What children feel in time of war

"In time of war you know much more what children feel than in time of peace, not that children feel more but you have to know more about what they feel. In time of peace what children feel concerns the lives of the children as children but in time of war there is a mingling there is not children's lives and grown up lives there is just lives and so quite naturally you have to know what children feel. " Wars I Have Seen, Gertrude Stein, 1945

http://florist.blogfa.com/post-6.aspx

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Children and Memories of Wars and Memories of Children

Gertrude Stein's forebears made their livelihoods on war. Her grandfather was a tanner; her father and uncles set up shop in Baltimore, manufacturing uniforms for the soldiers of both the Confederate and the Union armies. Gertrude's father disliked the stress of that business and left Baltimore for Pittsburgh, where he established a dry goods company on Wood Street, in the heart of Pittsburgh's thriving commercial sector.

Very shortly after Gertrude was born, she and her mother were shipped off to Europe to live with an uncle, while her father pursued other business interests. Gertrude lived in Vienna and Paris, then returned to Baltimore, all in the first four years of her life.

Gertrude writes about a child's memories, and of war, in "Wars I have Known:"

"[My mother] wanted to be nearer America so she packed up and left the tutor and governess behind her and with the five children she went to Paris. I continued to be the youngest one. I was about four years old then and I do not know whether I really remembered more about Paris but I think I did. It always does make war because one of the things that seemed to me in 1914 was that Paris was then the way I remembered it when I was four only then there was no war. But war makes things go backward as well as forward and so 1914 was the same as 1878 in a way.

"Of course there are a good many times when there is no war just as there are a good many times when there is a war. To be sure when there is a war the years are longer that is to say the days are longer the months are longer the years are much longer but the weeks are shorter that is what makes a war. And when there is no war, well just now I cannot remember just how it is when there is no war."


How many Iraqi children do you suppose have memories of a time when there was no war? How many Iranian children do you suppose have memories of a time when there was no war?
In 2030, when George Bush believes his legacy will be vindicated, how many Iraqi children will have memories of a time when there was no war?
Is it a good idea or a bad idea to surround the children of Iran with images and memories of a United States that makes war or of a United States that makes friends and beautiful paintings and poetry?
Which memories would you like your children to hold from today until 2030?
If you are an Israeli child, which memories would you like Iranian children to hold about you?

Make those memories today.
Thirty years from now, you can't unmake them.

Immigrants and Israelis

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Throughout their wanderings, what most distinctively characterized the Jews was/is their insularity: as Jews insinuated themselves into the host culture, did not invite their hosts into their culture.

The immigration issue in the US has struck a nerve at least as- or even more- sensitive than the evil situation the US has trapped itself in in Iraq and the Middle East. Some people are comparing the current inflection point of US culture to Rome, one way or another: either as an empire extending its power, or as a corrupt and rusted culture trending toward demise.

One component of the demise of Rome was the influx of Gothic (German) tribes who had been mercenaries of the Roman empire. As the climate and economy in the lands of the Goths experienced stress, Gothic tribes surged across the Rhine in waves to start new lives in the Roman empire, among Romans with whom they were familiar by virtue of having fought for Rome in Rome's wars, AND IN THE ROMAN STYLE. Gothic tribes blended with the Roman culture, engaging in a two-way sharing of religious, cultural, and political strengths and weaknesses.

Jews never tire of demanding the pity of the world by reciting, endlessly, the litany of their dislocations and relocations. In fact, in history, most people have been similarly dislocated. My Italian mother and father lived out their lives in a country alien to the place where they were born and the culture that they were familiar with. My mother's family was forced to give up the village farmhouse that had been her parent's home and her grandparents' home. That's just one example from one small family; it has been repeated millions, perhaps billions of times throughout history; Jews are far from unique in having been forced to live in a place that was not home.

What IS unique to the Jews is their determined refusal to leaven their culture with practices of the host culture. To be sure, ever since Joseph charmed his way into the Egyptian government, Jews have entered into the power structures of their host -- or target-- country, but they did not place their loyalties there; their migration has been one way. When my Mother became a naturalized citizen of the US, she swore this oath:

The Oath of Allegiance for United States Citizenship

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I hereby declare, on oath,that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Israeli law makes honest swearing of the US Oath of Naturalization impossible: every Jew in the world always has the benefits of Israeli citizenship open to him/her, and numerous Jews in the highest reaches of US government practice dual citizenship in both the US and in Israel. Americans claim to subscribe to the New Testament, where, in the book of Matthew 6:24, is written:

"No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one
and love the other; or else he will hold to one and despise the other."

Where does the United States Senator for the State of Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman, place his loyalties?

History has shown us, repeatedly, that nations that host Jews and invite them into positions of influence in their governments ultimately suffer for their hospitality.

It is also true that Jews refusal to allow their culture to be leavened and seasoned by incorporating outside cultural practices have also had a negative impact on the Jewish people. They are a small demographic by their own choosing;* they are clannish by their own choosing; and because they have not committed their loyalties to others, when tensions rise and stresses force choices between preferred solutions, Jews do not have relationships that will protect them against self-interested parties.