This photo isn't Dr. Barasch, but he looks like him. Barasch taught Psych at California State College(now Cal U of Pa) back in the late 60s-early 70s, and I had him for a course or two. He was a good teacher, and I was saddened to hear he'd died some time ago. I figured this might be a good way to memorialize him. He'd have gotten a kick out of the photo, I think.
He was born here (the only one of his seven other siblings, he said), to devoutly Orthodox parents in 1913, but as his father died when the boy was 13, young Sidney probably never finished high school, and as a first-generationer American most likely viewed his religion with disdain. Drafted in WWII, his tests showed him to be extremely bright, and so he was transferred into MI. After the war, he probably finished school and went on to college. Psych being rather militantly atheistic at that time (and most likely still), he jettisoned his religious beliefs entirely. Unfortunately, I have a sneaking hunch he was attracted to Christianity, although he never formally converted---to MY knowledge, at any rate. Sadly, he and his wife were never able to have children. She was an English "war-bride", and whether or not she was Jewish herself I never knew. To me, he epitomized the "self-hating Jew", and I can't blame him for it, really. You see, living in an overwhelmingly Christian society as we do, it's almost impossible NOT to be like Barasch.
As for me, I've no trouble with being different because I CAME from a Christian background, and know WHY Judaism is the truer religion of the two. (Christians, please don't take offense, as your websites freely tout Jesus, so we Jews hould have the same freedom as well) Born Jews, however, are constantly beseiged with confusing and conflicting messages via society. Children, especially, are bombarded with typically American "it's unpatriotic to be different, etc" messages all the time, but Christians never think that these messages are wrong. Oh no, to Christians, anyone who "denies" Christ will go to hell, and they constantly babble on and on about their so-called "Prince of Peace" and how he "loves" everyone. Yeah, he "loves" us sooo much that he can't accept dissent. Funny, I don't remember HIM converting to Christianity. Do you?
This religious "terrorism" (yes, it IS terrifying to a child, and even to an ADULT at times---witness the terror experienced by poor Franz Werful, the author of Song of Bernadette, when he was on his deathbed and suffered needless paroxysms of fear over his refusal to convert from Judaism) is what's REALLY "unAmerican" here. I'm SICK of being "loved" by these smug hypocrits who can't WAIT for the "Rapture" so they can watch all of us "sinners" burn in hell. Are you shocked? Good! How about actually READING your bible, for a change? You'll be surprised to find that NOWHERE in it does God "reject" the Jews as his "chosen people". That crap came later, I'm afraid.
Am I angry? You bet! I really must thank all of you "loving" Christians for poisoning my SON with your garbage. He's so afraid he'll go to hell if he stays Jewish that I'm ready to tear out my hair! Thanks, Doris, for all that preaching you did on the bus when he was only five years old and trusted you. I should have reported you, but I thought it might have been over-reacting and so I didn't. Of course, reporting you would have been considered terribly "unAmerican" by our "loving" Christian neighbors.
And that's how it is today, in Republican Right-wing America. Don't you just LOVE it?
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
If Dr. Sidney Barasch,ztl Had Been Elijah...
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Blundering Right Along...
FINALLY! I managed to publish my web page---successfully, after about a million previous attempts---a few minutes ago. Boy, what a lotta work! Still, it was worth it. Now I get to rant in TWO places instead of just one. Actually, though, it's more fun to post here. More freedom for us "html-illiterates", for one thing. Also, Shira Salome gave me the url for the new counter at the bottom of this page. Please read her blog "On The Fringe" here on Blogspot; she is a gold mine of Jewish knowledge. And there are several other Jewish blogs here as well, which I wasn't aware of until she informed me of them. I've GOT to check them out soon.
This election is getting so nasty I'm about ready to shoot BOTH candidates. Edwards went WAY over the line when he chided Cheney about having a gay daughter the other night. Let the Republicans do the mud-slinging, I say. First of all, they're better at it, and it only hurts the Democrats when THEY try slinging it back. Wouldn't it be nice if candidates could talk about the ISSUES, for a change? Sadly, mud-slinging gets results. Worse, people tend to remember the DIRT better than the truth. I happened to catch Fox News earlier this evening, and the topic was WMD or, rather, the LACK thereof (which was finally admitted OFFICIALLY after all this time), which SHOULD have made me happy---except that one of the guests smugly reminded the audience that this belated admission probably wouldn't hurt Bush's re-election at all. Sigh. Yep, that's what he said. In essence, folks, what Fox (and the Republicans) evidently believe is that we're all a bunch of morons. Well, I shouldn't really be so partisan; I suppose Democrats believe that, too, but THEY aren't in power right now. I'm going to get ulcers over this election, I swear. Is it just me, or do YOU feel uneasy about the way our government's become so authoritarian of late? Sometimes I fear the Republicans are terrified enough of losing that they'd do almost ANYthing to win this one. I do fear the Supreme Court will meddle with THIS election as well, given half a chance. If this gets any worse, I may even be forced to join (gasp!) the ACLU! Of COURSE they're a bunch of loonies, but at least they FIGHT for our Constitutional rights. Okay, so I screamed when they wanted to allow the Nazies to march through Skokie. They were right, technically. And I'd scream AGAIN if they tried something like that nowadays. Nevertheless, without them we'd be hamstrung (you should pardon the expression). Maybe I should just go to bed, but this ain't no dream. Can you believe it? I'm actually homesick for those crazy Cold War days when at least the Rabid Republicans (not all of them, just the far right) had "god-less" COMMUNISM to blather about, instead of us harmless Democrats, Liberals, and aging ex-hippies. Geez, I was more conservative back in COLLEGE than today. America was never about "ideology" or "doctrinal purity". Under the Republicans, since Reagan, politics has become a kind of twisted RELIGION---"Politico-Christianity", if you will. How any Jew can be a Republican TODAY amazes me. Maybe the party will change over time, go back to its populist roots, but not for the near future, I'm afraid. Besides, far too many American Jews feel that America is somehow "exempt" from Jewish history. The German Jews felt that way, too, back in 1933. God help us if we're heading in THAT direction! Having grown up "on the other side", I KNOW how Christians (not all, surely) feel about Jews and Jewish "dominance". Isreal exists, in their minds, only for the sake of the Second Coming (he couldn't get it right the FIRST time? Some "messiah"). As far as I'm concerned, Republicans are "false friends". Sure, the Democrats and Left-Liberals aren't so friendly EITHER, but as that German rabbi quipped when he was elected to the Reichstag back in the 1800s (and miffed the rightist parties when he chose to sit with the leftists): "Jews HAVE no 'rights'." Here, Jews DO, but we'd better watch over them or they may suddenly be "re-interpreted" one of these days. Thank God for personal web pages and blogs! And VOTE this November, okay?
Friday, October 01, 2004
Mrs.D Again
This is a better pic of my best teacher, which I "watercolored". One of the reasons I'm posting her photo again is because, this being an election year, I think she might like to be remembered as a staunch advocate of voting. I'd be flabbergasted indeed to learn that she'd become lackadaisical about elections, considering she's now a lawyer. Frankly, if she were to run for office, I'd be tempted to move so I could vote for her.
That said, I'd like to remind everyone about this election. Whether or not you support Bush or the Republican agenda, NO president can effectively govern without a mandate from the electorate, and our current history of less than 50% of the electorate bothering to vote is disgusting! If this election is anything like LAST time, one vote could decide it---maybe even YOUR one vote. Forget about the conspiracy theories, the shameful partisan intervention by the Supreme Court, or those "pregnant" chads; if more of us had voted, and been more careful about marking our ballots (yes, I know those "butterflies" were confusing, and I'm sure that SOME hanky-panky occured in black districts, as I lived in Florida for 3 years under Democrats, and it was just as crooked then as now) we might have had a president who WASN'T so stubborn and self-righteous about his decisions. I don't mean Gore, either. After all, can you BLAME Bush? If he thinks we don't care what he does, why should HE care what we think. As far as HE'S concerned, since we didn't bother to vote then obviously we need to be told what to do, what to think, and when to shut up. Face it, people, if we act like children we're going to be TREATED as such by our leaders. Democracy can't survive when the electorate is too complacent to bother pulling a lever every four years, and governments (whether Democrat, Republican or Totalitarian) are basically in the business of staying in power---forever, if possible. Bad enough the endless partisan bickering and mutual sabotage between our two parties in Congress, but for "WE The People" to just let it all happen, clucking our tongues in disgust while our government goes into gridlock over such petty squabbles, stupidly refusing to do the ONE thing that might break this stalemate, then we might WELL "[get] the government [we] deserve", and sooner than we think, too.
Remember, as Mrs.D was wont to warn US some 37 years ago (in a far more "gentler, kinder" America, DESPITE the Cold War and Vietnam)"If you don't vote, then you have no right to complain." She also reminded us that governments always exempt themselves from the Rule Of Law, that they lie as a matter of course, and that we can only know what they allow us to. I thought her cynical back then, but now I know she was right. Democracy might not be perfect (no form of government ever is) but if we're too lazy to DEFEND our Constitutional rights, we will have no one to blame but OURSELVES should we lose them. Think about that.
Thanks again, Mrs.D, for all you taught us. I haven't forgotten, and I haven't missed an election since.
Monday, September 20, 2004
Me Again
I just thought I'd whine instead of rant today. Actually, I've been thinking of saying this for a while, but now's the time. It's about the sad tendency of American Jews to obsess over wealth. Now, wait a minute---I know what you're thinking, but hear me out.
Synogogue membership is perhaps the biggest headache for most of us "average Jews"; we're the ones who aren't doctors, lawyers, or married to one, and our incomes just can't take that $900-a-year whallop to belong to a shul. Fortunately for some of us, there's a Reform congregation nearby that kindly "overlooks" our lack of money, but not always. I'm one of the lucky ones, and for that I'm grateful, yet for years my husband and I could not join because he was out of work on Compensation, so my son never finished Hebrew School. Worse yet, the president of the shul(not the one we currently belong to)insisted we remove our son IMMEDIATELY when he learned of our circumstances, then was awarded the "Mensch Of The Year" award! Mensch, shmensh, as we say. At any rate, to be cut off from the Jewish community out here in "the boonies", so to speak, was devastating. My son only managed to attain his Bar Mitzvah through the kindness of our local Lubavitcher rabbi. To have hosted this event in the shul would have cost around a THOUSAND dollars, no less. How can people like us afford that?
This is what I mean by "obsession" with wealth. In America, Jews seem to have fallen into the goyische attitude that Jews HAVE to be rich, that all Jews MUST go to prestigious colleges, and that anything less is apikorsus(heresy). How sad.
Does no one care to know how many of us have LESS than genius-level children, or that thousands of Jews like us struggle to keep family intact through such crises as unemployment, death of a spouse, or divorce? I guess not. Here in America, that just DOESN'T HAPPEN to Jews, they seem to think. Proper Jews, that is. We, unfortunately, don't qualify as "proper", and you'd be surprised to know how many of us are shunned by our fellow Jews as "embarrassing", sometimes even as "lazy". Thank God, I never experienced that here in NH; many of our former congregants expressed outrage when they learned why we had "left". Still, it happens elsewhere, and it shouldn't.
Maybe, it being so close to Yom Kippur, some high-ranking shul member will read this, feel ashamed and outraged, and finally DO something about it, but I doubt it. Far too many of us have had it far too good for far too long to understand (or even WANT to comprehend) the plight of , I would estimate, a good 60% of us, if not more. And every year around this time the rabbis moan and groan about the Jewish "defectors". Well, hey, do you know how much cheaper a CHURCH membership is? Think about it.
Monday, September 13, 2004
Mrs. D, May You Always Succeed & Prosper
In 1967, when I was a senior at PHS and not happy at ALL about having to take a boring class on CIVICS(yuck), in waltzed a 22yr old neophyte teacher who proceeded to turn our world upside-down---by teaching us how government REALLY works, and conducting her classes as though we were in LAW school. Tough? Let me tell you, she came at us with questions we had to answer, not from rote, but by THINKING LOGICALLY. Her tests were even WORSE, because she included a 40pt essay question on them that made us demonstrate how well we knew our lessons ,too. We used to joke that not only were her tests IMPOSSIBLE but imPASSIBLE as well. She told us she was going to make us think, and she did! If you were absent for a test, she made you take an ORAL make-up, which insured almost a 90% attendance on test days, as NO one wanted to face down HER after school. She commanded respect and got it, even taking on the school ADMINISTRATION when they told her she couldn't assign 1984 and Brave New World(oddly, not because of the politics so much as for the sex scenes), when those books were assigned anyway by the English teachers. She held her head high and walked like a queen; I can still visualize her ramrod-straight back as she breezed through the halls like Miss America. I wanted sooo much to be like her, believe me. We all were a bit overawed by her complete self-confidence and no-nonsense style. In the parlance of the time, we spoke of her as "thinking like a man", which was a high compliment indeed. She never deferred to the male teachers, either, as woman are wont to do. She was the equal of any man and KNEW it, which sometimes got her labeled as "unlady-like", "opinionated", and just plain "bitchy", too. I worshipped her, myself. Unfortunately, I made a terrible pest of myself by constantly following her about the school(think "Walter Denton" from the old "Our Miss Brooks" TV show). Her dept. head dubbed me her "shadow", and I guess she got ribbed about it by the faculty. I'm sorry for all the trouble I may have given her. She was one of those teachers who turn up once in a lifetime and you're never the same afterwards. I learned so much from her, and not only from the lessons she actually taught but the "lessons" she "taught" by the way she comported herself, spoke with authority, and expected nothing less than success---from us as well as SHE. When I entered my freshman year of college and faced all-essay exams in every subject, her tests stood me in good stead; her tough questions in class taught me how to think "on my feet", as it were, and without her I would never have made it through college. I even took along the notes I'd taken in her classes when(for some stupid reason) the college required us to take American Government, and those notes and what I'd been taught gave me a B, easy, although the prof I had was a hard grader. I often wonder just how many of her students went on to become lawyers(as she did), simply from the way her classes were conducted. I'd be willing to bet a good 40% or more went into Law because of her. I almost did, and even now keep abreast of Supreme Court decisions. A good teacher is a GIFT. As Christa Macauliff so memorably said before the shuttle tragedy: "I am a teacher, I touch the future." The photo here is how Mrs.D looks today, and though she's aged a lot, she's still beautiful to me, and always will be. Thank you, Mrs.D, for all you never knew you did for me. Ironically, it's the smallest gestures that mean so much, and what you no doubt considered to be only "doing your job" taught an immature kid how to be a responsible citizen and an adult. Hazak! May you go "from strength to strength"! (I hate to archive this, as I'm shamelessly hoping she'll stumble across my blog. It's no fun if your idol doesn't notice these things. Sigh)
