More Rainbows, Please

Saturday, October 14, 2023 

Prime Directive -- Don’t kill Jews. 

Isn't it sufficient to rely upon the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13)?  Except for the blind spot that so many people have had toward Jews in this regard.  We seem to be outside the realm of some people’s morality.  Killing and kidnapping civilians is labeled Resistance, which removes the victims from consideration.

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We were back at J&M Diner, 50 Worcester Road, Framingham, for lunch (see September 1, 2023).  I had the Homemade Corned Beef Hash Omelette, a test of their kitchen and my digestive system ($18).  They both seem to have done quite well, although it may take several more hours to complete the assessment.  I enjoyed the English muffin served, a local brand, different from the typical Thomas’s version, thicker, with an even surface, not the characteristic nooks and crannies.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

We were joined at breakfast at The Cottage, 190 Linden Street, Wellesley, by two family friends and their teenage daughters.  The food and service was good enough to almost excuse the restaurant's promise that we "Enjoy the clean eating and fresh flavors of Southern California without leaving Wellesley, Massachusetts."  I had a large portion of Brioche French toast with bourbon pecan caramel sauce ($18), as sticky, gooey as you might expect, hardly Californian or New Englandish. 

The good mood of enduring friendship was leavened by one of the women's concern for her 18-year old son, spending his gap year in Israel, recently harvesting dates.  It was hard for her to take her eyes off her mobile phone even after her son assured her that he was safe and chose to remain in Israel for the present.    

Monday, October 16, 2023

I am unsure whether Israel's decision to wait to conduct a ground invasion of Gaza is strategic or circumstantial, merely governed by practical considerations, but it keeps its opponents and much of the world in suspense, providing the opportunity to reflect on what has led us to this point.  Whether any of us learn anything is to be determined.

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I listened to a talk hosted by our special friend Marianne Motherby from Berlin this afternoon.  The Right Honorable Sir Konrad Schiemann discussed his memoir “A Dual Perspective: The German in an English Judge.”  

As a German orphan after WWII, he came to England to be raised by an uncle who left Germany before the war.  Eventually, he rose to be a Lord Justice of Appeal in Britain and then a judge of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.  

His story had potentially a Tom Stoppard “Leopoldstadt” element to it; his mother was Jewish, married to a Nazi naval officer.  Yet, it seemed to make no difference to him.  His mother survived the war seemingly without incident, only to commit suicide when learning belatedly of her husband’s death late in the war.

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Michael Ratner and I went to Chinatown for lunch at Golden Shanghai, 50 Mott Street, previously the site of New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe.  The change wasn’t necessarily for the better.  There are 37 lunch specials at $9.95, including a choice of hot and sour or egg drop soup and white rice.  We both had hot and sour soup, a little heavy on the sour, and swapped back and forth beef with scallions and sweet and sour chicken, conventional dishes.  Additionally, we shared House Special Crispy Duck (Half), with a side of hoisin sauce to give it sparkle ($25.95). 

There was nothing wrong with the meal, but it was Chinatown and I thought that we wasted an opportunity.

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What a welcome sight.

 

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

The current Israeli/Palestinian conflict has opened up two seams on some college campuses.  One divide is between the administration and (predominantly Jewish) alumni dissatisfied with belated or tepid responses to the Hamas attacks of October 7th.  The other divide is between Jewish students and apologists for evil and depravity, a/k/a pro-Palestinian students. 

Harvard is experiencing these controversies after a consortium of over 30 student groups posted an open letter, saying that Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence that ended up killing more than 1,400 people, most of them Israeli civilians.   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/us/harvard-students-israel-hamas-doxxing.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Some pro-Palestinian students have been harassed on or about campus and some major employers have withdrawn or threaten to withhold employment offers from members of the participating student organizations.  This has come as a surprise to some of the best and brightest.  Said one, "You kind of feel like you’re responsible,” obviously unaware of Newton's Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

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All the international news is not gloomy.  In Poland, voters rejected right-wing populism.  "It boiled down to a choice between two different visions of the future: one dominated by nationalism, traditional Catholic norms and the defense of Polish sovereignty; the other by promises to 'bring Poland back to Europe' and the liberal democratic values espoused by the European Union."   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/17/world/europe/poland-election-law-and-justice.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=highlightShare

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Just as I urged you last week, I attended the talk by Steven Zipperstein about his forthcoming biography of Philip Roth.  I am a sucker for erudition and Zipperstein thoroughly demonstrated it.  I hope that you experienced it as well.

Friday, October 20, 2023

After the book talk on Monday, I wrote to dear Marianne Motherby.  “I enjoyed the session with Sir Konrad Schiemann, but ethnocentric me was bothered by his discounting the importance of his family’s Jewish background.  What was fateful for so many others seemed of little importance to him."  This morning, to my surprise, I received a letter from Sir Konrad, forwarded by Marianne.  "I am deeply sorry that part of what I said about my family’s jewish background gave you the impression that the holocaust seemed of little importance to me."  He left Germany when he was 7-years old.  "When I came to England, every effort was made to distance me from Third Reich memories, as I explain in the book.  So about such matters a discreet silence was kept."  In Germany and England, his family was totally secular.  "We were simply not brought up to think of ourselves as jews or jewish.  It was not a category by which we divided mankind."  This is a commendable universalist thought, neither subscribed to by philosemites nor antisemites.