...but it aint about nostalgia

I started this blog in response to an '06 divorce from a violent (court certified) 2nd husband, a strong desire to reconnect w chassidic life and community and get some clarity about what I glimpse in the spoken world of Jew versus text.

As muslims continue to increase their progeny and spread themselves all over in communities in the US and abroad, some claiming asylum, some getting in via work/student visas and never leaving or marrying foreigners to obtain residency for anywhere but the dictatorships they dwell in. I sat in Egypt,listening to conversations between young men in their late 20s, who had never stepped outside Egypt, some had no language skills or education other than grammar school and planned how to find a woman online to court/marry and get pulled out, no matter the country...Sweden was at the top of the list (leggy blondes seen as a big plus) as was the US. There was never discussion about work, "I'll do anything" because the system was already known, the spouse=sponsor was financially responsible for the immigrant and after that the State may grant social welfare benefits.

I read today that the small singular Jewish community in Sweden has been repeatedly threatened by muslims they're making aliyah en masse to Israel. In Brooklyn, NY the week before xMas, 200 Jewish tombstones were overturned in a Boro Park Jewish cemetary. The police were debating whether it was a bias crime. Kissinger allegedly said "It's not our business if the Russians sent their Jews to the concentration camps."

A 46 yr old American woman who married a young jihadist is busily, and not very quietly, doing PR for the online jihad crowd sending announcements out to English speaking converts that its time for war. It's too bad she doesnt understand Arabic to know what her husband and his cohorts say about her as an old piece of ass he has to screw to get what he needs for the sake of Ala so he can blow up something and feel like a mentsch.

So I turn to my own Jewish leaders for some perspective on current events...apparently MIA in the US except for Chabad or kabbalah teachers. It's hard to take Reform/Conservative Judaism seriously, especially when the 'head' of the Reform movement announces 'Israel is becoming racist.' Practice something 3x it becomes part of your routine...a dictum taught to young Jewish students. It seems some in the quasi Jewish world have picked up the goyische dictum, if you repeat lies 3x, they become Truth.

Not only the Arab world (Arab describing muslim populations, at some point pond scum is hard to differentiate from sheiss wasser) but now Jews themselves appear to be of two minds-we have been tormenting, oppressing and cheating the poor Palestinians from the lives they deserve, by building Jewish settlements, holding Golan and keeping Jerusalem intact and available for everyone to use safely, or we should be focused on spreading the light of Moshiach by thinking, acting and speaking good words, studying Torah every spare minute, and in some circles teaching kabbalah to goyim. The Chabad cult of Moshiach sometimes pales in the light of the cult of Manis, but I'll leave that for another post.

My oldest daughter said, make aliyah...this is the place for Jews. I agree, but I'm hold back due to health. My oldest son says many of the Jews where he lives (outside NYS) carry guns because of the simmering antisemiticism. My other children think much as Rodney did, after the LA cops beat the crap out of him "Can't we all just get along?"

Getting along was my modus operandi after leaving Crown Heights...surely educated people all get along, we have Aristotle's Ethics and Proust's a la recherche du temps perdu in common. And if Ethics or recalling the scent of your mother's corsage doesnt keep you in line and friends with someone who wants you dead, learning Kabbalah surely will. Like ships navigating between glaciers without a compass in the dark of night, Jews hope safe harbor is out there, somewhere.

Some days I wonder if anyone outside of his immediate family thinks about Sholom Rubashkin, how many people he fed who would not otherwise have had food.
I wonder about Youseff Khtab nee Cohen (?)from Queens who converted out, lived in Gaza with his converted wife and kids he was raising everyone to be ardent muslims, Khtab suddenly reappears in Queens in 2010, insisting he isnt for killing innocent civilians...just in case anyone thinks he might be back in the US working both sides of the fence.

I don't understand how NYS has soup kitchens, food pantrys, Food Stamps, meals in school for kids, restaurants donated unused cooked food for God's Love We Deliver and other food delivery services..and yet we are shown pics of kids holding signs they ate their dinner from a gas station and we're asked to donate food for hungry New Yorkers.

We dont have enough affordable housing for middle-low income people in NYS-this has been an issue for decades. But Bloomberg found time to install bistro tables and chairs at Union Square and decimate the public school system so that kids are even further behind in math, science and literacy...unless you're Chinese and go to after hours school when public school is over and attend private Chinese school on Saturday to prep for statewide tests.

Leonard Lopate on WNYC was interviewing an author who wrote a book about Boomer parents pushing their 20+ yr olds out of the nest too early, causing them to fail at work and socially. Lopate noted, its different now...years ago we could find an apartment for $200 and with 4 roommates start to make a life...no more. Its all gone. And here I thought all problems evolved from parents divorcing...hmmm.

Yesterday I was perusing thousands of online photos posted on a chabad website. I was mainlining...I couldn't pull myself away looking at the big teased hair, shoulder pads, big eyeglass frames. Pictures of anash who were not identified from the '70s and '80s. Pictures of community members, guests, kids receiving Rebbe dollars. My ex is there with his second wife and my five children are there receiving dollars. I stood on the line many times and received them as well and nary a pic of me. I'll continue to search...A la Recherche du Temps Perdu

along the horizon
where blue sky
meets the sea
I hear approaching
the grinding of ice
..