Thread by @FidelisToJusti1

🧵*Content of below thread is my opinion.

1/ This picture is of my grandmother and myself taken on March 20, 1982. The occasion was my Bar Mitvah. Recently, I've been looking at photos from that day and reflecting.

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2/ One moment from that day is especially poignant to me. After I chanted my Torah portion from the Book of Exodus, my great grandmother, grandmother whom you see in that picture and mother were summoned by the rabbi to join me at the podium.

3/ As I held the Torah in my arms the rabbi said, "We are privileged to have four generations represented up here" and he gave a bio summary on each. My great grandmother had survived Polish pogroms. My grandmother was an activist for Jewish Refuseniks and my mom the teacher.

4/ So on this Mother's Day weekend, I'm remembering that Bar Mitvah moment with the three most influential women in my life and reflecting upon my place in society today.

No demographic group in this world is monolithic. No one person can claim legitimacy to speak for all.

5/ One thing all Jewish people I suppose have in common is a cultural memory of the world wanting to kill us for centuries simply for being Jews. Hence, many Jewish people such as my mom, grandmother and great grandmother had great affinity for the civil rights movement.

6/ In America, even as Jews we're observant of religious traditions such as Bar Mitvahs, many of us developed a strong secular affinity for the separation of "church and state" or discomfort with invoking God in the public square.

7/ Hence, a year prior to my Bar Mitvah, after John Hinkley shot President Reagan, I didn't join in the prayer led by my homeroom teacher for Reagan's recovery. Not because I didn't want Reagan to recover. Rather, I didn't join in because I was raised to find it inappropriate.

8/ What if someone didn't believe in God? It's all well and good to say nobody is forcing anyone to pray. My religiously observant Jewish grandma often said prayer in public schools was "coercive." Her words. So I didn't pray with the class. And my teacher stared at me.

9/ A year after my Bar Mitvah, my 8th grade teacher asked me why I was silent during the "Under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance. I quoted my grandmother to him saying, "One's belief in God and patriotism should be separate." He gave me a stare that nearly buckled my knees.

10/ Was I in trouble? He backed off thankfully as I stared back. I was a well behaved nerdy studious kid so he liked me even if I didn't say "Under God," during the Pledge.

Naturally, I've been thinking of my grandmother during this toxic political climate against Jews today.

11/ I've been remembering our many convos on Judiasm, our history and our fierce debates on Israel. As I've posted in another thread awhile back the convos on Israel were contentious at times as I got older. Although I accepted her view a Jewish State was vital to our survival.

12/ She was a smart, compassionate, funny and stern woman all at the same time. Nobody could cook like her, few were as well read as her, and she could compel my brother, cousins and I to clean up a mess with a hard look. Alas, she died at age 92 in 2010.

13/ I wonder what she would think of today's assclowns. I know she would hate Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner. I'm also damn certain she would have contempt for Trump's assertion that any Jew voting for Joe Biden is betraying all Jews. I can just hear her cursing at that one.

14/ Mostly she was quite liberal. I recall her in '92 saying the only POTUS candidate speaking truth was Jerry Brown. After 9/11 she derisively said, "If Bush had a mind we could say he lost it." We still debated about Israel but she was quite critical of Ariel Sharon and Arafat

15/ In 1996, I remember her saying she didn't like Israel's dovish Shimon Peres but also observed, "This Bibi is out for only himself. All politicians are but he's a really bad one."

She was right about many things. She HATED Phyllis Schlafly for example, LOL!

16/ When I was 15, I was pro-life because a health teacher had convinced me it was murder and that there were no other considerations. She patiently explained to me the overall context of women's rights and asserted, "Those Christian nuts are lying about abortion and God."

17/ I think back to all those things and try to project what she would say now about antisemitism in '24. About Jews being harassed on college campuses, including the daughter of a family friend at Columbia being threatened with rape, I could hear her saying, "It's an old story."

18/ She often liked saying, "That lie again? Get a new one!" So about those almost cliche style tropes of global Jewish conspiracies and leveraging power in finance or Hollywood, she would I think say, "That lie again? Get a new one!"

19/ With respect to antisemitism and Jewish history she often said, "We washed our hands and didn't get the Bubonic plague so sue us. We push our kids to study and they become doctors and lawyers. Why is that bad? Would it be better if we taught our kids to beat people up?"

20/ Pursuit of academic excellence was demanded in our family under her influence. That's true in many Jewish families worldwide as we assimilated in different cultures. Not for collective power and influence as Jews but to be successful as individuals and families.

21/ This sort of demand to pursue excellence was influenced by Jews like my grandmother because their cultural experience and DNA was such that Jews had to work harder to be successful. There was never anything conspiratorial about it and no zero sum game intent to hurt others.

22/ This notion Jews have disproportionate power and influence as part of some strategem for global domination always was and is a f**k**g crock whether coming from far right white supremacists or phony left wing do gooders claiming "I'm not antisemitic. I'm just anti Zionist."

23/ My grandmother could curse like a sailor and she would say a big "f**k you" to both sides of that left/right antisemitic coin.

A cute and humorous dispute between my grandmother and me was over the rock music I loved.

24/ My grandmother had always taken special delight in expressing disdain for any rock/pop music I played, including the Beatles. I think it was partly an act some of the time. But one day, I played for her "People Got To Be Free" and her eyes lit up. She loved every word!

25/ No demographic is monolithic. But this Jew agrees with The Rascals:

"Seems to me we got to solve it individually, ah, ah. And I'll do unto you what you do to me."