A Big Wind...

A big wind is coming here on the cusp of late spring. Big enough to carry our little Cello to the heavens. Time to batten down the hatches, but dangerous winds have been blowing for a long time now. I think of the wind that blows through the subway tunnels of my old home town, the hollowing winds of hate blowing off the those grim -tiled walls, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man--Support Israel, Defeat Jihad." See if you can escape this wind by pretending you do not see, by turning your back on the ugliness of Jewish extremism, as ugly as any other in this world of  hate filled- word storms. The woman responsible for this so old old division of the world, this division of who is human and who is not, makes a life out of taking the life out of others in the name of protecting Jews. Money and hatred, money and ignorance--painting the walls of a great city. Let other winds come, let the shanda stand exposed, the shame of it all, not in our Jewish name, not our Star of David. Judith Butler receives an award in Germany, and the streets outside the hall fills with zealots, calling her a traitor. Their winds of intolerance patrol the borders of public speech, denying thinkers like Iilan Pappe a German audience. Twisted in its own guilt, the Germans can't sustain their own commitment to free speech, a frail candle in the face of torrents of warnings. I stand with so many other Jews and others, who know raising Israel above criticism, is a dead end not only for Israel but more and more, for all of us on this howling planet. The suffering of the Palestinian people is not a secret to be whispered in the small corridors of power. It is there for all of us to see as is their strength of struggle to try to keep their olive trees greens, their familial wells still running with water, their children finding the cracks in the wall that lets hope in. Let those words in the wind-filled tunnels be cast into the disgrace they deserve by the rush of the multitude, diverse and wondrous, the tumultuous rushing of the people of New York, away from the Gellers of the world, into the winds of complex understandings, sometimes ragged at the edges but so filled with human possibilities.