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Some Good News for Jews (and The People Who Love Them)
First, some personal reflections on the bad news.
To someone who was a kid during the Yom Kippur War, which just had its 50th anniversary (surely among the reasons for the timing of the Hamas attack this weekend), and a toddler during the Six Day War (1967), this sudden, horrible attack exceeds anything that has happened in my lifetime. I want to impress this upon young people, especially. This isn’t the usual “unrest in the Middle East” we’ve known all our lives. The magnitude of the attack, the suddenness, and the scale are all reminiscent of September 11, and the response, as with 9/11, sadly will certainly be all-out war. That’s what has been promised.
I have Israeli friends; my next door neighbor is Israeli; her kid just spent the summer there. Here in Great Neck where I live, the population is roughly 3/4 Jewish. You can feel the sadness and anger through the walls of my house. The post-Sukkot town fireworks that were planned for our seaside park last night, were cancelled. As soon as I heard of that music festival, where 260 young people were killed, my thought went immediately to my kids. They could easily have had friends there; they could have been there themselves; and hundreds of parents DID have kids there. And if you’re unmoved by the hundreds already dead (if so, shame on you), please know that a dozen American citizens were among them, with more Americans likely taken prisoner.
So I went off topic to mention the event in my two most recent posts, and felt the need to spill a little more. It’s also important to remember that the demented leaders who make bloody decisions are NOT synonymous with the people they’re supposed to represent. So: may those who have taken innocent lives be brought to justice; may the innocent be spared.
Anyway, this all goes to my awareness that those to whom this matters most could use some good news, and I happen to have some! This just came in over the transom from The Congress for Jewish Culture , founded in 1948 to promote Yiddish language and culture.
The Congress for Jewish Culture has just unveiled their exciting, revamped website in honor of their 75th Anniversary: http://www.CongressForJewishCulture.org. Beginning this month, they will be adding a massive number of publications never before available on any digital format, with search features and substantial English translations. These will include highly valuable research materials, works of fiction and plays, as well as photographs, artworks and archival audio and visual recordings. The website will join these historic materials to the Congress’s current projects, demonstrating the continuity of Yiddish culture in the 21st century.
Tonight (Tuesday, October 10) at 7PM EDT, the Congress will host a special live event via Zoom featuring Joshua Fogel (Translator of the massive Leksikon Project), Elizabeth Shulman-Nadolny (Designer of the new Congress for Jewish Culture logo), Shane Baker (Executive Director, renowned performer on the contemporary Yiddish stage and acclaimed literary translator of the Yiddish Waiting for Godot), and Rokhl Kafrissen (playwright and cultural critic for Tablet Magazine).
To register for tonight’s Zoom event, visit
Registration is free. Also, a recording of the event will be made available afterwards.
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