memphis
story, and then felt glad, learning how the rabbi of Temple Israel then, Rabbi
William Fineshriber, “…called a congregational meeting to protest, convinced
the membership to endorse a public condemnation, and acted as secretary to a
group of clergymen who issued a statement, copies of which appeared in local
newspapers on 25 May” (Source: Wikipedia link above). What a terrific ally! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I wonder which ally of Jews and
Israelis will appear more than 100 years from now in a Wikipedia article or its
equivalent, speaking up about October 7th.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Not long after October 7th, one of my
Israeli relatives said, “We worry about you. Why go to synagogue and make
yourselves into targets?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">My response might have been, “Why live
in Israel and make yourselves into targets?” but I knew not to bother with such
a counter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">As Jews today, they say they feel
safest in Israel because there’s an army to protect them. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">In my circles, we were all being brave
with each other, initially. Israeli family and friends didn’t want us to worry
about them. We didn’t want them to worry about us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">All of us do worry, though, and we’ve
stopped hiding our fears from one another. Some mix of the need to show them,
and myself, they are not/I am not alone, and of “seeing is believing,” and of
needing to witness, then “pray with my feet,” compelled me to join Memphis
Jewish Federation’s Israel mission last week....</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I'll post Part 2 tomorrow/Thursday.
Meanwhile, for a lucid summary of our time in Israel, day by day, by Rabbi
Sarit, click these links:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F43mg5pf%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2Ts0pNW58ga1Y_ceYEjDUSv4fu5MgTEF7pRp0WDQVMLGys0Ac36DJzy3E&h=AT2YiGU4m004F15TrdBFc-zTkx42ao4PiIFXuIOT8hKKKS8IvItK_oEcxk9Xv_qGwhMzX7jbqTuJfWRyJU9mvXAFcXS92i21MG1-svjMDQ8_-NbGwoZfBEJnJZRjnRcS7mDIOoYnt0TRUDf3wwub&__tn__=-UK-R&c%5b0%5d=AT3HQkE3Y1AWuzvgTukT5wu07sSNIWUEkcoYqqqcGm7qExG6SJ26rXF3fquE0I_EsLTt0ScER8mArgrTpwDfQeMO1gQyiyh6ZjNtETcVzMPat-zC_YnckWwjIy9HT511ADJmbmHvujr6z_TTJccNFsVAlvg" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">https://bit.ly/43mg5pf</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F4c10X4p%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2vQ9_a9oZBb0M1LanOHK5MNpDOYq-Tk1pB0XAjAUbrpupxcXglXagGOhE&h=AT1roC0zD39uw2gTPFvaxiPQqVS1PZb2efbUTXxnChfy2ko-eTnXhhm9ZLdiVqDUdXDQshWVnIMkXeeetnx2OlraY81r4skFSlIWhWL91TenGmG--oyV-dH-eoTT-Hf3S3B54iLyduGA0GPNSTEe&__tn__=-UK-R&c%5b0%5d=AT3HQkE3Y1AWuzvgTukT5wu07sSNIWUEkcoYqqqcGm7qExG6SJ26rXF3fquE0I_EsLTt0ScER8mArgrTpwDfQeMO1gQyiyh6ZjNtETcVzMPat-zC_YnckWwjIy9HT511ADJmbmHvujr6z_TTJccNFsVAlvg" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">https://bit.ly/4c10X4p</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3Ir8hbZ%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1EwMHEoLerjiSRra63L-ZkuSVM_5HPRgi5Ws94JA2yLoTAzjVp71tNke8&h=AT3eI4N9XKBfpmlYWisG2FPS9SB3G20SqXQ4glLR2h3VrP1KESGkkaNCFJcEalSadtEVVODq_ZdrfRDHDGx0DD2h4jQ5fiaxsWM1YUrmhGYxlCKNWQYc6V9WGfQcXPVCTgmo4h-Y4e0ntgRHUjEY&__tn__=-UK-R&c%5b0%5d=AT3HQkE3Y1AWuzvgTukT5wu07sSNIWUEkcoYqqqcGm7qExG6SJ26rXF3fquE0I_EsLTt0ScER8mArgrTpwDfQeMO1gQyiyh6ZjNtETcVzMPat-zC_YnckWwjIy9HT511ADJmbmHvujr6z_TTJccNFsVAlvg" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">https://bit.ly/3Ir8hbZ</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3P88tAF%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1trZAdatyW9F32fEElHdsDpK6LiEZpCZUddh6foi4oSMCZA4UuGRiAba8&h=AT3o1R41CyQDQIWPM9j-9Dt0VK2rCLoL26kI5WWebRmPzU0u4Et2IrkHhS97sjTgmArjjNkVG7H1klaiWRVeqlghrNGUUxHOOdhoh6MJ3AvtrkmkbjuDqubzrvnwTz2nmuyTn4ydUR2aQLZ2vy_p&__tn__=-UK-R&c%5b0%5d=AT3HQkE3Y1AWuzvgTukT5wu07sSNIWUEkcoYqqqcGm7qExG6SJ26rXF3fquE0I_EsLTt0ScER8mArgrTpwDfQeMO1gQyiyh6ZjNtETcVzMPat-zC_YnckWwjIy9HT511ADJmbmHvujr6z_TTJccNFsVAlvg" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">https://bit.ly/3P88tAF</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Part 2</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> of my perspective on the recent
Memphis Jewish Federation Israel solidarity mission:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Hostages Square, Tel Aviv, 29 February
2024:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">On Thursday, last week, the last day
of our mission, a childhood friend met me at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv and
here are highlights of our conversation:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">He said, “You look the same.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I responded wistfully, “That’s nice of
you. We’re not 20 anymore.” But I sort of believed him, based on my oldest
sister Deb’s theory that people always see you as they remember you. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Your arms are still good. I can’t see
the rest of you, but I felt them [when we hugged]. I remember when you did
pushups on your knuckles [at 15].”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Ah, pshh. I just had some back
surgery.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I show him my uterine cancer scar
across my midriff. “But I’m fine now, really, it was just Stage 1A….” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“My kids are 24 and 22. My daughter’s
gay.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“C’mon!”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“She has had a girlfriend for a year.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Where did they meet?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“In the army.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“You know, your daughter could apply
for that [LGBTQ student] scholarship that Pat & I put together at <a href="https://en.huji.ac.il/">Hebrew University</a>.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">He shook his head. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“It’s not need-based.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“No, she wants to go to art school.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“To <a href="https://www.bezalel.ac.il/en">Bezalel</a> [Academy of Arts and Design]?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Yes, she does painting and
photography.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Wow! Does she have an Instagram
account?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Yes, but it might be private, Send
her a message and tell her we’re friends.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I want to ask, “Did you ever tell her
about me?” but I don’t. At 20, he & I experimented, tried being more than
friends over a weekend in Eilat.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“My son is a big boy, but he strained
his back and so is not being called up to the army right now, thank God.” I
remember my friend sharing that as an only child, the army excused him from
front-line combat and he didn’t tell his parents when he chose anyhow to go into Lebanon on a
mission. Ironic and touching how now, he’s on the other side.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Show me pictures of your kids.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Here’s my son.” He shows me two
photos of a handsome young guy, who looks like he could star in the ear-worm
song, I couldn’t get out of my head a couple days earlier, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM65aNzA2XA">I Don’t Want to Be a Player
No More</a>.” Delightfully, when I mentioned it at our big Israeli hotel
breakfast that day, Rabbi Sarit chanted a snippet, “I’m not a player, I just
crush a lot.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Wow, gorgeous,” I answer sincerely as
I look at the photo. He looks powerful and confident, just like my friend.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Then he shows me his daughter and
she’s appealing, too. “Lovely. She reminds me a little of you.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">He nods.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“She’s in Gaza now. Netflix is my best
friend. I don’t sleep. I just wait by the phone.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Oh, oh. Is your aunt [-- and my mom’s
(z”l) dear friend since 1950 --] still alive?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“No, she died a few months ago.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Before October 7th?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Yes,” at 100+.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">One of our group, John, who has
photographed >1,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide, and who helps his wife
run <a href="https://kavodensuringdignity.com/about-kavod/">KAVOD</a> walked by
and I stopped him. “John, I’d like you to meet my childhood friend. May I bug
you to take our picture?” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">My friend squeezed me into him and I
leaned my head toward his. We still love each other. The way people do when
they have sweet history. And we do. Drawing together in Tel Aviv at eight;
attending a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabi_Tel_Aviv_B.C.">Maccabee</a>
basketball game in Tel Aviv at 11; Hosting his friend Yehudah and him after
their English language immersion program in our Stamford, CT home when we were 15; our experimental
weekend in Eilat at 20; and news of each other via his aunt (z”l) and my mom
(z”l) until Facebook’s emergence, when we connected online, at least. But we
have not seen each other in person since the Eilat trip nearly 38 years ago…. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Do you agree,” I ask him, “that this might
be an ultimately bad time for Jews?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“The people on campuses in the US are
so stupid. They don’t even know what ‘From the river to the sea means.’”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“My mother died in her sleep
peacefully at 88—”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“So did mine, at 90—” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“But she was right. Dementia had just
started a bit and once she thought she saw the word, ‘Hebe’ inscribed in her
bathroom vanity, a pejorative expression in English, like Kike. Well, my mother
used to write on her hands to remember what she needed to do and I took a photo
and showed her, “Mom, look, it’s just your handwriting.” She feared
antisemitism her whole life, and she was right.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">My friend just nodded…. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The PA system distracted me, “Oh,
it’s, it’s –”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Yehudit Ravitz,” my friend filled in
the blank, a popular Israeli singer and songwriter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Yes, Yehudit Ravitz!” I gushed. I
didn’t even know the lyrics, just recognized her voice and the tune. I wondered
why such a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_nJttXxq5o&list=PLEE9D977DB5E99A5C&index=12">cheerful
melody</a> played at Hostages Square and then I read the lyrics while writing this
part. The title is “Four in the Morning,” and it’s all about wishing the
missing person would come home, and now, it also applies to the kidnapped
hostages:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">אני לבד - כלום לא עוזר </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">אני כמעט על סף משבר </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">מתי אתה חוזר?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I'm alone - nothing helps </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I'm almost on the verge of a crisis </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">When are you coming back?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">But instead of being sensitive to my
friend’s feelings about the song, since he has a daughter in the IDF in Gaza
right now, and because I didn’t catch the double-entendre of what I was
listening to, I effused:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“I love Yehudit Ravitz. You know, <a href="https://www.kveller.com/13-jewish-lgbtq-celebrity-parents-to-kvell-about/">she
came out as lesbian</a>. And when I lived in Israel at 20, I listened to the
song, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhTHeiSwy2o">Derech HaMeshi</a>,”
and it seemed like a pun. You know what a pun is?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">He nodded.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“I mean, ‘Derech HaMeshi,’ (“the Silk
Road”) sounded to me like another way to describe a woman’s…parts.” (After we
said goodbye, I realized I meant to say “double-entendre” in this case, too, and
not a “pun.” And I had pompously asked my friend if he knew the English word,
“pun.” Oy!)…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">My friend had waited for me from 4:30
pm till a bit after 5 pm. At 5:37 pm, still smiling, he said, “I have a 6 pm
Zoom, so I’ll just catch a taxi.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“OK, but let me introduce you to my
rabbi, Rabbi Sarit,” and I called over to her. Rabbi Sarit came over and I
introduced them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">When he left, I watched his back,
turned away, and then turned back, and so did he. Old friend. Later, as with
all my family and friends, I realized that I should have asked him, “What do
you want the world to know about Israel from your perspective right now?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I asked him afterward, electronically,
and he replied simply, “Too complicated.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">What selected Israeli family and
friends want the world to know about Israel right now, 29 February-6 March
2024:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Here’s how the other friends, family,
and a Hasidic rabbi from Jerusalem, on my plane back to JFK, responded to the
question, “What do you want the world to know about Israel from your
perspective right now?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">High tech product manager:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">wow big question. I guess there's big
dissonance between how we feel we're perceived in the world: big, strong,
aggressive, confident and how we really feel: great pain in what feels like a
war for existence and extreme lack of hope for a peaceful future.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Attorney:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I would like the world to know that we
want to live in peace with our neighbours and the rest of the world.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Another childhood friend, and a
consultant:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Israel is a people. Israel is a Jewish
people rooted and acting in love, peace and belief in the higher power of G-d.
We are living in excruciating pain yet in spiritual knowledge that the world’s
perception of us is indeed an inversion of what is divine light.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Tour guide:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Challenging times, war over our own
existence here. Back to seminars, studies, zooms, volunteering projects that
help also make my days significant. Barely have time to myself. huge
uncertainty over professional future, and in general. Looking for alternative
options for a living. North is a war zone in the past couple of months. The
land is like an explosive bomb…threats from within…and yet, we are grateful to
be at home, in warm bed, and together. We stand for our people. Hoping for
better days.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Professor:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Oh wow. That’s a good question. And a
big one too. That it is a nation in trauma. That we are not monsters. That in
spite of our many faults, the calling into question of our country’s right to
exist is uniquely wrong and preposterous. That there are many shades and colors
of Israeli society. That my university and others in Israel are havens of
tolerance and liberalism. And so much more.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">My second cousin Nitza, who’s also a
Museum Curator:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s a complicated question for me
now, I will think about it and try to summarize for you. Tomorrow I plan to
join the march of the families of the abductees to Jerusalem, or to go to
Caesarea to demonstrate against Netanyahu.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Sarah, were you able to read my <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2021-06-01/ty-article-opinion/.premium/if-only-a-change-will-come-so-israel-can-get-back-on-the-right-track/0000017f-db2f-df9c-a17f-ff3f261a0000?gift=2cc1c5b377494dbfb97bea273fb3804f&fbclid=IwAR0mvoF1PoQT910T0bnlRi4pQ812ZJFTX2ZsohBi0ObLeSPzoZv5lj68TFo">article</a>?
[I found the version that’s translated into English.]</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It is what I felt on May 2021, now,
It's much worse</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Perhaps it’s simple.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">▪︎The world should know that we don’t
have any other place.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">▪︎That we live in a very violent
neighborhood.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">▪︎And that we struggle to continue to
be a just and democratic society, because its seems we've lost it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Sarah I don’t know about your group
and your host’s political views, the country became very militaristic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">So for now I will fight for my views,
while trying to keep my sons safe at home!!!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The grandchild of Avi, Mayshi's
neighbor, I grew up with his mother and aunt, he was killed this week in Gaza.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I can’t bear the talk about
"being united and that it's not the time for demonstrations," again,
it looks that Israeli society will not stand boldly to deal with our true
existential questions.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The war just makes the country more
militaristic and more arrogant, it's unbelievable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Husband of the childhood friend who’s
a consultant, who’s also a businessperson:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The concept of the Palestinian people
is a misnomer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">There is no occupation, Israel is the
rightful homeland of the Jewish people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The world is demonstrating pure
anti-Semitism, whether it is vocal or silent/accepting of the misjustice and
warped views.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Israel is defending itself with the
highest, most ethical morals, in a war, where the enemy is the most ruthless
and barbaric.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The moment has come for humanity to
choose between right and wrong, … there is no midway point between the truth
and a lie.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Another relative:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">All we want to do is live peacefully
and enjoy our lives here…what everyone wants. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Since Israel came into being, I don’t
think anyone has had any more wars than we, and we never initiate it….not that
we’re perfect – that we do hold onto the land in the West Bank. When people
feel occupied, they don’t look at us very favorably.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">If they wouldn’t have given us any
reason to be aggressive…they could have lived peacefully, but because they’re
constantly initiating some kind of attack whether by individuals or groups,
trying to hurt or kill as many Israelis as they can, we have to give some kind
of an answer….</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">And if they form terrorist groups
where they’re planning to do harm inside Israel, like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, we
have to stop them before they cause harm. It’s like a game of cat and mouse,
constantly trying to stop them before they kill anyone.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The point is, basically, when it comes
to Gaza, we left I don’t know how many years ago, we left Gaza and took out the
Jews…but they didn’t do anything. They had the whole Gaza Strip to themselves
and could have become an independent state they could have flourished and built
things….They were free, with different countries constantly pouring in relief.
They didn’t invest it in the population. They invested it in tunnels and any
sort of munitions to fight Israel. People were starving but they poured millions
into a whole Gaza beneath the ground — the whole tunnel system with air and
water in order to be able to survive underground for a long time, and it cost a
fortune, which they buried there instead of investing it in the people….</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Basically, they used the population as
human shields. They keep people from food when the convoys come and then say
Israel shot the people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s a lot of hard work, countering
their propaganda...because people want to believe them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">We do have quite a lot of Israeli
Arabs putting [positive] things on the Internet, including one woman, talking
about how she went to college and did this and that, and in many Arab countries
she wouldn’t be able to. She contradicts the Apartheid accusation. So many
doctors and nurses in Israeli hospitals are Arabs. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Years ago, when the kids were little,
most pharmacists were from Eastern Europe, and now, it’s mostly Arabs. So it’s
not that they are kept away from professional positions. I’m not saying that
they’re not discriminated against, but even if you’re a Moroccan, Ethiopian,
Ashkenazi, Religious, Leftist, Rightist Jew, everyone likes to hate everyone
else…. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">By the way, not a lot, but there are
also Arabs, serving in the [Israeli] army. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/YosHaddad">Yosef Haddad</a> is one — you can
always see him on the Internet putting out clips. He’s an Arab Israeli who was
in the army, who lost a leg, and he’s more extremely pro-Israeli than Jewish
Israelis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">If you look at the world map and you
paint all the different Muslim countries in the world in one color and then you
paint Israel on the map, you realize the extent of the vast lands and this
little, bitty piece of land that was allotted to the Jews, and even that, they
want to take. It’s our historic homeland and the UN gave us this piece of land
when no one wanted us, especially after the Second World War. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">At the same time, the Arabs were
offered the same thing, but they didn’t want it. They wanted all or nothing,
and it’s been that way ever since. They don’t want us here, altogether. As long
as we are here, there won’t be peace, and if someone thinks otherwise, they’re
mistaken. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Let’s put it this way, I’m very, very
pessimistic and I can’t see things turning for the better in my lifetime, or in
my grandchildren’s lifetime, if Israel will even still exist for them because
of what Netanyahu is doing to the country. He’s willing to destroy the country
to save his tuches (posterior) so he doesn’t have to go to jail. He’s been
living life as if he’s above the law and one of his sons has been living the
same way.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">People have started protesting again
because it’s too much, we need to get Bibi [Netanyahu] and his idiots out of
the Knesset…. It’s unbelievable that there’s no kind of law that can drop him
out and send him to the moon, to sit there instead. Or Gaza. Even they don’t
want him.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Hasidic rabbi and cantor, on the plane
from Tel Aviv to JFK:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">We don’t want anyone dead. We’re just
fighting a war to defend ourselves.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Part 3</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> of my perspective on the recent
Memphis Jewish Federation Israel solidarity mission:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“Thank you for staying with us,” 27
February 2024:</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I’ve experienced personal war-zones,
like when I had cancer, but never an actual war zone, until now. I’ve been a teenager, an
18-year-old young woman, but never an IDF soldier, though I sampled Basic
Training by the Lebanon border ahead of the semester at Hebrew University’s One
Year Program. Broke my ankle, jumping off a small hill onto a loose-rock pile;
went to an army hospital, where they wrapped my left leg in a cast; then got
sent home to Jerusalem. Mission aborted. Worse than “Private Benjamin.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">How would it be, growing up in Israel,
doing compulsory military service? On the way to meet with Yossi Landau of <a href="https://zakaworld.org/">Zaka</a> Search & Rescue, our Memphis Jewish
Federation delegation came upon a group of young soldiers with an older army
instructor, who spoke lovingly and with great enthusiasm. Was his army role the
same as my cousin Nitza’s? Effectively, for her army duty, she served as a tour
guide, helping the soldiers understand the history and importance of the area
they were defending. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">When we met the day we landed, two
weeks ago today, Nitza explained, in her Eretz Yisrael Museum curator role, she
traveled to the Gaza Envelope with an Israel museum alliance, so they could
collect and catalog artifacts from the ravaged kibbutzim. She showed me photos.
What a grim duty that no one ever signed up for! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Israel and Egypt had established
diplomatic relations when Nitza and I were 15, in 1980, and I also got to spend
the summer with her family. Roller skating to George Benson’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omnpu8mzX4c">Give Me the Night</a>” on
the street in front of their Moshav Bet Herut home in Central Israel, we felt
relatively care-free…well, Nitza would serve in the army in a few years, and
her older brothers already had served, but none of us predicted the October 7th
tumult. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Visiting Israel in wartime might have
seemed brave, but I just “parachuted in” and then left four days later. My
relatives and friends live with the war 24/7. While visiting Zaka’s car
graveyard, we heard artillery blasts and gunfire in the near-distance. Alan
Harkavy, our tour guide and a native Memphian, who made aliyah with his family
seven years ago, said, “Don’t worry. They’re ours and they’re pointing the
other way." Gunfire, I recognized, as Pat and I’ve heard shots from time
to time in our own neighborhood in Memphis, but the sound of artillery was new.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">After returning from the Gaza
Envelope, our group learned that we had missed a rocket alarm in Ashkelon by
seven minutes. When the rocket-alarm goes off near Gaza, you have 15 seconds to
seek shelter, compared to Jerusalem, where you have 60 seconds, and Tel Aviv,
where you have 90 seconds.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">It’s easier, writing about
rocket-alarm logistics than about the soldiers. They still had baby faces! The
young, apparently female commander to whom Rabbi Sarit handed cards --
hand-drawn by Memphis Jewish day school kids -- had a tender smile. Initially,
I had to look away when we saw their circle because they didn’t need to see my
stricken features. They needed pure encouragement for their Gaza mission. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">When Rabbi Sarit handed them the
students’ cards, one of the soldiers said in English, “Thank you for staying
with us.” Perhaps, she meant to say, “Thank you for standing with us,” as our
T-shirts read, “Memphis stands with Israel,” but instead, her statement made me
sob tearlessly, and think, Oy, but we’re not staying with you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">אֲשֶׁ֤ר בָּנֵ֨ינוּ ׀ כִּנְטִעִים֮
מְגֻדָּלִ֢ים בִּֽנְעוּרֵ֫יהֶ֥ם בְּנוֹתֵ֥ינוּ כְזָוִיֹּ֑ת מְ֝חֻטָּב֗וֹת
תַּבְנִ֥ית הֵיכָֽל׃" </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">For our sons are like saplings,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">well-tended in their youth;</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">our daughters are like cornerstones</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">trimmed to give shape to a
palace." – <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms.144?lang=bi">Psalm 144</a>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum taught me to
look to Psalms for inspiration and consolation, but this snippet only upsets me
further as I think about the soldiers in the prime of their life. Their service
as my strong, youthful proxy devastates me – and that their families might lose
them. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Meanwhile, I sit in our lovely Memphis
house, tapping my keyboard while Israelis might be sitting on another
time-bomb. Of course, all of us (Jews) sit perilously, but for the moment,
denying our potential bomb from where I sit feels easier than dismissing their
potential, next one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The soldiers’ youthful beauty radiates
off them even as the war robs their teenage years. What if war and more terror
happens here, in the States, either soon, or when I’m even older and not at all
able to defend myself? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">What about psyche self-preservation
versus being present for Israelis’ current tragedy, including for the lovely
kibbutznik I met, Ronit Bart, who serves as a den mother to lone-soldier
cohorts, who make their home away from home at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%27ad">Kibbutz Sa’ad</a>? And one of
whose actual daughter’s getting married next month, and whose rock collection
needs cobweb removal after her recent return from months of Eilat-hotel
displacement?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The gorgeous young people in uniform
head to, or come back from, the fighting, or don’t, as in the case of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/policewoman-killed-in-jerusalem-stabbing-eulogized-as-free-spirited-people-magnet/">Sgt.
Elisheva Rose Ida Lubin</a> (z”l), 20, a lone soldier of Kibbutz Sa’ad and a
Border Police Officer, who died in a terror attack in Jerusalem in
early-November. Ronit Bart cared for Rose like a mother, in addition to the
four children she had organically.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Nathan and Alla Lubin, fellow
delegates on our mission, were Rose’s actual grandparents. How could someone,
who was both an Atlanta high school wrestler and cheerleader, someone so strong
and so enthused, who a friend called, “the best of us,” come to such a tragic
end so soon, at 20? Rose’s was the voice I craved the entire mission. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">During her Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery
memorial service in Jerusalem, I felt lucky, hearing a recording of Rose’s
stirring voice, singing the Israeli national anthem, “HaTikvah/The Hope.”
Greedily, I searched for a YouTube recording, too, but of course, to hear
Rose's rendition, you had to stand at her decorated grave among her
grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins, including a blissfully clueless infant,
as an infant should be, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>compared to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-saddest-birthday-in-the-world-hostage-kfir-bibas-turns-1-in-hamas-captivity/">Baby
Kfir</a>, who was kidnapped by the terrorists. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Instead, I found <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGSBrPc9-os">a combat soldier, from
before Covid, accompanying an Israeli pop star</a>. I pray for the singing
soldier and the soldiers behind her. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“How is your English so good?” I asked
one of the young, native-Israeli medics we met at Kibbutz Sa’ad.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“One Direction, and Taylor Swift – she
has a great vocabulary!” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">One Direction was a British-Irish boy
band whose hit, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E">What
Makes You Beautiful</a>” even I knew. Oh, God. They’re so young!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Part 4</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> of my perspective on the recent
Memphis Jewish Federation Israel solidarity mission:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“A Very Broken Hallelujah”</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I don’t think I have done justice here
with this series. Being a reporter was the best I could do, including editorializing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">When I got back to Memphis, I bopped
along to 88.5 FM’s best R&B tunes and kissed the ground with my eyes while
driving down Poplar Pike. The roadside became dotted with purple clover in my
absence and pink magnolias burst into bloom. I love being American and the
comforts of home. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">And…I feel akin with my Israeli family
and friends and Jewish people everywhere, especially Israel, where almond,
mustard, anemone, and orange blossoms flourish right now. I have five
generations of family <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_Herut">Moshav
Beit Herut</a>, and I pray nothing ever happens in Bet Herut like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiv_HaAsara_massacre">what happened to
Moshav Netiv HaAsara</a>. With my other home, Israel, ravaged by war with no
end in sight, I feel despair. And anxiety. If it could happen there, it could
happen here, God forbid.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">They gave us a dog-tag replicas
imprinted with a message about freeing the hostages, but I feel like Hamas
holds all of us hostage now. The Hebrew half of the dog-tag reads:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“הלב שלנו שבוי בעזה” / “Our hearts are
captive in Gaza” and the English half, “BRING THEM HOME NOW!” They also gave us
a dog-tag-style heart necklace, representing partners of Israeli soldiers. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">On his last day in office – opting to
return to the Israeli Air Force and not run for another term – the former Mayor
of Shoham, Eitan Pettigrew, told our group that he felt that October 7th was,
“…just the beginning.” </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">And when we met with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yossi_Klein_Halevi">Yossi Klein-Halevi</a> later
in the week, he said, “October 7th was the start of Israel’s war with Iran.”
Cheerless sentiments, but hard to contradict.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">British-Israeli journalist and
publisher of “Israel Times,” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horovitz">David Horovitz</a>, told
our group, “I don’t need them to accept my narrative. I want them to understand
it’s what I believe.” He also said, “We need the US. It’s fantastic that you’re
here and that’s not my being polite. We’re all in this together, so we need to
understand each other.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I asked him, “Imagine you’re writing
an article with the headline, ‘We Finished the Job.’ What does the article
cover?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“In a perfect world, Hamas is no
longer governing, has no more hostages, can’t do anything from Gaza. The
Lebanon border is calm.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk">Harvey Milk</a> (z”l), the
assassinated American politician and first openly gay man in public office in
California, said, “You gotta give ‘em hope,” and typically, I subscribe to that
message, so…I’ll say that music, the arts in general, humor, invention, and
innovation, plus Jewish ritual and prayer keep me hopeful about Israel today and in the future, but it’s
challenging. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">In the realm of
please-leave-Jews-alone-so-we-can-keep-innovating-ways-to-help-the-world,
Shamir Medical Center’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shai_Efrati">Dr.
Shai Efrati</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/keren-doenyas-barak-78b6b351/">Dr. Keren
Doenyas-Barak</a> run a program, treating PTSD through hyperbaric oxygen. The
Israel Ministry of Defense supports the program because soldiers report a
reduction of nightmares from eight times per month to twice. Dr. Efrati said he
hopes Gazans can take advantage of the treatment in the future, too. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">“For the first time this week, I feel
positive awe,” I told Dr. Efrati. Considering the morale boost later, though, I
felt sad: The most hopeful moments of the week were visiting this PTSD lab and
the <a href="https://afmda.org/">Magen David Adom</a> headquarters, Israel’s
equivalent of the Red Cross, where we learned they collected 3.5 weeks’ worth
of blood in three days, following October 7th.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Never did I imagine I’d witness the
aftermath of current-day pogroms. Sure, Jew hatred simmered in France, the UK, the States, and elsewhere, but I believed that with more and more Arab countries
normalizing relations with Israel, things were looking up.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I’m just human, and also
anxiety-prone, but so far, not requiring medication, and I had two enormously
macabre thoughts during my journey: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">A massive crowd, including me, waited
in Miami to board the giant, Tel-Aviv-bound El Al plane. Looking around at what
seemed to be Jews of all denominations, I wondered, Are we all heading to our
death, like Holocaust-era Jews in cattle-cars? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">My other sickest thought, unvoiced
until now, happened while watching the excellent choir of older Jewish Israelis
from the former Soviet Union: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Are we visiting a modern-day <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/theresienstadt-cultural-life">Theresienstadt</a>
– not because of the marvelous philanthropists who have housed the singing
seniors, but because of Hamas’ murderous goals? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">I had a third thought that I shared
with others on the mission at one point: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">Maybe, from many Jews’ perspectives,
the current catastrophe’s pain will dull in 20+ years the way the September
11th tragedy did for many metro-New Yorkers. I went to work in
Midtown-Manhattan that day and felt compelled <a href="https://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/search/label/9%2F11">for the
first 11 years afterward, writing a remembrance annually</a> because the grief
was still raw more than a decade later…but not as raw since then. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 0pt; mso-ligatures: none;">The 9/11 analogy offered only a
temporary salve, though, because I recalled, although garden-variety,
21st-century Americans were unaccustomed to massacres on American soil, Jews
worldwide were all-too used to being targets. Nodding to Leonard Cohen (z”l),
although out of context, at times like this, Jews sing “a very broken
Hallelujah,” I guess, but a bunch of us will keep Hallelujah-ing for as long as
we last. So far, we've lasted for 3,000+ years, weathering similar storms.</span></p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-69561984925790491152021-08-05T14:59:00.011-04:002021-08-06T12:30:28.512-04:00Rest in Peace, Phoebe<p>We adopted Phoebe only because I was in grad school while working full-time and so it felt like I was never home. Pat had always wanted us to have a cat, but I had not grown up with pets other than turtles and fish and refused, saying, "If we get a cat, you'll never touch me again. [You'll give all your affection to the cat.]" I relented because Pat deserved company in my absence.<br /></p><p>Pat & I drove to what was then the P.A.W.S. animal shelter in Montclair, New Jersey, where we lived then, in the spring of 2008 and looked at a vast range of caged and free-roaming cats. "They're sisters. Would you like two?" said the cat minder when she saw us looking at a cage with two short-hair American tabbies. I am a sister and couldn't separate sisters. They were five years old, and we intended to go home with cats, who were not kittens since Pat explained to me that fewer people chose full-grown cats.<br /></p><p>The smaller one with gray and black stripes chose Pat right away. Pat & I agreed that we each got to name one of the cats and I selected the name "Phoebe" because I liked the sound of it. Phoebe was the one with brown and black stripes. Pat named Phoebe's sister "Muffin" until by the end of the first evening, she declared, "You're no Muffin. You're a Toonces!" because she was naughty non-stop.</p><p>I knew nothing about cat-parenting and told my colleague Michele Morningstar, "I wish I could pick up Phoebe and put her in my lap."</p><p>"Then pick her up!" Michele encouraged.</p><p>I did and learned about kneading. Ouch. Phoebe had a good, healthy purr, which distracted me from the needle-pricks of her claws in my thighs. I learned to give her what she needed and wore thicker pants.<br /></p><p><b>What Phoebe Gave Me</b><br /></p><p><b>Becalmed me.</b> Petting Phoebe's silky fur and smelling it along her spine practically erased my anxiety. She smelled like a Napoleon pastry to me.<br /></p><p><b>Enhanced my self-regard.</b> I walked around the house, saying to Phoebe, "You're so special, so special," and some of that affirmation rubbed off on me.</p><p><b>Increased my delight.</b> She had a repertoire that charmed me and never got old. Lying on her back while checking to see if I was paying attention, for example, thrilled me. Every time. Phoebe, also, was such a generous purrer.<br /></p><p><b>Decreased my self-absorption. </b>Someone else absolutely depended on me to feed her and monitor her health, and to engage vets when her needs were a mystery.<br /></p><p><b>Enlarged my family. </b>Pat & I were a couple until we got cats, including Phoebe. And then we were and are a family. <br /></p><p>Ultimately, you were the "perfect angel" that Dr. Antey called you as she injected you with the euthanasia dose. I love thinking about you in healthier times and only wish you were still here corporeally. </p><p>Just before we let you go, a day or so before, I cried, listening to "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gd_ohoPzYc&t=59s" target="_blank">Memory</a>" from cats because you, too, were a glamorous -- albeit indoor-only-by-our-design -- cat, who still merited appreciation in the twilight of your life. And you received it!<br /></p>Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-37977422965160799692021-07-01T08:35:00.020-04:002021-07-01T11:50:32.092-04:00On the Occasion of Our 10-year Legal Marriage Anniversary<p>Twenty-nine years together<br /></p><p>A decade of legal marriage</p><p>Pat's tapered hands</p><p>Can't wear our wedding ring</p><p>During swims.</p><p>On our first date, Pat said,<br /></p><p>"You'll never find anyone</p><p>Better than me."</p><p>Pat doesn't get poetry.</p><p>Maybe if she's the subject,</p><p>It will make better sense.<br /></p><p>Paris, a Chicago dance club,</p><p>Was the site of our earliest</p><p>Classically romantic moments.</p><p>Pat would slow-dance with me,</p><p>her eyes, messaging mine.<br /></p><p>Pat says she lured me with </p><p>Her cooking, and that's partly</p><p>True.</p><p>All these years, and four homes</p><p>Later, she encouraged me to </p><p>Continue loading water into the</p><p>Redbud gators in the deep sun of</p><p>This Memphis July morning by<br /></p><p>Calling to me from the front step,</p><p>"I'm making you an omelet with</p><p>Baby bella mushrooms."</p>Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-78991949210806417042020-05-13T22:30:00.004-04:002023-01-22T21:46:46.842-05:00Revisiting a Lesbian Kiss-in From 30 Years Ago and MoreThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>We Made History, 30 Years Ago and Today</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
What a treat to travel via the way-back machine of our brains with Jack Ryan and Tom Rowan of "The 10% Show," an LGBTQ newsmagazine that aired monthly on Chicago's Community Access TV from 1989-92. Here's an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CAI6g9NBDDa/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link" target="_blank">Instagram promo</a> for the panel we did tonight and I'll share the replay link when it's available. [Added the replay link later: <a href="https://bit.ly/3ekb8Cx">https://bit.ly/3ekb8Cx</a>.] </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span>Northwestern PhD Student Lauren Herold and the Director
of Gerber Hart Library and Archives also discussed the cultural and historical
significance of "The 10% show" that I co-hosted ~30 years ago @ <a href="https://bit.ly/2XtzxhV">https://bit.ly/2XtzxhV</a>.</span></div><p><span> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxYzO8t-bRZFaTlf8L1I9T4UUUsXAsk3RZ" target="_blank">See an excerpt of the Lesbian Kiss-in segment</a> from 1990. </span>Click "Watch full video" to see the whole, ~8-min. segment.
</p>Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-84170808750495730892019-11-28T20:05:00.003-05:002022-08-15T10:26:51.677-04:00How I Want to Be RememberedThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>An Obituary I Wrote for If I Died Today, God Forbid</b><br />
<br />
Sarah Siegel was funniest when she least meant to be, or droll, as her wife Pat liked to say. At 10, during a road trip with her mom in Philadelphia, she tried to bribe a Jewish cop with matzah. Her mom had parked illegally and made her wait in the car during a quick errand. It was Passover-time and the police officer’s name badge featured a Jewish-sounding last name. Sarah took a chance. Professionally, Sarah was an IBM manager and learning designer who helped colleagues advance in their careers and in their equality. A friend called her a connector and she encouraged others in pursuing their potential. Sarah also cared about dignity for all, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people worldwide. During her nearly 30-year career at a joint venture and IBM, Sarah was proud to have helped start up the first-ever business development team dedicated to the LGBT business-to-business market and to have completed a six-month work assignment in India, accompanied by her wife. Sarah loved Pat, her feline children, Petey and Sammi, and Phoebe, Toonces, and Lucy--all three of blessed memory--and the rest of her human family along with R&B and Disco music, Jewish culture, and writing. One of Sarah’s relatives once told her, “You’re the best person I know.”Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-87020199052078225972019-09-07T21:06:00.002-04:002023-02-13T18:18:16.595-05:00Flirting in LiteratureThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>On Flirting: a Facilitated Discussion in Chicago, July, 1989 </b><br />
<br />
While cleaning up recently, I opened a boxful of mementos from the '80s and early-'90s, which I hadn't seen since boxing them up for our move to New Jersey from Illinois in 1996, including:<br />
<br />
When I was 22-23 and volunteering as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth group advisor in Chicago, I curated a series of literature-snippets. I accompanied each of them with a question or two, and made handouts that read, "On Flirting. Consider the following excerpts and questions and bring your thoughts to this Saturday's discussion."<br />
<br />
My first real girlfriend and I broke up the prior spring and I had no idea how to flirt with women. I created the discussion guide to help myself. Growing up, I didn't feel free to flirt, especially not with girls. Perhaps some of the youth also felt unfree, I thought, and what a gift, via this discussion guide, to plant the seed that same-sex flirting with one another was OK:<br />
<br />
<b>The first </b>excerpt was from "You're Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore, "The New Yorker," July 3, 1989:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Often, when she spoke to men at parties, she rushed things in her mind. As the man politely blathered on, she would fall in love, marry, then find herself in a bitter custody battle with him for the kids and hoping for a reconciliation, so that despite all his betrayals she might no longer despise him, and, in the few minutes remaining, learn, perhaps, what his last name was and what he did for a living, though probably there was already too much history between them. She would nod, blush, turn away.</blockquote>
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Have you ever planned too much, too quickly with someone you've just met?</b><br />
<br />
<b>The second </b>snippet was from *Miss Manners' Complete Guide to Excurciatingly Correct Behavior* by Judith Martin, specifically the chapter, "Courtship (for Participants, Their Friends and Relations)." She wrote of how flirtation done properly was "an end, not a means."<br />
<br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Have you ever had fun, flirting just for its own sake without it leading to a deeper involvement?</b><br />
<br />
<b>The third</b> bit was from *Jitterbug Perfume* by Tom Robbins, a section, where Ricki hits on Priscilla and is rebuffed.<br />
<br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Have you ever flirted with someone who was straight or equivalently unavailable?</b><br />
<b>Q: Ever tried to turn a flirtation into something more? What were the results?</b><br />
<br />
<b>The fourth </b>excerpt was from *Lesbian Passion: Loving Ourselves and Each Other* by JoAnn Loulan, including, "Sometimes just setting rules takes the pressure off."<br />
<br />
<b></b> And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Can you cut off a flirtation if it causes you more pain than pleasure? </b><br />
<br />
<b>The fifth </b>quote was from *The Lost Language of Cranes* by David Leavitt, where two friends consider becoming a couple.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b></b><br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b></b> <b>Q: Have you ever flirted with a friend?</b><br />
<b>Q: How did you resolve this flirtation?</b><br />
<br />
<b>The sixth </b>bit was from "The Village Voice" by Vince Aletti on June 27, 1989, where he reviewed a book of Bruce Weber's photography, including, "What makes beefcake so compelling now is its nostalgia for innocence."<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b></b><br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Do you prefer seeing explicit or suggestive images? [How about language?] </b><br />
<br />
<b>The seventh </b>excerpt was from *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* by Jeanette Winterson, including:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Poor Melanie, she didn't understand any of them, she just knew she needed Jesus....I went round to Mealnie's and we read the Bible together...and I was delighted. She was my friend, and I wasn't used to that....I talked about her all the time at home, and my mother never responded.</blockquote>
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Have you and another ever shared a passionate pursuit as a substitute for a romance between you two?</b><br />
<br />
<b>The eighth</b> snippet was from *Hey, Dollface* by Deborah Hautzig. It was a Young Adult novel, where two high school girls fall in love, but in the particular scene, they're talking on the phone about a date one of them had with a boy.<br />
<br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Have you ever tested a romantic prospect by detailing an exciting experience you had with someone else to that person? </b><br />
<br />
<b>The ninth </b>quote was from "The Rug of Identity" by Jill W. Fleming in *Lesbian Plays,* selected & introduced by Jill Davis. A lesbian couple is trying to rekindle their spark.<br />
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b> </b><br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: If you've ever been or are now part of a couple, how do you sustain the fliration between you? </b><br />
<br />
<b>The tenth </b>excerpt was from "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt" in *The Company She Keeps* by Mary McCarthy. It included an exchange between a man and a woman, where the woman is unimpressed initially until the man is familiar with the author of the book she's reading.<br />
<br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: What makes you not want to flirt back?</b><br />
<b>Q: Initially turned off, what can persuade you to become engaged in a flirtation?</b><br />
<br />
<b>The eleventh </b>snippet was from *The Mind-Body Problem* by Rebecca Goldstein, where a woman and a man begin flirting with each other's intellect, agreeing that mathemeticians are aestheticians<b>.</b><br />
<br />
<b>The twelfth and final </b>bit was from *Self-Help* by Lorrie Moore, with a funny exchange between a man and woman who just met, where the woman is reading *Madame Bovary* in a Doris Day book jacket.<br />
<br />
And then...<br />
<br />
<b>Q: Which style(s) of flirting do you most enjoy, e.g., eye-contact, intellectual, humorous... </b><br />
<br />
I wonder what became of those LGBTQ youth in Chicago. Today, they would be ages 44-51. Hope that those who wanted to learn to flirt did and found the loves of their lives eventually, like I did.<b> </b> Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-59990533923749533752018-09-03T16:36:00.001-04:002018-10-21T15:18:35.425-04:00Thirty-five Falls LaterThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>What's Different:</b><br />
<br />
As I imagine my arrival at the Detroit Airport and then on the University of Michigan campus on Wednesday, I'm thinking of all that's different since <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2010/12/michigan-day-one-memories.html" target="_blank">Day One</a> of my freshman year there, and am grateful, mostly:<br />
<ol>
<li>I wrote an Honors thesis, "Women's Damned Desires: A Comparison of Four Twentieth-century American and Israeli Short Stories," and graduated with High Honors as a Comparative Literature major.</li>
<li>Both of my parents (z"l) are gone and my two sisters and I have families of our own.<b></b></li>
<li>I'm openly lesbian.</li>
<li>Friends of mine died of AIDS in their 20s. </li>
<li>My career is solid and I've been working full-time for 32 years so far.</li>
<li>Sugar in most forms has been gone from my diet for 28+ years so far and I'm more fit now than I was at 18.</li>
<li>I wrote an unpublished memoir of my life from 0 - 30.</li>
<li>Relative prosperity is no longer a wild fantasy, and my wife Pat & I co-own two cars and a house.</li>
<li>I volunteered to co-lead the Tri-State chapter of our LGBT+ employee group.</li>
<li>I became a people manager. </li>
<li>I chose to leave people management -- but returned to it ultimately -- so that a couple of colleagues and I could start up a business development team in our company dedicated to the LGBT+ B2B market. So far, it has contributed millions of dollars in attributable company revenue. We also enjoyed positive press and being quoted in a Columbia University Press book on LGBT+ marketing. And serving on a TimesTalk panel on being out at work. Although I chose to move to a different role three years in, it's still going successfully 17 years later.</li>
<li>My sisters have children, our niece Zoe and nephews, Zach, Max and Sam, and I tried to have a child, through nine IUIs, unsuccessfully.</li>
<li>A few childhood friends and I revived our friendship, I held onto others from high school and college and made new friends at work, in grad school, at our shul and locally.</li>
<li>Two great institutions each granted me a degree, one at the Master's level, and my employer kindly sponsored the Master's part-time while I kept working full-time.</li>
<li>Work and vacations have enabled me to become acquainted with many countries, cities and people.</li>
<li>Jerusalem was home for a year, Bangalore, for six months, and Chicago and St. Charles, Illinois, for a combo of nine years.</li>
<li>I volunteered as a co-anchor of a cable access TV program, "The 10%
Show," which showcased news makers of the Chicago LGBT+ community and
beyond.</li>
<li>With tutoring by my college friend Robyn Weinstein as prep, I
chanted the Haftorah for Rosh Hashanah for the LGBT+ congregation we
belonged to when we lived in Chicago.</li>
<li>Montclair, New Jersey has been home for 22+ years so far. </li>
<li>I was working in New York City on September 11th, 2001. </li>
<li>My mom (z"l) & I went to Israel on a Hebrew University
global alumni/alumnae trip after the cafeteria was bombed by terrorists
and nine people died.</li>
<li>This blog has been my muse for more than a decade.</li>
<li>I became active in all sorts of social media channels, including
behind our firewall at work, where I also created a couple of blogs, and
became an active agent of social learning.</li>
<li>The University of Michigan chapter of oSTEM flew me in as an alumna to give <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2011/02/integrating-personal-professional.html" target="_blank">a talk about my time in Ann Arbor and being out at work in a technology company</a>.</li>
<li>Pat & I adopted two American tabby sister-cats, our feline
daughters, from the local animal shelter and named them Phoebe and
Toonces.</li>
<li>Pat & I were married legally in my hometown of Stamford, Connecticut.</li>
<li>I became a people manager again and it turned out to be the most compelling of my job roles so far because of the pastoral aspect of it. </li>
<li>Pat & I visited Israel, including our many relatives, twice so far, and I posted <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2015/08/my-israel-autobiography.html" target="_blank">My Israel Autobiography</a> on this blog after our second visit.</li>
<li>MOOCs, or massive open online courses, emerged and I became <a href="https://www.managerseminare.de/ms_Artikel/Neue-MOOC-Formate-Die-Netzwerkchen,232016?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook" target="_blank">a spokesperson on our company's point of view</a> on them.</li>
<li>My mom and Pat's mother-in-law (z"l) died in 2014 and Pat's mom and my mother-in-law Bev died eight months later.</li>
<li>Toonces died 13 months after Bev and three weeks after Toonce's death, we adopted Lucy, a giant calico, from the same shelter.</li>
<li>I led the creation of Watson Academy, which was designed, in
Watson's early commercial days, to educate the public and our employees
on why Watson matters. It won a Brandon-Hall Gold Award for Best Use of
Video for Learning. </li>
<li>I was invited to serve on the board of our largest local park's
conservancy and am its education leader. We'll host a lecture on New
Jersey's hazelnut trees later this month.</li>
<li>Our Chief Learning Officer and I started up the <a href="http://dlc.mybluemix.net/" target="_blank">Digital Learning Consortium</a> and invited his peers from 21 other companies and academic
institutions to join us.</li>
<li>I designed a course, Global religion and culture, which we're
launching soon. It's my hope to encourage my colleagues and myself to
teach one another about our religions and cultures for greater
inclusion. And I also hope we commercialize it so that other companies can
also be more inclusive around the dimensions of religion, atheism and
agnosticism.</li>
</ol>
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-24983829568698614652018-07-06T18:14:00.001-04:002018-07-06T18:14:23.418-04:00My dance legacyThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Rhythm in contrast: </b><b>my parents </b><br />
<br />
At relatives' <i>simcha</i>s in the '70s, my Big and Tall father (z"l) would stand on the dance floor with me. He'd spend the whole song doing nothing more than rotating our clasped hands to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zls8DFx9UCw" target="_blank">whatever the beat</a>. No other part of his body moved.<br />
<br />
My mother (z"l) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMX1sc3eOTE" target="_blank">relished time on the dance floor</a> till 2013. By then, her Rollator walker was her partner.<br />
<br />
During our cousin Spencer's bar mitzvah in '13, I should have recognized
that relatively soon my mom would die of old age. It was the
first time she didn't dance at a family function. Instead, my mom
watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA" target="_blank">her three daughters' moves</a>. I was conscious of trying to dance well for her. <br />
<br />
"How was that?" I asked after we exited the dance floor.<br />
<br />
"Nice," my mom said with a wan smile.<br />
<br />
One of my parents didn't like -- and maybe didn't even know how -- to
dance and the other was a dancing devotee. I wish I had only my mom's
dancing skills, but unfortunately, I have my dad's, too. I'm a mashup of
the two when it comes to getting down. <br />
<br />
<b>This blog entry is Henry Alford's fault.</b><br />
<br />
Henry Alford's <i><a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/And-Then-We-Danced/Henry-Alford/9781501122255" target="_blank">And Then We Danced: A Voyage into the Groove</a></i> is the first book I recall making me cry since <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Butch_Blues" target="_blank">Stone Butch Blues</a></i> more than 20 years ago. Both books inspired me to empathize especially deeply with the protagonist, the narrator -- never mind one's a memoir and the other a novel.<br />
<br />
Henry Alford's book, which I finished this morning, mostly made me laugh and hope. I didn't cry till the last few lines when a tear streaked my right temple as I read in bed. It's also the first book in awhile that has moved me to do some writing myself. I'm a writer because I write.<br />
<br />
<b>Good dancers' siren songs</b><br />
<br />
After my dad died of common bile-duct cancer at 56 in 1982, my mom frequented older singles dances. She met some super-suave dancers, but never the kind she'd marry. <br />
<br />
My mother had a theory about her favorite singles dancer, that he belonged to Norway's version of Hitler Youth back in the day. Still, he treated her well and tried to court her. My mom wouldn't allow it: "What sort of example would I be setting for my grandchildren?"<br />
<br />
Fortunately, Pat and I met at the LGBT synagogue in Chicago when Pat already was on the path to conversion. My mom embraced Pat, who is an appealing dancer, though she never had the treat of seeing Pat dance.<br />
<br />
Pat lets loose only among our lesbian people, and only when the mood strikes her. She has the effortless rhythm that I've not yet achieved, no matter my considerable effort.<br />
<br />
In our early days, there was a popular lesbian dance club in Chicago called Paris. Pat would hold me close and emote with her gorgeous face along to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__ugaiz323k" target="_blank">one hit</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qChwW1IOdnk" target="_blank">another</a>.<br />
<br />
Her face entranced me. If I'd seen the two of us, and I'd been alone at Paris, I'd have believed in miracles. Also, I'd have wanted to slit my wrists at the contrast between the couple's happiness and my own aloneness.<br />
<br />
In Pat's case, her dancing prowess was a bonus. I guess we always marry one of our parents.<br />
<br />
<b>I'm a dancer because I dance. </b><br />
<br />
Henry Alford's book gave me permission to respect myself as a dancer. Talent didn't matter. Enthusiasm and action did. Alford's stories about dancing gave me mostly happy flashbacks, including:<br />
<ol>
<li>Spinning around the living room as a little kid to my eldest sister Deb's "Tapestry" album, especially "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6913KnbMpHM" target="_blank">I Feel the Earth Move</a>." I would spin until I became dizzy and would fall onto the rugs, watching and feeling the earth move.</li>
<li>Winning a middle school dance contest with my childhood friend Amy, who choreographed a line dance to The Jackson 5's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH3Y9rWmTRI" target="_blank">Shake Your Body</a>. </li>
<li>Trying to keep up with my middle sister Kayla when she danced to "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-QL75KGdk" target="_blank">Fly Robin Fly</a>."</li>
<li>Learning fox trot, waltz, cha cha, the hustle and more. My Phil Jones School of Dance partner David and I moved to classics and hits of the day, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc0gYbTNctU" target="_blank">YMCA</a>. It prepared our classmates and us for the upcoming slew of bar and bat mitzvah parties.</li>
<li>Being paired with Adam in 8th grade for our school's fundraiser because I was already 5'8", nearly my full height of 5'9", and he was already 6'2". We glided to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0gtc_tY5_k" target="_blank">Erev Shel Shoshanim</a>, the world's sexiest love song (<a href="https://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/miriam+makeba/erev+shel+shoshanim+english_20956875.html" target="_blank">see the English lyrics</a>). Already, there was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit" target="_blank"><i>No Exit</i></a> thing going, since one of my (shorter) classmates had a crush on Adam, I had a crush on her and Adam didn't seem attracted to anyone. </li>
<li><span class="ObitTextHtml" id="ctl00_ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_ContentPlaceHolder1_ObitText" itemprop="description" style="font-size: 14px;"></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_nIsnRgPgY" target="_blank">Square dancing</a> at Stamford High School during gym with 6'6" Steve. I felt camouflaged by Steve and ultra-free in parallel from the pure fun of it.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASwge9wc-eI" target="_blank">Dancing in big groups</a> at high school dances every weekend when I was a senior. My dad had died that November. Although Judaism requires mourners to avoid music for a year, the dances saved me. They were more soothing than the grief group my mom sent me to for Jewish high school kids with dead parents.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fyWgjhe_Zg" target="_blank">Gaping</a> at the Rubaiyat in Ann Arbor at 19 when I was a sophomore at Michigan. I stared at an unusually graceful woman as she danced with another woman. She came up behind me after Teena Marie stopped singing. She tapped my shoulder and practically commanded, "Dance."<br />"No, I'm here with her," I answered, pointing to my heterosexual friend who had taken me to the club to help me come out. My friend scolded me for not dancing with the other woman.</li>
<li>Finding relief at the Bar Aton at the Mt. Scopus campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem weekly with another American student abroad. She wouldn't be intimate with me because she said she "couldn't relate," but joyfully, she and I'd <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhzxcPe5uUo" target="_blank">dance</a> to British and American pop songs in a group there most Friday nights.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqBtS6BIP1E" target="_blank">Grooving with Pat</a> at Paris in Chicago (see above).</li>
<li>Dancing with our friend Sheila during Adirondyke Weekends from 1996 - 2008. Since Sheila and I were the same age, and close to the same height, it felt like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41A91X5pns" target="_blank">sweet reparations for being unable to dance with other girls in high school</a>. Finally, we got to dance to songs from our high school years with the sort of partners we'd have wanted to dance with back then. It was redemptive. </li>
<li>Using my playlist to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepx24flhaI" target="_blank">dance</a> with Pat, my sisters, my childhood friend Amy and newer metro-Montclair friends at my 50th birthday party a few summers ago. I opted not to care how adept I looked and spent my birthday ideally, turning our backyard into a leafy disco.</li>
</ol>
Where will I dance next? And how will I get Pat to join me?<br />
<br />
I googled Henry Alford videos to see one of him dancing and didn't find one. It was a relief. It's best in my imagination, I think, that he's a lot better than his self-characterization. He's perhaps a superb writer while being a decent dancer.<br />
<br />
All of us are writers and dancers when we write and dance. I'm reminded by Henry Alford's book that if I can, I want to do both for as long as I live.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-5710207403391183592017-09-13T09:22:00.002-04:002018-09-03T07:22:32.742-04:00Edie Windsor's (z"l) Legacy Lives On<div dir="ltr">
<b>Reprinted from the internal Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT+) IBMers & Friends community</b> </div>
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</div>
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<br />
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br /></div>
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At about 57 minutes in, during the inaugural <a href="http://ibm.biz/BolderLeadershipPanel1" target="_blank">60 Minutes to Bolder Leadership Panel</a> on Monday, IBMer Ella Slade
asked the Out-Role-Model panelists who their role models were. I was
the moderator, so I didn't answer, but if I had answered, I'd have
answered <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/us/edith-windsor-dead-same-sex-marriage-doma.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Edie Windsor</a> (z"l).
</div>
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We first met in 2002, when IBM alumnus Joseph Bertolotti and I
organized a panel on the state of same-sex marriage around the world.
IBM co-sponsored it at the LGBT Center in New York City with the United
Nations' Susan Allee, an attorney who was also the head of the Middle
East Peacekeeping Desk and a member of GLOBE, the LGBT employee group of the UN. Edie
and her then long-time partner Thea Spyer (z"l) attended and spoke with
me afterward. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOlnJojWLg2SFyV6CHUnpU1UFSkw3T9Lke8nlob-38JZq2hQMNXmV7W-DoRX8ouBCZS4gu3nI9supBi2WeiAA9VDgKs46eDGuW4nUCBM6R2i0eD8KlXscN-Foh_GyVgA7odjrshYQAYU23/s1600/Edie+Thea+and+Sarah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="512" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOlnJojWLg2SFyV6CHUnpU1UFSkw3T9Lke8nlob-38JZq2hQMNXmV7W-DoRX8ouBCZS4gu3nI9supBi2WeiAA9VDgKs46eDGuW4nUCBM6R2i0eD8KlXscN-Foh_GyVgA7odjrshYQAYU23/s400/Edie+Thea+and+Sarah.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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They were there because they were planning to marry and wanted to
know the very latest of trends and timing on where it was being made
legal. Edie also was happy that IBM had co-sponsored it because she said
she had been an IBMer. Edie and her wife were so glamorous. And so down
to earth. All at once. I loved meeting a lesbian IBMer who had worked
at IBM in New York City, like me, only a generation prior. And we
exchanged email addresses and stayed in touch a bit. Sometime later,
reading an article, I think, I learned that she and her wife were
Jewish, like mine and me! A bonus. I wanted to be like Edie Windsor,
even a little bit. </div>
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<br /></div>
And then with the help of a phenomenal lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Edie Windsor made it possible for my wife and me to marry legally, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/fashion/weddings/patricia-hewitt-sarah-siegel-weddings.html?scp=1&sq=Pat%20Hewitt%20&%20Sarah%20Siegel&st=cse" target="_blank">we did</a>, and at the newspaper's suggestion, we even made a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/fashion/weddings/100000000890688/patricia--sarah.html" target="_blank">3-minute video</a> about how we got together. Edie Windsor became an icon and I was moved to post a "Where were you ...?" forum entry in our internal LGBT+ IBMers & Friends community the day of the decision. That Yom Kippur, my mom (z"l) opted to join us for services at <a href="https://cbst.org/" target="_blank">our synagogue</a> and we were blessed to be sitting right near Edie Windsor, who had recently become a congregant. <br />
<br />
My mom's (z"l) name also was Edie, and she was just four years older than Edie Windsor. When I introduced them, my mother started crying and effusively thanked Edie for her leadership. They hugged. My mom said she had a gift for Edie and we shipped Edie a mezuzah, though she was a less observant Jew than we were. That was my mom's final Yom Kippur. She died peacefully in her sleep the following early-June. I still had one more Edie, at least, but it was complicated because Edie had first seemed glamorous to me, and both Pat & I formed a bit of a crush on her. And then she became the Edie who was my gone mother's contemporary plus the incidental mentor and icon on whom I had a crush, and I was happy to live with the complexity. <br />
<br />
This past June, I was privileged to speak with Judith Kasen Windsor, Edie's new wife, by phone, to arrange for a rendezvous with Edie and Judith and the IBM delegation of the LGBT Pride March in New York City, so that she could march with us for a bit. During that conversation, Judith told me that Edie displayed the mezuzah atop her piano, which held all of the awards she had received, and Judith kindly sent me a photo. <br />
<br />
But I'm getting ahead of myself. In 2015 and 2016, we were privileged to go to Edie's house for a summer-time party; she had the best music and liked to dance, and then Roberta Kaplan's book came out and we brought it with us for Edie to sign:<br />
<br />
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In 2016, Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Fred Balboni, Claudia Woody, Beth Feeney, Mary Garrity and Bruno Di Leo invited Edie to have lunch at IBM at 590 Madison Avenue in New York City and I was kindly invited to join along with Kim Messer of the LGBT business development team that I had helped start up in 2001 -- and which was how the event at the LGBT Center in 2002 came to be co-sponsored by IBM -- and also Leanne Pittsford, the CEO of Lesbians Who Tech. At that lunch, I was reminded of why I admired Edie so much: She was a charming, staunch activist. My favorite photo that I got to take that day was of Edie striding down the hall at 590 (and Fred's husband Geoff Collins is accompanying her, carrying her flowers). And Judith did make it possible for Edie to stride with us at the LGBT Pride March this summer:<br />
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Edie, thanks for your dedication to innovation that matters, for our
company and the world, and for being someone magnificent for me to look
up to. And please know that the 60-Minutes-to-Bolder-Leadership
panelists in the series, and other LGBT+ IBMers and allies will keep
working hard to make our clients and IBM successful while being
corporate activists in parallel to honor your legacy.
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Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-4753760566699481802017-08-13T15:14:00.000-04:002017-08-15T08:35:27.667-04:00An Awokening<div class="MsoNormal">
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The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br /></div>
<b>Why Aim for Greater Cultural Intelligence? </b><br />
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<br />
A series of experiences come to mind because I’ve read two
articles today that make me uncomfortable -- my brilliant, openly queer friend Li Sian Goh’s <a href="https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/degrees-wokeness/race-and-otherness-jane-eyre" target="_blank">essay</a> and openly gay NYT columnist Frank Bruni’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/sunday/identity-politics-white-men.html?ref=opinion&_r=0" target="_blank">op-ed</a>:<br />
<br /></div>
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An adorable Asian young man and I are talking with other
lovely, mostly Asian people at the 31st birthday party of MJ Yap, my
colleague and friend, several weeks ago. He tells me that he’s from Bhutan. He’s
got the same complexion as many South Asian people I’ve met from India. He says, “They
call me Baby. That’s my nickname.”</div>
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“There’s an amazing lesbian novel called <i>Babyji</i> that
I loved – about a lesbian in India, who –“</div>
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“I’m not from –“ </div>
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“I know you’re from Bhutan, not India, but in India, adding 'ji'
to a name is an endearment –”</div>
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<br /></div>
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He doesn’t care, his expression tells me, he’s not lesbian
and he’s not from India. Get me out of here, I’m thinking. I’m just trying to
affiliate with this otherwise sweet guy and I’ve made a faux pas and want to disappear.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Earlier in the evening, I’m feeling awkward around three attractive
Asian-American women and blurt nonsensically, “Do you ever feel invisible from
an attraction standpoint because the older I get, the more invisible I feel.” One
of them dignifies my comment with an answer, “No, but I do
routinely have to deal with people cutting ahead of me in lines as if I’m not
there. I think they think I won’t say anything.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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Which is better? For me to have avoided going to a birthday
party, where I’m one of the only non-Asian and older people there or to go and
make at least a couple of potentially alienating remarks? Li Sian has gently helped me see that this is not where my focus needs to be. Rather, it needs to be simply on apologizing for my microaggressions. I'll apologize here and then will also do so individually. I'm sorry for my cluelessness and will work on becoming less so.</div>
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Or what about the recent event that included a screening of “Moonlight”
and a panel on the intersectionality of diversity and sexual orientation? Does it
help or hurt for my gay white friend who is with me to hear one of the
panelists, Andi, say that he could never call himself gay and chooses queer instead
because gay is “a white men’s” term? <span data-offset-key="a947n-2-0"><span data-text="true"> (Scroll down for more discussion on this.)</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Or how about when a friend who is visibly differently abled posts
her despondency at being made fun of by strangers while walking down the street
recently? And then clarifies for those of us who write outraged responses,
saying that she isn’t looking for pity, just had needed to post about the
indignity. </div>
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Or the heterosexual Indian friend who posts a 1995 photo of himself the
other day with the caption that it was the day he was going to kill himself,
but then didn’t? And then explains to friends who comment at how they wish they
had known of his unhappiness and how glad they are that he is not dead, saying
that he has deleted the original post because it was going in the wrong
direction – that he was only trying to point out that things can be bad and
then they can improve.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Or the sincere people who ask about Pat & me, “Who’s
the husband?” And how I answer graciously and factually, “No one. We’re both
women, so both of us are wives.” </div>
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<br /></div>
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Or the colleague when I worked in Schaumburg,
Illinois, who wanted to know how I could have blue eyes since I’m Jewish? And
who was thrilled when I gave her the ham I won in the company’s free, random Thanksgiving lottery? (I was not the only non-pork-eating employee there. Just
ask my colleague Farooq.) </div>
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Frank Bruni’s is first, during my breakfast omelet, which Pat has made
with love. The op-ed begins snidely, and even though I can tell that it is coming
from hurt feelings, I can hardly stand to keep going: </div>
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<br /></div>
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“I’m a white man, so you
should listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters of social
justice.” Of course, he’s upset. No one likes to feel excluded or silenced or
that his or her opinion doesn’t matter. That same white, gay friend who came to
the “Moonlight” event has explained to me similarly over the years: I’ve never
known from white male privilege because since boyhood, I was routinely beaten
up and made fun of and did not feel part of that club. <span data-offset-key="bdbg6-0-0"><span data-text="true">Yet Andi's experience is no less Andi's experience.</span></span></div>
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I’ve written about this before: I learned what “inclusion”
meant when co-facilitator Steve Basile invited me to the United Auto Workers’
Diversity Conference in the late-90s; our topic covered how to be inclusive of
gay and lesbian colleagues at work.<br />
<br />
The first night, I went to the opening
reception and even after Steve arrived, I was among the only non-Black people
in the cavernous hall. I said to myself then, I know what the definition of
Diversity is: Environments / teams / places qualify as diverse, as long as I’m
included, whoever “I” is in that statement. (Ironically, in the late-90s, LGBT seminars, including ours,
unfortunately, did not routinely include education on bi and trans
people.)</div>
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Li Sian’s essay also
is difficult for me to read. Li Sian is writing about the racism of the novel, <i>Jane
Eyre</i>. Somehow, I wasn’t required to read it in high school and I’ve never
done so. The essay is difficult because it also challenges privileged people who feel proud of reading books by authors from the margins, and by extension, for feeling pleased whenever they make an effort to stretch themselves beyond their social cocoon.<br />
<br />
As a relatively well-educated, employed and solvent American-Jewish lesbian, I am more and less privileged than others. I want to be proud of the times I extend myself
to gain some cultural intelligence because if I can’t celebrate my bravery and
encourage myself to keep extending myself, then I just want to burrow in and stick
with apparently my own people exclusively. That's my experience, and Li Sian's is hers, just as Andi's is his, and the Bhutanian's is his, and the Asian woman's from the party is hers, and my differently abled friend's is hers, and my heterosexual, Indian friend's is his, and Frank Bruni's is his, and my white gay friend's is his, and my Muslim colleague Farooq's is his and Pat & mine is ours. </div>
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<br />
After reading these articles today, I’m on high
alert:<br />
<br />
I turn to the last page of “The New York Times”, where I am annoyed by
the headline and story, “Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism”. Why <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Non-Lesbian</i> Women Had Better Sex … is
what the reporter means, I confirm by reading the article. More lesbian invisibility.
Get me out of here – this is the phrase that springs to mind whether I’ve
embarrassed myself through my own cultural ignorance or someone has irked me
with his or hers.</div>
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What would “getting out of here” achieve, though? I prefer
to transform indignities into art, whereas escaping just allows me to escape
the particular situation, but the unhappy feelings come with me. Getting out of
here does not foster art or connection with people. Acknowledging their experience, and my own, does. </div>
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-77463854695132893822017-02-26T17:55:00.001-05:002017-05-21T11:27:56.249-04:00Answering Rabbi Daniel Cohen's QuestionsThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>The Questions Appear in Rabbi Cohen's New Book </b><br />
<br />
The book is *<a href="https://www.amazon.com/What-Will-They-About-Youre/dp/0757319513" target="_blank">What will they say about you when you are gone: Creating a Life of Legacy - Live Your Best Life Now</a>* and the questions are ones that -- since my parents (z"l) are gone and I'm 50+ -- I'm especially in the mood to consider these days:<br />
<br />
<b>From pp. 13 and 15-17:</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>Who are you? </b>A Jewish-American lesbian writer, as well as a music, fiction and global museum lover, and a solvent home owner and healthy eater, who has enjoyed the companionship of my wife for nearly 25 years so far, who has parented up to two precious cats at a time for close to a decade, who has been grateful for the siblinghood of my two older sisters Deb and Kayla for nearly 52 years and who comes from fascinating parents (z"l), who loved me and wanted a good life for me. I'm also an aunt, a cousin, a friend and an IBMer, who manages a team of premier instructional designers and who is earnest, loyal and reliable, with occasional lapses into worry that are mostly unfounded, and with flashes of creativity and humor.</li>
<li><b>Who do you want to be?</b> The same, minus the worry, and plus more discipline, practice and personal success with my writing. </li>
<li><b>How do you want to be remembered? </b>For everything in #1 and #2 plus for being kind, inclusive and for being of service.<br /><b>By your family:</b><br />As supportive and loving.<br /><b>By your community:</b><br />As engaged and valued.<br /><b>By the world:</b><br />As someone whose writing helped people appreciate their lives more and whose writing and work helped people excel and advance. And as someone with a capacity for joy.</li>
<li><b>Pick one person, place or event in your life that brings you happiness and satisfaction, and write down in a journal the various ways it might not have happened: </b>Easily, I could never have gotten together with my wife Pat, since she lived in DeKalb, Illinois and I lived in Chicago, and since I could have not been at Shabbat services when she first visited <i>Or Chadash</i>, the LGBT shul in Chicago at the time, and since we were 15 years apart in age, and since initially, I was afraid to get involved with anyone as amazing as Pat, since I felt still unmoored and still was searching in most ways throughout my twenties to that point, and if Pat hadn't been more self-possessed, patient and clever in drawing me in. :-)</li>
<li><b>Then imagine your life without that person/place/event and write that down, too: </b>If Pat & I had not gotten together, I might still be living alone in an apartment, whether in Chicago or Queens/Brooklyn/Bronx and searching for without ever finding any peace. Probably, I'd never have a deeper pet relationship than with a Siamese fighting fish if not for Pat, as she showed me the wonder of cat parenthood. Also, I would not be as solvent as I am, since Pat made me save the maximum in my 401K from 27 onward. And assuredly, I would be twice the worrier that I am; Pat's self-assurance rubs off on me.</li>
<li><b> Choose the final words you'll ever speak: </b>Thank you, God, and everyone.</li>
</ol>
<b>Writing Your Own Eulogy, pp. 17-19:</b><br />
"If you had to write your own eulogy, what would it say? Use the following questions as inspiration, and then craft a eulogy for your own funeral.<b>"</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>What would you do if you had twenty-four hours to live? Why? </b>I'd spend it with my wife, cats, sisters, nieces and nephews and cousins and friends in my home and yard if the weather were warm enough and my favorite music would be playing in the background, say, the George Michael and Sade channels of Pandora. I would serve Indian, Middle-Eastern, Mexican and French food that was catered from favorite restaurants. I would invite one of my congregation's rabbis and some congregants and friends to come over and sing favorite liturgical<b> </b>songs and I'd set up a Hebrew University scholarship for an LGBT student for however many years I could afford to do so without making Pat insolvent. <b>Why:</b> I want the people and pets I love to surround me, along with my favorite music and food, as well as to cover the spiritual element and the <i>g'milut chassadim</i> (acts of loving kindness) angle.</li>
<li><b>What is worth fighting for? </b>Dignity, love, art, humanity, beauty, truth, freedom, creative expression, inclusion.</li>
<li><b> In your life so far, what have you taken a risk for or gone out of your comfort zone for? </b>Living my life as a lesbian; whenever I've needed to learn something new; every time I've taken a new job at work, including a six-month assignment in India with Pat accompanying me ... homosexual activity is illegal in India and necessarily, my employer told me that it could not protect me if I were jailed; any time I need to go to a party or a meeting, where practically everyone is a stranger initially.</li>
<li><b>You have five words to write on your headstone. What are they? </b>A dignity and love champion.</li>
<li><b>When you're feeling low, what song do you play to lift your mood and inspire you? Why? </b>Two come to mind: "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6hmGLBnQ18" target="_blank">The Right Track</a>" from Pippin and "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WnEAxa1tFc" target="_blank">Gesher Tsar Meod</a>". <b>Why: </b>The "Pippin" song is cheerful and helps me remember that I'm doing my best to lead a meaningful life, and that I'm not alone in my worry that I want it to be as meaningful as possible. "<i>Gesher Tsar Meod</i>" encourages me not to be fearful and when I'm not fearful, everything goes better.</li>
<li><b>Is there a phrase that you find yourself saying frequently when you're under stress? When you're happy or grateful? </b>When I'm under stress, I say to myself the first sentence of the <i>Shema</i>, the central prayer of Judaism. And I hear my mother (z"l) saying, "Sarah, why don't you let yourself live?" (as in, relax, everything will be Ok). And also, if it has to do with gathering courage to deliver a difficult but necessary message, I tell myself: "Sarah, pull yourself together! He/she/they need you!" When I'm grateful, I tend to say, "Thank God!" and simply, "Yay!"</li>
<li><b>Describe your best day or your best self: </b>My best self is humble, of service, kind, loving, self-possessed, reliable, present, creative, experimental, funny, stylish, fit, attentive, receptive, friendly, organized, on time, lucid, persuasive, inviting, encouraging and productive.</li>
<li><b>What is your favorite Bible verse, poem, or motto? </b>"<i>Al tifrosh min hatsibur</i>"/ "Don't isolate yourself from the community," *<i>Pirkei Avot</i>* / *Ethics of the Fathers*.</li>
<li><b>Why are you here? What is your life mission? What do you hope to achieve? </b>I'm here to model dignity from the margins was the first thing I thought of, but why focus on my marginal status? Because if I can demonstrate dignity as someone in society whose sexual minority status if not also religion and gender can be marginalizing, then anyone can. I get that I have all sorts of privilege in my education level and solvency, and citizenship, by accident of birth, but still, I also know from being an outsider. Why is dignity so key to me? Because it's the opposite of shame to me. Shame paralyzes while dignity makes anything and everything good possible.<br /><b><br />What is my life mission? </b>To create something artful that uplifts someone else or many people.<br /><br /><b>What do I hope to achieve? </b>I hope to achieve peace and unconditional acceptance within myself while remaining loved and loving, and grateful, and amused, and expanded by art of all sorts and while having fun and other vivid experiences.</li>
<li><b>What are your dreams? How can you realize them? </b>My dreams are to write a popular book that helps others, and me, feel less alone; to stay solvent; for Pat & me to remain healthy mentally and physically till we're at least 95 and then to die in a way that is least painful to us and our loved ones.<br /><br />I can realize these dreams by starting to practice writing more routinely, including enrolling in adult writing classes; by revising what I've written .... I can keep working full-time in my stimulating and relatively lucrative role at IBM .... I can keep rowing for 20 minutes daily and reading books every night pre-bed and encouraging Pat to stay active with pruning, gardening and golfing along with reading and working on crossword puzzles as she loves to do.</li>
</ol>
These questions were great to answer, though I'm not yet prepared to draft my own eulogy. <br />
<br />
Page 43: <b>Give thanks every day to one important person in your life. </b>Today, I thanked my friend Mindy for inviting me to her fun birthday party and for providing an orange to me when I didn't prefer cake.<br />
<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-70800140148084919052017-01-07T16:17:00.000-05:002017-01-07T16:19:29.688-05:00Ten Minutes' Worth of Memoir Free WritingThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>When did a community you were part of use music to overcome a difficult time? </b><br />
<br />
<b> </b>It's my first day back at high school, straight from my father's <i>shiva</i>. I'm standing in a so-far empty classroom when a dance is announced over the PA system and they play some of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing". I burst into tears, after not having cried at my dad's (z"l) funeral, because the music sounds so, so good. It's the first music I've heard in seven days. No one knows my father's dead, other than teachers; that's how at arms-length I kept everyone back then, punning compulsively to distract them from my attraction to the girls among them, if possible.<br />
<br />
The music -- that particular song -- reminded me of my continuous and mostly unrequited horniness and also made me resolve to go to the dance that weekend. Anything to get out of the house, where I was stuck with my grieving mother, my older sisters having left years prior.<br />
<br />
That song reminded me: I'm still alive. I'm still alive and I'm sexual and I'm reachable. That song <strike>pulled </strike>snatched away my numbness.<br />
<br />
That song makes me feel the same way every time I hear it. Only I know, though, till now. Get up, get up!*<br />
<br />
*Written during the Reading & Writing Club at <a href="http://cbst.org/" target="_blank">my synagogue</a> last Wednesday, and I didn't write about my community because the fastest thing that came to mind when I got the prompt in bold above was about the first music I heard when I returned from my dad's (z"l) shiva. The prompt came from <a href="http://www.pw.org/writing-prompts-exercises">http://www.pw.org/writing-prompts-exercises</a>.<br />
<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-74989634375044031712016-12-04T18:53:00.000-05:002016-12-04T18:54:05.530-05:00Notes from A Jewish Exploration of LGBT Musicals Part 4The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 4, last one about *Fun Home*, November 29 </b><br />
<br />
<br />
During our third session on *Fun Home*, I had meant to bring a printout of the portrait that my artist friend Riva Lehrer painted of Alison Bechdel, but I forgot, so I'll post a couple of links here -- the first to <a href="http://www.rivalehrerart.com/alisonbechdel" target="_blank">the portrait and Riva's narrative on it</a> and the second, to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/outwin2016?source=feed_text&story_id=10210819877789684&pnref=story" target="_blank">a link, thanking Riva for giving a recent gallery talk in front of the portrait at the National Gallery</a>. I'm always envious of visual artists because who wants to slog through a blog-post? It's so much more instantly moving to look at a painting, drawing or sculpture, especially by a gifted artist like Riva.<br />
<br />
Riva can also paint with words; when we were in our 20s and both living in Chicago, where we met and where Riva still lives, she told me, "You remind me of a Carson McCullers character -- a fierce outsider with her nose pressed up against the window." I think I'm a bit less fierce now ....<br />
<br />
<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>The Graphic Memoir and the Play - More Comparison</b><br />
<br />
<b>The coming-out letter aftermath </b><br />
<br />
We looked at pp. 77-79 and listened to "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iguCcYG7HI" target="_blank">A Flair for the Dramatic</a>". Both covered Alison's exchange with her closeted, gay father -- of whose sexual orientation she was not yet fully conscious -- after her parents received her coming-out letter.<br />
<b> </b><br />
The song version had a great couple of lines, where her father said, "The good news is, you're human."<br />
<br />
"What does that *mean*, she asks herself, "What else would I *be*?"<br />
<br />
Raising my hand and then speaking as Jonathan nodded to me, "I keep mentioning things my mom [z"l] blurted out to me, but this is reminding me of the time when I was 17 and she found a love letter to another girl that I had left on the kitchen table by accident/on purpose," I said, "Her first words were, 'Don't you marry some man and ruin his life!'"<br />
<br />
"You're crazy! It doesn't mean anything!" I yelled desperately. <br />
<br />
One of my classmates said, "Your mother had a lot of insight. How did she think to say that?"<br />
<br />
"My mother [z"l] was very smart."<br />
<br />
Unlike Alison's father, my mom (z"l) was paying attention to my reality, even if I wasn't yet prepared to. Before she was clued in by the letter, though -- perhaps when I was in 8th grade -- we had an informal "birds and bees" talk, but it was really all about my mother (z"l) asserting that I could enjoy myself with boys without spoiling my virtue. I don't recall her also explaining the pregnancy-danger angle.<br />
<br />
My mother told me, "There's plenty you can do without having intercourse." I understood that sexual intercourse with a boy would wreck everything in terms of marriageability, but that I was being given permission/encouragement to do whatever else I wanted (with boys) -- not that she explained what that included.<br />
<br />
<b> The scene in the car</b><br />
<br />
We also read pp. 220-21 aloud and listened to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_US4P9zPQQ" target="_blank">Telephone Wire</a> . Alison's and my parents (z"l) gave us so much just by giving us life, but also how frustrating it was to witness Alison's exchange with her dad during college. He was completely self-absorbed and made Alison parent him instead of rising to her occasion and being the parent. <br />
<b> </b><br />
The song version of the scene in the car reminded me of watching the Miss America pageant once with my dad (z"l). I was prepubescent and among my mother (z"l), two older sisters, my dad (z"l) and I, only my dad (z"l) and I watched the pageant; that could have been a clue about my future. <br />
<br />
My father (z"l) also died young, at 56, and we, too, never had an explicit discussion about what I wanted for my future in terms of a spouse. In Alison's case, at least she tried to discuss her identity with her father. In my case, I was too scared at 17, which is how old I was when he (z"l) died.<br />
<br />
Like Alison, ultimately, I did send a coming-out letter to my mother (z"l) and two more to each of my sisters and I mailed all three on the same day. I was a senior in college and my mom (z"l) must have expected it, since she had found the love letter to my girlfriend four years prior. She called me long-distance from Stamford to Ann Arbor and was purely kind. And for the first time ever, she didn't hurry our conversation due to the long-distance charges.<br />
<br />
In the book version of the song, Alison and her dad were heading out to see "Coal Miner's Daughter". Once, when I was five, my dad took just me to see "Gigi" and then out to dinner afterward. It was my first Broadway play. I wonder if we could have experienced "Fun Home" together, and so much else, if only he had lived long enough.<br />
<br />
<b>*Fun Home*'s Design</b><br />
<br />
Our instructor Jonathan
started the session: Watch these two montages and jot down some
differences you see between the Public Theater version and the Broadway
version; collectively -- though mostly helped by Jonathan, who was more
familiar with the footage and both productions -- we came up with:<br />
<ul>
<li><b> Cartoon panels</b> were suggested in both productions, but at
the Public, there were white frames on the backdrop behind the actors,
and on Broadway, they appeared as lit-up, giant squares on the
stage-floor.</li>
<li><b>On Broadway:</b> Alison unearthed her memories via the furniture
that would emerge/pop up through the stage floor; the actors were lit
from four perspectives; and the audience could see the audience's
reaction, since it was theater in the round; and the follow spot[light]
on the Adult Alison, "... made it look like she was floating through the
memories" -- Jonathan.</li>
<li><b>What I caught was less subtle: </b>In
the Public Theater version, the male babysitter had his shirt
unbuttoned and his chest and underpants band were visible while in the
Broadway version, Alison's costume was a shirt and underpants for the
college scene, where she had her first intimate experience with a woman.
</li>
</ul>
<b> </b><br />
Jonathan explained that good scenic set designers
aim to elicit audience emotions with what they design. We also learned,
as an aside, that the Lincoln Center Library has practically every
Broadway play and you can sit there and watch any one if you make an
appointment. Who knew?<br />
<br />
Here are links to the <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2016/11/notes-from-jewish-exploration-of-lgbt.html" target="_blank">first</a>, <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2016/11/notes-from-jewish-exploration-of-lgbt_8.html" target="_blank">second</a> and <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2016/11/notes-from-jewish-exploration-of-lgbt_79.html" target="_blank">third</a> in my series of notes on this course. The next four sessions are going to be devoted to *Falsettos*, another LGBT Broadway play that's currently in revival. So far, I'm noticing that the most Jewish parts of our exploration of these LGBT musicals are:<br />
<ol>
<li>We, who are in the class and our instructor are Jewish.</li>
<li>For the Broadway version of *Fun Home*, the playwright, Lisa Kron, is Jewish. </li>
<li>For *Falsettos*, the lyricist and co-playwright, Bill Finn, is a congregant of our Synagogue and Jewish.</li>
<li>Some of us share how we're relating to the play we're studying by sharing stories of what happened in our Jewish families that bear any resemblance to the play's plot.</li>
</ol>
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-77370361348176910982016-11-20T22:19:00.002-05:002016-11-20T22:39:00.156-05:00Notes from A Jewish Exploration of LGBT Musicals Part 3The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Session 3, November 15</b><br />
<br />
Since we continue to meet in the chapel, where congregants' relatives' yahrzeit plates appear on the far wall, my parents (z"l) still are auditing this class, effectively as a pair of brass-plated (dead) flies on the wall (see photo below). My dad's annual yahrzeit lamp was lit this time; it was his 34th yahrzeit on the 11th, so the lamp was staying lit till the following Shabbat:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<b>Exercise: </b>Create a curated exhibit of a day in the past week, or your past week altogether, as represented by three objects that you describe on three index cards and leave somewhere in this room near one another.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>My cards, all from one day last week: </b><br />
<ol>
<li><b> </b>Viva la vida-inscribed, watermelon-slice-shaped-and-colored key-chain from a street artist in Mexico City </li>
<li>Damascened vessel in silver and bronze, with Arabic inscriptions from Medieval Jerusalem</li>
<li>[A memory of] Size 14 sneakers for skateboarding.</li>
</ol>
Give everyone a tour of your objects. We walked around on a guided tour of each exhibit and did not necessarily explain the significance of our objects; in my case, I simply described them. <br />
<br />
"How does this exercise connect with last week?" asked Jonathan.<br />
<br />
"Objects give an entryway into the story," I offered.<br />
<br />
"Ok, and objects help us remember. There's something about going around the room to "look" at the objects that helps us recall and remember. It helps us encapsulate emotion. And jump off to go deeper into ... a specific set of events that are embodied by a number of objects."<br />
<br />
I loved this exercise and will re-use it somehow. I loved it because it made me feel so invested and engaged in expressing myself creatively, spurred on by what had amounted to the most vivid objects of a particular day.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumLU3UpcGY" target="_blank"><b>Video of Alison Bechdel, explaining her artistic process</b></a><br />
<br />
We watched this video next and I recalled being lucky to go to a live lecture by Alison Bechdel at the LGBT Center in NYC several years ago, where she gave a longer description of her technique. I was amazed by its meticulousness.<b> </b>And then I marveled again at another artist's precise, original method of glass-blowing. I blogged about his demo and lecture and compared it with Bechdel's process a bit. You can <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2007/05/new-glassmaking-and-graphic-memoir.html" target="_blank">see for yourself</a>; just scroll down to the section, "Two Artists, Equally Inspired and Inspirational".<br />
<br />
<b>Next, we compared pp. 96-98 of the graphic memoir to the scene/song, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jgmq04KS7Q" target="_blank">Party Dress</a>". </b><br />
<br />
Both the panels and the scene/song reminded me of a painful memory. My face was so troubled, I imagine, that Jonathan asked if I had something I wanted to say.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This just reminded me of a very painful memory. It was Deena Gans' birthday party and I was 12. [Nearly all of the girls in my class already needed bras, but I didn't yet, at all. I was ashamed that I was still wearing undershirts. I couldn't stand wearing an undershirt any longer, not even under the striped Danskin shirt I put on for the party.]<br />
<br />
My mother insisted that I wear an undershirt. "No, I won't," I insisted back.<br />
<br />
"Put on an undershirt n o w !'"<br />
<br />
Instead, I ran out of the house and down our long driveway as my mother yelled out the front door at me, "Butch!" I didn't know what it meant, but I knew it wasn't good.</blockquote>
<br />
It was fresh, the pain of our exchange of more than 40 years ago. It was another five years before my mom (z"l) was even more consciously vocal about my lesbianism, when by mistake/on purpose, I left a love letter to another girl on the kitchen table. I was a high school senior and just weeks prior, my father (z"l) had died of bile-duct cancer and only my mother (z"l) and I were left in the house, since my sisters were older and had moved out. "Don't you marry some man and ruin his life!" my mother yelled as her initial reaction to the discovery of the letter. She came around to being compassionate and was greatly supportive for most of my life, but those early years were crushing for both of us.<br />
<br />
<b>Then we looked at pp. 189-190 and listened to "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeyXF0YSg3A" target="_blank">Clueless in New York</a>". </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I had a couple of memories pop up during the panels and during this scene, too. The panels referred to a trip with Alison's father and her siblings to New York City for the Bicentennial. Along with my mother (z"l), my father (z"l) took my siblings and me to New York during the Bicentennial to see the Tall Ships. Compared to Alison's experience, it was one of the nicest family days we ever had -- we parked with many others in a parking garage near the river and watched from there with tons of humanity pouring out of other parked cars. My mom (z"l) had packed a picnic for us, and we munched our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while leaning against the station wagon and watching the ships glide by.<br />
<br />
The scene in the play didn't refer to the Bicentennial, but rather to her father's cagey wish to find some excitement in what was the gay hotspot back then, Greenwich Village. It reminded me of <b>me</b>, 10 years after the Tall Ships trip, when I turned 21. My middle sister and brother-in-law invited me to stay with them in their apartment at the time, in Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. To celebrate my coming of age for legal drinking, they gave me a bottle of champagne as a birthday gift. We drank some and then they went to bed. I told them I was going to go for a walk. The difference was that all of us were adults officially, rather than that I was a parent, leaving my kids alone in a huge, strange city, as Alison's father did to her siblings and her.<br />
<br />
I left Kayla & Elliot's apartment, hoping for the adventure of seeing real lesbian and gay people, walking around the Village. I scouted for a bit and no one was apparent, not any women in any case, so I decided to do something wild and entered a neighborhood magazine shop to find something racy to read.<br />
<br />
The only LGBT-oriented publication for sale was "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Community_News_%28Boston%29" target="_blank">Gay Community News</a>", a weekly newspaper out of Boston. I didn't peek through it at all. I had the cashier stuff it into a paper bag and walked back to my sister's, where I planned to read it if they were already asleep. They were, and I was excited, till I scanned the headlines. Yawn. It was all straight news ... so to speak. There was nothing pulse-provoking about it. I'm fairly confident that Alison's father found what he was looking for on his Village jaunt compared to my thwarted exploration.<br />
<br />
<b>Exercise for Homework: </b>Consider three iconic moments in my whole life that reflect an arc of experience and write/illustrate them; the illustration option is my inference, as the form that Jonathan handed us had three caption fields with space next to each for a drawing. I'll think about it. So far, here are some candidates without doing any refinement, prioritization or arc consideration:<br />
<ul>
<li>Learning to swim / ride a bike / recite the Ma Nishtanah (Four Questions) at the seder / to love rocks and minerals at Dr. Henderson's encouragement</li>
<li>Helping complete a minyan by lying by omission at my mother's (z"l) encouragement; they thought I was a bar-mitzvah-aged boy when we were in Mayah Sh'arim, but I was a tall eight-year-old girl</li>
<li>My mom (z"l), yelling Butch at me</li>
<li>Noticing my physical interest in one of my best friends, rather than in her older brother, at 11</li>
<li>My first lesbian experience, in Israel at 15 </li>
<li>My father dying when I was 17</li>
<li>Going to college and exploring my sexuality, including while living in Jerusalem during junior year</li>
<li>Getting fired from a job I thought I was too good for in 1990</li>
<li>Beginning my relationship with Pat in 1992</li>
<li>Starting up the LGBT B2B business development team at my company </li>
<li>Having my Master's sponsored by my company</li>
<li>Going with my future wife Pat to India on assignment for my work for six months in 2007</li>
<li>Marrying Pat legally in 2011 </li>
<li>Graduating with a Master's in 2012</li>
<li>My mother, dying in 2014 .... </li>
</ul>
We have just one session more on "Fun Home" and then we switch to "Falsettos" in two Tuesdays, after Thanksgiving. <br />
<br />
<b>Here are links to the <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2016/11/notes-from-jewish-exploration-of-lgbt_1.html" target="_blank">first</a> and <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2016/11/notes-from-jewish-exploration-of-lgbt_8.html" target="_blank">second</a> in my series of notes on this course.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-91520855122237552842016-11-08T23:19:00.000-05:002016-11-10T22:25:21.855-05:00 Notes from A Jewish Exploration of LGBT Musicals Part 2The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 2, November 8, 2016, Election Night</b><br />
<br />
<b>Exercise: </b>First, we'll think about the election and then we'll get away from it. Think of the first election you can remember and write about it in present tense:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Sealing envelopes for McGovern mailings in a dark room in his Stamford headquarters. It might have been the first volunteer work I ever did.</blockquote>
How do you begin to fictionalize a true story, asked Jonathan, and how do you create an entryway for the audience?<br />
<br />
<b>Exercise:</b> Look at young Alison from "Fun Home". Describe her.<br />
<br />
We called out: playful, precocious, inquisitive, tomboy, verbal, aware, observant, older sister, wants her dad's attention. <br />
<br />
Now, describe images you remember from the play that are associated with her.<br />
<br />
We called out: ring of keys, lace-up boots/short hair, coffin, airplane, barrette, dress, piano with Mom, sketch book, objects of living room, Tall Ships.<br />
<br />
These images are more compelling than attributes of the character.<br />
<br />
<b>Exercise: </b>Now, choose an age and do the same with yourself; write it down:<br />
<br />
Age 11 - flat-chested, tomboy, enthusiastic, vulnerable, observant, aroused, active, loyal, tall, anxious, secretive, suntanned from playing outside.<br />
<br />
Images associated with that age: white bikini, sunrise from Jennifer's bedroom, Coppertone lotion, Yes concert T-shirt filled out by Jennifer, beach chairs, terracotta roofed home on the water, the Sound, city bus, white-toweled brother with teeth effervescing from 7-UP.<br />
<br />
What was hard about doing that exercise, asked Jonathan? The yearning and the pain from the pleasure that, practically immediately, became a feeling of shame in my case; I recognized, viscerally, that I was attracted to my early-developing, curvy friend and not to her gorgeous older brother.<br />
<br />
In groups of three, share what you wrote with one another. And then in plenary, everyone, just share one image from your group of images: bicycle ... seeded jam in a sandwich ... locker room ... white bikini ....<br />
<br />
The archival work of your own life maybe requires memoir-ing an image, suggested Jonathan to all of us. <br />
<br />
<b>Video clip #1:</b> We watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y41OlmKR0C4" target="_blank">an interview of the "Fun Home" composer and playwright</a> on how they arrived at an opening number for the play. When the lights went down in the downstairs chapel, where the class was held, the <i>ner tamid</i> (eternal light) and current <i>yahrzeit</i> (death anniversary) memorial lights remained on. Last week, I didn't notice the <i>yahrzeit </i>lights. This year, my dad's (z"l) Hebrew <i>yahrzeit </i>is on November 11th. I hope the light comes on and stays on through our next session next Tuesday.<br />
<br />
<b>Video clip #2: </b>We watched the lyrics for the opening number, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Cn2gmQJ5A" target="_blank">It All Comes Back</a>"and I thought about how my older sisters, not my dad (z"l), used to give me our version of "Airplane", which we called <i>g'yupapah</i>. When I was little, I loved for my dad (z"l) to carry me from the back of the station wagon in the garage up to my room; I'd pretend to be asleep, so that he'd carry me.<br />
<br />
<b>Written in front of the TV while watching election results: </b><br />
<br />
From the opening song's lyrics:<br />
<br />
"My dad [z"l] and I were exactly alike." [Our appetites, our stature ....]<br />
"My dad [z"l] and I were nothing alike." [I eat healthy food. I've been employed by the same company for more than two decades so far.]<br />
<br />
The play, "Fun Home", reminded me of my own life, since the main character lost her dad too early and since she was also a tomboy as a kid and an active lesbian by college. At least three of my classmates, one man and two women, are parents themselves, so perhaps they can relate both to the parents and the kid. We have two more sessions on "Fun Home" before we switch to studying "Falsettos".<br />
<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-18652516825583046382016-11-01T23:16:00.001-04:002016-11-01T23:17:11.112-04:00Notes from A Jewish Exploration of LGBT MusicalsThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Session 1, November 1st </b><br />
<br />
Here's the course abstract from the <a href="https://cbst.org/sites/cbst.org/files/images/Lehrhaus%20Catalog%2010.14.16.pdf" target="_blank">Lehrhaus course catalog</a>:<br />
<b> </b><br />
A Jewish Exploration of LGBT Musicals: FUN HOME & FALSETTOS<br />
Taught by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and CBST Member Jonathan Shmidt Chapman<br />
<br />
Explore two iconic musicals currently on Broadway that feature LBGT stories front and center. Through text study, hands-on activities and discussion, participants will actively engage with these two dynamic works of art while making connections to Jewish teaching.<br />
(Note: CBST will organize member trips, featuring talk backs with the creative teams. These trips are not included in the class registration).<br />
<br />
Required Reading In Advance: FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel<br />
<b></b><br />
<b>Here are my notes from the first session:</b><b> </b><br />
<ul>
<li>Four sessions each -- Fun Home & Falsettos</li>
<li>Favorite theater experience ever, we were asked, by way of self-intro. Don't over-think it, we were told. Thought first of "The Children's Hour", but Jonathan asked for favorite theater experience, not favorite play. Ok. The original version of "Pippin". First Broadway play was Gigi with my dad, but fave was Pippin at age eight or 10. Best drama experience was "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beauty_Queen_of_Leenane" target="_blank">The Beauty Queen of Leenane</a>". Pippin because of the music and lyrics and the drama because it was just crazy -- what an intense mother-daughter relationship. [Now, I'm also thinking of "'<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'night,_Mother" target="_blank">night, Mother</a>", another mother-daughter drama.]</li>
<li>Asked why we were drawn to the class: "I just need more fun in my life. This sounded like pure fun."</li>
<li>We were asked to interview each other in pairs, asking about each other's week so far.</li>
<li>Dramatized each other's interview by drawing it. Paralleled what Alison Bechdel did with the graphic memoir of Fun Home. Liked how well I listened. </li>
<li>Rabbi Kleinbaum: "Lisa Kron [the playwright of "Fun Home"] is Jewish and was deeply drawn to Alison's story." She did a one-woman show on her relationship with her father. </li>
<li>My parents (z"l) are taking the class with me; they're up there on the Yahrzeit wall, since we're having this class in the downstairs chapel, <i>davke</i> with Session 1 on the English calendar death anniversary of my dad (z"l), who died 34 years ago today.</li>
<li>I also like that even when we turn off the lights to see a clip of the play, the <i>Ner Tamid</i> (eternal light) stays on.</li>
<li>Who mesmerized me first? Unlike Alison's version, where she identified with the butch woman, wearing a ring of keys, and felt like she had found her people, but wasn't attracted to her per se, mine was an object of desire -- a dark-tan, bright-blond woman, who was acting in a local, community play, the star of it. I think I was five or six at most.</li>
<li>So far during this class, I drew, I wrote, I read dramatically, I interviewed. Loved the experience.</li>
</ul>
<b>Further jots during my train-ride back from Penn Station to Montclair: </b><br />
<ul>
<li>Why do I like graphic novels and memoirs? They are more immersive for me? They give me permission to linger? They forgive my relatively slow reading pace?</li>
<li>Election Day, we'll have class. Hope we won't during Thanksgiving Week, since I'll be in Green Bay with Pat & Jim [my brother-in-law].</li>
<li>My experience of "Fun Home" also included seeing new friend Lauren & her partner, and her mothers in the audience. Was jealous of Lauren & her partner. [Pat's & my mom were already dead by then.]</li>
<li>My mom (z"l) and I went to "The Lion King", but not to "Fun Home". Not sure she'd have loved it, so best we didn't get to go.</li>
<li>My mom (z"l) and dad (z"l) and me.</li>
<li>My mom (z"l) always had my hair cut short and let me wear all sorts of clothes. My dad (z"l) let us dress up as Uncle Sam. </li>
<li>When I asked my mom (z"l) for clues about me, all she could say was that it seemed strange to her during our first trip to Israel, when I was eight, that when she let me pick out a commemorative Israeli doll as a memento and I chose a male Chassid, rather than a female doll.</li>
<li>I said simply that I liked his shoes and <i>shtreimel</i> [faux-fur-rimmed hat], but that didn't explain it for her.</li>
<li>There was a girl who seemed like the me I didn't want to be when I was 13, David's friend. I forget her name -- blocked it out.</li>
<li>There was a baby girl at the Charbroil Grill Diner in Montclair, who wouldn't stop staring at me and smiling at me. I was like her ring-of-keys moment, or she thought I was a "boy", perhaps, since I was wearing a baseball cap and had short hair then.</li>
<li>The Ring of Keys song, Rabbi Kleinbaum emphasized, was the star's/Alison Bechdel's identitification song, not her love song. Even the joy she felt in finding someone like her was tempered by her father's unhappiness at observing her recognition.</li>
<li>All of us have secrets. Mine just burst forth because they were harder to hide, since they were physically visible.</li>
<li>Ever since I've known her, Joyce [one of the people in the class], has been an activist around aging, and older people's rights.</li>
<li>Am I still an activist around being a lesbian? Does my identity -- that part -- still dominate my days/existence? Or have I settled into being a corporate suburbanite, who just wants a peaceful life?</li>
<li>[Like the star of "Fun Home"/Alison Bechdel], what are the three pivotal stages of my life?</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At 11, staring at my beautiful best friend and her gorgeous brother in bathing suits and realizing I preferred looking at my best friend, rather than her brother, and being devastated by what I realized.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In college, hunting for men & women till owning my lesbianism senior year.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As an adult, after 19 years together, marrying Pat legally in my hometown, Stamford, surrounded by my family, at 45, including a short video on nytimes.com and a wedding listing in "The New York Times".</blockquote>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-86203666733223306652016-10-06T13:04:00.000-04:002016-10-07T07:42:19.257-04:00That's Why They Call It Leadership<span class="lotusRight"><span class="rating lotusRating" id="entry_rating_7b6ed73e-9116-4e2a-8aec-ae95220cbae3"></span></span><br />
<div class="entryContentContainer blogsWrapText" role="article">
<div dir="ltr">
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Reprinted from my internal, IBM blog, "Learning to Lead": </b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"That's why they call it leadership," were the final remarks of <a href="http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/community/people/marc-ventresca" target="_blank">Oxford Professor Marc Ventresca</a>
at Oxford's session on "Beyond Disruption: Ideas with Impact". He was
referring to how enterprises need a purpose and not just a mission, and
specifically, provided the examples of CVS, opting no longer to sell
tobacco products, since it's a healthcare company [I could argue that it
shouldn't sell candy in that case either], and to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e6696b4a-8505-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5" target="_blank">Unilever, vowing to become an environmentally sustainable firm</a>. At IBM, our purpose is to be essential. And in our [behind-the-firewall, internal-only] <a href="https://w3-workplace.ibm.com/ibm/ibmer/" target="_blank">1-3-9 Purpose, Values and Practices</a>
site, we can review, "What does 'being essential' look like to our
clients? It’s seeing our passion for going above and beyond to meet
their needs by applying our Practices to every aspect of the client
experience."</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
What does being essential look like to our IBM Learning
clients? Surprising and delighting IBMers, and increasingly IBM Business
Partners, clients and prospective IBMers with learning experiences that
help them build their skills. And how do we do keep doing what we
already do well, that is, training leaders and sellers while in parallel
venturing into training people for new roles, for example, Watsoners
and Offering Managers? Or how do we keep doing what we already do well,
e.g., face-to-face, classroom courses and online learning while at the
same time experimenting with Virtual Reality, social technologies and
Watson-powered robots for learning?</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
What is <i>IBM Learning</i>'s purpose? It needs to go
beyond our mission. Professor Ventresca quoted Lenovo's CMO, "The
mission statement [merely] has to make sense; purpose has to resonate."
Is our purpose to build skills of the new IBM? Let's try it: IBM
Learning's purpose is to build skills of the new IBM. That resonates
with me. How about with you?</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Professor Ventresca <i>started</i> his remarks by using
Kodak as an example of exploiting its core business while insufficiently
exploring its new business opportunities. He explained that Kodak had
patented 28 percent of digital technology, but didn't see the disruption
of the web coming. If it had, it would have seen that the web made
sharing electronic photos wildly easier and that they had viral
potential. "Disruptive technology is not great initially, and then it
becomes good enough, and then coupled with other things, it becomes
transformational." Kodak was a relatively old example compared to his
next, Uber, which is already moving from being a better taxi service to
starting a driverless car venture. Why did Google buy Waze, asked
Professor Ventresca, too. "To craft it's driverless strategy." And
Tesla, he said, is not a car company as much as it's really trying to
become the home battery company, trying to solve long-term battery
storage.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
On driverless technology, Professor Ventresca said, "It
won't necessarily even be the best. It'll be the winning consortium."
Another word for consortium, he explained, is ecosystem. "Be more of an
ecosystem player and talk with groups from other organizations ....
Establish disciplines for selecting, experimenting, funding and
terminating new growth businesses .... Purpose," said the professor,
"builds bridges across ecosystems."</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Prior to the session, with beverages in our hands,
participants did a bit of mingling. I was fortunate to talk with the
head of Digital at Citi, along with the head of Oxford's Custom
Executive Programs, and eventually the professor himself. I asked the
Exec. ed. leader if she knew our own IBMer <a href="https://w3-connections.ibm.com/profiles/html/profileView.do?key=c46d40c2-1435-49cd-a297-9b550446df99" target="_blank">Michael Coleman</a>,
an Oxford alumnus, who does IBM recruiting at Oxford, and she said,
"I've been in my role for just two months, but Marc [the professor]
might."</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Unfortunately, by the time the professor joined us, I
missed the opportunity. In fact, as I write this, I wonder if Michael
made our VP Guillermo aware of the event and if that was the genesis(!)
During my pre-session conversations, I *was* able to learn that the head
of Citi's Digital group had been an IBMer in Australia in the '90s, in
the days of O/S2; that the head of Oxford's exec. ed. group had done her
Doctorate on rocks on Mars -- and I mentioned that I had adored rocks
and minerals as a child, and at 10, with my best friend Amy, had been
the two youngest members of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Stamford-Mineralogical-Society-785493931515366/" target="_blank">Stamford Mineralogical Society</a>;
and that the professor and I both loved Chicago. We had lived there
around the same time -- in my case, more than 20 years ago. The Citi
leader exclaimed, "You're the best networker here: You found a
connection between the two of us with IBM, with Elaine [the exec. ed.
head] as a fellow lover of rocks and with the professor around Chicago." </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
I wonder, if IBM, Oxford and Citi were introducing a disruptive
technology together, what could it be, and would our ecosystem help us
win over any competitors, introducing a similar disruptive technology?</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
For fun, here's a reminder of how easy it is to share
photos over the web; I snapped this shot of the marvelous Chrysler
building while approaching Oxford's offices on Fifth Avenue from 42nd
Street:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlz-bbCTFiNiiCCZ9b4EnBhUE4AwnZyUL9xQgAfsGpYEh-VkE-TNE9BgZoWqZVnAFsCOP4fSJklTW_NslMf15KR1xKCpUCp0wX-59y32xPWrg0AloU6j3EeJ8girOxNHF72g7wQHr57lh9/s1600/20161004_174510.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlz-bbCTFiNiiCCZ9b4EnBhUE4AwnZyUL9xQgAfsGpYEh-VkE-TNE9BgZoWqZVnAFsCOP4fSJklTW_NslMf15KR1xKCpUCp0wX-59y32xPWrg0AloU6j3EeJ8girOxNHF72g7wQHr57lh9/s320/20161004_174510.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<a href="https://twitter.com/marcventresca" target="_blank">Follow the professor on Twitter</a>, like I now do, if you're also intrigued by his remarks.</div>
</div>
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-77806289689223128262016-06-19T18:30:00.001-04:002016-06-22T14:54:21.495-04:00Orlando<br />
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Reprinted from my internal, IBM blog, "Learning to Lead": </b><br />
<div class="entryContentContainer blogsWrapText" role="article">
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
In college, in 1984, our Women and
Literature professor assigned the novel *Orlando*. In the novel, fog was
practically an additional character, as there was deep cloud-cover
during the period of Orlando's mystical gender transition.
Coincidentally, I remember that in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I read the
novel, it was unusually foggy for the duration of my reading that
section of the book. And it was a foggy time for me, personally, too, as
I was transitioning into allowing myself to own my lesbian identity
fully, though it took till senior year ultimately. It actually struck me
-- Ann Arbor's weather -- as being empathetic with my own real-life
journey, at the time, as I was reading the book.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Now, a week after the mass shooting mostly of LGBT people
in Orlando, Florida, perhaps by one of our own people, my head has
cleared enough to reflect on it a bit more deeply. On Thursday
afternoon, I spoke with Doris Gonzalez, a Latina IBM colleague,
who had called to say that she was distraught about Orlando and was
thinking about how to piggy-back on the great anti-bullying work that
was done by Connie Bonello and Esther Dryburgh and others from IBM in Canada. When we spoke, I was on my way to the San Francisco Airport to head home from a business trip.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"May I tell you a personal story?"</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Of course!"</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"The closest I ever came to what happened in Orlando was in
Chicago in 1987. I had just moved to Chicago [after graduating from
college] and wanted to socialize in the LGBT community, but didn't know
where to begin. I found a venue that sounds as ... boring as it was [--
apologies to any Womyn's Music lovers --], the <a href="http://www.glhalloffame.org/index.pl?item=41&todo=view_item" target="_blank">Mountain Moving Coffee House for Womyn and Children</a>.
It was at the end of the [lesbian] separatist era and I really don't
like womyn's, with a Y music at all [-- I've always been more so a fan
of Teena Marie and Patrice Rushen --], but I went anyhow.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
It was held in a church and part-way into the performance,
there was a giant BOOM. All of the women in the audience, including me,
ducked down in the pews. It didn't turn out to be a bomb. We never
learned what it was, but for the few moments, when I was crouched on the
floor of that church, I thought, I'm gonna die and all because I came
to hear this [lousy] music [because I was so desperate to be among my
people, where I could enjoy a Saturday-night haven; I was not open about
my sexual orientation at the magazine, where I was interning and so
needed the company of others like me all the more so. I remember feeling
so alone and awful that I, who had been raised with a deep Jewish
identity, should die by myself in a church because I was a lesbian, who
was lonely for my people, and then when it turned out to be nothing, I
shook off those thoughts and didn't really re-conjure them till this
Orlando tragedy and my conversation with this colleague]. But in any case,
Doris, all of us went out to clubs in our twenties, didn't we?"</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
We agreed that it was tragic, since all of us liked to go
out dancing back then, whether or not our parents were thrilled with our
entertainment choices, and the same thing could have happened to us,
that is, in our twenties, Doris and I could have gone to Latin Night (or
any night) at a[n LGBT] club -- Doris with a gay friend and I to dance
with kindred spirits -- and in fact, I did relatively often, but never
was gunned down, thank God.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
And now, I'm reminded of how I brought my eldest sister and
brother-in-law with me to an LGBT club in 1991, to hear Crystal Waters
sing both of her hits at the time. We had "100% pure fun" that night.
Talking with my middle sister while in the airport, she recalled our
having gone to a club in Chelsea before Chelsea was a gay neighborhood,
and with my boyfriend at the time, in 1985 -- I was still on my journey
then. Who didn't go out dancing in his or her twenties?</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
When I read the brief obituaries in today's "New York
Times", I saw that only a small number of those killed were not still in
their twenties. In general, their bio's weren't yet super-impressive,
and neither was mine at that age. Thank God I had more time to amass
experience and to make a difference and to learn -- to clear the clouds
and make a primarily happy life as a lesbian.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
This morning, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/06/19/482658774/in-songs-stories-latino-and-lgbt-voices-on-how-the-orlando-attack-feels-personal" target="_blank">National Public Radio (NPR) ran a story</a>, where the reporter was covering the Latino angle of the tragedyand I was flooded with poignant IBM memories:</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
To my knowledge, the first senior executive, who ever said
the words, "lesbian and gay" to an auditorium of IBMers was Dr. Irving
Wladawsky-Berger, the VP of the Internet Division at the time; it was
1997, though IBM had had a non-discrimination policy in place for gay
and lesbian IBMers since 1984. Irving was from Cuba. IBM alumna and now
IBM Watson Ecosystem Partner Maria Hernandez and I collaborated back
then, so that EAGLE, IBM's LGBT business resource group (BRG) and
LatinNet, IBM's Hispanic BRG could co-sponsor Irving's talk on How to Be
an IBM Leader. Irving met with both of us together prior to the talk
and asked, "What do your constituencies need to hear?"</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Ours just needs to hear you say the words, lesbian and
gay," I said; unfortunately, it was 1997 and we were not yet explicitly
inclusive of bisexual and transgender IBMers; that happened explicitly a
few years later. Still, what we were asking for felt a bit
revolutionary, and Irving said, Fine. And then he spoke brilliantly. </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
In
the mid-90s, "Wired" magazine called Irving Wladawsky-Berger "the
smartest person at IBM.” Here are just a few of his remarks:</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
Well, first of all, the
environment in which you exist is all-important. Clearly, if I were
talking about a career in Germany in the 1930s, that was not a good
place to be Jewish. Being black in the 1950 or '60s in the deep South,
some may even say in the North, was not pleasant either. Only more
recently have women begun to significantly progress from the point of
view of careers while, as far as gays and lesbians are concerned,
movement is now beginning.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
...what observations do I have
about my career, especially given the fact that I'm a minority in more
ways than one, being Hispanic, Cuban-born, always speaking with an
accent and second, being Jewish? … Don't waste the energy trying to be
what you're not. Be comfortable with who you are because, again, it
takes too much energy to pretend to be anyone different ....</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
You'll never, ever be able to
focus on your job if you are concerned with who you are or whether the
world accepts who you are because then your energy will be dissipated.
If you're comfortable with who you are, if you're comfortable that the
world will accept you and that for those people who don't, it's their
problem, you have so much more energy.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
So, it's a good time to be in
IBM. It's a good time to be whoever you are. It's a good time in our
country to be whoever you are because we're about as open as I can
imagine any nation has been and the rest is up to us as individuals.</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 40px;">
<br /></div>
The other marvelous memories I have are from the
early-2000's, during one of our first IBM Global LGBT Leadership
Conferences, if not the very first one: </div>
<div class="entryContentContainer blogsWrapText" role="article">
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
Bruno Di Leo, who was from Peru, and was then the GM of IBM in Latin America, flew to IBM in Palisades to
address and encourage us as up-and-coming lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender leaders at IBM. Currently, Bruno is the SVP of all of IBM
Sales & Distribution, globally, as well as the senior executive
sponsor of the LGBT Council at IBM, and Bruno jumped on a web cam to
talk about the Orlando tragedy and to reaffirm IBM's inclusiveness and
support for all IBMers, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
IBMers. Seeing the short video from Bruno and recalling Irving's
remarks makes me realize that since the late-90s, Latino IBM leaders
have been among our staunchest allies.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But I want to
wind back the clock again finally to the early-2000's; after the
penultimate day of sessions, at night, there was ice cream in a common
room at the IBM conference center. I didn't want ice cream, but thought
I'd go, just for more of the fun company of LGBT IBM colleagues from
around the globe. On my way, I heard fantastic music coming from another
ballroom-sized room. I peeked in and spotted a bunch of conference
goers dancing Salsa. Apparently, they preferred dancing to the ice
cream, and so did I, but I was shy. <span class="vcard" contenteditable="false"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
Cristina Gonzalez saw me admiring the dancers from the door and invited me to join them.
It was the Latin-American conference delegation and they were so
welcoming. I felt silly, as all I had ever learned was the cha-cha, and
that was when I was taking ballroom and Disco lessons as a pre-teen many
years prior, when David Kaplan from my Jewish day school class was my
partner; all of us from the school took dance lessons in preparation for
the Bar Mitzvah circuit. Dancing with Cristina and others was much,
much more fun. No offense meant to David, who was a fine, 12-year-old
dancer, and still a kind friend and ally today .... "Who's singing?" I
asked Cristina. "She's gorgeous."</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
"That's Celia Cruz", Cristina told me.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The
next and final day of the conference, Cristina came up to me and handed
me an envelope and told me it was a gift. In it was the Celia Cruz CD
that had been playing the night prior. We beamed at each other.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The NPR radio report about Orlando ended with Celia Cruz, singing <a data-cke-saved-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRID6bN71dY" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRID6bN71dY" target="_blank"><span class="watch-title" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="Celia Cruz Yo viviré (I will Survive)">"Yo viviré (I will Survive)</span>"</a>.
And we will survive, and thrive, as long as we follow Irving
Wladawsky-Berger's advice. I just wish I weren't imagining dancing in a
bullet-proof vest at the moment. I will get past such thinking. I'm glad
I read *Orlando* in my twenties and lived beyond those decades to gain
clear-headedness about who I am. And I will keep dancing.</div>
</div>
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-68820319723713451222016-03-22T17:26:00.000-04:002016-03-22T17:36:04.809-04:00Rest in Peace, Toonces, the One and Only<br />
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>How I Came to Get What's Special About Cats </b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGQc-ZVcpkllsmu9EWo0_JTVdApW1ubNKo3EcSVKNsLVqwGML6yt24-wmZTPFwS4uh5TQN-6Ady1lrS2SnirnY5nW4CxJdgX1VzHj1aLC33MZSuVSDI-ktT_xNAaH8jji9FhWUbPJBr0W6/s1600/20130101_135833.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGQc-ZVcpkllsmu9EWo0_JTVdApW1ubNKo3EcSVKNsLVqwGML6yt24-wmZTPFwS4uh5TQN-6Ady1lrS2SnirnY5nW4CxJdgX1VzHj1aLC33MZSuVSDI-ktT_xNAaH8jji9FhWUbPJBr0W6/s200/20130101_135833.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Toonces, photo-bombing a picture of Phoebe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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Growing up, there was Fluffy and Chummer and Jody and
Tigger, but they were my friends’ dogs. Amy had a big, long-haired cat, but she
didn’t hang out with us like the dog did and had an air of mystery accordingly.
At home, we were allowed only turtles, so I didn’t really get what it meant to
have a pet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>A
relatively short time after Pat and I got together, in the early ‘90s, her
sweet bull terrier Meghan Jonquil died of an aneurysm. I’ll never forget how,
inadvertently, I offended one of our fellow Or Chadash congregants by
announcing both the death of his grandfather (z”l) and Pat’s dog from the bimah
(pulpit) that Shabbat. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>Suddenly,
I’m reckoning with the death of a being who represents the closest I’ll come to
directly parenting anyone. At a moment like this, I wish I’d left it at turtles
– with them, I was more so their siblings, since my older sisters mothered
them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Toonces’ sister Phoebe is lying on
the table next to me as I write this and I’m trying not to feel survivor’s
guilt in her behalf. Why did Toonces get cancer, but not Phoebe? Why did
Toonces get cancer at all? Why did my father (z”l)? Both of their lives were
cut short – his at 56 and hers at nearly 13.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Toonces
and Phoebe almost weren’t Toonces and Phoebe. For the first 16 years of our nearly
24-year relationship so far, I denied Pat a pet. I didn’t grow up with a cat or
dog at home and so I didn’t get it. No, I said, they’ll just smell up the house
and you won’t pay attention to me once we have a pet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Finally, I relented because I felt
guilty. I was working full-time and earning a Master’s part-time and felt bad
at leaving Pat alone so often. OK, we can get a cat from P.A.W.S. (the local
shelter at the time), I said dolefully. We went down there and agreed on
adopting an older cat, since they’re usually less popular and because Pat said
that in their wildness, a kitten would drive me crazy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
We looked at cage after cage and I
felt terrible at having to choose a cat and then leave the rest behind. We
returned a couple of times to a cage with two gray-brown, striped American
tabbies. The P.A.W.S. rep came over and said cheerfully, “Would you like two?
They’re sisters.”</div>
Oh, God, I’m a sister myself. We
can’t separate sisters. The P.A.W.S. person told us that they had turned five
in May. Pat & I agreed that each of us got to name one of them. I called
one of them Phoebe and Pat called the other Muffin … but not for long.<br />
<br />
Our first evening with them, Pat
looked at the littler one and said, “You’re no Muffin. You’re a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=toonces+the+cat+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">Toonces</a>!” It
might have been as Toonces was staring down at her from the ceiling beams of
the laundry room. It turns out that Toonces was so scared of her new
environment she remained on the ceiling for a week, except to use the litter
box.<br />
<br />
From then on, she maintained her
Toonces-like reputation, routinely springing from a loose tile in our
basement’s raised ceiling onto the back of Pat’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>La-Z-Boy rocker, surprising Pat every time. A
woman once said to me, “I prefer dogs. Cats won’t obey.” It was then and even
prior that I realized I adored cats for the same reason; intermittent
reinforcement is the most powerful sort.<br />
<br />
Phoebe and Toonces – well, really,
just Phoebe, as Toonces never really cottoned to me (nor Phoebe to Pat,
interestingly) – have claimed affection from us utterly based on their whims. I
have loved the serendipity of it all. For instance, Toonces would join Pat
unpredictably while Pat was eating breakfast and would walk into Pat’s
newspaper-reading arms, and lean into her chest. She’d come to rest, hanging her
front paws over one of Pat’s bent elbows. Pat called it, “Table.” Toonces would
jump up on the table and slink toward Pat, and Pat would look at her and ask
rhetorically, “Table for Toonces?”<br />
<br />
Toonces really didn’t care much for
my touch, but her little face was so cute and her mischief mostly funny, and
she charmed me. I did not do the same for Toonces apparently; yesterday
morning, amidst her lethargy in her illness, I gave Toonces a series of pets
and she did as she did so often when I petted her: Immediately following, she
bathed the very patches I had touched – the cat equivalent of wiping one’s
hands on one’s pants post-handshake, in front of the person whose hand you just
shook. Even so, I was amused. “Pat, look at that. She’s ill, but she’s still
got enough strength to wash me off of her fur.” Kindly enough, when we petted
her for the last time this afternoon, she let me, period. <br />
<br />
Earlier today, Pat & I recalled
that prior to Toonces’ meal time, she would sit up against a wall with her arms
across her belly and would look remarkably like a person as she waited for me
to feed her sister and her. And in the mornings, if I didn’t wake up when she
was hungry, she’d walk over to my night table and start tossing books off of
it. And at dinner time, when Pat called, “Kitties!” Toonces would run three adorable
circuits around Pat’s La-Z-Boy before entering the laundry room, where she was
fed, nightly.<br />
<br />
For cats, I’ve learned, everything
they do is socially acceptable as far as they’re concerned, except they’re not
– not concerned … except with each other: Little Toonces was an especially good
sister. Any time she heard Phoebe cry out, she was by her side nearly
instantly, even though typically, her loyalty-reward from Phoebe was being
batted on her little head. Oy, Phoebe, who’re you going to bat around now, just
Pat & me? We’ll take it.
Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-31700697997600849582016-02-07T20:27:00.000-05:002016-03-02T19:04:03.739-05:00Lesbian Life BCE (Before the Cat Era) and BeyondThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Crystalizing My Lesbian Identity</b><br />
<br />
The other morning, I was finishing up stretching after my indoor-rowing session in our house in Montclair, New Jersey, in the sunny room downstairs with the triple-glass doors. Just then, Randy Crawford's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvhhijJjecg" target="_blank">Wrap U Up</a>" began playing, according to the algorithmic personalization of the free music that boomed from the black Bose box on the floor.<br />
<br />
I sat down in one of the four <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l265M1g5zw0" target="_blank">Carol</a>ish-era Herman Miller Eames shell chairs I had inherited when my mom (z"l) died 20 months ago, cracked open a Costco bottle of water and swigged as I looked out into our half-snow-covered garden. Listening to Randy Crawford's molten voice, I remembered a winter-night date more than a quarter of a century ago, back when I was renting an efficiency apartment near Ashland and Addison in Chicago. The apartment wouldn't have had room for a rowing machine, even if I could have afforded one then.<br />
<br />
At a friend's party the prior weekend, I had met a tall, Midwest-born-and-bred classical musician with classically beautiful features. Our first date included dancing to late-'80s music in all its glory at a then-popular-and-now-extinct Chicago North-Side lesbian bar. After a marathon of songs, we paused only to go to the multi-stall Ladies Room. I was ready to return to the dance-floor when she kissed me for the first time. Against the sinks, in the bathroom. <br />
<br />
"I don't want this in here. It makes it seem dirty." With her graceful hands and tender mouth, she tried to change my mind, but I was repulsed. We were too beautiful to be doing something so gorgeous in such an unappealing place.<br />
<br />
"Let's go for a walk," she suggested and I was relieved. We left the club and walked out into sub-zero wind. We walked against the wind all the way to the Lake. No one else appeared to be there in such forbidding weather. I could hear my teeth, tapping together. She smiled at me and took the mitten off of one of my hands, and warmed each one of my fingers, in her mouth.<br />
<br />
<b>CE - Cat Era</b><br />
<br />
Thrilling as it had been with the musician, and a number of other remarkable Chicago-area women in my twenties, Pat emerged as the kindest, funniest, most appealing, brilliant and magnetic among them.<br />
<br />
Yesterday afternoon, on our way home from an afternoon ride in our station wagon to Chester, New Jersey -- which my wife Pat and I had read was quaint, according to Yelp -- we stopped at a grocery store and I whispered out of the side of my mouth, "Pat, look, sisters." For the first time, she didn't turn to look. We kept walking and I said, "I guess it's no longer such a big deal, huh?" Throughout our nearly 24 years together so far, the term, "sisters", had been code for whenever we thought we saw an apparent couple of two women. It was always exhilarating to be reminded that we weren't alone.<br />
<br />
Pat always said I could blog about whatever I wanted, as long as I didn't invade her privacy with my postings, so I'll step gingerly around this point: For our first decade and a half together, I could enjoy intimacy in our relationship practically whenever I wished, and then we adopted two sister-cats, one of whom sleeps with us routinely. (Just ran this paragraph by Pat and she acquiesced to my including it.)<br />
<br />
The post-rowing Randy Crawford tune and the book *Carol*, and the movie -- which I felt improved upon the book -- awoke my BCE memories. And then Pat gave me <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/frank-rich-carol-invisibility-of-lesbian-culture.html#" target="_blank">an article by Frank Rich</a>, where he wrote: "<span itemprop="articleBody">Even today, Todd Haynes’s mesmerizing
adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel comes as a shock—mostly
for how much lesbian culture remains invisible to America at large." </span><br />
<br />
This post is my humble contribution to increased lesbian visibility.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-11975586888686563982015-11-08T18:44:00.000-05:002015-11-08T18:50:18.268-05:00Fall FeverThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Feeling Extra-alive </b><br />
<br />
Bike rides for the first time in a decade ... treadmilling with Pat this morning ... learning of -- and seeing -- this <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/05/asia/ripley-same-sex-union-certificate-japan/index.html" target="_blank">striking couple of pioneers</a> earlier this week ... reading a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Price_of_Salt" target="_blank">magnetic novel</a> ... seeing a post by a Facebook friend, expressing gratitude for her "cute nurses" as she convalesced from donating a kidney ... considering swimming outdoors tomorrow when I'm in Phoenix for work ... the unseasonably warm weather in New Jersey during this mid-November ... all of these experiences and possibilities are giving me Fall Fever.<br />
<br />
Typically, Spring Fever is when I notice the same sex more than usual and remember that although Pat[ricia] & I are loyal and monogamous to each other, going on nearly 24 years so far, and with no plans to change our supremely faithful status, there are times -- usually in springtime -- when I feel surrounded by a museum show of women who remind me why I identify first of all as lesbian. Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-45991260434997765232015-09-23T16:25:00.000-04:002015-09-25T23:25:37.426-04:00Davke on Yom KippurThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>Why Are You Leaving So Soon? Because We Want To </b><br />
<br />
We are motherless, and fatherless, children -- both of us -- now, as of March, 2015. From <i>Kol Nidre </i>last night through <i>Yizkor</i> today, I've been moved, and now, am moved to write about what moved me, rather than remaining in synagogue, where I'd be feeling perhaps further moved, but also antsy.<br />
<br />
Last year, we left right after <i>Yizkor</i> and I thought it was because it was my first one without my mom (z"l) and this year, we did the same; it's Pat's first without her mom (z"l) ... or is it a trend? Pat says she can't stand for such long stretches anymore. How will I feel when I'm 65, like she is now? Please God, let me live long enough to find out. Meanwhile, I had enough poignant experiences to last me through this High Holiday even though we left by noon on <i>Yom Kippur</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>Here's what moved me:</b><br />
<br />
Pat and I ushered. We were among the very first people anyone saw as he or she entered the building. Probably a dozen people walked in alone saying that they didn't have a ticket. And many others walked in alone who did have tickets. A number of them walked in apparently riveted by their phone-screen, making no eye-contact even after we greeted them. What was each one's story? Why were they alone on <i>Yom Kippur</i>?<br />
<br />
And then a pretty, ginger-haired woman hobbled in with a cane and was looking everywhere but at other people when I said, "<i>Shanah tovah</i>. Welcome. Would you like to use the elevator?"<br />
<br />
Her eyes zoomed in on me and she nodded. As we walked together, she said she was meeting her two sons here and that they had been coming to our synagogue for years, though this was her first visit.<br />
<br />
"Oh, you'll like it, I think. My mom [z"l] used to say that she thought our services, at any time of the year, were the nicest she'd ever been to."<br />
<br />
"Really?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah. She loved them."<br />
<br />
"That's nice." <br />
<br />
As we got to the sanctuary, I pointed to a box of <i>kippot</i> and <i>tallitot</i> and asked, "Would you like a kippah and a tallit?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, no, I'm Orthodox and I'm very nervous."<br />
<br />
"Don't be nervous ... I didn't mean to say that. Be nervous if you need to be, but you don't have to be."<br />
<br />
"That's a big <i>Machzor</i>," she said.<br />
<br />
"I think you'll recognize at least half of the tunes and you'll enjoy the service. I wish I could find you afterwards to see what you thought."<br />
<br />
She thanked me for carrying her <i>Machzor</i> and showing her to her seat and we parted. At the end of services, she was gone by the time I reached where she had been sitting. As I passed her empty seat, I hoped she had stayed and hadn't left early due to there being, for example, musical instruments; Orthodox Judaism forbids making music with anything but our voices during <i>Shabbat</i> and holidays, as it's considered labor, and we're not supposed to work at those times.<br />
<br />
<b>Trying, unsuccessfully, to distract myself from missing my mom (z"l) </b><br />
<br />
My mom (z"l) got too old to sit or stand for so long and stopped coming to our services several years ago, but on the<i> Yom Kippur </i>prior to her death, she decided she wanted to come for <i>Yizkor,</i> so we made it happen. I blogged about it here, how she met Edie Windsor and thanked her for her leadership and what a great experience it was.<br />
<br />
Pat and I saw Edie today and Pat said later, "We won't have Edie around forever."<br />
<br />
My mom's (z"l) name also was Edie. And that's for sure.<br />
<br />
Including Edie Windsor, I was moved by a number of other gorgeous women. There's a young woman in the choir with eyes that make me miss my cats and long, black, wavy hair, and I am always interested in the stories of women who can pass as heterosexual and how they end up being true to themselves. Whenever I see someone in her 20s at <a href="http://www.cbst.org/" target="_blank">our <i>shul</i></a>, I time-travel back to that age and how I was finding my way back to Judaism then, and living in Chicago, and so was going to the Chicago LGBT congregation, <i>Or Chadash</i>. It's where I met Pat.<br />
<br />
Something else that moved me: Dr. Nathan Goldstein, our president, mentioned that this year, the <i>shul</i> was celebrating four <i>b'nai mitzvah</i> and that all of the parents of the <i>b'nai mitzvah </i>had met at our synagogue.<br />
<br />
Rabbi Kleinbaum's and a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern's <i>drashot</i> (sermons) touched me, too because Rabbi Kleinbaum read the whole Emma Goldman poem from the Statue of Liberty in the context of the refugee crisis -- Pat had posted the poem on her Facebook wall days ago, asking whether we can be, once again, a country that stands behind that poem. And I was moved by the intern's drash because she asked, Do we avoid coming to <i>shul</i> because we feel we cannot be authentically whoever we are, however we feel?<br />
<br />
She spoke of her sister's mental illness episode in 2007 and how we don't typically speak of such things because we cannot dare to be vulnerable. It made me want to come to <i>shul</i> more often, even when I'm not in a great mood. And it made me feel some relief, hearing a future rabbi speak of the need to talk about things we don't typically talk about, to remove the stigma and historical shame of them. I have relatives with mental health problems and I practically never talk about that.<br />
<br />
<b>There are a few more things that have moved me during this <i>Yom Kippur </i>so far:</b><br />
<br />
During <i>Yizkor</i>, too, the Executive Director of <a href="http://joh.org.il/index.php/english" target="_blank">Jerusalem Open House</a> Sarah Kala made remarks in Hebrew about Shira Banki, the 15 year-old Jerusalem LGBT Pride Parade marcher who was stabbed by an Ultra-Orthodox Israeli and who died of her wounds. One of our Israeli congregants simultaneously translated into English and then our cantorial intern Steve Zeidenberg and the chorus sang "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU5nIsvkoSQ" target="_blank">Shir L'Shira</a>", a pop song that was re-dedicated to this particular Shira after her death, and which has been sung at demonstrations around Israel ever since.<br />
<br />
Last year, when Broadway singer Sally Wilfert sang Broadway composer and congregant William Finn's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_cBkkV6UGM" target="_blank">Anytime</a>", I wept. This year, I couldn't let go, or maybe the wound is less fresh, but still, I became choked up because the words and her voice do remind me of my mom (z"l), especially when she sings that anytime I wash my hands, she'll be there. Until she died, my mom (z"l) never failed to ask me when I returned from the bathroom, "Did you wash your hands?"<br />
<br />
Now that I'm back home and our kitties are slumbering near me as I blog, I'm moved by the little one, Toonces', capacity for snoring. She's so little, but so audible when she sleeps. And it's cute, and I'm hopeful about caring for such beautiful feline daughters. <i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Yom Kippur </i>is all about repenting and praying to be sealed into the Book of Life for the coming year. Please, God, if it be Your will, let Pat & Phoebe, the cat, and Toonces, the cat, and my sisters and their families and all of my relatives and friends and me stay alive and healthy for another year. Amen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-13829596674997612402015-08-04T12:41:00.000-04:002020-01-15T21:26:16.380-05:00My Israel Autobiography in Photos<b>A Retrospective</b><br />
<br />
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
<br />
<b>1950-'52: Pre-history - My Parents' Experiences of Israel, Before They Met </b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn59eNgWyx0QTxq2aGdaV1Ru0s-pMD4y3PE0z6P5p0xo8jaQ3bhYPkjrgRr9qX3Yx36rKrSeh2fAUu2jaDrmJz2iOMVvYlkDwD8pvTGKGTaL_q-Yjb_PxlR-yi8_j-7lMPbw5671bhHYvM/s1600/1487905_10101423910922892_5583904708140928709_o.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn59eNgWyx0QTxq2aGdaV1Ru0s-pMD4y3PE0z6P5p0xo8jaQ3bhYPkjrgRr9qX3Yx36rKrSeh2fAUu2jaDrmJz2iOMVvYlkDwD8pvTGKGTaL_q-Yjb_PxlR-yi8_j-7lMPbw5671bhHYvM/s320/1487905_10101423910922892_5583904708140928709_o.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
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<b> 1960s-'70s - Shohar Posters Designed and Manufactured by Moshav Beit Herut</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
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<b>1973: a letter from my second cousin Nitza, who lived in Beit Herut, including pressed flowers</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsz8zRFIoH_5GPB9KKxrAJqKkvQRGLhyphenhyphenS1h5JDg0kJxrZE_GxTkPQ2KKIT9wfKm9LOZ-2gag_73FO1VeMAVUBhjoBV_3EwagaqEMYBtbDZCq_FFfDFjH8wbuHgQ4TcLReE0ly0DhNOhJP/s1600/20150803_145042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsz8zRFIoH_5GPB9KKxrAJqKkvQRGLhyphenhyphenS1h5JDg0kJxrZE_GxTkPQ2KKIT9wfKm9LOZ-2gag_73FO1VeMAVUBhjoBV_3EwagaqEMYBtbDZCq_FFfDFjH8wbuHgQ4TcLReE0ly0DhNOhJP/s320/20150803_145042.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<b> </b><b><b>1973: Coca-cola with Lemon and Soldiers on Rooftops; 2002; 2012</b></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrhNnrl48z9N6dZKDv2XkwOP2v9NW2r1DhUFc37TwdJxN13l-1cFqE8xO3yCYkNTLyXu9PaEEDMDm64d1AaORedHb17BirnNyr9l1AiiKYMumafpNif2s8btbTV_BBalSzdlz9DKviWMP/s1600/10557609_10101423873438012_356719385109187709_o.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrhNnrl48z9N6dZKDv2XkwOP2v9NW2r1DhUFc37TwdJxN13l-1cFqE8xO3yCYkNTLyXu9PaEEDMDm64d1AaORedHb17BirnNyr9l1AiiKYMumafpNif2s8btbTV_BBalSzdlz9DKviWMP/s320/10557609_10101423873438012_356719385109187709_o.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption">My mom (z"l) took this photo. Her dear friend Chaya Zuckerman-Bareli (right), and me at eight (left), are in Jerusalem. </td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><br />
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<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span> </span>
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<b>1976: Mom (z"l) and Dad (z"l) and Me in Israel and UK; 2015: Bina and D'vori's Baby Noam</b><br />
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<b>1980: Coming of Age; 2015: Middle Age</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pjTJliV0DnzcGfetXsIHW9FwMJu7CqIQ0JO3pv58DTXlT4VGDyWmi1Qjk-jPIlEamdvgR1ZJNDct7iI6IN2_2MbOf3T7W6rdOJhWsKluTHmtJnnzSwEzTPckFKFOWUwW3Stpp_zSRfg4/s1600/20150803_160723.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pjTJliV0DnzcGfetXsIHW9FwMJu7CqIQ0JO3pv58DTXlT4VGDyWmi1Qjk-jPIlEamdvgR1ZJNDct7iI6IN2_2MbOf3T7W6rdOJhWsKluTHmtJnnzSwEzTPckFKFOWUwW3Stpp_zSRfg4/s320/20150803_160723.jpg" width="180" /></a><b> </b></div>
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<b>1985-'86: Ambivalently Flirting with My Future; 2014 Reunion</b><br />
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<b>2002: Mom (z"l) and Me and Hebrew University</b><br />
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<b>2012: Introducing My Wife to This History-laden Place</b><br />
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<b>2015: Closure and New Beginnings</b><br />
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<b><br /></b>Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-26147029789300034142015-05-13T23:13:00.001-04:002015-05-14T08:36:53.805-04:00Mother's SeasonThe postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
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<b>Not Just Mother's Day </b><br />
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The Peonies are in bloom again. Nearly a year later.<br />
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One of the only blog-posts I ever read aloud to my mom (z"l), who didn't have her own computer, was <a href="http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-06-08T22:59:00-04:00&max-results=10" target="_blank">one with pictures of peonies from May 18, 2014</a>. It was about loss.<br />
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Just over a year later, I'm bursting from loss, or wish I were. Nearly a year ago, while trying to comfort me over my mother's (z"l) death, a rabbinical student asked me, "What do you want to ask God?" I posted this here already:<br />
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"When do I get to fall apart?" <br />
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"And how would God respond?"<br />
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"Never," I said because what would my falling apart serve? <br />
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Serving others is the antidote to self-pity, yet I want to wallow a little.<br />
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Pat's on her annual golf trip in Tennessee with her friends from her days at NIU and I must do all of the daily chores she'd be doing if she were here, since she's retired: filling and re-filling the pitcher from the rain-barrel, watering the plants, feeding the birds and local wildlife along with the kitties (I do feed the kitties daily already -- that's my job), making dinner, taking out the garbage and the recycling, dealing with the guy who needed to waterproof the front steps and walkway....These chores, it turns out, are a pretty nice way to connect with the world right around me. <br />
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And I've been doing more connecting than usual this past week, in part to distract myself from imminent, first <i>yahrzeit </i>of my mom's (z"l) death along with our impending trip to Green Bay to unveil my mother-in-law Bev's (z"l) headstone; she died unexpectedly of complications from a fall last month, exactly 10 months after my mom. I loved Bev (z"l), too, and also miss her. When we come back, we'll have my mom's (z"l) unveiling on the 31st of May.<br />
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My mom (z"l) is so present in her absence:<br />
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On Wednesday last week, she (z"l) was there among the caravan of Stamford [Connecticut -- my hometown, where my mom (z"l) lived for 50 years --] Tents trucks at Duggal Greenhouse in Brooklyn last Wednesday as I was departing from World of Watson, but she was not there to call when I wanted to debrief on the coolness of the experience of seeing a positive future for the world, augmented and aided by artificial intelligence.<br />
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My mom (z"l) was there at the <a href="https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/content/come-you-are-art-1990s" target="_blank">Art of the 1990s</a> show at the Montclair Art Museum on Thursday evening as I was telling a new friend how she and my dad (z"l) practically chose to move from the Village to Montclair because it had an art museum, but then chose Stamford, which had one, too, but was not there when I wanted to talk about the couple of interesting installations I saw as part of the exhibit.<br />
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My ever-present and shatteringly-absent mom (z"l) was there at the Agudath Shalom Cemetery when we visited her not-yet engraved joint-plot prior to the <i>mezuzah</i> posting ceremony in her memory, held at the Stamford Jewish Community Center Library, and was there at the Senior Lunch afterwards as Mr. Soifer, our Bi-Cultural Day School music teacher, smiled at me as he saw me moving my lips accurately while he sang the extended <i>Kiddush</i> over the <i>Shabbat</i> wine and gone when I wanted to tell her that one of her friends there had said, "Your mother was so valuable to me."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtihgoTLLwgVLloitfA-oR2RJDjaSCP_bburTiTyVg7rF2f7ABROrOhurJvwRAyNvFcY-Vdck4FRdab0JAwyKnnbcCIdFkUbxC0rHfbEr9eRAIH1CtUSj_2qjrnVoMnuIFUQmhnqpoA-2B/s1600/20150508_113740.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtihgoTLLwgVLloitfA-oR2RJDjaSCP_bburTiTyVg7rF2f7ABROrOhurJvwRAyNvFcY-Vdck4FRdab0JAwyKnnbcCIdFkUbxC0rHfbEr9eRAIH1CtUSj_2qjrnVoMnuIFUQmhnqpoA-2B/s320/20150508_113740.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rabbi Cohen, reciting blessings<i></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rabbi Cohen, my sisters Kayla and Deb, and me outside of the Stamford JCC Library, where our mom (z"l) volunteered.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbuTBEGn8fnAqOF5FL1Iop4iRRFiBh2knd0AUB8fyIV_N2rykxFfGWS0_e1xsScLTRnPJ4azKC-3BXCDk4YSnnWr9Y4mOclelQNX5K_io_622HgYNHimR3UXcS-UgWTSyS49GSbtw_RyG3/s1600/20150508_115521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">L<img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbuTBEGn8fnAqOF5FL1Iop4iRRFiBh2knd0AUB8fyIV_N2rykxFfGWS0_e1xsScLTRnPJ4azKC-3BXCDk4YSnnWr9Y4mOclelQNX5K_io_622HgYNHimR3UXcS-UgWTSyS49GSbtw_RyG3/s320/20150508_115521.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mezuzah was created by Chaya Magal and the roses remind us of our mom (z"l); her middle name was Rose.</td></tr>
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She (z"l) was there at the Brookdale Park Conservancy-sponsored *Heaven is a Garden* book talk and signing at Watchung Booksellers on Friday evening, even though I should have been at <i>Shabbat</i> services instead, but gone after our dinner out with two new friends at a restaurant in Montclair that she liked, too.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNV9JAsjJQkOEtsJ0rY9FlLX1EP4TTOgeWBxeEw2PD1urBs_f3UsbhA7PTsfBvSS8LFJyrqoLlEls88I96u0QCaUnmsr6St-g0boQKX1uC7Li12tL78vzil-mkg1Pt1X29OEhHkVhlmkE/s1600/20150508_181303.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpNV9JAsjJQkOEtsJ0rY9FlLX1EP4TTOgeWBxeEw2PD1urBs_f3UsbhA7PTsfBvSS8LFJyrqoLlEls88I96u0QCaUnmsr6St-g0boQKX1uC7Li12tL78vzil-mkg1Pt1X29OEhHkVhlmkE/s320/20150508_181303.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Author Jan Johnsen, discussing her marvelous book,*Heaven is a Garden*</td></tr>
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My mom (z"l) was there when Noga and Hilla, a gorgeous couple of Israeli friends with four kids, two of whom were with them, visited us in our newly renovated home, and there when I brought my giant case of Lego over to their four-year-old Shaked, and there when Uri, the baby, smiled winningly and there when we talked about *Fun Home* as a masterpiece. But she was gone when I wanted to call her the next day to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.<br />
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My still-here mother (z"l) was ultra-present when I picked up the tray she gave us some years ago that read, "Smart women crave good company" and which featured only a '50s-era, stylized illustration of women drinking coffee on it and tried to determine how to display it visibly in our newly renovated kitchen/dining room and living room.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My mom (z"l) said she thought of Pat & me when she saw this platter and got it for us; she had a good sense of humor.</td></tr>
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And she was proud of the rest of how we re-assembled our home and of its major freshening. But she (z"l) was gone when it came time to eat dinner and then take a rest in the living room. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our new kitchen/dining room/library</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2mWuK0iZKyAOIqXQB3iefsu4EUrD2zh6jnGIxoYd7K8DivwEWOloMSa-tFWl77Qrokxyk4K1F5vvV8m1Q3PGh5QlHQYo3Kj0y74twFoG-Ad-FovfLmbEUWKJBzUmKA7l9DqkuGHA5G2o_/s1600/20150512_201142.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2mWuK0iZKyAOIqXQB3iefsu4EUrD2zh6jnGIxoYd7K8DivwEWOloMSa-tFWl77Qrokxyk4K1F5vvV8m1Q3PGh5QlHQYo3Kj0y74twFoG-Ad-FovfLmbEUWKJBzUmKA7l9DqkuGHA5G2o_/s320/20150512_201142.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our refreshed living room</td></tr>
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Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2899086331107445618.post-70671744335744130042015-04-18T13:22:00.000-04:002015-04-18T13:24:24.248-04:00What a Beauty...and the Dog's Cute, too!The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.<br />
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<b>A Catcall I Didn't Utter During My 'blade-Ride</b></div>
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It was an adorable dog -- maybe a not-yet-grown, ginger, Portuguese water dog, if they come in ginger, and I was rollerblading past him or her, across the street. The dog, I noticed first, and then the dog's comely parent -- a woman perhaps not younger than I with longish brown hair and a gleaming smile.</div>
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As I sailed past, I nearly did yell out, "What a beauty...and the dog's cute, too!" But didn't, and smiled to myself, and wondered, What would have been so bad if I *had* yelled it? It's such a gorgeous day today and both of us were in an apparently good mood, and why not flirt as I rushed past? If she had heard me and registered what I'd said, wouldn't she have been not unpleasantly surprised? But then, it's not like I was rollerblading in some faraway land, where I'd never, ever see the woman again, except perhaps at the airport, if she were a tourist, too. </div>
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What if I ran into her at King's supermarket up the street? I'm sure I'd not be able to look her in the eye. That's the thing about being aggressively shy. And that's also the thing about reality vs. fantasy. It's easy to be socially bold when I feel safe. You can't catch me. I'm on Rollerblades. Hah! But she could let go of the leash on that gorgeous dog and have it chase and bite me if she weren't amused by my declaration and were sick of being objectified and this was the final offense and she wasn't going to remain passive anymore.</div>
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And besides, Pat's the most beautiful woman in the world to whom I've been exclusively devoted for all of our nearly 24 years together. Why am I even noticing anyone else? Because I'm also noticing the buds on the trees and every marvel of nature. There's actually a prayer we're supposed to say as Jews (to ourselves) whenever we see a beautiful person. There are also a couple for when we see extra-unusual people, and <a href="https://jewishdisabilityunite.wordpress.com/tag/freak-show-blessing-talmud-judaism-justice-society/" target="_blank">this site</a> goes into them. <a href="http://www.reformjudaism.org/practice/prayers-blessings/daily-blessings-wonders-nature" target="_blank">This site</a> tells us the prayer for spotting beautiful creatures, including human ones (see below).</div>
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How lucky I am to have a sunny Spring day and the able-bodiedness to 'blade around my town with confidence, and with the awareness of beauty around me. And how lucky to have this free platform to reflect on it, and good music -- the latest of which I heard was Louie Vega's faster, remixed version of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE4bEyHRllc" target="_blank">Dance</a>"several minutes ago -- and two sweet cats, and a wife who loves me and who is the most beautiful, funniest and most <i>menschlich</i> person I know!</div>
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And how lucky that I showed some judgment and did not catcall at the woman and dog, even as it might have been playfully all right. It turns out that it has been more fun, perhaps, to write about it than it would have been to have done it. </div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; font-variant: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: #fcfcfc; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On seeing the small-scale wonders of nature, such as beautiful trees, animals, and people:</strong></div>
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Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, shekacha lo beolamo.<span style="font-size: 1em; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.4em;"> </span></div>
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We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, that such as these are in Your world.</div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">Amen!</span></div>
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Sarah Siegelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16450372333989477835noreply@blogger.com0