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Op-Ed: Finding alternatives to Critical Race Theory in PA schools – GoErie.com

Posted By on September 14, 2021

By Christopher Brooks| Erie Times-News

This summer, critical race theory has erupted as a major issue in Pennsylvania school districts, especially among concerned suburban parents. At first glance, the theory, with intellectual roots dating to the 1970s in the U.S. and Europe, seems purely academic in nature. In reality, CRT has neo-Marxist underpinnings that have since entered American institutions, most notably universities, and even influenced public policy.

Since last year, CRT has received widespread criticism for divisive, identity-driven ideas, while CRT proponents have defended its social-justice concepts. The intense debate is evident in the Keystone States suburban schools.

Consider the case of Greater Philadelphias Chester County, a suburban bellwether in recent election cycles. Last month, writing in a local newspaper, the countys Democratic committee chairwoman lamented laws restricting teachers ability to educate their students honestly and openly about what she viewed as legitimate, fact-based United States history. Shortly thereafter, in the county borough of West Chester, an Iranian-born mother was silenced by the local school board when voicing her concerns about CRT. Noting how her native country was ravaged by communism, the mother expressed her opposition to CRT.

Both instances illustrated how CRT has polarized local school districts. For now, an impasse continues as locals in West Chester and elsewhere argue over the best approach to teaching the history of slavery in America.

Parents concerns are hardly imaginary. Writings by CRT advocates reflect a neo-Marxist ideology that supports destroying Americas foundational principles. As CRT theorists Jean Stephanic and Richard Delgado maintain, racism is not an anomaly or deviation that society should punish, but an all-encompassing evil. Their only solution is to destroy the old order and build anew though they do not define who possesses the collective authority to be the builders, let alone the architects, of this new society.

To avoid such an extreme approach, one method for inclusive school curricula might be studying the African diaspora as one would any other diaspora. The study of Africas diaspora, which began at a 1965 conference in Tanzania, has called for drawing attention to African history based on its own merits not solely through colonialist prisms. Students have long studied the dispersion of various peoples. The study of African peoples deserves the same treatment.

What would this sort of real inclusion look like in classrooms? The evil of slavery is an important chapter in the African past but so is the story of Malis King Masu Mansa, one of the richest men who ever lived, or of Africa as home to the worlds oldest written languages.

Including such historical background in a world or Western Civilizations course doesnt necessitate the exclusion of Europeans or any other group. Studying the African diaspora takes an it is what it is approach the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Overall, applying diaspora studies as a means of telling the totality of Africans story avoids a presentation of reified history. In the Marxist sense meant here, this Verdinglichung, or making into a thing, involves a process whereby social relations are seen as inherent characteristics of those involved in them. Its a case of mistaking the idea for the thing, the map for the territory.

We can study the history of African peoples the same way we study other immigrant stories. Its an honest approach that could resonate with the majority of parents and others in the middle, who neither wish to deny Americas troubled past nor embrace a refutation of what makes our country special.

Christopher Brooks is a professor of history at East Stroudsburg University. This piece first appeared on RealClearPolicy.com.

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Op-Ed: Finding alternatives to Critical Race Theory in PA schools - GoErie.com

Together and in Person: Everybody Dance Now – The New York Times

Posted By on September 14, 2021

The pandemic brought dance to a halt on multiple fronts, shutting down not only theaters but also the spaces where dancers train. Alongside the gradual return of live performance in New York, dance studios have been making a cautious comeback, as they reopen for in-person classes with safety protocols in place.

Thats good news for anyone, professional or amateur, who has grown weary of dancing at home, alone, in front of a screen. Across the city this fall, opportunities to dance offline abound: One way to shake off the pandemic blues, even as the pandemic presses on.

As much as were thankful for being able to work virtually, its a completely different energy to be with each other in person, said Jimena Martinez, the executive director and co-founder of Cumbe: Center for African and Diaspora Dance in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Like many dance studios, Cumbe switched to a fully online schedule early in the pandemic. Its indoor, in-person classes in forms like Afro-Haitian dance, Samba and Chicago-Style Steppin resumed this month. (The studio continues to offer virtual and outdoor classes.)

Martinez said online classes have had their benefits, attracting new students from beyond Brooklyn who couldnt normally get to the studio. But the joyful, even therapeutic power of dancing together in a shared space with live drumming, a staple of many Cumbe classes has been hard to replicate on Zoom.

Some New York studios have been offering in-person classes since the spring, or even earlier. Whats new this fall, in keeping with city guidelines, is the requirement that students show proof of vaccination.

Amid so much change and uncertainty, clear communication about Covid-19 protocols can be reassuring. For the dancer and choreographer Garnet Henderson, thats been a draw of Steps on Broadway, on the Upper West Side, where she has been taking ballet classes since May.

It seems like they care about keeping everybody safe, which is good, said Henderson, who isnt deterred by the requirement that students wear masks while dancing. The studio is an upgrade over her living room.

I really missed having a proper floor and space to do jumps and waltzes and the bigger traveling exercises of ballet class, she said, because thats the fun part.

As indoor classes have resumed at other long-established studios like Peridance, Gibney and Mark Morris Dance Center, to name just a few newer outdoor offerings have also emerged. Early in the pandemic, a savvy group of dancers swiftly organized freeskewl, an online class platform that has since expanded to include outdoor classes. (The latest schedule is at freeskewl.com.) In Prospect Park, the year-old Improv Club hosts movement improvisation sessions for people with any level of dance experience. (For updates, follow @improvclub_ on Instagram.) And at parks and plazas around the city, Dances for a Variable Population hosts creative movement classes for older adults of all abilities. (See dvpnyc.org for details.)

For many organizations, virtual classes arent going anywhere. The Merce Cunningham Trust, for instance, has been offering free daily classes via Instagram since March 2020; these will continue three times a week as daily Cunningham technique classes return to City Center (the Trusts home base).

Brandon Collwes, a Cunningham instructor, said the Instagram classes have increased access to work that can often feel intimidating. Already, he has noticed a more diverse group of students at his in-person classes, which he attributes in part to this greater accessibility. The change excites him. It feels like something has shifted, he said.

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Together and in Person: Everybody Dance Now - The New York Times

Remittances to Nigeria, others might drop to $41bn this year – Guardian Nigeria

Posted By on September 14, 2021

The report titled, African regional review of implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, was produced by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC). It builds from four sub-regional reports compiled by AUC and a summary from stakeholder consultations at the just concluded 2021 African regional review meeting on the Global Compact for migration.

The World Bank had reported that remittances by Nigerians in diaspora fell by 27.7 per cent to $16.8 billion in 2020 from $23.24 billion.

The World Bank disclosed this in a report titled, Migration and Development Brief, which also revealed that remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries fell by 1.6 per cent to $540 billion in 2020 from $548 billion in 2019.

The report, which provided updates on global trends in migration and remittances, revealed that remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa fell by 12.5 per cent to $42 billion in 2020, with Nigeria accounting for 40 per cent of the remittances into the subcontinent. The report stated: Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa declined by an estimated 12.5 per cent in 2020 to $42 billion.

The decline was almost entirely due to a 27.7 per cent decline in remittance flows to Nigeria, which alone accounted for over 40 per cent of remittance flows to the region.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic was expected to lead to a decrease in remittances to Africa in 2020, findings of the reports show that by October 2020 remittances to Africa had reached approximately $78.4 billion, constituting 11.7 per cent of global remittances. Remittances have therefore demonstrated greater resilience and reliability as a source of capital in Africa than foreign direct investment flows.

It recommends that governments across the world should take effective action to facilitate and boost remittances in view of supporting the fight against COVID-19 and ultimately building a more sustainable post-pandemic world.

According to the report, the costs associated with sending remittances to Africa are some of the highest in the world. Until very recently, average transaction costs were equivalent to 8.9 per cent of the amount being sent for a remittance payment of $200,

With respect to the cost of sending money, the report says Africa is still far from achieving the 3 percent target set out in Sustainable Development Goal 10.

The Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development and Sustainable Development Goal indicator 10(c) provides that countries should, by 2030, reduce to less than 3 percent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 percent.

Remittances are estimated to constitute approximately 65 per cent of the income of some receiving countries and senders spend an estimated 15 percent of their income on remittances.

For 25 African countries, all of which have large diaspora populations, remittances are the primary source of national income.

In response, a number of African countries have acted to lower the costs of remittance transfers. Some countries also offer diaspora bonds to investors and have relaxed foreign exchange controls to allow for electronic and mobile money transfers at reduced costs.

It should be noted, in that regard, that the use of digital money transfer platforms reduces transfer fees in Africa by an average of 7 per cent, says the report.

Private financial institutions also offer incentives to encourage members of diaspora communities to use their services, including low transaction fees for remittances, and facilitate diaspora-initiated projects, especially in the real estate sector. These measures all promote the financial inclusion of migrants and their families.

The report recommends that member States should support migrants and their families through the adoption of laws and regulations to facilitate the sending and receiving of remittances, including by fostering competition among banks and other remittance handling agencies with a view to establishing low-cost transfer mechanisms.

African countries should also make every effort to reduce the transfer costs associated with remittance payments, inter alia, by making more extensive use of digital transfer solutions, such as MPESA, and by streamlining the regulatory constraints associated with international money transfers. African States should also engage with destination countries to identify ways to enhance the provision of basic services to migrants in those countries.

To achieve Global Compact objectives 1, 3, 7, 17 and 23, member States should implement steps proposed in the context of regional economic community-led dialogues on migration; and consider the increasingly important role played by diaspora communities in fostering development, including through remittance payments, skills development initiatives and the adoption of emerging technologies.

ECA projects that remittance inflows to Africa could decline by 21 percent in 2020, implying $18 billion less will go to the people who rely on that money. It is therefore critical to preserve this essential lifeline. As the world enters an economic downturn, remittance flows will be more important than ever for the poorest and most vulnerable people, especially those without access to economic and social safety nets.

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Remittances to Nigeria, others might drop to $41bn this year - Guardian Nigeria

What To Do This Week: September 15 20 The Nob Hill Gazette – Nob Hill Gazette

Posted By on September 14, 2021

As we transition into the time warp that rushes us from Labor Day to New Years Eve, lets take a moment to appreciate the array of artistic and cultural celebrations occurring throughout the Bay. This week, be sure to take advantage of the talks, exhibits, performances and more from some of our favorite institutions and organizations.

The San Francisco Library presents VIVA! Latinx Hispanic Heritage Month, an annual celebration of Latinx heritage, cultures and traditions. On Wednesday, catch a lunchtime poetry performance on the Larkin Street Steps with Josiah Luis Alderete, Alan Chazaro, Florencia Milito and Susana Praver-Prez. Then tune in that evening as Michael Nava curates a panel of Latinx mystery and crime writers featuring Alex Segura, Raquel V. Reyes, Richie Narvaez and Lucha Corpi.

Wednesday, September 15, 121 p.m. and 78 p.m.Info: sfpl.org/events/special-programs/viva-latinx-heritage-month-2021

Oaklands awesome new American brasserie, Tribune, will be hosting a series of weekly guest bartenders every Thursday in September. The event kicked off last week with Elmer Mejicanos of Red Window, but dont worry you still have plenty of chances to enjoy creative takes from talented mixologists, including Nora Furst of the forthcoming Buddy Bar in San Francisco and beverage consultant with West Bev who will create low-ABV cocktails on September 16. The restaurant will also serve up light snacks along with its signature Tribune Burger, which comes with Lolla Rosa lettuce and caramelized red onion schmear atop a toasted, sweet potato Firebrand bun.

Thursday, September 16, 5 p.m.Info: tribuneoakland.com

Starting this week, Wine Country marketplace Cornerstone Sonoma will be presenting Elements of Nature in collaboration with SLATE Contemporary Gallery. The partnership is the second in a series of three art exhibitions at Cornerstones SBHG Gallery that will run approximately eight weeks each through December 2021. The featured artists for this show were inspired by the natural beauty of California and the main wall will showcase camera-less photography by Montara-based Robert Buelteman.

Thursday, September 16, through Sunday, November 7Info: cornerstonesonoma.com

The Asian Art Museum celebrates the publication of two new books with readings by Jaime Cortez and Claire Light, moderated by artist and author Joel Tan. Cortez will read from his debut collection of short stories, Gordo, set in a 1970s migrant workers camp near Watsonville, while Light will read from her debut urban fantasy novel, Monkey Around. The action-filled tale inspired by the myth of the Monkey King is set in San Francisco and written under the pen name Jadie Jang. This in-person event will also include a Q&A.

Thursday, September 16, 6 p.m.Info: buy.acmeticketing.com/events/474/detail/60c90ebeb972650c68b93905?date=2021-09-16&utm_source=Asian%20Art%20Museum%20E-Mail%20List&utm_campaign=ca71239e96-Likeness%20and%20Legacy%20%26%20Upcoming%20Events%208%2F26%2F21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_209746a178-ca71239e96-225788814

Dont miss Leela Dance Collectives ReSound, a three-day celebration of kathak dance. Free street performances will take place all over the Bay Area, in locations such as Union Square, Japantown Peace Plaza, UC Berkeley and Lake Merritt. Kathak dance one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance is known for its inclusion of percussive footwork, quick pirouettes, heart-pumping music and more. If you want to try your hand, there will be plenty of workshops for aspiring dancers (with a fee of $10).

Friday, September 17, through Sunday, September 19Info: leela.dance/resound

American pianist Claire Huangci will open San Joses Steinway Societys concert hall series this month with a program including Beethovens Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No. 2 (Moonlight Sonata). Huangci began her international career at age 9 and earned first prizes at the Chopin competitions in Darmstadt, Germany, and Miami in 2009 and 2010. She has performed solo as well as with international orchestras across Europe, Asia and North America.

Friday, September 17, through Monday, September 20Info: steinwaysociety.com

After a year-long hiatus, the San Francisco Botanical Garden and Sunset Piano are excited to present their unique and innovative Flower Piano once again in Golden Gate Park. With open access to music and pianos in nature, participants are encouraged to explore the gardens living plant collections as they seek out the musical instruments. There will be scheduled professional performances, open play time for anyone and community partner shows.

Friday, September 17, through Tuesday, September 21Info: sfbg.org/flowerpiano

The San Jos Museum of Art presents its virtual Gala + Auction this weekend, celebrating art and philanthropy and honoring patrons Mary Mocas and Marv Tseu, as well as artist Rina Banerjee. The event is also dedicated to the memory of Hung Liu, who served as the galas co-chair along with fellow SJMA Trustee Tammy A. Kiely. Funds raised from the evening will support the museum, and 10 percent of the auction proceeds donated to the Asian Pacific Fund. The event is free to watch online and will be broadcasted live.

Saturday, September 18, 6 p.m.Info: sjmusart.org/2021Gala

Award-winning pianist Adam Golka headlines California Symphonys season opener this week, performing Beethovens The Emperor Concerto. Director Donato Cabrera planned the program during the pandemic as a way to bring comfort to Bay Area music fans. The event will also feature Vaughan Williams rarely performed Symphony No. 5 and Marianna Martines Sinfonia.

Saturday, September 18, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, September 19, 4 p.m.Info: https://www.californiasymphony.org/

Purchase a ticket to the Contemporary Jewish Museum and score a free ticket to the outdoor community celebration commemorating the recent opening of Experience Leonard Cohen. The day of music and poetry in Jessie Square Plaza will include stories from Sylvie Simmons, author of Im Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen; performances by nonprofit acapella Cohen choir Conspiracy of Beards; and poetry readings by James Cagney, Lee Herrick, Renny Pritikin and Alia Volz. The exhibition itself is definitely worth a visit it explores the legendary singer, poet and authors commitment to questions of spirituality through the lens of other great artists.

Sunday, September 19, 11 a.m.2 p.m.Info: thecjm.org/exhibitions/116

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What To Do This Week: September 15 20 The Nob Hill Gazette - Nob Hill Gazette

Featured Story: Creating a UofL Health System That Works for the City, State and Patients – The Lane Report

Posted By on September 14, 2021

By Mark Green

Mark Green: You came to UofL Health from out of town at a crucial moment and quickly made the momentous decision to acquire the KentuckyOne Health properties, which included Jewish Hospital, Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, Brown Cancer Center and Frazier Rehab. Did your experience as CEO of the Quorum Health hospital system in Nashville give you a previous opportunity to assess the Louisville market?

Tom Miller: I had worked in multihospital systems, bringing together hospitals to work as a system. Up in Fort Wayne, Ind., we started with one hospital; we grew to 10 hospitals and operated as a system. I got asked to come to the corporate office there to lead one of the divisionswhich was multistateand manage those individual hospitals into something that would be system-related.

When I moved to Quorum, a publicly traded company, we had 38 owned hospitals and 100 managed hospitals. My background has been in trying to work not as individual hospitals but as hospital systems. I had retired from Quorum and was on the beach in the panhandle of Florida when I got a call: Would I consider coming to Louisville? I had known the Louisville market because one of my responsibilities had been Kentucky and we were considering the acquisition in Kentucky of those hospitals here that got bought by CHI (Catholic Health Initiatives) for KentuckyOne. We didnt go forward with that, but I did get to assess those hospitals and I knew a little about it.

I was initially asked just to come assess the situation with KentuckyOne. The feeling of the university board at that time was that those hospitals were integral to the medical school of the community because so many of the faculty provided care there. Yet there was concern about an investment in a group of hospitals that was losing significant amounts of money. The initial thought was, lets continue to work with whoever would be the next owner and find a way to partner. As time went on, finding a new owner just didnt happen in a way that anybody thought was appropriate, and CHI was having to make decisions. We assessed this and with the support of everyone and the university board, the recommendation was that we bring these together and operate them as a system. I would say its been good for the community, its been good for the university, and its been good for us. And I hope for the patients that we take care of, that we now have resources to be able to meet their needs.

And think if those hospitals had closed under a COVID situation. We are absolutely full this morning. I dont know where those patients would have gone for care. When we first took over Jewish (Hospital), we had about 200 patients in there. We ran 300 this week. There is just no way those patients could have been absorbed anywhere else within the health care systems.

MG: The deal to acquire the entities involved the state putting in millions of dollars. What were the major financial elements that allowed the link-up of UofL and the KentuckyOne facilities to happen?

TM: The state did agree to a $35 million loan in an economic development relationship with some criteria. The criteria was that we would maintain a full-time Kentucky-based workforce and expand services to the underserved and the rural areas. That would be measured on an ongoing basis with the state. We borrowed the money; its a debt. If we meet certain criteria they will forgive half of that debt. Of that $35 million, we have to pay back $17.5 million. If we meet these other criteria, they will consider forgiving that.

We have to provide an annual report to them for many years. We have to show that the payroll taxes (we pay) will far exceed the forgiveness in this. Its over 6,000 jobs. If we keep those jobs, the payroll taxes in that are about four times the forgiveness. It was a good deal for the state, too.

Going into this, we needed help on the cash-flow side because we werent sitting flush with a lot of cash to make payroll and reinvest in some of the capital that was necessary. That was critical for the city. Part of the condition for the university board was that we got a lot of support from local foundations. The Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence agreed to invest $10 million in the organization and the Legacy Foundation of Kentuckiana agreed to invest $10 million a year over four years. It was a combination of the support of the university, the support of the state, and support of the community foundations for us to be in a position to make this acquisition.

MG: What is being done differently now that lets UofL Health run successfully while Jewish and others were losing money before?

TM: First, I would say IT systems, so we can recognize the revenue spends that are important, and that our collection process has been brought back locally. Thats made a significant difference because accounts were going uncollected that should have been collected. Some of the work was being done offshore in other countries and we just werent a believer in that. We brought that all back locally.

Some of the hospitals are required to be meaningful-use criteria or you are penalized and have reduced revenues. We updated those facilities to all be meaningful-use certified. Recruitment of doctors is a critical component, but I would also say that size does matter. Weve been able to get economies of scale for our purchases. Our goal was to save $12 million a year in our supply chain by buying the same product at a cheaper price; weve been able to achieve that. We partnered with the state in making sure that the teaching part of our organization was expanded. Its a combination of a lot of items.

We also had additional expenses. We had to increase the wage scales to be competitive because of the shortage of staff. But overall, we have met our budgeted profitability goals so that we could reinvest in the hospitals. We feel were on solid footing today and can do what we need to do to be innovative in health care, to remain a critical-access component for our community, to be the level-one trauma center so that the most critical patients will get taken care of.

Unfortunately, our trauma business has grown. A lot of that is car accidents, but its also violence in the community. We generally take care of those patients. We have a dedicated team of trauma surgeons in our emergency department. When you see a gunshot victim, theyre coming to our organization whether its 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon.

MG: What are the synergies this link-up has created for UofL Health and the former KentuckyOne entities?

TM: We didnt set up what I will call the corporate office. In many situations like this you will see a corporate office with a lot of overhead associated with that. We took existing people and expanded their responsibilities. The ability to do that without adding additional costs has been very beneficial for us. I serve as the CEO of the health system, but also serve as CEO of the UofL Physicians practice and CEO for University Medical Center. We have great people at each of our hospitals, but we didnt add much management staff; we actually reduced it in bringing these entities together. And thats important.

Secondly, we had a target of $12 million supplies expense (savings) by being able to buy more. We set up a warehousing function associated with that and we achieved that $12 million last year and we will achieve that this year. From the standpoint of the business office, the ability to have local people is about a $20 million a year advantage for us. So these things alone caused those hospitals to go from a negative $40-$50 million to profitability. It means being able to know that in the future, were reinvesting in these organizations to be the community hospitals, to make sure that Jewish Hospital has the latest technology and specialists to take care of the sickest of the sick.

We believe we take care of the sickest of the sick at Jewish Hospital. If youre really sick, were the place to come to. Thats part of being a teaching hospital, which is to take care of those who not every hospital can take care of. Yesterday we had 18 transfers waiting to come to Jewish from outlying hospitals. Thats a daily occurrence. Many of the outlying hospitals just dont have the capabilities and we try to be available so they dont have to worry about taking care of patients they dont have the resources for.

MG: What is the overall revenue for UofL Health in a year?TM: It should be close to $2 billion this year; thats what our budget is. Thats up significantly. Two years ago we were at $650 million, so we have more than doubled over the last two years. Part of that is the acquisition of the KentuckyOne facilities that were in our community. Part of that is growth. During this COVID situation, many people were choosing not to come in for care because they were concerned about coming to hospitalsthat was where the COVID patients were. So, we did see some declines. And we did have a several-month period where the governor enacted safeguards and asked us to stop doing elective surgeries. Those had a significant impact on our organization that we had to overcome.

In the Louisville area, we didnt find ourselves in the situation where there were patients who could never get into the hospital. We always have ICU beds available for those sickest patients. We have been full, but we have been able to manage based on the resources we have. We cooperated with the other health care facilities to ensure every patient had the opportunity to get care.

MG: Is UofL Health in the black?

TM: Yes, we are. Last year we reinvested $80 million in our facilities. We are doing that again this year. Pretty much everything that we make, we reinvest in our facilities. As we acquired the KentuckyOne facilities, we have had to reinvest in them with new capital equipment, new beds, with renovations. When you look at the margin we make, pretty much everything were making we are reinvesting. But if you dont make a margin, you cant do that. Our margin is about 5% in our budget. For a nonprofit, that 4 to 5% range is about right and thats where we are.

MG: What are the trends in your main revenue streams and expenses?

TM: Each of our hospitals is unique and distinct so I talk about each one of them. In Shelbyville, which is a small hospital, we have reinvested to open an ICU organization that makes a significant difference: They are able to not just transfer patients out but keep them and let them be taken care of in their community.

At Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, we have opened a chemical dependency program. We have opened a program for cardiac patients. We have installed an additional cath(eterization) lab to take care of all the cardiac patients who are coming in.

At Frazier, we opened a general psyche program for the needs of elderly patients who are having issues.

Peace Hospital is the largest nonprivate or private hospital for psychiatric care in the state. Were proud that we were able to meet the needs of those in the community. Mental health is not always understood and the resources are not always available.

Jewish Hospital initially had 12 operating rooms; there are now over 20 ORs. We continue to reinvest in our high-end services or transplant service. In transplant last year, we did about 130 cases; we have already done about 80 this year so we should be about 20-25% above that.

MG: Thats a high-revenue category, isnt it?TM: Its a high-revenue category, but its a high expense category also. Heart transplant in and of itself is not a profitable service, but its a community service and what we believe we should be doing as a high-level health care facility. We continue to reinvest in the Brown Cancer Center and have opened a new satellite of the Brown Cancer Center on the northeast side of town. And at University Hospital, we recruited about 150 doctors this past year.

Its all about access. Its all about needs of the patients, and its all about expanding services so that people dont have to leave Louisville for care. Thats critical for us. We believe we should be able to meet all the needs of those individuals.

MG: UofL Health is among several multibillion-dollar provider networks in the competitive Louisville market. How do you describe UofL Healths unique area of service?

TM: We are an academic teaching hospital dedicated to meeting the needs of everyone in our community. We specifically have focused on the underserved and anyone who needs high-level care. As an academic teaching hospital, we have subspecialists in almost every area of medicine. From the research thats done in our organization that we make available to the teaching responsibility we have for our community and the fact that we provide a critical access for everybody in need, we are unique in that viewpoint. Most of our efforts have been in teaching; we have over 600 residents within the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and that partnership is key for us to be successful.

MG: UofL Health has expanded its urgent health locations. What is the key strategy in doing that?

TM: The most frustration you hear in our community is access to care and access at the right time for the patient. We have added five urgent care centers that we call Urgent Care Plus, because theyre not just urgent care. Our primary care doctors also are there to take care of the longer term needs of patients, not just the emergent needs. Whether you need to see somebody on a weekend or 8 oclock at night, we provide longer hours of service: 8 to 8 (Monday through Saturday and 8-6 on Sunday). We want to make sure were there based on the needs of the patient; if they dont have a primary care doctor, they can develop a relationship through that process. It has been a strategic expansion, some of that in the west and southwest areas to make sure there is access there. And we will continue to grow that.

MG: Did UofL Health have urgent care locations previously?

TM: There are five Urgent Care Pluses today. Before, there was one location that had been created by KentuckyOne Health that was not designed for urgent care; it was seeing more work-related issues. We always had a lot of free-standing ERs within our organization, but ER care and urgent care are somewhat different. People go to urgent care because they want to get in and out; they dont have life-threatening injuries. We hope those are going to the ER, where we have more resources.

MG: Has the fact that Medicaid expanded in Kentucky in the past year played into the decision to expand urgent care and create primary care relationships?

TM: It is a component. The expansion of Medicaid has been good for the health care system. We have always been taking care of those patients whether Medicaid expanded or not, and it gives us some confidence for patients that they wont have a bill that they cant afford and that they might be able to obtain a long-term relationship. Unfortunately, prior to expansion there were patients in the community who didnt come in for care; they were concerned they couldnt pay for it and that should never be the factor in seeking health care.

MG: The past year-plus has been COVID, COVID, COVID, which in the general economy has sped up previously existing trends. What are the most impactful changes and adjustments for UofL Health through the pandemic?

TM: First of all, safety for our team members and our doctors. Today, one of the most important components we have is to make sure that we have the supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep everyone safe. We have done a great job and have never had a day where we have not had that equipment. So, handwashing, cleaning the rooms after a patient has been there to make sure that it is as clean and sanitized as it can be, and the waiting rooms. We have had to limit visitor access so that we have a chance to screen visitors and make sure they dont compromise our current health situation.

We opened off-site mass screenings for tests. Weve done over 150,000 vaccinations of the COVID vaccine. That wasnt specifically a hospital function; most vaccines occur in a public health department or doctors offices. These sites for both testing and vaccinations have been a large use of our staff. We have the ability to do 2,000 vaccines a day at the Cardinal Stadium parking lot. We felt it was important for us to be a contributor to that for the safety of the whole community.

MG: Did you have any coordination role beyond UofL Health?

TM: We did. Gaining access to vaccines was a state-driven process; they allocated that, so we worked with the state to set up the vaccination sites and coordinated with our competitors, the Department of Health and the mayors office to make sure we were meeting the needs of the community. We coordinated together to make sure the teachers were a priority. We worked with the governor regarding what those priorities should be. Obviously, the elderly, the nursing homes and the school teachers were high priority, and the health care workers and EMS teams. Then we worked through the rest of the population. It was very coordinated, driven a lot by the state and the commitment of the governor. He showed up at many of our sites to thank our health care workers.

I cant say enough about our team members, our doctors, our nurses, all our staff members and what they did. Throughout this time, many people stayed at home; every single day our health care workers have showed up for work. Many times, they have put themselves at risk when they have families at home; they were concerned that by coming to work they might compromise the health of their kids or family members. They have had to social distance and wear more protective equipment, they have had to be careful, but they were here taking care of the community.

MG: How has UofL Health handled the complex finances involved in standing up testing sites and COVID patient wards, acquiring PPE, addressing city and state crisis needs, adding the KentuckyOne facilities that channel in new revenue streams, and then federal aid that has to be tracked?

TM: There is no doubt that for the last 18 months we have been operating in the eye of a hurricane. We had the acquisition of the KentuckyOne facilities, trying to integrate them, and then three months into the acquisition comes COVID. We have a great finance team. We had support from the state to gain access to vaccines and PPE when there were statewide shortages. I want to commend all our team members. Our chief medical officer has been out there guiding us and making sure that were doing the right things for our COVID situation.The federal government helped with the CARES Act. When the governor postponed elective (surgery) cases, we were losing $30 million a month and you cant make that up with volume. The CARES Act funds have allowed the hospitals to stay stable.

The No. 1 issue we had to address was nurse staffing. This community has a nurse shortage, and we were all working hard with the current schools to graduate students. Theres still maybe a 1,000-nurse shortage in this broader community that were all having to deal with. Our nurses are working overtime to meet the needs. I cant say enough about the dedication of our nurses; they really believe that patients come first. They are going above and beyond to take care of the community.

MG: Did the finance office do anything different to keep up with the hurricane swirling around them?

TM: We added people as a result of the acquisition with KentuckyOne, but generally we refocused the efforts of some of our finance team. Any money we receive from the federal government has to be audited and we must make sure its used appropriately, so we do have a team working on that. But we really havent had a significant amount of new people in finance; we just asked them within their responsibilities to reprioritize. Its difficult to add people when youre concerned about revenues.

MG: Health care planning includes major long-term investments in high-dollar equipment, programs and personnel, but health care has had such unpredictability for over a decade. How do factors like the pandemic and changes in Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act affect the strategic planning process?

TM: Those are all factors. And with the acquisition, weve had to reinvest in some of these hospitals. When you talk about spending $80 million in capital, the IT changes going on are a significant part of that. We bought five new cath labs; those are each about a $1.5 million. Weve invested over $50 million in our IT services over the last two and a half years. In every part of our organization, we have had to reinvest, and we will have to continue to do that.

I joke that we do long-term strategic plans that are one year in lengthits hard to imagine five years out because everything changes so fast. But the parts that are long-term planning for us are trying to meet the nursing needs we have and trying to predict the future.

We have over 1,000 patients in our hospitals today; we have the ability to increase beds by 200 to 300 more if needed. The biggest issue is to make sure we have nursing staff to take care of those patients. Were trying to recruit another 100 doctors this year in a lot of specialty areas: cancer care, surgical oncology, rheumatology, primary care, advanced cardiology.

Were also looking at if our facilities meet the current needs of the community. Bullitt County is the 10th largest county in the state and it doesnt have a hospital. We did a thorough review and said yes, there is the need. We had our urgent care and surgery center and a freestanding ER there. How can we marry these together but be frugal with our cost structure so that we dont reinvest more than necessary? Were in that process of developing inpatient beds in Bullitt County.

And the same with rehab in a venture that we have on the east side of (Jefferson) county, adding an additional Frazier Rehab facility. We will continue to do everything we can to improve access to care.

MG: Would UofL Health consider acquiring other Kentucky community hospitals if opportunities come up?

TM: We would never say no if we believe we could help another organization be successful, if we thought we could contribute to improving the health of that community. If there is a good fit, were more than willing, but its not to controlits to improve the care.

MG: Does every UofL Health institution have its own strategic plan or is there an overall system plan?

TM: We have a community board at every one of our organizations. Each facility has a plan, and each service line has a strategic plan. We have one for our transplant program and one for the oncology program at Brown Cancer Center. My approach is very straightforward: Hire the best of the best. I have great CEOs in Shelbyville and Mary and Elizabeth, Dr. Jason Chesney at Brown Cancer Center, Cathy Spalding at Frazier Rehab, John Walsh at Jewish. I believe in the term coopetition. I want to hire strong people to make sure theyre focused on the success of their facilities, but we also have to work together in a competitive environment where we cooperate for the success of everyone in the community. When you think of health systems, you sometimes think of all these outlying hospitals and the mother ship, and everybodys focused on improving the mother ship. Were 100% opposite of that. Our focus is keeping patients at the hospitals at the most local level they can be. I want to enhance the facilities at Shelbyville so that that community can be taken care of in a Shelby County hospital. I want to enhance the facilities at Mary and Elizabeth so they dont have to come down here, but when they do I want to make sure that we have the resources at Jewish and University to take care of those high-end patients that need care. It is a distribution model where you try to make every organization successful. I have very strong CEOs and theyre focused on the success of their organization. Brown Cancer Center used to just be downtown and weve expanded that northeast to offer infusions and radiation therapy out to that community. We have another site that we are in the process of expanding that we hope to announce in the next 60 days on the south side of town. Our goals are to bring great academic health care to the entire community.

MG: Any closing comments that youd like to make?

TM: Over the last 18 months theres been a term thats used that I truly appreciate and thats the health care heroes. We have health care heroes at our hospitals every single day. We have 12,000 associates. I just want to make sure I communicate to you how important the success of our organization is related to the people we have. There are so many health care heroes within our organization that the community has begun to recognize in the last 18 months and its greatly appreciated. Im just a facilitator. I dont do much of anything except try to set a direction and allocate resources to where I think the best use of the resources is. Thats my job every day. But thank God for our nurses and doctors who take care of the patients. They are great, great people.

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FRONT-ROW SEAT: Fringe in 2021: New features, same vibe as arts festival goes live again – MPNnow.com

Posted By on September 14, 2021

What began with five days of performances in 2012 has grown into a 12-dayshowcase of the arts of all sorts, one of the topfestivals of its sort nationwide. This years KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, which opens Tuesday, Sept. 14, includes more than 425 performances from throughout the gamut of the creative impulse dance, theater, music, comedy,film, visual arts, spoken-word, circus arts, and many that cut across genres.

Erica Fee, festival producer and executive director and president of the board of directors, said the Fringe founders had knownconditions were great in Rochester for a festival of this sort a vibrantperforming arts community, several higher educational institutions and, perhaps most important, an appreciative audience.

Rochester audiences are known nationwide for being very hungry for new work, and for being very accepting, Fee said, adding, ... We of course didnt know exactly what it would turn into we didnt have a specific plan (but) we did think we were set up for success. It had been an 'overnight success' four years in the making; it had been worked on solidly since 2008.

The past nine years haveseen hundreds of acts and installations ranging from the deadly serious to the delightfully whimsical audiences will remember the giantinflatable puppets filling the Rochester skies, thanks to French street theatre companyPlasticiensVolantsin years past. But they havent come without challenges, the most notableand obviousbeing the one thats faced the entire global populace. COVID-19 forced festival organizers and venues to pivot to an all-virtual festival in 2020.

Arts/entertainment and festival planning are two industries hardest hit by COVID, in terms of the duration of shutdown and the slow process of getting back on track amid a still-active pandemic. Theyve probably been the worst industries to be involved in -- and were involved in each of them!" Fee said. It was kind of a bad combination of factors for us, but at the same time we knew there were a number of artists who were desperate to get back on stage.

And now this year, Fringe has pivoted again, to offer a mostly live, in-person festival once more, albeit with plans and policies in place aimed at helping reduce the COVID risk. Proof of vaccination isrequired for all attendees (as well as performers, volunteers and other participants) 12 and older at indoor performances, and masks are required at all indoor shows (and outdoors for unvaccinated people). In the months since Fringedecided on that policy, Fee noted, Broadway has adopted a similar vaccination rule and organizers have learned that many touring performers agents will not consider venues without a vaccination mandate. Its confirmation that Fringe was on the righttrack, Fee noted.

Dark clouds have silver linings, so the cliche goes, and pandemic-birthed necessity has resulted in some new features for the fest this year. Replacing the Cristal Palace Spiegeltent (whose owners didn't obtain the necessary work visas) is an Italian Circus Tent to be set up at Main and Gibbs streets, its construction allowing for better ventilation and air circulation. It will be the site of the interactive comedic "Cirque du Fringe: AfterParty" each night, with a wacky wedding reception theme featuring a comedy team of circus performers. It will also be the site of four nights of "Silent Disco."

Were thrilled with this venue, because we can roll up the sides, Fee said. People will feel so much safer.

Several other new venues are hosting shows this year, as many of the customary locations School of the Arts, Blackfriars, Geva NextStage are unavailable. Fee said organizers hope to see those venues return in 2022, but noted they're thrilled with the new ones.

Made on State, at 510 State St., for instance, will feature a number of shows, including the Airigami productions, plus catered "Experiential Seated Dinners" paired with artisanal brewery beverages. The International Plaza at 828 N. Clinton Ave. will host three special events during Fringe as part of the Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, including a concert by Latin jazz ensemble Mambo Kings. Fringe extends out to Brighton as the Centerstage Theatre at the JCC hosts multiple shows in its Hart Theatre and its new outdoor Dawn Lipson Canalside Stage at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Rochester. Other new venues for 2021 include the University of Rochester's new Sloan Performing Arts Center; Theatre at Innovation Square (the newly renovated Xerox auditorium; and State Street tavern The Spirit Room.

This years festival is customarily diverse, with performances and projects by local giantseight performances by Garth Fagan Dance, for instance, andballoon artistsAirigamicreating an immersive balloon installation to serve as set pieces for performances and small troupes alike.

Theres everything fromactress Alison Arngrim presenting tales of her days as toxic little Nellie Oleson on LittleHouse on the Prairie to singer Daniel Henry re-creatingFrank Sinatras 1993 War Memorial concert; everythingfrom a cabaret play about iconic entertainer and activist Josephine Baker (and a musical about her friendship withGrace Kelly) to a dance battle for the title of Fringe Street Beat. There are performances exploring issues of race, sexuality, gender identity, and disability; of loss and love and denial and acceptance. Theres music ranging from raga to jazz to classic soul, from Brazilian stylings to indie rockto gospel to operatic arias and, on the final night, there's a free mini music festival headlined by local-band-made-good Joywave, in the "Parcel 5" lot that was once part of Midtown Plaza. (Some 120 shows are free this year, and the rest are designed to be affordable part of the nonprofit Fringe's mission to provide access to the arts, Fee noted.)

Fringe is a homecoming forRochester native and Brockport grad Mina Liccione, whos presenting the one-woman comedy/spoken-word/interactive show Growing Up Ringside in The Theatre at Innovation Square on Sept. 24 and 25. The show is partly about her youth immersed in her boxing promoter father Tony Licciones life, partly about her relationship with her father, and partly about her development as an artist and a person in a trajectory thats seen her through performances in STOMP and the stand-up stage and, eventually,to a move to Dubai where she pioneered a comedy school and all-female stand-up troupe.This is two very different worlds and they meet in the middle, she said.

Shed been thinking about doing this show for some time especially as she and her parents shared stories on video calls during the pandemic, and she decided to go for it. Andsostepping into theTheatre at Innovation Square will be totake a multimediastep back into that time and world when Tony Liccione was interacting with the likes of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, withboxingphotos andvideo footageand music fromItalian-American artists likeFrank Sinatra and Louis Prima.As soon as people enter, I really wanted them to feel like theyre in a different world, she said doubly so when she presented it in Dubai.

She will present her story in seven rounds"each round has a very specific time period, and a very specific life eventthat was very important at the time and led me to what I am now, she said. Its really the relationship between my dad and I, which has changed and evolvedand in some waysflipped.

Local acting troupe Theatre Apparatus returns to Fringe this year with "Stories for the End of the World." Written and directed by company founder Jeremy Sarachan, the play to be performed Sept. 18 and 21 at the Multi-use Community Cultural Center (MuCCC) on Atlantic Avenue is a series of related scenes exploring the various implications of that phrase, "end of the world," from global cataclysm to the deeply personal, the death of one's hopes and expectations.

Birthed during the height of quarantine in 2020, the play is an exploration of the angst that many feel, but that manifests differently: People are going through difficult times; what does that mean for each person?Sarachansaid. And its presented differently: One piece early in the show is very old-fashioned science fiction, with a father trying to get his daughter on aspace-boundcraft to escape an oncoming asteroid, and thescenes slowly morph into more contemporary settings, including a man dealing with his grandsons COVID-19 death written before childrens vulnerability to the virus was well established.The scenes explore politics, labor issues, marriage and two gods discussing what they have to do to teach errant humanity a lesson.

The common theme,Sarachannoted: What can happen to an individual that is life-changing in various ways.

With such serious world-altering issues in the wind in an era of pandemic, political strife and ecological woeescape can often be necessary as a soul restorer, but escapismcarries its own dangers. Thats the dilemma faced by comedy musician Tim Biemer, who performs as the golden accordion playing superhero Captain Ambivalent,known for nerdy fare like If I Were a Pirate Ninja Zombie and MiskatonicUniversity Fight Song. (Horror fans will recognizeMiskatonicU from assorted H.P. Lovecraft stories.)

Biemerbrings his new show, Captain Ambivalent is in Denial, to Fringe this year as a virtual performance with multimedia aspects; it can be viewed on demand by ticket buyers any time from Sept. 14 through Oct. 9.

I made it last year, when it seemed like there were so, so many serious problems going on all of whichwere being made worse by denial. How can I make a little comedy show without adding to the denial? he said. SoI addressed it head-on by making Captain Ambivalent is in Denial the themeof the entire show.

The whole thing is set within the confines of my house, and it gets more and more fantastical and inward as we go along, he added. ... The overall feel Im going for is, its definitely a comedy and youre aware there are bad things around the edges that are trying to creep in.

For a complete list of shows, performance times, venue sites and ticket information, go to https://rochesterfringe.com.

FRONT-ROW SEAT is a column that showcases the areas art, music, theater, film, literature and general all-around creative scene. If youre a musician with an upcoming live online performance or album release; or if you have any information in the arts/entertainment sphere to report, please send your information to L. David Wheeler atdwheeler@messengerpostmedia.com.

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Rosh Hashanah Reflection: Measuring and Celebrating Time – southseattleemerald.com

Posted By on September 12, 2021

by Susan Davis

We live in a pluralistic community here in southeast Seattle. Even how we celebrate time varies.

According to the Gregorian (standard) calendar, the new year started on January 1, 2021. But the Ethiopian New Year starts Sept. 11 and the year will be 2013. Islam just celebrated New Year the second week of August and its now 1443. Chinese Lunar New Year was in February and its 4719. The Hindi New Year of 2078 happened in April.

Some calendars are solar, or solar-lunar, while others are lunar based. You get the idea: Time is measured, explained, and observed differently around the world and, therefore, here in the South End, too.

My religious calendar is based on Jewish observances with a new year officially starting this week on 1 Tishri 5782 with Rosh Hashanah (New Year of the World). That is, 5782 years ago is when ancient sages determined the world began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Since the Jewish calendar is lunar-solar, it doesnt line up exactly with the standard calendar, leaving us to claim: The holidays are early (or late) this year.

Jewish people are busy with several holidays in the early fall. The biggest two, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, are also called the High Holy Days or the Days of Awe, but theres a total of six fall holidays that pretty much come one right after another. They make up a month of observances and celebrations with a few breaks in between. Your Jewish friends might excuse themselves from meetings, school, and parties at this time of year.

Just like with Jan. 1 New Year resolutions, we assess who we are and strive to be better on Rosh Hashanah. Jews use a three-fold process to do this: Teshuvah (personal accounting), Tefillah (spiritual awakening), Tzedakah (responsibility for community justice). The idea is to go deep, very deep.

Teshuvah translates as return. This is the practice of assessing ourselves and where we missed the mark. We ask ourselves: How can we improve who we are, ask people for forgiveness, and set on a better path? This is part of the practice leading up to Rosh Hashanah.

Tefillah means prayer. Its a way to open the heart to G-d, community, and ourselves. The practice we do for our soul by saying prayers of thankfulness and declaring our personal, spiritual, and communal values about living an ethical life. When so much of everyday life throws us curveballs, this practice helps focus on the important aspects of life, like how to get back to the work of justice after being in survival mode during the pandemic.

Tzedakah is a bit more complex to translate, the closest English word is justice. Jews practicing tzedakah believe there is a clear responsibility to give back to the world, beyond just because it feels good. This can be seen as charity, in terms of money and time given back to the community, but must be done in the right frame of mind, without resentment. Thanks to the legacy of fellow South Ender Jane Deer-Hileman zl and her tireless tzedakah leadership, many Seattle congregations participate in donating, sorting, and delivering to local food banks during the High Holy Days.

During most Jewish holidays except for those where we fast we eat traditional foods. On Rosh Hashanah, we traditionally enjoy the first sweet fruits of the season in hopes of a sweet year, such as apples dipped in honey, pomegranates, honey cake, sweet round challah (bread) with delicious spices. Recipes vary widely depending on the different regions and culinary heritage of our Jewish neighbors.

The fasting holiday of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is when our fate for the upcoming year is sealed and we close the Days of Awe with a 25-hour fast. We wear white clothing and no leather, dressing simply in order to avoid material goods so we can access the deepest part of our soul.

The seven-day holiday of Sukkot (Festival of Booths) is next. This ancient holiday carries many meanings and rituals because its a combination observance of harvest, pilgrimage, and the exodus. Jews built temporary booths to live in while attending to the fall harvest, traveling to the Temple in Jerusalem for three pilgrimage holidays, as well as during the exodus out of Egypt. Today, we commemorate those times by erecting a temporary dwelling embellished with decorations in which we enjoy festive meals.

Two other holidays round out the month. The one of note is the celebration when we start reading the Torah (Bible) from the beginning again. Each week, a certain portion of the Torah is chanted. Now that the year is over and weve come to the end, we roll back the Torah scroll to the beginning. The Torah begins with our creation story of the world.

So if your Jewish friends have turned down invitations or asked for days off from work or school during these High Holy Days, you may ask your Jewish friends where they were or what they did. Better yet, you can simply wish us a Shana Tova (Happy New Year).

To my fellow South Enders: May your 1443, 2013, 2021, 2078, 4719, 5782, and all the rest of the calendar years we celebrate, allow your eyes to recognize joy, your mind to evolve with new understanding, and your heart to expand to embrace deeper connections. And may you share these gifts with your South End neighbors, friends, and family.

Susan Davis is a South Seattle resident.

Featured image is attributed to Edsel Little (under a Creative Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 license).

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We asked for your 9/11 stories. With grief, hope and faith, you responded. – Forward

Posted By on September 12, 2021

Twenty years ago, the 9/11 attacks changed the world.

We asked our readers to share their stories of that tragic day, which, in ways big and small, shaped all our lives. The anniversary summoned complicated responses: Grief and trauma, certainly, but also gratitude, faith and a sense of deep investment in community.

These are your stories. The excerpts below have been edited for clarity and length.

David Shulman: I was across the street when a United 767 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At an instant I knew it was terrorism and I ran to the ferry back to New Jersey. The ferry was so full that it seemed like it would sink into the Hudson.

Cell service was over-loaded so I couldnt reach my wife. On the New Jersey Transit ride home we all looked out the window to see that the World Trade Center no longer existed. I finally reached my wife and kids who were already home from school. We all hugged and we all cried.

Because the High Holidays were only a few days away, a new prayer entered my personal liturgy. Avienu Malkeinu grant me the strength to be a good husband and a good father. I figure if I got that right that would pretty much keep me from going too far astray. Learned you cant hug your loved ones too much, and you cant say I love you too much.

Brian Kaye: I live in Brooklyn Heights and was out taking my morning run over the Brooklyn Bridge when I noted the thick smoke billowing from the North Tower. Soon after I observed another plane strike the South Tower, and my body began to shake uncontrollably. Sadly, I observed people leaping from the towers and I frantically ran home after the police announced that the Pentagon in Washington was hit by another plane. I phoned my parents in Washington and they hadnt heard or seen anything about the attacks.

I was shocked that if I raised my arm, I could easily grasp burning pieces of paper floating in the air. I was completely shaken to my core. Life is tenuous and short and this represented the worst of humanity that I could imagine.

Howard Dietch: I was working at 11 Penn that day and we watched the disaster unfold at the windows facing south. At first no one understood what was actually happening. People were crying, praying and freaking out.

This was our generations Pearl Harbor. Never would we feel as safe or protected.

Jonathan Gellman: The events of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center occurred just a few blocks away from my office at that time. I arrived a few minutes late for my job, as I had voted in the mayoral primary that would end up being canceled and rerun. As I left the subway at the Fulton Street station, I was startled by the sight of people rushing around in a frenzy. The scene was so strange that I thought maybe there had been a shooting.

By Noam Galai/Getty Images

A rose is placed along a victims name at The National September 11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero on July 31, 2020.

At my office, news reports directed people in lower Manhattan to assemble close to the East River. I did so after making one stop: I went to a drugstore and bought a disposable camera, as I sensed, without knowing the cause, that an event without parallel was unfolding and I wanted to capture some sense of that events meaning or memory. After walking across Fulton Street, I took a picture of a crowd on Cliff Street. In the center were two black shoes more than ten feet apart, which seemed to have been left behind by owners leaving in haste.

With the subways closed, I joined a relatively orderly mass exodus of people walking uptown. Minutes later, I heard a loud sound, looked back, and saw the North Tower collapse.

I stopped at my mothers apartment near East 21st Street to assure her that I was OK and to call my family in Riverdale. I then rejoined the throng heading uptown. Back in Riverdale, at my wifes suggestion, we went with our two 3-year-old daughters to Wave Hill as a refuge from the televised loop of disaster. We gazed at the Hudson River and the Palisades, restored as an idyll despite having their airspace violated earlier in the day.

Peter Maer: I was in the White House at the moment the planes hit the towers in New York. As a White House Correspondent for CBS News, I was on duty filing reports for the radio network. The White House, usually the focal point of news, was something of a footnote that morning as President George W. Bush was in Florida.

Like so many others, my colleague, veteran CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante, and I were stunned to see the coverage after the first plane hit a New York skyscraper on a clear autumn day. When the second plane struck, it was clear the nation was under attack. Soon the shouts of uniformed Secret Service officers sounded through the White House. Out, out, everybody out, they shouted with a sense of urgency. White House staffers and reporters streamed out of the building, first to the North Lawn and then through the Northwest Gate and on to Pennsylvania Avenue.

The eyes and weapons of Secret Service officers were trained to the sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw thick smoke coming from the direction of the Pentagon, which we would soon learn was also a terror target on that awful day. Emergency vehicles were racing through the streets of D.C. with lights flashing and sirens blaring. In my first report on the unprecedented moment I described a scene, verging on chaos. The streets are near gridlock and very worried-looking people are rushing out of government offices and other buildings. It took some time for the impact of the moment to truly sink in. Days after the attack, CBS News Radio produced a series called Changed Forever. That title has stood the test of time.

Michael Kraft: I was a senior advisor in the State Departments Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and was standing with Ambassador Frank Taylor. Within a minute after the first plane hit, Taylor, a former Air Force Brigadier General, was on the phone with the FBI. One of our foreign service officers, a former Navy pilot, joined us. The TV reporter was babbling about possible pilot error. We knew that was very unlikely it was a clear day and the flight path along the Hudson River was sufficiently far from the Twin Towers.

Suddenly, the second plane hit. The Ambassador then immediately contacted the State Dept Operations center and we scrambled together the adjoining command and communications center room used for such events. Not long afterwards, my son called from Boston to say he heard a radio report that the State Department as well as the Pentagon had been hit. I made a quick jog around the building and there were no signs of an attack.

All summer long, before the attack, we were receiving reports of a possible major attack, though no details. As a colleague described it, there was a lot of static.

Vicki Abernathy: I was in my office in Washington DC when a co-worker came to my door in tears. He had just called a NYC-based member of our project team, who answered his call, thinking that his call to his family was being returned. We gathered around the TV in time to watch the 2nd plane hit World Trade. Later, we could see the smoke from the Pentagon through our office windows as rumors kept coming about additional airplanes on their way. By the end of the day, we could account for everyone even those we lost. Although the company I worked for at the time is long gone, a group of us touch base each September 11.

Rina T: I was seven, and while my memories are fragmented, 9/11 is so strong in my head that I think it might be the first time the concept of a country really entered my mind.

By Getty Images

Mourners holding pictures of family members gather around a reflecting pool in memory of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on September 11, 2010 in New York City.

My elementary school, a private school in Gravesend, Brooklyn that was started by Jewish refugees from the USSR and mostly catered to our community, had a rooftop playground. We would have a small recess between classes and I remember going up somewhere around nine-ish and us children noticing clouds of smoke in the air. The teachers quickly ushered us down. I recall someone turning on the TV and whispers of panic amongst the adults. They told us nothing.

Hours later, I recall the bus dropping me off on my block, and my mother, bizarrely unkempt and harried-looking, quickly snatching me up and taking me home. Months before she had been laid off at her job across from the Center due to the dot-com burst.

I think it was likely the first time there was some sort of breaking of this American ideal she had as a refugee here. Suddenly the safety and promise of the West was gone, and the area shed worked in was in ruins. For people who wanted to run from political instability, the attack introduced the idea that the place they ran to was not immune from the same problems.

Rabbi Jennifer Gorman: My spouse, Chaplain Sean Gorman, and I had recently transferred to Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base in Jacksonville, N.C. On September 11, Sean was scheduled to depart for Mountain Warfare Training in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I had decided to spend the High Holidays with my parents in New York. My father flew to North Carolina to drive with me and my children. On September 10 we left Lejeune heading north. It was our intention to stop overnight at Andrews Air Force Base. We took turns driving, and, though it was the middle of the night, as we neared Andrews I was wide awake. I made the decision to keep going. If I got tired Id wake my dad, and wed get home a day earlier.

As we crossed the Verranzzano into Brooklyn, I turned on the radio to get the traffic report. My father woke to the sound. It was just minutes later that 1010Wins broke into their morning news with a report from an employee whod witnessed the first plane hitting the Towers from her apartment. I remember them questioning her about the size of the plane, which she insisted was a full-sized airplane. As we drove along the Belt Parkway, the Twin Towers came into view. We could see the smoke billowing from the side. The image of that smoke is burned in my memory.

Meanwhile, Sean was in the air on a US Marine Corps flight. When asked if I was worried, I replied, Hes in the safest place he could be. Hes on the ground somewhere in America with a battalion of US Marines. But we wondered if they might just go straight from training to Afghanistan. (They did not.)

Just under a week later, I led a Rosh Hashanah Healing Service. There wasnt a lot of healing that year. It was a space to share fear, anger, and pain. It was also a space where prejudice and racism emerged, and my role changed in those moments from pastor to chastiser and educator. 9/11 was born out of these things. We would not sink to that place as a response. We would, and did, maintain a space focused on caring even in the face of such hate. In the weeks that followed, New York was a little different. New Yorkers walked a little more slowly. They made eye contact with strangers. We got used to seeing soldiers in the subway.

9/11 is part of me, as it is for everyone. Shortly after, I discovered I was pregnant with my daughter. None of my children my boys were then 4 and 1 would get to grow up in a world where America was at peace.

Judi Reiss: We lost our 23-year-old son in the North Tower. This has had a profound impact not only on my husband and my own lives, but on our children. I was home alone when the phone rang. It was Joshs roommate from college and the roommates girlfriend, who Josh had introduced to each other. Brooke told me a plane had gone into the Tower and she couldnt get Josh on the phone. My world changed and so did I. It took years of counseling and tears ( and anger).

I was able to do what Josh would have wanted: Get even! I decided to make my life count and matter both to my family and my community. Living a good life was the best revenge.

Marcia Pascoe: Our 30th wedding anniversary. My husband took the day off from work. A lazy morning. Anoon hour concert. An early dinner at a country bistro.We plan. God laughs. We were aroused by a phone call from our news junkie sister-in-law: Did you see the news??? Turn it on right away. We were in time to see the second tower hit. Of course, plans were altered.

Forward 20 years. Not fast forward. We did enjoy those 20 intervening years children wed, grandchildren, semi retirement. Our 50th wedding anniversary. We plan. God laughs. COVID-19 influences all of our activities.

A family trip? Not now. We hope next year, but

It is customary at Jewish weddings to remember sadder times, particularly the destruction of the Temples, by breaking a glass. I did not know that on our significant anniversaries, the glass would be so shattered and the sound would resound throughout the world.

Despite these trials, we have been blessed. We recognize and appreciate how lucky we have been. We continue to celebrate life and the milestones life brings. Differently but with joy. Each of our lives moves forward. How we bring meaning to our lives is our choice and our mission.

Ted Steinberg: On 9/11, my father had been in the ICU for a week with severe pneumonia. My mother and I heard the first reports about the attacks as we were driving to the hospital, and, of course, we were very upset. At the hospital, every TV was showing the events as they happened, and patients and staff were transfixed. By a strange turn, that was the day that my fathers condition began to improve, so my mother and I alternated between watching the horrors on the TV and the improving numbers on the monitors that were measuring my fathers vital signs. It was a strange sensation, contemplating the events of that day and thinking about their implications, while at the same time feeling relief that my father was recovering.

Rabbi Sara Rae Perman: Most of my story has to do with the days after 9/11. I live about an hour away from Shanksville, Pa. and was serving a Reform synagogue in Greensburg, Pa. I received a call from a congregant who, after hearing about the crash of the plane in Shanksville, said we had to go.

By ANGELA WEISS/Getty Images...

The Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I called the Red Cross, explained who I was and offered my services and those of my congregant. They called me back and asked us to come to Shanksville for a training session. I was in one area meeting with a Red Cross chaplain along with several other clergy, mostly from the small churches in the area. I was later asked to come back the day that Rosh Hashanah began and said I couldnt. But I did go between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to meet with families who wanted to go to the crash site. It was still smoldering.

Ann Kranis: I was at Maimonides Hospital to visit my husband, who had suffered a heart attack two days earlier. David was scheduled to have an angiogram that morning. When I walked into the Cardiac Care Unit, all eyes were on the TV monitor above the nurses station. It was showing the plane flying into one of the Twin Towers. I cried out, My daughter works on a high floor in that building! I immediately called my younger daughter, Miriam, who was home with her 16-month-old son and asked if she had heard from her sister, Emily. She had not. The kind nurses gave me the phone number to their nurses station. I gave it to Miriam and told her to call me as soon as she heard from Emily. And then I waited.

After what seemed like forever, Miriam called. She had received a call from Emilys fianc. Because the family had visited David in the hospital the night before so that I could go home and get some rest, Emily had been delayed getting to the train. The first train that came was very crowded, and she decided to wait for the next one. As she approached the World Trade Center, she saw people running away from the site. Someone told her what had happened. Cell service was unavailable. She walked back toward the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was closed. There was a long line at a public phone at City Hall. She called out, I work in the Trade Center and my fathers in the hospital with a heart attack. I have to let my family know Im alright. The crowd let her go to the head of the line. She called her fianc, told him she was okay, asked him to contact the family. Emily was one of just a couple of people who survived from the firm she worked for.

Ita Mordetsky: Living in West New York, N.J., my apartment overlooks Manhattan. I stepped out on the balcony, a cup of tea, admiring the beautiful blue sky. I turned to return back into the apartment, I noticed the first tower on fire, and a few minutes later the second tower on fire.

A few minutes later, the phone calls start to come in from family and friends in Tel Aviv, Brazil, California, Florida. I start telling what I saw, I hear my words, but nothing makes any sense.

Make sure you talk and see your family and friends. Life is short.

Sandy Meyers: I was working as a social worker at a very large nursing home in the Bronx. It was a tall building built on high ground, and from the high floor where I was, we watched the towers burning.

By Robert Nickelsberg/Getty ...

A Fire Department of New York firefighter lays flowers at a memorial monument during a tenth anniversary service honoring the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) West 48th Street firehouses 15 firefighters who died responding to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.

Like everyone, I was very scared, not only for the chaos unfolding, but also because my husband was on a plane that morning flying to Chicago for a meeting. He did phone when they finally landed after being rerouted. At his hotel there was a list of guests going to different locations as no planes were flying. So he and a couple of others rented a car and drove back to the N.Y area. To this day on each anniversary he and the person holding the meeting speak and reminisce, and express gratitude for life.

I keep wondering why it takes a horrific attack for us to come together as one and help each other in every way possible. I cant help but contrast this with the current divisiveness in our society.

Jan Moidel Schwartz: I was working that morning in my home in suburban Boston. I received a call from a local friend who told me to put on the television. As soon as I saw what had happened, I called my brother, my only sibling. He worked for the City of New York in lower Manhattan. He told me he was standing outside his office building and didnt know where to go, or how he would get home, as he lived in Brooklyn and the subways were shut down. Right then, his boss came outside and told him to come home with her, as she lived within walking distance of their office. She was his guardian angel.

I then called the Solomon Schechter Day School where my daughter, my only child, was in the fifth grade. The school told me all the kids and staff were inside and safe, and to come at the regular time to pick her up.

When my daughter got into my car that afternoon, she asked me why I hadnt come to get her. I said I had called the school and was reassured that everyone was safe. She looked at me and quietly said that all the Israeli children in her class had been picked up by their parents. That was a knife in my heart. One feeling, one strong regret remains with me: In hindsight, I should have brought her home.

Ilana Benson: It was a gorgeous morning. I couldnt ever remember seeing a bluer sky. I was racing to Krispy Kreme to pick up donuts for the honors math class at Heschel Middle School, where I had just begun student teaching. The class was studying a topic called fair division which examines situations such as dividing an object with an uneven shape like a single donut into two (or more) equivalent pieces. I figured it would only be fair to bring enough donuts for the entire class.

In our small math class, there did not seem to be any students with a parent who worked downtown. But in the halls, there were sounds of sobs and shuffling feet. The students in my class looked at each other uneasily in search of some indication of the right way to behave. One student mumbled Osama bin Laden under his breath, long before news agencies had any real clue.

My supervising teacher stepped out and returned with good news. It seemed that the parents of all the students in the middle school were accounted for.

There would be no lesson on fair division. One student lifted the lid of the donut box and they all helped themselves to the sticky treats, chewing and swallowing in utter silence.

Myra Garber: I was a teacher at Long Beach Middle School, Long Island, NY. I was on duty in the Deans office. He called me in to see something on his computer. We looked in stunned silence at a smoldering plane in the side of the World Trade Center. The schools emergency codes were told to teachers, but we were also told to try to keep things normal and not upset the students. All day long parents called and then claimed their kids, hugging them extra tightly. On my way home, at the end of an interminable day, from the Loop Parkway I saw the fires and smoke in the distance for many days.

Linda Fenton: It was the day of the primary election for city offices. I was warden of Precinct 2, and the polls had been open since 7 AM. The policeman on duty had a small portable TV to help while away the hours of what we knew would be a slow day.

He called me over Hey, look at this. It was the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. Soon, parents began arriving at the school to pick up their children. A teacher wheeled in a big TV to the auditorium. After the votes were counted, I went home. I was numb. The most amazing thing was the quiet. No planes were flying overhead. We watched the loop of the destruction until we could no longer take it.

I checked with my New York cousins. He had walked from the Financial District to their home in Long Island. She had arrived in the city when the first plane hit, turned around and took the train home. Another cousins grandson was born on the 10th. His mother and aunt walked and carried him home from the hospital on the 11th. The hospital was sending home patients to make room for the expected deluge of patients from the disaster.

Ettie Zilber: Serving as the General Director of the American School in Barcelona, I was home that day, with my husband, due to the Catalan National Day. Our phone rang; it was our older son calling from Puerto Rico, with one exhortation: Turn on the TV! We watched in disbelief, shock and dread. Our younger twins were at university, one child not far from the towers and the other, not far from the Pentagon. After a few hours of futile attempts to make contact, our older son succeeded and told us that the kids were ok. During that time, I was already convening a meeting of my school board and administration to put in place our security procedures to protect our community from any other type of threat to American targets.

Joan Talkowsky: It was one of the first days back at work as director of the Temple Sholom Early Childhood Center in Cedar Grove, N.J. It was a beautiful day. Parents were bringing their children to school, when one mother, after bringing her son, rushed back in to tell us that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. She left, and shortly ran back in again, took her son, and told us about the second plane.

Immediately, two teachers ran out of the building: one, whose sister worked for the Post Office on the ground floor, and the other, whose brother worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald on the top floor. The former sibling was okay and her sister returned to work. The latter sibling became a 9/11 victim, and his sister didnt return to work that entire year.

Randi Jablin: I was in Israel on a Jewish Federation Solidarity Mission. As you most likely recall, no one was visiting Israel in 2001 because of all of the terrorist attacks that were taking place there at that time.

By MENAHEM KAHANA/Getty Imag...

Doves are released next to a newly inaugurated Israeli monument dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States, during a ceremony in the mountains outside Jerusalem, on November 12, 2009.

We didnt understand what was happening. It was all so sketchy as our tour guide shared information as it came in in bits and pieces. It was almost dinner time in Israel. Sadly, now we joined Israel in knowing what it felt like to be a victim of terrorism. Throughout the remaining three days of our trip, Israeli shop and restaurant owners, as well as citizens, put out yahrzeit candles and flew their flags at half staff. They genuinely mourned with us. We were like one big family.

It wasnt until I was on U.S. soil that the magnitude of the attack hit me.

Hadiyah Carlyle: I was scheduled to fly out from Seattle, visiting my son, his wife and their two young daughters. However, the day before I changed my reservation to Friday instead. My family was going to the San Juan Islands north of Seattle for a mini-vacation. Since, at that time there wasnt a fee to change reservations I wanted to wait until the family came home so I could play with my granddaughters for the last time before going back to Brooklyn.

At 8:00 am I was in the Queen Anne city pool doing my normal laps when the radio blasted something about the towers. When I got out I asked the lifeguard what was going on. Oh, something about a fire at the World Trade Center in New York. I was working for the City near the WTC when we had to evacuate from a fire several years before so I wasnt concerned.

I didnt leave that Friday. Friends said dont come home. I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn. A few blocks from the fire station were first responders. Most of them died.

New York was not the same. That December I moved to Seattle. I helped raise my now four grandchildren through the years. They are now almost all grown.

Jaime Bedrin: I was 24, a brand new reporter in a brand new town I had just moved to Charlotte, N.C. from NYC. I was a reporter for WFAE, the local NPR affiliate. One of my first stories from 9/11 was about a local rabbi and his High Holiday sermon. He had already finished writing his sermon in advance of the holidays. On September 11 he ripped it up. Or at least that is what he told me. I dont remember exactly why I pitched the Jewish holiday angle for a story, but I suspect I needed comfort in a time of extreme chaos and knew I would feel soothed in a synagogue. I remember the rabbi took me aside and asked me a few questions about my recent move from NYC. I started to cry.

Toni Kamins:I wrote this early on the morning of September 12, 2001.

Yesterday, like many of us, I watched in utter amazement as two airplanes deliberately crashed into first the North Tower and then the South Tower. But unlike most of you I watched it from my bedroom window barely three-quarters of a mile due north. Some time later I felt my own apartment shake and ran to the window just as the South Tower collapsed. Then the North Tower went and finally #7 World Trade Center. The heavy dust and smoke, even nearly a day later, is all that is left. Yesterday it was at what was the full height of the buildings it replaced. As it begins to dissipate it only reveals the huge hole that has been punched in the skyline.

I am numb. I think this is what shock must be. I cant cry, I cant really think. Yesterday at 8:45 AM I was at my desk for over an hour working on what Id been working on for the past few months..promoting my just-published books. I was going to a celebratory lunch at the Union Square Cafe with some friends. Tonight was to have been my book launch party at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, across from the World Trade Center.

And I fear that I shall never feel normal again.

Flash Rosenberg:Written on Thursday, September 13, 2001.

Tuesday morning, when I get the news, I am in the midst of showing a photo portfolio to a potential client for a Bat Mitzvah. We switch on the TV and see, live, the second plane crashing into the Tower. Oh my god. And then we politely finish our meeting. Business as usual, like some dumb, cosmic prayer for it to not be so bad.

I spend most of the day telling people I am all right. Most of the reassurances go to my connections from out-of-town. My function is to be The Person You Know in New York. It becomes like some national civic duty to be All Right. Every single message of Yes Im okay! gives a face to those outside. I am like a metaphor for all of New York City to my friends and family, allowing them to experience a moment of relief in the midst of being horrified.

As I pace around inside the fairy tale of my own safety, I feel like some version of all the seven dwarves at once: Lucky, Guilty, Weepy, Eerie, Goofy, Ready, Talky.

Wednesday I finally gather the nerve to take a walk around my block. A patrol of my little patch in this city I love. I am surprised to see my corner fruit vendor all set up. How did he get here? He explains he parks his cart in Manhattan, so all he has to do is take the subway in from Queens to join his produce. It is too important for me to not come in. he says, People need fruit in a disaster.

Hedi Molnar:Written in 2001.

Just dropped Rachel at school. She is 6, in first grade at our neighborhood school. Sitting in the car, with coffee and bagel, listening to WNYC. Report: plane hits WTC; its a horrible accident, I think. Second plane hits, I know its terrorism.

I am headed to nearby Bloomfield from Verona, NJ, to pick up my Uncle Gerry, a Holocaust refugee, like my mother, who died in 1967. We are heading to be interviewed by Kurt Landsburger, a Jew who emigrated from Prague in 1939. He is a successful businessman and writes a weekly column for The Verona-Cedar Grove Times.

Kurt wants to write about my uncle and mom, who came from Germany in 1935, as unaccompanied minors, and how my mothers determination brought her parents to the U.S., just before war was declared. We tell our story and during the conversation, Kurts son calls from Washington, to report the Pentagon was hit.

My husband, who works in aerospace defense, is on a business trip. Hes at the main manufacturing facility for fighter jets at Boeing, in St. Louis. All travel is frozen. Fortunately, Michael is with three colleagues from N.J.; they have a rental car. But they wait until the next morning to start driving east.

In 1993, the first time the WTC was bombed, we lived in Battery Park City. From our balcony on South End Avenue, we watched the helicopters hover around the towers. Michaels cousin, Frank, worked at the WTC for many years, and in 2001, at the first report of trouble, he ran out of the building as fast as he could. My brother-in-law, working nearby, walked north, covered with debris.

I took comfort that my dad, who died in July 2000, didnt have to endure the pain of 9/11. He survived the Holocaust. As a Second Generation Holocaust survivor, I have innate hypervigilance, whether paranoia or real. Lets hope it keeps us from harm.

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We asked for your 9/11 stories. With grief, hope and faith, you responded. - Forward

Far-Right Parties in Europe Have Become Zionism’s Greatest Backers – Jacobin magazine

Posted By on September 12, 2021

Last year, Yair Netanyahu, son of former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, became the literal poster boy for the German right-wing party Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD). Netanyahus eldest son had provoked controversy when he called for the abolition of the evil European Union, which, he argued, was an enemy to Israel and all European Christian countries. The AfD, which, by contrast, escapes Netanyahus scrutiny, is regularly accused of antisemitism and has been called a disgrace for Germany by World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder. (The AfDs former coleader Alexander Gauland infamously called the Nazi era a speck of bird shit in German history.)

Far-right support for Israel is not unique to Germany but is developing across Europe. Alongside the AfDs Alice Weidel, far-right leaders like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France, Nigel Farage in the UK, and Viktor Orbn in Hungary have all openly sided with Israel. Open and enthusiastic support for Zionism has become an ideological tenet for most of these parties, a scenario unthinkable from the perspective of fifty or even thirty years ago. And while the old far right of the postWorld War II era continues to chant for the annihilation of Jews, its modern reincarnation cozies up to the Netanyahus. How did we get here?

Our contemporary era is not the first to see antisemites supporting Zionism. Since the Jewish nationalist movement was born in Europe in the nineteenth century, a minority of European antisemites have championed Jewish settlements in Palestine. Indeed, one of the reasons British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour pushed for British government support of the Zionist movement in the 1917 Balfour Declaration was to rid British soil of Jews.

A century later, and after the horrors of the Holocaust, showing support for Israel has become a way to make right-wing populism socially acceptable again. Marine Le Pens National Rally party (formerly Front National) is a prime example. When her father, Jean-Marie, founded the party in 1972, it was deeply antisemitic, to the point that he could refer to the Nazi occupation of France as not particularly inhumane. Since then, Marine Le Pen has tried to rid herself of her fathers bad image by reaching out to Israel and Frances Jewish community.

As support for Front National surged in France, the AfD arrived on the scene in Germany in 2013, positioning itself as a Eurosceptic movement that quickly moved to the far right. The AfD, too, was eager to give right-wing politics a face-lift. Until then, the National Democratic Party (NPD) a relic of the Nazi era had represented the far right, but the AfD promised to be the future, which meant a break with the open antisemitism that had always characterized the NPD. Former AfD leader Frauke Petry traveled to Tel Aviv in early 2016 and did an exclusive interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth an opportunity to speak out against antisemitism and criticism of Israel while bolstering her credentials at home.

But rapprochement with Israel is not just a means to revamp right-wing politics in Europe. If the European right fawns over Israel, this is also because, as an ethnonationalist state, Israel provides a kind of model to a Europe that is struggling to find a consensus on how to deal with its own borders. Moreover, for many on the far right, theres a sense of solidarity with Israel, which is now imagined to share a Judeo-Christian heritage. This heritage must be defended at all costs, as figures like Nigel Farage like to remind us. We have been weak. My country is a Judeo-Christian country, Farage told the talk show host Sean Hannity in 2014. So weve got to actually start standing up for our values.

As populist right-wing parties in Europe fight to speak to a disparate electorate, Israel seemingly has it all: one nation for one people of one faith, with an unapologetic and uncompromising position toward its Palestinian population. In the European right-wing imaginary, the fact that Israel is home to thousands of Ethiopian Jews or that Palestinians of Christian faith face the consequences of Israels settler-colonialism every day does not register. Instead, Israel in particular, and Jews in general, are viewed as one-dimensional entities. This, of course, is a projection of right-wing reveries.

Part of this understanding is the view of Israel as a highly militarized bulwark against Islam. Geert Wilders of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) once called Israel a canary in the coal mine and the Wests first line of defense against Islam, explicitly linking the Rights Islamophobia with its growing philosemitism. According to sociologist Rogers Brubaker, in this context, Jews are the exemplary victims of the threat of Islam, making support of Israel conditional upon the ostensibly shared fight against the Muslim frontier.

In the wake of the European refugee crisis, right-wing parties have deliberately used political uncertainty and economic anxiety at home to fire up their Islamophobic rhetoric. Just like Israel, they claim, Europe has been on the brink of being absorbed by an invading Muslim force. And, just as in Israel, a right-wing government is needed to protect the Jews.

In 2014, Marine Le Pen urged French Jews to vote for the Front National, a party notoriously founded by a Holocaust denier. She claimed that her party is without doubt the best shield to protect you against the one true enemy, Islamic fundamentalism. This new framing of antisemitism as an inherently Muslim problem has become core to pro-Israeli rhetoric in Germany. Earlier this year, Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the AfD, blamed a flare-up in antisemitic incidents on imported antisemites and antisemites with a visible migration background. But as a report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings College London found, there is no polling that indicates a prevalence of antisemitism among Muslim populations. The right-wing framing of a monolithic Muslim community that is inherently antisemitic is a phantom.

The third tenet of support for Israel boils down to a glorification of its sophisticated military-industrial complex. The Israeli army has always relied on conscription and is a world leader in production of weapons, which it describes as battle-tested in its sales pitch. At the same time, it relies on huge quantities of foreign aid mostly from the United States that is regularly framed as a security commitment.

While the European far right would like to see refugees shot at the borders, in Israel, this has already been happening for some time. From its free fire policy on Palestinian refugees in the 1950s to its recent injuring of more than 35,000 Palestinian protesters during Gazas Great March of Return in 201819, Israels trigger-happy missions are rarely met with international condemnation. Just this month, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom interviewed Marcel Yaron Goldhammer, a German who converted to Judaism and served in the Israeli army describing his service as the most beautiful time in my life. In Germany, he is an AfD candidate for the German Bundestag, criticizing the presence of Muslims in Germany because it will be like it is in Israel, and we see what is happening there now.

The contemporary wave of support for Israel among the European far right is first and foremost strategically motivated. The support deflects from the Rights own racism and Islamophobia by channeling the cause of Europes ultimate victims, the Jews, and it helps the Right to cover up its own extensive track record of antisemitic rhetoric.

In light of the Rights clear instrumentalization of Zionism for its own ends, there is not enough pushback from Israel on this topic. Indeed, the contrary is the case. Ultranationalists under the Netanyahu administration have been eager to band together with openly antisemitic and Nazi-affiliated politicians such as Austrias former vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. Unfortunately, little will change as long as Israels right-wing government, now led by Naftali Bennett, seeks alliances with its counterparts in Europe.

But by using its pro-Israel politics as a fig leaf, the European right manages to divert attention away from the dangerous antisemitism in its own ranks. According to Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, it is the political right in Germany that is, for the most part, responsible for the recent spike in antisemitic attacks. The newly philosemitic far right of Europe demands our vigilant criticism as much as ever, from Jews and non-Jews alike.

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Far-Right Parties in Europe Have Become Zionism's Greatest Backers - Jacobin magazine

Know No Boundaries: Stories of Immigration in Cleveland – Cleveland Scene

Posted By on September 12, 2021

Global Clevelands upcoming Welcoming Week (Sept. 10-19, 2021) consists of a series of events that focus on culture, community, economy, and internationality. The event will bring communities together to celebrate unity and friendship, as well as exhibit the countless benefits of welcoming newcomers to Northeast Ohio.

To celebrate, Literary Cleveland invited local immigrants to share their personal experiences of coming to America and adapting to life in Northeast Ohio. We welcomed stories and poems from people telling us how they came to Cleveland, why they came, what they left behind, and what they found when they arrived.

In response to our call, Cleveland immigrants shared recollections of fear and joy, loss and perseverance, trauma and triumph, exclusion and welcoming. Most of all, the submissions challenged assumptions and defied categorization, showing that the stories of immigrants know no boundaries.

We are honored to present a select portion of those submissions representing perspectives from South Korea, Kuwait, Germany, Ukraine, and India. The following collection includes a poem about speaking a second language, a story of being detained while watching birds fly free across borders, a prose poem of war-ravaged homelands and a past kept silent, memories of the last moments leaving home, and a series of musings on American culture.

Curated by Literary Cleveland, in partnership with Global Cleveland and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, with gratitude for the many immigrant and refugee service organizations in Cleveland, we are pleased to showcase stories of those from around the world who now call Northeast Ohio home.

AccentBy Jewon Woo

A wordis broken intohundreds of pieces to becomesoundlessshriek

In my foreign mouththe pieces falldown like glassshards

To speak out that one wordloud,my tongue must bescratched

This languagetastes like a fresh woundfrom shamescorching

Even silence never leaves itscabbed over

That's how I got anaccent.

Geeseby Fatima Al Matar

I paint migratory birds: Canada Geese, Snow Geese, ravens, herons, and starlings. I spend hours perfecting their plumage on my canvas. Canada Geese have a special place in my heart. With my fingers curled around the chain link fence, I watched them fly over the Dilley Detention Center, where my daughter and I were detained as refugees in the United States. Always in a V shape, with their comical honking cries, they rushed across the sky above me, the epitome of freedom, knowing no boundaries, accepting no border.

My daughter, Jori, and I should not have been held in a detention center. We arrived at OHare Airport late December 2018, carrying valid passports and visit visas. The date on our return tickets exceeded the permissible six-month stay, which raised suspicion. Our luggage was searched, and the documents I brought with me proving my prosecution back in Kuwait were found: translated papers detailing that Im being tried for my political and religious views, and for my social activism.

If you dont tell me why youre really here, the angry officer demanded, I will put you on the next plane to Kuwait. Inside the interrogation room of The Department of Homeland Security, under the jeering gaze of five other armed cops in that room, I explained that I came to America seeking asylum.

My love for birds, or my hate for oppression, started early. I was 11 years old when I saw a great Golden Eagle in a cage at a local park in Kuwait. Staring in those Herculean eyes, I saw that the cage was too small for it to spread its six-foot-long wings. Enraged, I brought it to my parents attention but they just shrugged. At home I looked up the parks number and phoned them in secrecy, afraid of my parents reaction. A woman answered. Breathless and anxious, I explained that I was at the park, and that the cage in which the eagle was detained was too small for it to spread its wings, it needed a bigger cage. First, there was only silence on the line, then the woman let out a snort. In an awkward voice, she muttered something about letting her boss know. The way she said it sounded like, Who cares! Run along now, girly! She hung up before I could put in another word, and I remember understanding this, understanding her disdain and her belittlement of what was to me so important and urgent, enough space to spread ones wings, enough space to fly.

My life in Kuwait felt like a tiny room with a very low ceiling. I couldnt go far; I had to keep my head down and stoop. When you are continuously threatened with you better not think that, you better not say that, it terrorizes you. It keeps you small and unsettled.

As a girl, I didnt have feminist terminology. I never heard words like feminism, patriarchy, misogyny, or sexism. My feminism was organic; it didnt come from a book I read, it was a fire that burned within me each time I was subjected to servitude simply because I was a girl. To serve food for men, to clear mens dirty dishes, to answer mens angry shouts. I resented that my brother was sent to an expensive private school, while us five girls went to free public schools. I resented that as a woman, I had no autonomy over my body or my mind.

Despite the tight control over my life, I did well in college and got a scholarship to do my postgraduates in the United Kingdom, a privilege that few women have where I come from. As a lawyer, a law professor, and a feminist, I strongly believe in democracy, freedom of speech, and gender equalitybut I couldnt live by my beliefs in Kuwait. I spoke up about the human rights violation against the stateless (tens of thousands of people who are longtime inhabitants but are deprived of citizenship, health, education, and work). I blamed the Sheikh for their tragedy and was prosecuted for it. I spoke up about the poor treatment of women and the growing problem of honor killings (femicide) in Kuwait and was prosecuted. I called for the rights of the LGBTQ in a country where homosexuality is still illegal, and I organized protests against the governments ban of more than 5,000 books.

When my imprisonment became imminent in 2018, I fled, knowing that my daughter and I would never be safe in Kuwait.

After four days of being detained in a tiny room at OHare with access only to a dirty public toilet and no shower, we were flown to the Dilley Detention Center in San Antonio Texas. Our luggage and phones were confiscated, but we had access to showers, we were given clean clothes, comfortable clean beds to sleep in, and food was served three times a day.

We had to pass our Credible Fear Interview conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Through this interview ICE agents determine whether or not refugees have enough plausible fear to not be deported back to their homelands. But even if we were released from the center, we would still have to appear in court and convince an immigration judge that we have good reasons to remain in the US. This process can take years to complete.

Jori and I passed our interview and were released from the center after two weeks. We took a plane to Akron airport, and settled in North Olmsted. Jori started school right away. I still remember how the city looked in January 2019, coated in thick snow like a wedding cake.

Two years later our immigration trial is still pending, but Jori and I remain hopeful.

Every March when the Canada Geese migrate back to Ohio, their honking cries remind me to look up, the way I looked up at them everyday inside the Dilley detention center.

Ragged Trail of Bones By Clarissa Jakobsons

after historical research by Daniel W. Michaels, retired Defense Department analyst and Fulbright Scholar

The last man called to work-detail was always shot.

In articles and firsthand texts I learned that under the Yalta provisions, the U.S., U.K., and Russia, agreed to use German POWs in Gulag reparations. Each laborer received less than a pound of black rye. Productive workers earned a tad of meat, sugar, veggies, or rice. Almost a million POWs died after a decade of forced labor;10,000 men survived. My father lived.

In 1945, Brit and U.S. authorities ordered German militia forces to deport thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians to Soviet camps. Cattle-cars transported nine million prisoners, including my father. Selected women were raped, paraded naked in front of camp officials promising easier workloads for sex.

One out of three inmates died the first year. By 1953, 1220 million perished, succumbing to exposure, hunger, exhaustion, and malnutrition. A wooden marker with the deceased inmates identity was affixed to the left leg. Gold fillings were extracted, pried, and cut; skulls hammer-smashed, chests spiked with metal rods. Bodies thrown into unmarked graves.

Somehow my father survived Nazi concentration camps and the Stalingrad Gulag. Released beyond reason, he never mentioned the past ordeals harbored in his bones. Without question, silence reigned in our home. He spent days in quiet labor at the Solon office, Bedford and VA hospitals; doctoring patients to bring forth life. I research while the Gulag system disappears from our landscape. What can I do or say? But rememberto wipe clean the empty shoes lining riverbanks.

In Search of My Second HomeBy Jane McCourt

On December 21, 1997, my family loaded four canvas bags, one for each of us, into a minivan that was to take us to the train station. In my most prized clothes, a deep-green coat of rabbit, tall Italian boots, and a black alpaca hat, that made me feel like I might just fit in America, I said goodbyes to a couple of friends and neighbors who gathered around the van. I tried hard to contain both my excitement for the journey ahead and my guilt for leaving them behind in a place that seemed to have no hope.

I had taken trains many times before and did not immediately recognize that this was the last train out of my childhood and out of my homeland. We finally found the right platform and were standing there cold and silent, waiting for a train to pull in. Everyones eyes were fixed on the platform clock.

These last minutes must have been agonizing for my mother and my grandparents, Lisa and Semen. For many years, we were one big family, nine in total, bundled together in a small apartment. Nobody questions privacy when your corded telephone (yes, we were lucky to have our own) is in the middle of the hallway and secured to the washrooms outer wall. Even when my grandfather, a WWII veteran, qualified for a second apartment owing to a growing family, we stayed barely a 10-minute walk apart.

An approaching train broke up the awkward silence. We picked up our bags and trotted forth. Suddenly, my grandfathers weeping cut the dusk, Goodbye, Zhenechka, we will not see each other again.

-

There were many emigration agencies, all busy calling, processing, and stamping like clockwork. Years later it occurred to me that the country was still missing one most important office that would account for the value of people. Jews became synonymous with the term Soviet emigration, but the brain drain was not limited to Jews. Between 1991 and 2014, nearly a million of ethnic Russians fled Ukraine, and since the outbreak of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, this figure grew by another half a million. As a result of an accelerating down spiral of post-Soviet Ukraine, countless ethnic Ukrainians and other nationalities leave daily to seek living wage and shelter elsewhere.

-

When our train arrived in Kiev the following morning, we were in for a big treat. My uncle Anatoliy who left for America four years prior was on a job assignment in Russia and traveled to Kiev to meet us. The next day, a plane took us from Sheremetyevo to Charles De Gol Airport. This was my first airplane ride and the first time being outside the Soviet borders. Another plane ride, and a loud cheer of the passengers was followed by the outline of the Hudson River on the horizon. One final plane took us from New York City to Cleveland.

My second set of grandparents, Liza and Misha, were anxiously waiting at the end of the terminal. I clearly remember hugs, kisses, and cries of joy coming from my grandmother. But the most amazing sight was the big smile on Grandpa Mishas face, an ever-emotionless face of a man broken down by Parkinsons disease.

-

Our entire journey took all but one day. Yet almost a quarter century later, I feel like I am still wedged between the two sides of the world waiting to learn of my true destination. Maybe I feel this way because my story began in Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine, and everything is equivocal about this region. A hybrid war in the center of Europe now surpassed seven years and has become a never-ending frozen conflict, with a whole generation of first graders growing up in bomb shelters, elderly collapsing at the block posts on the way to collect their meager pensions, and all the rest aging and dying much faster than their biological clocks summoned them to.

By and by, with no progress made toward resolution, the conflict rarely piques anyones interest anymore. It seems as if everyone long settled accounts for themselves. When I introduce this topic in a conversation, I receive puzzled looks as if there is no controversy to it whatsoever. Everything published in Russian is pro-Russian. Everything published in Ukrainian is pro-Ukrainian. Nearly everything published in English is anti-Russian. A revised cold war rages on, and we, former Soviets, know too well how swiftly history can be rewritten.

I often go back to my last moments in Donetsk, to my prophetic dream where I see bombardiers in a dawn sky and hear people screaming, to the final few days in our empty apartment, with heavy-duty canvas bags, thoroughly sewn by my mother, lining the hallway.

-

Suddenly, everything goes dark and quiet in my dream. Im in America, working at a bookshop, longing for a bibliophile young man to strike a conversation.

Rolling Stone Gathers MossBy Reema Sen Theyre Coming to America played on the radio when I lived in India. I had grown up listening to Neil Diamond, and although it was never the plan, I did end up coming to America!

America was the fifth new country I tried to make my home. I am a bit of a rolling stone and accustomed to old-time friends inquiring jokingly, where in the world are you now? Its also a question I ask myself constantly while also trying to set roots down somewhere desperately. Enrolling oneself in a Ph.D. program in an American university forces you to settle down long term (five years this time).

It was nice to be able to speak and understand the language, as opposed to when I was trying to live in Hong Kong and China. I remember having to draw an airplane for the taxi driver in China who was heading to the train station when he saw me with a suitcase. I have to admit it took a little adjusting to get used to the English spoken in the U.S. as opposed to the Queens English that I am accustomed to growing up in postcolonial India, educated in an Irish convent school, and then working in a British bank in London. Its not just the missing us (color, labor, neighbor), but the accent and some grammatical quirks are different and thus made it distinctly American. But that would be incorrect since America comprises 35 countries, the U.S. being just one of them. So how then should I describe the U.S. specifically?

The country of Hollywood, Starbucks, big bucks, or Black Lives Matter, food desserts and drive by shootings? When I first heard Michael Jacksons Black or White it didnt really hit home like it did when I got here. I realized its all about Black or white (what is brown but a shade of black, and wouldnt it be nice if we were really color blind?). Race trumps (no pun intended) even class and gender. This pervasive narrative is something I was unprepared for, uncomfortable with, and it is impossible to ignore the history of this country which is more than a mirror of other colonizers. Native Americans tend to get obscured in the fray sometimes and the dynamics for an outsider are fascinating, frustrating, formidable, fractious, and festering (indulge my penchant for alliteration).

I have to say I am still trying to understand this country. Where people sit in their cars for hours on end (despite living in large houses compared with the bite-size condos in Hong Kong, Tokyo or Mumbai) doing what exactly? Where there are endless varieties of pet food and fashion in supermarkets (trying not to think of the refugees I had worked with) and the dedication to dogs that locals demonstrate. Where most meetings begin with chit-chat about pets, markedly different from the weather-related chit-chat in Britain or food-related chit-chat in Bangladesh. Where Im still trying to figure out what soul food really isjust homemade comfort food like mac and cheese, or is it to do with the music genre and its roots that cry out with genuine passion? The outdoor staple is monotonous barbecued meat and corn on the cob, as opposed to the culinary expertise of even the ordinary street chef in Asia.

However, only here theres Mitchells ice cream and Masons Creamery and some beefy, cheesy soups to die for and Louisiana seafood boil (who would have thought it could be spicier than Shanghainese crawfish!), not to mention a sterling selection of pale ales and stouts freshly brewed every few miles.

Here is the Cleveland Museum of Art with its magnificently curated collection and motto of free for all, the orchestra at Severance Hall, the variety at Playhouse Square, and the multitude of hiking trails!

Here I experience stunning seasonal landscapes faithfully every year. Freezing fairytale snow vistas (just like my childhood storybooks in India), flaming trees in fall, and the lush green of summer. The picture-perfect tulips in spring and gardens flushed with bergamot geranium lavender or carpets of wildflowers; spectacular sunsets from the Solstice Steps on the sweet water lake that feels like an ocean. Who would have imagined chancing upon myriad mushrooms in all shapes, colors, and sizes as you walk through parks with rabbits and squirrels and deer merrily scampering about and giant turtles ambling along the lakeside with the occasional blue heron majestically taking flight. At the same time, a gaggle of geese squawk their way at dusk in an unerringly straight line, and robins, kingfishers (reminds me of Indian beer), and blue jays flit about happily. I love the space, freedom and privacy here, coming from the worlds most densely populated country.

And yes, I have discovered lately, a community of writers/book lovers who make me feel quite at home. The air is clean, the people have voted, the opportunities are immense, and people still read (curl up at Loganberry Books anytime) and write!

Original post:

Know No Boundaries: Stories of Immigration in Cleveland - Cleveland Scene


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