dream

Strange dream early this morning
Was with a communal group of Jews as a large succah was being built in an open marketplace. We wwere getting messages from other parts of the country that Suuccos had already begun but the top of our succah was only covered in plastic, no one had placed evergreen boughs on it. Women were complaining and fruit mongers began throwing apples and jeering...I could see all other succahs further down the hill had already been built. then there was a fire and someone opened up a black body bag to show me how a baby had died because no one placed evergreens on the succah.

Cat

Cat, that I loved more than anything or anyone in this world, passed away on December 11. A tumor that showed up a few months ago under her chin grew quickly. Vet said at 19 years of age she wouldnt survive anaethesia. For the last 3 months, she's been on antibiotics, making her even sicker, unable to hold food most of time, other times eating as if starved. Different antibiotic tried and vet showed me how to give her IV fluid at home.
She began isolating herself last month, sleeping under the kitchen table, physically melting whenever I picked her up to administer fluid or meds, clean her nose that was constantly stuffed and crusting from a cold or just trying to comfort her.

Last Monday, exhausted, unable to eat, restless, her eyes were dilated, she clearly was enduring something she couldnt tolerate much more. She came on the bed, something she hadn't been doing much, sat close and licked my arm. When she was younger, healthier she did this daily, as if grooming me. Her tumor was bleeding, she had scatched it hard with her back paw, I found her paw bloody with tissue stuck to it.
I cleaned her tumor, feet and she just buried her head against me. I wrapped her with gauze to protect it and cut the finger off a stretchy glove to make her a booty so if she tried to scratch she wouldnt further mutilate herself.

Tuesday morning I packed her up in my sweater into her case and took her to vet as they opened. Vet saw her right away. The options were to attempt surgery because she would die from blood poisoning with the tumor condition, followed by a collar, IV as long as she continued to live...if she survived the operation. I chose to put her to sleep because she was frightened, in pain and so very tired. Vet let me hold her as he injected inside her thigh with phenobarb and she quietly went died within seconds.

Its taken 4 days even to write this. Cat was with me after the children went to live with their father, with me in disappointments in relationships, through getting my degrees when no family cared or paid attention, moved with me, waited for me, loved me. It feels like the last witness of my life, not just a beloved friend is gone. She is irreplacable.

outside

Maybe its age...but as i watch the world that seems to be losing any boundaries of what is permissable, acceptable, ethical, a world where everything and anything is fine...if it satifies whatever you need...at the moment...this is where i see my kids confused and floundering. and i dont think its just my own children, i think maybe this is an underlying cause for alot of the violent acting out.
Its not simply mental illness...
I dont want to bring religion into this...but religion has always been a force in my life. In 2 that I've studied it says that a child is born pure, not in terms of physical sin, but in terms of knowing G-d and right and wrong. It is the contact of child to parent, child to world that begins to break down and tear apart the protective innocense, the ability children have to recognize the truth.

And the most frightening thing, I would imagine for the young and young adults is watching the lies and being told the lies, are the truth. There are more young soldiers returning with mental health problems than ever before. Suicidal ideation, depression are epidemic in young adults.
My father had an expression...'dont do as I do, do as I tell you' which always meant in our house, what you see isnt actually happening, what I tell you is happening, that's what you have to believe (is true).
THere must be a psychological term for this...its not the child is delusional, its the entire reality distorted as delusion, reality turned upside down, inside out, so that you doubt your own eyes, ears and senses. And then you stop trying to interpret, you wait to be told what it is you are supposed to see, you wait, for instructions and the correct version for you to bring to the outside world.
I dont know if anyone understand the minutiae of this kind of intense manipulation and distortion of children's sense of self and connection to the world. I know it only because I lived it, I survived by watching in silence mostly and writing, very early, taking notes because if you spoke or asked questions about what you saw, you could be in danger.

FOr me, the outside was supposed to be the safe side, nothing could be more dangerous than the inside of my family apartment. When it became clear that the outside was more abusive and equally chaotic as my own home, I became convinced one party in this was insane. And until now, I'm not sure which it is, me or world. I must say since I'm writing this much personal stuff, I walk on the street and simply cannot understand what I see. I feel like I've been dropped from another place and when I see people, what goes on, my skin crawls. I;m not talking about a specific incident of something bizaare, its eevertying; everything feels like a shadow of something real,just behind it and what I see in front of me, the people and all of life is an illusion...only I am solid...everything else feels unreal.

I've never written this before and to slowly type it all down I understand this is my own mental distortions or dissociations which I do every waking moment, as a survival tactic.

I've become convinced that something happened...I dont believe in 'lost memories' like recalling buried abuse, but I wonder if some traumas are so profound they actually alter a person's perceptions of one's relationship to reality...I'm sure I've either put anyone reading this to sleep...but this is quite amazing for me. Seomtimes I wish we had a resident doctor or someone who could put a name to some of these things we discuss and tell us what to read. So much of what many of us write, is the same grief over and over trying to heal and understand.

And tho I write in the first person, these words only echo what I hear from my son...the worlde remains incomprehensible.

P is home...but

I brought P home Thursday. Vet gave me IV solution, needles, antibiotic, 2 cans special diet. Once home, she checked everywhere to be sure it was home; drank water, ate some of the canned food and after yelling alot, fell asleep.

She's had 3 IV sessions and is unable to eat or drink anything. This morning she was too weak to get up into her chair where she sleeps. When I realized she was hanging out on the rug because she just couldnt make it up, I put her on her chair where she fell asleep in 2 minutes.

She seems to want food and water, but for some unknown reason smells it, goes to it and turns away.

I'm going to try her old food, maybe that's what she's looking for. I think she's just had enough...19 is a fairly long life for a cat. She's totally disengaged for everything now.

Really trying to wait this out, but I think come erev shabbos, if she's the same or worse, the right decision is to end her suffering. I couldnt do it before, because of my attachment to her, but its clear selfishness on my part to prolong a terminal situation.

Conversion facts

I heard in the name of Rabbi Y. Komietzki z"l from a very reliable source that if the father was a Jew and the mother a non Jew we should try to convert the child for the reason of zera kodesh - holy seed.


When I wrote to the Rebbe z'tl asking if my mother (goy) who converted after marrying my father (Jewish) the answer was 'She has to toivel again.'

Her initial conversion consisted of an orthodox rabbi in Long Island, NY telling her take a dip in the Atlantic Ocean and her witnesses were 3 female friends.
When I asked her if I could help her by arranging for her to go through a kosher conversion and mikvah, she said no thanks, religion is in your heart.

It was only after finding the above quote about 'zera kodesh' do I understand why the Rebbe instructed MN to convert me ASAP.
So I'm wondering if a man has gone thru 'karet' and his child converts, does that help his neshoma at all?

Visiting P at hospital

This afternoon at Union Square 14th St. I was stopped by a young woman, in her 20s, who asked if I was Jewish, said yes, she pressed in my hands a Baggie with 2 tea candles, 2 honey candies and a licht bentching calendar, then said, Long live Rebbe King Moshiach.
Chabad has moved from the Rebbe z'tl could be moshiach, to he is moshiach and now have announced in the Rebbe's name, using the present tense, that the Redemption is NOW, do mitzvahs, chesed and you will recognize it more and more.
The girl was Israeli, alone, cold and repeated her 'tape' of Long Live Rebbe etc. no matter what question I asked...it was both scary and sad.

When I finished in the hospital, I bought P her food and went direct to vet's office.
I didnt plan on seeing her and actually thought it would be better for her if I didnt see her, she might think she was going home. Vet insisted I wait and go visit...so I wait and go visit and find my cat with sstill wet feces on her back feet, kitty grit stuck to her feet and her cowering in the corner, the tiny litter try next to her face. When she heard my voice, she started making a sound, like rasping from her throat. She was so dried out from one of the meds, she couldnt maiow. I offered her water, her nose was crusted, she couldnt breathe enough to drink. I removed the crusts offered her water, but the smell of her own waste had her so upset she wouldnt eat or drink. I had picked her up and tried wiping her feet clean, it was obvious an aid had already wiped them because the filth was matted into her fur, not cleaned off.
My first instinct was to tear apart the entire room and destroy everything, take all the cats out, but I kissesd her, gently palced her back inside and went out. Dumb ass young boy supposed to be taking care of the few cats in hospital area says "leaving already?"

I asked him if anyone ever explained to him that cats dont eat where they shit...
'huh' was all he said as I walked out.
I left the vets office, and outside realized I should go back and take her home.

Back inside I asked if there were any further tests scheduled, if not, I wanted to take her home. Vet took me into an empty room and said the aid had said I claimed there was shit all over the cage. I told vet, I never said that I did say that cat's paws were wet with her feces with grit stuck to her. As I had held her, I stunk as well and offered my sleeve so he could verify what I said. He said, no thanks...I told him, it isnt me, I didnt come in this way...I know this is a hospital, not a spa, but I know my cat, she will not eat or drink when sitting and stinking of her own feces.

I told him she's rasping, she 's so dried out, she can't drink or eat, and she wanted to, she came to me for the water, but couldnt even drink.
He said please leave her for blood work one more night...against all instinct, every bone in me, I agreed to leave her but may the Abishter protect her or take her in a peaceful way if I dont get her home in time.

A few more days...

October 31, 07 P. who had been suffering from a heavy chest infection, severe congestion went to the vet. For the first time in her 19 years, she had to take medicine. He prescribed Clindamycin and Periactin to encourage her appetite. I cleaned her nasal passages 2x a day, she would come to me and sit, waiting for me to scoop her up and do it, just so she could breathe. AFter that she would drink for 10-15 minutes as if she was beyond thirst. She was dehydrated when the vet first saw her. After 4 days on meds, she began vomiting, couldnt hold food down. I stopped the periactin and continued the antibiotic; the vomiting continued and diarrhea began.
She is exceptionally fastidious, wont even use her litter box unless its clean, so not having control of her bowels, having stool stick to her long hair and not even watning to be around her own self, was very upsetting. I had to wash her paws and back end with warm water. After vomiting as hard and often as she did, she seemed frightened to eat and cause herself more discomfort.

On Nov. 5 she neither ate, nor drank...no stool, very little urine. She seemed comfortable, but was unusually quiet. She slept alone in the kitchen where she's been spending time rather than where the TV is or any noises are going on.

On Nov. 6 I woke very early because I had planned to clean her nose, try to give her some medicine if her stomach had calmed down, make sure she drank. I cleaned her nose, helped her drink and thought better of giving her meds because I had to go to work and didnt want her to be alone, vomiting if that might happen.

I came home by 5:30 and usually she would come near the door, come from wherever she was sleeping to welcome me, today she remained in the kitchen spot she made for herself in a large blue plastic wash basin. A few weeks ago I had tried putting a soft towel in for her to warm herself or cuddle with, she refused to get back in. Very strange, she's never put herself in such a container.

She finally came out with coaxing...I didnt want to invade this place where she feels safe; she came into the bathroom and waited for me to run the shower, something she enjoyed, sometimes would play with the cool water. She didnt go in. She went to stand outside the bathroom, unsure what to do, where to go.
I prepared her cleaning supplies, scooped her up and palced her on my bed to clean her nose. It wasnt congested enough to prevent her from drinking, but it was clear from her bowls, she hadn't touched water today and certainly hadn't eaten.
Mouth movement sounded just the same as when a human is dehydrated, you can hear the swallow and tongue sticking from dryness. I brought her water bowl on the bed as we've been doing the last 2 weeks, so its comfortable for her to drink after being cleaned. She stared at me, turned away from the water...

By now it was 6:15...I called the vets office and said I thought she may be dying.
Vet said bring her in. Threw on clothes, popped her into her carrier, not a peep from her, no growls, miaows, nothing.

Explained reaction to meds, her current state today. Vet wrote alot, mentioned it was rare but possible to react to clindamycin as she may be doing--I know its a stretch, but clindamycin makes me horribly sick to my stomach as well.
He finally said we have to decide how far to take this; her blood work last week was normal except for elevated calcium, which he was concerned about.
WHat he suggested was admit her to hospital overnight, put her on IV as dehydration was very obvious, she had fever of 101.6 and they will take xray on Wed looking for tumors. Blood tests cannot detect cancer and xrays may also not find cancer when she actually may have it.

I told him I will not have her put to sleep, I dont have alot of money, but I dont want her to suffer.
He suggested admitting her for the above and if everything indicates she is dying or does have cancer he will show me how to give her IV fluids and keep her comfortable at home.

I asked him to tell the front desk to please allow me to divide up payments, I want to do whats needed but its very expensive. This animal has been with me 19 years. Longer than parents, husband, even my children. She's moved everywhere with me, she's lived with me and relationships who were so ignorant they chased her trying to pick her up with a broom, trimmed her long hair and whiskers, brought a dog into her space who ate from her litter box...and always she looked to me for protection. We've never had a comfortable home.
AFter the monster was removed from our apt. I painted since a painter wanted $700, I built a couch so she would have a place to curl up, I bought 2 room size wool rugs to keep the rooms warm and she could relax anywhere. I thought we are finally alone at last, it wont be for much longer, I owe her anything I can give her.

Nov. 7 I have to call the vet to find out what's going on...its very strange tonight not having her here, sitting on the bed, pisssed off I at the computer, waiting on the bed to be brushed, miaowing in the kitchen or bathroom for me to come in and then pretend nothing's wrong...must have been the cat in the back yard...that innocent look she never quite was able to pull off.

So there's no tehilllim I know of for animals...but if the Abishter will let me carry any pain for her and let her go home peacefully, that's alot and enough.

Chabad & the MTA

Its hard to describe how much I love chabad Lubavitch.
It may sound the opposite in my posts, but they (lubavitchers) invoke such passion, hostility and love.
I was on the train coming back to brooklyn and bochurim got on with lulav and esrog. The train i take has a ratio of (maybe) 2 jews/98 goyim. It seemed one bochur had followed a young woman into the train as he was helping her bentch on the lulav.

She was excusing herself that she hadn't bentched for so many years she forgot what to say...so shut up and repeat the brochas with gratitude and humility instead of trying to pretend at one time....

When the bochur finished he turned, unsure of what to do in a packed train car with what appeared to be goyim en ganzten. He quietly asked one man if he was Jewish and the man shook his head.

As the bochurim passed me over in 1975, once again a bochur looked at me, hesitated and was about to move on before I motioned him to step over.I gotta say, every goy i know or work with takes me for a Jew; Jews...that's another story. I dress tznius, and take after my father's Jewish family in looks. He asks me if I'm Jewish with people staring...in the last few years due to the company I was keeping and person I was married to, when asked this question, I denied my faith. I know how horrible this is and a sin and the negation didnt fall easy from my mouth.
G-d being the All Merciful, on yontif and in front of a crowd, sends a bochur to ask me this question again. And who knows if another chance would ever come again? I actually do think every day is the last, unfortunately I think this way not from powerful faith, but great sadness.

Because of this grief in me, I was lucky a flood of tears didnt start I was so grateful to say "Yes" and have the opportunity to bentch. I still hadn't gotten rid of kaporas gelt so after bentching I asked him to accept it and put it for tzadekah.

Only Chabad would reach out to pathetic dirty yidden as I am and thousands of others to try and save us from ourselves.

Had I listened to the warning from the Rebbe, and had patience to wait for the right shidduch maybe I would still have a community and frumkeit for myself and my children.

The Rebbe z'tl continues to protect us, I have no right to make suggestions to anyone frum but I hope he's mentioned daily in everyone's prayers & tehillim.

Morbid fear

I have an absolute phobia about halloween.

Its not the ghosts, spooks, creepy carved pumpkins, not the brats leaning on
doorbells or crouched on rooftops clutching boxes of eggs to hit homecoming commuters...it isn't even the toilet paper streaming everywhere, as if a world of ghosts suddenly felt the need to wipe their invisible butts

...its my addiction to freakin candy corn.

There's so much of it left over after the holiday it sells at .50 a bag...couple of weeks later, you can find the .50 bags for 75% off.

My hero, Lewis Black, has thoroughly studied and researched candy corn. It turns out only one batch was ever made in the late 1800s and it just keeps getting recycled annually because no one eats the stuff...except me...and most idiots I offer it to.
These same folks are the ones who keep PEEPS in business, a candy standard I cannot imagine ever sinking to.

And, i might add, i was recently shocked when I walked into Walgreens and found a wall of halloween candy in bags, 2/$3.00. Peering over the bottom of my split lens (aka bi focals) I noted bags of candy corn shapes...chocolate cats, witches hats, caramel colored bats, yellow corn cobs, and fat orange pumpkins with tiny green stumps crowning their chewy teeth rotting little selves.

Like much of what's going on, its a conspiracy to kill us early to make room for the next group who need the beds.

poem

Love In Four Languages
(from the Book of Translations)

a book of Kurdish melodies
a book of Arabic proverbs
a books of Turkish memories
a book of English adorations

Tonight
come to me
in a dream
On this night
we will be born into one
from this dream
Outwit the quickness
of your thoughts
that are unsure
Outwit the alertness
of my heart
that is trembling
Open softly
the door of me
Translate this love
in all of your languages

I
Kurdish
I am watching the stars
Whisper nothing, even less
Shelter my eyes with your hands
Open your rose petal lips
drink the cream of my skin
I am in exile
Unable to eat or sleep, ecstatic
in shrouds
in ashes
on the shore of a continent
that carries your name

II
Arabic
The moon ascends
Seven years the moon rose
then fell as I waited
at seven gates
Pale as this night
My heart lived shut
like a pearl
Trampled by war
at the borders
of sunrise and sunset
Men were bees
whose wings carreid honey
swarming to nest
before you

III
Turkish
I am listening to the Sea
It is you
that enters me
without words
without mercy
Sharp as a knife
The steel of your fingers
crushes my bones into stars
Your cries are my cries
I fly
on the breath of your soul
on the scent of your skin
Swear as I do
we are clear, we are
surrendering nothing
to all heaven and earh
Say-
you take
what is yours

IV
English
Constellations move
in your eyes, I pour
down your chest like soft rain
you shudder
under the fall of my fingertips
Columns of marble
Your thighs are veined with sapphire
My hands gather you
soldier, my king
you are here without words
or maps
at the mouth of the Nile
Your history is written
on the waves that dissolve
between my lips
You have slept in my blood
While I slept on a bed of fire
I am on the bridge to Damascus
I am beneath the Polar star
I am naked before Heaven
I am shameless, speechless, blind without limbs
in your arms
You call my name
I dissolve in a bed of tulips
Your hands pull out my life
You fill me with yours
I am ablaze
thirsting in a garden
that glistens with tears
You call my name
your tongue carries me water
I find you
above me
wordless
waiting
still as a storm
your heart exploding
inside me

R.S.
2004

Light damns

On the train coming home today, reading about the obsfucation inside our community I had a flashback to 1973. I was standing in Ansche Chesed in the rabbi's office the day my father was nifter. I was begging him to intervene and stop my mother from cremating him. His response was, he's your mother's husband, I can't intervene, its her right to do as she wants.

My father was already considered 'dead' by the Jewish community; he married a shiksa, his own famiy sat shiva for him and never spoke to him again. Our jewish neighbors didnt speak to him (or us). For everyone, my father was dead long ago...it didnt matter what my mother did with him, his body, I counted him as a Jew, the rest of the world had already discarded him. I doubt he would have received a jewish burial or had been allowed to be laid inside the cemetary among Jews if the rabbi had helped us. Years later after obtaining his ashes from my mother, he was buried finally, outside in a special area with others not allowed a space among jewish dead.

Its not easy being 'chosen', too many wrong choices and you might as well be in an ari miklat.

Yontif...

Yom kippur was a bust. Couldnt get past the fear of walking cold into a shul to ask if i could hear mussaf, kol nidre, say kaddish. So me and my artscrolls stayed home,made kaporas with money, bentched, cooked yontif foods and davened...being alone i had to say the chazen's and congregation parts. dont laugh, i think G-d was probably not too happy if He heard any of it.

I've been refused by every Jewish publication I submitted "A letter from the City of Refuge"--Hamodia wrote they would publish if edited down to 700, I edited and turned it in, silence. Since '86, after leaving crown heights, I felt like and was treated like a leper. What I didnt know is that this is indicative of the entire yiddishe velt--'mesirah' and a chilul H*shem remain guiding principles, no matter how grave or dirty the community laundry is. Denial of abuse by men against women and children, husbands, rabbis, day care centers staffed with untrained russian immigrants, women taking in yeshivah bochurs for meals and other activities...hide your faces all of you, pretend nothing is going on, pretend those who leave are the sinners, tell yourselves that the Truth is a chilul H*shem...I think its a sign of our generation, all religions are in philosophical denial.

Last Pope euthanized? Priests bankrupting the church with their sexual depravities, rabbis... leaders of us Chosen folk sending women back to their abusers, hiding molestation of yeshivah kids, Islam is the quintessential contradiction...the religion of peace promoting death and ignorance at every turn...sending a moronic mouthpiece to NY to spew his 'final solution' and offer an olive branch for us all to convert. He tried the stick, now he's trying the carrot approach. In case no one's paying attention, its traditional in islam to offer the captives, idolators and kafirun an opportunity to convert before they're condemned to death. Or you can live as a 2nd class citizen and pay a special tax rate only for non muslims...if you're allowed to remain alive.

I was initially offended that Lee Bollinger hosted the underdressed ignoramous today, but after reading the statements Bollinger made, statements that this government, our media and worst of all other academicians haven't had the badahn (cohones) to say out loud, I can only hope he sent a few copies of the transcript back with Ahmaddidit so they can read it over leisurely in Qum and plan their next conversion project with a better understanding of what the enemy really thinks of them.

Co-opting Judaism

About 10 years ago I was invited to attend a conference in upstate NY where Holocaust survivors meet annually with the children of Germans who had actively taken part in the war, as opposed to those who claimed ‘we knew nothing, saw nothing…”

The first days were spent with survivors describing what they had lived thru. Emotionally devastating to listen to, slowly, methodically spoken, with such dispassionate facts. One might mistake this manner of speech as a kind of numbness, when it actually is just the opposite, a rawness so deep it must be contained with very careful speech.

Young Germans spoke about the stories they had heard from their parents, trying to explain why they did what they had to do, in that time, sometimes defending their roles, sometimes apologizing to thier own children for the legacy they marked their family with. The sense of shame some of these young adults felt was clear and in my opinion wasted. The final day of the 3 day conference culminated in both groups coming together, Germans offering apologies and survivors trying to accept their verbal offerings.

While cathartic for many, the process seemed an erasure of a history so inexplicable and debased, that apologies border(ed) on pathology.

This pathology becomes clearer as more recently Holocaust revisionists, deniers and others have begun claiming that Jews are “exploiting” an ‘incident’ similiar to the suffering of many peoples. The Jews are milking a moment of suffering (the Holocaust)and have themselves become nazis to other people in a land they stole and sit in illegally. Antisemitism continues to flourish throughout Europe, grows intensely in the Mid East and percolates more quietly in America.

In Poland there is currently a revival of Jewish culture, foods, dances. In one of the most destructive countries that both slaughtered and built the ghettos and ovens of destruction, this too, is a perverse celebratory cannibalism of the dead. Yiddish is no more alive today than the millions of Jews who were sent to their deaths. Yiddish only exists in tiny communities were chassidim continue to use it. And Singer is one of the rare writers that can be read in English without losing nuance; you either know the culture he describes or you dont.

That Others take on the cloak of dead Jews, already soaked in blood and try it on, attempting to fool ‘blind’ folk into believing the Chosen son remains alive, means nothing more than the deceptive act it is. BEcause Others chose to forget or forgive themselves doesnt mean Jews have forgotten or forgiven. Although forgetting, like selective memory is becoming preferrable and politically correct.

Yiddish is a sacred language, I would liken it to Aramaic–which may sound bizaare–both languages created the sacred laws defining a people and the means with which they communicated in their daily lives.

Fin

I purchased machzorim and a mezuzah at Eichler's. With no shul to go to, davening at home is the schedule. This week, a series of incidents, some minor, some not have me remembering that since 1973 I've been looking for acceptance within the jewish community. For whatever reasons, emotional, spiritual, intellecutal, none of that matters now.

What's become clear, is that just because I stepped away from chassidus in '86 and now want to reconnect, for myself as well as the kids, the same doors remain closed. The fact is I remain a geress,without family, only older now and even less useful.

I watched Soldiers of G-d and was so charged up by the movement to keep Yerushalyim intact. I looked online and found their website, emailed to say it was amazing work, that I hoped the reaction and support would be tremendous. I got a phone call from Hikind asking me to host an open house so she could come pitch for money. Surely I knew people or people who knew people to support the movement. I was embarrassed to say I dont live between Jews, in 2 rooms and there are even fewer jews at the college. I sent them tzedakah...I feel like a scab on a wound. If I had MONEY to give, doors would suddenly open in many ways. I called the JBFS and asked if they have support groups for women, they only have an older group that meets but they mailed me 4 fliers for tai chi and yoga sessions, 2 of which already happened months ago.

It all feels familiar. I've been thru this already...there's no place
The subject of being part of the jewish community, any jewish community is now closed. It hasnt happened and will not happen. The very few jews that know what I've lived thru actually have apologized on behalf of Jewry to me, as if 'real' Jews owe the convert an apology for 'bad behaviour'. That's how deep the schism is and they dont even get it. And the conversation always ends the same....talking about the negatives inside the community doesnt help anyone, we all know about the abusers, molesters, thieves, liars...but they exist everywhere. It's because I lived inside, studied chassidus and loved the Rebbe z'tl that this doesnt wash...jews are better than that, better than accepting filth as part of life. Maybe we've come so far and live is so dark now we can't even see the distinction between what is good and evil.

I dont even know at this point what it is I 'want.'
My childhood is gone, I already was converted, married and had children inside chassidus, what's to bitch about? Happiness? A decent mate? Millions want the same and never get it. The frum community is what it is and owes me nothing.

I dont know what's left to write here...I began this blog to journal about returning to a frum life. My 'frum' life is totally internalized, lived inside 2 rooms. And that will have to be enough, becuase the ABishter alone didnt abandon me, ever and its only to Him I owe anything to now.

Not a day, not an hour, not a space between each breath and my flesh, that I do not think about death. Its not even depression. Depression is a state, an existence separate that one moves into and possiblyt out of. This is different, its blood, its instead of life. Its no different than someone being a prisoner or lost somewhere alone and instinctively trying to stay alive. Even when it appears clear there is not purpose, instinct kicks in, but the darkness has already overwhelmed any hope for actual life. Only being frum seemed to resolve this issue. I have no other explanation for eating, working, shitting and starting it over again each day.

A letter from the City of Refuge

A letter from a City of Refuge


I write to you from exile, as an exile.
Din decrees that one condemned to an ‘ari miklat’ may return to live with a Jewish community once the High Priest has passed away.

I do not mean to use the term City of Refuge sacrilegiously, as the term applies to Jews committing ‘accidental murder’ as well as intentional pre-meditated crimes. Thousands of us born to non frum Jews, remain condemned no less, as living exiles suffering spiritual banishment. And I will tell you, it is not from lack of wanting our freedom.

My story is not unique. I’ve met many similar souls on my journey to find a road out of exile. I write to you, who are reading these words, with hope you will recognize the next yid that Hashem places in your path, as someone no stranger than your own flesh, family or limb.

As we are one people divided by the politics, geographic communities and diversities of religious observance and minhagim, we remain in front of Hashem, His chosen, with responsibilities not only to salve the ills of humanity, but to look to attending the pragmatic needs of our own.

I was born to an intermarried couple. Her conversion was not done halachically. His family sat shiva after his marriage to a Jewish woman ended to marry a woman 30 years younger and not Jewish. I never knew my father’s family. His grasp of yiddishkeit was contained in bits of tradition he tried passing on to me and my sister. Friday nights we donned yalmulkahs and listened to him intone brachas over Manischewitz and then watched him slice a challah from Cake Masters around the corner. Passover he had 10 lbs of pike and whitefish delivered and messed up the stove for hours, puttering and wrapping gefilte fish inside skins place in huge pots to float along side the fish heads and onion skins. Overwhelmed with his own personal demons, on Yom Kippur he sat morose and silent, as he did most other times and broke ‘fast’ with a tall glass of scotch. All I would add about my mother is her ongoing disdain of anything “Jewish” other than buying into the rumor that marrying a Jewish man meant stability and money.

Two girls born to a couple, a father who wanted to perpetuate his yiddishkeit despite his choice to marry a someone forbidden and a mother who married an older man who promised to provide for her, which he did…until the money ran out.

The smaller issues of infidelities, betrayals, lies, physical violence are secondary to this story. The day before my 18th birthday, my 83 year old father died. Years earlier the challah deckle, yalmulkahs and a prayer book had been discarded in the trash. I found them ‘accidently’, and out of sentiment more than understanding of what they were and how they should be used in a kosher home, retrieved them. We were already subsisting on my father’s Social Security. With two daughters in school, my widowed mother made the decision to cremate his remains, pack up our West Side apartment and move back to her Italian Christian mother in Jersey. My sister and I at ages 18 and 12 respectively were, in her words, free to do as we liked.

The road to exile had begun. In fact, it ran parallel to the road I walked in earnest toward yiddishkeit.

It began with a year in Israel living on a kibbutz. As a CCNY student in my sophomore year, the college had a program sending students to study abroad. I chose to ‘study’ in Israel, thinking that immersion into the land of yidden, would magically make me one too!

In my kibbutz interview I was asked about my parents and not understanding halacha and the concept of mi yehudi, was told when I returned to the States to speak to a rabbi about my parents. It was 1973, months after the war and everyone willing to work was sent to work. I was sent out into the fields picking olives and pomegranates. Inept at learning modern Hebrew, I worked in silence and felt isolated when away from roommates from England and the U.S.

Almost a year later I returned to the U.S. but no longer a resident of NYC , had lost eligibility for in-state tuition at CCNY. I went to my Italian grandmother’s house, stayed in an attic room with an admonition from my mother, that Grandma didn’t want ‘Jews’ living in her house. With experience from working in the kibbutz kitchen, I found work as a short order cook. I soon earned enough to pay for a small apartment.

Not a day passed when I did not ask myself if the years in front of me held nothing more than serving badly cooked treyf to goyim, to pay for a studio apartment. It did not occur to me to re-enter college or to marry. Life felt out of reach. At age 21, I did not know why I was alive. I could not explain the reason for my own existence. It wasn’t a philosophy question, it was genuine confusion and spiritual pain. I did not know and still cannot understand how people live without asking or answering what seems the most basic question of all.

Israel had not been the ‘Jewish experience’ I expected, so I began reading books written to explain Judaism in easily digestible terms, e.g. “How to be A Jew”. A large workbook explaining holidays, basic homemaking, Jewish history and ending with a listof resources for readers wanting further information.

A Lubavitcher chosid was listed with information about free shabbatons in Brooklyn, where you could experience ‘real’ Judaism among frum Jews. I called him on a Sunday and hashgocha protis, a shabbaton was scheduled for the following weekend.

I cannot remember how I traveled to Crown Heights from Jersey. I was placed with a large, clearly poor and profoundly generous frum family. Their acceptance of me, a stranger was immeasurable, as I was fed and given a place to sleep, simply because I came to be there. Motzei shabbos my hostess took me to a huge farbrengen set up for a room filled with lost souls like myself. We sat listening to fiery speeches from young baletschvahs now frum, who had come from backgrounds similar to ours. Hope, redemption and a future with purpose was the context of every speech. At the end of the evening a rabbi stood at the microphone asking who was ready to make a commitment to yiddishkeit, who was ready to change their lives to walk on a path of indisputable truth. Anyone ready should come forward, sign up for an all expenses paid 2 week trip to study Yiddishkeit in Minnesota. We were told, being truly frum was like being pregnant, you are either were or you’re weren’t. I think I was the 2 girl to run up to the podium and that was only because I was seated in the back.

On Sunday, not allowed to travel home alone, I was driven back to Jersey by a young balestschuvah, who tried explaining to my mother I would just be going to study for 2 weeks. I packed my clothes and got back into the car to return to Crown Heights. Two weeks turned into 8 weeks. As snow continued to fall, covering our footsteps completely, most studying happened from midnight until 2-3am inside a room filled with young women exhausted but electrified, vulnerable and pliable. We had only one teacher, who remains famous for his ability to give over chassidus, notably to young female baletschuvahs.

I explained to him what I was told in Israel and he explained to me, I was not a Jew. It was the first time anyone had told me that. As a child growing up, people took me for a Jew, their treatment for better or worse. Lubavitch preferred not to maguire anyone, because being Jewish was min sha mayim, not a religious menu selection. The rabbi explained conversion was life changing and many gerim who took on the cloak of Judaism, found it too heavy, eventually ditching it altogether. But, since my situation seemed unusual, he would write to the Rebbe z’tl to ask what to do.

The Rebbe z”tl answered they should toivel me ‘to correct what needed to be corrected.’ Usually when a girl came into Lubavitch the Rebbe z”tl was asked to give her a yiddishe name. In my case he noted the name I was given at birth had kept me close to yiddishkeit, that it should not be changed and that toiveling would allow the neshoma hovering, to finally settle inside me. I don’t repeat his words for vicarious reading pleasure, this is what I was told and so toivel we did, in a record cold Minnesota winter. I took to bed with a fever of 104 for 3 days. Girls were sent to sit by my bed to say Tehillim until the fever broke. The rabbi explained the fever as a reaction of my physical body being traumatized by the spiritual impact of the conversion.

The idyllic life of eating, learning and budding frumkeit, a sisterhood being learned through talking, praying, singing, sharing family histories, days spent evolving around shabbos preparations were coming to an end. Pressure began, to return not to our former lives but again to Crown Heights, to begin life among the community who had invested in us and hoped we would join them. What a decision…a choice between the emptiness of flipping burgers and no family or the richness of yiddishkeit and a community to grow into.

With my mother insisting I had been brainwashed, I returned once last time to pack the rest of my clothes, say some goodbyes and told her everything else was hers to keep, sell or give away. I did not see her until years later. I was Jewish now and one didn’t keep company with goyim. Those unfortunate to be born into such situations were advised to be respectful to parents who had raised us but to keep our distance. Rather than allow me to join the rest of my graduating class from Minnesota in the home named after the Rebbe’s mother, it was suggested to me that I rent a basement apartment with other girls. Without family support, I had to work. I found office work and lived with 4 girls in one large basement room with a kitchen. Most of the ‘basement girls’ scattered around Crown Heights also worked and it seemed the goal was to find a shidduch as soon as possible.

Expeditious marriage the focus for baletschuvah women, already acquainted with a liberal lifestyle. With non mandatory classes teaching the basics of Hebrew, chassidus, minhagim and taking shabbos with community members, each of us gradually assimilated into Crown Heights. We lived to find the right rafter to hang from at farbrengens, to collect rebbe dollars, have our tzetlach answered about possible shidduchim, to get married and raise our own genuine yiddishe children whose authenticity no one could ever question.

But inside Crown Heights the exile of baletschuvahs had already begun. Considered not quite ‘clean’ in terms of yechus and life experience, baletschuvahs were expected to marry their own. After two bochurim asked about a shidduch with me, the families involved were so frightened at the aspect of losing two extraordinary young men to a geress, each family sat me down and explained why I could not marry their nephew or cousin and how I had to refuse so that the bochur would think I wasn’t interested. My conversion was never brought up even though it was sanctioned by the Rebbe z’tl. For shidduchim I was classified as a woman from a divorced family and told never to tell anyone I had converted.

A shadchun sent me out with a man accused of molesting young boys, something I was only told about after the rabbi in Minnesota came to Crown Heights during Elul and when he heard who I was seeing, strongly suggested I not see him. I finally married the son of Polish immigrants who asked their son, ‘where is her family?’ They had already rejected one convert for their son. So they weren’t told the truth. I called my mother thrilled to tell her I was engaged and asked her to come to the wedding in Crown Heights, she refused. We married out of state, his parents made the wedding.

By the second month of marriage I had a fever and went to a doctor who laughed at both me and my husband. He chuckled and asked to be invited to the bris. I had no mother, sister or relatives to ask about being pregnant, giving birth, being a mother. Like frumkeit and much of life, I learned by doing, not the passing of oral traditions. I was so tired from the pregnancy and working, I would fall asleep at the shabbos tish. One afternoon my husband came home and I was lying down on the bed. He had invited bochurim back with him for shabbos lunch. After lunch, which consisted of me serving and nodding at the table, I lay down again. He came in and prepared himself for intimate relations. When I refused, my head was slammed into an exposed metal spring of the sofa bed and he told me as his wife, I could not refuse him, ever.

We had been married 3 months by then and I had been living and working in Crown Heights for almost 4 years. The analogy I’m reminded of, is the army who arrived at the sea with marauding troops not far behind. Their choices were ride into the sea and pray for redemption or wait to die by the sword. I had chosen to redeem my life in Crown Heights rather than live and die among goyim. The distinction between choices had rapidly disappeared.

The next 10 years is a story I will not write about here. It is long and fraught with such poverty and violence, it either needs to be told in another venue or never spoken about. It involves 5 children, now grown but whose lives were shattered very early by abuse, by neighbors refusing to give us shelter to get away, by a Rav who I asked for a heter for birth control, inquired if I was attending to my husband’s ‘needs. A community who preferred dumping boxes of food erev shaboos and yontif on the porch rather than demanding a man posing as a chossid be responsible and support and protect his family.

The Rebbe z’tl was the father I almost had. There was never a letter that went unanswered. Was I capable of hearing or understanding everything he told me, no. Not then, maybe only in hindsight. He warned me about the marriage, using the term “if” frumkeit was the defining factor, the marriage would succeed. While Lubavitchers themselves would take such language as signal not to marry, that I was even put with a man born to Jews and who spoke fluent Yiddish seemed enough to work out a two letter word like “If.” Frumkeit barely disguised the charade we called a marriage. After 9 years of marriage my last letter to the Rebbe z”tl asked for permission to return to college, to earn a degree so I could support my children. My children lived on a patchwork of tzedakah from neighbors old clothes, a friend’s grocery account, the Rebbe’s household fund, from grandparents paying rent for years, from everywhere except the sweat of a father’s honest work. Eventually even my 5 year old son’s yeshivah told us, either pay tuition or send him to public school. My in-laws drew the line at paying rent and buying their son cars.

If you cannot understand the shame of this, no one can explain it to you. Having the yechus of parents who were a baletschuvah and a convert, was already a level they would be burdened with. Searching later for a shidduch while known to be dependent on charity with such a yechus, was a recipe for being offered the kind of shidduchim their mother had been offered years earlier.

Before anyone points a finger reminding me of the meaning of being a yerushamyim in terms of the Abishter providing income and a beshert, let me remind anyone still reading there is not a person in the frum community who with self respect and love of their own children as well as a passion for frumkeit that would accept to live this way, blindly stumbling along on community tzedakah without preparation for their children’s future.
I had written for a bracha to become responsible for my family and did not receive one. The Rebbe z”tl answered that ‘fire comes before great wealth’ and told me to stay home.

With a shaved head beneath my shetl, dressed tznius, I naively walked into to the Admissions Office of a college in NYC thinking somehow I might talk myself into school. I do not know what the woman must have thought, but she clearly believed that by giving the ghost of a woman seated in front of her the opportunity to attend school, she was giving me life itself. She accepted my transcripts from studying in Crown Heights and admitted me for the fall semester. My husband had already taken the children to visit his parents at the beginning of the summer. I called and said I would be remaining in New York and attending college. I did not know how long it would be before I would see my children again. In front of me was the creation of a future foundation where their lives would not be defined by the subjective generosity of family and neighbors whose help if given, would likely come with humiliation, asking them, as their mother had already been asked, ‘when are you going to get on your feet? Stop having children, put an aspirin between your knees (that one I still don’t understand.) It was one thing for born Chassidim to have as many children as possible to bring Moshiach, but sense dictated, and women advised, that if your husband wasn’t supporting you, bringing Moshiach was better left to those equipped to make it happen.

It is twenty years and many life times since I left Crown Heights. In twenty years I have not assimilated back into the secular world I left to enter Crown Heights and chassidus.

I read the Torah based paper Hamodia like a child opening a gift. My face remains pressed against the glass of a wonderous world, alive with frumkeit. Yet thirty three years after my father’s death and journeying toward frumkeit, I remain isolated and an outsider, a 5 minute bus ride away from Boro Park and a lifetime away from the Jewish community at large. I can only view from outside children playing on stoops, worlds away and ensconced with the indisputable knowledge they are yidden, children who walk unhesitant while clutching strollers wheeled by frum mothers. Young girls chiding younger siblings in Yiddish on behavior so ingrained because they are, to the manor born and blessed to be Jews.

The frum world remains the place my soul longs for, the only way of life for any Jew, that makes sense. Even those who haven’t grasped that fact, yet. After years of living as an exile, from birth and then circumstance, being an invisible Jew remains an impossible divide to bridge solely with good intentions.

In this beginning of another year, Elul presents us once again with the opportunity to make tschuvah, clean our accounts with the Abishter as well as those in our lives. On behalf of those of us who stand outside with our faces against the glass of the frum world, we need you to meet us at the gate, welcome us inside, not as strangers or exiles, but as family returning home.



(c) R. Singer

cleaning up

'Leave the gun
...and take the cannolis.'

My daughters

I am a mother of 3 daughters, 2 sons. 2 of my daughters have made aliyah. The oldest is now 28 and has lived there almost 6 years. The middle daughter is now 25 and left in June. Before R. left in June, she claimed to her youngest sister that her father sexually abused her and she had recalled the abuse during therapy sessions. Her siblings discussed this, before speaking to me, and pretty much dismissed the claim. R. refused to speak to me at all about this an when I went to visit her brothers and sister and tried meeting with her for coffee, to talk, she refused to speak with me at all.
This evening, my youngest daughter called because she needed help. She's alone now with no sisters in the U.S., overwhelmed by trying to support herself and tries to maintain a close relationship with her 2 brothers who live in the same town as her. Midway thru the conversation, she said her oldest sister needs to return to the u.S. but when she asked her sister when she was coming in and where she wanted to stay, she said she cant stay at her fathers house ever again. All she wouyld tell her younger sister is that one night while she was asleep, she woke to find her father sitting on her bed fondling her leg. She said there were other incidents of touching but wouldnt disucss it on the phone.

While it is difficult to write this, it is harder trying to breathe and focus. When his second wife left him, she told the girls 'listen to your mother and believe everything she may tell you about your father..." I can honestly say there was never a time he gave any inkling of this type of perversion and sickness. He never showed an interest in children sexually, he did have an interst in adult porn, something I had not seen intimately in or outside of Crown Heights prior to being his wife.

I thought when I completed years of paying child support to him, it would be an opportunity to heal the family, move forward. I can only think now how we are going to destroy this man. If there is nothing else I do in this life, it willbe to expose publically and ruin this man, who not only destroyed any poissibility of a frum, safe and happy home for me and my children, but violated his own daughters who looked to him for protection after our divorce.

The filth and scum that hides behind religious garb and trappings...is in every religion. But this is judaism, this is a 'religious jew' who lived in a most sacred place with a Rebbe O"H who was the closest human to Hashem in my generation. A Rebbe who was like a father to me, who always answered my kvitlach, gave brochas, sent me checks for support...but I didnt listen.

This is a husband and father who walked all over Crown Heights in a kapota, stood in yechidus with the Rebbe O"H. I cannot cast stones, my house is glass...I married an egyptian, desperate to find some happiness before becoming to old to find anything with anyone, anywhere. A short fiasco concluding with a divorce doesnt absolve my stupidity and selfishness.

I dont know that there is tshuvah for parents who hurt their children as we've hurt and let down these 5 kids.

If I didnt know what to do with the rest of my life, I know now.

Dream

Had a dream last night that won't go away even on waking...I was with M. and it was in the U.S. and we were among alot of people. It felt like a park, the sun was shining, people were around us. We were sitting and talking. The conversation was his sense of emptiness that we had been unable to have children together. I began, within myself, to recall how much a man is moved at the birth of his own child, how he bonds to a new life, grows inside and feels a sense of duty. I felt an unbearable sense of grief, for M as a man, for us as a couple.
I could feel him inside me, as if we were making love and I began to cry in the dream. I realized we were no longer married. Not only had we never had children, we were also separated now forever.
He asked me why I was crying and held me, told me to come with him. We were going to the room he lives in now. We walked a bit, came to a restaurant and we went inside, down some steps and he spoke to the owner. She gave him some signs to post for the daily specials and we went into the back where he stayed.
I opened the door and to my right saw 2 large elderly dogs being taken into the room next to his.
As I opened his door a mother cat blocked the entry way and was giving birth to kittens. There at least 6 kittens, some already outside and running around, fluffy with eyes open, others covered in blood under her mewing and she was agonizing trying to expel the placenta.
As she gave a last push I rubbed her haunches and it was expelled. Instead of being a small fleshy pod which she would eat, it was a large black inedible thick material like cardboard.
I had a sense of death, separation.
When I woke completely I had to stop myself from calling M. He keeps my voice on his answering machine.
I dont think he does it for sentimental reasons...its unlikely he told his family or friends in Egypt we've divorced.
Since we separated last November, I saw the children once and received 2 emails. I've sent boxes of homemade cookies, gifts, called and emailed them. Its like banging my head against a stone wall. M assumed the children were behind my decision to divorce him and as soon as I did they would all come flocking around. He never saw his betrayals with other women as a valid reason. "I know my rights" he told me.
One day while sitting at the computer he turned to me and asked me to explain exactly where and why I was unable to have any more children, something I had explained before we even married. But M wasn't listening then...he was only thinking of marriage to escape Egypt.
It was after this conversation he either gave himself permission or got permission from some online imam to take a 'second wife' or have another woman for sex. I had served my purpose, I got him here, now it was time to move on to a woman he 'really wanted' as he told someone on the phone.
I know from the amount of physical and emotional abuse its not M I want back in my life. I loved him deeply, would not have married him and gone thru such troubles to bring him, care for his medical problems, support him completely if I had not loved him, trusted him. So I dont know what this sudden revival of feeling of love, loss and wanting to return to life with him. I'm sure he's already involved and planning his life with other women...something he never stopped doing from the day we married.

Reading the Landscape

Post-Modernism teaches that reading the subtext is as important if not more, than the actual text. The problem that developed for some of us, is that the world became a place constantly in need of translation.

In reading the current landscape of events in the United States the tenuous lines between subtext and text is becoming less distinct as civil liberty, personal responsibility, ethical behaviour and morality are eroding rapidly.

Although we may say it could be alot worse, I suggest society is already so demoralized that we are an exceedingly vulnerable target to both internal and external forces interested in the financial and spiritual annihilation of western 'civilization.'

We are a society whose people require antidepressants to function because one income barely provides a living wage for basic requirements. Non religious couples rarely consider the possibility of a woman remaining at home, raising children with moral values. A single mother with 5 sons whom she raised to be lawyers was hailed this week on a talk show as a heroine. The streets are filled with drugs, violence and male figures of authority and protection rarely exist.

Our greed and need to accumulate, buy cheap, move up, stay current and in touch is so compulsive we've rid ourselves of all menial work and production, exporting farming, jobs, manufacturing, telecommunications and customer services, giving third world countries access to personal ID info, and the opportunity to export sub standard and literally poisonous products endangering american lives, taking jobs that could support U.S. citizens the government claims the people just dont want to do after terminating welfare support. American farms are about obsolete. With shrimp banned from China now American shrimpers are noting its so expensive to farm and distribute shrimp the prices will likely have to go up...can't possibly miss out on a classic capitalistic opportunity to make a 'market killing' whenever the chance arises. But we already have shrimp coming in from 5 other countries...Even radiology interpretations of CAT, MRI scans are being interpreted by outsourced overseas doctors.

Can anyone figure out what the millions of kids going to college in the U.S. are going to do after graduating? Is everyone supposed to become a doctor, lawyer or corrupt corporate manipulator? In the massive educational ghettos called the public school system of overcrowded classrooms where parents have to contribute essential teaching supplies for classrooms, the drop out rates are noted at 50% in some communities. Why push to complete high school with years of debt from college and vague professional opportunities to hope for, based on who you know or dont defining your future. The smarter risk might be take your losses early, sell drugs, your body, cheat on tests, sleep with your teacher or just blow up your school.

Men trying to be 'men' find themselves acting out roles that waver between limp wristed acquiesence to females unsure whether to be whores or madonnas or dominating bullies announcing they are righteously 'in charge' with expectations of female servitude and submission.

Women, having given up their own sexual responsibility and morals, make themselves available on the internet in pornographic videos, chat rooms, bars, clubs, leaving the impression that anything goes, everything and anyone is up for grabs, prostituting not only themselves but even their own children or killing them for the sake of a relationship.

Women and children are 'disappearing' in astonishing numbers. This summer alone mothers and their kids are being searched for in wooded areas, lakes are being dragged for bodies, killers too often being the very men closest to them.

Depression is the most often prescribed medication now in the United STates, bypassing every other disease. In the 21st century we are still asking whether mental health should have parity with physical health. Mental illness is the last medical closet where ignorant doctors are allowed to relegate patients they cannot cure, cannot understand and cannot correctly diagnose. The sense of despair in adults as well as children is profound.

Established religions have proved themselves filled with hypocrisy and worse, with its leaders preying on children in churches and yeshivahs. While we finger point at the violence of muslims who define their religiosity by the lengths to which they are prepared to physically die, too many of our religious 'leaders' simultaneously murder congregations with spiritual betrayals and distrust. Of all the important issues facing the christian church, the pope declares latin is once again fashionable for mass.

The arrogance of the government continues despite pleas to disengage from a war that is unwinable by any measure. Whether we remain, sending our own citizens and iraqis to their deaths, maimings and mental destruction, Iraq will continue its centuries old feuds, bloodbaths and slaughter. It's the religion stupid.
The army we are 'training' is filled with infiltraters looking to sabotage any effort to build a footstool 'democracy' allowing the U.S. to control the region and its oil. And for those less politically saavy, its a jihadic opportunity to rebuild the caliphate and destroy the infidels, in short, It's the religion stupid.

While the morons who are hired by TSA for our airports take away water bottles from mothers and other passengers, they can't detect bomb parts secreted thru in suitcases. While police stand huddled in NYC subways, chatting in groups and occasionally stopping a random train rider to check their bags, others pass into a system completely open and vulnerable without cameras or detection devises.

For those looking for hopeful signs of Life in the universe, Poland is having a revival of Jewish(ness) by its non jewish citizens. Goyim are playing hasidic music, dancing, serving jewish foods in 'celebrations' of jewish customs and traditions. So many questions comes to mind after one finishes vomiting from disgust or peeing from laughter.

This was the country that Germany used as their elimination zone to rid the world of Jews. The camps are in Poland, the ghettos were in Poland, the forests in Poland hid partisans, men and women trying to defend Jewry and fleeing for their lives. The antisemitism spawned in Poland gave sanctuary and thriving permission to Nazism and genocide.

50 years after the Holocaust, in a world of rising antisemitism and apocalyptic Christian protectionism, as Israel remains isolated and compared to Nazis themselves re: Palestinians, are Poles celebrating jewish(ness) to cynically recall what they attempted to destroy?

Are Poles (as well as the entire muslim world) preparing the groundwork as the world looks to once again embark on the final destruction of the 'jewish problem' in working out a Mid East solution?

Or is this a peculiar (and unlikely) form of Stockholm Syndrome where the twist is that the oppressor takes on the captive's traits in a guilty dance of impending doom?

Is the answer wrapped inside some killing field in Iraq? Is in the place where 'weapons of mass destruction' can't quite be located? Maybe the answer is in the nuclear facility Iran has built while the US sits on its hands... Is the answer on some Internet chatroom as arab men chatter together while seeking naive women for marriage to enable them to travel? Is it in the bored laughter of cops occasionally checking a backpack or genuinely ill trained airport workers who don't know what danger signs to take seriously...

Maybe the answer is in our own citizenry raised to feel entitled to a thriving and peaceful existence while the rest of the world burns in suffering and poverty? Despite all the signs around us, most that really dont need much translation, most americans seem to remain supremely in denial as to what's facing us. News programs are still looking for answers, still waiting for 'moderate' muslims to appear on the horizon so we can play nice together.

Global media is discussing how it could be possible for professionally educated 'scientifically' oriented (re: secular exposure) muslims could be caught up in a world of destruction? No one dares publically confront the disconnect between what's written in quran and public statements of 'peace' and submission' professed by so called moderate muslims and misinformed western educated idiots and unacknowledged antisemites. Now with pockets of muslim enclaves throughout Europe and the U.S. whose intentions and loyalty one can only guess at, we must not trigger an avalanche of jihad activities. Its enough trying to manage the red blooded american kids trying to blow up their schools and classmates.


12 million illegal persons floating around the U.S.
They can't all be Mexican.
Deportations of drug dealers, domestic violence perpetrators, stalled for decades.
Deportations of known persons whose visas have expired, stalled or ignored.
Illegals standing on corners waiting for work vans.
Illegals screaming at demonstrations for their 'rights'
Churches and synagogues looking to solidify and rebuild dying congregations, giving refuge to illegals.
Illegals steadily having as many 'sympathy' babies as possible hoping to avoiding deportation by sheer numbers.
How many babies can a dish washer, grass cutter or house maid support?
Grown children of non citizens demanding entry into college with ability to apply for college grants and loans?
Are 12 million people able to function and live in a society where a government claims everyone must have a Social Security number for work, disability, medical insurance, etc? Are there 12 million people using completely fake or stolen Social Security numbers? Whose cranking out this amount of social security info without the government able to track or stop them?
Is this the same government that's trying to foil al Qeada inside the U.S. and abroad?

A government who refused to stop this madness, attempts to sanction and bestow citizenship on every thief who overstayed, crawled and snuck in, while millions wait legally, because we can't just get rid of 12 million people. After all, whose going to wash all those dishes that Americans wont wash?

We're a depressed nation of people...once the depression passes and the anger takes hold, perhaps we'll see some needed changes.

Its the Religion Stupid

Those who cure you, will kill you.
Coded words spoken by an 'imam' to a priest.
How long will it take the non muslim world to understand the mental state of followers of the destruction called Islam have nothing to do with class, finances, poverty or religious convictions or righteousness?

7 doctors and 1 pathetic female lab technician rounded up after botching a suicide mission. "Educated" men, men who spoke english, men who were touched by euro culture, who saw a different way of life, men who had futures in front of them, men who had hope and didnt have to make the choice of death for themselves or for others.

These men are no different from the poor illiterates living in poverty in Gaza or elsewhere in the arab world who make the choice to die as there's not much else in front of them--ITS THE RELIGION STUPID--

I saw Charlie Rose speaking on his program with Andrea Elliot and imam Shata Reda who stared at Rose under his eyelashes, poseur to humility and refusing to speak English, his textbook responses had to be translated for the watching audience as Rose hovered and whispered slow questions, as if speaking carefully and quietly would elicit some truth about how much Hate lives inside a muslim for anyone and everyone who A) is not a muslim and B) is not interested in becoming muslim (a.k.a. infidels)


Keep making the mistake of trusting the people who believe and live by the credo that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and see how many more cells pop up because we can't clamp down on 12 million illegals and their uncles flooding past porous borders.

Keep hoping for the arab world and their blind adherents to understand freedom, democracy and a chance at happiness. It's all lies...on both sides, playing an end game they both think they'll win.

The enemy of my enemies...

Withal that's going on in Washington, what caught my attention is the announcement that the military has begun giving arms to the Sunni population in Iraq. Reversing the stance that no one except designated Iraqi troops and 'coalition' forces may retain arms, we are now giving arms, not 'the best' arms-perhaps Klatchnikovs- to the Sunnis so they can help kill Shiite and those darn Kurds who won't shut up about having their own 2 acres and a mule.

All this proves is that America and this government still does not understand the arab brain.
America invaded Iraq, has caused a civil war, thousands are dead, tortured, robbed, homeless and we expect these people now to go out and kill for us, in the name of instituting democracy?


We are assuming the thirst for revenge is great enough that an armed sunni will be happy to go forth and take revenge on non sunnis causing coalition troops a headache?

And we wonder why 3/4 of the world hates and disrespects us? Why we are not trusted? Why we are considered invaders and crusaders?

I give this 30 days or less before we hear news that Sunni Iraq, newly armed by America, will have turned on American troops to defend their country and their hated 'brothers'.

Because the enemy of my enemy is my brother.
...and the enemy is us.

The arrogance of this government is beyond belief and punishment in terms of future attempts inside this country surely will be on all our heads for such gross manipulation of people's lives and the destinies of their countries.

or not

The light at the end of the tunnel may not be an oncoming train.

Useless female politicians

The fact that Cheney had to followup on the Rice visit to the Mid East only underlines the fact that with critical issues exploding all over that region and Islam sprouting globally like a fungus, sending over a kus to do a man's job, is a waste of time.

Not one Arab country takes women seriously, including women politicians representing the U.S.
Especially not the U.S. where violence, pornography and domestic abuse are an accepted part of too many people's contradictory and hypocritical lifestyles.

Women are accoutrements and/or property for trade or discard in Islam. Lived in it and thru it, no one can tell me anything to the contrary about the "religion of peace." In 15 years among muslims, I never met an American woman who converted for intellectually based religious reasons to Islam, not one. It's either women coming out of abusive childhoods who remain attracted to domination and control, women from abusive prior marriages with kids and needing a husband/father figure, older women unable to find American husbands and hoping that importing someone would mean long term committment (I qualify on all three).

Updated my voting registration for the upcoming elections, something I neglected for awhile. While the system is thoroughly corrupted, to sit back and allow someone as despicable as Fatah lover Clinton to get in or even worse, the media hyped inexperienced Obama, touted by liberal idiots as a reincarnated Kennedy, is worse than not voting at all.

minor breakthru

maybe not so minor...ComingHome must also mean coming home to 'self' not simply yiddishkeit. I realized this evening that it has not been so much finding the road to yiddishkeit that i've been searching for, but a home. The only community open, that offered me a home after my father died, was Lubavitch. Albeit begrudgingly, snobbishly and by relegating me to the outskirts as a geress not worth paying much attention to with chinuch, not worth investing much interest in as their were not parents/finances to cultivate, tolerated, then married off.
I've been so desperately trying to find a external home to replace the one I lost, to not feel the terror inside of what was ripped away...but not suddenly. I wanted to write suddenly, but it was years in the making. Years of violence and alcohol, years of dread and tippytoeing around, years of silence, I'm not speaking to your mother, Go ask your father, Put your father to bed, Sing your father a lullaby so maybe he'll go to sleep, Go give this money to your mother...lying in bed and waiting for the night shows to begin. .."keep your voice down A. the girls will hear you..."
You could never hear him until he lost control of his rage, he spoke in a drumbeat, staccato barbs that didnt let up insulting her, letting her know he had her followed, I dont make this stuff up, he had her followed and knew everything she did, everyone she saw and sometimes I think on this and wonder how any woman, because I can't, how any woman can listen to this level of abuse and eat it, day in and day out and still apply their makeup, get dressed up, go out and do as they like. How do they do that?
I've come to the conclusion, these are all questions no individual mind can answer, I certainly can't answer as I've been asking them silently nin one way or another for many years. My mother died without giving a clue to any consciousness or sense of responsibility. I;ve been so mentally obliterated thinking it was religion I was hungering for, when it was family and place, as well as G-d's protection and yiddishkeit. So mentally blotto I left 5 children to fend for themselves with a father who still hasn't recognized he also is a father of five children who need help. Our middle daughter is running off now also on aliyah. I am convinced neither of the girls are making aliyah for the right reasons, whether they are ultimately successful or not. I smell the same symptoms I had...no options, no family support, no money, no idea of what to do with their lives....so run...anywhere is better than the here and now. Our oldest has been there at least 7 years and is still hoping to be accepted into the police academy. She claims to be involved with domestic violence outreach with both jews and arabs. She returns to the US in plainclothes, without any proof of her stories or income. Our middle daughter started college 2x and withdrew to being aliyah procedures. I called their father 2 weeks ago, to try again to open a dialogue, to explain we need to speak as parents to our kids. Seems I'm too late, he feels the kids are doing great, he's so proud of them. None are married, all are in psychic pain, none finished college, the youngest didnt even finish high school, doesnt even have a birth certificate with his correct name because his father didnt want to give the name I asked for and left it blank...
I think what I'm encountering within myself, is not whether these things are fixable, its the seemingly insurmountable pile of shit in front of me that needs shoveling, I dont know where to dig first. The Rebbe used to say L'hat hi l'arriber...roughly, jump over (when you cant go around). In this case, with so many lives involved, so much pain over many years and families, I dont know how to 'jump'--I've been frozen and in the last year have actually tried to go beyond freezing to frozen completely, not the act of freezing, but stone cold numb. It's one thing to be rejected by parents, but to be rejected by your own children, why live?
I started this writing for myself as a process to learn, move forward, nothing more. Its a public disclosure to force myself to remember and continue remembering. BEcause everyday is another opportunity to bury it deeper and become number and further away from humanity. I've grown to be so afriad of human contact I prefer being alone and indoors. Noise makes me jump and babies squalling untended, women yelping or screaming can make me ill for hours. I can't take being stared at, I dont know why people look. I am invisible and have been treated as such and now prefer to live that way.
I painted my kitchen last week and then did the other 2 rooms. Both the cat and I remained here, I didnt realize we would get sick from the paint fumes. She's pretty much recovered, it took her 3 days of sleeping, not food, wobbley walking and drinking alot. I got bronchitis and am still coughing up garbage. But l'hat hi'l'arriber, the walls are clean in our 3 room cell.

On leave, on meds, vitamins

I'm on leave from work.
Taking daily prilosec, carafate, hyoscyam (IBS), 50,000I.U Vit. D, 3,000mg B12, mega multivitamin, one antidepressant and sleep medication.
Trying not to think about going back there, but it's probably inevitable since resumes sent out produce no results.

Amazing family We are

I got an email from WebRing and dont recall contacting them, but am listed on JewishBloggers. Went to their site and found hundreds of jewish blogs. Some ranting, raving, deferential, saddened, angry and always passionate. Too many of the good ones stopped posting. I added TheShaigetz and Being a BT to my bloglist although they dont have recent posts, some of the writing is wonderful.

GhettoBasher@blogspot.com last post was July 2005. If someone reads his blog or knows him, tell him he's in my prayers.

Our stories and journeys unite us, even in their disparities, it is almost always a profound love and respect for yiddishkeit that drives us to search, move forward toward finding answers and peace.

I hope that those no longer posting found the answers they were seeking and didn't give up.

On strike

I'm not sure if this is permanent or a temporary brain fart due to mental fatigue. I stopped coloring my hair, letting the grey come in at the temple, stopped wearing any and all makeup, stopped wearing jewelry except for a mogen david and wear nothing but simple slacks and shirt.
Coat collar pulled up, bag tightly held, eyes down, find a seat, pull out book, avoid all humans.
I'll never make it as a certified yid, I dont like people enough and that's the truth. I like people at a distance, on paper, in theory, as specimens, house plants or pets. You can't expect much more than an occasional lick or new leaf, more than that breeds disappointment.

I've been sick so that's one valid excuse for going on strike. The other excuse is I did all these things before and during marriage and I could've danced naked on Broadway, he would have strayed because he said it was his right to do as he liked. Paint yourself like a tart and bake and cook yourself into exhaustion. He didnt like cotton underwear and would buy these tarty outfits for me to slip into after a 12 hour day. Its not his fault, I married him hoping that endless love and cooking would be his rehab into democratic civilization, what a hoot. My father o"s used to say, can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...


If Andrea Dworkin were alive I would have written her a love letter. She saved my life last year.I wasnt thinking of thanking her for keeping me alive, but for her insight and strength. I spent the last 6 months I was trapped living with him, reading "Heartbreak" over and over. Read it like medicine to keep on track, to move forward, keep going and focused. Then a colleague at work was in a funk and I gave it to her for strength.
I think it was too raw for her...she never said a word about reading it. I rarely part with books unless it seems like a fit, I hope the book found a reader and a home.

I'm so tired...

Shabbos, work

I can count on 3 fingers how many events the college has scheduled on Friday nights in the last 15 years. I have one tomorrow night and one next Friday.

Alumni have asked for years that we NOT schedule reunions on the weekend so those who are shomer shabbos can attend. We wouldnt think of planning something on a sunday.

If I had any balls I would take my portable licht and bentsch tomorrow night in the ballroom and freak out the reform pseudo 'jews' and the goyim who have something to say about any religion. But I am a coward, I'm sure that's clear by now. The same people who turned their faces from me for wearing a scarf when I married, will be just as nasty to see me trying to observe judaism. Did anyone ever ask questions, speak to me...side way glares, smirks, gossip traveled back thru the grapevine.

The truly religious people will be in their own homes, not swilling liquor and watching awards presented for stuff no one cares about. We can't even get news covereage this crap is so meaningless. I wont eat there with my health the way it is now and I dont drink. I'm not fun. This is why men find me a pain in the ass. Women are supposed to be flitty bits of T&A with occasional brain when men need some info, otherwise shut up and put out. One of my VPs is a woman. I dont fall in love with people, I think I have a mother complex regarding this woman. She's like this brilliant, beautiful 57 year old...we can finish each other's sentences. I've been in meetings around a table and no one catches things she says except me and we laugh. If I found a man like that I dont know...I never have, maybe they dont exist. Even her, she has a male boss and defers to him, jumps when he calls, he makes her cry she told me once, but he's the Boss. She has a cell phone and is on 24/7 call for him. How do people live like that? Is that professionalism or something bizarre. She was an English teacher and then began writing speeches and copy for him in a corporate setting and moved up with him. She's like a buffer and previewer of people and facts so he doesnt have to think or speak to anyone not worth his time, she vetts everything. She makes over $100k to do that and has an expense account. He makes over $300K and has one. They quibbled over a $5k raise to put my salary on par where it should have been but wasn't and then gave me $3k while dumping a mess into my job description.


I keep having this fantasy about working in a flower shop. To go from the fake world of creating copy about people who mean nothing except to their self inflated sense of themselves, to simple daily making of small bits of honest beauty making a single person happy for a few days.


My second daughter is making aliyah in 2 months. I'm happy for the state of Israel...but I have 2 daughters now who've left the family and I dont know if its for the right reasons. The boys sure aren't interested in pitching in and going over. If M decides to go too, it will be as if I never had children. Life in CH will have been for nothing, my life will amount to nothing. I sent M a check this morning with a letter, telling her we have to move forward with either school or making some decisions about her future and I would like to help her in any way I can. I dont want to drop money down a deep hole for nothing, they all received a hefty inheritance and everyone is tightlipped about where their money is or went. I just dont want to see her married for lack of other options. If I wait for their father to wake up, it'll be another 20 years wasted if I live that long.

I should have titled my blog 'Going Home' because that's what I want to do...this life is enough already.

Rage turned inward

Something clicked tonight.
I lived with a man, married and took care of a man, broughtr him to this country, paid for everything, sponsored him, paid exorbitant medical bills for illnesses no one knew he had, paid his credit card and cell phone that he used ran up and over to call other women. Sat home as he took 'vacations' to see women in other states within the first 2 years of our marriage, was humiliated as women sent him gifts of pajamas, cameras, pics and love notes. Women who called him while he was out with me, at home with me, me cooking in the kitchen for him to eat,while I was out working to support us, while I tried to sleep in a room with the TV on silent and flickering all nnight, with the computer keyboard tapping away all night, while he sat with only his bikini pants on, his bare chest pointed at his webcam so she could see him all night or the women in the rooms who posed naked and did whatever people asked them to do, I lived with this man. When I asked this man to stop having a relationship with other women, he said no one tells him what to do, not even his father. When she kept calling even though she knew what she was doing to me, he told her not to worry I was a good girl...he would take care of everything. I refused to speak to him. I called her his whore and he smashed me across the face. In the kitchen as I was cooking our dinner, first one side that landed on my ear and again.
That was the second time he hit me. But when it happened I understood I meant nothing, I was nothing, this invisble woman had taken over my husband's brain, life. The third and last time was when I hit came months later after I had already been going thru a silent and deadly withdrawal, making decisions and silently preparing to break. I removed everything, slowly, day by day in garbage bags, one drawer at a time. I found my letters in his suitcase, stuffed, letters from my children and old college friends, as if he wa collecting some kind of evidence only he could understand...letters from kids and family about thier father, the divorce, things he knew nothing about. It was in this time he was taking calls all hours of the day and night, never letting the cell out of his sight or hand. Going into the bathroom to speak as if he had to shit all the time. Always mumbling and turning up the Tv when I was cooking, like I couldnt tell why the volume suddenly went up. I went into the bedroom and told him he didnt have to turn up the volume to speak to his whore, I knew who he was talking to, just talk it doesnt mean anyting anymmore. Right in his face, up front, direct, just the way he couldnt do it. He punched me so hard I lost my hearing for almost 2 days and smashed my glasses. I lunged at him screaming if he ever hit me again I would kill him, I told him to never touch me ever again. EVer.
I called domestic violence services and some crappy counseling came out of that, no emergency housing, its basically a program for poor minorities with kids. White working women stupid enough to get hit, seem to deserve it. There was no where to go. The judge who first heard my request for an order of protection was black from the islands, she gave me the order and said he could stay in the apartment. For 2 weeks he was on the phone telling anyone who would listen how I was messing up his life with an OP.
I spoke to J at work. J made an offer to get rid of him. J said in this situation a broken leg would only be problematic long term. This was a situation that needed to be cleaned up in one go and dumped. Told me to think about it and to understand it was not something that would be easy, but it would get rid of the problem, permanently. I rememebered when in CH a similar offer was made because husband wasn't working was doing nothing and R said a work over by the community guys with a message to get his ass out and take care of his family, nmight straighten him out. I was appalled then, thinking how do frum even think like this. 20 years later, someone cared enough to put his life on the line for me to get rid of someone who kit and abused me and the trust I had in him. And again I refused it.
I got the impotent OP a second time and he had to leave. Outside the courtroom my lawyer shook his hand, patted him on the back telling him to be a nice guy and stay out of trouble, it would be the best thing for his future.
I went home to an empty apartment that was already packedmostly and threw everything away that had accumulated, things he brought in from someone else discards, curb trash of chairs, tables...anything rather than work and buy something for our life together. I got garbage.
I spent months clutching the pepper spray J gave me for protection. I keep seeing his black volkswagon even when its a subarau, i hear a whistle and hav to hold myself from looking around to see if its him calling me. I look for him still, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of disbelief we are apart. But I realized tonight that I had an opportunity to exact justice, revenge for a second time for being abused and refused that protection. My verbal excuse for refusing was that in front of G-d, it was a hilul hashem. But there's a part of my inside aware that I refused because I felt unworthy that anyone should go do something so clear, so loving, solely to protect me, that I refused to have it done.
He is not far from where I live. His mail came once in a bill he left for me to pay. I looked at the label and he's walking distance. No matter where I go in a place where I know people for 20 years, he can be lurking anywhere, I could be followed anytime and if anything happened I dont have his address. He kept his cell number, he just doesnt answer when i ring to see if he still has it.
What I realized is that instead of killing him literally, I tried killing myself--i stopped eating and lost 40 lbs in 3 months. THat's when the gastritis started, from starving and my insides eating themselves up listening to him talk to some bitch because my hair fell into a dish of food, or I hadn't fixed plates of fried fish, develilled eggs or mombari *stuffed sheeps intestines) for him to gorge on while talking to his schiav online while I worked or when he got hungry at 2am. I am sick now because I didnt have him killed. All the impotence, the rage at being punched around, the insult of listening to a man you call your husband take calls from bitches as if its his right to do so in his home, that his wife has to pay for becuase she his sponsor...thats how he counted it. I put up with it and then when the chnace came to fix it, I didnt fix it, I left it to the impotent court system to leave him go on with his life....and I will look over my shoudler as long as I stay in this apt or at my job. This is why I'm sick physically sickm filkled wikth fear paranoia and rage. This is why I stopped talking to anyone and stay mostly silent, Its not simply a lack of things to say the gavonnes around here, I'm always on hyper alert now, jumping at any noise, feeling other worldly and outside myself, detached, sometimes numb and other times like i ahve no skin on my bones I feel so nakedly raw with emotion. I stopped talking but its clear there nothing left to say on any subject. The only subject I seem to be involved with internally is hearing the next cue, the next stop sign of where to go when to do it.
I never thought of myself so devout that after being beaten for calling a woman breaking my marriage a whore that I would feel ashamed to accept another man would stand up for me and break my husband's head open. I'm repeatin myself but I need to write this clearly. I wanted him to die to feel how he made me sufer. I was given that chance without questions, with a pricetag, free of charge. And that the court refused to acknowledge the adultry, was not allowed to see the pictures of him with her, the cards addressed to beloved husband, the cell bills and jewejlkry reeipts, I was fucked not only by him, I fucked myself and the court fucked me good too by telling him only' bye, have a nice life.'
Do you understand what I'm writing...there is no responsbility, there is no retribution, there is no revenge, there is a woman like many who got played and I was suposed to understand my job wajust hims do at home, while he played because he wanted a wife he could rely on to carry his home an take care of his son, while he played. I hope the irony of it makes you as I cry.
I am sick, physcally imploding with grief at finding myself alone again, separated from a spouse I trusted my life and thoughts with only to find them sharedwith internet whores for discussions I was never a par of, it was
sharing and opening up his marraige to another 'wife' that I was supposed to gradually understand was his righ to take because I couldnt have more children.
His son was diagnosed with gran mal epilepsy in 2005. I can just imagine what idiot made the finding and what kind of garbage pills he getting from the mosque instead of the pharmacy. He blamed his god for giving him a son with epilesy and a wife 'no one wants' A man who never prayed was crying in a prayer to god why he was being punished with marriage to me and crippled son. I had more clearly when the offer came to finish him, it would have served the future of this child well. He would remain in his country with family and either sell fruit or junk on the street, find a young wife and live his simple life in peace. I did all of us a big disservice by not accepting, because I turned all this rage,impotence and injustice in on myself and this is whats eating my insides out.
What is wrong with women...or our we so civilized now that these things are done to us but we return this filthy abuse and behaivour with a gentle pat on the head?This is why men walk awayto he next whore waiting for them...there's aline out there for every cock on parade.
I tell you it be in the next life before I ever have one in m y life or bed.