I'm Jewish, older than Israel and more confused than ever

 

https://www.nj.com/opinion/2021/05/im-jewish-older-than-israel-and-more-confused-than-ever-opinion.html

Newark Star Ledger

Opinion

May 24, 2021

I'm Jewish, older than Israel and more confused than ever | Opinion

Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Charles E. Kraus

I am two years older than Israel. Have never been there, but evidently, as a Sunday School student, purchased tiny stamps containing pictures of leaves and pasted them onto olive tree illustrations. My nickels and dimes were sent to the new State of Israel, where they helped fund the planting of actual trees. Thus, we, American Jewish children of the 1950s, assisted in providing shade and bounty in what we were informed would otherwise remain barren desert. I pictured the Sahara.

It took me many years to realize that being Jewish didn’t automatically require me to support the Israeli government. Initially, doing so felt like a given. Then, the given became a burden. I’m wondering if gentiles can truly understand this tension.

From time to time during the early 1950s, my mother and I traveled from New York City to Baltimore where we’d stay in Aunt Fanny’s gigantic American Craftsman house. The porch wrapped around the place. The yard was bigger than a park. For a kid raised in a cramped Bronx dwelling, this was an expansive, two-story palace. The best part was Fanny’s basement. It was a wonderland filled with every prop and costume a child could need if he wished to spend the afternoon pretending endless scenarios. I experimented with canes and hats and dinner jackets. With tools and gadgets. Dozens of each stacked and piled so high the cargo overflowed onto the staircase.

Fanny was not holding a garage sale. The inventory was destined for Israel where it would help refugees begin new lives.

My formative years were nominatively integrated. New York’s public thoroughfares offered a rather nonchalant mixing of all the ethnic, religious, philosophical, economic and aesthetic approaches. But away from the Commons, people tended to live with and among their own. Little Italy, Chinatown, Germantown, Harlem, the Lower Eastside, Greenwich Village, the Park Avenue elites, the Bowery.

Because the city was home to the largest Jewish population in the world, it was somewhat chauvinistically said that everyone who lived there was a little bit Jewish. Meaning somewhat influenced by Jewish sensibilities. Secular sensibilities.

Secular was the key to my upbringing. Formalized religion was not used as a prescription for life’s challenges. Not in my family. Our rituals were — liberal attitudes, an approach to life that prided itself in sobriety, industry, education, knowledge, language, science, the arts — these tinged with a dash of humor and a strong sense of irony, all fueled by Jewish cooking and a certain pride in Israel.

Later, long after the Suez Crisis, after our elder’s silence was broken and we children were informed about the camps, after the book and movie, Exodus, and the sense of pride my Jewish generation took in the outcome of the six-day war, my allegiance to Israel was tested.

There had been indifference to Jews fleeing the Nazis. There had been a holocaust. The formation of a homeland where the diaspora could collectively grieve then focus on building a brighter future. This was not a utopian fantasy. Israel was a practical but problematic response to traumatic events.

After World War Two, maps were redrawn in Africa, Europe, the Far East and the Middle East.

The 1947 partitioning of Palestine was not some isolated event, but rather part of a reconfiguring of power and peoples designed to stabilize the world. That said, most of these ‘adjustments’ involved repositioning lines on maps, not uprooting populations. The Palestinian situation was dramatically different. The act of seizing land and relocating people was an outrage.

Over the years, I’ve come to feel sympathy for both Jews and Palestinians. Israel could have, should have, done much more to help its non-Jewish citizens thrive, and its neighbors respect both its might and compassion; if not out of altruism, then at least out of self-interest.

Houses were demolished. Settlements grew, encroaching on more and more disputed land. Netanyahu remains, his approach to leadership encouraging the hard and hardened right. Here in America, it has become more and more difficult for me to defend Israel. Or even to explain it.

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Charles E. Kraus is the author of four books, including “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ” and ”Baffled and Baffled Again.”

A lesson from boot camp

 

APRIL 27, 2021 11:40 AM PT

By Charles Kraus

Kraus is an author who served in Vietnam for part of his four-year enlistment. He was awarded the Bronze Star. 

1966 — I’d enlisted. Our country was going through what felt like a tectonic shift. The anti-war movement. Urban riots. Civil rights. There was a lot for young recruits to talk about. But animated discussions were held in check by a military that needed its men and women to stick to task. Generally, we did. We spent our days drilling together, then co-existed within our separate clusters during the evenings. To the extent that we spoke about the external — civilian — world, we presented gripes, solutions and opinions that assumed the system was in need of adjustment. Nobody proposed dismantling the government.

I went through boot camp with a guy from Texas. Tall. Handsome. Smart in a practical way. We worked together on a few of the ridiculous projects handed to us during the course of training. Boot camp is designed to break your resolve, deflate any sense of individuality, then replace it with a team spirit and an unflinching willingness to obey orders. We enlisted men more or less worked as a unit to placate our superiors. To that end, the Texan and I scrubbed whatever it was our battalion leader claimed needed perfecting. As we wore out brushes and mops, we talked. Our voices controlled so as not to be perceived as contentious. The topics included integration and the war.

At the time, I was big on proving my positions. These were the facts. You added them up. This was the conclusion. Airtight case. I presented my views about the lack of equal opportunity. About intimidation and rigged systems. You couldn’t look at a photo of a child being chewed by a policeman’s vicious dog and claim the act did not occur.

I stated my reasoning. Society could not expect high-end, informed performances from individuals who had been denied meaningful education, and found themselves being manipulated by everyone from drug dealers, to politicians, to the marketplace, to the media, to history and to society at large. We had to close the gaps and right the wrongs if we wanted to put people on an equal footing. Like most young folks in the ‘60s, I was bursting with generalities, but vague on the specifics.

Perhaps I was eloquent, or just another blowhard, well-meaning but naive. Either way, the Texan seemed to have some appreciation for what I was saying. He offered counterarguments. Traditional. Biblical. Apocryphal. And there was a feature that I detected in many Southerners. Possibly a misguided, incorrect observation. But one I’ve become attached to over the years. I detected a seething. A ready supply of unmitigated hate mixed with an equal share of rage. An undercurrent of vitriol waiting for a target. Sort of a Lindsey Graham on/off switch.

In those days, you could declare a draw. I couldn’t budge my Texas compadre, he couldn’t budge me. Touché. Plus, an afterthought, an explanation provided by my debating competition. He revealed his membership in the Ku Klux Klan. My arguments did not matter, he explained — he couldn’t allow them to matter. This wasn’t about facts. It was about allegiances. It was not possible to win him over by logic, or information, or by pointing out how everyone would benefit from a more integrated world.

2021 — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s efforts to reduce racism within ranks won’t find easy resolve. Brotherhood happens when reasonable attitudes prevail. Unfortunately, human nature is the biggest of tents. Some of its occupants, fueled by hate and stupidity, cannot be persuaded to reevaluate their faulty perceptions. Diversity training only works when the minds of participants are both willing and capable of change.

If you can’t reason with a dangerous individual, or with members of a group dedicated to inflicting harm, you have to approach the problem at a global level. After weeks of violence that reflect years, decades, of failed solutions, I think we would all welcome a consensus approach that imposes common sense. Rules and laws need to be enforced. See, I’m still vague on specifics, and a little naive.

Together

Together

By Charles E. Kraus

Our children and grandchildren live in Northern California.  "Only a plane ride away," we used to say, heading again and again to the airport.  Either to board a flight or pick up arriving family members.  For the past year, these trips have been curtailed.  But my wife and I have now booked tickets.  Not virtual tickets.  Actual tickets for an actual visit. We are feeling tentative.  And giddy.

Back in them old days, my concern about air quality had to do with smog levels, with gaseous air pollutants such as carbon monoxide.  Now it is not so much about forest fires and industrial waste.  It's about people exhaling, especially on planes.

We've revised our travel reservations three times.  So far.  These are rethinks.  Will our shots be fully effective by mid April?  May 1st?  Should we wait until a larger percentage of the public has been inoculated?  Late Spring?  Summer?  Our grandchildren are learning that the word "soon" is an expandable concept.  Like them, I need a hug.

Of course, there is no such thing as a virtual hug.  Hugging is one of the physical elements that has gone missing during our too numerous to mention family Zoomethons.  About fifty years ago, Ashley Montagu published a book titled Touching.  In it he advanced the theory that physical contact, tactile experience, was one of the essential methods people employed to communicate.  That touch provided unique and important emotional messaging.  Let me tell you, we've been out of touch.

Our grandchildren have become quite skilled at participating in virtual family interactions.  They display lots of artwork and demonstrate ever increasing skill levels on bicycles and scooters.  To keep up with this, their parents have substantially honed videography techniques.

Alice, who is almost seven, is now qualified (and certified by her mother and father) to borrow an iPhone and take us on a tour of the house.  We generally end up at the hamster cage where she gets her new pet to demonstrate its prowess on the rodent ferris wheel .  Three-year-old Lila wants Bubbie, her grandmother, to read another story.  My wife has gotten pretty good at holding the book so illustrations fill the screen.  If she falters, Lila takes on the role of director.  "Higher," she says, "More up."  Not only does this kid understand camera dynamics at our end, she is quite capable of directing her selfies.   

Zoom and other visual chat systems have built-in filters designed to improve screen appearance.  On camera, I seem to be a little less wrinkled, my aging skin not so blotchy.  And because audio is adjustable, nobody at the other end has heard me say, louder, speak up, can't hear you.  I'm hoping that when we finally arrive for our in-person visit, family members won't be asking themselves if it's really me.   

Fortunately, my hugging techniques remain constant, so I should be able to prove my identity.

 

Short Rest Before Continuing The Journey

Short Rest Before Continuing The Journey

By Charles E. Kraus

I've spent four years feeling, thinking, assuming, presuming, and anticipating the news of the day.  Not just taking it in, but reacting to events so outrageous and preposterous that I've found it impossible to discuss them without shouting.  

I know there is a lot going on in the world.  And I am as frightened by some of it as I'm sure you are.  But I find that I'm more hopeful than I've been in quite a while.   So hopeful, in fact, that I've taken a vacation from newscasts and the endless eyeballing of 'breaking news' hysterics.  

Currently, I stay abreast of essential issues by reading or listening to a story here and there reported by responsible news sources.   I am finally able to absorb such information because I don't get sidetracked from emotional button pushing.  I am able to think rather than react.  Yet, to tell you the truth, even this level of civic participation feels a little forced.   Generally, if I tune in to an occasional broadcast of All Things Considered, my need to know is satiated.  For now, I can let the world operate without my oversight.

At some point, years ago, instead of watching everything go wrong, I was simply on watch in a war zone.  In certain ways it felt less dangerous.  Anyhow, after being on guard for a predetermined period of time, my relief would show up.  The military formality had me requesting to be relieved followed by the new guy staying I could go.  Biden and I must have conducted such a dialogue.  He's on watch.  I'm back home.

My relaxed attitude has been brought about by a new found confidence.  Days no longer seem filled with brinkmanship and irrationality.  When I do scan the papers for an update, I am informed about progress, planning, strategy, intent.  The rhetoric is civilized.  I get the feeling intelligent people are making sincere efforts.  There seems to be a kind of positive flexibility at work in Washington.  Imperfect but determined.  Responsible government doing its best.  

Partisans want us to believe the country is about to come apart.  They are trying to finesse mass unrest.  Extremists point to their numbers, to their mobs, but these forces are self-limiting.  As rational, reasonable people move forward with decency and perseverance, the partisans are going to learn there is a big difference between holding a one-day, failed, insurrection, and toppling an increasingly popular form of government.

A very long time ago, I had a journalism teacher who defined news as the items that made it into the newspaper.  Minorities weren't news.  The environment was news.  Poverty wasn't news.  None of these -- until they were.  Right now, news means political instability, a deadly pandemic and economic uncertainty.   And tomorrow?  What will I be reading when I re-engage with the press?

Tomorrow the stories that get into the paper will be concerned with community, prosperity, dignity, empathy, optimism, facts, and a highly visible sea of unmasked smiling faces.  

Running Out The Clock

Running Out The Clock - Awaiting the golden elixir

By Charles E. Kraus

At first, we were elated.  My wife and I had managed to remain covid free.  Vaccines were being manufactured and distributed.  And now we'd reached Tier 1 of Phase 1B with its head-of-the-line privileges.  We were home safe.  Or, more to the point, we would receive our vaccinations and become away-from-home safe.  Our daughters, both members of California's helping professions, had already gotten their initial inoculations.  We'd reunite.  Then, before long, the rest of the family would join a parade of the immunized.  A family reunion was on the horizon, grandchildren leading the way!  

However, it has turned out there is no head-of-the-line.  Actually, there is no line.  Not here in Seattle.  Just more uncertainty.  Evidently, no vaccine is currently available.  No appointments are being scheduled.  Seniors have been asked to pause.   My wife and I (we are in our mid 70s) seem to be walking an endless tightrope.  Continuing our balancing act.  Attempting to stay safe until safety is no longer an issue.  Eleven months and counting of hiding from the enemy, waiting for the cavalry to rescue us, to make it to Seattle, saddlebags filled with the golden elixir. Their horses must be tired.

My feelings are multifaceted. A mixture of fear, anger at the Trump administration's poor handling of the pandemic response, upset with my own state and county.  Disappointment. Astonishment.  Quite a system you folks have put in place.  

I've developed an ambivalent sense of marvel and jealousy because some of our out of town friends have received their vaccinations without much difficulty .  Why is it, I wonder, that Hal and Carolyn visited their local Walgreens, be it in Reno, and walked out inoculated, while Linda and I sit here in sophisticated big city Seattle doing our best to navigate a 'figure it out yourself,' hit and miss hodge-podge of a delivery system whose main feature is gridlock?  

I've been making daily, occasionally hourly, internet searches hoping to happen upon a set of available appointments.   I've heard the rumors.  There are some spots, or maybe not.  We do this by rumor, yes?  Or we can stick to the internet instructions, lots of them.  Simply follow the prompts down each web-trail until you reach the 'sorry no appointments at this time” “awaiting vaccine, check back” “closed” “visit our calendar for future dates” (doing so leads to aspirational calendar pages upon which dates cannot (yet) be selected).

My wife and I have been spending a great deal of time discussing strategy.  Is it feasible, is it realistic, to drive a few hundred miles inland?   Seems as if vaccines are readily available in less populated areas.  Assuming that is so, I wonder why.  And what is more dangerous, me behind the wheel of our ten-year-old Kia in wet winter weather, or waiting it out in Seattle?  

I received my polio vaccine when I was eight.  Each class was escorted to the playground where kids took part in the extremely successful mass inoculation.  At the moment, the concept, 'successful mass inoculation,' seems archaic.  

Will the cure be relevant by the time someone somewhere is ready to stick my wife and me with the needles?   Basically, the two of us are running out the clock.

My plan for the new year

 My plan for the new year | Opinion

Updated 8:05 AM; Today 8:05 AM

This January 1 will be different than the previous ones, author Charles Kraus says. It will come crashing through pent up and exhausted emotions, smashing disappointments, ennui, and feelings of hopelessness. A course correction offering concreteness to objectives that have been elusive.

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By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

By Charles E. Kraus

Typically, my New Year’s resolutions are performa. An annual recommitment to eating healthy, behaving well, improving my outlook. And always, my final resolve is to stick to my resolutions. But as we end the disastrous current year, I’m not inclined to plagiarize from my previous self-deceptive goals.

January 1st is usually symbolic. A reset. A chance to start over. Of course, like many on this New Year’s Day, we turn the page only to discover a continuation of things already in play. More of the same with an adjusted date stamp. Obviously, 2021 is going to be different. It will come crashing through pent up and exhausted emotions, smashing disappointments, ennui, and feelings of hopelessness. A course correction offering concreteness to objectives that have been elusive.

I understand a great deal of heartbreak is still in the mix. One of the top items on my list is to find out where, when and how my family will be getting vaccinated. But simply writing the word VACCINATED improves my frame of mind.

Here’s more of what I’m up to, and this time, I’m determined to stick to my plan:

My emphasis will be on my family. Grandchildren, children, friends. You’d have to scroll way down to find any entries involving commerce. Since March, I’ve refreshed Amazon so often Bezos cited me in the annual report. One exception: I might be purchasing a lot of airline tickets.

I’m going to take a timeout from “Breaking News,” “Open Immediately,” “Urgent,” “This Just In” — from all the onslaught of shocking, existential, political, moral and constitutional-crisis events and pseudo-events that have been etched into my screens. The initial batch of information about a political scandal caused outrage and concern. Then, over time, as the numbing adjusted my tolerance levels, my main reaction became disgust.

I certainly won’t ignore useful news. I hope to learn more and more about less and less COVID-19. I”m anxious to find out when my stimulus check will be arriving and when my favorite restaurant can reopen without restrictions. I long for the day restrictions once again become self-imposed, discretionary considerations, similar to the advisability of ordering a second slice of cake.

I think about the joys that will be coming my way in 2021. Hold on. That’s wrong. They won’t be coming my way at all. “Coming my way” suggests yet another delivery person misplacing yet another bubble wrapped package in front of my neighbor’s door. “Coming my way” means another tepid pizza showing up with the wrong toppings, handed over by someone who looks exhausted and in need of a fresh mask. I don’t want things coming my way. I want to go out into the world and retrieve them.

I’ll get in my car, walk down the street, enter a crowded store, visit a theater and marvel at the sensations running up and down my spine. Sensate activity switched on with a new, as well as renewed, appreciation of and for what lays on 2021′s horizon.

Charles Kraus is the author of “You’ll Never Work Again In Teaneck, NJ,” a memoir.

So Many Santas

So Many Santas

Published in the Orlando Sentinel and associated newspapers 
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-op-my-time-with-santa-claus-20201223-uu5uxjvnfbcvxhynhsyqntjpju-story.html

By CHARLES KRAUS    

GUEST COLUMNIST 

DEC 23, 2020 AT 8:47 AM

Fortunately, Santa Claus has spent all of his time leading up to Christmas close to home in a COVID-19 bubble with his wife and two dozen elves. He was actually set to receive the very first inoculation. It makes sense because he is potentially the ultimate super spreader.

As a long-haul children’s entertainer, I’ve had the opportunity to spend many a December appearing with an endless assortment of individuals dressed in red suits. We’ve appeared in department stores, Christmaslands, VFW halls, recreation centers, schools, festivals .... it’s a long list. But, of course, this holiday season things will be different. In more typical times, they go like this ....

“Is this the line for cheeseburgers?”

“No! It’s for Santa!”

That’s a kid responding to my question. I’ve been Charles The Clowning my way through life — including hundreds and hundreds of Christmas events. That means I’ve introduced, worked with, and/or helped to sober up hundreds and hundreds of Santa Clauses. Evidently kids are not particular about who is wearing the outfit.

I finish my show, making the final extra-gigantic balloon reindeer. My puppet and I are saying goodbye when suddenly we hear something.

“Hold on, kids.” I look up.

Could it be …

“I think Santa might be up there.”

Puppet: “Santa Monica?”

“No … that’s to the south.”

Puppet: “Santa Barbara?”

“To the sorth.”

Puppet: “Santa Who?”

“Santa Claus!”

I point to the door, the prearranged door, for the prearranged entrance. I’ve said my line … now Santa is supposed to come rushing in. Not yet?Where is he?

“OK, kids, maybe he’s having trouble finding a parking spot for the sleigh. Perhaps his GPS isn’t working and he can’t find us. Why don’t we shout ‘Hello, Santa!’”

“HELLO, SANTA!”

Eventually, when he, or she, is ready, has gotten up the nerve, refastened the beard, and figured out the cue has been given … and given ... out pops Santa. The person in the red suit is young, or old. He’s fat or skinny. He’s Black, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Asian, Filipino. Might be Mrs. Santa. Might be in a wheelchair. I’ve worked with gay Santas, with lesbian Santas, and in retrospect, possibly with transgender Santas.

One of my jobs is to travel the line, keep the kids entertained while they wait for a turn to tell The Claus what they would like for Christmas.

“I’ve got my list,” I tell them, waving it around. I start to read …

“Bread, milk, Swiss cheese … hold on, that’s my shopping list.”

Sometimes I ask children what is on their Christmas list. Occasionally, having sized up the Santa they are about to meet, I’m thinking the best thing the kids could ask for would be a change of venue.

The meet-and-greet is a rite of passage that most kids take in stride. Some may be fearful, but I’ve heard few complaints regarding authenticity. It does strike me that most Santa impersonators have been cajoled into donning the suit. There is a reluctance. Perhaps an embarrassment aspect.

A little “Ho ho ho” starts things off. The official questions: “Been good? And what do you want for Christmas?” Not a demanding script.

The trick is to listen to the answers.

The better Santas help children put the gift thing into perspective.

“I’ll try to get you that, Harriet, but if the elves don’t have time to make one, I promise to get you something else you’ll enjoy.”

Say it like you mean it, Santa. And, oh …. pull down that sleeve. Your Grateful Dead tattoo is showing.

Charles Kraus has performed around the country as Charles the Clown. During the pandemic, he has performed virtually from his home in Seattle.