Donald Trump, The Golden Calf of The Trumplican Party

There is no longer a Republican Party. It has been replaced by the Trumplican Party. True Republicans have been cast aside, ostracized, and thrown under the bus by Trumpeteers who have installed their golden calf, Donald J. Trump, as their savior, a false god.

Mitch Albom on 2024 ProGaza ProPalestine College Campus Demonstrations

Mitch Albom (author of "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven"), wrote the following in the Detroit Free Press.

Let's be clear on what these campus protests are  (Detroit Free Press – May 5. 2024), by Mitch Albom

Imagine, if you are Christian, that there is only one nation in the world where you are the majority (instead of more than 150). And nearly half the Christians on earth live there.

Or if you are Muslim, and there is only one country where you are the majority — instead of nearly 50 — and half the world’s Muslims live within its borders.

If you are Black, imagine just one country where you are the dominant race, and half of the world’s Black population shares the space. Same thing if you are Latino or Asian.

Now imagine if college campuses across America were screaming for your country’s elimination. Your one country. Your only country. And you watched those protests grow in size, in hate, in violence, and wondered why so few people were defending you?

Then you can begin to sense how Jewish people felt these past few weeks.

This is not a column about the two sides of the Israel-Hamas war. That is for another day. Nor is this about those students who genuinely empathize with the death and suffering of innocent Palestinians caught in the conflict. That, too, deserves its own reflection.

No, today the subject is the antagonism toward Jews, subtle and outright, in these recent college protests.

And let’s be clear. That is the end-game desire of many angry students, faculty and outside agitators who, wearing masks, erecting barricades and occupying buildings, turned college campuses into theaters of the absurd these past few weeks.

They would like Israel eliminated. From the river to the sea. Half the Jews in the world left to find someplace else to go, or worse, if Hamas has its way, eliminated altogether.

Many people, journalists included, seem to tiptoe around what these protests were about, afraid of offending one sensitivity or the other. Joe Biden went nine days without personally commenting on them, and he’s the president!

But in the face of hate and destruction, it is no time to be timid. So let’s be clear about what’s really going on here. History is owed at least that much, right?

Turning ugly quickly

When these protests began, many outsiders stretched to emphasize their “peaceful” nature. Media noted pizza and dancing. But Jewish students sensed things differently. Pretty soon, the world did, too. Belligerence grew. Anger grew. Pizza and singing were replaced by confrontations, vandalism, barricades, smashing windows, taking over buildings and creating locked-arm human shields to deny Jewish students access to the facilities they pay to use.

Chants of “Intifada” grew. So did screams of “brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel must fall.”

One of Columbia’s protest leaders, Khymani Jones, an American raised in Boston, had said “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and spoke about “murdering Zionists.” (His subsequent apology is meaningless.)

At UCLA, a Star of David was drawn on a walkway, under the words “Step here.” (Imagine if that were a cross!) Videos emerged of Jewish students on campuses being denied access by keffiyeh-wearing protesters. One Jewish student was asked “Are you Zionist?” and when he answered, “Of course I’m Zionist,” he was not allowed to advance.

Note that he didn’t say “I believe Palestinians should die,” or “I hate Muslims.” His sole “crime” was believing Israel has a right to exist.

Peggy Noonan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Wall Street Journal, visited the Columbia protests and came away with this observation: “They weren’t a compassionate group. They weren’t for anything, they were against something: the Israeli state, which they’d like to see disappear, and those who support it.”

Hate can't be tolerated

So it’s been stunning to watch the pretzel twisting people go through to parse the antisemitism out of this wave of campus hate. Some point to the smattering of Jewish students amongst the protesters. “See,” they say, “we have Jews who agree with us.” (So what? Does having Black members of the MAGA movement keep critics from calling it racist?)

Others seem to believe that as long as they don’t say the exact words “I want to kill all Jews,” they are absolved.

Sorry. “From the river to the sea” (Jordan River, Mediterranean Sea, by the way) means all of Israel. You take that, Israel is gone. 

“Intifada” may technically translate to “uprising” in Arabic, but it is also the word used to describe the violent terrorism against Israel from 1987-1993 and 2000-2005. And everyone there knows it.

“Go back to Poland!” as was shouted by one Palestinian-flag waving protester, suggests Jews leave America and return the land of Auschwitz and Treblinka.

And “Final Solution” — words actually on a sign at George Washington University — doesn’t refer to an answer. It was Hitler’s phrase for murdering every Jew in Europe.

So let’s be real. If you can get fired for using the wrong pronouns on a college campus these days, this is miles beyond that. If during the George Floyd aftermath, a broadcaster was terminated for tweeting the words “All lives matter,” because his accusers said everyone knew what he meant, this is miles beyond that.

Yet the same people who wagged those fingers are now spewing vitriol against Jews and Israelis and want a mulligan. Sorry. You can’t have it both ways. If you get furious over implied racism, then you must be furious over implied antisemitism.

And if you want to erase Israel off the map — as Hamas has stated, as UNRWA schoolbooks teach, and as those who wave the Hezbollah flag support — you don’t get to say you’re not anti-Jewish.

Do they even know what they're protesting?

The irony is many of these protesting students have never been to Israel. Some, I’ll bet, couldn’t find Gaza on a map. Yet they are being praised by the President of Iran, who last week called their efforts “a big event.” That ought to scare everyone.

The truth is their behavior doesn’t necessarily reflect a sudden passion, just before finals, to make the suffering in Gaza the most important cause in their lives.

In fact, a recent Harvard poll (yes, Harvard) found that “Israel/Palestine” ranked 15th out of 16 issues as most important to young people ages 18-29. You even see videos of protesters who shout “from the river to the sea,” but can’t name either the river or the sea they are talking about.

The New York Times, after interviewing many protesters, concluded that beyond Palestinians, their causes ranged from “intersectional justice” to “the idealistic desire to be a part of a community effort” to the continuation of ideals expressed during the Black Lives Matter movement.

Many of these “student protesters” weren’t even students at all. Of the 44 people who barricaded themselves inside Columbia's Hamilton Hall, 13 weren’t even affiliated with the university, despite the school’s supposed insistence that no outsiders get onto campus. In fact, outsiders played an enormous role in what looked like spontaneous revolt.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published a long story headlined “Activist Groups Trained Students for Months Before Campus Protests.” It detailed Zoom meetings, coordinated plans and internet encouragement between many organizations, including National Students for Justice in Palestine and former Black Panthers. A virtual training session was hosted by a group that had previously celebrated the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. According to the WSJ report, its leader told the participants, “There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas. These are the people that are on the front lines defending Palestine.”

Yeah. These are also the people who murdered, raped and kidnapped over 1,400 Jewish people on Oct. 7. And who vow to do it again and again and again. No wonder the Hamilton Hall occupiers hurled a banner out the window that read “Glory to our martyrs.”

Tell us again why Jewish students shouldn’t be afraid.

Call these protests what they are

“What do these kids want?” You heard that uttered everywhere last week. In the 1960s, anti-Vietnam protesters clearly wanted an end to the war so our young men did not have to fight it. In the 1970s and '80s, Americans protesting South Africa wanted an end to apartheid rule.

These recent protesters are more hazy. Some demand divestment from companies doing business with Israel (something that won’t happen, but would make no financial difference if it did.) Others demand an end to exchange programs with Israeli universities. (How exactly is that going to help a Gazan child?) Others demand action on things like policing and climate change. At the absurd end was the Columbia grad student demanding the school feed the Hamilton Hall occupiers, and the Columbia law students demanding their finals be canceled due to the trauma they were enduring.

Yet while American kids screamed to free Palestine, you heard no screams to free American hostages being held by Hamas for more than six months (or, heaven forbid, the Israeli ones). Instead, you have graduations canceled, classes put online, buildings vandalized, American flags replaced with Palestinian flags and a statue of George Washington at a university named after him defaced, spray-painted and covered with a keffiyeh.

Let’s face it. The U.S. has a soft spot for protests. We are proud of our free speech principles. And baby boomers who fondly remember the 1960s seem to reflexively associate campus unrest with righteousness.

But this is not “hell-no-we-won’t go.” And just because you congregate lots of people doesn’t make you noble. Especially in the days of Instagram and Signal, where inviting a million souls is as simple as flicking a finger.

In the end, this campus fever was about many things, some of them earnest, some of them pathetic, but only one of them vile and terribly dangerous: the elimination of the only country on earth that calls itself a home to Jews, and the hostile backdrop of antisemitism behind it which left Jewish students across the country studying online, hiding their yarmulkes and Jewish stars, or weeping on school staircases, wondering how bad this will get.

Go back to Poland? Final Solution? Murdering Zionists? We wouldn’t tolerate that for any other minority groups. Why on earth have we been tolerating it up till now?

People Today

Very few people nowadays work at maintaining and improving relationships with others. It seems as if more and more people are emotionally distancing themselves from friends and relatives. And to top it off, it seems as though rudeness, meanness, and just plain nastiness is more pervasive and prevalent than ever.

Egocentrism

Most people in the United States of America are self centered.

Jewish in Toledo, Ohio. Is it Pay to Pray?

Good news for retired senior Jewish people in the Greater Toledo Ohio Area. Baruch HaShem! See the following 'copy and paste' email message from Rabbi Yossi Shemtov:

B"H

September 7, 2023 21 Elul, 5783

Dear Friends,

Over the last few years, my eyes have been opened to an underappreciated treasure in our community.

During Covid, we expanded our outreach to seniors and the homebound. We brought food, caring, and a helping hand to many.

Interacting with many who in better times passed under our radar, it really hit us how much we as a society and a community are losing collectively and individually by not accessing this treasure.

This treasure?

A third of our lives!

The lives of our retirees!

The lives of our seniors!

Why are we pushing this treasure aside when it has so much to give?

If all the world is a stage, you are the main actor. In a play, the third act is when everything begins to fall into place and make sense.

In our world today the first act of life is mainly about education and youthful exuberance, the second act is mostly about career and family, and the third act today is retirement and aging.

We are ushering people off the stage of life just when their story is coming together!

This is a travesty! When we have so much to give we are told to golf or are mothballed. We are seen as irrelevant or worst of all not seen at all.

As a society, we are squandering our greatest assets: the experience, wisdom, and life of our people. As individuals many of us are lacking the opportunities and infrastructure to continue our growth.

To live is to grow. Every moment of life should have meaning. As Jews, we understand that every moment of life HAS meaning. There is a purpose in every stage and situation.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe would stress that at a time when the obligations and responsibilities of career are lessening, it is a time to increase our focus on our own spiritual growth and a time to pursue Torah wisdom and selfactualization as an individual and as a Jew.

We discovered that here in Greater Toledo there are at least three different communities among those who were retired: A) the healthy, connected, vibrant members, B) those living independently, with some limitations due to health, mobility, isolation, or finances, and C) residents of assisted living facilities.

Meeting the ever-changing needs of the Toledo Jewish Community is the backbone of our mission. We see it as imperative for us to serve the needs of those in the third act of their life and beyond. We also realized that we needed someone dedicated to this mission.

We’re delighted to announce that Rabbi Dov Ber and Rivka, along with their infant son Levi, have just arrived in Toledo to join Chabad. They have come to expand the work we began: reaching out to seniors in our Jewish community who are isolated or shut in, to bring them a challah, a smile, a sympathetic ear with time to listen and converse, attention to unmet needs and, not least, spiritual inspiration about the dignity of their lives as an integral part of our Jewish community.

Thank G-d most today have the means to live. Our goal is to help others live with meaning. Most importantly, Rabbi and Rivka are determined to create opportunities and programs, to learn, celebrate, and strengthen the bonds of seniors with one another. They hope to create opportunities for seniors to contribute from their vast experience to society, especially teenagers and children.

Chabad is especially grateful to Lenny Rosenberg, alav hasholom, whose generous bequest has been a catalyst in enabling us to bring Rabbi Dov Ber and Rivka to Toledo, as well as to all of our other donors and supporters. Additionally, Chabad received a $100,000 grant, to be used over the course of two years ($50,000 per year), from Jewish Senior Services which will be used for this purpose.

Rabbi Dov Ber and Rivka look forward to meeting each and every one of you. In the meantime, if you have any questions, have any ideas for programs that our Seniors would enjoy or benefit from, or know of someone who would like a visit, please call or email me.

Rabbi Yossi Shemtov 

Chabad House-Lubavitch of Greater Toledo

I was born of a Jewish mother who herself had been born in an area of Eastern Europe known at the time as Podolia Guberniya, an area of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire that in the present day is in Ukraine. From an Orthodox Jewish family, my mother raised me in the Reform movement of Judaism. My three children attended the weekend religious school of Toledo's Reform Jewish synagogue in which they were consecrated and confirmed. I am Jewish and appreciate all Jewish denominations. While I was born an Orthodox Jew, I was raised and confirmed in 1962 in Toledo Ohio's Reform Jewish Congregation and now I identify with transdenominational Judaism as a Jewish Universalist. Over the years, I have attended services of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish congregations and also of Chabad. Nowadays, I most regularly cyber attend services of the Jewish Universalist Sim Shalom Online Synagogue, in addition to which I also cyber attend several other Jewish online services of various denominations.

Although I am not Lubavitch, let alone Orthodox, I have much respect for Chabad. I certainly appreciate the services that Chabad has provided to everyone in our community and especially to the elderly population in which I am a part.

Chabad House of Toledo has a beautiful building complete with offices, social room, sanctuary, and mikvah; and yet, Chabad House requires no membership dues for attending religious services, special activities & programs, or for special services to seniors, and more. Compare that to the Toledo area  Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform synagogues that require dues paid membership for all those things. On top of that, the three synagogues require higher membership dues for retired senior citizens than those for younger employed persons. My wife and I are both 75 (76 for me at the end of November) living on fixed retirement pension. According to the local synagogue dues structures for a retired couple our age, the synagogues' annual membership dues range from $2200.00 to $2517.00. The membership dues for an employed couple aged 38 ranges from $1200.00 to $1221.00.

In order to attend religious services for the High Holy Days, i.e. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Toledo area Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Synagogues require local residents to have admission tickets which are free for dues paid members but must be purchased ($100.00+ for each person) by local residents who are not dues paid members. Not so for services at Chabad where all Jews are welcome with open arms with no membership dues or purchased tickets required. Indeed, the following is a 'copy and paste' of an e-mail I received as I was composing this specific Roland Hansen Commentary:

Something for EVERYONE!

From: Rabbi Yossi Shemtov 

Dear Friend,

We are thrilled to invite you and your loved ones to celebrate the High Holidays at Chabad House!

We believe that every Jew deserves a welcoming and meaningful High Holiday experience. That's why we've designed our array of programs and services with you and your family in mind. We are proud to be a home away from home to people of all walks of life, something you will sense as soon as you walk through the door.

From the warm welcome you receive upon entering, to the engaging (sometimes humorous) running commentary, to the soul-stirring tunes, to the acclaimed community wide programs for children of every age, to delicious cuisine, we've created the perfect environment for you to learn a bit, laugh a bit, pray, reflect and grow.

For services information, kids program, seat reservations please click here

For Shofar-On-The-Lawn reservations please click here

We hope to see you to share these special times together! The Toledo Jewish Senior Services agency often, but not always, requires a minimum donation to the Toledo Jewish Federation in addition to an activity fee in order to attend activities, events, and programs.

For the life of me, I do not understand why the elderly are required to pay to be participants in Jewish Synagogue and Community Life!!!

In regards to the Toledo, Ohio area Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Synagogues, there is a larger question of being Jewish in Toledo, Ohio. Is it Pay to Pray?

Facts, The News, and Trump Supporters.

Then again, there are the avid supporters of Donald J. Trump, who have a total disregard to facts preferring to worship a false god.

My Life My Way

I have been called a fool, a loose cannon, abrasive, arrogant, and just about every vulgar foul word in existence.

Many people have voiced their displeasure of me for not agreeing with them, for not going along to get along, for speaking out against that which I believe is wrong, for speaking up for that which I believe is right, and for being the person I am rather than the person they want me to be. 

Well, as I approach the end of days, my end of days, there is a song that pops into my head from time to time that I think I would choose to be my epitaph, albeit a long epitaph.

The song "My Way" has been performed by many artists. Each of them can honestly say, "I did it my way."

-----------------------------------

My Way

And now, the end is near;

And so I face the final curtain.

My friend, I’ll say it clear,

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full.

I’ve traveled each and ev’ry highway;

And more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few;

But then again, too few to mention.

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;

Each careful step along the byway,

But more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew.

But through it all, when there was doubt,

I ate it up and spit it out.

I faced it all and I stood tall;

And did it my way.

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried.

I’ve had my fill; my share of losing.

And now, as tears subside,

I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;

And may I say – not in a shy way,

No, oh no not me,

I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has naught.

To say the things he truly feels;

And not the words of one who kneels.

The record shows I took the blows –

And did it my way!

-----------------------------------

This Roland Hansen Commentary entry was originally published April 15, 2018 on my Facebook wall. 

A Person's Words, Actions, Responsibilty, and Consequences.

 If a person says and/or does something, should the person take responsibility for, and be held accountable for, and accept the consequences of his or her own words and/or actions?

Some people see attributes in other people that displease them, but do not see those same attributes within themselves. Isn't that hypocrisy? Pot-Kettle-Black syndrome? In their own minds, they see it in others, but not in themselves.

Those same persons in paragraph two would answer "yes" to the question posed in paragraph one, but only apply that "yes" to other people and not to themselves. I have had far too many experiences with far too many people who fit into this category.

Historical Hatred of Jews

The Jewish People have been persecuted for thousands of years. 

Why are Jews hated so much? Why?

Read the article in the embedded link contained below:

Secret Mexican diary sheds light on Spanish Inquisition

I Have Lived My Life My Way!

Over my life of 75 years now, I have been called a fool, an embarassment to my family, a dirty communist, a loose cannon, abrasive, arrogant, and just about every vulgar foul word in existence.

Many people have voiced their displeasure of me for not agreeing with them, for not going along to get along, for speaking out against that which I believe is wrong, for speaking up for that which I believe is right, and for being the person I am rather than the person they want me to be. 

Well, as I approach the end of days, i.e. my end of days, there is a song that pops into my head from time to time that I think I would choose to be my epitaph, albeit a long epitaph.

The song "My Way" has been performed by many artists. Each of them can honestly say, "I did it my way."

My Way

And now, the end is near;

And so I face the final curtain.

My friend, I’ll say it clear,

I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full.

I’ve traveled each and ev’ry highway;

And more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few;

But then again, too few to mention.

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;

Each careful step along the byway,

But more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew.

But through it all, when there was doubt,

I ate it up and spit it out.

I faced it all and I stood tall;

And did it my way.

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried.

I’ve had my fill; my share of losing.

And now, as tears subside,

I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;

And may I say – not in a shy way,

No, oh no not me,

I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has naught.

To say the things he truly feels;

And not the words of one who kneels.

The record shows I took the blows –

And did it my way!