#i want to embrace my heritage but i want to see all of israel's government dead too. i hate this war they've brought onto palestine.

[furcoveredinblood]

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[ruminativerabbi]

Election Day 2020

Is it possible that Election Day is finally upon us? Some other time, I’d like to write about the craziness of having these election seasons that go on endlessly—you can expect the 2024 campaign to begin in all but name about a quarter-hour after the new or not-new president is inaugurated in January—and particularly in light of the relative sanity that prevails in other countries, where political campaigns last mostly for several weeks or months. (The minimum length of an election campaign in Canada is thirty-six days, for example, but the longest on record was only eleven weeks. The candidates give a few speeches, the party publishes its platform, there are some interviews and a debate or two, then the polls open and the nation votes. Only here, where the date of the next presidential election has nothing to do with the fate of the current government, is it considered normal for people to spend two or three years campaigning for office.) Today, however, I’d like to use this space to write instead about the concept of participation in an election itself.

While perusing the corners of the blogosphere that are my regular haunts, I’ve occasionally noted the opinion put forward that the American system of government is an outgrowth of the specific kind of democracy invented (and named) by the ancient Greeks and that, therefore, it can only be supported by Jews and Christians willing to set aside what Scripture teaches us about the way people should consent to be governed to embrace a system unrelated to their own spiritual heritage. Generally written by people who know their Bible but who are wholly ignorant of rabbinic tradition, these essays are mostly the work of people who find the distinction between ancient Israelite religion and modern Judaism a triviality to be skipped past rather than a detail of profound importance. How this could or should work for Christians, I’ll leave for others more qualified than myself to puzzle out. But for Jews, the question itself of whether people guided by Jewish tradition should enthusiastically embrace or merely stoically accept the concept of representative democracy is the question I’ve been pondering in these last days leading up to the election.

It surely is so that the Bible does not envisage the ancient Israelites participating in anything like a Jeffersonian democracy. Indeed, biblical tradition imagines an ideal state governed by a king who acts solely in accordance with the law of the Torah and actually goes so far as to legislate that the king may only be seated on the royal throne when he is actually holding his personal scroll of the Law in his arms. How practical that was, or if the kings of Israel truly obeyed that injunction, who can say? But it is a stunning image nonetheless, something along the lines of our nation requiring by law that the President actually hold a copy of the Constitution in his hands whenever meeting with visitors in the Oval Office or making a public address. (That might actually not be such a bad idea, now that I think of it.) Interestingly, the king isn’t expected to be a Torah scholar who can personally puzzle out obscure point of law: in cases where Scripture does not directly address some specific issue with which the king needs to deal, a large squadron of court prophets is also imagined to be in place specifically to transmit the word of God to the sovereign on an issue-by-issue basis. So the model of which those authors I referenced above are so enamored basically features God ruling the nation through the agency of a king who gets his governing instructions from God one way or the other: either directly from his own informed contemplation of Scripture or indirectly from the squadron of house seers installed in the palace for that precise purpose.

But that ideal kingdom is not where any of us lives today. Yes, it is certainly so that Jews who say their prayers in the traditional mode give voice daily to the hope that the messianic era will feature just such a king of the House of David empowered to rule over the Land of Israel in the mode described just above. But in our pre-redeemed world, the footfalls of the messiah have yet to heard even in the distance. For better or worse, we are—for the moment, at least—on our own.

I suppose it could be possible to argue that the kind of democracy that has evolved as the basis for government in these United States is thus merely an attractive stop-gap measure that traditionalists should support until the aforementioned footfalls become audible in the distance. There is, however, a rabbinic idea that actually corresponds precisely to the notion of participating in an election to choose a national leader. And that suggests to me a way to frame voting in a national election as a personal decision fully in sync with tradition.

In Jewish law, the concept of agency guarantees individuals the right to appoint agents to act on their behalf. When put baldly like that, it sounds almost banal. But behind that apparent banality is the legal force that enables the individual to act profoundly in ways that would otherwise be either impossible or, at the very least, impractical.  For its part, the Talmud speaks about the concept of agency in absolute terms, going so far as to say that “the agent of an individual is legally empowered to act as though he or she were the individual him or herself.” There are exceptions, of course. For one, the Talmud makes clear that “the concept of agency is inoperative when the agent has been appointed specifically to commit a sin.” In other words, you can’t escape the consequence of wrongdoing by appointing an agent to commit the deed for you. So you can avoid the need to travel to a different locale by appointing an agent to marry your future spouse on your behalf or to act “as yourself” in divorce (or any) court, but you can’t escape the consequences of murdering someone by hiring a hitperson to pull the trigger. Nor was this “just” a regular feature of classical law in ancient times: it appears, at least in the broad way it was construed by the ancient sages, specifically to be a feature specifically of Jewish law. (The second exception, however, regards the commandments themselves: it is not deemed legally possible to hire an agent to fulfill obligations to God. You cannot, therefore, appoint someone to say the Shema for you or to put t’fillin on during morning prayers as though that person were you. Nor can you appoint an agent to eat matzah for you at the Pesach seder or to dine in a sukkah or to hear the shofar blasts during Rosh Hashanah.)

That set of ideas creates an interesting framework for considering the role of the individual in a republican democracy, because it leads directly to thinking of elections as opportunities for individuals to appoint as their agents the individuals they wish to see lead the nation forward. That we do this collectively—i.e., as a kind of contest in which the winner becomes the agent of us all—is just a function of the fact that no nation could function if each individual were to appoint his or her own congressperson or choose personally to serve him or herself. For practical reasons, then, we do this as a group…but the basic principle that underlies the effort is            still that, by voting, we are appointing individuals as our agents to represent us in the Congress and to serve as President. We send them not to commit sins that we don’t want to sully our own hands by undertaking (that wouldn’t be allowed) or fulfill our own spiritual obligations to God, but specifically to act on our behalf to ensure the security of the nation, to guarantee justice for all its citizens, to create a safety net into which people unable to care adequately for themselves may fall, to oversee the education of our children, to care for our veterans, to guide our nation to its rightful place of leadership in the forum of nations, to watch over the planet and prevent humanity from irrevocably soiling its collective nest, and to guide our nation into solid, mutually beneficial alliances with other countries. By casting my vote on Tuesday (and, yes, I am planning to vote the old-fashioned way: in person and on Election Day), I understand myself to be participating in a national effort to appoint the individuals who will lead the nation forward.

Because I think of our representatives in Congress and as the President as agents appointed by myself (and several hundred million others) to act on our behalf in the world, I feel a concomitant freedom to inform those people regularly how I wish them to act and what I wish for them to attempt to accomplish.

It sounds a bit passé these days to refer to members of the Congress or to the President and Vice President as servants of the people, but the way the word “servant” is used in that expression comes close to what I hear in the Hebrew shaliach, the standard word for “agent.” So, to answer those who feel that participation in representative democracy is by definition an act undertaken outside the concept of tradition, my answer is that there really couldn’t be a more traditional way to think about governance than by imagining the citizenry banding together to appoint an agent to do their bidding and lead them forward.

[the-record-columns]

Jan. 15, 2020: Columns

Magic in plain sight...

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

During the first week of January of each year, the N.C. Association of Agricultural Fairs has a meeting in the Raleigh/Durham area to preview acts, hold seminars, and generally have a great time catching up with old friends and making new ones.

The Rotary Club of North Wilkesboro as you know, has put on the Wilkes Agricultural Fair for the past 40 or so years and the club's Fair Manager, Mike Staley, and me attend the event.

This year was a very special one for our trip as the Wilkes Agricultural Fair received a statewide award from the association in the area of Innovation for the clubs "Wednesday at the Fair."  On this day, the club opens the fair at 10 a.m., and hosts over 500 Special Needs children, adults and their caregivers for their special day at the fair.  At this past September’s fair, the Rotary Club served 600 meals at the Special Needs Children event.  At last week’s meeting, club President Teresa Minton and Staley recognized Rotarian Jim Beckwith for his 27 years of managing the Children's Day event.

The fair convention is a truly special event—you can literally book a full three-ring circus for your kids birthday party if you've got the money.  Both ends of the banquet hall had vendor booths and entertainment venue displays for the attendees to browse and folks to speak with.  At each meal, two or three acts would do a brief "showcase" to highlight their particular act or venue and I want to share a bit about one of them today.

This couple was new to the Fair Convention, a pair of Illusionists named Reed and Ashton Masterson.  Their showcase event did several sleight of hand and disappearing tricks and was very well received by the audience of convention goers.  But it was later in the day as I perused the various booths that I had my eyes opened.

There was a slow spell about mid-afternoon, and I was in the banquet/exhibit hall looking around.  After stopping by Michael Garners Gold Medal Popcorn booth and getting a box o the best popcorn in the world--no exaggeration--I stopped to visit with the Mastersons.  He was petting a dove he had literally took care of before she hatched--and yes, he could tell the girls from the boys.  After a few minutes, Reed asked me if I would like to se a few tricks.

"Of course," I replied and he put the dove away and began to amaze me.  He did things I simply couldn't believe--and I was standing less than a foot away from him--not 50 feet like at the lunchtime showcase they put on.  But the one that I liked best was a card trick--sort of.  Reed showed me a deck of cards, fanning them out.  I figured they were all marked, but I was still interested.  He then handed me a black Sharpie marking pen, like the one in the photo with this column. 

I held it, turned it over and noted the logo on both sides of the barrel of the pen.  He then started fanning the deck of cards and told me to say when to stop.  I did and pulled a card out and held it next to my stomach with my hand covering it completely.  He then held the Sharpie and asked me to give him the card being careful not to let him see which one it was.

I did and he placed the card on the barrel of the pen like the one in the photo and began to slide the card down the barrel of the pen.  To my amazement, it did not read Sharpie any more, but instead clearly read Six of Clubs.  He flipped the card over and, you're right, it was the Six of Clubs.

I will admit to being a simple guy, but I was less than a foot away from him.  I touched the pen and it was dry--as though manufactured with the Six of Clubs on it.  Blew me away.

I couldn't help but remember one of the late Bob Gresham's favorite expressions, "How doooo they do that?"

 Immigration: Is the ‘Melting Pot’ separating?

By AMBASSADOR EARL COX and KATHLEEN COX

Special to The Record

Many reading this article will recall being taught to understand America as a “melting pot” – a blending of cultures, faiths, hopes and aspirations which, when fully combined, resulted in a delicious American pie where the sum total was more desirable than any of its individual parts. This was during a time when America was proudly defined as a “Christian” nation.  However, faith is no longer a key component of America’s identity.  So, what does it mean to be American?  What defines America’s national soul? It may be possible to begin forming an answer by asking another question, “What does it mean to be Israeli?” 

Since the beginning of time, Israel has had to fight just to exist. Many times throughout history the Jews were pushed to the precipice and on the brink of extinction.  In AD 70, the armies of Rome destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, seized the city and captured the entire nation.  A small band of Jewish revolutionaries fled to Masada where they took their last stand.  Other Jews were left to wander the earth settling in foreign lands and among foreign people. So, how did they manage to stay identifiably connected when separated geographically from their fellow kinsmen?  It’s because they retained, whether naturally or supernaturally, a common thread - their Jewish faith and therefore their Jewish heritage and identity. 

In 1948, Israel was reborn as a nation.  Prior to and ever since, the Jews have been returning to their homeland in droves from every corner of the earth.  Today, Israel is fighting hard for their right to exist as a Jewish state.  Those Jews making Aliyah (immigrating) to Israel are from France, Germany, Ethiopia, Spain, Nigeria, Australia, Uganda, China, Japan, the Americas, Russia and just about every other place on the map.  Yes, they are bringing with them their various cultural identities, but they are embracing and strengthening that which unites them as a nation – their Jewish faith and heritage.  And, they are learning and adopting their ancient and once common language, Hebrew. 

Ironically, the concept of America being a “melting pot” was created back in 1909 by a British Jew who wrote a play about a fictional Russian-Jewish immigrant intent on moving to the United States after his family died violently in an anti-Semitic riot in Russia.  It dramatized how people around the world were aspiring to come to America because it was a place that offered promise and possibility.  It was a place where diverse cultures blended in a joyful marriage forming a public national identity called “American.”  But, what does this mean today? 

At the turn of the century, the answer would have been similar to defining what it means to be Israeli.  Americans were a people who culturally identified as believing in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and who viewed the practice of Christianity as the hub of the wheel.  After all, America’s first immigrants arrived on her shores seeking a place of refuge from religious persecution.  

But, in today’s world, definitions are becoming blurred. America’s growing population is viewed in terms of multiculturalism void of any common core identity. People from a great number of ethnic and religious backgrounds have set up shop in the United  States.  The common threads which once held us together as a nation and formed the foundation upon which “united we stand,” are being stretched to the brink and are unraveling.  We’ve diluted or deleted our core values in favor of “y’all come.” 

America is plagued by great divisions among her people and leaders.  Immigration is a very important issue requiring vision, foresight, maturity and agreement in order to formulate a solution.  Yes, we welcome “the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to be free,” but we must have clear guidelines and safeguards. Not everyone who comes to America has good intentions. Many even distain our Western culture and reject our traditional values. For instance, to whom do those immigrating pledge their allegiance?  For Muslims, their first allegiance is to Allah.  What does this mean should America be forced to fight against an Islamic foe?  Will we be undermined from within much like the story of the Trojan horse?  It is for this very reason that Israel will not compromise on her right to exist as a Jewish state nor give an inch on the Palestinian demand for the fictitious “right of return.” They know the dangers inherent in, “y’all come.”   ”We the people” must agree on what it means to be an American and understand what we would be fighting for and against should the situation arise. There are already a few Trojan ponies feeding in U.S. government stables. When election time rolls around, cast your vote as though America’s very existence depended on it ... because it does. 

Radio Talk

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

It was a good week to talk with storytellers. We had an on-camera visit with Francene Marie Morris, better known as Francene Marie on the Beasley Broadcasting (formerly CBS Radio) stations in the Charlotte Region. With 23 years in the broadcast industry, she has clearly established herself as an extraordinaire storyteller for a broad and diverse audience.

The Francene Marie Show is on multiple stations and brings to life community stories that are important to almost everyone. People in the broadcast are unique, they see life a bit different than others do

When you spend much of your wakening hours developing stories around the lives of others, over time you see and hear just about everything. The good and the bad.

I have great admiration for radio people because they bring everything to life with words and sounds. TV people have the benefit of the visual. However, radio people are faced with the task of captivating listeners with their voice talents and the drama support of suitable music.

On-air talents often make their way out of the studio for community events. It’s all about connecting with listeners and further building the relationship. Sometimes it’s for a sponsor, and sometimes it’s for charity. No matter the reason entertainment is undoubtedly the objective.

Francene is not one to shy away from the public appearance. She has a solid foundation; her mother was an elementary school teacher and classical pianist. While Francene learned many things from her mother, the piano was not among them. However, she did learn to present herself properly.

This awareness served her well as she became a model and eventually discovered the broadcast world. Born in Illinois, later lived in Kansas City Missouri, where with much delight she discovered BBQ which she says, “must be ribs.” Francine ultimately moved to the Charlotte area where she found the radio business.

While she has not interviewed everyone in the Carolinas the numbers are in the thousands. It’s a Who’s Who list of community people. Her guest love being on her show and I am glad we showed up with cameras to share a bit of her story.

As it turns out our editor for the segment on Francene Marie also has an 18-year history in Radio Broadcast. Tim Vogel first set behind the big board at the age of 13. He would work part-time while in school and later full time.

Tim shared the story of meeting Charlie Daniels at a performance the station was sponsoring. That meeting would come in handy when Tim was at WHHO AM/FM in Hornell, NY. Tim pitched the station manager on an idea for a show. He was given the go ahead if he could sell the show to advertisers.

With this challenge, Tim went to work on producing his first show. He called Charlie Daniels and asked him to be in the show, he said yes. The studio call was made, the planned 30-minute call turned into 3 hours. Tim said they just talked and talked, it was when Charlie was working on the Blue Moon Album.

The recording was not a digital file like today, it was on Reel to Reel and editing was done with a razor blade and tape. A 30-minute show as produced, and the advertisers loved it. Tim was forever hooked on the creative process, and I am glad.

We have many friends in the Radio world, and it is a beautiful part of the Carolinas. There is something for everyone. While things have changed a great voice is hard to beat.  

Thank You Francene for the great stories.

Signing off till next time.  

 Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 10th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My40. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at Carl@lifeinthecarolinas.com.

[newstfionline]

Finding a life partner is hard enough. For those of the Druze faith, their future depends on it

Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 27, 2017

Reem Kaedbey was never very religious. She’s not even sure there is a God.

But when it came to marriage, she never had any doubt she would choose within her family’s sect, a tiny offshoot of Shiite Islam known as the Druze faith.

“It’s a requirement for my parents,” said 28-year-old Kaedbey, who lives near Beirut and works for the United Nations. “I didn’t want to get into problems.”

Finding a life partner is hard enough for anybody. Members of the Druze faith face an added pressure: keeping the religion alive.

The faith is thought to have about 1.5 million members, with most living in Lebanon, where they make up 5% of the population, and Syria, where they make up 3%. But an exodus of people fleeing wars in those countries has fueled a small but growing diaspora. There are about 30,000 in the United States, with the largest concentration in Southern California.

While the Internet has made it easier for Druze to connect with each other--Kaedey met her husband on social media--growing contact with the outside world has increased the chances that members will marry outside the faith. That is a path to extinction, because the religion does not accept converts and in its more conservative strands rejects children of mixed marriages.

“In the modern day, there’s a lot more tolerance and acceptance, but for the ones who truly follow the faith, once a person marries a non-Druze, they took the decision of leaving the faith,” said Daniel Halabi, a 22-year-old sheikh, or religious leader, who lives in Chicago. “The religious laws are clear.”

And so the future of the Druze faith may depend not only on pairing up its youth--a community effort--but also on whether the religion itself can make accommodations to the modern world.

As religions go, the Druze faith is not especially old, having been formed roughly 1,000 years ago. It accepted the prophets of Islam and Christianity and incorporated elements of Greek philosophy and Gnosticism.

Unlike other forms of Islam, it embraced reincarnation, allowed women to become religious leaders, banned men from having multiple wives and did not mandate prayer at set times or places.

Its most important early promoter was Al Hakim bi-Amrillah, the sixth leader of the Fatimid Caliphate that spanned a large area of North Africa and the Middle East and had its capital in Cairo. After his mysterious disappearance, his followers in Egypt were exterminated.

But they survived in other areas of the Middle East, including in present-day Lebanon and Syria.

In 1044, after a brief period of proselytization, the faith was closed to converts. Early Druze communities were insular and isolated and left historians with few records.

The religious texts have never been widely disseminated, leaving it to the sheiks to educate adherents on the finer points of the faith.

The diaspora began as a trickle and picked up in 1975 with the beginning of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war. The country’s 2006 war with Israel spurred more to leave, and most recently, many Druze have joined the stream of refugees from Syria’s civil war.

As Druze members have branched out, many have lost touch with the religion, raising existential questions about its future.

“Very few of them have an in-depth understanding of their dogmas,” said Chad Kassem Radwan, an anthropologist of Lebanese Druze descent who wrote a doctoral dissertation for the University of South Florida on Druze identity in Lebanon. “How do you preserve your heritage? This is truly the seminal issue of the Druze community.”

He and most Druze who care give the same answer: marriage.

Marrying outside the faith is a betrayal that is not easily forgiven.

“Our children always ask me, ‘Why do we have to marry a Druze? What if I fall in love with someone not Druze?’” said Anita Dakdouk, who was born into a Lebanese Druze family in Venezuela and now lives in Valencia, where she and her Druze husband run a coffee company. “I tell them, ‘Don’t think about yourself only, because there is family involved.’”

Those who stray are often ostracized by their families and sometimes by the larger community. In one instance Radwan found in his research, a Druze man was going to marry a woman of Shiite and Christian heritage. When the neighbors found out, they visited his parents to express condolences on the loss of their son, as if he had died.

Some members of the faith are pushing back on the rules.

Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party in Lebanon and perhaps the country’s most prominent Druze figure, married outside the religion.

On identification documents, the Lebanese government considers anybody with a Druze father to be Druze, even if the mother is not--a concept that has been embraced among more liberal adherents to the faith.

“Yes, yes, they are Druze,” said Hassan Sleem, a Druze resident of Beirut who runs a translation service. “We are a small community. We need more people.”

Rima Muakkassa, who lives in Akron, Ohio, where there about 100 Druze families, said that while she never considered marrying outside the religion, her four children could do as they wished.

“In the end, it’s not by force. We believe in free will,” she said. “The purpose is to enlighten and guide our children so they can make the right choices.”

From a practical point of view, the biggest challenge to finding a spouse within the faith is the shortage of other Druze, especially outside the Middle East.

Many second-generation children of the diaspora visit Lebanon or Syria in hopes of finding a husband or wife--with mixed success.

Kaedbey’s husband, Firas Talhouk, recalled a cousin from Miami whose parents sent him to Lebanon one summer.

“All his mom’s friends stacked up their daughters and he was so happy,” Talhouk said. “He dated one each night and he’s like, ‘You know what, cuz? … I’m coming next summer, man.’ But he didn’t marry any of them.”

In the United States, annual conventions of the American Druze Society, which is based in San Antonio, have become a well-known matchmaking ground, with mixers and outings aimed at young people always on the schedule alongside religious presentations.

Muakkassa, the society’s current president, met her husband at a convention, as did the vice president, Labiba Harfouch, and her daughter. Some gatherings have included weddings.

Halabi, the young sheikh in Chicago, said he eventually wants to return to Lebanon, where he grew up, to marry and start a family with a Druze woman with similar religious views. But for now, he sees his mission as reaching the younger generation of Druze living in the United States.

“If they don’t know their identity, it’s easy to have them dissolve in the society we live in,” he said. “Once we abandon being Druze, we are just like all the other people around the world who have no identity.”

[eldritadh-a]

When I was 10 years old, I told my mother I wanted to practice Judaism.

This hadn’t come out of nowhere; Number the Stars lay on the bed in our tiny hotel room in Venice, and a few months earlier I had begged my mom to take me to the bookstore so I could buy The Diary of Anne Frank. I remember the woman at the checkout counter looked at me skeptically – tiny, round-faced, golden bangs swinging into my blue eyes – and warned my mother that this book might not be appropriate for someone my age. My mother – with her angled face and curly, dark hair – glanced down at me for a moment, then told the lady at the desk that I was reading well above my age group. She bought the book for me, and true to form, I finished it inside of a week. I read every book about the Holocaust I could get my hands on, every book about Jewish culture I could find in the library of my elementary school in some tiny Swiss village on the outskirts of a tiny Swiss city. The day after I informed my mom of my intentions, I begged her for the book of Hebrew folk tales I saw in the gift shop of the Venice Ghetto; the thing weighed as much as I did, and it took me a good long while to read in its entirety, which I was very happy about.

When I was 10 years old, sitting on the bed of that tiny Venice hotel room next to my copy of Number the Stars, I told my mom that I wanted to practice Judaism, and she looked at me in shock and anger. Looking back, I imagine that I can remember her eyes: blue, like mine. Looking back, I can imagine what was crossing her mind: her infant grandmother in the arms of her great-grandparents fleeing pogroms in Russia; her father, who never entered another synagogue after he joined the marines, who can recite Yeats but not the Torah; my agnostic father and his WASP family and the Italo-Jewish / Anglo-Celtic all-Bostonian schism, the walls of my dad’s parents’ house that whispered to my mother ‘you are not one of us’ even when nobody’s voices ever did.

But when I was 10 years old, steeped in stories about brave girls finding solace in humanity and their faith at a time when the entire world wanted them dead, I knew nothing of that more personal history. All I saw in her eyes like mine was a flash of anger that was also present in the next word out of her mouth: “why?”

I stumbled through an explanation about how fascinating and beautiful the religion seemed to me, how good it seemed, how loving. The distaste radiating from her was palpable; looking back, I see myself through her eyes, I see her through her own eyes. Blaming herself for this, for not anticipating this, what else could she expect from burying her Jewish-blooded daughter in literature written by other Jewish women’s daughters?

She watched me sharply while I muddled through my unrehearsed explanation. “You can do whatever you want when you grow up,” she told her 10-year-old, “but you should think hard about whether you really want to be Jewish, and don’t make any decisions right away.” It was the answer I had more or less expected – it was the same thing my dad had told me more broadly when I was much younger and wanted to go play on the Catholic school’s playground (not because I wanted to be Catholic, but because it looked like a really cool playground). It was the same answer, but from my mother, the shock and horror in it wasn’t something I could forget.

Years passed, and I stopped reading books about Jewish girls. My anthology of Hebrew folk tales went into storage in a basement somewhere. Off and on I considered taking Levenson -- my mother’s maiden name -- as my second middle name. I accepted that quarter of myself, but didn’t flaunt it – just as I quietly accepted the Italian, the Irish, the English, the German. The Morabito, the McElhinney, Ermalinde, the Mumford, the Carey.

Over the next decade and a half…

I learned that my mother had gotten plastic surgery on her nose when she was in high school to make it more generically European.

I learned about my great-grandmother, from Russia.

I looked for the name Levenson in lists.

I learned about the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, and wasn’t sure what to make of it.

I went to Prague, then to Terezin. I saw the ghettos, the graveyards, the concentration camps, the prisons. I saw the synagogues – the secret chambers beneath Terezin’s houses, the wooden parapets soaring over medieval stones by the ancient resting place of rabbis and scholars, the geometric canopies of gold and glass beside a headless statue of Kafka.

When my mom was in Indonesia, a tourist spoke to her in Hebrew because he mistook her for Israeli.

I told the boy I was dating that I was part Jewish. “Can’t you see it?” I asked him. He told me that when I had my hair braided, kind of. Otherwise, not really.

I asked my mother why she had allowed my dad’s family to pressure her into baptizing me as a Protestant. She said her father had taught her never to take a hard stance on anything, especially if it was something a Gentile wanted. To keep her head down if it wasn’t going to cause real damage. To let them do what they wanted, to not make a fuss, to not close any doors – just in case.

I learned more about the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, and took a hardline pro-Palestine stance. I condemned Israel and Zionists, and threw my support behind Palestine as hard as my little 20-something self could manage.

My mother and I learned simultaneously that the part of Russia her grandmother was from is now part of the Ukraine. My mom set to work learning everything she could about that particular town.

My grandfather had a heart attack and almost died, sparking a return to religion. He began to urge my mother to seek out the Jewish community where she lives – a community she had never been a part of in her entire life, mostly because he had made himself apart from it and brought his family with him. He began to urge her – now a very successful middle-aged UN staffer with a boyfriend – to find a Nice Jewish Boy to marry.

I took a slightly less hardline stance on the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis – one more in line with my belief in the goodness of people and the corruption and cruelty of governments.

Sometimes my mother and I would travel together, often with my little sister. We went back to Prague, went to Barcelona, to Rome. Wherever we went, my mom would seek out the Jewish quarter. She’d look for the ghettos, the synagogues, the statues, the placards. In Berlin we spent hours in museums, wandering through memorials. We let ourselves feel the enormity of the world’s grief. I learned to remember my heritage when it mattered, and detach myself when I needed to. In temples and synagogues; in museums and memorials; in the cemeteries raised up over the course of 800 years and those whose headstones still gleam in the sun 80 years after they were placed there in their thousands; under the weight of the holocaust; I am Jewish.

It’s been 14 years since that night in Venice.

I’m still blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and milk-skinned. Nobody looks at me and just knows. Even the curl of my hair could be Celtic or Italian as easily as it could be Semitic. I could bury that quarter of myself, or keep it so close to my body that no one will ever see it – sort of like I’ve been doing for the past 14 years, since that day when I was 10 and told my mom I wanted to be Jewish.

But I’ve spent too long feeling like an imposter in every identity I think might fit me. When I was 10 years old, I told my half-Jewish mother that I wanted to be Jewish; she told me to wait, to think long and hard about whether Jewishness was something I wanted to claim. I am a practicing Pagan and have no intention of changing that, but I am Jewish. My mother is non-practicing, but she is Jewish; my grandfather was non-practicing for most of his life, but he is Jewish; my great-grandmother never knew her home country because she was Jewish; my great-great-grandparents fled their home because they were Jewish. Why shouldn’t I be?

And if I can take pride in my Italian heritage and know the name of my German ancestor who lived 300 years ago, if I can know the names of my genocidal English forebears who arrived on the Mayflower and the Irish surname with its inconsistent spelling that my family lost somewhere along the way, then I can embrace the ethnicity that comprises a significant fraction of me, that, of the gifts my mother has passed down to me from my great-grandmother, is the least ephemeral.

So I’m Jewish. As much as I am English or Irish, even more than I am Italian or German, I am Jewish. 

Suck it, Nazis.

[paolodefalco]

best road race for runners Please see ourPrivacy

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[christianworldf]

New Post has been published on Nehemiah Reset

New Post has been published on https://nehemiahreset.org/christian-worldview-issues/trump-lashes-out-again-at-minority-lawmakers-as-house-prepares-to-condemn-his-racist-tweets/

Trump lashes out again at minority lawmakers as House prepares to condemn his racist tweets

John Wagner

National reporter leading The Post’s breaking political news team

Mike DeBonis

Congressional reporter covering the House of Representatives

July 16 at 1:32 PM

As the House of Representatives prepared to vote on a resolution condemning President Trump’s racist tweets about four minority lawmakers, he lashed out at the freshman Democrats again Tuesday and questioned why Congress was not rebuking them instead.

In a string of tweets throughout the morning, Trump also insisted his tweets were not racist — “I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!” he wrote — and urged fellow Republicans not to fall into a “trap” by voting Tuesday night on the Democratic-backed resolution.

“The Democrat Congresswomen have been spewing some of the most vile, hateful, and disgusting things ever said by a politician in the House or Senate, & yet they get a pass and a big embrace from the Democrat Party,” Trump wrote on Twitter, listing several grievances about the lawmakers. “Why isn’t the House voting to rebuke the filthy and hate laced things they have said? Because they are the Radical Left, and the Democrats are afraid to take them on. Sad!”

His tweets marked the third day in a row of attacks on the lawmakers — a series that began Sunday with tweets in which the president said the four Democrats should “go back” to “the crime infested places from which they came.” Three of the lawmakers were born in the United States, and the fourth is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Somalia.

[Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is met with fading resistance from Republican and corporate leaders]

Trump has not spelled out what specific comments from the congresswomen that he finds objectionable, and the White House has declined to provide more details.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, he held up some papers and claimed to have “a list of things here said by the congresswomen that is so bad, so horrible that I almost don’t want to read it.”

Asked where the four House Democratic congresswomen should go if they did leave the United States, Trump said “wherever they want, or they can stay.”

“But they should love our country. They shouldn’t hate our country,” he said.

Trump has been accused of racially inflammatory rhetoric both before and after assuming the presidency, including his questioning of former president Barack Obama’s birthplace, his assessment that there were “very fine people” on both sides of a deadly confrontation in Charlottesville and his musing that a federal judge could be biased against him given his Mexican heritage.

The resolution scheduled for a vote Tuesday night “strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”

Analysis | The complete list of GOP lawmakers reacting to Trump’s “go back” tweet

With his tweets Tuesday, Trump made clear that he doesn’t want Republicans to support the resolution. Doing so, he said, would “show ‘weakness.’ ”

At a news conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he would vote against the resolution and encourage other Republicans to vote against it as well. McCarthy said he did not consider Trump’s tweets to be racist.

“I believe this is about ideology,” he said. “It’s about socialism versus freedom.”

Congressional Republicans were largely silent Sunday after the Trump’s initial tweets — with some fearful of chastising a president popular with the party’s base — although a handful began speaking out critically Monday.

Tuesday’s vote will be a rare occasion when members of a Republican caucus that is overwhelming white and male will be forced to go on the record regarding Trump’s controversial rhetoric. During Trump’s first two and a half years in office, many lawmakers in his party have gone to great lengths to avoid criticizing him.

Meanwhile, the rebuke of Trump presents an opportunity for the Democratic caucus to unite around a common aim at a time when there has been infighting between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the four liberal lawmakers informally known as “the Squad” on Capitol Hill.

“We’ve got to say something,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.). “I think we would be complicit as a Congress if we didn’t speak out on this. All of us, people of color in my generation, we’ve heard the ‘go back to Africa’ stuff since I was a little boy growing up down in Texas. So we have to say something.”

[Share your story: Tell The Post about a time someone made you feel like an outsider in the U.S.]

The four Democrats — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) — held a news conference Monday in which they described themselves as part of a nation of tolerance that offers opportunity to people like themselves. Pressley was born in Cincinnati, Tlaib was born in Detroit and Ocasio-Cortez was born in New York. Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia; her family fled the country amid civil war when she was a child, and she became a U.S. citizen as a teenager.

In a tweet Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a district that includes part of Queens, took issue with Trump’s contention that he is not a racist.

“You’re right, Mr. President — you don’t have a racist bone in your body,” she wrote. “You have a racist mind in your head, and a racist heart in your chest. That’s why you violate the rights of children and tell the Congresswoman who represents your home borough, to ‘go back to my country.’ ”

Several Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday that while they supported the resolution backed by House leaders, they were interested in a more forceful response — such as a censure resolution introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and supported by the four liberal freshmen.

“I think there’s going to be a number of responses, and frankly I think what the president did was so egregious I think all of the responses are good,” said Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “So we’ll see what happens.”

House Rule Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a close Pelosi ally, said he was “not opposed” to censure but wanted to keep the focus of the day on the resolution so members can express their “deep reservations of concern on the House floor.”

“Look, this is an important vote we’re going to have today. This is the first time that I can recall that we’re actually … condemning the president for his words, which were racist, and it’s disgusting,” he said. “This is not normal. This is so divisive.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told reporters that she found Trump’s rhetoric “vile and disgusting.”

“He is targeting four excellent members of Congress, but he is also targeting the Constitution and our founding values and many of us brown and black folks across the country and actually many other people who have immigrant histories and came to this country because of what it represents.”

During a closed-door meeting of Democrats, Pelosi said she is hopeful the resolution condemning Trump’s tweet will win some Republican support.

“If they can’t support condemning the words of the President, well that’s a message in and of itself,” Pelosi said, according to a Democratic official in the room, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss internal discussions.

The Democrat Congresswomen have been spewing some of the most vile, hateful, and disgusting things ever said by a politician in the House or Senate, & yet they get a free pass and a big embrace from the Democrat Party. Horrible anti-Israel, anti-USA, pro-terrorist & public…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

…..shouting of the F…word, among many other terrible things, and the petrified Dems run for the hills. Why isn’t the House voting to rebuke the filthy and hate laced things they have said? Because they are the Radical Left, and the Democrats are afraid to take them on. Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also took aim at the four lawmakers Tuesday, saying during an appearance on Fox News that they “have done squat in Congress other than pose on magazine covers and go on late-night comedy shows and cause trouble in their own caucus.”

Conway also asserted that the four congresswomen “represent a dark underbelly in this country of people who are not respecting our troops, are not giving them the resources and the respect that they deserve,” citing several times they did not vote to support Trump on military issues.

In his latest tweets, Trump accused the four lawmakers of being “Horrible anti-Israel, anti-USA, pro-terrorist” and took issue with the “public shouting of the F . . . word, among many other terrible things.”

All four lawmakers have called for Trump’s impeachment, and Tlaib has done so using profane language.

Trump frequently used profanity at his campaign rallies, including one in Portsmouth, N.H., in February 2016 when he said that companies that have relocated overseas for more favorable tax rates can “go f— themselves.”

Trump’s comments on Israel and terrorism appeared to target Omar and Tlaib.

Earlier this year, Omar apologized after she was widely accused of anti-Semitism for suggesting that supporters of Israel’s government have an “allegiance to a foreign country.” She also came under scrutiny for a speech in which, while defending Muslims who lost their civil liberties in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, she said that “some people did something,” referring to the hijackers.

Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, has advocated a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arguing that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, she has supported the transformation of Israel into a single, jointly governed Arab-Jewish nation. The idea has little support among either Israelis or Palestinians.

Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body! The so-called vote to be taken is a Democrat con game. Republicans should not show “weakness” and fall into their trap. This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

…..Congresswomen, who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our Country. Get a list of the HORRIBLE things they have said. Omar is polling at 8%, Cortez at 21%. Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party. See you in 2020!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

In a later tweet Tuesday morning, Trump wrote: “Our Country is Free, Beautiful and Very Successful. If you hate our Country, or if you are not happy here, you can leave!”

That echoed comments Trump made Monday at a White House event staged to promote American-made products. At the event, Trump alleged the four lawmakers “hate our country” and said they should leave if they are unhappy.

In other tweets Tuesday, Trump repeated his assertion that the four lawmakers “hate our Country.”

“Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away, but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party,” he added. “See you in 2020!”

Rachael Bade, Colby Itkowitz, Ashley Parker and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

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[ruminativerabbi]

Die Kippa

As report after report confirms the rise of anti-Semitic incidents at home and abroad, the controversy surrounding the remarks of Felix Klein, Germany’s anti-Semitism commissioner seems worth considering carefully.

The whole brouhaha began innocently enough just a week ago when Klein told the Berliner Morgenpost, an important German newspaper, that he felt it unwise for Jews to wear kippot in the streets of Germany without first considering where they were and in whose company they might be finding themselves there. When I first read his remark, it didn’t seem that shocking to me. The German government recently reported a twenty percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in just one year. I have heard anecdotal evidence from friends in Germany in this regard: not that they feel unsafe as Jews living in Germany, merely that it would be foolhardy to advertise one’s Jewishness in the street in at least some neighborhoods. Klein then went on, entirely reasonably, to insist that Germany do better in educating its public officials, and specifically police officers, to recognize anti-Semitic gestures and slogans and to react to anti-Jewish agitation forcefully and decisively. That all sounded entirely right to me!

The response was complicated. Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, a Chabad rabbi stationed in Berlin, commented that, while he was sure that “Klein’s intentions were good,” he was also sure that “hiding our identity is never the solution.” That also sounded right to me too! Other Jewish spokespeople fell into step with Rabbi Teichtal, most speaking warmly about Felix Klein and admitting that he was certainly right technically, but feeling uncomfortable hearing a government minister appearing simply to accept the status quo as part of how things are and, at least for the foreseeable future, will be.

If anything, it was the response from the non-Jewish world that was surprising…and far less charitable. Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian Minister of the Interior and a member of a right-wing Christian party, commented that “everyone can and should wear a kippah wherever and whenever he wants to.” And then he went on to warn specifically about the dangers of giving in “to the hatred of the Jews” and making it clear why this should be a matter of deep concern not just for Jews but for non-Jewish Germans as well. Now I’m really not sure what I think: he sounded right too!

But if the response from inside Germany was emotional and strongly put, the response from outside Germany was even more shrill. The President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, pronounced himself “deeply shocked” by Klein’s remark. And then he went on to note without any trace of historical irony that “responsibility for the welfare, the freedom and the right to religious belief of every member of the German Jewish community is in the hands of the German government and its law enforcement agencies.” And then, speaking for his nation more than just for himself, the President went on to say this: “We acknowledge and appreciate the moral position of the German government, and its commitment to the Jewish community that lives there, but fears about the security of German Jews are a capitulation to anti-Semitism and an admittance that, again, Jews are not safe on German soil. We will never submit, will never lower our gaze and will never react to anti-Semitism with defeatism – and expect and demand our allies act in the same way.” So what can I say? He’s right too!

The national newspaper, Bild, one of Germany’s largest, went so far—is this beyond bizarre or truly touching?—they went so far as to publish a kippah in the newspaper that sympathetic citizens could cut out, paste together, and then presumably wear in the streets of Germany as a kind of public rejection of the kind of anti-Jewish sentiment that Klein was decrying in his interview with the Morgenpost.

The headline was unambiguous: “Show Your Solidarity with Your Jewish Neighbors! Make the Bild-Kippa.” The copy beneath the cut-out was what you’d expect, but was somehow still very moving: “If even one person here can’t safely wear a kippah, then the answer can only be that we’re all going to wear the kippah.” And then, for people unfamiliar with the concept, Bild offered even more explicit instructions: “Place the kippah on the back of your head and attach it to your hair with a hairclip. Done!” But it was the words of Bild editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt that stopped me in my tracks: “Die Kippa gehört zu Deutschland,” he wrote: The kippah belongs to Germany. It’s hard to know what to say to that!

This whole incident feels personal to me.

Joan and I lived in Germany before reunification, when Heidelberg was still in West Germany. But that’s not the only way Germany was a different place back then. The war was in the past, for example, but not that far in the past. I was present in Heidelberg on May 8, 1985, the fortieth anniversary of German’s unconditional surrender to the Allied Forces under the leadership of General Eisenhower, for example, and at several ceremonies I attended surrounding that anniversary I took note of the presence of actual Wehrmacht veterans, many of who were younger then than I am now. (I write about this now with a certain level of sang-froid. But it was beyond creepy to be there at the time, unsettling and wholly unnerving for me actually to see these people in the flesh.) I had students young enough then to be the children, not the grandchildren, of Nazis. One of my students’ own grandfathers had been a guard at Sobibor. The basic story of the Shoah was known to educated people, of course, but the details were so regularly brushed past for the 1979 broadcast of the American mini-series Holocaust, starring (among many others) Meryl Streep, James Woods, Joseph Bottoms, Michael Moriarty, and Tovah Feldshuh, to be able to capture the attention of an unprecedented number of viewers. Fifty percent of the entire population of Germany, 20 million people, watched the series. After each episode, a panel of historians appeared on screen to take questions from viewers, but no one expected there to be thousands of calls—or, more amazingly, for most of them to be from people who seemed to have previously known nothing about Treblinka or Babi Yar. The national catharsis surrounding that show, in fact, was sufficiently intense for people still to be talking about it five years later when I arrived in Heidelberg in 1984.

Germans have grappled with their own heritage for decades now. They seem to veer back and forth, sometimes embracing the horrific nature of their own nation’s war crimes and other times backing off from accepting what must for most be the almost unbearable burden of history. When Henryk M. Broder wrote in 1986 that the Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz, he was saying something profound about the amount of energy and steadfastness it takes for a nation to consider crimes on the scale of the Nazis’ war against the Jews without flinching or seeking the blame the victims. He made that comment in 1986, but the comment just last year of Alexander Gauland, co-leader of the extreme rightist party Alternative für Deutschland, that the Shoah was merely “a speck of bird poop on a trajectory of German history that has gone on for a thousand years,” he was essentially saying the same thing. Yes, he was speaking in a crass, vulgar way, but he was nonetheless giving voice to a deep wish of all Germans: that the nation of Kant, Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven not solely be remembered for Sobibor. I imagine I’d feel the same way if I were in his boots! And yet…the bottom line is that having illustrious ancestors does not exonerate anybody of anything. And I have to assume that Alexander Gauland knows that as well.

Other nations that collaborated in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors have yet even to begin to come up to Germany’s level of self-analysis and acceptance. (And in that regard, I think not only of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, but also of nations like France and Holland, whose perception of themselves as victim-states has almost entirely rid them of the need to confront their own wartime perfidy with respect to their Jewish co-citizens.) For one thing, other than Germany and our own country, how many nations even have federal officials tasked with addressing anti-Semitism? And also worth noting is that, in the end, Felix Klein did backtrack and announced that he had merely been speaking in a monitory voice intended to awaken people to a serious problem, not actually suggesting that Jewish people should be afraid to identify in public as Jews.

The German blogosphere is busy debating the question of whether the “real” problem with anti-Semitism in Germany today has more to do with the resurgence of the German version of the alt-right or the deeply engrained hatred of Israel that festers in parts of Germany’s Muslim community. There are reasons to see it both ways, but the bottom line has to be that the Germans are trying to do the right thing, both by their current Jewish citizens and also by the generations whose ongoing existence was brutally terminated by the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of today’s Germans. As Simon Wiesenthal taught over and over, only the dead can forgive their murderers. Surely the living cannot speak for them. But we who are alive today can note that, despite the dark forces that continue to gather force in the various lands of our dispersion, there are also decent people in the world for whom anti-Semitism is anathema. We should hold that thought close to our breasts as we do what we can to combat the forces of hatred that seem to exist in an eternal cycle of dormancy and revivification. Sometimes fighting the battle is winning the war.  

[the-record-columns]

April 24, 2019: Columns

Call your mother...

                Cary Welborn

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Just three short weeks ago I wrote about the death of my father, Rev. C. S. Welborn, in March of 1995.

This Friday, April 26, will be the anniversary of the death of my mother, Cary. She was a widow but 30 days.

About two weeks after my dad died, mother told me and my brother, T. A., that she was going to "...go be with your daddy."  In the 10 or 15 years prior to that, she wouldn't have changed brand of dish detergent without first running it by T. A.

This was different.

She was clear, she was sure, and she assured us of two things in that conversation—first that we would be fine—she had raised us well and it was natural to bury your parents. Then she ended the conversation with her second comment—her oft noted thankfulness that she never had to bury a child—that, in her words, was "...unnatural" or "...out of order."

About two weeks later, she went to sleep surrounded by her family on the evening of April 25, after listening to a series of hymns sung by an amazingly kind soul named Floranna Williams.  She died peacefully in the early morning hours that followed.

It never changes for me. 

It still seems like a blink of the eye, though 24 years have passed.  I still feel like I am 8 years old picking blackberries for my mother with Mark Goodman for the cobbler we would shortly devour. I am at my birthday party when I was 7 where even my crabby first grade teacher showed up.  Her name was Minnie Horton and she had literally struck terror in the hearts of Hinshaw Street’s "Great Unwashed."   And, speaking of teachers, I had Miss Elizabeth Finley in the second grade—literally going from the frying pan into the fire.

But, in fairness, I must quote my once feared but now revered elementary school principal, Conrad Shaw, that "...none of us were any worse for the wear."

I have heard my mother say it is all right to spoil a child if you spoil him with love, and she practiced what she preached. I often remind all that I was my mother, Cary's, baby boy, but the truth is we were all blessed with a kind and caring mother who went far beyond being a wonderful cook and homemaker.

She taught us to live by the simple rule of treating everyone as we would like to be treated, assuring us that helping others would always be reward enough in itself.  I will never forget the last meal my mother fixed for me in August of 1994—for my birthday.  As I sat eating myself under the table, she sat smiling, saying little but with eyes that spoke volumes about this slight, frail woman who wanted nothing more than to see her baby boy happy.

I know my mother overdid it that day.  Once again she had put the welfare or happiness of someone else ahead of her own, a trait for which she is often remembered.

During the time when my father was beginning to fade away, what I didn't know was that she would not let him go by himself.  Or, perhaps more to the point, that he would be waiting—impatiently—for her to arrive.

So. 

 Twenty four years have gone by.  Now, more than ever, I treasure the memories of my mother, I treasure the lessons I learned at her feet, I treasure the kindness she showed me and everyone she met, and, perhaps most of all, I have come to truly appreciate what unconditional love is.

Clearly, to know my mother, Cary, was to love her, but to love her like I loved her is also to miss her terribly.  No one could ever put things better that the late Lewis Grizzard who once wrote, "Call your mother—I sure wish I could."

Oh, how I wish I could.

                                                  Cary Potts Welborn

                                         April 13, 1916-April 26, 1995

                                                     Rest in Peace

  “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

If you’re reading this, congratulations!

You have survived the rapture!

Last week I read an article where Fox news reported that prominent “Christian Numerologist” David Meade predicted the Rapture for April 23 according to Biblical prophecy. (For those of you unfamiliar with the belief, some Christians think they will rise in the sky and meet Jesus at the end of the world.)

My immediate thought went straight to the compassion of Christ. Most rapture days are random numbers thrown into a regularly mundane week. Not this time. It’s two days after Easter, so not only are we all rising within days of when Christ did, but we got time to digest Easter dinner and all the candy. Can I get an Amen?

Back to the theory: Based on Revelation 12:1–2, Meade says our time marker is the alignment the moon appearing under the feet of the Constellation Virgo, the sun appearing to “clothe” Virgo, the nine stars of Leo, and the three planetary alignments of Mercury, Venus and Mars –combine to make a count of 12 stars on the head of Virgo, represent a unique once-in-a-century sign exactly as depicted in the verses, which all happen on April 23.  

Of course, Meade also says that Nibiru (planet x) is responsible for this alignment will appear above the sky causing volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes. Never mind that NASA has repeatedly pointed out that planet is a hoax, and put out a statement saying, “No giant, rogue planet has been found in the outer solar system to play the role of Nibiru.” But that doesn’t stop it from popping up in forecasts of doom.

That being said, if the rapture happens there will inadvertently be some of us left. Hopefully you have a plan B for the post-rapture world. I hope there will be more dance numbers, special effects and background music in everyday life.

However, if you don’t have a plan, allow me to suggest a few things:

Practice cursive handwriting- it’s becoming quite a lost art and I’m tired of trying to translate chicken scratch. In fact, work on penmanship all together.

Increase your vocabulary. If you find yourself running pell mell down the sidewalk after assuming you’d be taken, use ratiocination and coddiwomple to the closet library. There’s nothing that your favorite book and a nice cup of tea can’t fix.

Try to be a good human. It never fails to amaze me that the most hateful people wonder “why me” when they get hit by a fruit truck.  

Saturday people followed by Sunday people

By EARL COX

Special to The Record

Today, the United  States and other democracies around the world face the most insidious ideological threat in history. What I’m referring to is the political, religious, secular and legal doctrine and system known as Sharia which governs the Islamic world.  

There are more than fifty Muslim majority countries on earth with close to two billion adherents of the Islamic faith.  This figure  represents more than 22 percent of the world’s population.  If their philosophy were to “live and let live,” there would be no rising threat.  However, their goal is not peaceful coexistence but rather the domination and annihilation of all who do not worship Allah and they will settle for nothing less.  The best tool against the global ambitions of militant Islamists is to have an educated and well-informed populace.  Burying our heads in the sand and remaining ignorant of the evil forces at play in the world around us will only allow this danger to grow. 

Israel is on the frontlines of the world’s war on terror and the fight against the cancerous spread of radical Islam.  We’ve all heard the saying, “Know your enemy.”  Well, Israel is under no false illusions.  She knows that Islamic terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram, to name only a few, have their sights laser focused on the destruction of Israel. 

According to Islamic teaching, there is no room in this world for infidels which, when translated, means Jews and Christians must be killed. That, my friends, means you and me. 

Sadly, many Christians today are fairly uninformed about the ever-growing threats facing Israel from her Arab neighbors.  Imagine Iran with nuclear weapons whose brand of Islamic militancy knows no bounds.  Israel fully recognizes that, “if your enemy says they are going to kill you, believe them.” Here in the United  States we’ve been a bit slower at learning this lesson in favor of political correctness and appeasement.  Remember, Islam is determined to destroy the Saturday people followed by the Sunday people.  We must believe them or suffer the consequences.  How did it happen that those counted among America’s enemies have offices in the Congress of the United States? 

“We the People” no longer collectively embrace the same values and beliefs upon which our great country was founded.  We’ve pushed God out of our schools and other institutions and opened the door for Allah.  Are we still a Christian nation?  In Europe, less than 50% of the population claims to be Christian. On the other hand, Israel is holding fast and firm to her Jewishness and her right to exist as a Jewish state.  No matter the peace deal placed on the table, for Israel this is nonnegotiable.  Those of us in America who still love God and embrace the fundamental values upon which our country was founded, must stand up and be counted and we must stand with Israel, our only true friend and ally in the Middle East. 

 Whiskey, Cornbread and a guest from Denmark

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

It was a nice week.

Spring was showing off her fresh colors and the pollen count was high; but then it rained, and the wind blew much of the beautiful misery away.  

Saturday was stable enough for the Copper Barrel Distillery annual event, Shinetopia; an outdoor benefit concert, cook-off and car show around the heritage of moonshine.  

Everyone seemed to be having a great time. The Moon Runners Food Truck’s meatloaf on a stick was a huge hit. Cameraman Tim said the delightful meatloaf, snugly wrapped with bacon and glazed with a BBQ moonshine sauce, was a treat fit for Nordic nobility. Shiners Stash Jerky was another big hit, with their sample of moonshine infused jerky with various flavor profiles.

Listing to story-teller Dub Harris recount tales of moonshiners from his youth, it was not hard to imagine them in the woods making a fresh batch of whiskey and chewing on some jerky to fuel the long hours of work.

And then I met Ila Dean Hayes who had two submissions for the corn bread cook off. She is a charming lady with children and grandchildren who unconditionally love her rendition of traditional corn bread.

“It’s important that it’s made in a cast iron skillet that has a slight outward slop,” she said.

With such a glowing review, pride in her culinary mastery and endorsements by so many who love her, I naturally ask for the recipe.

My request was somewhat fulfilled in that she did share the simple list of ingredients; however, she did not share the amounts because she has never used exact measurements. For Ila, it’s a feeling about how much is right. She just knows how much to use and that’s the way it is.

She did share that for many years she has only used the fresh ground cornmeal from Linneys Mill. “It’s fresh and it taste good,” she said.

Ila knows how to carry on a good conversation. I was honored to get to know her and I was pleased to see at the end of the day that with steep completion, Ila received two mentions for her traditional cornbread submissions; An honorable mention for one and second place for another; however there is no doubt in my mind that for those who love Ila, she always comes in first place.

A few days later I visited with Jan Kronsell from Denmark.

Over the past 19 years, he has taken vacation in the United States and 14 of the 19 years he has visited the Carolinas. He often stays in a bed and breakfast because he feels as if he gets to know the local area better. We had a great visit and made plans to visit again when Jan and his family return to the U.S. for summer travels. Jan is one of the many who have become captivated by Tom Dooley’s story. It’s interesting that a person form Denmark would take on the task of learning so much about our legendary Tom Dooley, so much so that Jan recently released a novella on the subject titled, “The Doctor’s Secret.” Another book is in the works as well.

The Carolinas have many fascinations that spark the curious nature of those not from here. It’s a nice thing to take a moment and get to know those who visit. In doing so, we make new friends who will often visit again.

 Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 10th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My 12. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at Carl@lifeinthecarolinas.com