Sherril's Myriad of Musings

I am a big fan of keeping a journal, not just a diary type, but also and more frequently, the small notebook inside my pocketbook type. That is to say, I always have a small notebook with me to jot down whatever I think is important and would otherwise forget. I also often buy small notebooks, wherever I happen to be, if they catch my attention and fancy. So, for example, once, when I was perusing my local B&N, I took a quick look at the various journals. I found the MOLESKINE Ruled Notebook, one similar to the one that I had purchased 3 or 4 years ago and had used up. Even though I did not need a new notebook (I'd purchased two very pretty Mini journals on a trip to Canada in late 2007), I still bought the MOLESKINE one, knowing that eventually I would need it and it was just what I wanted, but hadn't found since first purchased.

The Playbill went headless for many years until I decided I would try to patch it up.

Labels: "Jimmy Shine", Broadway Theater, Dustin Hoffman, Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, Theater, West Side Story revivial

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU 11 timeTHANK YOU~. I chose to wait until all the comments were in before responding to each of your comments. Seeing that my comments in response to your comments will be lengthy, I'll post them here as a new blog, rather than trying to fit it all in the comments section.









I am such a sop; I cried as I read each comment out loud. A large part of what has been so incredibly exciting for me in this election is the feeling of camaraderie I've had with all of you and the other millions out there who cared so much and took the election so seriously and the many who worked so hard to make it happen. I really believe that we did make a difference this time. Of course, Obama being the quintessential "Community Organizer" that he is, knew how to effectively lead the proverbial "grassroots" effort and make it work and work it did. He did it. We did it. It has been done. HALLELUIA!

Now for a few specific responses:

Farm Girl....what a happy surprise. You never told me that you had a blog here. Will wonders never cease? I'll drop by your blog now and again to see what my book toting, farm working, politically correct religionist is up to. My polling places, both in Lake Hiawatha and Morris Plains are also "hopping" when there are five voters there at the same time. You were not the only one who commented on the question of reliability of our senior citizen poll workers. I wonder if this should become an issue. It seems that it would come across as being ageist, but it is an important problem.





Ken B....thanks for responding to my call for commenters. Yes, I guess most of us who live in the suburbs and rural parts of NJ have similarly "easy voting" experiences, even at this time when city voters stood in lines for hours and hours. What impressed me about that fact was that people who might have otherwise "just left" seeing long lines, didn't leave, but waited to do their civic duty because they knew this time it really, really mattered. Shalom back at you.






Alicia....I appreciate that you took the time to comment. Like Ken and many of the others in NJ, our voting experiences are similar. Of course, what you represent is the "Youth Vote", albeit, the upper end of it. (: and as such, you and the others like you who are committed to progressive politics at a young age, are the hope of us more seasoned voters, for the future of progress in our country. Do you remember we worked together that one day for the Kerry campaign?





Becky...You and my other good friend, Diane S. from the now defunct blog The Unfound Door, are the sole representatives here from the very red states of Oklahoma and Texas, respectively. I love love love your exuberance. I remember we shared that child within us enthusiasm when we were students together at Wichita State University all those many years ago. I could see you standing there on your voting line as your mind was in a gliding pattern. You express yourself in a "gliding pattern' and it never ceases to refresh me. I am so glad that though we haven't seen each other since 1974, we remain "soul-sisters" in our politics and in our lives in general. Thanks god for the Internet. I wonder if Obama could feel your pride in him? I bet he could. So glad that your students could share in your enthusiasm for "our man" Obama.





LG...I am lucky to have a few people in my life who act as cheer-leaders for me and you lead that pack. Thanks for that. And thanks also for your "proxy" vote for Obama. I know you were a strong Clinton supporter and I appreciate that you believed in your friends dedication enough to vote for Obama. I hope and pray you will be forever glad you did.





Audrey...What a great tradition you have of voting with your family members. There are so many people in our country who don't generally vote (though not this time) and I think parents who have influenced their children to be voters have something to be proud of. Who'd have thought back when you were designing the decorative part of my daughter's and then my son's Bat and Bar Mitzvahs, that we were in the same political boat and that we would have this shared experience of anxiety ridden anticipation and then exultation around the election of 2008?





Len....I don't know anyone who votes at City Hall, but come to think of it, that seems like the most obvious place to vote. I'm used to fire stations, schools and VFW halls. Actually, Ken's library was a first for me too. I think the being mobbed by dozens of people and waiting longer on line adds to the excitement of it. Of course I share in that feeling of joy and pride. I know how you appreciate your relatively cheap ride from Boston to Chinatown in NYC, as do I since it gives me the chance to see you every once in a while, so I'm glad this momentous event also allowed you to share your "secret".





Penny....You didn't sign your comment, but we established that it was you. Paid off it did!! Having you as my comrade in progressive arms, has been a god-send for me.





Diane S.....I know just what you mean about making Election Day special and significant. I don't necessarily don any rhinestones, but I do make sure that I am given that "I Voted" sticker, which I then wear with pride and a hint of sentimentality for the rest of the day. I actually still have one from a past election on my computer and this years on the stick shrift in my car. I guess maybe your town isn't as "oh so white" as you thought, but perhaps instead, the minorities hadn't felt the urge to get out to vote before. What were the new machines like? We have touch screens and then a lever that you click at the end. Did you notice that there was much less discussion about the voting machines? I would like to see consistency of machines used throughout the country. Diane, thank you for being my closest friend who I've never met and with whom I share so much in common in sensibilities and outlooks on life. Oh, and one more thing. Do you know Farm Girl or were you just being "neighborly"?







Dave...Oh, Dave! It took me a while to realize whose comment I was reading. If it hadn't been for the "eh" and the very sad news about your mother, I may not have known at all. Politics aside, my heart ached when I read that your mother had died. You know I met her a few times and I thought we "connected", as it were. As for Politics, how happy I am that you did in fact vote and that you voted for the BEST CANDIDATE, OBAMA! He'd have done the same for you! (: I guess after the onslaught of Sarah Palin you decided it would make more sense to move to Canad than to Alaska. Not a bad idea. I know what you mean about missing the metal levers and hefty handles; they made you actually, physically feel the importance of what you were doing. As for legalizing marijuana, I suspect Obama has a few weightier matters to deal with first; but you never know! Will you ever legally partake with me if he does?






Sherril

I invite you to comment here, even if you have never participated in blogging before. It's easy to do; you don't have to have a blog address. Simply sign in as anonymous, but then sign your comment at the bottom, so I will know who wrote it.

Thanks....Peace....oh and for one LAST time.....GO OBAMA!!!!!

SHERRIL

Labels: Barack Obama, I Voted, Poll, Vote 2008

YES!!!

























Sherril

"If you can't vote my way, vote anyway, but VOTE!" Pogo... Walt Kelly.

I belong to several social groups that fall under the umbrella of Meetup.com.

Labels: La Traviata, Meetup.com, Moonstruck, Opera, The Metropolitan Opera

I listened to Barack Obama's speech tonight that he gave today in Philadelphia. I have been saying for years that the biggest problem we face as a nation is the problem of Race in America. I have long thought that the Racial Divide and the Divide between the Haves and the Have-Nots is the biggest problem that we are not facing and thus will be the one that will eventually overcome us. Instead of "we shall overcome", the results of racism in America will overcome us.

Barack Obama so eloquently and so succinctly spoke of how we must make the attempts to bridge these gaps; that we must do so by realizing that by raising those who have fallen, we raise ourselves. We must do so by realizing that "those children" are "our" children, that we are ONE NATION.

But, I'll tell you what really scares me. I watched Barack Obama give his speech and I cried. I cried because I think that we, the United States of America, may not be good enough for him. I cried because I am afraid that we may not be ready for him and maybe never will be. I cried becasue we may lose the opportunity of a lifetime to choose a leader who has that great quality of seeing clearly, from many angles and through many eyes and can use that clarity towards changing the direction of our country.

I think that Obama is offering himself as a means to an end, as a way to reach across the many divides we have in this country between Black and White, Blacks and Jews, Black and Brown People, Black Christians and White Christians, Muslims and Jews, Muslims and Christians, Muslim nations and Western Nations, including the United States, Rich and Poor, Educated and Non-Educated and finally Red and Blue. He is offering himself as a bridge that may help to not only cross these divides, but perhaps bring the sides closer together and thus better able to understand how the "other" feels and why each side acts the way they do and through this understanding maybe each side can learn to, if not love, at least hate less "those people" on the other side of the divide.

The challenge is ours and the opportunity is ours to embrace or lose, maybe forever.

Labels: Barack Obama, Huffington Post, Presidential Election '08, YouTube

Labels: Congressman Tom Lantos, Raoul Wallengerg, Speilberg's documentary, the Holocaust. American Jewish Committee, The Last Days

Would you live your life differently if you knew you only had two months to live? Such is the question posed in the movie, My Life Without Me. I had been considring cancelling my Blockbuster Online subscription as a way to cut expenses. But, my enjoyment of this movie reminded me that maybe I could find another way, or not. I am constantly surprised how many moview there are out there truly worth watching, yet not at all well known. And for me, it seems, the best way to discover them is through online rentals. Isabel Coixet wrote and directed the movie (it was based on a short story by Nancy Kincaid) and the actors include Sarah Polley, Scott Speedman, Amanda Plummer, Deborah Harry ( yes, of Blondie fame), and Mark Ruffalo. Alfred Molino (who, for me, will always be best known for his work in Enchanted April), plays a small part. The movie's sensibilities are more like those of a Spanish or Italian film, which may just be because it was a Spanish/Canadian co-production with help from Pedro Almodóvar's El Deseo production company. It is a sad story told in a straight-forward way with emotion, but little sentimentality. It is subtle, yet touched me deeply (not that I'm not often touched deeply by films, but I like to think that the depth of feeling is consistent with the quality of the film). Sometimes I think if it weren't for good movies, theater and art, I would never find a way to temporarily get away from my own life drama. For this alone I am grateful .

I am not a big fan of the media in recent years. It tends to overexpose and sensationalize much of what it reports , on the one hand, and not follow through on news that was once overexposed, on the other. Clearly, the media can shape our thoughts and force our attentions. But, the media can also bring a subject to our attention that would not otherwise be there and help us to understand something that we might not otherwise understand. Such has been the case for me, regarding the subject of World War II, specifically those who fought the war, the Veterans. My media sources were television and a book. Now that I think about it I am not sure that literature can be considered as"the media". If not, excuse my mistake in so considering it.

I happened to recently pick up the book (audio book, in this case), Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg. It is not high literature, but it kept my attention and seriously increased my interest in the "story" of the WW II Vets, as well as what life was like on the home front. This has not been something I've been interested in the course of my life. My focus regarding WW II has been almost exclusively on the Holocaust. I have never liked reading novels or non-fiction about the war and have mostly stayed away from war movies, with the major exception of Saving Private Ryan. For my own edification, I did a search of the Top 50 World War Two Movies in order to see what I had missed. The following is just a handful of them, those movies whose names I recognized, but have not seen:
Stalag 17, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Battle of the Bulge , Twelve O'clock High, Guns of Navarone, Mister Roberts, Where Eagles Dare, The Devil's Brigade , Mrs Miniver , Sands of Iwo Jima , The Dirty Dozen , A Walk in the Sun,

One can not have watched TV during these past summer months and not heard about the upcoming seven part series, The War, a Ken Burns’s Film about World War II , scheduled to start on Sunday, September 23, 2007 . I have seen some of the Sneak Preview on my local PBS station, Channel 13, and found Ken Burn's explanations about how and why he wanted to do the series alluring, but I remained unsure of wanting to watch it. I remembered that, though beautifully done, I found watching Burn's documentary, The Civil Wars, a bit boring (of course, I was extremely sick in bed at the time, which may have had something to do with it). In any case, I put it on the back burner of my mind.

The clincher came this morning while watching, Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood. Bill Geist's did a segment that he called, In Their Honor. It was about a group of "World War II vets from North Carolina, aged 79 to 102, who journeyed to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. They were there because Jeff Miller, a local businessman in Hendersonville, N.C., started a campaign in March to send every World War II veteran in the country who wanted to see it". "Sixteen million served in World War II. Now there's probably just a little more than 3 million alive," he said. "They're dying at a rate of anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 a day". The project grew quickly, as did the number of vets wanting to go and the amount of money it was going to take to see it through. The entire community got involved and money was raised, to the tune of $133,000. Two-hundred and twenty Hendersonville vets signed up for the first of what have come to be called honorflights. They arrived in Washington to a hero's welcome and were escorted to the memorial. There was one story of a vet who died just days before the event was to take place. The family still attended. It was a moving piece of journalism. Bill Geist ended the segment saying, "But the veterans who attended were feeling the appreciation so long overdue in this, a final tribute to the men-boys then, really, in their teens and twenties-who answered the call and saved the world. Think of it.

And think of it I did, so much so that I posted a comment on the CBS website. Apparently this segment was a repeat, originally broadcast in September of 2006. Perhaps they will show it yearly in September. They should. I was moved by the tens of comments I read from today and from those written after last year's broadcast. So many people of my generation talking about how their fathers never really spoke to them about the war they fought and about how proud they were of their fathers and how, in so many cases, they wished that their fathers had lived to be able to participate in this honor. I am moved by all of this, but I can't really relate to it personally. My father served in some medical capacity at an army base stateside. He was in Medical School at the time. I don't think he was considered a vet. I have never really known any vets, at least not of American wars. My parents did not talk much about those years.

All of the comments I read were about the men, but there was one that said this:

I am a WW11 vet still alive. I served as a member of the Womens Army Corps assigned to the Army Air Corps. I want to continue my efforts to fill the gap in history about women in the military. 400,000 women served in all branches of the service during WW11. Though we were not allowed to serve in combat positions, those combat positions would not have been possible were it not for the women,and some men,who supported those in combat. I enabled the training of bombardiers who flew in both war theatres. Women served as aircraft mechanics, spys, drivers, interpreters, nurses, transcribers, etc. both here and abroad. Five women were on a troop ship which was bombed and all five survived, 80 some nurses were taken captive the South Pacific and survived. Members of the Womens Army Corps served in Algeria, North Africa, England, Southeast Asia, Italy, Egypt, the,Pacific, and Australia . Therefore, I was distressed not to see/hear mention of women serving in the military in the "greatest war with the greatest generation". Lynn Ashley, EdD

These comments, that moved me as much as Bill Geist's segment, can be found at the bottom of the article about In Their Honor. I highly recommend taking a look.

I am not a flag waving American until there is something that reminds me of the importance of that flag. I am not an admirer of wars and so often believe that there must be alternatives to fighting them. I am patriotic. My view of patriotism is not of the flag-waving, rah rah for our country, right or wrong variety. I have always thought of patriotism as honoring and appreciating one's country, while at the same time speaking out and protesting the things that one sees as wrong in order to make the country more like it is supposed to be regarding freedom, equality and justice for all. War is certainly not always the answer to conflicts; in fact is should rarely be the answer. Perhaps I have avoided learning more about WW II because in my life time, I have not seen a war that I thought was justified to fight. I am pretty certain that I would have thought otherwise had I been alive in the 1940's.

I have no doubt anymore that I will watch Ken Burn's documentary, The War.
The congruity of these recent events, reading Elizabeth Berg's new novel, Dream When You're Feeling Blue, the anticipation of seeing Ken Burn's upcoming PBS documentary, The War and experiencing Bill Geist's segment on CBS' Sunday Morning, In Their Honor, has truly set in motion for me an enthusiastic desire to learn more about World War II, it's veterans and the home front at the time. If not now, when?

Labels: "The War" A Ken Burn's Film, Bill Geist, Honorflights, Sunday Morning on CBS, Veterans, World War II

Labels: Dante, Italy, The Divine Comedy, Travel

Have you ever thought about what it is that tickles your funny bone? I think about it quite often. The reason I think about it is that for me, it is a lot easier to make me cry than it is too make me laugh. Would that it weren't so, but it is. I am empathetic, to a fault, and overly sensitive to my own and other's woes and hardships. But it is not about crying that I wish to speak. It is about laughing. What and who make me laugh?

Does anyone remember the comedian, Dennis Wolfberg? This man could make me laugh so hard, I'd cry (Damn, there's that word again). I saw Wolfberg for the first time at a comedy club, I think in Bergen County, NJ. He was a story teller, generally, "slice of life" stories. He would emphasize a word by pausing ever so slightly before it began and then overly emphasizing either a syllable or the entire word, as his eyes bulged out of his head and his voice blew out from his chest like a fog-horn. The entire effect was hilarious and his observations were so on target that it was all I could do, not to pee in my pants from laughing so hard. I saw him once more at Rascals Comedy Club, which at that time was in West Orange, NJ. My friend, Lynne and I were hysterical, especially when he expounded on his wife's birthing experience. I swear, every person in that audience, well at least every woman, was, along with him, in third stage labor, pushing like hell and laughing mercilessly . It rated as one of the top entertainment experiences of my life.

It must have been in the early 1990's when I saw Dennis Wolfberg for the first and second time, which turned out to be the last time . Dennis Wolfberg died on October 4, 1994 at the age of 48. His obituary said that he was in the middle of making a deal for his own TV show. Talk about Tragic Comedy.

Seinfeld makes me laugh, not like Wolfberg did, but the humor on the Seinfeld Show did and does appeal to my sense of what's funny. David Sedaris makes me laugh. I found him especially funny many years ago when he used to perform his life essays on NPR. Working as a "French Maid" in NYC apartments is just one that comes to mind. His book, Me Talk Pretty Some Day, was the funniest piece of work ever to be put down in words on paper. I remember that my father could not hear the word fart said in a joke, or any other context for that matter, without cracking up. To this day, my sister, brother and I can not hear the word fart used in a joke or story, without giggling, in respect for our father, of course. David Sedaris has a piece in his book about turds and how one time at a friend's house, at a party, he went to use the john and to his disbelief there floating, well not floating, but engorged within the confines of the bowl was a turd so big and so long and so rotund that he was sure there was no way it would flush and it didn't. Reading back these words now pretty much gags me, but back then when I was sitting on a beach chair in my backyard on a hot summer afternoon, I thought they were about the funniest words I'd ever read and I howled with laughter. Me, who is not given to easy laughter.

So, tell me what tickles your funny bone. What makes you really, really laugh.

Labels: Dennis Wolfberg, Humor

I have so much on my mind and so often I have the desire to set it down in writing (old fashioned term for typing on keyboard), but the moments are fleeting and the desire gets thwarted by time restraints and daily diversions. Yet, I am here. This is something.




My thoughts range from relationship issues to self esteem to my recent trip to Italy to Dante Alighieri to work to summer activities to books and reading to current and future status of marriage to plays to The Sopranos to friendships to aging to hair color, style and comfort to body image to heat and pervasive sweating to sex to music and on it goes.......yes, the mind is a swaggering, swelling swirl of mush and potential brilliance. But with all these thoughts racing daily through my head, it was this morning's CBS program on TV, Sunday Morning, that made my heart race enough to motivate me to sit down and write (I'm 55, so I will continue to call this "writing").





Almost every segment interested me (which is not always the case), but the segment that most excited me was the one entitled, ART: Edward Hopper. I feel obliged to add that BILL GEIST's: That’s Amore, Steubenville’s Native Son – Dean Martin was a close second and warrants a blog post of it's own, what with the reminders it provided me of my childhood, my brother, Michael, Dr. Silverstein and a prominent dream I had just last night, involving all of the above, with the exception of Dean Martin). I also really enjoyed the segment called, OUR MAN IN PARIS: David Turecamo on the endangered cafes of Paris and the artist, who sits in one Cafe drawing the myriad of French faces he sees there (despite my best efforts, I was unable to find his name on the Sunday Morning website or that of Mad Magazine, for whom he also works). Ben Stein's take on the recent media craze with Paris Hilton was interesting as was the cover story on Lieing and how often we do it and the segment called, Brian Dennehy Keeps Looking For The Truth. Like I said, the entire program stirred my thought juices and engaged my emotions.





Anyway, I previously posted about Edward Hopper in September, 2006. The significance for me here is the reminder that every once in a while, sometimes even when you least expect it, but most need it, something new (or at least new for me) comes into one's life, whether from reading about it in a book, magazine or in this case an email, hearing about it on the news, seeing it on TV or in a movie or from a discussion with a friend or acquaintance. When this happens to me, just thinking about it makes me feel excited and alive and the things that normally trouble me, seem less important. So it was this morning, that a segment on a valued weekly TV program initiated for me this phenomenon. Thinking again about Edward Hopper and his paintings and how they make me consider light and space and that a painting can elicit what makes us human and realizing how I'd never even heard of the artist before a little more than a year ago, when, poof, today he reappears in my little sphere and I am reminded of how much I would like to see his work in person and then find out there is an exhibition of his work this summer in Boston, a mere hop, skip and (well, maybe long) jump from my residence in New Jersey, well, what can I say, "LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL" and there's a reason to live it another day. It is just that simple and that profound!

Labels: Art, Bill Geist, CBS Sunday Morning, Edward Hopper

You know how once you become familiar with something, you start seeing and/or hearing about it all over the place? Well, that's what happened with me and the Hurdy Gurdy. Before last year, my only reference to the Hurdy Gurdy was from Donovan's 1967 song , The Hurdy Gurdy Man. I frankly had no idea what it meant, but I thought the song was cool.



Thrown like a star in my vast sleep,
I'm opening my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea, gazing with tranquility'
Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man came singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man came singing songs of love
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang (3X)

Histories of ages past, unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity, the crying of humanity'
Tis then when the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of love
Here comes the roly-poly man, he's singing songs of love
Roly poly, roly poly, roly poly poly he sangRoly poly, roly poly, roly poly poly he sang
-->


In April, 2006, I went to Union Square in NYC to meet my daughter who works at Washington Irving High School, more or less across the street from Union Square. As I departed from the subway station to the Square, I was confronted by a young girl sitting there, playing the strangest looking and even stranger sounding insturment. I asked her what it was and she informed me that it was a Hurdy Gurdy. She played it by turning a crank on one end as she pressed some notes that seemed to pluck strings. I can't say that I liked the sound, but I was more than pleased to have something to identify that oldie but goody Donovan song.

Then last Saturday I went to the last of three plays that were presented by a Theater Company in NYC called Theater For A New Audience that is basically a classical company, Shakespeare and the like, but takes a new look and in this case had a theme to the triumverate. The plays were The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice, and Oliver Twist. The theme, as you may have already guessed, was Jews and how they are portrayed in classical literature and plays and what it meant then and what it means for today. The first two plays starred F. Murray Abraham (of the movie, Amadeus fame). It was, however in the last play, Oliver Twist, which contained some incredible accapella singing as well as some instruments of the day (that being the early 1800's)

which included, yes, the Hurdy Gurdy!


Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy gurdy he sang

As a sidenote, I will mention hear a bit more about the trip on which I will embark in May.
The organization planning the trip is called Classical Pursuits :Learning Vacations With a Difference. The name of the trip itself is To Hell and Back with Dante: The Flowering of the Late Middle Ages in Italy
The group will consist of about 12 people and there will be a literary focus on Dante's, The Divine Comedy. Two of Dante's contemporaries in the late 1200's, Giotto, the painter and St. Francis of Assisi, will also be discussed and will help inform our adventures as we discover Florence, Assisi, Siena and Fiesole. As well as reading the assigned chapters in The Divine Comedy, I am trying to do a bit of research on my own. I came across a fascinating article, Dante between Hope and Despair: The Tradition of Lamentations in the Divine Comedy by
Ronald L. Martinez. It not only connects Dante with St. Francis, and Thomas Aquinas and Dante with the Book of Lamentations, but also relates Dante and the late Middle Ages with the Jewish people and Israel. What more could I ask for?

BELLA CIAO!

My last post, well, actually, the one before the last post, was on September 26, 2006. The subject matter and the time was the Jewish New Year. Much has happened in my life since that time and the present, and as time passed, it became increasingly more difficult to think about returning to the blog. With each passing day, it felt more and more overwhelming to try to catch up. It is almost 5 months later and this is my attempt to do just that.


I got married in 1979. I met my husband in Israel and brought him back with me to the US to get married. Since that time, I've had two children, a beagle, a career as a
Speech Pathologist working mostly in Early Intervention with children, birth to three, a great deal of travel, often to Israel, frequently to Paris, sometimes to Montreal, on occasion to New Orleans, San Francisco, LA, Cancun, and some Islands, including Aruba, and we have had a multitude of holiday observances, American and Jewish, birthday and milestone celebrations and most of the family events were centered around our house. Dinners, and family celebrations were common occurrences, mostly due to the abundant hospitality and excellent cooking of my husband. This is all to say that I can not complain about my life for the last 27 years. It has been rich and full and in many ways fulfilling..

Having said all that, during the days between the Jewish holidays of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, 5767/2006, I prepared for and on September 30th carried out a momentous decision, one that was the result of years of thoughts, feelings, tears, therapy, journaling and contemplation. I packed my bags and moved out of my house into my own apartment, thus officially separating from my husband. It was a most scary, hectic, exciting, bittersweet day. It took courage that up until that point, perhaps that very day, I had been unable to summon.

From October 1, until the present, I have spent many an hour and even more dollars, purchasing items for this new apartment, that would bring me not only a sense of accomplishment, but of well-being. My first big purchase (perhaps the first really "big" purchase I'd ever made with my own money), was an Italian leather loveseat, in a pretty sage-green color.














My next big purchase was the rug for the living room. As luck would have it, upon driving to my house one day, I passed a Persian rug store, Rugs of Eden, that was going out of business. Having some experience with the age old tradition of haggling for the best price (having been a frequent shopper in the Arab Market of the Old City of Jerusalem), Ramin Aziz, the proprietor, and I arrived at a price for a beautiful, modern designed, hand made in India, rug. It was smaller than I wanted, at 5'x8', but that, at least, made it possible for me to carry it home and shlep it up the stairs to my apartment by myself.

Meanwhile, I had been making frequent stops at a store, in our area, called, Homegoods, (perhaps this is a chain in other parts of the country, I'm not sure) to see what new things they'd gotten in. This is one of those stores that if you strike it right, you can find things for your home that are sometimes unique and often at very inexpensive prices. Well this one day I found something that was perhaps not all that unique and definitely not inexpensive, AND something that I didn't really need, but that I loved at first sight. After returning to it a number of times, I decided to buy it and buy it I did, as well as an iron and rattan table to put it on and a matching table to complement the first. The silk flowers were purchased at another time in another store.

The living room was shaping up beautifully and all I needed was a coffee table to put on my new rug, home office furniture and to bring my book cases here from the house to the apartment. With the help of Pier 1 (the coffee table and a wine holder ), my son and his girlfriends' father and truck (one of the book shelves and a few boxes of books) and a special friend and his truck (the second book shelf and some more books) I managed to put it all together.

Oh, wait, that is not the whole living room story. There is the office furniture, purchased at Staples and after a long wait, finally delivered. This furniture comes in huge boxes in which there are a myriad of pieces which have to be put together by no one less than an engineer, and I just happen to know one; that would be my husband. I've mentioned that he is unbelievably hospitable and a great cook, but didI mention that he was also a wiz at putting things together and as it turned out quite gracious and for lack of a better phrase, a good sport? So, with the promise of bringing in Chinese for dinner, he came over one evening after work and meticulously put together my new desk and on a separate occasion, the hutch, which I bought at a later date. And now, my living room was complete!!

My only problem was that during this mad and crazy buying frenzy, I was sleeping on a borrowed Aero-Bed (thank you, Lynne). Granted, it was a queen size aero-bed, raised well up off the floor and very nearly like a real bed, but it still was not the real thing and besides, it needed to be returned. So, out I went on my bedroom furniture search. Luckily I found it at the second store I went to and that was a good thing because as much fun as I was having furnishing my new abode, I was, at the same time, growing a little weary of it and my hours at work could not keep pace with the number of dollars it was costing. I decided to go with a whole different look than I'd had for the many years of my marriage and got a chest instead of a bureau and black instead of wood color. I was very happy with the results.

Fortunately I'd brought over a few snack tables and folding chairs from the house because I still didn't have a dining table and chairs. Craig's List took care of that (oh, the wonders of Craig's List!). I managed to find someone selling a nice wood table and 2 dining chairs for a hundred bucks and he also delivered it to my house....What more could I ask? I brought over some of the art work that I had at home and had a few other works framed and began the hanging process, at first with the help of my brother and his partner and later on my own.

I will post a short blog following this one that will give an example of one of my success stories. Here is a "teaser".

In any case, the apartment as a whole was comping together quite nicely and to my satisfaction. All I really needed now were more rugs, not only to warm the floors, but also because there is a condo associationrule that says that 80% of the floors are to be covered with rugs or carpets. I don't know that I have quite covered that much, but put down rugs, I have done.

As for the kitchen, I bought a microwave, toaster, red teapot, a kitchen cart and assundry smaller necessities of a kitchen. The fact is that I don't do much cooking that doesn't involve one of the pre-mentioned items, so the kitchen is pretty well set.
The only thing missing from it and all of the other rooms is what we "home decorators" call, window treatments, but they will either have to wait or more probably be missing in this otherwise most comfortable, self-styled abode, one which feels to be most authentically "me".

So, what does "What's Love Got To Do With It" got to do with it? I separated myself from life as I knew it for over 2 1/2 decades to a new life that I've wanted to try on for many, many years, a life on my own, as myself, one that would fit me as authentically as a life could fit. My new apartment has become a conceptualization, a representation, an embodiment of that new life. This, as I see it, was/is an act of SELF-LOVE. My husband, who was not at all in agreement with what I did, has so far, managed to rise above his first reaction and personal dissatisfaction, and help me in concrete ways with the move as well as helping me to continue our family traditions in terms of our children, our extended family on both sides and our "concept" of family. I believe this is his own brand of LOVE. And finally, moving out, living on my own in my own personalized apartment is giving me the opportunity to know what it is to live alone and to succeed on my own. It has given me the time to reflect on myself in regards to relationships with others and with myself. So, if this helps me to love myself better, I know I will be prepared to love another better.

And that's what LOVE has to do with it.

It has been a very long time since last I appeared in this world of blogging. I can not say why with certainty. I simply have not felt motivated. Time and again my good online blogger friend, Diane S of A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door would lovingly try to cajole me back to the blog world, especially when she would receive an email from me that she thought particularly blog-worthy. And I considered it, I really did. Another of my blog friends, Ricardo of
FREE SPEECH 101, has been in contact frequently and asked me where I've been, as he missed reading my blog. Joe Vogel of FREE SPEECH 101 also contacted me in those many months in whcih I was silent and he like the others told me I was missed. I can't say how much I appreciated that these friends let me know I was recognized for my small contribution in blogging, but I still didn't feel the pull to come back.

It wasn't until another of my blogger friends, Robert of,
It's Lonely Outside the Box did something that truly rocked my world, my "reality" world, and that ultimately got me to return to this cyber-world in order to tell this story. I sent him an email from which I will be "borrowing" and I hope he doesn't mind.


A Letter to Robert:
Dear Robert,
You not only made my day, yesterday, but my week, my month, maybe even my year. Let me tell you how the day went.
Yesterday, Wednesday, happens to be my day off from work. So, I slept in a few extra hours and left my apartment at about 2:45 PM to go to my therapy appointment. No sooner had I opened the outside door, than the Letter Carrier (known as the mailman in earlier non-politically correct days; I'm one of the few that likes most of the PC terms) was just about to ring my upstairs bell. My appearance at the opened door startled him and he broke out into a huge smile, saying , "oh, are you the person who lives upstairs?", to which I answered yes, and he said, "I didn't think anyone would be home, what a surprise. Well, I have something for you that has to be signed" and he proceeded to climb back up into his mail truck. It seemed to take him quite a long time , each second made longer by the freezing cold temperature and I was going to be late for my appointment, but he had been so friendly and I couldn't even imagine what he had for me that required a signature, so I waited patiently.

He brought out a good sized box and said with obvious excitement in his voice, "it's from China!; well no, not China, Taiwan. It has Chinese written on the box!" I guess this was a rare occurrence in the Morris County, NJ postal route. His mention of Taiwan jogged my memory and I said to him, "OH! It must be the DVDs from Robert", and I went on to tell him about this online friend of mine who is also a blogger and we visit and respond to each other's blogs and yada yada yada so, he offered to send me some political movies, if I didn't mind sharing my address with him. Obviously I didn't. The postman laughed and said, well, I hope he's cute (this comment somehow suggests postman rather than letter carrier) and I responded, "Oh, he is, but he's married and has two kids" and we both laughed. I smiled as he drove away and brought the package with me to the car, set in on the passenger's seat and didn't think much about it until I got to the therapist's office. It didn't occur to me that the box was rather large to contain only DVDs, regardless of how many there may be.

I went to my appointment and spent the first several minutes explaining with excitement and enthusiasm about what had just transpired; I did this by way of explaining why I was late (I always feel guilty when I arrive late to my therapy appointment). I went on to other things and left an hour later. Rather than go directly home, I stopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond for no other reason than that I had a 20% discount card and I figured there must be things I needed in the store. Well, about 3 hours later and with a rolling basket filled with many things I must have needed from the store, I gave the clerk my coupon and left the store, a few hundred dollars poorer Now I had not only the box to bring up the 14 or so stairs to my apartment, but several bags of stuff.

When I got into the apartment, though I hadn't worked, I felt exhausted (shopping can do that!) With all the bags from the store, I almost forgot about the package. Before slicing the box open. I carefully removed the label with my name and address, your name and address (Robert's) and Chinese characters which I am certain said something postal in nature. Having gotten the box opened, it seemed that it was stuffed with lots of paper, newspaper and such, and as I began digging into it, I felt something inside the paper; so I began to carefully unwrap. No sooner had I unwrapped the first one, that I began to feel like a child in a candy store, literally. Now, Robert, I have to stop and tell you that there are two things I really love in life. One is to be surprised - NO ONE is ever able to surprise me - and two is CANDY. So, to my UTTER SURPRISE and delight what I found were treasures, each wrapped separately, to be discovered, one by one.

I stood there in my little kitchen hardly able to contain the mile wide smile on my face. There was a gold Hindu Goddess, which I believe has chocolate inside and several small golden containers, marked with Chinese characters on the top, each looking like some kind of little treasure which when opened, contained pieces of chocolate. I felt like I'd won the Taiwanese lottery. The next few goodies turned out to be those decorative hanging red thingies, one with what looks like
peppers on it, another with a fish and the third and largest with pictures of Chinese masked men, Ninja types...kind of scary looking. They are all hanging in different locations around my apartment.




























Inside another wrapping was a beautiful little container, like an ancient pot on three legs with dainty handles.











It is on my living room cocktail table.

And then there was more CANDY. Sucking candies, and these white nougat looking candies that has both Chinese characters and English which says Super Milk Candy. I haven't quite figured out how to get the thin layer of rice like paper off of it. I tried washing it, but it became kind of soggy. I tried picking off pieces, but this took forever and still it had the paper on it, so I decided you are supposed to eat the paper and I did. It felt funny, but the candy was tasty. There are also these rod shaped, red containers, with little Chinese figures on them and gold and on top a gold string. I am not entirely sure that these are not firecrackers, so I have NOT tried to open and eat what's inside, even t hough I did shake it and hear something is inside. I've never seen a firecracker up close though, so I am leaving them as decoration next to the candies in a bowl on my cocktail table, until you, Robert, tell me otherwise. Oh , I forgot to mention the Wrigley's Airwave Sugarfree, Soothing Action Honey & Lemon Chewing Gum....I love it. I took a few other pictures I'll send you at a later date.







And then, finally, at the very bottom of the box, after all the paper-wrapped goodies were removed and opened, I found the envelope with ten or eleven thin DVDs. They are nice. I'm sure I will enjoy watching them and I very much appreciate your sending them to me, but mostly because they were the guise for sending all those other Taiwanese Treats. Nothing will EVER compare to the PRIZES and SURPRISE of receiving all these little gifts from Taiwan, which taken in total amounted to you, Robert, reaching out your hand in Taiwan and me, Sherril grasping it in gratitude and friendship here in New Jersey. I guess it's what those Disney folks mean when they say....It's A Small World After All.









Thank you for making it so.
With Love & Gratitude,
Sherril

L'Shana Tova Tikatevu"May you be written down for a good year" (Rosh Hashanah greeting)

As I sat, on Saturday, September 23, the Jewish New Year of 5767 . within this very humble synagogue (Ahavas Sholom), the last operating synagogue in Newark, New Jersey, I sat wondering how I might meaningfully blog on the experience I was having that day. As the Cantor, (the professional singer who leads prayer services) orHazzan, as it is called in Hebrew was singing the prayers, I explored the Prayer Book ( the one used just for the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) searching for something that would elicit a feeling of special meaning for the day. I was seeking inspiration. It was not an easy task.

Granted, the task was ever the more difficult because not only am I not a truly religious person, but I am an agnostic, which makes the exploration itself, well, maybe a little hyrpocritical. After all, the book in which I am looking is one of Prayer and the prayers are all directed to God. If I don't believe in God, or even just question her existence, then how do I expect to find inspiration or something meaningful? I don't know how to answer this question, except to say that I do (expect to find meaning and inspiration). There is something to be said about the significance of prayer beyond it's relation to God. For example, the fact that most prayers are said, at least in the Jewish tradition, in unison with the community that is present is significant. I can remember when I was a young teenager, being at USY (United Synagogue Youth) conventions, with hundreds of other kids and singing some simple Hebrew song, like Henay Ma Tov U'manayim, Shevet Achim B'yachad (translation...Oh, how good and how nice it is to be sitting together with my brothers and sisters) in rounds. The spirit in that room and that pervaded that little 14 or 15 year old Jewish girl, was tangible and tremendous. Also, the fact that the words of the prayers and more significantly, the tunes in which they are sung, are consistent, also adds a sense of familiarity and spirit (though truth be told, they always change the tunes of the more familiar prayers for the High Holidays and though I know this, it disappoints me every time).





So, I searched and came up with three entries that I think help to consolidate the meaning of the High Holidays, at least for me. TheMehila is not really a prayer, but rather a supplication that in the Jewish tradition is required of every Jew before Yom Kippur. The idea is that before you can ask God for forgiveness on the Day of Atonement, you must first have asked your fellow human beings. I will begin with it and I will also mention that should it apply to any of my friends here in cyber-space, all the better.



Mehila: Asking for forgiveness
To be said to one's relatives, friends and acquaintances:

I am sorry if I have hurt you by what I have done or have failed to do, by what I have said or have not said to you since last Yom Kippur.
I will strive to improve my ways, and I ask for your understanding and forgiveness.







To look Forward

Eternal God!
Grant us on this Rosh Hashanah
Gratitude enough to look backward and be thankful;
Courage enough to look forward and be hopeful'
Faith enough to look upward and be humble;
Kindness enough to look outward and be helpful.

Author unknown


"Little" resolutions

A little less impatient with those we deem too slow;
A little less arrogant because of all we know;
A little less conceited since our worth is slight;
A little less intolerant even when we are right.

A little more forgiving and swifter to be kind;
A little more desirous the word of praise to find;
A little more eager to help others to rejoice;
A little more careful to speak with gentle voice.



A little more effort to see another's view;
A little more determined to live faithfully as a Jew;
A little more willingness to extend a helping hand;
A little more commitment to our people's and our land.


A little more eagerness to listen and understand;
A little more readiness to respond to God's command;
A little more resolve to do what must be done;
And a greater understanding that, truly, "we are one!"

One thing I know for sure, one can never get enough enchantment into one's life. I believe it was fate or maybe just good fortune that in the summer of 1992, I took myself to the movies because the rain that day made it unworthwhile to stay at the swim club where we happened to belong that summer. The movie was Enchanted April and it quickly became one of a handful of my all time favorite movies. It did enchant me from beginning to end. I do not buy movies, as a rule, because I don't like watching them more than once and feel no attachment to owning them, as I do to, say books. But this movie I thought about buying for years after I saw it and finally did buy the video. I watch it whenever I want to escape into my fantasy world of Italian castles and flower laden landscapes; when I want to sit on a mountain side, looking over olive groves, permeated by the perfumed air from the lilacs and wysteria hanging from vines, when I want to feel the kinship of other women who can "feel" the place like I do. Like the character, Lottie is always saying, "I can see myself there". As the newspaper advertisement reads, "To those who appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine...Small Medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean...to be Let.. Furnished for the month of April, servants remain." As my profile on this blog attests, this is where I want to be and who I want to be.



The movie was based on the book, The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim(1866-1942), written in 1922, which I am presently"reading" in my car, aurally, that is. I can not put in words what an absolute delight it is listening to this recording. The "performer" ( reader) is Nadia May and listening to her puts me in mind of days gone by, when my children were very young and one of our (well my) favorite characters was a British Bear, named, Paddington . Somehow, when a story is Bitish and told in that very proper, and ever so charming British English, it holds for me an irisistable attraction that puts me in a state of enchantment and a smiile on my face. That is what reading and listening to Paddington did for me all those years ago and what listening to the book The Enchanted April is doing for me now. It is truly a great pleasure.
I read an advertisement for the book (The Enchanted April, not Paddington Bear) that said, The Enchanted April is for adults what The Secret Garden is for chiildren.


The story has been filmed three times (a silent version in 1925 and two “talkies” in 1935 and 1992) and adapted for the stage twice, in 1925 by Kane Campbell, and in 2002 byMatthew Barber. The play in 2003 was nowhere as good as the book or the movie, nevertheless, I do remember enjoying it. How could I not?

I would like to thank my Blogosphriends who heeded my call to share their experiences here regarding where they were and how they felt and what they did on the morning of September 11, 2001. I am not sure that the circular aspect I was trying to create happened, but no matter. The main thing was that we got to think about it together as the five year anniversary approached, arrived and left us. I am going to try to coalesce the comments I received and respond to them here in a new post, rather than in the comment section of the original. I hope that is OK with my fellow bloggers. I will respond as I go along and my responses will be in blue (oh, surprise! surprise! ).

Diane S. said... I sort of collect 9/11 stories...in part I ask, because people almost always want to tell you what that day was like for them. It's like we're all waiting for someone to ask us.

I thought a lot about that statement and I so much agree. I realized that in fact. I had been waiting for someone to ask me.

I've never been as frightened as I was that day. I've never wanted someone to hug me as badly as I did that day. I never wanted my mother as badly as I did that day.

Dave said... I also thought of my dad, who had died at the age of 88 four months earlier. He had been so confused and appalled near the end of his life at so many aspects of the current era; I was grateful he hadn't seen this one. And I thought of my mother, so far gone in her elderly dementia that this day would be just like any other.

mark said...I watched the news all day and called all of my family members. My cousin was actually stuck on 95 when it happened. He was stuck in traffic for hours as they had closed 95 down where the pentagon is.

Behind Blue Eyes said... I remember looking at my daughter and feeling so sad because I knew that the world had irrevocably changed....or maybe not changed but intruded, my son was in contact with people from England and they all e-mailed him expressing their sorrow over what had happened.

Sherril said... I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Do I call my husband? Do I call my kids? My hub's niece from Israel and her boyfiend had been staying with us. They were to take the bus in from NJ and then subways to the WTC. I freaked. I had absolutely no clarity of mind and all I could think was that I had to get home to warn them, hoping and praying that they hadn't left already.


Penny said... We got off on Rt. 46 and called my Mom to pick us up.

Ricardo said... I recalled my grandparents telling me about how a plane hit the Empire State Building in their day.

When tragedy hits, often the first thing many people think of is family, whether because we need them to comfort or rescue us or that we are glad that they are no longer here to have to witness what is happening. Whatever the specifics, family is a common thread.


Maritza said... with a panoramic view of NYC , we saw it all happen. It was surreal, we saw it and experienced the horror but the windows framed it and the glass kept out the sounds and smells. It was as if we were watching it on TV. I had to watch it on the news later that night to get a real sense of what happened.

Penny said... When we got home and watched the first tower collapse on TV, it was surreal. But it was real, and we all have shed so many tears over this tragedy.

I had said in my post that when I heard the "World Trade Center Was No More", I simply could not get my mind around it, that my imagination was not big enough to take it in; Why? Because it was absolutely surreal.


KA said....The truth is, I'd never even heard of the WTC until Black Tuesday It was mostly numbness. Shock. Tears. Rage. Some religious fervor.


Clay said... I watched it on tv over and over just feeling numb, angry, and sad.......seemingly all at once. It was one of the worst days of my life.

mark said... 9/11 was definitely a defining moment in the lives of all Americans


Behind Blue Eyes said...I turned on the TV and saw the people jumping out of the windows and saw the people running down the street as the buildings collapsed behind them. Those were the scenes that chilled me the most. I couldn't believe that this was happening here...


Ricardo said... Then the replay of the second plane hitting came on, then a big explosion, a sick feeling in my stomach and wobbling of the knees

We all talked about how it made us feel watching over and over those horrific scenes of the planes crashing into the towers and the billowing clouds of smoke and thrashing flames and then those people jumping from above the flames...nauseated, disbelief, horror, numb...the adjectives are endless. But as deeply as we all feeled, it gave me a moment of pause when I read what
Clay said... It was hard to comprehend what must have been going on inside the minds of the doomed.

The odd things that come to mind:

Diane S. said... I remember thinking the oddest things that day. I remember thinking that I was glad Ronald Reagan was too far gone to know what had happened. Me! A liberal democrat! Worried about Reagan! But it would have killed him to know. Say what you like about Reagan (and I could say plenty), he loved this country.


Dave said... My politics are the opposite of Diane (first post above) and of Sherril, but I thought of Reagan, too, although in the sense of (in my opinion) how smoothly and definitively I thought he would be handling the problem, with thoughts of the fired air traffic controllers and the reciprocal bombing over Libya.

Penny said... I was dressed up in a suit. I still think of it as my 9/11 outfit.

Behind Blue Eyes said... I stayed close to the Radio and remember a reporter saying Fuck on the air


So, I asked the question where were you on the morning of 9/11/01......


Maritza said...
I was at work which is only a 1/2 mile across the Hudson River.
Ricardo said...
I was at work at ESPN and it was like any other day
KA said...
I went to work, was told there was a terrorist attack
Clay said...
9/11 I was actually off work and getting my car serviced
Dave said...
I retired last April, but on 9/11/01 I was still working in my local broadcasting career. I was in the newsroom of a local TV station in Billings, MT,
mark said...
I was at home when it happened because I work the night shift
Behind Blue Eyes said...
I used to work at the Red Cross...National Testing lab ... I worked midnight shift and at 8am..
Diane S. said...
Some time after first hearing the news, I found myself wandering like a lost child in a supermarket
Penny said...
I was on my way into Manhattan on the morning of 9/11/01. I was meeting a sales rep at a client's office
Sherril said...On that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I left my house for work at about 8:35 AM. on the way to the day care center...

And when all was said and done on this particular post of this particular blog, Maritza kindly said...
Sherrill, Thanks for dedicating your blog to this event these past couple of days. You did so respectfully and with sensitivity

A certain kind of relationship develops among fellow bloggers, those who make it their business to visit your blog, read what you have to say and comment accordingly and whose blogs you visit on a regular basis. There's a warmth that develops, even though you've never met, and often times do not even know what they look like.

I want to try an experiment with my blogger-mates, a kind of pass-it-along, tag kind of thing. I will answer the question I have posed, ["Where were you on September 11, 2001 when the planes hit the towers of the World Trade Center?] and ask them to do the same in the comment section of my blog. Then, when they return to their own blog, they rewrite their 9/11 experiences and ask their readers to do the same and so it goes. I hope it works.

On that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I left my house for work at about 8:35 AM. I am a Speech Pathologist and I work in the homes and Day Care Centers of very young children with, or at risk for, developmental delays. At about 8:58 AM, just before arriving at the Day Care Center in South Orange, NJ, I heard the DJ on a Rock radio station announce, in an exclamatory, but quite skeptical, almost joking way, that he'd just got word that a plane hit the World Trade Center or that there was a fire near the top of the WTC, he wasn't really sure (the station itself was broadcasting from NYC) and he followed it by saying something like, "yeah, right!" At that point I was parking my car and I didn't think all that much about it due to the flippancy in the announcer's voice. I entered the Center and for the next hour worked with my regularly scheduled 9 AM child. As I was leaving, an hour later, I passed a woman who worked there, with whom I'd become chatty-friendly, as one does in the work-a-day world. I asked how she was doing and she responded with a deep frown, "not very well". When I asked her what was the matter, she looked at me as if to say, where in the hell have you been girl? Her actual words were, "don't you know what's been happening?" and before I could mention something about what I'd casually heard on the radio, she blurted forth more of the details and the fact that many of the parents of these children in this Day Care work at the World Trade Center.

Rushing back to my car and the radio, every station, was broadcasting the same news and it took only a minute or two to get up to speed. But, like so many, I just could not get past those words that I kept hearing, that the two towers of the WTC had fallen. The World Trade Center was no more. For some reason it was that information, those words, that I could not get my mind around, that literally froze me in place. My imagination was not equipped for what they were saying. The World Trace Center was no more. I could not think of the people, the consequences, anything, other than those seven words. When I started crying, I became confused and disoriented. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Do I go to the next child's home on my schedule? Do I go home? Do I call the office and ask them what to do? Do I call my husband (working in NJ) or my kids (one in High School, the other in College). It really didn't matter because when I tried to use my cell phone, not one of the calls got through. I began to drive to the house of my next child, but I literally could not find it, despite the fact that I'd been there tens of times. I was completely disoriented, was having trouble seeing through my tears and kept making circles. When I finally got to the door, with tears in my eyes and voice, the only thing I could think to say to the mother of the child, was to ask if I could use their phone because my cell phone was useless. She, of course, was on the phone, but soon hung up and handed it to me. The office said to call the other families and cancel therapy sessions if I wanted. I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew I needed to be with someone with whom I felt close. I drove to a friend's house in the neighborhood, only to find no one home. As I drove to my home, some 14 miles away, and my mind still in a fog, it suddenly occured to me that there was someone I'd not thought about calling, but ought to have. My hub's niece from Israel and her boyfiend had been staying with us for the Jewish holidays (Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur). Their plan for the day was to go into The City to visit the World Trade Center (they'd already been to other parts of the city and that day was for downtown). They were to take the bus in from NJ and then subways to the WTC. I freaked. I had absolutely no clarity of mind and all I could think was that I had to get home to warn them, hoping and praying that they hadn't left already (it was then close to 11 AM). I sped home and felt like I was driving blind through my tears. Once home, I left the keys in the car, door open and rushed into the house calling their names, only to find that thankfully they were there and my mother had called them an hour or so earlier with the news.

The next hours and days were spent glued to the television and radio, seeing over and over what the rest of the country and the world was seeing and trying, without success, to understand, to believe what had happened. In those raw moments, hours, days and weeks, you couldn't think about what it all meant, what the repercussions would be; all you could do was grieve and try to believe it, try to understand.

It is neither Black History Month nor Women's Rights Month (is there such a month?), but I have come across a speech that has provoked my passions and if I don't blog about it at the moment, the "moment" will pass. While drinking my second cup of coffee on my precious day off, I put on the TV and my computer simultaneously. As I sailed through the mindless mess of daytime programs on TV, I came across something, for which I can not find a name or source, only that it is my cable company's "educational access" channel and was identified as: EDAC022 Sep 06 10:00am.
I call this kind of thing Synchronicity of My World and Blog World

The message I mean to relate here, by quoting part of a Speech given by Sojourner Truth in May 1851, at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, is that there is a thread that moves along carefully among all quests for freedom and equality; such is the connection between Abolition of Slavery and Women's Suffrage (and overall Women's Rights). When I heard Sojourner Truth's words today, this fact rang out clear and strong, perhaps in a way that had never before occurred to me. The speech was published by Frances Dana Gage, who had organized the Convention, as her version of Truth's speech, "complete with crude Southern dialect in the April 23, 1863, issue of the New York Independent." I was about to "clarify" the speech in order to help the reader read it more easily. But, on second thought, I realized that Sojourner's speech says it so elolquently, it speaks for itself and can not possibly be made any clearer.

"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de nigger of de Souf and de womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber halps me into carriages, or ober mudpuddles, or gibs me any best place!"

And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked, "And ar'n't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! [And here she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power] " I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ar'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man -- when I could get it -- and bear de lash as well! And ar'n't' I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern *, and seen 'em mos' all sold off the slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ar'n't I a woman?

"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" "Intellect," whispered someone near. "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" And she pointed her significant finger, and sent a keen glance at the minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and loud.

"Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?" Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated, "Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him." Oh, what a rebuke that was to the little man.

Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve, I cannot follow her through it all. It was pointed and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting, "If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder [and she glanced her eye over the platform] ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em." Long continued cheering greeted this. "Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner han't got nothin' more to say."

For those who may have had difficulty reading the speech as it was interpreted by Dana Gage, here is another version:

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart -- why can't she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, -- for we can't take more than our pint'll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble. I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.

Speech borrowed from an article from The Sojourner Truth Institute of Battle Creek site.

So, I've talked about politics, movies, theater and books, but not art. I love art. One of my my favorite museums in NYC is the Neue Gallery located at 1048 Fifth Ave. at 88th Street. The architects of the beautiful classic building in which this museum is located, Carrere & Hastinngs, are the same ones who built the New York City Public Library. At one point the building was occupied by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III and then by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. It was purchased by Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky in 1994.

Lauder and Sabarsky conceived the idea for the museum. Sabarsky, an art dealer and art exhibition organizer and Lauder, a businessman, philanthropist and art collector were friends for nearly three decades and they shared a passionate commitment for German and Austrian art of the early 20th century. The museum features Austrian artists such as Gustav Klimt and German arists such as Vasily Kandinsky, Egon Schiele and Paul Klee.

Ronald S. Lauder, also heir to the cosmetics fortune, former American ambassador to Austria, once a mayoral candidate, prodigious art collector and major benefactor of Jewish causes, knows a lot about art stolen by the Nazis, much of it from Jews.
Starting in the mid-1990's he became a vocal champion of restitution of the artwork to their rightful heirs, an issue that was then erupting across Europe and the United States after 50 years of silence.
As chairman of the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress, Mr. Lauder has been a patron of scattered efforts to help Jews reclaim what had been theirs. In testimony before Congress, he called these stolen artwork "the last prisoners of war."

Many of the works of the Austrian artists, Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, belonged to Jewish collectors before World War II and were stolen and lost during the Nazi years, and many of their owners were killed in the Holocaust. Mr. Lauder, who bought his first Schiele drawings as a teenager with his bar mitzvah money, says that few people paid attention to provenance when he entered the market in the late 1960's under the tutelage of Serge Sabarsky. Both Sabarsky's and Lauder's collections hang in the Neue gallery.

An extra treat that this museum offers is the cafe serving Viennese pastries and coffee.

And then there's...

Have you ever heard of the American artist, Edward Hopper, 1882-1967? I get an email called DelanceyPlace.com and every day it delivers an excerpt from or about a well known person in literature, science, art, education and so on. Today's excerpt was about Edward Hopper. The name was so familiar to me, but I could not for the life of me remember why. Just a bit of research gave me the clue that I needed. "He was born in the small Hudson River town of Nyack, New York State, on 22 July 1882." Several years ago, we took a weekend trip to visit the Hudson Valley and there I was, for the first time, exposed to the Hudson River School Artists. Hopperwas born at the end of this period, but I imagine growing up there, he was influenced by it. In any case, looking now at his paintings, I could not stop. I can't say exactly what it was that attracted me so and kept my attention, but I guess that's what art is about. It's the pull, the attraction and though understanding some theory and techniques can add much to a piece of art, in reality, what matters most is the chemistry you have or don't have with the art. I don't know how it will translate here, but when I viewed these works from the WebMuseum Paris Site on my monitor they were beautiful. The light and air in these paintings stir me like no paintings I've seen before. They also impart a profound sense of time and place. Should you wish to join me at the Whitney, The Met or The Brooklyn Museum of Art some day, what a pleasure it would be. And if you can expound on what makes these paintings so wonderful, I invite you to share.

OK, so I am getting myself in trouble with my deep thoughts on relationships and the like in the arena of emails, so I thought I'd come here to a more secure place and just post thoughts random as they be. While reading today's NPR's All SONGS Considered, I came across the following.:

Now 30 years old, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono follows his 1998 debut solo album Into the Sun with a sharp new collection of original work called Friendly Fire. He's joined on the album by Paul Simon's son, Harper, who plays guitar.

And I think, that's nice, I'll take a listen. Minimally, I'll get to hear the voice of Paul Simon's son, which would be of interest to me, being a PS fan for, well, many years. Maximally, I may even like the voice of John Lennon's son. I certainly was a fan of his dad. And then I noticed the picture.......OMG, is he getting old or am I? When in god's name did little Sean get to be a grown man? I mean whatever happened to Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful Boy ???

Close your eyes, Have no fear, The monsters gone, He's on the run and your daddy's here,
Beautiful, Beautiful, beautiful, Beautiful Boy,
Before you go to sleep, Say a little prayer, Every day in every way, It's getting better and better,
Beautiful, Beautiful, beautiful, Beautiful Boy,
Out on the ocean sailing away, I can hardly wait, To see you to come of age, But I guess we'll both, Just have to be patient, Yes it's a long way to go, But in the meantime,
Before you cross the street, Take my hand, Life is just what happens to you, While your busy making other plans,
Beautiful, Beautiful, beautiful, Beautiful Boy, Darling, Darling, Darling Sean.

Well, I guess we've seen him come of age.

Take one part female, one part male, mix in a transgendered-male with a a few shakes of transgendered-female and what do you get? You get a mass of confusion and uncertainty about what gender is, how much of who we are is due to our gender and how much does being gender specific limit us from being fully human?





These are questions I have been pondering a great deal lately. Consider first the movies I've watched in the last year....Brokeback Mountain about two young men in the NorthWest who meet in the summer of 1963, a time when being gay was still primarily "accepted" only if it were between two men in the closet, definitely not between two cowboys living and working in the open range where seldom is heard a discouraging word. The next movie was TransAmerica, about a man, who when we meet her, is in the final stages of a long and arduous road to becoming a woman, with only the genital surgery to go. Meanwhile, there are the books I've been reading. A friend leant me her book, entitled She's Not There - A Life In Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan. The author of this memoir grew up as Jim Boylan, became a writer (close friends with the perhaps more famous writer, Richard Russo of Empire Falls fame), married the love of his life, had two children and all the while was obsessed with the self-knowledge that he was meant to be she. Jim finally took the plunge, after many years of toying with female clothing and "pretending" femininity, and began the hormones and other treatments to finally become who she knew herself to be all along, Jennifer Boylan.


Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, soon after finishing She's Not There", I picked up the recorded edition of the book, Self-Made Man - One Woman's Journey Into Manhood and Back by Nora Vincent. This book on CD started out for me as boring, mainly because it was read by the author and her voice was quite low in tenor and monotone. But it was not long before boredom morphed into not only interest and fascination, but a kind of identification that often brought tears to my eyes.
Nora Vincent is a writer who went on a journey, a project, to see what it means to be a Man in America and to experience this though the eyes of a woman, a woman who happens to be a Lesbian. That Vincent is a Lesbian was not so significant, except that she had always been a tomboy and came to the project with what she thought was perhaps a better understanding of what being a man was because of her predisposition to boyish things. Much of what she learned on this journey was to dispel many of her (and hopefully the reader's) preconceptions. So, Vincent did some physical training to build up muscle mass, she did what was necessary to hide her breasts and to appear to have facial hair. She got a coach to help her with any of the characteristics of malehood that she might overlook. All in all, it worked, in so far as her biggest fear, that of being "found out", never happened. She spent about 18 months passing as a man, a man named Ned (a nickname she'd had as a child). She began the journey as the newest member of a bowling league. She went on to become a young man dating young women and then a man in a male dominated field, sales (door-to-door) and her final foray was into a a male bonding weekend in the woods.

I grew up through the Woman's Movement and I am a product of it. I also grew up in a family where, though my parents were well meaning and there was a lot of love, I did not have a great model provided for a good, healthy male-female relationship. I was never given the opportunity of seeing a man who was multi-faceted in his emotional development. After listening to this book, I have come to somewhat understand the monochromatic male when it comes to his emotions. Men, like women, are products of their environment and the American culture we all live in. We can not escape the male-female expectations taught us from infancy and we can not change the early relationship we have had with the parent who was to be our role model.


The author exposes the suffering of men when they are denied their father's approval and warmth. Men, all too often, grow up deprived of being allowed to experience a range of human emotions. They are not allowed to feel them, no less express them. Fear, insecurity, doubt are fiercely prohibited. Silliness, puckishness, playfulness, nurturing are given little value and attributed to the "weaker sex?. Sorrow, guilt, confusion and grief are frowned upon. In other words it's a short list from which men can choose when it comes to emotions. Women are pretty much free to experience and express them all, and generally we do. Boys often grow up learning, and as adults are left with, three major emotions: anger, rage and bravado. Sometimes the anger and rage men feel are directed towards women and Vincent helped me to understand where this might come from; how we women are ever ready to criticize men for being emotionally distant, yet at the same time, preferring them to meet our stereotypical images of strength and virility, how women, intending to be sensitive to their man, in reality, often does not honor his male needs. So, in response to his sadness, perhaps tears, we jump in to kiss the boo-boo or talk away the wound, when what he really needs is space and silent understanding.He needs the woman to understand that just being there, being present with him, is enough. Vincent further explained that she came to see how women often bring on male hostility when we assume an emotional superiority that closes down all communication (this resonated the deepest and elicited the tears.) Finally, however, she states that both genders are hurting, lonely, longing to connect, and fault can be found, just like quality, on both sides.


What is refreshing in this book is that the author is not on a mission to degrade the male gender, far from it. She clearly has no axe to grind. She managed to display men's relationships with other men as enviable. When women meet new women we tend to size them up, literally size them up....she's thinner than me, fatter than me, has prettier features than me..has horsey features, has huge breasts, is flat-chested,, has a flat stomach, is just too damn perfect. We tend to go into automatic competition mode and not necessarily for the highest bowling score. The men Ned met when he joined the bowling league came across to me as more "real". These men seemed to take each other at face value, without judgment or comparison. The stronger ones tended to take Ned under their wings and mentor him. Some of the older men provided a welcoming father figure. The male bonding in this segment of the book displayed a tenderness that never lost its masculinity and I found it enviable. I felt a longing for this kind of relationship with other women. I found myself admiring and even envying men for this ability to truly bond with others of their gender without rancor or pettiness.

Nora Vincent truly helped to give me an insight into the opposite gender that was as open as any I've encountered. Through her eyes I came to have a greater understanding of what's behind men's failures (as well as their attributes) and also to understand quite a bit about our own.


In Vincents words, "And I came largely to forgive women and myself for our own all too apparent shortcomings. Our emotional arrogance, our lack of perspective, our often unreasonable needs and projections and blames, our failure, like men, to manage or acknowledge the imbalance on our own side of the equation."


If nothing else is certain, what is without doubt the most important thing for men and women to learn is open communication with each other. I think of all the gender questions and answers I have come upon lately, this book, Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey Into Manhood is the one for us all, men and women, to read and take from it the fodder for that communication.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), the Philosopher and Author wrote a classic book in 1951 on the nature of mass movements. It was first brought to national attention when cited by President Dwight Eisenhower and it speaks to what is happening today, not only in the Middle East, but in far too many places in our world.

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both... "There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality. Their burning conviction that there must be a new life and a new order is fueled by the realization that the old will have to be razed to the ground before the new can be built..."A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds."Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, Perennial, 1951, pp. 96-8

And the killing goes on. I have been readng and reading and reading in order to try to understand not only what is happening now in Lebanon and Israel, but what has led to this and who are the people on all sides. As I have mentioned, I am reading Thomas Friedman's book, From Beirut to Jerusalem and it is providing much of the context that I am seeking. Today I cam across an article from the newspaper, The Guardian, and it provides much insight into the Hizbollah, in their own words. Take a look.

I received an email with a video attachment. It is an interview of Dr. Wafa Sultan, who is a Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles. Prior to March 11, 2006, she was largely unknown outside of her own circles. The vidwo was done in February, 2006 and it is an interview from the Al Jazeerah Network. It speaks for itself, so take a look and listen.
http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null

I came across this article byJohn. M. Broder from the NY Times with background on Dr. Sultan.

When Elephants Fight, it is the Grass that Suffers...a Kikuyu Proberb.

I was listening today, on CNBC, to Tim Russert interviewing Tom Friedman, a New York Times columnist. Friedman used this quote, when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers, in describing the situation in Lebanon, where Lebanon is the grass. Friedman lived in Lebanon for many years and wrote the book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, which he says remains relevant to this day, despite the 17 years since it was written. I purchased the book a long time ago, meaning to get around to it. I think now is the time.

Rather than blog about my take on what is happening presently in Lebanon, I thought it might be more helpful to share some other blogs that I came across today as I perused the subject online, specifically from the point of view of peace.




Oh My God, that word seems so clear and simple to those of us sitting here thousands of miles away from the turmoil and strife and from the people who live there. I have come to know a blogger who calls herself The JerusalemGypsy and though her blog covers a variety of subjects from her perch in the city of Jerusalem, she is ardently a Pursuer of Peace. It was on her blog that I found THE WOMEN'S TENT....(The women’s tent occurred on Thursday-Friday 30-31st March 2006. 500 Druze, Muslim and Christian Arab, Jewish, American, Australian, Italian WOMEN gathered for 2 days of sharing ,ceremony, workshops, singing, food, dance and togetherness). This is just one example of her blog, called Jerusalm Wanderings .

If you, like me, bemoan the lack of moderate voices from the Arab side of THE DIVIDE, then you are going to want to vsit these next two blogs, that the JerusalemGypsy turned me on to.

The first is called Adventures of Mr. Behi and it represnts, in the JerusalemGypsy's words, Another Peace-nik in Iran. Who'da thunked it, right? Check this blog out and you begin to find something to be hopeful about. Also, it is a wealth of information about the Persian culture.

The next blog with its simple and unassuming name, bob's blog, is anything but (simple and unassuming, that is). This is how he describes it....This blog is a snapshot of Lebanon, its politics, lifestyles and history. And it will also include some book and movies reviews, and a bit about my life...
About Me


Name:BOB
Location:Lebanon

This man, Bob, is, I hope, not one of a kind. In response to his posts he gets comments telling him that they hope a bomb falls on him and his family. Because he is representing a more moderate and clear headed viewpoint of the war in Lebanon, stating that the Hezbollah is as much at fault, or maybe even more at fault than the Israelies, he is receiving comments telling him to get out of Lebanon because he is a disgrace to them and that he should go live in Israel. He loves Lebanon, but he also seems to love the truth. Check this blog out. I have linked only his last post because what is interesting to read, besides for his opinions, are the 57 comments that the opinion elicited. It is an eye-opener. There is within it equal parts HOPE and DESPAIR.

Today was a sad day for me. The title of this post pretty much tells why. Before I elaborate, allow me to go back in time for a little background. I grew up in a middle sized town called Bloomfield, NJ, which at the time consisted of a large populations of Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans and various other hyphenated Christian Americans. Blacks were a small minority and Jews were only slightly larger. At that time, in the 1950's and 60's there were two synagogues. Ours, the Conservative Synagogue, Temple B'nai Zion, was located in Bloomfield Center (about 7 miles from my house) and the Reform Synagogue, Temple Menorah, was almost across the street from my house. The two merged in 1979 to become Temple Ner Tamid. I can not speak for Temple Menorah, having not belonged there and knowing very little about it, but the Jewish community of Temple B'nai Zion was a close knit one.

My personal family was relatively small and though my father's side had more members than my mother's, we didn't seem to know a lot of them. However, the members of this Jewish community in Bloomfield were my "extended family" in a very real sense. Many of them lived either in my neighborhood or close by. Many had children my age or that of my sister and/or brother. These were the people who came to our, what in the Jewish religion is known as "simchas", meaning joyous ocassions, such as our Bat and Bar Mitzvahs (1960, 1964, 1968 respectively). other milestone birthdays, high school and college graduation parties, weddings, wedding anniversaries, and all the other milestone events that were signifcant, happy, momentous occasions of our lives. These same people later attended my Engagement Party, the Brit Milah for my son and Naming Ceremony for my daughter. They came to decade birthday parties, the ones we made for my parents and ones that were made for us. They have also been there for the not so happy milestones of our lives. This same extended family was there at the funeral home when my father died over ten years ago and again when my mother died over two years ago and they supported us at "shiva calls" at our homes. Needless to say, I feel very close and connected to this extended family.

As the years go by, many of this family have died. For the most part, they still lived in Bloomfield and those who did not, were buried there. In death, as in life, this community remains together. They have their own lot within a larger cemetery, where almost all are buried. When I visit my parent's graves, it is like "old home week", which brings me back to the subject of today's post. I will use initials to keep the privacy of the family. Yesterday, when I got home from work, there was a message on my machine. It was from J. J lives in Massachusetts, is my sister's age and thus was her friend in Bloomfield, and I hadn't heard from her since she called me a few years ago to offer condolences and lots of notalgia, after my mother's death. So, needless to say, receiving a phone message from her was in itself a surprise. Upon listening to the message, I literally fell to the floor, crying. The message was that both her father (who had had Alzheimer's for many years) and her mother (who in recent years had been relatively healthy and well) had, in the past week passed away. Receiving news of a death of a friend's parent is shock enough, but to hear that both parents died in the same week was beyond shock.

Again, a little background is in order. As I have previously mentioned , I lived in Israel from June of 1977 through April of 1979. During that time, my mother had been very generous with my addresses and phone numbers in Israel; thus I received serveral phone calls and visits from people from home (some of whom I knew, others I did not) It was thus that, Mr. and Mrs. S (J's parents) and Mrs. S's sister, Sally (any more initials and I'll forget whom I am talking about!!) invited me to come stay with them for a few days in Jerusalem. I knew them as part of the Bloomfield Jewish community, as well as the parents of my sister's friend, but I did not know them well, especially not Sally. Yet, the prospect of a few free meals, a night in a comfortable hotel, and getting to see people from home wasalluring, so I accepted the invitation. From those few days, I gained a connection that became for me quite meaningful. I especially loved Sally, but unfortunately she passed away decades ago. As for the S's, Mrs. S. and I exchanged Rosh HaShanah cards (Jewish New Year) for all these years since that time. I would see them occasionally at a simcha or funeral or at the occasional Holiday or Shabbat service at Temple Ner Tamid (where the S's had remained quite active). What I'm trying to say is that I had a special place in my heart for these people.

So, when I received this message about their deaths, it hurt.. a lot. As it turned out, Mrs. S. essentially planned her own funeral. Mr. S. had been moved up to an Alzheimer's facility in MA about a month or two ago and Mrs. S. followed, after taking care of business in Bloomfield. She had wanted to keep Mr. S. with her, but his care had become overwhelming and the children insisted on a facility. Mrs. S. came up to MA a few weeks ago and was beginning to settle in nicely, especially having her daughters and sons-in-law close by. Then on Tuesday or Wednesday of this past week, Mr. S. took a turn for the worse and died. Mrs. S. was of course heartbroken, but the death was not unexpected. Everyone tells of how she made all of the phone calls to the Temple and caterer and friends to arrange for her husban's funeral back in Bloomfield. She was, they all told me, sad, but optimistic and even a little excited by the propects of her future. Then in less than 24 hours after Mr. S. died, Mrs. S. was with her daughter trying on clothes for the funeral, when she suddenly dropped to the floor. J got her to the hospital within 20 minutes, but the massive cerebral hemorrhage took her life soon after. So, within the span of under a day, J and her sister, R went from having two parents to having none.

This was basically what was on my answering machines on Thursday when I got home from work. On Friday morning, my sister and I were at Temple Ner Tamid for the funeral of both Mr. and Mrs. S. Seeing the two rose covered caskets set before the congregation, in front of the Bimah, from which the Rabbi and two family members spoke, was both beautiful and heartbreaking. Feeling the hugs and kisses of so many members of the Bloomfield community, many of whom I hadn't seen in a very long time, felt welcomed and comforting. And it reminded me of how much I appreciate having once known what "community" really is and still having just a little more than simply the memory of it.

So much to say. So little time. Still, I try. Last night I took myself to the theater, an Off-Broadway play, entitled, SUSAN AND GOD. I have been purchasing fewer tickets recently than in the past, in my unsuccessful attempts at saving money. So, the question I ask myself is why did I, on a whim, choose to purchase a ticket online for this play? The answer, I believe is serendipity (I just love that word, how it rolls around the mouth like a magical, revolving, up & down Carousel). I believe that I was meant to see this play.

The play originally opened on 10 April 1937 in Princeton, New Jersey, and moved to New York City, New York on 7 October 1937 where it ran for 288 performances. Gertrude Lawrence played the role of Susan. In 1940 it became a movie with Joan Crawford . The part of Susan in this current production of Susan and God at the Mint Theater , was played by Leslie Hendrix, the tough-talking Medical Examiner, Elizabeth Rogers, on Law & Order and all its subsidiaries . She was one of the reasons I decided to get tickets for the play. I love Law & Order and that Hendrix is one of the only actors on the show since it's inception. I thought, how cool to see her in a play and it was.

The plays author was Rachel Crothers (1878-1958)



















Having come across this play and this author (Crouse also directed and acted), it amazes and frankly, disturbs me that both SUSAN AND GOD and Rachel Crothers are all but UNKNOWN today. How can that be? Rachel Crothers was a woman of her times. She grew up in the midst of the Women's Suffrage Movement and was 50 years old when women finally got the right to vote. Her plays addressed many women's issues such as the pull between home life and career as well as universal issues like the void felt by individuals and society vs the searching for a spiritual healing, a wider search for the Infinite Truth that can answer our fumbling questions and help us to go on believing in Goodness, which many call God. So, why is it that we know of Ms. Crother's contemporaries like Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, but not Rachel Crothers? I have a cynical hunch. Crothers was decidedly not political, which turned off many femisnists of her time. Stein's fame as a writer is closely aligned with her circle of friends (Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, etc) who happen to be famous men. Rachel Crothers had no such allies. One has to wonder.

Susan And God is a satirical look at a group of friends in the 1930's who were members of the society in which the "ladies lunched" and the "gentlemen golfed" and they all summered at their Newport "cottages", played tennis, followed by martinis and then dressed to the "T" for dinner. Their favorite pastime was gossip. Whoever left the room was grist for the gossip mill. Susan was a member of this group, but not present in the opening scene as she was on her way home from an extended trip to Europe, sans husband. Consequently the animated discussion was all about Susan and her alcoholic husband and quite funny looking daughter, who spent 6 months of the year at boarding school and the other 6 months at camp. Then, in walks Susan, well no she doesn't "walk" in, she prances in, she "breezes" in, with her silky flowing red dress and matching red hat. Before she could even take her hat off, Susan explodes with enthusiasm about her new found mission to rouse her friends to the realization of the dynamic power of goodness,God, that she has learned about from her new found friend and mentor, Lady Wiggams the leader of this wondrous spriitual movement. Crothers, in writing this, was lightly satirizing a then-trendy spiritual movement called the Oxford Group. It is interesting to note that the Oxford Group was a real religious movement of the 1920's and 30's and was the inspiration for the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Anyway, back to Susan, it becomes quickly, humorously and decidedly clear that she is just a tad selfish, self-serving and self-righteous. But, she has changed, she has changed or so she assures her friends with enthusiasm and vigor. We see with humor and pathos that notwithstanding her sincere belief that she has found God, Susan remains the self-serving socialite that she is and she continues to expect and to receive her own way. Her always faithful, but not always functional, husband seems to believe what Susan is espousing and makes a deal with her that if she stays the summer with him and their daughter, he will stop drinking and if he doesn't, he will grant her the divorce she has been seeking against his will. Despite herself, Susan agrees.

It is the end of the play that spoke most directly to me and my sensibilities. We are led to believe that due to circumstances Susan't husband goes off the wagon and may have taken up with one of their group, a single woman. Believing this to be true, Susan becomes jealous and though a few moments before, she had been ready to throw Barrie (the husband) away, she now has second thoughts. It may have seemed too easy to some viewers that Susan has this change of heart, but as I watched the scene unfold, it did not occur to me that her transition was anything but real. Barrie explains his appreciation of Charlotte (the other woman) but, does he love her, no, he loves Susan. In the end, it is the potential of Susan's redemption that we see and the sensitivity with which this was portrayed touched me deeply. Unfortunately, it was Susan's final line of the play that I wanted to quote here. Somehow for me, that line said it all. I have been searching for it in my minds memory, as well as online, but alas, I can not find it. Perhaps I will write the theater and ask them if they would send it to me.

So, I wrote an email to the Aritistic Director of the MINT THEATER COMPANY, Jonathan Bank and not only did he provide me with the last line of the play, but he sent me the entire script. That is the kind of thing that restores my faith in people. THANK YOU JONATHAN.
Last scene in play, Susan And God.... Susan says to husband, Barrie,

"Oh dearest - I don't think God is something out there - to pray to. - I think he's here - in us. And, I don't believe he helps one bit - till we dig and dig and dig - to get the rotteness out of us.........Barrie - hold me.
(She sinks against Barrie - he puts his arms about her - holding her close.)

OH, DEAR GOD - DON'T LET ME FALL DOWN AGAIN!"

As I've said before, the power of theater is formidable and I am forever grateful to be a part of it, if only in the audience.

I found this movie, Closer, to be first disturbing, second unique in its approach and third interesting, most interesting. It is about two women and two men and how and why they combine and love and don't. I know that Jude Law has been in many, many movies, but I think this is the first of his for me. He was good , but very unlikable. Natalie Portman came to my attention in the movie, The Garden State and I knew that she would be an actress whom I would follow. I really liked her in this movie. I found her hard not to watch and even harder not to like, even if she is not completely an up and up characher. Julia Roberts is of course a known entity anf I enjoyed her most in Mystic Pizza, Erin Brockovich, Pretty Woman and especially Steel Magnolia. She was excellent in this movie, very different than in most of her others. Clive Owen was completely new to me. I'd seen one of his movies, Gosford Park, but I don't remember him in it. He is, however, most memorable in this movie. I won't go any deeper into details, other than to say, pay attention to a small detail concerning Natalie Portman's name in the movie. I recommend seeing Closer.





I'm thinking if I called Closer disturbing, then I have to call Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, DISTRESSING, DISQUIETING, UNSETTLING, DISCOURAGING, DISHEARTENING, DISMAYING, DISPIRITING and mostly DISGUSTING!!!!

If Ken Lay's death left you with any sympathy for him, I admonish you to watch this movie. The Enron fiasco represents what is disgraceful in this country where Capitalism, at it's worst, is concerned. And besides for all the rest, what a waste of brains, talent and ambition. Oh, and if you had any sympathy for those who are currently running our government, watch this movie and it will remind you why you shouldn't.

The movie (documentary) is quite long and sometimes it was beyond me regarding the worlds of finances, traders, and big business, but I recommend it all the same.

I can not lie, so I will state here and now that what will be posted here was on the Editorial Page of today's (Sat., July 15, 2006) New York Times. I copy it here rather than write my own thoughts because this article expresses my thoughts to a t and I don't believe I could do it any better.

With the circle of violence in the Middle East expanding alarmingly, it is important to be clear about not only who is responsible for the latest outbreak, but who stands to gain most from its continued escalation.

Both Questions have the same answer: Hamas and Hezbollah. And Israel needs to be careful that its far-reaching military responses, however legally and morally justified, do not end up advancing the political agenda that Hamas and Hezbollah hard-liners had in mind when they conceived and executed the kidnappings of Israeli soldiers that detonated the fighting.

The Palestinian Authority, which Hamas controls, and the Lebanese government, in which Hezbollah is a minority participant, inexcusably failed to prevent or halt these incidents. Iran, which arms Hezbollah, and Syria, which shelters the most violent wing of Hamas also shares some responsibility.

Israel is fully justified in treating these two incidents as unacceptable acts of aggression. But it needs to better adapt its methods to the circumstances it now faces. The point is to weaken and isolate Hamas and Hezbollah, while denying them opportunities to rally broader Arab support. To that end, Israel must focus its fire much more directly at the leaders and fighters of these two groups, and do far more to minimize the damage to civilian by-standers.

Here's why: The military chieftains of Hamas and Hezbollah fully understand that their primitively armed guerrillas and limited-range unguided missiles are no match for Israel's world-class military forces. When they engage in provocative operations, like the recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and shelling of Israeli towns, they do not expect to win any kind of traditional military victory.

What they more realistically hope for is that the inevitably fierce and devastating Israeli military response will hand them an opportunity to radicalize Arab politics and thereby pressure moderate Arab leaders to distance themselves from Israel and embrace the guerrilla cause. That is a tactic that secular Palestinian guerrilla groups like Fatah pioneered decades ago, and that Islamist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah now use for similar ends.

This perverse dynamic is again coming into play after Israel's wide-ranging forays into Gaza and Lebanon. Most Arabs are not blaming Hamas and Hezbollah for provoking these Israeli raids. They are blaming Israel for carrying them out.

That is not fair. But it is the way things work in the real world, and the provocateurs of Hamas and Hezbollah and their allies in Damascus and Tehran understand how to use it to their long-term advantage. Israel's political and military leaders need to understand it too and not let themselves be drawn into the provocateurs' game.

So, on maritza's blog the first celebrity was some good looking, sexy actress and I'm waiting for mine and here's the fist celebrity heritage.com comes up with for my best look-a-like celebrity.......

No Kidding, this is who it was

I wouldn't lie to you and I couldn't make this up....................................

Yeah, it's Tony Danza. The sexy celebrity I look like is Tony Danza! Thanks bunches, heritage.com.

But wait, there are more and they do get better.............................................................................

My next look-alike is.................................

Avril Lavigne, that's not so bad, and the name sounds Jewish, so we're doing just fine....I can't wait to see the next one and it's..........................

Andie McDowell

/>now we're cooking. I'm feeling a lot more confident and the next celebrity that resembles me or vice-versa is.....

Anette Benning..now I'm actually excited; I'm thinking, hey I'm not too bad, so I keep on truckiing and lo and behold, they tell me that I look like none other than





Steve Buscemi and....

Joi Ito (should I know who he is?)

and after a few more, I'm about to take the gas pipe, when the very last celebrity look alike for me is.....

.................................................................... ...........................................................








Cybil Shepherd and I figure I'll quit while I'm ahead. 0;

How and why do the Jewish people intersect with Islam and the Muslim people? How can one help clarify this very complicated issue. If we can agree to keep Reason first and foremost in the dialog, then we may be able to understand how we got to where we are today and how we can see our way to a more peaceful future. I am Jewish, but I am not a religious person. My roots are deep in traditions, history, education, language and culture, but not in Faith. I do not agree that Religion should be the basis of discussion when it comes to whose land is this land? The more you use Religion as your rationale, the farther and farther apart you will be. The question, as I see it, is not who was here first and thus deseves to be the sole occupiers of the land. Both parties, the Jews and the Muslims will claim they were the first. And then the discussion is over. Having said that, one does have to use the Bible as one source of history, not the only source, but one.

OK, so let's start with a brief history of the region. First of all the name Palestine, what is it's origin? The name Palestine refers to a region of the eastern Mediterranean coast from the sea to the Jordan valley and from the southern Negev desert to the Galilee lake region in the north. The word itself derives from "Plesheth", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". Plesheth, (root palash) was a general term meaning rolling or migratory. This referred to the Philistine's invasion and conquest of the coast from the sea. The Philistines were not Arabs nor even Semites, they were most closely related to the Greeks originating from Asia Minor and Greek localities. They did not speak Arabic. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. Their occupation of Canaan would have to have taken place during the reign of Ramesses III of the Twentieth Dynasty, circa 1180 - 1150 BCE (Before the Common Era, more commonly referred to as BC.) The Philistines reached the southern coast of Israel in several waves. One group arrived in the pre-patriarchal period and settled south of Beersheba in Gerar where they came into conflict with Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. It should be noted that these Biblical figures are recognized in both Judaism and Islam, with some differences in interpretations, of course. Another group, coming from Crete after being repulsed from an attempted invasion of Egypt by Rameses III in 1194 BCE, seized the southern coastal area, where they founded five settlements (Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gat). In the Persian and Greek periods, foreign settlers - chiefly from the Mediterranean islands - overran the Philistine districts.

The Hebrews entered the Land of Israel about 1300 B.C.E., living under a tribal confederation until being united under the first monarch, King Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C.E.. David's son, Solomon, built the Temple soon thereafter and consolidated the military, administrative and religious functions of the kingdom. The nation was divided under Solomon's son, with the northern kingdom (Israel) lasting until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the suthern kingdom (Judah) surviving until the Babylonian conquest in 586 .C.E. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward, before most Jews were finally driven from there in 135 C.E. (Common Era, more commonly called, A.D.). Jewish independence in the Land of Israel lasted for more than 400 years. If you think about it, that is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States. If there had been no foreigh conquerors, Israel would be 3,000 years old today.
In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the Land of Israel. The Arabic word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.

In AD 135, after putting down the Bar Kochba revolt, the second major Jewish revolt against Rome, the Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" and so renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to Palaestina, from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived.
This remained the situation until the end of the fourth century, when in the wake of a general imperial reorganization Palestine became three Palestines: First, Second, and Third. This configuration is believed to have persisted into the seventh century, the time of the Persian and Muslim conquests.
The Christian Crusaders employed the word Palestine to refer to the general region of the "three Palestines." After the fall of the crusader kingdom, Palestine was no longer an official designation. The name, however, continued to be used informally for the lands on both sides of the Jordan River. The Ottoman Turks, who were non-Arabs but religious Muslims, ruled the area for 400 years (1517-1917). Under Ottoman rule, the Palestine region was attached administratively to the province of Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. The name Palestine was revived after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and applied to the territory in this region that was placed under the British Mandate for Palestine.
The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Roman "Palaestina".

On December 9, 1917, as World War I neared its end, Jerusalem surrendered to the British forces. Two days later General Allenby entered the Jaffa Gate on foot, at the head of a victory procession. This act marked the end of four centuries of Ottoman-Turk rule and the beginning of thirty years of British rule.
The mandate system was established by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations as formulated at the Paris Peace Conference (January-June 1919). Under this article it was stated that the territories inhabited by peoples unable to stand by themselves would be entrusted to advanced nations until such time as the local population could handle their own affairs. This concept was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919.
The basic features of a peace treaty with Turkey (the Treaty of Sa¨vres) were adopted, and mandates in the Middle East were allotted to the various Europeancountriess involved.
In the case of Palestine, the administrative control, in the form of a Mandate, was given to the British. By naming this territory the "British Mandate for Palestine" the area that is today Israel and Jordan became the first and only geographic division with the name Palestine since before the Ottoman Empire controlled the area (beginning in 1517). In July 1920 the Mandate civil administration took over from the military. For the first time since Crusader days Jerusalem was again a capital city.
The terms of the British Mandate incorporated the language of the Balfour Declaration and were approved by the League of Nations Council on July 24, 1922, although they were technically not official until September 29, 1923. The United States was not a member of the League of Nations, but a joint resolution of the United States Congress on June 30, 1922, endorsed the concept of the Jewish National Home.
Like the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate recognized the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine," called upon the mandatory power to "secure establishment of the Jewish National Home," with "an appropriate Jewish agency" to be set up for advice and cooperation to that end. The World Zionist Organization, which was specifically recognized as the appropriate vehicle, formally established the Jewish Agency in 1929. Jewish immigration was to be facilitated, while ensuring that the "rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced." English, Arabic, and Hebrew were all to be official languages.
In March 1921, Winston Churchill, then British colonial secretary, convened a high-level conference in Cairo to consider Middle East policy. As a result of these deliberations, Britain subdivided the Palestine Mandate along the Jordan River-Gulf of Aqaba line. The eastern portion--called Transjordan--was to have a separate Arab administration operating under the general supervision of the commissioner for Palestine, with Abdullah appointed as emir. At a follow-up meeting in Jerusalem with Churchill, High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, and Lawrence, Abdullah agreed to abandon his Syrian project in return for the emirate and a substantial British subsidy.
A British government memorandum in September 1922 ("The Churchill White Paper"), approved by the League of Nations Council, specifically excluded Jewish settlement from the Transjordan area of the Palestine Mandate. The whole process was aimed at satisfying wartime pledges made to the Arabs and at carrying out British responsibilities under the Mandate. Unfortunately for the Zionists and counter to the whole expressed purpose of the Mandate in the first place, by this action more than three-quarters of the territory of the British Mandate was taken away from the potential Jewish Homeland without any corresponding action favoring the Palestinian Jews.

I have spent considerable time looking for sites that would give me a better understanding of the conflict from the Palestinian viewpoint and I have found a few. The problem for me is that right away in these sources I read words like "ethnic cleansing" and I find blatant half truths and innuendoes. They talk about that most Jews in Palestine were not citizens of the country, what country? At that point it was a land being divied up by the Europeans and formerly it was part of the Ottoman Empire and if it was ever an Arab country, it could be said to have been southern Syria, in some historical contexts. There simply was not a legitimate country called Palestine. That is not to say there were not many Arabs living there, there were. But they were either citizens of Syria or Jordan or some other Arab country. I am still not saying that these people don't have a legitimate right to claim some part of this small parcel of land as their own. They do and they were offered a Partition in 1948, but it was refused by the Arabs. I have read arguments explaining why it was refused, but I must say that I did not understand them. And whether the Arabs who left in 1948, did so at the advice and demands of the Arab leaders or because they were pushed out by the Jews or a combination of both, the fact is that there are consequences of war. The Arab nations: Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon declared war on the new State of Israel and they lost. There are consequences. No other nation in the world is judged so harshly as Israel is when it comes to consequences of war, even though in their case, the war (wars) were not statted by them. Also, the Arab nations were proudly on the side of the Germans, closely aligned with the Nazis, during the Second World War. There clearly was no love lost on either side of the equation.

Which brings me to the last point I want to make here. For those who may not be aware, Jews have been persecuted from time immemorial. From being expelled from England and Spain to the Crusades to the Pogroms in Eastern Europe and ultimately to the Holocaust in Germany and throughout Europe by extention. Good, bad or indifferent, they were Jews and for this they have been hated throughout history and we all know what atrocities come from hate. The reason for the movement called Zionism was to establish a land where Jews could not be expelled, humiliated, kept from certain jobs and clubs and universities, etc, persecuted and systematicallyy tortured and killed. Until 1967, when Israel won the Six Day War, even in the United States, anti-Semitism often went unchecked. After 1967, Jews in America walked with their heads a little higher, their self-confidence a little stronger because Americans saw that Jews would not be pushed around anymore, they were no longer weak and at the mercy of the bullies. Israel's strength had long coat-tails.

Now, it is common and accepted practice to see Israel as the aggressor, the bully, the big bad demon keeping the poor Palestinians down. It is simply not that simple. I do not want to see Arab children killed. I do not want to see any people living in inhuman conditions. I want all people to have equal rights. But the rights of others can not be at the expense of the Jewish people. Jews have been historically dispensable, but like the slogan that came out of the Holocaust says, Never Again! Somehow, both peoples have to live freely and securely, not one at the expense of the other.

That it was the land of Israel that became the Jewish homeland is certainlyl more than coincidence. The Jewish people in Israel go back to Biblical and pre-Biblical times and Jerusalem has always been the center of the land. (Also, just for the sake of information, many people argue that Jerusalem is also holy to the Muslims and it is, but not nearly as holy as Mecca and Medina.) But, as far as I am concerned, I would have been just as happy if the Jewish Homeland had been established in a less forebodingg place than in the middle of the Middle East. But where might that other place be? They talked briefly about Africa, specifically Uganda, but that didn't take hold. It seems to me somewhere in the middle of Canada where though the weather may be foreboding, at least the population was low. But as far as I know, Canada wasn't considered. The Jews were associated with Israel and Israel was to become the homeland. And so it goes......

I value Reason, perhaps above all else, when it comes to dialog and debate. Religions far too often divide us into separate and definitely unequal communities.. Reason allows for exploration of what makes us all human, what we have in common and why we are more apt to survive if we accept our common humanity. I wish to share with anyone who is reading my blog a program on TV that has satisfied my soul and intellect more than anything I have seen on the tube in a long while. Bill Moyers has returned to PBS with a series called, Bill Moyers: On Faith & Reason. This is how he introduced the series.

"With the buzz around the book and then the film version of THE DA VINCI CODE reaching a fever pitch and The PASSION OF THE CHRIST ranked among the 10 highest-grossing movies ever, what is it about religion that’s got America hooked? It's an old debate between absolutes, the contrasting viewpoints of belief and disbelief that stirs the passions. From the popular to the public square—79% of self-identified evangelical Christians cast ballots for President Bush in 2004—the tug of war between reason and faith is the undercurrent of our society in what some see as a fundamentalist era. On one end of the spectrum people say, "Only religion counts." On the other end, "Only reason counts." How do we keep the public space between reason and faith, where most of us spend our lives, from becoming a no-man's land of constant warfare?" -- Bill Moyers (Read the full essay.)

His guests to date have been Salman Rushdie, Mary Gordon, Colin McGinn, Jeanette Winterson and Will Power. Some are believers and some are not. All are articulate and people of profound thought and reason. I rivetedted to the TV every Friday evening at 9 PM on PBS (channel 13 in the NY Metropolitan area). I believe you can either see or listen to the old interviews at the site I linked above. I highly recommend you catch them and those to be aired in the coming weeks.

If you were born in '56
And find that time has done some tricks
You think that youth has passed you by
Simply saying the word, fifty, brings forth a cry.

Well then for you I have good news
Though true this age we did not choose.
We bring to it a lot that's new.
We're healthier, wealthier and feeling less blue.

So, here's my suggestion to make you feel hearty
Celebrate 50 by making a party.
No rhymiing words but nifty, thrifty and shifty.
But the point is that WE are the NEW FACE OF FIFTY.


I created this invitation for my party. You're welcome to borrow it or create your own. Just be sure to C*E*L*B*R*A*T*E

When I told my 25 year old daughter that I really liked the movie Hustle and Flow (the latest of my rent-a-movie-by-mail movies) she was surprised and frankly so was I. Well, that's not exactly true. I had seen the movie, Crash (excellent, important, rent it) and from it, initially became aware of the actor, Terrence Howard. I could see for myself that he was a presence and when NPR did a piece on him, I knew he was someone I would want to continue to watch. However, though I pride myself on having an eclectic taste in music and movies, Rap and rap-culture movies have not exactly been , well, how should I say it, my cup of tea.

Terrence Howard plays a pimp, in Hustle and Flow, who is not all that satisfied with his life as it is, but like many in his situation, doesn't see any way out. He is portrayed sympathetically and even I, who gets offended just hearing the word, bitch in referance to a woman, was able to get past the language and my feminist beliefs long enough to see the person behind the male bravado. Howard's character, DJay has some talent in the music department and dreams about becoming a rap star. When he happens to meet an old high school buddy, who happens to be a sound engineer, DJay wheedles his way into the church where his friend is working. He hears a woman singing a gospel song with such passion and intensity, he is moved to tears. This was one of the first scenes that drew me into the movie.

DJay manages to convince his old friend, Key (Anthony Anderson), to listen to his music and eventually to help him produce a tape. Kay brings in a musician from the church, Shelby (DJ Qualls), who happens to be white, which does not go unnoticed by DJay. The character that Qualls plays is so refreshingly real and geeky, that he became the second reason I so thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Then there were the women. They were perhaps the most outstanding of all the characters . There are three main women in DJay's life and though they were mostly treated in a demeaning fashion, they were portrayed as important characters in their own rights, with human characteristics that made them not only likeable, but dignified. Paula Jai Parker pllays one of DJay's hookers and is, I believe, the one with whom DJay has a baby. She is the least likeable of the trio and when he throws her out of the house, you are not left with much sympathy for her. The second woman, more like a child-woman in her presence and style of speech, is DJay's main prostitute. Nola (Taryn Manning) is seeking a way to feel important, to contribute, and not to be only what she does with men. During the recording sessions, though the women's presence is initially spurned, they soon become a part of it and you see Nola donning ear phones along with the others. I was never sure if she did so as per request, or she just took it upon herself to wear them to be a part of the process. In either case, it did make her a part of the sessions and you felt her pride. Thus my third reason for enjoying Hustle and Flow

The real treat of the movie for me was the third woman in DJay's life who is his girlfriend and is pregnant, though I am not sure that she is pregnant with him, but I think she is. Shug (Taraji P. Henson), has an innocence that I can only explain as what you would see in a character from a simpler time, living in an environment, more like Appalachia than Inner City. She comes across as innocent and vulnerable. Yet, it must be remembered, this is all taking place in the hood, where there is not always a lot of innocence to be found. She is asked to sing a background part for DJay's song and does so with obvious trepidation, even, embarrassment. But as she goes on, she gets into it and in time begins to belt out her part as if she were Queen Latifah, herself. She is as surprised as anyone, yet you can see the pride and accomplishment in her face. Her face, especially her eyes are her expression.

Later, in a scene where DJay is heading for his car, to drive to meet with this ex- big-time rapper, Skinny Black (Ludacris, also plays in the movie, Crash), he suddenly turns around to run back into the house where he runs into the arms of the unexpecting Shug. The look of love and appreciation in her eyes is worth the price of admission to the movie (or in this case, DVD.)

Another draw to this movie is the appearance of Isaac Hayes. Terrence Howard, Ludacris AND Isaac Hayes. Really, what else could you ask for? And, if that weren't enough, during a practice session, either Shug or Nola interrupts them to bring in a gift, a lava lamp. I know lava lamps have become popular again in recent years, perhaps never really went out of fashion, but to me it was a perfect symbol for what I will call, Generational Crossover. Classic ROCKRAP....oh, yeah!

OK, so Blogger is making me crazy by not allowing me to upload any more pictures, so I will go ahead and post this, even though there are a few more pictues I reallly wanted to include. I'm afraid if I wait any longer, Hustle and Flow will become a movie Classic and rap music will be just "classic rap". Oooooh, now that would be nice. ;-)

Here are the pics I couldn't download or upload or whatever on my first hundred attempts.....if at first you don't succeed...try try again.

I feel compelled to write an addendum to last night's post. That post was to be about Jim Dawson and in the telling turned out to be as much about myself and my family as anything. But it only told one part of the story and like everyone's story, there are a myriad of sides. When I was a child, though I was the "middle child", I always thought myself to be the favorite, well, at least my mother's favorite. We had what I saw then as a very special and close relationship. That she shared with me at times her sadness and even helplessness in regards to the relationship she had with my father and though I saw her cry, probably more than was healthy for a young girl, this was only a portion of what there was between us. My mother had immesurable energy for life. She always had a weight problem (another issue that felt like my own because it made me so sad for her and I worried that others would talk about her)but she seemed to have more energy than most women half her size.

The following would have been a typical day for us when she would take us (my sister and me) or just me to New York City. We would wait for the bus at the stop across the street from our house and get on the 33 or the 88 at either 5 minutes before or 25 minutes after the hour and that hour would have been 10 or 11 AM. We'd get into the City 30 minutes later and walk from the Port Authority to 44th or 45th or one of the streets with those little Ticket Brokers that sold Broadway tickets for the same day. This was before TKTS TKTS on 7th Ave. So, she would buy us tickets to see whatever show or play was hot at the time, say, for instance, The Miracle Worker with Patty Duke and she'd pay top dollar for excellent seats for the Matinee performance, which started at 3 PM, so we would have 3 or 4 hours on our hands. She would take me to lunch and then we might go to Saks Fifth Ave, buy me some clothes which we sent home so we didn't have to carry the bags, nor pay the NYC tax. That would bring us to near curtain time, when we'd hurry off to the theater. I always LOVED the play or musical and more times than not, she would go with me after the performance to wait at the stage door for the star to come out and sign my Playbill. To this day, I have many of those Playbills.



My mother and I saw them all, Funny Girl (Streisand), The Owl and the Pussy Cat (Alan Alda), Golden Boy (Sammy Davis, Jr.), The Impossible Years (Alan King, Bert Convey), Fiddler on the Roof (Herschel Bernardi), On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (Barbara Harris), Superman (Jack Cassidy), Half a Sixpence ((Tony Tanner), Mame (Angela Lansbury), The Star Spangled Girl (Tony Perkins, Connie Stevens, Richard Benjamin), Man of La Mancha (Jose Ferrer), Black Comedy (Geraldine Page, Michael Crawford, Lynn Redgrave, Donald Madden), The Apple Tree (Alan Alda, Larry Blyden, Barbara Harris), Jimmy Shine (Dustin Hoffman in Dec. 1968), Hair (Keith Carradine, Melba Moore, James Rado and many others...I actually saw this one with a good friend, Howard, who came into the city for the day, from Philadelphia ), The Rothschilds(Hal Linden), Two By Two (Danny Kaye, Madeline Kahn). My Mother and I went to the theater in my adult years as well and one play stands out in my mind, Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Mary Tyler Moore). So, back to our day. After we got the autogragh, we might be hungry again, as it was getting dark and we had somme time to kill before we'd go to see an evening movie or even on a few occassions, another show. The day was endless, like my Mother's energy, and the experience was always fun and memorable



Every year we went to Radio City Music Hall and stood on those long lines around the side of the building to get tickets for the Christmas Show. In those days, we got to watch a grand Disney movie like Dumbo or Around the World in Eight Days before the rest of the Christmas extravaganza even began. I loved the costumes and the camels and of course the Rockettes. We'd eat at places like The Brass Rail and it would be a day fit for a queen. I loved those days together. I still love to think about them and look at my Playbill collection. I still love the theater, but I don't kow if I ever enjoy it as much as I did as a child and teenager. The other thing my mother had endless energy and patience for was shopping. She would always know the stores where they helped you, so she and the salesperson would go back and forth from the dressing room to the floor, as I tried on one piece of clothing after another. I would get tired out way before she did. We'd walk out of the store laden with bags of clothing. We'd cap off our shopping with lunch and revsiting our purchases as she drove us home.



Another thing about my Mother was that she almost always supported me in the things I wanted to do. She and my father sent me on teen tours across the United States when I was 14, to Mexico at 15, and the summer when I was 16, they sent me on a two month teen tour to Israel. This turned out to be one of the handful of defining times of my life. When I wanted to go back to Israel the summer after my Junior Semester Abroad (in Florence, Italy...another defining time period of my life) and my parents were against it because there had recently been a terrifying terrorist attack there, they listened to my rationale and that of a dear Syracuse Professor (Professor Mickeljohn) who agreed to write them a letter supporting my desire to go, and in the end they supported me in this too. They allowed me to travel with a friend in Europe in my college years and supported my decision to go to Wichita, Kansas for Grad School. And everywhere I went, my Mother and Father visited me..... Italy, Israel and even in Wichita, Kansas. During my Senior year in college, my Mother took me on a trip to Portugal. I can remember the night when she tripped over me sleeping on the hotel bathroom floor, where I'd gone to escape her snoring. We laughed about that for many years after.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I am what I am today because of what she could and could not give me. What she lacked, I have been trying to make up for in therapy. What she had to
give, I took in wholeheartedly and encorporated into my being and for that I will always be grateful.

It has been over three weeks since last I posted on this blog and before I get into the reason I'm back, I will explain why I've been MIA. The easy explanation is that I've been busy and not online as frequently as is my usual state of being. That's the easy answer. The not so easy answer harks back to early childhood, continuing right up to today, as per my therapy sessions with Diane would suggest. This is to say that when the child is in a position where he or she (generally this would be she) feels compelled to "mother" the parent, because the parent never got the "mothering" she needed, then the child grows up seeking the nurturing, that which is the birthright of every child, and getting from her parents the message that she is good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, that she is seen and heard and appreciated for who she is, nothing more, nothing less. So, the child, having never gotten her birthright, seeks this, but never feels she gets it. She is always looking for it in the eyes of those around her and she depends on their assessment of her. What she doesn't realize, until she finds someone like Diane to bring it to her attention and integrate it into her belief system, is that she will never find it until she herself learns to see and undertstand what she needed as a child and didn't get, then perhaps becomes angry, but ultimately forgives those who did not/could not give it to her. Only then can she learn to become the nurturing, loving, compassionate, rewarding, non-judgmental Mother to her own child, who still, at the rarefied age of (gulp!!!) 54, lives within her. Then, and only then, will she feel good enough and no longer need to seek seeing herself though the eyes of others.

So, what does all this have to do with why I am back and with Jim Dawson (and if you're reading this, you may be asking WHO IS Jim Dawson, but you know I will get there eventually)? I went to see Jim in concert tonight (more on this later) and the reminiscence of the evening, as well as what he expressed in his verbal ramblings between songs and the lyrics to the songs themselves, old and new, brought me to the following self-query and realization. Why do I feel that I have to write this blog for others to read and then when there is no one or very few someones, reading it, become disheartened and even insulted, questioning why other bloggers have readers and I don't, and concluding that my blog and what I have to say and the way I express it, is of little value and not appreciated. The realization that I don't occured to me. If I enjoy writing it and I like looking back on it as a journal of sorts and I get reinforced by my effort and I love looking at the pictures, as well as the words, all of which I do, then having readers would be like the icing on the cake, but readers or not, the substance of the cake is still there. Thus, I am here. I'm back!

So, who is Jim Dawson and why should you care? In 1975, I had just graduated with my Masters Degree in Speech Pathology from Wichita State University, in, obviously, Wichita, Kansas, the near exact center of these United States. New York City, it was not, but then having gone to Syracuse University undergraduate, I was ready, willing and enthusiastic to get away from all that was New York Metropolitan. This I found in Wichita. I found people who had never in their lives met a Jewish person and I loved it. I was the special guest at my own party (my favorite thing to be!) People were interested in me because of my differences and my background and this made me noticed and needless to say, I enjoyed that. I also appreciated the friendliness and hospitality and like they say, "down-homeness" of the Mid-West. Having said all that, after a year and a half of being the one and only person in the movie theater, watching The Way WE Were, catching the inuendos and identifiying with Barbara,rather than Robert, I realized I may be ready to return to the East Coast, which was a good thing, since my first job turned out to be in Providence, RI.

Of course I brought with me to RI, the angst of being an "adult" (24 years old to be exact)who still felt like a child and a "Professional" who not only still felt like a student, but wanted nothing more than to remain a student for the rest of her days. I'd been successful as a student and I was sure that I would never be that in the professional world (in fact, it was many, many years until I did feel that success, but that's another story for another time.) So, I trudged through that first year of my first professional job, pretending to be the "expert" and feeling like a fraud, living in a city that I really liked, Providence, near another city that I liked even more, Boston, but where the friends I'd managed to make at work, mostly all quit within that year. So, loneliness and insecurity, and well, knowing that I was not good enough, pervaded much of my time in RI. Music has always played a major role in my life and songs, as much as any scent, can bring me right back to another place and time. I can not remember how I came across him, but probably I heard Jim Dawson on the wonderful Boston radio station which played new singer/songwriters, even way back then. I went right out and purchased his LP called, Jim Dawson. Many of his lyrics "spoke to me", but none more than those in the song, "Until I Find Someone" (which he was good enough to play tonight, upon my request, even though he probably hadn't played it in ages and the lyrics were not all that familiar at this point and though it didn't hit the heights of the LP, it was very much appreciated by a "fan".) Perhaps at a later date, I will fetch my record and copy the lyrics off the back cover or the inside liner notes (remember how great it was to get albums with covers that were like pieces of art and were filled with information like lyrics and every instrument on every song and who played them and was large enough to hold like a book and as easy to read? Those were the days, my friend!) I had every intention to go to Boston to see Jim live, but like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Still, that album made me a life long fan. Unfortunately, however, after I left Rhode Island in the Spring of 1977 to pursue my next adventure (Israel, where I studied and lived and worked for the next two years, and got engaged... but again, I digress), I lost touch with where Jim Dawson was or what he was doing and so it was for the next three decades.

Which brings us to Saturday, June 3, 2006 (though it is now well into Sunday, brevity not being my better suit.) About a year ago, thinking about my collection of LP albums, my mind meandered to Jim Dawson and I wondered what ever became of him. Being as internet savy as I am (achem!), I knew that the answer to my ponderings could be at my fingertips. So, I yahooed his name (yes, I am a Yahooer, not a Googler) and, voila!, I came upon the Jim Dawson Website. And, the rest, as they say, is history. Well, it's my own personal history anyway. I read the site and looked for an appearance and decided upon one that was to be at a place called, Miss Ellie's in the Village. I had every intention of going, but it was on a weeknight and in The City and the weather forecast was rain and I couldn't find anyone to go with me, so I sent an email to Jim telling him of my dilemma (well, first I filled him in on my connection with him) and lo and behold he wrote me back and told me to come anyway, that I'd be comfortable and I wouldn't be sorry (I'm not sure he really said it like that, but you get the idea.) So, I intended to go, but again did not. But I did keep getting emails from his site informing me of upcoming gigs, which is how I found out about this one at the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church on Rt. 206 in Hillsborough, NJ. This time it was on a Sat. night and since hub had gone to play his all night poker game on Fri. night, I knew he'd be agreeable (more or less) to attend this with me. I also knew that it was the kind of music and event that would appeal more to my sensibilities than his, but I wanted a partner for the event and took advantage of the situation. And, am I ever glad that I did.

Jim Dawson's voice has, like a good wine, improved with age and over time. He is preparing to celebrate his 60th birthday this month. He has a strength in his voice that lends itself to the melodies and lyrics and yet he can purr the words when it calls for that. Only a handful of the songs he sang were familiar to me (afterall, I had only that one album), but I liked most of them as well as I did the ones on my album. I am not sure if he writes all of his songs. I know that he has covered songs by other artists in the past, so perhaps that is still the case. But many of the songs he sings are testaments to his life story, so those are obviously written by him. I assume he also writes the music. I enjoyed him most when he sang accompanied by one of his two guitars. On a few of the songs, he accompanied himself on the piano. He did one song, that I think is called, On and On, which was his contribution as an artist to the aftermath of 9/11. He explained before the song, how it had come to be written, how the horrors of being an abused child at the hands of his father got entangled with the horrors around the fall of the Twin Towers and how in therapy he became able to deal with it and finally to write a song about it. Like with so much of what Jim Dawson writes and sings, this resonated emphatically with me and I just let the tears flow.

So, in closure to this my Return Blog, I would like to recommend that if you are reading this, you take a look for yourself at who Jim Dawson is and where he will be playing and should the opportunity arise to see him in person, seize it. Jim also has CD's for sale on his website (I purchased two at the concert) and as he said, not one, but many times throughout the evening, he has a new CD that will be coming out, hopefully sometime soon.

Sherril

You know, I think we Americans are a very fortunate bunch. We do our fair share of complaining, be it about politics, leadership, or lack thereof, about the price of gas and the lack of good public transportation outside of the major cities, about religion in the public domain, too much, too little, about the right to smoke cigarettes and the right to breathe air without second hand smoke, about too much censorship, too little censorship, about too many immigrants, not enough immigrants, about too high taxes, too few social programs. We Americans, as my grandmother might have said, "have what to complain about." But we are lucky all the same. We go to bed at night without fear of our neighbor turning against us, as they did in the former Yugoslavia where the Croats, the Serbs and the Muslims turned against each other, and in Somalia where the clashes occurred between the Hutus and Tutus, and in Ireland where Protestant and Catholic neighbors turned one against the other.

The United States continues to be a work in progress where a huge number of heterogeneous people live, if not side by side, in close proximity and remain united as Americans, be they Black, White, Jewish, Christain, Muslim, Hindu, be they descended from Italy, Germany, Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Poland, Roumania, Egypt, Israel, China, Japan or the Puritans who came over on the Mayflower. We do not see things eye-to-eye and we do fight amongst ourselves, but so far the plan, put in place all those years ago when the founding fathers sat and wrote our Constitution, has continued to work. We do not have ethnic wars. We do not have one group murdering, rapeing and systematically eliminating another group, without fear of reprisal. We live in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious society and though we may not always celebrate the differences, we do always tolerate them and remain one people under the Constitution.

On Sunday, April 30th, I went with some friends to the Rally in Washington DC to "End the Genocide in Darfur." It happened to come at the same time as the large rallies and marches in NYC and around the country regarding Immigration and this, I believe took away some of the thunder of the Darfur rally. Still, it was a memorable day and one which I believe had some influence on our leaders, as can be seen by the actions that were taken shortly after the rally. As of May 5th, a final agreement between the Darfurian rebel armies and the genocidal government of Sudan was reached. The US government had a major role in this plan. And many thousands of Americans had a role to play, as well, in their outcry against the genocide. Let us pray the peace plan is carried through.

I hope these pictures tell the story of the day...

I just got home from the theater and I am reminded of what theater is all about and why I love going. Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well first came out in the late 60's early 70's when the country was polarized by a war and students were marching and there was corruption in the White House and, wait a minute, does any of this sound familiar??? That's the thing about this show and Jacques Brel's lyrics, they are timeless, because no matter how much we progress technologically, we humans seem to keep the same foibles and make the same mistakes. Each song was like a complete story, told with eloquence and drama and humor and frequently an intensity of emotion that left me and probably much of the audience in tears. The theater is called the Zipper Theater because it is a renovated zipper factory. The seats are car seats. It is small and intimate. The whole experience was more than worth the price of admission, which for Off Broadway wasn't cheap ($65/ticket.) I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. See it before it closes. It is sure to be nominated for best revival in the next Tony Awards.

This was the Broadway.com Review:

Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris by Edward Karam and with
Robert Cuccioli, Gay Marshall, Rodney Hicks & Natascia Diaz

What do these people have in common? ? ? ? ?

Chris Albrect, Carrot Top, Todd Glass,
Jason Alexander, Billy Connolly, Judy Gold,
Hank Azaria, Pat Cooper, Whoopi Goldberg,
Shelley Berman, Wayne Cotter, Eddie Gordetsky,
Billy the Mime, Andy Dick, Dana Gould,
Lewis Black,David Brenner, Frank DiGiacomo,
Alan Harvey, Mario Cantone, Phyllis Diller, Eric Idle,
Drew Carey, Susie Essman, Dom Irrera,
George Carlin, Carrie Fisher, Eddie Izzard,
Mark Cohen, Joe Franklin, Jake Johannsen,
Amazing Johnathan, Alan Kirschenbaum,
Jay Kogen, Sue Kolinsky, Paul Krasser,
Cathy Ladmar, Lisa Lampanelli, Richard Lewis, Wendy Leibman,
Bill Maher, Howie Mandel, Merrill Markoe, Jay Marshall,
Jackie "The Jokeman" Matling, Chuck McCann, Michael McKean,
Eric Mead, Larry Miller, Martin Mull, Kevin Nealon, Taylor Nagron,
"The Onion" Editorial Staff, Otto & George, Rick Overten, Gary Owens,
The Passing Zone, Penn & Teller, Peter Pitofsky, Emo Phillips, Kevin Pollack,
Paul, Reiser, Andy Richter, Don Rickles, Chris Rock, Gregg, Royell,
Jeffrey Ross, Jon Ross, Rita Rudner, Bog Saget, T. Shean Shannon, Harry Shearer,
Sarah Silverman, Bobby Slayton, Tommy and Dick Smothers, Doug Stanhope,
Carrie Snow, David Steinberg, Jon Stewart, Larry Storch, Rip Taylor, Dave Thomas,
Johnny Thompson, Peter Tilden, Bruce Vilanch, Fred Willard, Robin Williams,
Steven Wright AND Tim Conway.

Hint: Consider this the next in my line of movie rental reviews.

I got the second movie on my Blockbuster que and it is two for two, another excellent film. This too was a documentary, called The Inner Tour. It was made by an Israeli-born filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz in 2001. He took a group of Palestinians from the West Bank (one was from Gaza) on a three-day sightseeing tour through Israel. I went into the film knowing this and thus expecting to see something with, perhaps somewhat of an Israeli slant ( only at the final credits did I notice the co-producer, a Palestinian, Raed Andoni). I was soon confused because the film was primarily in Arabic and it portrayed an array of people from a very elderly man wearing a Kaffiyeh who was looking for his village that he left in 1948 to a young woman whose husband was in an Israeli prison because he shot and killed an Israeli soldier to a middle-aged woman whose husband was killed by Israeli soldiers (both of these during the Intifada) to small children who had never seen the sea before to several young men who never thought they'd be side by side with Jews. This was no ordinary Israeli documentary. The bus driver was a Jewish Israeli. The tour guide spoke Arabic, Hebrew and English. The tour took them from the very north of Israel near the Lebanese border, where they saw the grottoes, Rosh Hanikra (Hebrew: ראש הנקרה "head of the rock caves") a unique geologic formation in Israel to the Arab town of Jaffa and a few other villages and finally to Tel Aviv.

I want to say it was fascinating and it was, but that might imply taking distance from the film; a distance I don't have. Having just recently come home from a two week trip to Israel (the last of well over a dozen trips I have made since the age of 16), I am not an impartial bystander, nor an objective observer. Still my heart ached watching this documentary. I am not sure what else to say, other than what the maker of the film, Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, said at the end of it.

"A new chapter will have to be writen in the two parallel and contradicting books which reflect the history of our land."

At this moment I am filled with the excitement and inspiration only a really good book or movie can elicit. I recently joined Blockbuster Onine and spent the better part of last Saturday night, combing through the various genres and picking out movies that either have been on my To See List or looked interesting and appealing enough to take a look. The hard part was ranking them as to which would come first, second, third, etc. I easily came up with 100 movies , including several documentaries and a few musical selections. I have a feeling I am going to be turning on the TV set a lot more often than I have been and it will be set on DVD, not TV.

The first on my list was MAD HOT BALLROOM. This movie experience was one of those for which you say afterwards, I laughed, I cried, I shouted out loud and I sat very still. I LOVED THIS MOVIE. It has within it elements of drama, humor, insight, and fun. What it is, is a documentary which came out in 2005 and was nominated for the 2005 National Board of Review Best Documentary, Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Documentary, and Chicago Film Critics Association Best Documentary. It should have won at least one of those. One movie critic said, " Director Marilyn Agrelo’s “Mad Hot Ballroom” is the best documentary bar-none since 1994’s seminal basketball saga “Hoop Dreams.” These kids, at the raw age of 11 (fifth grade,) are changing in ways that they don't quite undersstand and as the reviewer says, "they are right in the middle of a growing period where it’s hard enough to look the opposite sex in the eye let alone dance with them cheek to cheek." Yet,
DANCE, DANCE DANCE they do!!!

While watching this movie you experience a kind of hopefulness that is all to often missing in most forms of media, when it comes to discussing inner-city youth. You find yourself rooting not only for the best dancers, but for those that look so cute, you just want to hug them and for those who are maybe, a little too fat or funny looking and yet there they are dancing with self-pride and great, contagious smiles that leave you, yourself, sitting in your seat smiling so broadly, you catch yourself feeling just a little self-concious (unlike the kids who are beaming with pride.) You also find yourself, if you are anything like me, sharing with the parents and teachers of these kids, what can only be called "nachas" (there is no word in English that expresses what the Yiddish can, but the best translation might be: Naches - Joy: Gratification, especially from children. ) So, you could say there were moments in this film that I was bursting with "nachas" watching these kids dancing the Merengue and the Fox Trot and the Rumba, not to mention the Tango and Swing. It was so exciting to share in the excitement, trust and joy that the teachers and principals derived from the kids. And to watch these street wise kids speaking sometimes in Spanish and broken English and at the age of 11 about sex, and relationships and marriage and education and hopes and dreams, well, you might think, "out of the mouths of babes", but that would be demeaning in this case, because these kids talked openly and frankly and honestly about things we adults wish we could say, but often can not.

So, yes, I hightly recommend that you rent this movie. In fact, you may just want to save yourself the rental fee and purchase it right from the start, because I'm fairly sure that is what you will want to do after you see it.

My ode to spring. This is the poem that comes to my mind every Spring and I share it with you, who art... young at heart.


in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
e.e. cummings
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/cumming1.html

And then there's Enchanted April.

I have one more post to add to the others concerning my past two weeks in Israel.
As I said, I had much down time there, allowing me to do my most recent favorite thing, blogging and exploring the blogs of others. I came across a blog called Jerusalem Wanderings....http://jerusalemgypsy.blogspot.com/) and on it I found the following description of an event, about which I wish everyone who blogs about PEACE IN OUR TIMES would read. So, if you happened upon my Meanderings and like what you are about to read....PLEASE, PLEASE do cut and paste and add it to your own blog or better yet, send your readers and friends to to read it, here, on mine. By the by, I asked permission of the source (actually not exactly the source, but the source's friend) to post it here and she was all to happy for me to do so. Now if only people.......all kinds of people.....would read it and take it to heart.

Saturday, April 01, 2006


The Women's Tent
I couldn't go because my boss wanted me to work on Friday which ruined my day off. The gathering sounded wonderful though and someone who was lucky enough to be there wrote about it. I'm printing excerpts here with her permission - dedicated to those who are pessimistic about co-existence....and for those who know it is possible.

My Experiences at the Women’s tent

The women’s tent occurred on Thursday-Friday 30-31st March 2006.
500 Druze, Muslim and Christian Arab, Jewish, American, Australian, Italian WOMEN gathered for 2 days of sharing ,ceremony, workshops, singing, food, dance and togetherness.

Imagine a place filled with love. There are people from all over the world. All gathered, all dancing. Smiling sharing and singing. These are people I would not normally be in communication with. They are my sisters on the path to another world a place of peace where we can be one. For some hours on Thursday, 30 March, the day after the solar eclipse, we had that, we had a new world. It was for me a beautiful world.

To see the women there congregating all with love, all with open hearts, all wanting to give, to learn, to see, to be. G-d and the angels and the light where with us that day. They received, I think, our blessings and they received our intentions and looked on with love. In returned they showered us with love from above.

Our dreams can come true. On Thursday dreams turned into reality. On Thursday women hugged. Druze women, Arab women, Jews, Christians, Americans and Europeans. We were all there. We were all present and counted for. Each woman brought her self, her friends, her love and her faith. What ever her faith maybe. Each woman opened her heart. There were no borders. The love flowed. I believe that g-d witnessed this and g-d, or the g-d in each one of us, G-d took over.

The organizers worried before the event about organization. Will people get involved? Will people mix and will there be a connection? I witnessed this worry. I witnessed the opposite at the event. The love just flowed. When it was the time of the workshops everyone was involved. There was no one outside. It was a miracle. It was at it should be.

I felt so much warmth. I just wanted to hug everybody. The day was intense. There was the opening ceremony where we celebrated all faiths then we got up and danced and danced and felt the ecstasy that broke the borders of who we are (Jews, Druze, Arab, other) and opened our hearts so that as one we danced and sang and became a circle or a tribe of women with tears of joy in our eyes sharing and celebrating and embracing a wonderful moment of pure joy.

We ate together the delicious food of the Druze community – Canafe and humous, labane and pitta.

We circled, we joined in ceremony and then again we sang. Our voices filled space and rose above. The voices of angels.

We returned to our Druze host families. Exhausted and sated.

The next day we joined and in the fashion of containing, we shared our stories and our experiences.

We ended the event with a tour of Daliyat El Karmel. We learnt from the Druze a little bit about their history their culture and their beliefs.

I learnt that the more I give the more I receive. I opened my heart and gave and received so much at times I felt I could burst with love.

I am writing this because I feel so much hope in my heart that this is the way. This is the way of the new community and here we witnessed a glimpse of a possible future. A future that today’s reality could deem impossible but the hope in my heart shouts this is what can be. If we hold it in our hearts this IS possible, this can be. More and more circles all over the world and they are happening – in 6 continents in September women will gather and hold space. In august the Sulha where thousands of people – Arabs, Jews, Druze and friends for all over will gather for 3 days of talking circles, workshops , dancing and music. Where again borders will be broken down and the language of love and hope will be spoken. There are so many events so many places in Israel at this time for our hearts to open. I feel so grateful. Festivals, workshops, singing groups. There can be a new reality – it is already happening now.

Tanya Lyons
posted by jerusalemgypsy

IMAGINE....

It is well past midnight and I would be wise to get to sleep as we must leave early tomorrow morning for our final passage, home to New Jersey. But I must take the time to put down a few final thoughts. We said our goodbyes at yet another Erev Shabbat meal at hub's mother's home. Tonight there were only 10 of us, a far cry from the 29 who sat around the 3 tables at Mordechai and Georgie's house for the Passover Seder in Omer and the 369 guests at the wedding last Sunday night. Tonight after the meal, my daughter and I looked at some picture albums belonging to hub's youngest brother and his wife, who live with Hub's mother. Photographs always remind me where we have been and I compare them to who we are now. But nothing tells us what we will be in the days to come.

It is always sad saying goodbye - Shalom, but one occurrence made it a sweet farewell. My daughter Rachel is a big fan of the "tea nana" (mint tea) served by her Israeli grandmother ("Meme"), at various times, but always when guest first arrive to her home from a voyage, as when we first got into Beersheva after our long flight from the US. It is served in small glasses with a kind of Moorish design. As an aside, when shopping with Rachel in the Arab market in East Jerusalem, we were offered mint tea or Turkish coffee in one of the shops where we made our purchases and chose to drink the coffee, also served in small glasses (these were clear glass, as you would see most of the time.) Anyway, "Meme's" glasses are festive and pretty and very much "say" hospitality. When "Meme" heard us asking where Rachel could purchase something similar to hers, she said that she wanted Rachel to take them. My daughter is not one to covet another's possessions and she shyly refused the offer, saying that they were Meme's and should remain with her, but Meme insisted. What a wonderful treasure it will be for Rachel in days to come to have this special gift from her grandmother; one that she will use frequently and every time she does she will be reminded of her grandmother's legacy, the warmth of hospitality and the gratiousness of giving freely and easiy of oneself.

So, with tea glasses in hand and after many double -cheek kisses goodbye, we drove to our "home" in Omer, packed and set out to sleep until the morning's light which will wake us and send us on our way back home. I have so much more to say about this trip and so many pictures to go with the stories, but they will have to wait till I'm back in the States. Meanwhile, I will end this post with what I had wanted to write the other night, but didn't get the chance, and it is this.

You know how they say that there are no Atheists in a fox hole? Well I would add that THERE ARE NO AGNOSTICS (me for instance) AT THE WESTERN WALL! I stood in front of it, tearing off a small piece of the long note I had written and stuffed in a crack in the wall. I placed my hands on its cold stones and I prayed. I am not a praying person, but I prayed for what I had written on the scrap of paper. For the world in general, for myself and my family, but mostly for this small strip of land and ALL it's struggling inhabitants.......

שלום....SALAAM.....PEACE

So, I am here in Israel on the 12th day of our trip and tonight is the Passover Seder. Last Sunday was the Wedding, the "Main Event" and reason for our trip. Aftr the wedding, my daughter And I went to Jerusalem for two days. Mostly, we wandered the narrow paths of the Arab shooks in the Old City. We also spent a bit of time in the Jewish Quarter. These experiences will come to bear in my thoughts, later in this post.

I have just come from my cyber friend, Marco's blog http://multisententiae.blogspot.com/2006/04/hypatia-of-alexandria.html#comments and because Marcos is an Atheist, much of his blog deals with discussions between Atheists and Theists. On his post about Hypatia of Alexandria, another cyber-friend, Diane http://anunfounddoor.blogspot.com/ , commented and ended it with a question for me. Rather than be the 32nd commentor (I'd already commented once) I will respond to Diane's queston here, on my blog. Diane asked, what are my thoughts on the notion that the problem is not with Religion per se, but with fanatacism.

I will start with the statement that I am an agnostic. Perhaps some consider this a cop-out. For me personally, it is simply in keeping with my overall inner-personality than anything. That is to say, I am often ambivalent regarding many of my beliefs and feelings. So, why wouldn't I also be ambivalent in my belief as to whether or not there is a god. It makes perfect sense that I would be and I am.

In response to Diane's remarks, I do not believe it is only the fanatics at fault for the distortions of religious beliefs and for the horrors that have been done in the name of "The Holy One", whomever that may be. Yes, it may be the fantic who lights the flame, but we humans are inclined to sheep-like behavior in response to a strong charismatic individual who attempts to lead the crowd to do his evil bidding. Once that flame is lit, the crowd will gladly spread the fire, and it seems, most especially, if that fire wraps itself around "RELIGION."

I sometimes wish there were no relgions at all and we lived John Lennon song, Imagine. But, as for this moment, the guests are arriving for the Seder and I am not yet ready, so I will close and return to this later. I have more to say.

So, here we are on the 8th day of our trip. What is interesting is the Shabbat lunch and the people who sit around the table and the polygotness of it all (I think I made up that word, but it fits.) So, starting at the head of the table is David. David (that's pronounced Dah-veed) was born in Morocco somewhere around 1926...to this day, he claims to be no older than 60, go figure) , moved to Israel in the 1956, and then to Paris, France several years later, where he resided until about two years ago when he moved to Montreal. David speaks mainly French, but also Hebrew and Arabic. He is my hub's brother-in-law, married to his siter, Laurette. Next to David is Maurice, hubs uncle, brother of his mother. Maurice was born in Morocco and as far as I know went directly to France in the 50's. He lives in Dijon, France. Maurice speaks French and Arabic. By the way, the Arabic that they speak is called Mugrabit. Mugrabit is to Arabic what Yiddish is to German. They both have the influence of Hebrew.

Next to Maurice is Nicole, Maurice's wife. Nicole was born and raised in France. Niclole speaks only French. Alongside Nicole sits Georgie, hubs sister-in-law, married to his brother Mordechai. Georgie was born in Egypt, of a Scottish father and Israeli mother. She was in Palestine before it became the State of Israel, as her father was in the British Military. When she married Mordechai she remained in Israel. However, work took their family to Uruguay for about 7 years and to Paris for about 4. Georgie speaks first Hebrew, then English, then French and some Spanish. Next sits Alizza, hubs other sister, who was born in Morocco, grew up in Israel, and went to study at the Sorbonne in France and met her future husband and remained there until recently. Alizza divorced, but stayed in Paris with her children, met another man who lived in France, but was Israeli. Alizza now lives mostly in Tel Aviv, with frequest junkets to Paris to be with her two daughters.

At the other head of the table sits Laurette (as fore mentioned) Laurette, like her hub, David, was born in Morocco, went to Israel, by way of a short stop-over in the French port of Marseilles, which was a port-of-call for most Jews who left Northern Africa for Israel. Laurette had her children in Israel, but raised them in Paris. She and David recently followed their daughter, Lea, her hub and children, to Montreal after becoming terribly discouraged by the anti-Semitism they saw growing worse daily in France. Laurette speaks first French, then Hebrew and Arabic. Having worked for the International Tribune, and now living in Canada, Laurette speaks a smattering of English words.

Sitting near Laurette is Ruby, the great mother figure of this large tribe. Ruby was born in Morocco, had her first 7 children there and the next 1 in Israel. Ruby speaks Arabic and Hebrew, with a little French. Next to Ruby sits yours truly, Sherril, better known as Sharona here in Israel. I was born in NJ...USA, raised there and still live there. I speak first English, then Hebrew, with a smattering of High School
Spanish and Italian, which I learned during my semester abroad in Florence, Italy. Next to me sits Mordechai. Mordechai, also born in Morocco, then to Israel to live his life, with the exception of those years he and his family lived in Uruguay and Paris. Mordechai is the Polyglot of all Polyglots. He speaks Hebrew, Arabic, French, Spanish and English. almost all equally well.

Alongside Mordechai sits another perfect polyglot, Gidon (pronounced Gee-done and Gideon in English.) I am not sure where Gidon was born, but he has lived in France, Switzerland, a few other countries in Europe and of course Israel. He speaks Hebrew, English, French and I think German. And, finally, next to Gidon sits, the hub, Haim. Haim was also born in Morocco, emigrated to Israel and has lived in the United States since 1979. Haim speaks English, Hebrew, Arabic and a little bit of French.

Such was my polyglot day in Beersheva, Israel, April 8, 2006. Also of interest was the food that this multi-lingual group ate today and many of them eat every יום שבת...Yom Shabbat...Saturday! The main deal at this meal is the traditional חמין...Chamin (pronounced with that gutteral CH sound- ah-mean.) In the Ashkenazi Jewish world (that being from Eastern Europe as opposed to the Sephardic Jews who are from the North African countries and today I believe also those from Iran, Iraq, and Syria are considered to be Sephardic) is called "Cholent" (pronounced cho-lent.) Chamin or cholent consists of beans (usually chickpeas, can be other beans), barley or rice, potatoes, whole eggs, vegetable oil and the meat is generally chuck or flanken). The trick and necessity of this dish is that is is cooked very slowly and for a very long time. Everything gets this brown color and it doesn't look so appetizing, but it is D*E*L*I*C*I*O*U*S.

Last night we were at the outdoor mall called, "Big." I was standing outside of a store, minding my own business when suddenly the "guard", also standing outside by the door, said to me in Russian-accented Hebrew...
למה אני עומדט פה לבד בלי אשה יפה Why am I standing here alone without a beautiful woman?
He looked perfectly serious and directly at me and something in his expression seemed to suggest that maybe I was somehow at fault for his unfortunate dilemma. I shrugged and walked away. (I don't know, should I have tried to provide some answer? I guess I just don't know proper stranger etiquette.) Anyway,before I got too far, I stopped and turned around. A van pulled up in front of the store and a rather curvacious young thing, with painted on jeans that hugged her hips well below her bare midriff and belly button ring, climbed out of the van. My first thought was that, this being "the promised land and all" maybe she was god's answer to this man's query. But the girl, who could have passed for a rock singer's groupie, ignored the guard, practically running him over as she ran towards the store (it was past 10 PM at this point), and just as she bounded across the store's entryway, she stopped abruptly, for a split second, long enough to raise her right hand, gently touch the ever-present mezzuzah, kissing the spot on her fingers that touched the mezzuzah before, unconscientiously, continuing briskly on her way.
Only in Israel!

This is a trip to Israel unlike any I have taken before. I have spent my time between this computer, the one upstairs, my novel, The Falls, which I have finished by the way, visiting hub's mother in Beersheva, eating very good food and sleeping. In the past 26 years (OMG!!! Has it been that long???) our visits have consisted of a lot of visiting with family and eating, but always interspersed with sightseeing, hiking and traveling the country. This time, we came well before the main event, i.e. the wedding, for reasons having to do with airline prices. And somehow we decided to stay put and relax rather than travel. I haven't really minded it, but it does seem like a long way to go and a lot of cash to spend for R&R.

So,with all this time on my hands, I will take a look back at prior Israel experiences.

Summer of 1968 was my virgin voyage. In 1964 I had my Bat Mitzvah (not a common occurrence for girls at that time) and rather than give me a big party, as they had done for my sister four years prior and would do for my brother four years later, I was offered a future trip to Israel, which would be with the Bar Mitzvah Club and was set for the summer of 1967, three years after the Bat Mitzvah. I chose wisely the trip over the party.

As it happened, the Six Day War was to interfere with my parents best laid plans and the trip was postponed to the following summer, 1968. We were a group of about 50 kids from all over the United States, grouped into two smaller groups, each of which traveled on its own bus. I kept a journal that summer and took many pictures, all of which are at home. Perhaps I will make an addendum to this post and add some of my journal and photographs when I get home.

This particular trip to Israel would end up being one of the 5 or 6 Defining Events of my life and it happened at the young and impressionable age of 16. Having seen both the horrors and despair within the walls of Israel's museum of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, http://www.yadvashem.org/ and the beauty of Jerusalem (where we had our home base for those two months at a former hospital called Zev), I was forever changed. I had learned about Israel in Hebrew School and my parents had been there even before the 6 Day War, but nothing was to prepare me for the depth of feelings and reactions only a 16 year old girl can have.

I was awed by the archeology, as for example when we arose at 4 AM to climb the snake path to the top of Mt. Masada, where the Jews who were called the Zealots, committed mass suicide, rather than submit to the Roman soldiers, in 73 CE, who captured this, the last Jewish stronghold. I was impressed by the Art as seen in the Chagall windows in the Synagogue at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem and in the mystical city of Tzfat, in the Artists Quarter. So many things excited me then, but, perhaps what impressed me most was the city of Jerusalem. Where else on earth can you see prctically side by side a modern office buiding, the Stations of the Cross, Stamatsky's Bookstore, the Dome of the Rock, the modern Kenesset building (Parliament), The Tower of David, a Falafel Parlor and the Western Wall....all in walking distance one from the other?

There is a song, Western Wall, sung by Linda Rondstadt and Emmylou Harris, written by Roseanne Cash, on the CD: Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions CD. The lyrics say it rather well.....

I stand here by the Western Wall. Maybe a little of that wall stands inside us all

I shove my prayers in the crack. I've got nothing to lose, no one to answer back

All these years I've brought up for review. Wasn't taught this but I learned something new

And to answer the distant call. At the Western Wall

I've got a heart full of fear. And I offer it up on this altar of tears

Red dust settles deep in my skin. I don't know where it starts and where I begin

It's a crumbling pile of broken stones. It ain't much but it might be home

If I ever loved a place at all. It's the Western Wall

I don't know if God was ever a man. But if she was I think I understand

Why he found a place to break his fall, Near the Western Wall!

I'll end here and pick it up later.

שלום ו להטרוט

Some more musings from Omer.

....driving back to Omer to Mordechai and Georgie's home, we pull into their street, not unlike a suburban street at home, with the exception of the donkey directly in our path, with it's two young boys riding on it's back and a third hanging on, attempting to right himself in order to ride with his two mates.

In Israel this is one of the things I have always noticed and appreciated, that is the modern with the ancient, not old, but ancient, side by side.

Sherril
שרונה
Sharona

Pictures of Mordechai and Georgie's Home and Gardens in Omer

I haven't anything profound to say, so I will go with random thoughts I've had.

...sitting outside reading my book, The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates and I hear something pleasing that demands my attention. It is birdsong. At first I look up into the ivy covered wall and the tall palms and the large green leaves of a plant I don't recognize and I see no birds, but I distinctly hear their song. Then I do see a small bird with a yellow beak and then another. They are singing...tweeting....birdsong and I think these are Israeli birds...is it Hebrew birdsong I am hearing? And if these birds, who are free to pass any boundry, fly over to Jordan or Egypt or even closer to the West Bank, will the birdsong become Arabic?

Site of Birdsong

....walking the very quiet streets of Omer on Sunday at around 2:30 PM and there are children, some with backpacks on their backs, others pulling them along on their wheels.....I ask two kids in my heavily accented American Hebrew if the building behind them is part of the school and they reply without a second thought to my being a stranger, no, it is for sports and clubs. I thank them and they tell me you're welcome. It is so quiet and peaceful. Quiet and peaceful and the smell of Spring permeates the air. Such is a place that hopes tomorrow will be just like today, nothing out of the ordinary. A prayer that tomorrow will not bring a terrorist's bomb, but if it does, it will, unfortunately, not be something so very out of the ordinary.

Bayit Ha Musica - A School for Music...I heard piano playing as I passed the building.

....being called to go to the house of "Ema", hub's mother. His sister and brother in law have just arrived for the wedding from Montreal, originally Paris. Must go and greet them; cheek to cheek....kiss kiss .....kiss kiss.....

שלום מישראל. אני פה בארץ. מה שלוםכם? אני יושבת עכשיו בבית של אח של בעלי. קוראים לו מורדכי. אני למדתי


לכתב עברית לפני הרבה שנים. סלח לי על השכיות

For those who may not have learned Hebrew in their course of life's studies, this is what I wrote, or attempted to write, in my measly Hebrew.

Hello from Israel. I am here b'aretz (which translates to in the land and means "in the land of Israel".) How are you all? (which means y'all for my Texan readers.) I am, at the moment, at the home of my husband's brother,Mordechai and his wife Georgie (I didn't really write the Georgie part in Hebrew because it was giving me a headache to get it right, even by my current standards of Hebrew writing.) I learned to write in Hebrew a very long time ago. So, forgive me the mistakes.

According to Mordechai, there was at least one mistake in every word I wrote. Oh well. It's the effort that counts, no??? But סןף סןף (finally) my husband corrected my errors (so, what else is new?) and the above Hebrew content is A-OK!

I had not planned on posting from here, but here I am doing just that. It is 9:15 PM here, 1 PM back home and I hear preparations downstairs for dinner. We've already eaten breakfast (around 10:30 AM), which consisted of coffee, fresh assorted rolls, a variety of cheeses, the best of which is called Bulgaria cheese and the closest we have is Feta, but this is saltier and moister and yummier. They have feta also, but so far, we haven't found the equivalent of Bulgaria at home. For lunch (about 2:30 PM) we ate a meal prepared by Georgie's friend, Simone (Simone and her husband, Izu....a familiar form of Itzchak, shared this and yesterday's lunch with us). Simone and Izu are originally from Romania and Simon'e cooking has that Rumanian Flair. The meal started with ciorba (soup).

Ciorba

1 large onion chopped
1 large carrot chopped
1/2 red pepper chopped
about 10 cups of chicken broth
16 oz can of baked beans in tomato sauce
1 lb pasta (macaroni, curly pasta, etc)
sausage, chorizo cut up in 1/2 inch pieces. Beef Sausage preferred and a must if made in Israel

Saute onions in large pot that will hold all ingredients. Add c