"Tamar, Why do Jewish people vote Democratic?" A brief Q&A this Yom Kippur eve

Sharing a meal at the
Open Door Community, Atlanta, Georgia

Yesterday, my lovely neighbor Judy and I enjoyed a lively two-hour catchup chat. While years ago, we tacitly decided to steer clear of politics, Judy could not resist asking me one question — 28 days before we will cast our ballots for the USA presidential candidate of our choice.

"Fire away," I encouraged her.
"I've long wondered," Judy probed, "why do Jewish people vote Democratic, especially after George W. Bush and the Republican party have been such great friends of Israel?"
"Great question, and a fair one," I replied.

And then, I launched into a long-ish answer.

"Neither presidents nor kings, pundits, bosses, rabbis, nor special interest groups decide my priorities in choosing a candidate, or who earns my vote. For me (and for many fellow Jews and others), the Hebrew Bible's core messages inform my sensibilities, values, and vision of a just and decent society — my responsibilities to it and what is required to govern such a society. Overall, the Democratic party principles, platforms, and policies (more than do those of the Republican party) align with these core messages."

"In two days," I told Judy, "the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a fast day, we will read in the morning service the message of Isaiah 57:14 - 58:14 — a Torah portion that encapsulates these core messages."

And I rattled off a few.

Judy: "This is heavy. Tell me more."

That evening, I Googled to search for a meaningful translation of the Hebrew portion to share with Judy, and came across the gifted Rabbi Shefa Gold's unusually creative translation/interpretation (excerpted here).

May we merit a sweet year, join in repairing our broken world, and elect a just and wise USA president November 4.

... I dwell in the High and Holy Places,
Yet you will find me with the lowly ones, the poor and humble,....

... those greedy corporate warmongers!
They are like the troubled sea,
Whose waters stir up filth that pollutes the land,
For them there is no safety, there will be no peace.

... Oh sure, I hear their prayers every day,
They say they want to learn my ways. Hah!
As if you were a people doing righteousness,
Who has not abandoned decency and compassion!

... They say, "Don't you see we're fasting?
Don't you see how holy we have become?"

But on your fast day you wear clothes
that were made by Chinese prisoners,
And shoes that were cried over
by terrified children in loathsome sweatshops,
And the books you hold in your hands,
are filthy with the tears of dying forests...

And your investments fatten the rich,
who are destroying this land.
You think this is the kind of fast I want?
A day that will feed your self-righteousness?
You call this a fast?

... Well, I'll tell you what kind of fast I would desire from you...
Unlock the chains of your greed and habit,
Free you from slavery of being blind consumers,
Let the oppressed worker go free
by raising the minimum wage.

It's a disgrace I tell you!
The fast I want is one that will inspire you
to share your food with the hungry,
To redistribute the wealth of this land fairly,
To build affordable housing for the homeless,
And to welcome back the people you have thrown out of your hearts,
Even the ones in your own family.

... If you banish corruption, hatred and apathy
from the innermost places of your heart,
If you stop blaming everyone else,
And instead extend your hand to the hungry,
And lift up the ones who have been beaten down
by this unjust system,
Then your light will shine forth, even in the darkness.

... From your inspiration people will reestablish
the values that have been desecrated,
And restore the foundations of decency
that have been laid by your ancestors,
And you shall be called "Repairer of Brokenness,"
"Restorer of the Way,"

If only you would truly celebrate Shabbat,
And put down your business, your buying and selling and bargaining
and scheming with the resources that were never yours to begin with,

If you would delight in the restful sanity of Pure Being,
... I will set you on the high places,
So you can get some perspective,
So you can truly enjoy the precious inheritance
of the life I have given you....

L'Shanah Tovah, Have a Happy New Year 5769

With Gila and Tal-Or at a family wedding
in Jerusalem, March 2006

Meet first grader Tal-Or, my fifth guest blogger and eldest grandchild of my cousin Gila. Tal-Or lives in Tekoa with her parents, sister, and brother. She loves arts and crafts, playing with her friends, helping her mother set the table, and cutting salad. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year that begins this evening, has been on Tal-Or's mind, as her email message to Gila (copied below) shows. My English translation follows the Hebrew.

My previous Rosh Hashana posts

• 5768 (2007) here and here
• 5767 (2006)

Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 8:12 PM
Subject: סיפור לראש השנה

שלום לכולם,
צירפתי סיפור לברכה של ראש השנה.
שכולנו נהיה לראש ולא לזנב ושתהיה לנו שנה מתוקה
אוהבת,
טל-אור

סיפור לראש השנה
כתבה: טלאור-מאירסון

בראש השנה היתי אצל סבתא. אמא הסיעה אותי ראשון והלכה לקחת את אבא. ראיתי איך סבתא עורכת שולחן. ראיתי איך היא מניחה תפוח. ראיתי איך היא מניחה דבש. ושסבתא רצתה לשים צלחות היא אמרה, דניאל רוצה לעזור לי לשים צלחות. אמרתי לא. אז סבתא באה אלי ואמרה, דניאל צריך לעשות מצוות לפני ראש השנה. שאלתי למה? אמרה סבתא שתהיה שנה טובה-ו-מתוקה. בסדר אמרתי. וסבתא אמרה, ילד-טוב הביא לי צלחות עוד הרבה דברים. ואז שגמרתי אמרתי גמרתי וסבתא באה ואמרה, איזה יופי דניאל. ערכת ממש יפה. ואז שמעתי דפיקה טוק-טוק. רצתי לפתוח את הדלת ומי עמד בפתח? אבא ואמא. נתתי להם חיבוק חזק ואז אמא שאלה, מי ערך את השולחן? עניתי, אני-אני בעצמי. אבא אמר לא יאומן וסבתא אמרה, יהיה לנו שנה-טובה ומתוקה.

Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 8:12 PM
Subject: A story for Rosh Hashana

Shalom all,
I attached a story as a Rosh Hashana greeting.
May we all be like a head and not a tail, and may we have a sweet year.
Love,
Tal-Or

A Story for Rosh Hashana
by Tal-Or Mayerson

On Rosh Hashana I was at Savta's [Grandma's]. Ima [Mommy] drove me there first and then went to get Abba [Daddy]. I saw how Savta sets the table. I saw how she places an apple. I saw how she places honey. And when Savta wanted to set the plates she said, Daniel wants to help me set the plates. I said, No. Then Savta came over to me and said, Daniel needs to do Mitzvot [good deeds] before Rosh Hashana. I asked, Why? Savta said, That we might have a good and sweet year. OK, I said. And Savta said, A good boy brought me plates [and] many more things. When I finished I said, I finished. And Savta came and said, Terrific Daniel, you really set [the table] nicely. And then I heard a knock-knock. I ran to open the door and who stood in the entrance? Daddy and Mommy. I gave them a big hug and then Mommy asked, Who set the table? I answered, I did, I did it by myself. Daddy said, Unbelievable, and Savta said, May we have a good and sweet year.

NOTE: After I read Tal-Or's story, I emailed Gila: "In the story, I understood that you invited Daniel to set the table so that he could do a Mitzva. Yet Tal-Or told her parents that she set the table. What am I missing here? And, this is THE Daniel [Tal-Or's uncle Noam's dear friend], right? Gila replied, "I called Tal-Or, and she said that Daniel is just a name, no one in particular. As to the story itself — I think that whatever we want to read into it is fine."

Israelis for Obama

In this three-minute video, among the talking heads — the woman at the Wall I have worked with; the former deputy speaker of the knesset I went to grade school with. Israelis for Obama: Seeking peace and pursuing it vigorously, within and without.

Love from me,
an Israeli-American for Obama

My lunch special at Atlanta’s Mediterranean Grille

David and Luther's hugging gladdens Helen

Because I just missed the bus to reach a meticulously planned lunch date, I broke my rule on not hitchhiking and flagged a shiny black pickup truck. My designated driver? A thirty-something Hispanic man, dad to a preschooler (which I surmised from the Little Mermaid sticker smiling from the dashboard).

Me: “How far up Briarcliff Road are you going?”
He: “Buford Highway, to pick up my three-year-old daughter from school.”

When papi learned that I was headed past his turn, he insisted on first taking me directly to my destination so that I reach it on time. Good deeds. Grace. Gracias.

A long, growing friendship with interfaith roots. Atlanta's Mediterranean Grille was the venue for the basic recipe: good friends reconnecting over lunch to share laughter, ideas, updates, and more questions than answers. Luther called it "table fellowship" (a religious meal tradition derived from the ancient Mediterranean Essenes and early Christian cultures of community in which worship and ordinary daily living were integrated).

David Soloway's family and I met Rev. Dr. Luther E. Smith Jr. and his wife, Rev. Helen Pearson Smith, nearly a decade ago when our faith communities met at Central Congregational United Church of Christ. In dialogs, short courses (for instance, on theologians Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Dr. Howard Thurman), potluck dinners, and jointly planned and led New Year's and Thanksgiving services, we inched toward wider scopes, deeper visions, and thus more wholesome communities.

Meeting my cousin, my neighbor. At my turn in the long line to place orders, I asked the genial fellow Semite for lentil soup and dolmas (rice and lamb-stuffed grape leaves) with marinated salad.

I then pushed through my hesitation to ask, "What country are you from?"
"Palestine," his answer.

Hmmm, methinks. Is he among the Israeli-Arabs and others for whom the State of Israel is a temporary aberration, its denizens slated to be obliterated, and the land appropriated to become Greater Palestine under Islamist rule? Or, does my cousin/my neighbor mean that he is from the Territories — the West Bank, Gaza, or one of the many Arab towns and villages — parts of a future Palestine?

"Where in Palestine?" I gently pressed.
"Gaza," he said.
Me (relieved, sort of): "Oh. Uh, I sometimes live in Tel Aviv."
He (enthusiastically): "I worked in Tel Aviv, in the 1970's."
Me: “Nice. In food?"
He: "No, I worked in the hotels."

And there ended our friendly chat; it was all I could manage. I had plenty to chew on, and mercifully, behind me someone was waiting to place a lunch order.

My community is multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, multi-everything. Such encounters — papi, the Soloways, the Smiths, and the Gazan — remind me that suspending initial judgment of others and remaining open to the possibilities of engagement often returns interesting if not rewarding outcomes.

Next month, our group will rejoin for table fellowship. I will probably re-order the dolmas, and speak a bit more w my Gazan cousin, if he is willing. And, because he worked in Tel Aviv, his Hebrew surely is a lot better than my Arabic.

Joe Franco (1909-2008): Celebrating a long, loving life

Joe Franco flanked by granddaughter Eliana Franco Gilbert
and her parents, Rita Franco and Craig Gilbert
(Probably at Joe’s grandson's Eli Joseph Franco's
Bar Mitzva, May 2005, when Joe was age 95.)

Meet Craig Gilbert, my fourth guest blogger and a friend since we met at Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1993. A manager of financial software, Craig was a principal of Front Row Systems, Inc, a software firm he co-founded, and operated 25 years. Craig is an active organic gardener, has written on ethics, and participates in the Dances of Universal Peace.

Soon after Craig's father-on-law, Joe Franco, died last spring at age 98, Craig sent me an email while I was living in Tel Aviv "to share the special life of Joe Franco who meant so much to me." Now, he has agreed to publish his tender reflections on this giant person (of short physical stature). He adds, "for Joe's family, thanks to everyone for the outpouring of love we felt since his passing and that you gave him throughout his life."

From: "Craig Gilbert"
Date: June 26, 2008 4:42:29 AM GMT+03:00
To: "Tamar"
Subject: Joe Franco

T,

I know you heard from David Soloway that Joe Franco passed away. I wanted to share a few words with you because you knew him, and like all special people, you immediately connected and saw beneath the covers. We spoke of him often.

I believe you first met Joe at our daughter’s baby naming at Bet Haverim where proud grandpa Joe was happy to offer the celebrants an impromptu singing of Verde’s "The Hebrews' Chorus (Va’ Piensero)." [In Verdi's opera Nabucco, the chorus sings of the Jews' longing for Israel following their expulsion from their homeland to Babylon by Babylonian King Nabucco.]

I enjoyed every minute with Joe. The years that I accompanied him to Congregation Or VeShalom [a Sephardic synagogue in Atlanta], I felt as though I was going with Mick Jagger. He was a rock star. People would gather round, and he would always have a word to say about their parents or grandparents.

After Joe passed away, I felt the need to tell you many things, how deeply touched I was by him and his passing so that you could savor the beauty of his life. Please indulge a few random thoughts.

Stories and songs in seven languages
When Joe passed away, it left a large empty feeling in me. I needed his stories, his songs, his sharing his life experiences. In ten minutes he could tell dozens of intertwined stories involving Charlie Chaplin, Irving Berlin, Mussolini, Kamal Ataturk, and Suleiman Ha’Gadol [Suleiman (Solomon) the Magnificent, who invited the Sephardic Jews to Rhodes, where they called him Ha'Gadol, Hebrew for the Great].

Joe would spontaneously recite Adlai Stevenson’s acceptance speech for the presidential nomination or Churchill’s speech to Europe to “fight on brave Norwegians.” Always on Joe's lips was a song in any of seven languages. I can’t tell you how much I miss Besame Mucho, O Solo Mia, or his Spanish translation of "God Bless America" or a French rendition of "Carolina Moon."

Humble beginning in the Aegean Sea
Joe was born in 1909 in Rhodes, a Greek island southwest of Turkey in the eastern Aegean Sea. He grew up in a three-story six-room house where two families (about 18 people) lived. No running water, no electricity. He slept on a bed of straw, which he shared with his brother Jack.

In Rhodes, if Joe earned a few dimes or quarters from the American sailors who docked there before or during World War I, it was more money than his father would earn in a whole month. In Joe's youth, when the sailors gave him dimes, he was amazed that the USA currency was made of real silver. He could not imagine how great a country it must be to use silver for coins.

He learned operas by standing outside a bistro, in Rhodes, which had a crank phonograph, and he picked up dozens of arias that way. He had a great talent for music and knew hundreds of songs in many languages. He often translated popular songs into various languages, and his translations were often (in his opinion) “better than the originals.” He was always singing and entertaining people.

Four continents and multiple talents
Joe lived on four continents and spoke seven languages: Ladino, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin. He also knew a good deal of Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and Swahili. He could hold three conversations simultaneously in three languages, well into his 90's. Joe's wide-ranging career spanned sales, insurance, real estate, and retail.

The valedictorian of his high school class, Joe traveled to Belgium seeking work. There, he accepted an offer to be an accountant for the railroad in the Belgian Congo [present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo], in Central Africa, where he lived two years.

In 1929, Joe joined his four brothers in Atlanta, where he graduated from Emory University in 1934. During World War II, Joe served as a financial attaché with the USA embassy in Bogotá, Columbia, where he acquired materials (principally rubber and cinchona bark to fight malaria) for the war.

Boiled prunes from a mayonnaise jar
I met Joe when he was 80. He was allowing a homeless man to live in the basement of his home. Not one to put on pretenses, he offered me boiled prunes from a mayonnaise jar. When I married his daughter Rita, I immediately felt comfortable calling him Dad, and his wife, Rae, Mom.

His grandson Lewis recently published a CD, “Swingin’ in Daddyland,” about feeling great to be a good daddy. It is no coincidence. Joe’s whole family has been living in Daddyland [a term from the CD title], striving to emulate Joe’s values and instilling them in their children.

I never heard Joe say a bad word about anyone, save for the Nazis and other enemies of "our people." He achieved great success in life in the areas of family, friends, education, business, and love. Even at 98, I can't believe Joe is gone, and it seems it all ended too quickly.

— Craig

Installation dinner for Rabbi Hayyim Kassorla,
Congregation Or VeShalom (February 2005)
Front, left to right: Joe Franco (then age 93), Rabbi Kassorla
Back: Arnold Zipperman, Craig Gilbert, Jack Arogeti (great-nephew, great guy)

NOTE: My third guest blogger, German-born Miriam, shares her trilingual poem and a brief bio of her ninety-plus years as a pioneer in Israel (then Palestine); tourist guide; and mother to five, grandmother to seventeen, and great grandmother to 22. Second guest blogger, ninth grader and my cousin Daniel Zohar, increased this blog's ratings with his popular post, Caught in the Thicket נאחז בסבך a powerful commentary on the Akedah, or the Binding of Isaac. First guest blogger, Stefan, sends an urgent message "all over the world" on antisemitism in Austria.

Knowing Hebrew is no help in learning Arabic

This gorgeous calligraphy spells "al Arabiya" — which means "Arabic" in English; at least I think it does.

Six weeks' learning to write and pronounce the Arabic alphabet, I'm feeling like a child. An illiterate one. And the feeling is lousy.

In Israeli-Arab towns and cities that I passed on frequent trips to the Lower Galilee last spring, the signage is in Arabic only. That's it, I decided somewhere between Tamra, Daburiyya, and Mount Tabor. I will learn Arabic basics, at least.

Now, between my Arabic 101 class at Evening at Emory and lessons on YouTube, I'm off to a great start. Here's what I mean.



I dream of watching Sesame Street in Arabic (5 days a week, with frequent repeats of each show). This way (I continue dreaming), I would painlessly learn not only the alphabet, numbers, and colors but also basic lessons in human relations: fairness, kindness, and respect for self and others.

Karen Armstrong writes (The Bible: A Biography), "... Modern philosophers of language have argued that 'the principle of charity' is essential for any form of communication... Even though [others'] beliefs may be very different from your own, 'you have to assume that [they are] very much the same as you are,' otherwise you are in danger of denying their humanity."

A core lesson that Sesame Street has been broadcasting nearly forty years.