​I’ve been posting a lot lately about Israel. And anti-Semitism. And being Jewish. The importance of being Jewish. I’ve been posting a lot about all this. 
 
But this writing, this is not about that.
 
This is about our dog. Moose. This is about Moose.
 
Isn’t he great. I mean, look at him. He has this amazingly beautiful face. (as does my husband, a whole other writing for a whole different day) 
 
And look at his incredible reddish-brown coat and his big brown eyes. And he is so friggin’ smart. You can hear his brain thinking. 
 
And so fun and sweet and cuddly and overwhelming and demanding and he wants to play all the time and I am not another puppy but he thinks I am at times and so often this is a bit much for me but I do it anyway because, well… because.
 
So anyway,
 
Curious how you think we are doing with our training of our dog? With training Moose? 
 
I would guess and gander that you would think not so good, right?  I mean, he is standing on the dining table.
 
You should see him get up here. He literally bounces up…like all four feet flat on the floor and then up in the air. To land on the table. No running start for him, no sir. He’s like Tigger.
 
It makes us laugh. 
 
I’m thinking we just tell people that we trained him to jump up here. From all four feet, flat on the floor and then up in the air. We’ll just say we trained him to do this. This really cool trick. We’ll call it a table trick. The dog on the table kind of table trick, not the multiplication tables kind of table trick.
 
We’ll say we taught him this table trick that is more like a parlor trick. 
 
And God is he smart, he learned it in one go. He actually learned it before we even taught it to him. That’s how smart he is.
 
Good boy, Moose. You are such a good dog.

Once upon a time, there was a land called Israel.  It was also called among other names, Canaan and Judah. Jews were here this whole time. They got kicked around. A lot. The Crusades whipped their ass. So did the Romans.
 
But let’s move up to 1947.  So there were boats of Jews coming from Europe and the British were like, “hell no, we don’t want another boatload of these people.” But then they said, “this is bullshit…we don’t want to deal with this anymore” and the British went home.
 
Meanwhile, the newly created pre-curser to the United Nations offered up the two-state system.  They gave like 50% of the land to the Arabs and 40% to the Jews.  The newly created State of Israel had arrived.  
 
Tel Aviv was in this Israel part, and a bunch of really shitty farmland and mostly desert.  A lot was land that the Jews had already been working and developing. 
 
So the Jews said yes.  And the Arabs said hell no.  And all the Arab countries surrounding this land said to the Palestinians…get off this land, and we will push all the Jews into the sea.  And then you can come back and all the land, all 100% of it, will be yours.
 
So a lot of the Palestinians left…and went to the borders.  And the Arab countries attacked Israel.  And they lost.  And Israel, because this was a war and all, captured more land than what was originally offered.
 
The Arabs that stayed in Israel, they became citizens.  They work in the Government and sit on the Supreme Court. And they fight in the army—to defend Israel. Because they are Israeli. “Get out,” you say. But it’s true. 
 
Those others, that left when all the Arab countries promised they would kick some Jew ass and told them to leave, because that so didn’t happen, they could not come back. Hence the Palestinian Refugees. 
 
These Refugees...they said to, for example, Jordan…they said “hey Jordan, we can’t go back to our homes now, because you, you know… lost. Can we come live with you?” And Jordan said “hell no.”  And so… presenting the West Bank.
 
And every other Arab country said hell no, too.  They didn’t take them in. They didn’t take in their people, who they promised they would push the Jews into the sea for. They said hell no. All these Arab nations. They said, “no, you can’t come in our countries.  We don’t want you.”  
 
These Palestinian refugees, they got screwed. By their own people. Still. They are still getting screwed.
 
Because here we are… Right this minute. Here is Gaza.  Are the Arab countries taking in those Palestinians from Gaza now?  What is Egypt doing?  Are they opening the gate and saying, please come in, we’ll keep you safe, you are one of ours?  Nope.
 
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, just a few weeks ago, said “nope. We don’t want you here, you may have militants hiding amidst your group. You’ll muck up the 40-year-old peace treaty we have with Israel. Can’t come here. Hell no.”

And Jordan's King Abdullah II.  "No refugees in Jordan.” Pretty clear, huh.
​
And what about Hamas, the government of the people of Gaza, who have tons of oil and fuel. Are they sharing this with the citizens of Gaza?  Nope. They are keeping it to set off their rockets and to make sure they can live in their tunnels under hospitals and schools. 
 
Because it’s not about people.  It’s not about helping those people in Gaza. 
 
This is not what it’s about at all. It’s about “From the River to the Sea.”
 
Eight times a two-state system has been offered and eight times, the Israelis have said yes and the Palestinians have said no.  Eight times. The Arabs don’t want peace. They want the Jewish people gone. They want to push the Jewish people into the sea.  From the River to the Sea. See
 
And then, guess what? The West is next. In fact, it’s already started.
 
The End.

I reached out to a friend last week. I needed some perspective. I am in a tough place. The world is a tough place to be in. And it feels impossible. And I need perspective. Because I don’t know what to do. 
 
I go from rage to grief to anger (which is a bit less of an energy place than rage and feels more doable and lasts much longer) and I don’t quite know where to land.
 
My orbit is small. And the information is dark. And I am in despair.
 
And surprised. By my Jewishness.
 
I am surprised by my Jewishness. By the importance of my Jewishness. And by the fact that this important part of me only lit up when blatant Anti-Semitism lit up our College and University campuses, and in our cities and towns all over the United States.
 
I am not surprised by this level of Anti-Semitism. This does not surprise me. I am surprised by how quickly and easily people have embraced this hate. And how quiet so many people are in the face of the ease in which so many have embraced this hate.  But this fact of it, this fact of the immensity of Anti-Semitism, this does not surprise me. It’s always been here. It’s just come out from under wraps. 
 
Like me. I have always been Jewish. And my Jewishness is now unwrapped.  
 
I am exploring this now. This newfound understanding of the importance of being Jewish.  This is part of the bucket I am in. The bucket of what this means for me. Of how I want to hold it. Of how I want to live it. 
 
The likelihood of changing how I live it is slim to none honestly. This is not what I mean. It’s more the awareness of it. The defining quality of me. Where I used to be a 61-year-old woman, now I am a 61-year-old Jewish woman. And this is new. And means something.  Something important to me. I still don’t know what exactly that this is.
 
So this is a part of the despair. The not knowing quite where I am at in this Jewishness of me. But figuring it out. And it will come.
 
And then there is the other part. The second part of the sentence. The “..this important part of me only lit up when blatant Anti-Semitism lit up...”  The Anti-Semitism part.
 
And I want to find a way to not sit in the darkness of this. Each day, every day. I do not mean that I want to ignore it. Certainly not ignore it. Not turn away or say it’s not so big because I know it is so big.  
 
Just to offer in some light into this darkness that I feel heavily cloaked in during this very sad time.
 
So I went looking for goodness.  I googled goodness. Goodness right now. What is happening that is good right now.
 
At first, I couldn’t find anything.  No matter what I googled, what I searched for, the search turned my words around and shared only the darkness.
 
But then, over these last few days, goodness is cropping up. A post on Instagram. A story from a friend. A video shared on a group chat.  The collective consciousness is feeling this need for kindness and showing up. Seeing our sameness. Recognizing each other’s pain. Connecting as humans.
 
I believe we need more of this. 
 
If you feel so called—share something beautiful with me. Share with me some news in the world that is kind. Share a place in this world where good work is being done. Where people are standing up and supporting each other. Where the polarity of good and evil is not playing out over and over again. Show me the goodness. We need to see love.