In Tragedy, the United States Joins the Rest of the World

In 2008 when we entered the synagogue in Florence, Italy we had to go through a metal detector. The people there were grateful that their synagogue was again in use as a place of worship, as a community center, and as a Jewish Museum.

When we went to the main synagogue and Jewish Museum in Buenos Aires in 2012, we were buzzed in after answering a list of questions. Even then, we were not allowed to wander through the building independently but had to go on a tour. When my husband left the group for two minutes to take a picture, the tour guide had a fit and asked where he was going. A British couple on the tour with us told us that these precautions were taken at their synagogue in London as well.

In 2014, we traveled to Eastern Europe. In Budapest, we attended Shabbat services at a Reform Jewish Congregation. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming. They invited us to stay for a potluck dinner during which we had conversations with several congregants who told us how threatened they felt by the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Hungary.

In 2015, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo killings, we were in Paris. French soldiers guarded the Musee du Judiasme and other Jewish sites in addition to the major tourist spots. Unlike the first three countries, the French government tried to protect French Jews against anti-Semitic attacks. Nevertheless, the sight of all the soldiers was unsettling to us and to French people unused to living with a military presence.

After those trips, I was grateful to come home to the United States where I could live in safety as a Jew. This feeling changed when our current President was elected. During the campaign, he had expressed many anti-Semitic views and released various dog whistles of anti-Semitism subliminally encouraging his supporters to express their anti-Semitism any way they wanted to.

Since the 2016 election, there has been a marked increase in anti-Semitic and other racist incidents. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reports a 35% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2016 and a 57% rise in 2017. Up until this Saturday, October 27^th, those incidents had mainly involved property damage. No Jews had been killed. After the Current Occupant gave permission saying at a press conference that the Nazis and KKKers in Charlottesville were “fine people”, it was just a matter of time until the violence escalated.

It had already been open season on African-Americans. Two black people, Vicki Lee Jones and Maurice E Stallard, were murdered while shopping in a Kroger’s supermarket on October 25^th.  When people are killed because of their ethnicity in an atmosphere that condones it, we are all at risk for our lives. 

Although we Jews are not as visibly identifiable as African-Americans are, we are also numerically a minority. Anti-Semites know where to find us and so they did. Eleven Jews were killed in their synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27^th.

Last night October 29th, we stood with our friends and hundreds of others at a vigil in Skokie. We mourned the deaths of the eleven people who were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh as well as the two people who were killed at a Kroger supermarket for living while black in the new USA. I also mourned for the dream of America as a beacon of hope and freedom throughout the world that died for me the day that bigotry was elected.

Today we mourn. Tomorrow we people of good will must find a way forward to turn America back to pursuing its ideals.

The Art of Re-Gentrification at the National Museum of Mexican Art

One of our favorite museums to visit in Chicago is The National Museum of Mexican Art www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org. It is located in Pilsen, one of Chicago’s Mexican neighborhoods, at 1852 W. 19^th Avenue. Always with free admission, it is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 to 5:00.

One of the enjoyable things about going to the Museum is walking around Pilsen and seeing some of the wall murals and we were able to do that this time.

Since we had been to all the permanent exhibits of the museum we decided to visit its temporary one “Peeling Off the Grey.” The theme of this exhibit is the growing gentrification of Pilsen and the effects of this trend on long-time residents of the neighborhood.

Always a neighborhood of immigrants, Pilsen was first settled by Czechs and then Polish, hence its name popularly known for that brand of beer. After that in the 1940’s, Mexican-Americans began moving into the area. Self-help groups and other associations were established and many in the Mexican community adopted it as their home.

In recent years, there has been a movement afoot to "re-gentrify" parts of Pilsen. As that happens, housing prices have risen and it has pushed many long-time Mexican-American residents out of their homes. Since 2000, 10,300 residents were forced to leave their neighborhood due to rising rents. The exhibit is a cry of anguish and a protest against re-gentrification as the people in Pilsen watch their neighborhood being torn apart. It is also a reminder that we as a society need to make sure that we have enough affordable housing to keep communities intact.

It says "My House is not Your House"

The exhibit about the encroaching re-gentrification of Pilsen is political as is much of the art in the National Museum of Mexican Art is, including some of my favorite pieces in the museum. This is one of them. 

It was done years ago but expresses the anxieties of this group that have escalated since our current president was elected.

The fear and anxiety of the community is expressed also in the quietude heard and felt in the neighborhood. On previous visits, the area had always been bustling with people. On that day, it felt like a ghost town. Usually when we visit the National Museum of Mexican Art, we go to a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood for lunch. That day we cast about for a restaurant that had some people in it. 

Although there are several restaurants on 18^th Street, many looked pretty empty. The Five Rabanitos had some people eating there so we went in. The food was great. It’s a short walk from the 18^th Street stop of the Pink Line. The prices are reasonable, too. I highly recommend it if you’re in the area. Patronizing the Mexican owned businesses is a good way to support their community during these “interesting times” - and delicious, too.

At the Precipice, I March to the Polls. Every Vote Counts.

On March 13, I did something that I’ve done every year since I turned 21 and that’s a lot of years at this point. I marched to the polls. The difference was that this time, I had the company of many thousands of others.

Election Day is only three weeks away and we had a lot to march for. We rallied at Chicago’s Grant Park – many young and many of us veterans of decades of election days, mostly women but also men who are on our side, whites and people of color.

The marches and the rallies are important. They get us inspired to go vote, to make phone calls, to write letters, to do voter registration drives. The idea of this march was to get people psyched to go to the polls.

I marched for many reasons. I marched to be counted. I marched to serve notice that I won’t accept America's becoming a Fascist state. I marched to say that bigotry is never okay. I marched because we won’t allow this last-ditch effort by the current regime to turn back the clock on women’s rights to be successful. I marched because I don’t want the Affordable Care Act or any other parts of American’s fraying social safety net to be torn apart. I marched because I refuse to be silent.

I welcome the young women that spoke who are running for elected office for the first time and the high school and college students who spoke. I welcome all the new voters who were there and marched to the early voting sites, those who will vote on Election Day, those who will vote early in their cities and villages and those who will vote by absentee ballots.

Marching isn’t enough. With all the voter suppression going on, those of us who can vote must vote. It’s our only recourse left and we have to use it while we still have it. The march went from Grant Park to the Federal Plaza. From there it split off to two early voting sites, one for Chicago voters and one for those who live in the Cook County suburbs of Chicago. I hope that a lot of votes were cast on Saturday after the march was over.

As always in my adopted city of Chicago, I will vote early. I wish I could vote often but fortunately, even here that’s no longer allowed. So you all have to support me by voting, too.

We have to vote this time. We can’t have anyone sitting this Election Day out. Ninety million people failed to vote in 2016 and that has brought America to the precipice. There is too much at stake. Your vote matters. Every vote matters. VOTE!!

In Illinois, sites will be open in various places for early voting beginning on October 22^nd. If you don’t know where you can vote early, you can call your County Clerk’s office or the Board of Elections and ask.

Changing the Rules in the Middle of the Game, the Indians Win!!

Growing up, I always thought of Columbus Day as a day off from school that I hoped wouldn’t be used to go shopping for sales. I come from a family who always regarded bargain hunting as their favorite sport, but I was never a fan of it.

Of course, I absorbed all the myths about Columbus, the discoverer of the Americas. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned about his abuse of the indigenous peoples whom he “discovered.” Much later I asked myself how someone could discover a land that had already been inhabited by people for thousands of years. I had long ago reached that level of consciousness when two years ago, the city of Evanston voted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in place of Columbus Day and so I went to many of the day’s events.

This year as before, most of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Events took place at the Mitchell Museum www.mitchellmuseum.org. This museum houses the many native American artifacts that the Mitchells collected. It has since grown and changes its exhibits often. One can go to the museum every so often and see different things than seen on the last visit.

Couple At Sunset by David Johns, Navaho

This is one of my favorite paintings from the Museum.

other Navaho crafts on display

My schedule for that day didn’t allow me much time to attend events, but I felt that it was important in this era of racial animosity fueled by our current regime for all peoples especially minorities to support one another.

I was glad that I was able to attend a story telling session presented by Ernest Whiteman, an Arapaho from Wyoming. Since the audience was primarily young children with their moms, Mr. Whiteman geared the stories to them. He told the children a story of when he was seven years old and playing cowboys and Indians by himself role playing both sides. He said not knowing that he was an Indian and thinking that Indians didn’t exist, he always let the cowboys win. His older brother walked by and watching his game, reprimanded him for allowing the cowboys to win. “After all, we’re Indians,” he said.

When Mr. Whiteman refused to believe this, his brother told him to “ask Dad.” When he asked his father if their family were Indians, his father replied, “Yes, son, we’re Arapahos.”

At that point, Mr. Whiteman learned of his ethnic identity and in effect, the Indians finally won a battle. Another Indian child was no longer lost.

In the United States today, there are over 500 tribes recognized by the United States Government and another 150 tribes awaiting that official validation. I hope that they all know who they are and are teaching it to their children. I’m glad that the City of Evanston gives children here the opportunity to know about native Americans and thus be prepared to live in our multi-cultural country.

If you didn’t attend Indigenous Peoples’ festivities this year, look for them next October. I’m sure you’ll learn something if you do go.

A Great Ending to Summer at Touhy Beach

What can be better than art work and the beach in the same place on a beautiful summer day? For the past 25 years, the Rogers Park Community in Chicago has gotten together to create art at the beach and raise funds for community projects. Individuals, small groups, and organizations can buy sections of a long, cement bench to paint whatever their spirits move them to paint. Each spring the bench is white washed so that people can paint it again.

At the beginning of the wall

We’ve been going to view this great community art project every summer for the past few years but had somehow missed it this year until a week ago. I was glad to see that all our rains this summer hadn’t washed the painting away. We were able to see all the artwork in full color.

the colorful painted bench.

I’m sharing some of my favorites with you so that you can get an idea of the spirit of it. As they say, one picture is worth 1000 words.

I love this picture. I've always felt that the beach is our reward here for enduring the never ending Chicago winters. This picture expresses that spirit on the beach trying to enjoy our rare moments of sun and warmth.

This one was very decorative and I thought beautiful.

Many of the sections advocate for causes. I believe in all of the causes advocated in this section of the bench.

I love the spirit of this one.

And now sadly, summer has come to an end. I'm looking forward to next summer when the neighborhood artists will have the opportunity to express themselves in all the many ways that they choose.

The Greatest Escape in Appleton, Wisconsin

Every year we meet our friends, who live in Northern Wisconsin, somewhere halfway in Central Wisconsin for a good, face to face visit. We’ve been friends for so long that even meeting for 24 to 48 hours gives us plenty of time to catch up. This year, we chose Appleton, Wisconsin, a town with a population of 75,000. It’s amazing the things we don’t know about all the places big and small in our country.

As we walked around Houdini Plaza, we found a statue and a plaque dedicated to none other than Harry Houdini, the great escape artist. We were surprised to hear that he was from Appleton and even more surprised to learn that their history museum’s major permanent exhibit was all about him. Since very few museums anywhere have this type of exhibit I was intrigued to see it.

The museum is housed in a castle that was originally a Masonic Temple and is worth seeing in itself.

The second floor of the building is devoted to the Harry Houdini exhibit. Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary in 1874. He and his family emigrated to America in 1878 ending up in Appleton. His father was employed as the rabbi at the synagogue in Appleton and worked there for four years. He was then let go because the congregation felt that he wasn’t modern enough. This was the first home that Erik/Harry remembers and the city of Appleton seems to have adopted him as a native son.

After Mr. Weisz lost the rabbinate position, the family moved to Milwaukee and then New York where in both places, they lived in extreme poverty. As the oldest of seven children, Erik AKA Harry felt responsible for helping to support his family. He quit school and went to work doing various jobs and then trying for years to make it in Vaudeville as a magician. He got his first break in 1899 when he was recognized in St. Paul, Minnesota and the rest is should we say, history.

Among Harry Houdini’s quotes the one I found most telling was “My chief task has been to conquer fear.” His wife also said that the main challenge for Harry that enabled him to perform all his life-threatening stunts was to conquer all his fears. He later used his celebrity status to advocate for women’s suffrage and to try to expose fraudulent spiritualists who were prevalent at that time.

The exhibit in Appleton is mostly devoted to memorabilia about Houdini including some of the equipment he used for his stunts. They do this in a hands-on way giving visitors to the museum the opportunity to try it out. In the back of each stunt display is an explanation of how Houdini managed to accomplished these feats often with sleight of hand and other magician tricks. Altogether it was a very entertaining exhibit and good to go to with children because of the hands-on nature of much of the exhibit. Should you find yourself in Central Wisconsin, this exhibit is certainly worth a visit.

Re-visiting the United States One Year Later

A year ago, I turned on my television to watch “Jeopardy!” In the Chicago area, it’s broadcast at 3:30 in the afternoon. This was the first time in weeks that I’d been home at that time to watch it. You can imagine my disappointment when Alex Trebek was preempted because the current occupant of the White House was giving a press conference.

The weekend before, neo-Nazis and white racists had joined forces in Charlottesville, Virginia to march with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Our president had called the press conference to insist vociferously that many people marching with Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan were “fine people.” Worse than that was my realization that more that 62million Americans had voted for him and another 90million had allowed him to win by not voting at all. Although I was born in the United States as were my parents and two of my grandparents, I felt like my country had been taken away from me. I had just become stateless.

Nazis/white supremacists marching in Charlottesville in 2017

Now a year later, I am relieved that only 25 Nazi/racists marched in Washington overpowered by thousands of counter-protesters. The New York Times reports that these bigots are now shying away from marches and organizing more hate in the shadows. America is still on the brink. As of February 26, 2018, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reports that there were 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States since the election of 2016. The Southern Poverty Law Center is tracking 954 hate groups in the United States. The groups target African-Americans, Jews, Muslims, Mexican-Americans, and people in the LBGTQ community. Both the ADL and the SPLC report that there has been a large spike in hate activity since the 2016 election.

In the upcoming elections, five self-avowed Nazis are running for Congress on the Republican ticket. In Illinois, the Governor and regular party people have directed their constituents not to vote for this candidate. Nevertheless, their statements came much too late - after the primary elections. They did not prevail on any party regular to run against this Nazi in the Republican primary and 20,000 people voted for him. While five is a small number – there are 435 Representatives in Congress – it is still pretty frightening. To my knowledge, having five Nazi candidates running as Republicans is unprecedented.

Can we breathe sighs of relief now that the Nazi rally was so poorly attended? I don’t think so. During the 2016 election campaign, T ran a campaign of bigotry. As you all remember, he began his political career with innuendos about Pres. Obama’s citizenship. This was followed by his racist statements about Mexicans. From there, he went on to talk of establishing a registry of Muslims in the United States. His rhetoric and election victory have emboldened a Pandora’s box of hatred to come out and flourish. It’s going to take a lot more than a couple of tweets saying that all Americans must come together to put those ills back in the box. It’s incumbent on every American to resist the forces of hatred and racism as much as we possibly can.