Paralyzing polarity

This past week we went to an incredible concert, a two-hour performance where time stopped. It seemed over in minutes. We are among the newest fans of the remarkable Zamir Chorale. It featured young performers, high school age and a bit older, with amazing voices and joyful ruach, singing their hearts out, in Hebrew, and delighting a full house at Carnegie Hall. Until the powerful emotional closing with Hatikvah, the audience was spellbound, totally attentive, and boundlessly enthusiastic.

What made it more amazing was the audience mix. There were young, old, (okay, we were undoubtedly among the eldest), dati, lo dati, men with kippot and men without, women, like me, in pants, and others in skirts, women with covered heads and most, like me, bareheaded. The unifying characteristics were that we were all Jewish, did not join in the singing (I tried but my husband shushed me!), and were very well behaved, an exemplary group indeed. And the many thousands in attendance loved every moment, as demonstrated by the frequent standing ovations.

What was missing, you ask? There was no sign of what I call the paralyzing polarity, that profound anger, that rising bile, that happens when we disagree with one another. You and I know that that is the pervasive perspective these days among our people, in both of our countries. And you and I both know that it’s not benign or simple dislike. We are really, really angry.

You think you’re right. But I disagree. It’s hard to reconcile our disputes. We all feel in our kishkes that we are totally correct, without even a drop of nuance. You are on your side. I am on mine. Friendships have been severed because of different political positions. Get-togethers are arranged according to their political foundations. Rabbis, and leaders in other areas of our Jewish world, mince their words with abundant caution, fearful of rousing the animosity of those who disagree with them. In my lifetime there has never been such internecine strife. Since I’m older than most of you, that’s saying a lot!

So where do we go from here? Can we get along? Or at least agree to disagree? The answer is I just don’t know. I do find it very difficult to understand your perspective. I’m sure you, likewise, don’t support mine. Can we, minimally, try and find some mutuality? Are there issues that we both agree on? I hope the answer is yes!

Let’s talk vaccines, for example. I have no doubt that this is an area where we are in total agreement. I cannot possibly imagine anyone in our educated, committed New Jersey Jewish community refusing to give their children measles vaccines. Or polio vaccines. Or covid-19 vaccines. Or any other approved vaccination that wards off serious diseases in those we love.

I’m of the generation that had some of the diseases now protected by vaccination. I suffered, and remember it well, with measles. I am scarred, right above my nose, from chicken pox, which was not as severe as measles but certainly an annoyance. I had whooping cough — pertussis — and German measles — rubella. The only contagious disease of my childhood that I somehow lucked out of was polio. And that was a miracle.

In the late 1940s our family was in Parksville, our usual summer haunt, when the phone rang. We had one central phone, a pay phone at that, for all the many residents of the Bauman House. A telephone call was a frightening event. It was an expensive thing to do, with a lot of holding time since the recipient was never standing near the phone and needed to be located. It usually meant someone had died. When my mother received a call from Aunt Edna, back home in Newark, her heart was pounding as she raced to the phone. The news was grim. My cousin Bobby, Edna’s younger son, had polio. He had been polishing my nails the day before.

Bobby never gave me polio and he recovered completely. His next door neighbor Marjorie, however, was not so lucky. She remained crippled throughout her life and died prematurely. I knew my mother would never forget the scare. Neither would I. When my own children were blessed with a vaccine against polio, I raced to make sure they received it. Who can possibly imagine not protecting their children from a dread disease?

Our experience with whooping cough also was a Parksville event. Mom had one family-sized room left to rent that summer and a set of parents with three children wanted to become tenants of the Bauman House. Mom, ever careful, heard the children coughing, so she interrogated the couple about the coughs. They persuaded her that the kids had allergies. Of course, we knew very soon that the allergies were pertussis. Half of us kids caught it, me included. The others all left and Mom gave a refund to all those families. That summer was nonprofitable.

Certainly you and I agree on the benefits of vaccines!

How about the hostages? Is there any amongst us not yearning to see their release? It would be unimaginable to hear any member of our community support their continued brutal imprisonment in the cruel tunnels of Hamas. We want to see them out of bondage, now! Of course we do. We pray for them in our shuls and we pray for them in our hearts. We do not disagree.

And what do you think about Yitzchak Goldknopf? He’s a member of the coalition government in Israel, the housing minister, a charedi, who was seen at a wedding very recently dancing among his many followers to a chant made popular by the Neuterei Karta group, a fervent anti-Zionist organization. Their song was appealing to those opposed to Zionism, supporting their followers who refused to honor the draft. Can we agree that this man and his party have no place being in the leadership of the government of Israel? At this moment Bibi has not removed him from the government. This is a true boosha, a disgrace, as we all can agree.

We, Jews of New Jersey, send our own children and grandchildren to serve in the IDF, to attend university in Israel, to go on youth trips there. We constantly send packages, visit Israel, support Israel financially and verbally. Israel is a great unifier in our lives.

Can we possibly support a government minister who is dancing with an anti-Zionist group, who is singing that he does not support the army of our people? I have no doubt that we are in total agreement on the need for MK Goldknopf to be ex officio, removed from the government.

And do you share my embarrassment, my disdain, as we read about the incompetence of those who shared a high level secret meeting with a civilian, right here in these United States? The secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and others entrusted with the highest levels of confidentiality unknowingly, unwittingly, shared a highly confidential post before a planned attack on the Houthis with the editor in chief of the Atlantic. Were these cabinet level people drunk? One would imagine so. How else could something so overtly criminal be allowed to happen? I know we agree on this!

We are like the Zamir concert-goers, a group of Jews of different backgrounds and affiliations, seeing much of our contemporary lives through the same prism, united by our Jewish commitment.

Chances are we will never agree on everything. But chances also are that we will agree on many things!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of nine. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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