A Decade of Jewish Existentialism

 Source: Humans of JNF (www.jnf.org)

Long before the rise of Adolf Hitler, establishing a Jewish state became the rallying cry of Zionists. Subject to the Jewish Question for centuries in Europe and the Middle East, through persecution, exile, pogrom and finally, systematic extermination; it appeared that other remedy could suffice for the Jewish people.

Trouble existed from the beginning. From 1948 to 1967, Jews lost access to their historical monuments and worship sites as Jerusalem came under Palestinian control. The Jewish state was tentative, perhaps a false promise or aberration in the course of history. After Adolf Hitler died in his bunker, many Jews continued to live a psychological holocaust, resulting in secularization, loss of ties to Judaism and the Jewish community.

Survivors of the Holocaust were prolific in writing and thinking in the post-war decade, reviews and analysis of which can be found in the Arts section of The Wall Street Journal. Where was G-d, who let this horrible thing happen? What about the psyche of Jews of America, still excluded from certain neighborhoods, social clubs, and held at an arm’s distance by those in power? Could it happen here, considering the sensational Rosenburg trial that conflated Jewish tenets with communist ideology?

In contemporary evangelical thinking, the Six-Day War of 1967 was fulfilment of a biblical prophecy. Outnumbered by Islamic forces, Israeli soldiers defended and overpowered the assault that was predicted to end the existence of the Jewish state. In the following decades, Israel became a beacon guaranteeing the survival of the Jewish people. The state received persecuted Jews from the Soviet Union, and from Ethiopia.

It has become popular to criticize the existence of Israel. The younger generation of Americans do not know that Israel’s survival was far from certain; or that Israel is merely the size of New Jersey, requiring a strong defensive posture against Hamas’ missiles and guerilla tactics. Nor do they consider that Islamic allies have not offered broad-based residency visas for Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.   

Checklist

 As I was pursuing work and a dense course load for grad school this Spring, there were a lot of “things” to do that I put on a list for later. Some of these tasks were time sensitive, like renewal courses for a project management certificate I earned as an undergraduate: I finished the current semester May 1, and the renewal was due June 1. Done. Others, like selling excess belongings on EBay, have not been done yet. I'll get to it when I have time!

Since first writing the list, I have not cancelled any task I had not completed. A bit surprising that everything retained its salience, whether it was fixing a leaking faucet or building out my college 529 plan. This list, paperclipped to an Old Dominion University-issued planner, serves me well. When something new comes up- add it to the list.

Task switching is a distraction

I automated the bill payments that I could, and the others (natural gas, for one) I resolved to handle twice a month. This "zero-minute task" did take actual time and attention. I finally figured that it was OK to leave these in the “inbox”.
General correspondence for political surveys and professional organizations would also be done twice a month.
Currently, I publish blog posts every two weeks. The best writing comes to me in waiting rooms, and in contrast to many novelists, I find no need to set a writing hour on the calendar.

The Underrated Profession

 The collapse of a bridge in Washington, DC and the a condominium in Surfside, Florida offered me a new perspective in the importance of the engineering profession. As I begin to prepare for state licensure, I could not help but think about how people within the profession view this position of trust: "Always have a job"; "The headhunters will find you"; "The paper looks good on the wall". Now, engineering for some time has been regarded as the most "9-to-5" learned profession, not the type to throw lavish parties for clients, or work overtime. A select few study research and development from the laboratories of universities, and put it into their practice; continuous professional development is often overlooked. Most, though, prefer work-life balance.

Nor does industry wish for engineering to be a cohesive, comprehensive profession. Architectural and engineering review requirements are being waived on larger and larger building projects, and licensure is generally not required when working on industrial design projects. Builders and manufacturers, in theory, then take on extra responsibility and liability to increase their profit a tiny bit. Thus, everyone is an "engineer" until nobody knows who an engineer is. In contrast, the medical profession has taught the public how to differentiate between a "Medical Doctor" and a "Doctor of Nursing". As a major infrastructure renewal bill nears approval in Congress, it's time for engineers to remember what the profession is about: to ensure public safety in the built environment. 

Forgotten Sustenance: Nutty Cheese Sandwich and New York's Greatest Era

 

New York of the 1950s could be categorized as a worker’s paradise. Liberalism of the era prioritized affordable housing, tuition and healthcare. Immigrants from war-torn Asia and Europe, penniless artists and thinkers from the heartlands came to build their American dream. This was the “Old New York” of the pre-Bloomberg era, a time before capital reigned supreme.  How did these strivers live, and how did they dine? Low-cost diners, public cafeterias, and lost recipes like Date Nut Bread were not glamorous, but sustaining for a day’s work.

The Nutty Cheese Sandwich comprised of Date – Nut Bread, lathered with cream cheese and served with “regular” coffee (cream and sugar, please). Served at Chock Full of Nuts cafes once ubiquitous in the city, it was a Depression-era favorite whose price mirrored that of subway fare: 5 cents in the early 1930’s, and 15 cents in the 1950s.

I made a loaf from a recipe posted by Politico: Lost Foods of New York City: Date-nut bread sandwiches at Chock Full o' Nuts (politico.com)

Everything I needed to make the loaf was in my pantry. I substituted dates for raisins, which I had on hand. The rich aroma of nuts and fruits filled my home as the loaf baked.  Taking a slice of this loaf and layering it with cream cheese made a creation that closely resembled a carrot cake, but with more wholesomeness than sugar. The outside of the slice was crusty, and the inside soft, but substantiated by the nuts and fruit. It was everything a hungry artist would want.

One might say that the fast-food dollar menu replaced the cheap restaurants of bygone decades. But what would your three dollars buy? Four slices of bread, two thin pucks of ground meat, and French fries. You would get your calories, but not a balanced meal. No fruits or vegetables would be served, other than ketchup; or a packet of jelly, if you ask nicely.

What did the cheap restaurants in? Foodservice wages have been fairly stable. Rents have gone up. Business overhead, to pay consultants and managers, has certainly increased in the restaurant sector. But the cheap restaurant relies on volume to stay afloat; I would argue that the critical mass of working-class and middle-class diners dissipated when it became too easy to put a “dining experience” on the credit card: Buy now, pay later versus pay-as-you-go. Yes, that rising standard of living.  In a more money-conscious era, diners would have prioritized nutrition and heartiness; while today, these gaps are filled by eating more.

Heads Up: John Warner; Exxon

The Virginia Senator

John Warner’s career in the US Senate bookended the Republican Party’s short era of dominance in Virginia. He was narrowly elected in 1978, in a state which favored conservative Democrats; and retired from the US Senate in 2009. He was certainly part of the Defense establishment, which once held economic and political power in Virginia; the submarine USS John Warner (SSN-785) is named in his honor. He drew support from across the political spectrum, running unopposed in 2002. Before his retirement, the nascent Tea Party movement branded this popular moderate as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). John Warner was indeed a RINO: “Reasonable, Intelligent, Nice and Open-minded”.

Warner's death comes at an inflection point as the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) attempts to rebuilt from a lost decade of nominating Tea Party and Trumpist candidates, who failed to win any statewide election since 2009. If proof is found in pudding, these rural hardliners typically lost their November elections by 10 points or more; while mainstream candidates in 2013 and 2014 fell just one point short of victory. The RPV is optimistic for this year’s races, as the nominees are both diverse and chosen by suburban voters, who have marched towards the Democrats in the past decade. John Warner was richly eulogized by the nominees, showing that the late Senator is a model to be followed. 

 

Exxon Going Green?

This one is personal to me, as I dumped this laggard of a stock last year. Shareholders put Jeffrey Ubben of Value Act Capital onto Exxon's Board of Directors, in hopes of bringing the large corporation up to par in the future of energy. Ubben's unique thinking is that an "oil company" can be part of a "Responsible Investing" (ESG-focused) portfolio.  For other petroleum companies, the transition to green energy is nothing new. BP (British Petroleum) had long styled itself as "beyond petroleum", embracing a green sunflower as its logo.

The Fascist Moment

 In the manifestos of various nutjobs, there is a common theme favoring increased control of society, particularly in areas of immigration and family policy. To the disenfranchised, these radical solutions offer false hope of increased status and wealth. It would be easy to ignore the effect of such writings, but for the fact that crazed manifestos have enabled great evils in the past, from Mein Kampf to the writings of Dylan Klebold. Dare I say, we did have a Beta-Test of fascism in America, an unintended consequence of the national coronavirus response strategy.

At a fundamental level, fascists are miserable because you are outwardly happy. Their grievances often come from perception of deficit in their social lives, and they fantasize ways to remove joy and spontaneity from relationships, including hook-up culture. As an example of pattern rupture, the year-long government shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses such as bars and concert venues in many states may permanently alter what it means “to go out” for an evening. While social activities have moved from public spaces to private settings (at one service academy, daytime liberty on weekends resulted in a 15% COVID infection rate after just two months), researchers have found increased malaise among young adults. This may be confounded with other factors like lack of hiring in well-paying jobs.

Halting immigration from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia has featured in multiple extremist manifestos. The national border is sealed with policies reminiscent of the isolationist 1930s. Based on the adjusted travel patterns of my peer group, I would surmise that most international travelers and immigrants today are coming to the US from Europe, rather than the Global South.

Record Gun Sales- Gun ownership has increased, especially among women and racial minorities Some Leftist groups have embraced gun ownership, often as a response to the outwardly firearm-toting Far Right groups. It is impossible to stereotype who might be armed today. Notably, the new generation of firearm owners, predominantly urban or suburban dwellers, have purchased firearms for reasons other than hunting. Marksmanship, tactical training and self-defense have grown in prominence: this disassembled militia appears in manifesto writings.

Inequitable Health Outcomes- Higher COVID death rates among disfavored groups represents a racially and socioeconomically unequal loss of life. COVID infection crossed all walks of life, as seen in how the virus first spread through the global jet-set. But those with less reserves, in wealth or health, were more likely to perish.  Social Darwinist policies are frequently invoked in manifestos.  

Discussing birth rates during a prolonged crisis is a difficult subject, because of conflicting mainstream philosophies. On one hand, it is seen as the “responsible choice” to delay childbearing until one’s socioeconomic situation improves. In the other stream of thought, childbearing is life’s most essential activity, and minimal constraints should apply: in the religious context, this would include marriage between biological parents. As many of my friends are in this stage of life, I am interested to see how countermeasures applied in the Spring of 2020, such as no-visitation policies in maternity wards, affected the rate of home births; or if it caused couples to be discouraged, resulting in a birth rate drop this past Winter. What the evidence shows is that couples have postponed childrearing, except for the wealthiest young adults (see Refinery29, Insider). Survival of the fittest, much?

Reversion to traditional gender roles: Celebration of the family puts a softer edge on the general bluntness of fascist policies. Women, though, tend to bear the strain in domestic workload and missed career opportunities. As modern resources that enabled the two-income household became unavailable; be it daycare centers, grandparents, foreign au-pairs, and, yes, public schools; one parent had to step back from full-time work. In the past, it was assumed that a woman would take up domestic responsibilities; today, income, stability, and now, essentialness, are hashed out between the couple. Egalitarianism is to let the math speak for itself, and most often, Dad keeps pursuing his career.

Hopefully, the experience of the past year and a half has debunked any thoughts that fascism is a viable solution to the political difficulties in the United States. High-priority issues that have come to the fore-front in national discussion are learning and skills loss, alleviation of childhood poverty, and newfound respect for individual freedom.  There appears to be bipartisan agreement in saying “never again”, with regard to the challenges people and the nation have endured.

Two Slaveries and the Church

 

Waging the long spiritual fight against communism in Eastern Europe and Greater China left little room for self-reflection, which has now come to the forefront of Catholic consciousness. If the Church had the power to initiate an orderly transition from communism to democracy in Eastern Europe, what power did it have, and did not use, to end human slavery? From today’s lenses, the Catholic Churches’ role in 1800’s slavery appears to be participation and implicit approval. This must be reconciled.

Looking back to the 1890s, in the same papacy of Pope Leo XIII, the Church made a switch from being soft on chattel slavery to being tough on the mental slavery of Marxist communism. By this time, the Church had been stripped of its earthly powers, particularly the papal holdings in Italy (prompting the Leonine Prayers in the Traditional Latin Mass). The world changed greatly at the dawn of the 20^th century. France underwent secularization around 1905. Hereditary monarchy was discredited after WWI. For centuries and millennia, monarchs held a special place in state religions, setting the ‘tone’ for the population, and occasionally practicing intolerance towards religious minorities in their realm. For the Church, there was a real threat that monarchy across Europe would be replaced by communism, as happened in Russia. If monarchy was obsolete, and communism intolerable; then democracy, or transitional autocracy (as in Portugal, Spain or the Republic of China), had to be embraced. Unlike most events in world history, the people would decide, through ballot box or popular uprising, their self-determination.  

 In previous generations, the Church’s worldly concerns as landlord and investor had created a close intertwining of Church and the Spanish and French colonies, where chattel slavery was a common practice.  In theory, slaves in French and Spanish colonies had more rights than slaves in English and Islamic areas. In French practice, mixed-race children were born free; while this was not the case in the American South at large. In practice, life was harsh for all agricultural slaves. Work in the Caribbean sugar plantations was known to be a virtual death sentence. Would the Church have placated itself on false platitudes? Emphasis on pastoral care emerged in the late 1800s, with focus on various groups such as immigrants, Black Americans, and Pacific Islanders. In this context, a focus on human liberation became a natural outcrop of charitable work to feed, educate, and care for the disadvantaged. Leo XIII’s successor, the pauper-born Pope Pius X, would understand that proclamations of human dignity had to be backed by action.