New Horizons by Max Roy

           R U Afraid Of Being Unpopular?* All of us are participants in the public discourse in our societies. As citizens we can choose to express our opinions, hopefully after giving them some thought, or not. But we all have that opportunity to be part of the process of expressing ideas that may have an effect, have an influence, on what will turn out to be the public will. Most of us don’t think about it that way, that we have that responsibility in a democratic society, but it is, nevertheless, very true. Whether we end up being elected to some position of public trust, or not, we are actors in shaping the directions our society may take. It takes some stamina to keep at it in the face of unrelenting attack which may not be very civil these days. For many years I was among the ranks of the employed. I pursued the path that I imagined lay before me in the areas of work I had chosen. I never thought about the thesis I have presented above. I was not a community leader, a politi

                                 The Politics of Betrayal Israel is engaged in an existential struggle for survival. Some of its troubles have their origin in an unjustified reliance on its military and intelligence capabilities which have proved lacking, and for which the reckoning has not yet been realized. The military establishment knew of the Hamas preparations for war and disregarded them as something which they could cope with without difficulty. The current situation has proved that there is a bitter price to be paid for this criminal complacency. The Israeli   public is paying daily for this error. The politicians and the military and intelligence establishment in Israel have yet to pay the price for their failures. The support that Israel has always had from the American government and the American people has been another casualty. It is no secret that the American State Department has never been party to the love affair with Israel. It has always been concerned with th

  Running in the Human Race     I am still running in this race, as are all of us who struggle to stay alive. To those of us who are older, it seems to take much of our strength to stay in the game, to show up every morning to run the course.   It appeared easier to run this race when we were younger, full of the energy of youth. We have forgotten what it was like when we were just finding ourselves, discovering who we were, who we were going to be. Surely, that was a struggle, even if it was a different one from the struggle we face as older people to make our appearance on the playing field every day. There are mysterious things about this race. Who are the winners? What does winning mean? That is a question to ponder. We could write a whole book about that. Is it an advantage to start the run sooner or later? I can see the argument on both sides. Early on it may be an advantage, but the rewards are not necessarily to those who arrive soonest at the race’s end. Maybe it is more

        Open Your Eyes!   At the end of October, each year, Jewish people in synagogues read from a particular chapter in the Bible which tells the story of Hagar, Abraham’s handmaiden, and her son, Ishmael. Abraham has sent Hagar and his son away at the demand of his wife, Rachel. As the story goes, they are wandering in the desert. Expecting to die of thirst, Hagar had abandoned all hope. The child cried out and Hagar wept. God heard, it is written, and “opened” Hagar’s eyes. Suddenly she saw a well. She was able to draw water and their lives were saved. The well was there all the time, but God had to “open” Hagar’s eyes for her to see the well.   Doesn’t this story tell us truths about so much in our own lives? When I think of events in my life, there were so many times when it appeared to me that I was facing an impasse in my affairs. A good night’s sleep sometimes “opened” my eyes. Options for action that I had not seen before came into my mind, opening new avenues for

                   Jewish Lives Matter Now for something you never asked for!   Something politically incorrect!   At ninety and with less to lose ….. I’m speaking my mind! Now, I’ve said it! I’ve said the thing that many Jews believe in their hearts but will never say out loud. Most every ethnic group will say the same thing about themselves, sometimes publicly. Jews don’t express these things out loud, firstly, because it is not polite, secondly, because we don’t welcome the attention when we are so often under attack, and, primarily, because we do not publicly want to admit our belief that our particular group deserves some priority because of our positive performance. Of course, the Black Lives mantra is a reaction to the unjustified treatment Blacks have been exposed to historically. But isn’t that true for Jews as well? Don’t we know that Jews are the ones that suffer to the greatest extent from reported incidents of all kinds of attacks? And that’s not counting all the inc

                                                            Homelands In Exile*   Frederic Brenner has photographed Jews and their communities in scores of locations throughout the world, mainly during the latter part of the nineteen hundreds, and then invited others to write of their impressions of what these photographs impart. From Yemen to Morocco, to the darkest places of the resurgent Russian social experiment, from China to Tajikstan, to the favored places in France, Italy and America, he presents images of the Jewish accommodation to their environments. The message is that wherever Jews have landed, however their accommodation has played out, however long they have inhabited where they have landed, they have often remained a foreign presence in those environments.   Jews have been made to feel as strangers in those environments because, often, they have been made to feel that way by their neighbors. Despite their efforts to fit in, they have been made feel as strangers be