Why I am a member of J Street

From Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 17, 2012

BROOKLYN — More and more, it seems like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, now (in its present form) more than 40 years old, polarizes people, with little room for moderation.

On one side, you have the “cheerleaders” who think that Israel can do no wrong, who will tolerate no criticism of Israel, and who see Israel mainly as the bastion of western values against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. They fear that any compromise Israel makes will merely be exploited by these forces, and that moderate Arabs are, at heart, no different than Hamas. If you mention international law and Israeli violations of such law, they will either ignore you, insult you or give you a verbal song and dance. These people include the Christian right, many members of the Orthodox Jewish community, and, unfortunately, many U.S. elected officials and many leaders of American Jewish organizations.

On the other side, you have many so-called “progressives” who believe that Zionism is a racist philosophy, that a moderate Israel or moderate Zionism is an impossibility, and that the only real solution to the Mideast conflict is the replacement of Israel by a “secular, democratic state” (as if any of the Arab states are secular or democratic). Even any gesture of conciliation by Israel is regarded by them as being sinister in nature — for example, they might say that Rabin and Peres started the Oslo peace process merely to make it look like they were making peace, while in reality they were trying to strengthen their stranglehold over the territories. People who hold this view include many professors (most of whom probably rarely socialize with anyone outside of their academic ghetto), college students, and members of extreme left groups. While many of the Israeli human rights violations they cite are, unfortunately, true, these people ignore similar rights violations by the Arab states and Iran.

Happily, a third way now exists between these two extremes. That way is the organization J Street, a Jewish organization that describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace.” J Street recognizes the historic ties between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, but believes in a two-state solution — a Jewish democratic Israel and an independent Palestinian state — based on the 1967 borders with equal and mutually agreed territorial exchanges and opposes the West Bank settlements. Although this is not part of its official policy, many of its members also criticize laws that discriminate against Arab citizens of Israel and the increasing number of privileges given to the ultra-Orthodox. It is supported by more than 700 rabbis and cantors, 44 locals and 38 campus chapters across the U.S. Survey after survey show that J Street’s views are basically those held by the majority of American Jews.

This writer is a member of J Street and went to its last two national conventions in Washington, D.C. During the first convention I attended, I went to a panel of five Congress people who endorsed J Street’s views. I was impressed that these officials were not intimidated by members of Jewish right-wing organizations who sometimes have reportedly threatened to blackball any official who accepts J Street’s endorsement. I saw young members of what used to be called “Labor Zionist” youth movements in their uniforms — the same type of movements that my parents belonged to in their teens. I saw members of many, many organizations giving out literature. This year, I attended a panel made up of rabbis and rabbinical students. And I heard from both Israelis and Palestinians who praised J Street’s views (although they didn’t always agree with the organization 100 percent) — a hopeful sign. Finally, I heard a speech by famed Israeli writer Amos Oz, who said, “J Street, where have you been all my life?” to thunderous applause.

I have, among my many books, a photo book my parents bought in 1947, before either I or the State of Israel was born, called Palestine: Land of Israel. The photos portray a hopeful, youthful group of people — children growing up on kibbutzim, workers irrigating the soil, a Saturday night concert on a kibbutz, the beach at Tel Aviv, children picking flowers, the printing plant for the Jerusalem Post, doctors at Hadassah Hospital. There are some negative things in the book — the Arabs are portrayed in a stereotyped fashion — but hopefully, nations as well as individuals can learn from their mistakes, and one should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Many times, I, in despair, have wondered whether the type of positive energy pictured in that book can ever come back to Israel. I can’t say for sure, but J Street is definitely a start in helping it to move in that direction.

 

Song of the Conquerors, first three chapters

These are the first three chapters of my new book, "Song of the Conquerors," a social-commentary sci-fi book with a dash of spirituality and a hint of humor. It's available from booklocker (www.booklocker.com) as well as Barnes and Noble online and Amazon, in both paperback and e-book versions:

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

SARAJEVO, 2030

Josh Kagan glanced at his watch. It was a Rolex, one of the few relics of his comfortable life in the former United States, along with his pipe, his electronic drum pad and his old biology teachers’ handbook, that he’d taken with him when he came to this remote corner of the world.

 Four o' clock. It would be three more hours to go until the fighting started. At least he and his troops wouldn't have to go far to take up their positions--the enemy was right inside former old school warehouse building, two flights down. That's more or less the way things had been since the Java Convention of 2022 confined fighting to indoor locations at night. There had been just too many civilian casualties, and after thousands of years of warfare, the United Nations got fed up and decided to do something about it.

Of course, the nations of the world were prepared to do what they always did – ignore U.N. resolutions – if not for an extraordinary event. Josh still remembered where he was at the time – he had been at a party smoking hashish, and he was sure it had been so powerful, he was having delusions. A mysterious figure who called himself the Healer  appeared in public places simultaneously in every country in the world, on every screen, speaking a thousand languages all at once, pleading for the world to adopt the Java ideas. If mankind was too immature to stop war, he thundered, at least war could be contained.

The next day, he spoke again. And on the third day, houses of worship, as if by magic, sprung up fully built on every continent, and the Healer once again appeared. These sanctuaries, he told the world, were set up for people to confess their sins, to give offerings, to vow to love their brothers and sisters, and to meditate and study sacred texts of all the world’s traditions. He bid the world goodbye, saying that he would return every 100 years – but in the meantime would impart wisdom to certain select individuals as well as watch over everybody else. The world’s religions merged into one, skeptics became believers, and the Java Convention’s resolutions were passed. People’s awe of, and fear of, the Healer was so strong that even the most aggressive nations and semi-nations, even the most vicious fighters, scrupulously followed the new rules of combat.

The Java Convention may have put a damper on war, but it didn’t stop it.  In at least half the world now, there weren’t even any nations, just the two shifting alliances--the Force of Honor, our side, and the Confederacy of Twelve, their side.   Unlike the nations of the 20^th century, which controlled their populations through ideology, religion or nationalism, neither alliance had any ideology to speak of. Instead, they recruited members through neighborhood loyalty, village loyalty, family loyalty. In a big-city neighborhood, one apartment building might be a Force stronghold; an identical building across the street might be a Confederacy stronghold. Everyone knew they both made their money from the sale of drugs and of human organs for transplants. Josh often thought they were more similar to the old-time organized crime families than anything else. And, of course, both of them claimed the Healer was on their side.

Josh stopped daydreaming, rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. The windows, and indeed the walls, of the building were covered with sheets of the new alloy Ziridium. Today’s powerful infrared cameras, if aimed from a window across the street, could see every detail of every figure and every movement inside this former school library building. All it took was for one Confederacy sympathizer to set up a camera across the street, take his images and transmit them to the Confederate troops inside. Ziridium was the only thing that could block the cameras.

Josh’s own troops had no uniforms, although at least half of them wore the wool knit “Goggie hats” that had become the unofficial emblem of the unit. Several of his guys and girls had worn the same dirty, wrinkled clothes for two, three weeks. Some slept, some played cards, some listened to music, some played with miniature gameboards. Mahmoud and Hira slept on mats on the floor. Bucharest Joe, stooped over with an intense look in his eyes, was reading a copy of the Tibetan book of the Dead. I guess that's an appropriate choice for a man who might die at any second, Josh reflected.

The one thing none of the troops were doing was eating. The last rations of edible food ran out yesterday—the United Nations truck was a week late now. The same truck was supposed to take out the garbage, so the room was permeated with the sickening smell of half-eaten, rotting food. Thank the Healer that at least the toilets were working! And under U.N. rules, the only day fighters were officially allowed to leave their positions, go outside and interact with the local population was on Sunday. Then they eagerly ate at local restaurants, even though the only things those restaurants usually had available were sausages, bread and cheese, with a few cucumbers, olives, onions and tomatoes thrown in.

 Oh shit, he murmured. Caribou is pacing the floor again! "God damn it!" said Caribou, a short, stocky man who had served with Josh as an observer in Iceland a year or so ago. "Those bums! Who do they think we are! I'll kill them all! God damn it!"

Well, Josh thought, sighing, they're my troops, and it's my responsibility to entertain them.

Josh clapped his hands. Everyone looked up at him. "Hey, everybody, I have an idea," he said. "Let's play a game. This is a poetry game." Josh grabbed some pieces of paper from his notebook and started writing some words on them. "These are emotions--love, hate, disgust, despair, hatred, laughter. I'm going to put them on the floor," he said, placing each one on a different area of the floor. "Now all of you take turns. You have to close your eyes until you feel yourself landing on a piece of paper. Then you have to open your eyes and make up a short poem about that emotion. Okay?" The guys and girls eagerly nodded--anything to break up the waiting. "Okay! Who wants to go first?"

“Come on!” Bucharest Joe said. “We might get killed in a few hours. You want to waste time on games?”

“Look, at least it beats just sitting here, wasting time, getting depressed,” Big Szusza answered. There had been a Little Szusza in the unit—she’d been killed in battle last week.

“I’ll play,” Caribou said, stepping forward. After he volunteered, the ice was broken and the troops began to lighten up. Josh congratulated himself on this idea--he had once seen some neo-hippie types playing this game in Golden Gate Park. He was so involved in the game that he didn’t see Bucharest Joe slip out. But even if he did, there was no need to worry – Joe was the unit’s scout. Maybe he couldn’t leave the building, but he patrolled its hallways, stairways and elevators like a hawk. He looked like a real zhloobie – prematurely bald, coke-bottle glasses, pot-belly – but he knew what was going on.

And so it happened that after about 10 minutes, the good mood Josh had worked so hard to establish was shattered by a knock on the door. The troops froze.

"Who is it?" yelled Big Szusza.

"It's Bucharest Joe! I’m back!" said a voice from the other end. Everybody relaxed immediately. Josh opened the door to see Joe breathing heavily. "What's going on?" he asked with concern.

 "There's a wounded man on the stairs between the second and third floors. He's one of them--the Confederacy of Twelve--was cleaning his gun when it happened," Bucharest Joe said hastily. He had only the hint of a Romanian accent – his family had come to North Carolina when he was 11. "Wanna carry him back to his own lines?"

·         * *

CHAPTER TWO

JOSH

 Josh Kagan grew up in San Francisco. His father’s family was originally Jewish, from Israel, his mother’s, Lebanese Christian. He often wondered if members of his family had tried to kill each other during the old days. Not that it really mattered. Since the Healer had made himself known, all of the old religion-related conflicts, from the Arab-Israeli conflict to the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland to the Muslim-Hindu conflict in Kashmir, became much less volatile, although they didn’t completely disappear. That’s why they called that region “Israel-Palestine” nowadays.

Josh’s father was a machinist who became wealthy by making weapons illegally for the Force of Honor when it first started. So Josh always had a better car than any of his classmates. Josh was short, but he made up for his height in sheer energy. In high school, he was a soccer star and played drums in several Bolo bands. No one could play the popular new Bolo style like he could, not even El Bolo himself – although when no one was around, he’d go to his room and secretly listen to old-time artists like Prince and Springsteen. 

 He was also very popular with women. One time, when he and his friend were hitchhiking in Oregon for adventure, two women picked them up and they were screwing within an hour, before they even knew their names. He’d always have two or three girls hanging around. On top of that, he could drink any of his friends under the table. And still, he was able to maintain a 3.8 average. He couldn’t miss. Everybody thought he was headed for medical school. But at the last minute, he switched gears and decided to become a biology teacher instead.

His problems began when he got married. First, his wife, who was manic-depressive, often refused to take her medication. When she didn’t, she screamed and threw things. Second, his daughter turned out to have serious emphysema. By the time she was one year old, she already had to be taken to the emergency room twice. Respiratory-based diseases like emphysema and asthma were among the very few that had resisted a genetic-based cure, Laughing Louie Levinsky’s endless fundraising telethons for these maladies notwithstanding. Just recently, geneticists had discovered an experimental cure for emphysema, but it was very expensive – the California health system wouldn’t pay for it.

 That meant that Josh would have to raise the money somehow. And he couldn’t do it on a teacher’s salary. His father suggested that he go to one of the Force’s recruiting stations and sign up. With his experience as a biology teacher, he reasoned, they’d make Josh a medic, which would be less dangerous than being a fighter.

 So Josh was taken into a car, blindfolded and driven to a secret recruiting station in the back room of an import-export company. And indeed, the interviewer promised Josh that they’d make him a medic.

 The guy lied. Three months into his service, they told him that there was an emergency, that they had enough medics, and that they needed everyone they could get on the front lines. So Josh fought in some of the hottest spots: Johannesburg, Marseilles, Iceland and now Sarajevo. But at least he had become the commander of a unit, and a unit made up mainly of artists and intellectuals, at that. It was something.

* * **

CHAPTER THREE

SARAJEVO, 2030

 When Bucharest Joe told him about the wounded enemy soldier on the steps, Josh thought for awhile. He looked at his watch. Still two hours to go. According to U.N. rules, they couldn't start shooting until then. Five years of being in the forces told him that you couldn't trust anybody. But he knew that Manuel personally was an honorable man, as Shakespeare would have said, and that Manuel's troops would do what he told them to do.

 He turned to Josh. "Let's go for it," he said. "But if they start shooting, we leave him there and run for it. Our lives are more important than his."

 Josh was halfway to the door when Bucharest Joe tried to block him. "Josh," he pleaded, "let me go. As the leader, you're too valuable. I'm a scout, remember? I know my way around."

 Josh shook his head. "As the leader, I'm responsible for everything that goes on here, and it's my duty to go," he said.

 "Well ... OK," Bucharest Joe said hesitatingly. "But I'll go with you."

 They both exited the door and started descending the cinder-block stairway of this former school building, Joe leading and Josh following. They knew every step might be their last. Well, Joe thought, it’s all karma. The smell of urine was everywhere. As they walked, they gazed at the generations of graffiti on the wall and the broken, long-obsolete fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

Half a flight down, they saw the guy, clutching at his stomach, bleeding and groaning. Josh took the guy's arms, Bucharest Joe his legs. They carried him down the stairs, blood dripping onto the floor and onto their clothes. They reached the Confederacy's headquarters and knocked on the door.

 "Who's there?" a voice from the other side of the door cried out.

 "Josh and Joe from upstairs," Josh cried out. "One of your men wounded himself cleaning his gun on the stairway. We've got him right here. Let us in, OK?"

 There was a long silence. Then the door opened. Josh and Joe brought the guy in. Almost as soon as they entered, two of the Confederacy guys took the wounded man away from them and whisked him into an Ultrasonic Healing Booth at the other end of the room. In a few minutes, the machine began to emit a pink light and a soft hum. It's nice that these guys can get a hold of this new medical technology, Josh thought, bitterly remembering the painful stomach infection he had to suffer in Iceland.

Josh and Bucharest Joe looked around. The Confederate fighters, both male and female, were lounging around, listening to music, playing board games, reading, waiting for the hour of combat. In other words, the scene was more or less the same as in the Force of Honor headquarters, except for the fact that the Confederates all wore spotless, olive-green uniforms.

A door opened from an inner office, and Manuel, a short, dark man, came out smiling, reaching to shake Josh's and Joe’s hands. Manuel was a former Bolivian soccer star who had fallen into disgrace because of his involvement with a drug cartel. In the aftermath, he threw in his luck with the Confederacy of Twelve. He motioned toward the Ultrasonic Healing Booth. "He'll be all right in a day or so," he said, with only a hint of a Latin American accent, "although it may be a week before he can fight again. Won't you two come into my office?"

 Without a word, Josh and Mike followed Manuel. They couldn't believe what they saw. Manuel had decorated his command office with wood paneling, a glass-topped mahogany desk and plush red chairs. On the wall were portraits of the Confederacy's founders: the Texas oilman Bobby Lee Prescott, the Russian Admiral Vladimir Roschenko and the Saudi Imam Abdullah al-Husseini. But what interested Mike and Josh most was a working solar-powered coffee machine, together with a big tray of bread, rolls and cookies accompanied by butter and jam, on the desk.

 "What's going on?" Josh asked with a trace of anger. "We haven't gotten any deliveries in a few days. The only things we could buy the last time we were outside were a can of soup, some powdered eggs and a few pieces of fruit!"

"Well, you must understand," Manuel said, smiling, "We have our connections. But why don't you sit down?" He poured two cups of coffee, adding milk from a small refrigerator behind the desk. "Why don't you sit down and eat?" Josh took little sips of coffee, and carefully removed the crusts from the rolls before he bit into them. Bucharest Joe gulped down the coffee and stuffed himself with bread like there was no tomorrow.  Josh asked if he could take some cookies for his other troops, and Manuel nodded his head in the affirmative.

 "Ah," Manuel said, lighting up a cigar, "it is truly unfortunate that I would have to meet two such distinguished gentlemen as yourselves in such circumstances. After the war, I invite you both to the new, expanded Confederacy of Twelve as my guests!" He puffed away. Too bad they don’t have any pipe tobacco, Josh reflected, on guard all the while for any sudden moves.

 Josh and Bucharest Joe both finished. Joe wiped his mouth with his sleeve while Josh looked at his watch. "Time to go," he said to Manuel.

"Aha! Very well. I'll escort you to the door," said the Bolivian, getting up. "Ah, war! Even the great writers like Hemingway, Stephen Crane, Tolstoy, Remarque and today’s best-seller, McCallister, haven't been able to fathom it," he exclaimed as Josh and Joe exited and walked the stairs back up to their own base.

·         * *

The King of Handball

By Raanan Geberer

Originally published in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood 

By any standards, Mark Margolies, who is now in his late sixties, lived an uneventful life. He was modest and soft-spoken. Even after he graduated from Brooklyn College, he lived with his parents until he was 30, mainly staying in his room, working only sporadically, and reading philosophy books. Then, on a weekend hiking trip, he met Gabrielle, the teacher who was to become his wife. She helped him get a job as a lab assistant, which he kept for the rest of his life. The two of them then proceeded to raise two children.

Margolies, however, had one overriding passion. That was handball. He loved any kind of handball – one-wall, four-wall, black ball, pink ball – and its derivatives like paddleball and racquetball. Even when he was a kid, once the exercises were over in gym class, he’d head to the handball court.

Once I asked Mark, whom I met when I worked near his co-op in Brooklyn Heights, whether he played any other games, like basketball or softball. “Well, I learned to swim because I had to. Once I tried touch football,” he said. “It was horrible!”

When I asked him how he got into handball, he said his father, a working-class Jew from Brownsville, worked for the Post Office, but his passion was boxing. “He was a boxer,” Margolies said, “and he trained for boxing by playing handball. He would go to the Betsy Head handball courts in Brownsville, and I’d go with him and watch.” At the same time, because Mark was very shy and had no friends, he never got into sports like the other kids.

“You know the last time I went to a baseball game? The last year the Dodgers were in Brooklyn—1957,” he said. “My brother took me. I sort of enjoyed it, but I never had any real desire to go again.”

Soon afterward, his family moved to the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. From there, it was an easy walk to the Brighton Beach handball courts, the mecca of New York City handball. Everyone, he said, played there—kids like him, guys in their seventies, A-level tournament players, beginners. Sometimes he’d half to wait a half an hour to get on a court, but he didn’t care. He was hooked.

“When I was playing handball,” he said, “it was like I was taken to another dimension. There was such high energy, I was in such a state of ecstasy, that it was like I was removed from the world. Many of the courts had night lights, so sometimes it would be midnight and I didn’t even know it. My parents had to come down and get me. I’d play singles, doubles, sometimes two against one – it didn’t matter, as long as it was handball.”

As time went on, playing on the neighborhood courts got a little boring for him. So he’d get on the trains and go to different neighborhoods all over the city. Even after he got married and moved away from Sheepshead Bay, he continued to go to the courts in Brighton Beach, where the best, most competitive handball players held forth. He went to neighborhoods that most of his peers considered dangerous, like Bushwick or Central Harlem. “Are you kidding?” he’d answer, after someone feared for his safety. “The guys there are some of the best players. They put their all, every part of their body, into it!”

He stopped playing for a few years after he had kids, but when the children got a little older, he went on his handball trips every Saturday and Sunday, while Gabrielle stayed home and pursued his own interests. Once, I asked whether he went to all five boroughs.

“Well, I went all over Brooklyn and all over Manhattan, up to about 168^th Street. I never went to the Bronx – it was too far. I didn’t like Queens, didn’t play there except when I worked in a school there. I’d play on my lunch hour, in the schoolyard. The other teachers loved to play me, the custodians loved to play me, even the kids played me. They thought I was over the hill, but when I started to play, they couldn’t believe it!”

Hearing this story, I asked whether he was an “A-level” player. “Definitely not—I was a B-level player. But who cares!” he answered. “Besides, A-level players in handball don’t get that much recognition anyway—it’s just that they get into the record books.”

 When Mark was about 45, his wrists were beginning to go, so he switched to racquetball – “not paddleball,” he’d say, “the wooden paddle was too heavy for me.” He joined a local gym, and had almost as much fun on their indoor racquetball courts – well, almost as much – as he had when he played handball. When his legs and his back started to go, he switched to ping-pong, but soon, he wasn’t even able to do that.

I saw Mark recently, just sitting at a counter at a local diner near his home and staring straight ahead. His hair was white, his beard was gray and matted, and he had a cane at his side. If you didn’t know him, you could easily mistake him for a street person.

“Been playing any ball lately?” I asked politely, thinking that the answer was no.

“No. My doctor forbids it—you know, my back,” he mumbled.

“Do you go to the handball courts at Brighton Beach to watch?” I asked, trying to salvage something good for him.

“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “But that’s all I can do.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” I sympathized.

“I’m not sad,” he said. “Handball gave me more than 50 years of fun. I’m can’t complain!”

The Singing Dentist of Bensonhurst new version

By Raanan Geberer
Published in "Bensonhurst Bean" 12/11

“When you begin/Begin the beguine/It brings back the night/of tropical splendor….”

Dr. Pearlstein sang as he looked into Rob’s mouth and started poking around, the curbed probe in one hand, the tiny mirror in the other. Ever since Rob had moved to Brooklyn last year, in 1987, his father had tried to get him to see Dr. Pearlstein as a dentist because Dr. Pearlstein was a cousin and had grown up with his father in the old immigrant East Bronx, and finally, here he was. Dr. Pearlstein’s office was on the second floor of a rundown two-story building on a nondescript commercial street in Bensonhurst whose only redeeming feature was the Italian bakery next door. You walked down a long, narrow hallway to get to Dr. Pearlstein’s office.

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H/ I got a gal in Kalamazoo/Don’t want to boast but I know she’s the toast/of Kalamazoo…”

Rob had never heard of a singing dentist before. Not only does he sing, he thought, but he seems to sing only the songs of his own era, which would be the late 1930s and early ’40s. It’s incredible that this guy is still practicing, he thought. He must be in his late 60s, past retirement age. He idly glanced at the wall – here was a diploma from “New York University Dental School, June 1949.” Probably went to dental school on the G.I. Bill, he thought. Suddenly, he became alarmed when Dr. Pearlstein picked up a drill.

“What are you doing with that drill? Aren’t you going to give me an anesthetic or an injection?”

“Well, the X-rays show that the cavity is very small and very near the surface, so we don’t need it. Open your mouth—you’re so good, you’re the best, you’re the champ. Here it comes. I’m not lazy!”

`I got spurs that jingle jangle jingle/As we go merrily along/And they say, ain’cha glad you’re single/And that song it ain’t too far from wrong ’ …You’re doing great! Don’t worry about anything. I’m the master! ` He was a famous trumpet man around Chicago way/He had a boogie style that no one else could play’ …You’re so good! Okay, rinse out your mouth!”

Rob bent over, grabbed a paper cup and rinsed his mouth. He watched the blood going down the drain. He had hardly felt anything. “There! That wasn’t so hard, was it? ” Dr. Pearlstein asked. “I’m gonna do the filling now! You know, your father did some amazing, heroic things! Like the time he ran into the battlefield and carried the wounded lieutenant on his back to safety! They were gonna give him a medal for that, but, you know how it is!”

Rob had never heard that story before. Then again, his father rarely talked about his past. “Did you know my father’s brother?” he asked the dentist.

“Sure I knew him!” Dr. Pearlstein answered. “I remember when he left for Palestine in ‘47! He was promoted to major in the Haganah, the first major in the new Jewish army, and the next day, he gets killed in the fighting in Jerusalem. And he didn’t even have to be there–they wanted him in intelligence, but he had to be on the front lines. What are you gonna do?”

Rob was going to ask another question when….

“Okay, we’re gonna put in the filling material next. Here it comes! Stay still! I’m not lazy! Moon over Miami/Shine on as we begin/A dream or two that may come true/As the tide comes in…….’ Okay, just a little bit more. Just stay still. You’re the best! … Bor’chu es adonai hamvoroch/Boruch atoh adonoi hamvoroch leolom voed/Boruch atoh adonoi/Eloheynoo melech ha’olam... OK, we’re done here, kid!”

“I heard you singing that Hebrew brocho, ” Rob said, referring to the blessing over the Torah that Dr. Pearlstein had just intoned. “Wouldn’t those Hasidim I saw in the waiting room object if you sang that when they were here?”

“Fuhgedaboutit!” Dr. Pearlstein responded, cheery as ever. “Don’t worry about them. They got nothin’ to say! OK, see you next time?”

“What should I pay?”

“Don’t pay anything! ’Cause you’re a relative, I’ll fix the insurance form so the price will be very high, so what they give me will cover what you should pay!”

“You don’t have a secretary?”

“Naah! I used to have a secretary, but if I did now, I’d have to charge you guys more! OK, kid! Give my regards to your father…..NEXT!!!”

The Brooklyn Work Group--What's Missing

By Raanan Geberer Originally published in Brooklyn Daliy Eagle BROOKLYN — The recent report by the Brooklyn Work Group of the New York State Department of Health’s Medicaid Redesign Team was in the news recently. Many people were relieved that the team didn’t recommend any hospital closings, although it did recommend the consolidation of several hospitals that are in dire financial straits. Lost in the particulars of the report, however, was the actual makeup of this Brooklyn Work Group. It was chaired by Stephen Berger, chairman of Odyssey Investment Partners, “a New York investment firm that specializes in private corporation transactions.” Berger also chaired the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century in 2005-06, a commission that was criticized by many as the “hospital closing commission.” It closed nine hospitals statewide, including Victory Memorial in Brooklyn, Parkway in Queens and Cabrini in Manhattan. As for the other four members, they are all healthcare and government executives. Ramon Jesus Rodriguez has served as CEO of two HMOs; Elizabeth Swain is the CEO of the Community Health Care Association of New York State; William Toby is a longtime federal health administrator, and Anthony Webb has served as the commissioner of several state agencies. What’s missing here? What’s missing is any input from the health professions or the local communities. This is a commission that deals with hospitals, after all. One would think that some physicians who chair medical departments at local hospitals and/or act as professors of medicine would be represented. Nurses, who work with patients on a day-to-day basis, should also be represented, as should the healthcare unions. And what about public officials and leaders of civic organizations? These people are represented in almost every other temporary government task force that I’ve ever heard of. For example, would a task force on the Gowanus Expressway or the Second Avenue Subway be made up of only transportation engineers? I doubt it — it would also include representatives of nearby communities. Finally, since this report involves public funds dispensed by the state to local hospitals, shouldn’t the state legislature also have a say? In this case, however, the Brooklyn Work Group is only made up of financial and high-level managerial professionals, all of them with strong ties to the highest levels of what Jack Newfield once called “the permanent government” and “Occupy Wall Street” protesters more recently called “the One Percent.” It’s very likely that the one of the main objectives of the study is not to improve healthcare delivery and health services, but to protect the interests of the state’s business and government elites. At times these objectives may coincide. Increasingly nowadays, unfortunately, they do not. For the majority of people in a district to have no say in whether services in their local hospital are expanded, cut back or ended is not compatible with true democracy. * * *

Time for a Jewish `Guardian Angels'

by Raanan Geberer From Brooklyn Daily Eagle BROOKLYN — Back in the late 1960s, as thousands upon thousands of Jews were moving to the suburbs or into co-op apartments and private houses in “newer” neighborhoods, most of those who were left behind in older Jewish neighborhoods, such as East Flatbush and Brownsville, were elderly. Often, these isolated, elderly Jewish men and women were repeatedly attacked and robbed by young thugs and gang members. At that time, a Brooklyn-born rabbi named Rabbi Meir Kahane (although, as it turned out, he was known by several other names) had the idea for an organization known as the Jewish Defense League that would patrol these “changing neighborhoods,” protect these elderly Jews and learn self defense. Unfortunately, Kahane soon linked his Jewish advocacy with a specific, ultra-religious, right-wing philosophy. Among other things, Kahane maintained that Orthodoxy was the only denomination of Judaism worth anyone’s respect; that the only real solution for anti-Semitism was for all Jews to move to Israel and that those who weren’t were basically sitting ducks; and that Israel should be governed by a theocracy and expel all Arabs within its midst. Based on these ideas, which were at variance with those of the majority of American Jews, it’s no surprise that the Jewish Defense League became a magnet for extremists and unstable personalities of all types. It eventually faded away. The recent anti-Semitic attacks in Midwood, however, in which cars in a Jewish area were set afire and benches and builders were defaced with swastikas and “KKK” graffiti, tell me that something like the original Jewish Defense League concept is needed. The difference is, however, that this should be a REAL “Jewish Defense League” without Kahane’s extremism. It should include Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, unaffiliated and atheists; Zionists and non-Zionists, those for whom Judaism is a central function of their lives and Jews who haven’t set foot in a synagogue in five years, Democrats and Republicans. The sole criteria would be a desire to fight virulent, violent anti-Semitism. No one with a felony record would be admitted. This group would learn karate and judo and patrol areas that are at risk. Their main priority would be to inform the police about any incidents and to hand any perps they find “in the act” over to the cops. However, they should be willing to use martial-arts techniques if necessary. Maybe what I’m thinking of is more like the early Guardian Angels than anything else. At any rate, these are my ideas, and I hope someone will carry them out.

A food autobiography--Part one

My first entry concerns the lowly knish. At the local delis when I was growing up, you did see the proletarian square potato knish that was also sold from hot-dog carts, but you also had meat knishes and kasha knishes. And once you had one of those, you knew that you were through with the square potato knish forever. Later, in the 1970s and ‘80s, you began to see a great variety of knishes in the city – cheese knishes, pineapple cheese knishes, cherry cheese knishes, spinach knishes, sweet potato knishes – and I loved them all. Many of these originated with the famous Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes in Brighton Beach but could also be found elsewhere – even at a “Coney Island Knishes” eatery in Penn Station. Well, food fads come and go, and today it’s once again hard to find knishes except for the square kind, although I recently found a spinach knish and a kasha knish at Murray’s Bagels on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. Hopefully, knishes, in all their glory and variety, will become popular again someday!