The Russian Composer Song

Because of scheduling issues, I recorded this a few days in advance. So instead of trying to incorporate the latest developments, I’m giving my spirits a break with a more light-hearted classically trained musician’s take on immigration.

My wife caught me faux conducting Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto the other night. I tried not to meet her gaze because I was so deeply caught up in the music and I did not want to stop. But Rachmaninoff! An immigrant, from Russia, when Communists ruled it!Oh my God, can we forgive him for coming?

Have you ever heard a recording of Danny Kaye singing the Russian composer song from the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark? How many do we have to forgive for coming over? Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin listed fifty. Sorry, but I won’t give up Rachmaninoff for being an immigrant.

Have you heard about Tchaikovsky? My heavens, we take our children to see – or even dance in – the Nutcracker every winter. Gay! Tchaikovsky was gay, and I don’t mean happy. In fact, he was so distraught, he tried to satisfy wrong-wing extremists by going straight and getting married – his wife ran away screaming when she discovered. I’m from a musical family – my dad and daughter would have loved to meet Tchaikovsky – unless he tried to go straight and fool my admiring daughter. It would have been Platonic but special nevertheless.

I not only grew up hearing my dad play a Rachmaninoff prelude – a real finger cracker, but some Prokofiev too. Prokofiev was another Russian immigrant. OMG, have your children listened to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf? Was our culture “poisoned” by immigrants? Or enriched?

Kurt Weill wrote the music for the Threepenny Opera and Mack the Knife, but he was German. Dvorak wrote the New World Symphony while living here but he was – oh what would the [H]enry [H]iggins of My Fair Lady have said – [H]ungarian – butit’s OK, Dvorak didn’t stay.

Have you seen Oppenheimer, about the Manhattan Project that created the A-bomb? Filled with refugees. I studied with refugees and my college chemistry professor was part of the Manhattan Project. Yet somehow, instead of being totally corrupted, he was a generous, caring, patriotic man. And heavens, my late cousin was a physicist who studied and worked with famous immigrant physicists. Was she corrupted by the experience? Would lasers work better if she hadn’t worked with them? Everyone remembers her as a sweet, lovely person as well as a respected physicist – should I imagine a dagger in her heart because she knew, even studied with, foreigners.

Cancer took mama away from us when I was still in college. But her first experience of America was at Ellis Island – she was an eight-year-old immigrant. Thank heavens she came.

It happens that a road we often use has been blocked because of an explosion and fire that took out a pair of restaurants, possibly because of a gas leak, though we don’t yet know for sure. One of those restaurants served Thai food and we’ve both ordered from and eaten there. They too exemplified the ways immigrants enliven the area and the economy. I wish them well. My heart also goes out to the people, workers from other countries, who were lost in the collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the Baltimore harbor, and the families that depended on them. And may I add that the reason many of us are so torn by the war between Israel and Hamas is precisely the loss of life, foreign though they may be.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on April 16, 2024.

Thanksgiving Blessings for America

Our daughter, who lives in Cincinnati, is recovering from an accident. So we, our son and his family, went there for Thanksgiving this year. We had Thanksgiving dinner at a wonderful old Cincinnati hotel. At an appropriate point I had us focus on what we’re thankful for and started by saying that I’m grateful for the intelligence to have proposed to Jeanette fifty-six years ago. It’s a biological truism that none of us would’ve been the same without Jeanette, but she’s has been a great blessing to us all.

Then I pointed out that our families came from lots of places. Part of Jeanette’s family got here in the first boat after the Mayflower. My grandparents came from three different European countries and my mother was sent here at the age of eight to live with sisters who’d already come.

This country treated us well. It wasn’t easy but our families put us through college, as we did for our children. Everyone’s doing fine in our chosen fields and have strong ties of friendship to Americans of all kinds.

There are lots of people who say “I’ve got mine so I don’t care what happens to you.” We don’t feel that way. We’re grateful to America and want to pay that back by supporting its future. Without taking credit for what others did, immigrants built this country from the railroads to the restaurants, served in the military and fought in its wars, strengthened its universities, its science and its culture. We want a better and stronger America for ALL to enjoy – those who trace their families back to the Dutch, British, Spanish and Native founders, those for whose freedom our ancestors fought to keep making America better, and those who more recently found a haven here. We don’t take America for granted. Immigrants don’t take America for granted.

But too many seem to want to take it all back. Instead of honoring the genius of America’s principles, they’d choose who’s good enough to be American based on who their parents and ancestors were.

The Constitution prohibits hereditary titles, makes everyone born here citizens by birth, and repeatedly and deliberately includes everybody by referring to “Persons” and “inhabitant[s],” not people of specific ancestry or even people who have been here a given number of years, as the basis for representation and for rights.[1] But prejudice against immigrants has been growing.

The Constitution prohibits a “religious test … as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” prohibits any “law respecting an establishment of religion,” protects “the free exercise” of religion, and respects religious sensibilities by coupling the requirement of an “oath” with the alternative of an “affirmation.”[2] Those are the only references to religion in our Constitution, but there is rising sentiment to restrict by faith the rights granted by the Constitution.

White Nationalists dishonor what America was founded to accomplish, making clear that the so-called “right” is wrong and the left is right.

So let’s give thanks to the real America protected by the Constitution, with all the Amendments, consecrated “far above our poor power to add or detract” by “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled” at Gettysburg and after. And for those who seek to substitute for elections held under the Constitution, and substitute for public officials who uphold its rules and restraints, let us dedicate ourselves “to the great task remaining before us … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on November 28, 2023.

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[1] Art. I, secs. 9-10; Amend XIV, sec. 1.

[2] Art. VI, sec. 3; Amend. I.

Did You Catch the Grinch?

People are frustrated they and their children aren’t doing as well as their parents. There’s a grinch out there mucking things up. Did you catch it? It’s time to lock it up!

How come our parents’ did well? Education and immigration! !! Think mines and factories were staffed and roads and railroads built by the sons and daughters of the American Revolution? We got immigrants to do the dirty jobs – Chinese, Irish, Poles, all kinds of immigrants plus immigrants lured under false pretenses and then treated like slaves. America burst into an industrial powerhouse beginning with the Civil War when unlimited immigrants came. We bought, ate, rode and drove on what they made. They still want to do all that for the rest of us but we no longer let them. The jobs are different now – including agricultural and essential work – but the needs are still there.

And we used to make sure to educate them. Without education and immigration we’d be subsistence farmers with little to show for our efforts. Before the land grant colleges, authorized during the Civil War and financed with federal investment, our methods of agriculture were medieval. Without both education and immigration there’d be no infrastructure, no industry, no hospitals, no health systems.

The Republican response is cut, block and deport. Block and deport immigrants so there aren’t enough workers and nothing gets done except for complaining about inflation. Send back those who grew up here and let them take their educations somewhere else. They must imagine we’d be healthy if we could keep out all those who want to be our nurses, aides and doctors – you think we graduate enough doctors by ourselves? Silly.

Cut, block and deport. Cut their rich friends’ taxes. Cut every program, starting with Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act that benefits anyone else, and let most of us, including essential workers, squirm. Cut jobs and education because there’s no money. And there’s no money because Republican penny pinchers cut taxes for themselves and their rich friends!

The tax system has been continuously distorted by the wealthiest Americans and their corporations since 1980. The marginal tax rate for average Americans has been about a fifth of their income from 1970 to the present. In 1970, however, the top tax rate for the wealthy, paid only on their top dollars, was 70%. But the maximum tax rate, regardless of earnings, declined to 37% or about 3/8s of however much income they declare, and the wealthy actually pay much less because they have access to tax deductions and loopholes that most of us don’t. Remember Warren Buffet who was outraged to discover that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did.  No wonder we “can’t afford” anything – can’t afford to repair roads, water systems, or keep schools functioning at the same high level we benefitted from when we and our parents went to school. The grinches are making out like bandits.

Frankly, the wealthy ought to pay more than average Americans. They don’t need those high dollars as much as ordinary Americans need every penny of what they make. And they get a lot more benefits from government. Just ask their lobbyists!

So, did you find the Grinch? Lock it up and ship it out on the big plane Woody Guthrie labeled “Deportees.”

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on January 3, 2023.

On the Anniversary of Mother’s Death

— For the podcast, please click here. —

Some people talk about immigrants as if they’re threats.

Last Tuesday, I lit a candle for the anniversary of mother’s death. I was sixty miles away at college in New Jersey when I got the call to come to the hospital, hopped a train, switched to the subway and headed for the stop at the Williamsburg Savings Bank – I didn’t remember its name but remember my panic trying to find the right station and the hospital. Mother was still alive when I got there. While alone with her, in words burned into my memory, she said “It’s a good life; I don’t want to leave it.” A little while later she began coughing blood; we tried to find a nurse but it was all over. I never got to introduce her to her daughter-inlaw or grandchildren.

Mother was an immigrant. She came to the US in steerage with her twelve year old brother, Sam; mama was 8. If they’d stayed in Eastern Europe, they’d have had a small chance of survival. Mom and dad were very deliberate about not teaching me Yiddish. If you’d known them, you might not have realized they could speak it – their English was excellent, largely unaccented, and they were proud of it – even Brooklynese barely made a mark on their tongues. They wanted me to be an American. My dad tried to serve in World War I. His older brother served in France and I had cousins who served in World War II. America was good to them and they loved our country.

We didn’t get further out of state than New Jersey. But we traveled the length and breadth of this state. When I was a boy, a train engineer, Mr. Benedict, took me onto a yard engine in Hancock, NY, and let me take the controls. We Square Danced with the locals on the shores of Lake Champlain and men who’d been in the Dodger organization tried to give me pointers about pitching and batting. In 1955 my dad started taking us to Chautauqua, just about as far west in New York State as you can get. Chautauqua was founded in the 1870s as a summer school for Protestant Sunday school teachers. In the 1950s there were still no places of worship except Protestant churches and you had to be Protestant to own property, but we always felt welcome and loved the place.

On all the trips, to the Southern tier, Lake Champlain and Chautauqua there were historical places to see – markers, forts and battlefields from Saratoga to Lake Erie, homes where presidents lived, where President Grant wrote his autobiography, the Schuyler Mansion here in Albany, and many others. Dad and I became students of American history, joined the American History Book Club and devoured what we bought. When I was eleven, because I kept getting sick, a doctor in Crown Point pumped me full of penicillin and a doctor in Glens Falls lanced my ear drums. So I spent the time going through Kenneth Roberts’ historical novels – Northwest Passage about the French and Indian War, Rabble in Arms about the Revolution – and lots of books about Lincoln and Civil War history. I also studied the history of the labor union movement and lawyers, like Clarence Darrow, who fought for the working man.

Dad and I were born here, though he only learned English in school just like my mother did, but I knew the generation that came over. In my experience, love of America isn’t extraordinary, but typical, of immigrant families, with good reason.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on May 3, 2022.

A New Year for Refugees

[For the podcast, please click https://www.wamc.org/commentary-opinion/2022-01-04/a-new-year-for-refugees]

Dr. Henry Greenberg, of Columbia University’s Department of Epidemiology in its Mailman School of Public Health, copied me on a note he wrote dear friends of ours:

“Your achievements are wonderful to behold, and … be thankful for.  You are the proof that … the US, by [accepting newcomers from the world over, which] has traditionally been the source of our strength, remains the single best policy we have ever adopted.  That it is under threat is one of the great shames of the age.”

Absolutely. Our friends were imprisoned in their home country for providing medical care to people who suffered prejudice and discrimination. Worse, at international conferences, our friends described how they reached and provided care to people afraid to come out of the shadows. There was a local and international effort to get the brothers out. After the younger brother was released and came back to Albany, we stood around with many mutual friends praying until his brother was freed and came back here. The two were honored and recognized in Washington, Hollywood and worldwide. One blushingly showed me where the actress Sharon Stone kissed him while presenting him with one of those awards.

They continued working with the medical community here and abroad to assist people otherwise consigned to early graves by the combination of serious illness and devastating prejudice. MDs when they first came to the US, one got a degree in Public Health here and then added a degree in human rights from Oxford. I challenged him about why he was getting yet another degree. But it enabled him to speak much more knowledgeably about patients’ rights and to expand the network of people who were happy to help. The brothers employed many here and abroad while bringing honor and skill to America, and extended the reach of American medicine.

I’m describing the work of one extraordinary pair of brothers. But, as Henry explained, they’re an example of a process that has worked well for us. America’s scientific leadership advanced when the greats of German science arrived as refugees and added their cutting-edge skills and knowledge to ours. In field after field, American prominence and dominance benefitted from that combination. The issue isn’t who was better before but who had more when combined. I don’t even want to think about what would happen now if refugees starting finding other places to bring their skills.

Henry adds that “a friend whose father sold flowers in the Alexandria fish market … [became] health commissioner of Detroit in his early 30s. Countries like ours, with native-born fertility less than replac[ing our population] should lust after a Syrian who will travel a thousand miles of peril to start over.”

I know many fear competition from immigrants, but there are many ways to protect people, and economists tell us refugees actually create jobs and fuel development of American business. They stimulate jobs for the housing, transportation, goods, services and English teachers they’ll need. They can help with many things we need, like daycare so parents can go to work. Some will start local businesses or launch businesses with wider footprints. Whatever we spend on immigrants comes back into the community. With a little local planning it can be a win-win for everyone.

To me, inviting refugees is a moral issue. Too many die from civil war, corruption and lawlessness. Kudos to all the groups helping to settle Afghan refugees locally. Let’s make it a Happy New Year for them and for us.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, January 4, 2022.

How to Make America Great Again

Making a great America is a driver of American politics. People wear MAGA hats, short for Make America Great Again. So what made America great?

First, George Washington had American troops vaccinated against smallpox in the Revolutionary War. Smallpox didn’t lay American troops low, which helped them win against a bigger, stronger enemy. Thank you, George. He had his faults – owning slaves – though he turned against slavery and his will freed those he owned. In the 20^th century, children like me were vaccinated against smallpox and carried the characteristic circular scar on our shoulders for years – you don’t want to know what smallpox did to its victims.

Second, we were a small population with no ability to exert power abroad. But the country had no restrictions on immigration, none – immigrants were sought to build all the states’ economies. They came from all over the world and brought their languages with them, learning English in school, in the Army and by mixing with those here already – my parents, your parents, almost everybody’s parents.

Their principal port of entry was New York City. They flowed up the Hudson Valley to the Erie Canal and the rail lines that followed on the same route. Then they flowed west to Ohio and the old Northwest territory, building Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota particularly, and down the Ohio River, opening up the Midwest. If you look at a map of industry in the U.S., it followed the immigration route. What we think of as the rustbelt was the powerhouse of the country. Troy, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and Chicago were industrial cities among many others along the route – indeed central New York was wealthy. By the beginning of World War I, we had the population of a major power and needed it to fight that battle and the Second World War as well.

In other words, vaccines and immigration were crucial to making America great.

We now face many worldwide threats, especially China. They’ve been threatening to overwhelm almost all their neighbors. How? Their population is over three times our size. Once China’s government threw off the limits of communism and empowered their population, they developed the economic and military power consistent with a population of over a billion people.

We wring our hands over dealing with China’s power. Obama’s “pivot” to China was both brilliant and inadequate. Brilliant because the agreement he negotiated would have kept us in the loop and included most of the Pacific in a trade agreement that limited China. Inadequate because the trade agreement posed problems for American workers that weren’t dealt with. China now matches most of our military power and would in fact overwhelm us too in any distant conflict.

Meanwhile, Russia and Belarus are weaponizing immigration to destabilize western Europe, the EU, NATO, and us. Think what it would mean if we invited the refugees, and continued the 19^th and 20^th century project of building our population, industrial base and military power.

The MAGA folks are doing exactly the reverse. They ignore our history while claiming to celebrate it. They ignore the contribution of immigration, African-Americans and people of color to the size and power of the U.S. and its economy. They ignore the contribution of public health, clean water and vaccinations. They ignore the victory over slavery and prejudice that plugged the great American weakness, the revitalization of the South that followed the end of segregation and the revitalization of the country spurred by the Civil Rights and feminist movements.

How should we make America great again? Educate the MAGA folk; wake them up! And may our Thanksgivings include all those blessings.

— If you think I’m on target, please pass it on. For the podcast, please click here. This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on November 22, 2021.

My feelings about this election

It’s hard to describe my feelings. The great founding documents of our country seemed like they’d always be with us. When we participated in the Civil Rights Movement we thought were working for a better America. We never believed it could all disappear. We were brought up reciting the Gettysburg Address. We knew parts of the Declaration of Independence by heart. Some of us knew deals with the devil of slavery underlay the creation of the Constitution but also knew it had given us a platform to make a better world for everyone. We took it all for granted. Until the White House tenant threatened to take it all away.

I was born in New York City. Before I was four years old I knew this country was fighting with everything at its disposal to defeat Hitler and his Nazi butchers, who were exterminating Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gays, Poles, Slavic peoples, political opponents, people with disabilities and those Hitler called “useless eaters” in concentration camps. I felt safe in Brooklyn, and proud. I remember telling myself I lived in the greatest city in the greatest country in the world. How great is that. Kids are naïve but I believed in and loved this country. I thought I knew what it stood for and what it stood for was great, admirable, and indeed the world admired us for it.

Our country’s Founders understood that people in a democratic republic must learn to share and care about each other. John Dickinson signed our Constitution, paid a fine to free slaves and wrote, “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall!” In 1782, Congress approved our national motto, e pluribus unum, out of many one, for the Great Seal of the United States.

This country opened its arms to Christians, Jews and Muslims. Universities, founded on sectarian lines, gradually widened their welcome. The Founders repeatedly described the need for immigration. The public school movement intentionally brought rich and poor together. The 19th century Army, recruited on ethnic and linguistic lines, needed an integrated fighting force. Teddy Roosevelt told us that “the military tent, where all sleep side-by-side, will rank next to the public school among the great agents of democratization.” By the end of the 2nd World War the Army played a large part in breaking down ethnic and religious barriers among us. Soldiers formed friendships with men all over the country, introduced each other to their families, often to future brides.

Corporations broke down barriers among employees so they could work together. Integration preceded Brown by centuries – race was just the latest barrier to break down. It was breaking down before World War II, when African-American stars like Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson were wildly popular with national audiences on stage, screen, radio and opera. The world was changing before Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field. National polls revealed that the public supported Brown. Martin Luther King would say, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

It’s pretty personal for me. I married a North Carolina girl, whose ancestry traces to the British isles, and always felt welcomed by her family.

So when Trump encourages people who celebrate Hitler and display their guns to scare and intimidate public officials, suggests they use their Second Amendment rights to lock up candidates, that there are good people among those who spawn hate crimes, and threatens not to accept the election results, he cuts the very guts out of the country I love. I don’t know how to express how sad, depressed and anxious I feel. Alan Paton wrote a book about South Africa he called Cry the Beloved Country. I stop myself from crying while there is still a chance to save it.

We all need to vote.

— This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, on October 27, 2020.

Strategies for Working People—Unity vs. Let’s You and Him Fight

I want to talk with Trump’s white supporters for a moment. Workingmen and women, white and black, have real grievances. Big shots want you to play Let’s You and Him Fight because then nobody gets anything and all of us slave for the bosses. That’s a game of rhetoric. Some big shots bellow about bad people coming across the southern border – women and children mostly – or Black people with the effrontery to suggest that cops shouldn’t be shooting them in the back. Some whites object that Blacks are trying to be higher on the pecking order but there isn’t a single job produced by that rhetoric and it won’t shrink the deaths of despair from drink and drugs that have been taking too many white as well Black lives. White men and women want, need and deserve jobs – decent ones that you can take care of your families with. But all Trump gave you is that bellowing. Everyone knows how to create jobs – things need to be built and improved – some talk about infrastructure ‘til they’re blue in the face but Republicans block it – first they didn’t want a Black president to take credit for improving our infrastructure but they insist everything should be produced by capitalistic magic – a fancy way to say they don’t want to do anything for you or the country. The internet and electrical grids need to be improved and hardened – including the retraining that could create a real income stream. But they stopped Obama, and they stopped the work. What good did that give you? Bragging rights? Try and feed your families bragging rights.

The other strategy is unity, working together, forming or growing unions, welcoming everyone so unions get stronger. That’s what Republicans really fear because unions and unity could really get you better jobs, better pay, better lives and better futures. They’ve been cutting back on union rights since the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. I know – only us old guys remember that but it’s been continuous for seven decades – so that unions have been shrunk to a fraction of their former strength. Unions once gave you power, not just bragging rights but money in your pockets.

If we built what this country needs, the country would be stronger and the work would be here in the U.S. The big shots don’t want that; they don’t care about what our country needs or what you need for a decent future. They can invest their money all over the globe. They can have their companies buy company stock back with company dollars and increase its value – that’s a pure financial gimmick, not a reflection of what the company can do – just stock manipulations and it doesn’t do a thing for you.

I don’t believe that our country should withdraw from the world – that would leave us in a dangerously weak position. But we have been watching countries all over the globe, on literally every continent, narrow the gap toward our strength by simply investing in what they need, and investing in the education that produces the trained and educated talent they need. But this government is driven by people for whom only dollars and votes talk – so we’d better get the votes because we sure haven’t got the dollars. Unions and unity can bring those votes together and design strategy that will lead to common objectives.

Either we work together or undercut each other. If we are to get beyond Trumpian bellowing to real results, we have to unite. If we can do that, we’ll all be holding our heads high – and winning what we all need – jobs, salaries, futures – instead of hot air.

— This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on the WAMC Northeast Report, on October 6, 2020.

 

A House Divided Cannot Stand

Trump’s base thinks they can make America great by kicking out people they don’t like, people with different heritage, faith or color. Yet the evidence is that there are more and better jobs available in communities with more recent immigrants. A larger economy creates jobs and opportunities. It needs more goods and services. By contrast the effort to get rid of people is what economists call a deadweight loss. Deadweight because it is costly but produces nothing. We accomplish more working together than working against each other.

America’s great accomplishments have all come from making it easier to work together. Even before the Constitution, the states gave each other’s citizens all the “privileges and immunities” they gave their own. Sadly, they left most African-Americans in slavery, but they created a common economy to take advantage of America’s size and scale. The Constitution tightened and enlarged those promises. A single economy gave us the resources to do what a great nation must do and do well.

Before we could adopt what were called internal improvements like roads and canals, we had to learn that jealousy beggars us all. Projects wouldn’t pass without spreading the benefits to the vast majority of us. The Washington Administration designed the first American financial system. The Jefferson Administration purchased the Louisiana territory from the French and built what they called “the national road,” connecting the seaboard with the Ohio River valley. Steps like that laid the foundation for America to connect the oceans and stave off the European powers that still kept land and garrisons to our north, west and south.

The Civil War threatened everything but for the fact that Lincoln kept the British from intervening on behalf of Confederate cotton, and he kept the Union together.

American power solidified after the Civil War made ours one country, ended slavery, and Lincoln signed, in 1862 alone, the transcontinental Railroad Act, the Homestead Act and the act that built the great land grant universities, which together laid the agricultural, commercial, industrial and intellectual basis for America as the dominant twentieth century power.

We can’t have a great nation by fighting among ourselves. We can’t maintain national infrastructure by jealously keeping others from the benefits. We can’t maintain a great educational system by fighting over whom to keep out. We can’t continue to grow and prosper by jealously excluding each other from important national institutions. As Lincoln told us, “A house divided cannot stand.”

Armed ethnic, religious and racial animosities threaten American power and success. We’re all threatened by domestic terrorists who target people because of the color of their skin, the words and language they use to pray, or where they came from.

America’s strength has always been Americans’ ability to work together. Our major institutions understood the importance of cross-cultural cooperation. The U.S. Army worked to unify soldiers with different heritage, faith or color and who spoke different languages so that all could work as a team. Corporations unified their workforces, capped with ceremonies in which new Americans stepped out of what were labeled melting pots. Major sports leagues learned to take advantage of talent regardless of where it came from. Schools taught each new wave of Americans about democracy and gave them the skills to participate in our government and our economy.

It’s time that all Americans get with the program for the greater good of all of us – including any orange-Americans.

—This commentary was scheduled for broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, March 3, 2020.

 

 

Never Again Means Never Again

I joined a demonstration Sunday afternoon. It was called partly to make clear that Jews are not slaves to Trump regardless of his policies toward Israel. It was part of Never Again Action across the country to protest the use of concentration camps to hold people fleeing from persecution, now most urgently on our Mexican border. We were joined by good people of all colors, origins and faiths, many of whom I know and admire.

Justice Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, told the world in his opening statement that “civilization cannot tolerate … [the Nazi’s wrongs] being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”[1] Never again and condemnation of the Holocaust was never just about Jews. These were crimes against all humanity. ICE, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Trump get no atrocities pass.

Never Again protested holding kids in cages, separating children from their families, keeping immigrants in concentration camps, plus denying them everything from soap to medical care. It is not OK to do that to people whatever they look like or the language they use to speak or pray. It’s not OK to refuse to help people who are fleeing for their lives. It’s not OK to rename refugees “illegals” and treat them as if they have no rights even to the basics for survival. And it’s not OK for Sheriff Russo to assist ICE to round up decent, law-abiding people fleeing for their lives to the country that promised the world to advance life, liberty, freedom from fear and freedom from want. And yes, I did call them law-abiding – it’s not a crime to cross the border.

So we congregated at a park in South Troy and then marched to the Rensselaer County Correctional Facility. Rabbi Gordon reminded the crowd that when Rabbi Heschel was criticized for marching on the sabbath in the Civil Rights Movement, he responded, “I prayed with my feet.”  We prayed with our feet, as appropriate when our voices are not enough.

When we reached the jail, we were reminded of the names of people who died in US custody near the Mexican border. We remembered them with the Kadish, the ancient Jewish prayer for the dead. It’s a prayer I recite tearfully as I have recited it for my parents and others I held dear.

The march was peaceful and we had been instructed to obey the laws. But a group sat across the road leading to the jail and eventually people from the county police came to talk to those blocking the road. I saw Mark Mishler, as attorney for the demonstrators, come to join the discussion. I heard them discuss alternatives available to the police. When they got to the possibility of arrest, I heard Mark tell the officer that “There are people here who lost their families in the holocaust…. As Jews we have seen these things before and we are not going to be like the ‘good Germans’ who stood by and let it happen in Germany, that we will not allow detentions and family separations happen in our country without taking a stand. And, that’s why the people blocking the road are not going to leave.” If they left, they would be tortured by the thought that they had not done everything they could to stop others from being confined in inhumane conditions as their families had been.

Never again means never again, anywhere. It means that at home as much as anywhere else. We will not be complicit.

[1] Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (10 November 1945).