After nearly 8 decades this little immigrant reviews memories, some not so vivid, from a childhood in Europe to the promised land, the USA. Running from Hitler in Germany through out Europe my mother, & sister Sonja & I managed to board the last ship to the U.S before Hitler bombed Poland, the beginning of World War 2 in 1939. My Papa was captured in Italy & sent to a camp from where he escaped & reunited with us in Dallas Texas. That's a long journey with too many stories for most willing to listen.

Since my immediate family is all gone, I alone try to remember or piece together random thoughts of this little immigrant.

My background and training created a rabid,, unrelenting civil rights advocate. My ranting fall mostly on deaf ears; not because most don't care, but because most have not had their civil right taken or attacked. Indulge me because I have experienced discrimination and defended those discriminated against.

The foreign press has informed us about the latest civil rights violations in Israel. One women dared to sit in the front of the bus where only men sit in the religious section of Jerusalem.  When asked to move to the back of the bus, she refused. One view was that the public doesn't care about such things, while another group said that women should respect such tradition when in the untra orthodox neighborhood.  When a little 9 year old girl walking to school, was spat upon, ridiculed & called a whore, many in the neighborhood said that proper dress should be respected.  The problem is that some said that the community doesn't care about such things.  "it is not a problem...some people want it, other don't, but ..."we accept the whole idea"
Not all Israelis are so callus, but some are.  The issue is the civil right of all people to live their life according to their beliefs so long as it is within the law.  Imagine how unaffected are some that live in the land where people fled from the Holocaust.  Where Jews settled after being driven from their home countries.  Where is the compassion for those that have been uprooted, driven from their homes, and killed while depriving them of their civil rights.
In this free society in which we live,  some turn our heads;  look away from the problem.  It is their problem, until it becomes ours.  Are we too entitled, too disdainful, too haughty, to supercilious, or too arrogant to stand up for those that cannot?
Blacks, browns, the poor, women, immigrants, etc that are the current minorities are the recipients of discrimination.  Stand up for them because it is the right thing to do.

I waited for enough time to receive comments about Email I sent to like minded people, with little response. I thought perhaps they don't want to get involved or my view was wrong. Today I received an Email from Byron Falk with whom I sat @ a family dinner. He heard my conversation with Harvey Richman on this subject. Byron did not join in on the conversation, but I include herein what he wrote to me. " Of course, all are not bad….just like all Islam men are not Islamic fanatics. But those ultra-orthodox who are not, should condemn this anti-women stance. And I think it is really disengeneous to say liberals are at fault for bringing this despicable activity to our attention. So-called Liberals are not the only ones who are affronted by this un-Jewlike action." I am heartened by the outspoken response to the violation of the civil rights of women in Israel. Where are the rest of you that I know to be mensch? Byron sent me a speech made by Rabbi William Gershon of Shearth Israel which expresses what I was taught; that Jews should know the difference between right and wrong, and how to treat their fellow men, women & children. "


Rabbi William Gershon

"How Can This Be?
 
Children spat on. Stones thrown at them. Cars vandalized? Social activities broken up and disturbed. Schools for children harassed by protesters hurling vindictive curses. Businesses threatened if they don't put up certain signs? Children beaten.
 
You might think this describes a scene from Nazi Germany or some other anti-Semitic outburst from Eastern Europe. But in fact it is what is happening in Israel as I write these words.
 
What I refer is the strife which has emerged in Beit Shemesh, a neighborhood of Jerusalem, where extremist haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews are committing these acts against their fellow Jews in response to non-haredi Jews' dress or proximity to haredi neighborhoods. The main issue for the haredim is women in the public sphere. They want separate buses for men and women, they want women to only walk on one side of the street, and they want to dictate (even to other orthodox Jews) precisely what they consider to be modest dress for women.

There have been riots and protests of haredi men and women dressed in holocaust prison clothes and wearing the yellow star on their clothes. Their message: the Israeli government, indeed Israel, is to be compared to Nazi Germany because little Jewish girls who go to school in their neighborhood are either not modestly dressed or don't comport to their interpretation of Jewish law.
 
What is happening in Beit Shemesh is a microcosm of what is happening in other quarters within the haredi community in Israel.
 
All of this radical behavior is a perversion of Jewish law and is the strongest sense a hillul hashem, a desecration of God's name. There have been some Orthodox leaders to speak out against this behavior as not only does it make a mockery of Halacha and of God's Torah, but also it undermines the very foundation of democracy of the State of Israel.
 
Two thousand years ago according to the Talmud, the Jewish State was destroyed not from enemies from without, but from within. It was because of sinat chinam, causeless hatred of Jew against Jew, that we lost the Second Jewish commonwealth and plunged into almost 2000 years of wandering, persecution and misery.  
 
I call upon all rabbis and all Jews who love the Jewish People and the State of Israel to decry the abhorrent behavior of Jews who threaten the very existence of the Jewish state and undermine the foundations of Judaism.
 
I call upon them to embrace Rav Kook's famous response to sinat chinam: ahavat chinom - the causeless love that one Jew should have for another.
 
I call upon all of us who deplore the radical and dangerous actions of a few, not to hate, but to find within our hearts pity and to find a way to help the haredi community come to a different understanding of Judaism so that all Jews will not only love one another, but act in the way the loving God of us all demands."