Yom HaZikaron 2016

Today, Yom HaZikaron, I addressed the high school students of Yeshivah College in Melbourne. I don't know if many knew about Yom HaZikaron, but I think they do now. Here is the text of my speech.

Thank you for inviting me to speak.

My brother, Yehuda Pakula, was 17 when he left Australia in 1968.

He left for several reasons.

He wished to explore his roots in Israel, as our mother’s family came to Australia from Tzefat, pre WW1.

He wanted to visit ancient places about which he had learned in the TaNaCh while at school in Yeshivah College, where he had just completed year 12.

He was inspired by the recent miracle of the 6-Day-War, and wanted to be part of the thrilling story of Modern Israel.

AND

He had been the target of one too many anti-Semitic attacks, where he had been pushed off his bike, beaten and called a ‘bloody Jew’.

He bought a one-way ticket to Israel and swore that he would not return to Australia.

We must be careful what we wish for. He never did return.

After meeting family and doing some touring, he did Ulpan on Kibbutz Sde Eliahu and integrated very quickly into the kibbutz community, eventually becoming a Chaver Kibbutz and then a member of the ‘Yachdav’ Garin. He was expert in driving heavy tractors to till the fields for planting. He had found his niche.

He enlisted in the IDF January 1971, underwent basic military training and joined the Armed Corps as a tank driver.

He was on Miluim, reserve duty, when he was stationed at the Mezach, on the Suez, and was one of the first casualties of the Yom Kippur War, falling on the 6^th of October, killed by a sniper’s bullet fired across the Suez. He had been due to be married in November of that year. He was 22.

His platoon were forced to surrender after a week of fierce fighting, under constant artillery attack by the Egyptians. They were out of food and ammunition, and the IDF had not been able to rescue them. The commander of the unit, Shlomo Erdinast, aged 21, insisted that the Red Cross be present for the surrender, which took place on the 8^th day of the war, a Shabbos. The men had washed themselves and their uniforms as best they could so as to not go down in history humiliated and in tatters, rather as proud representatives of Israel.

Erdinast had also insisted that the Red Cross supervise the return of the 5 fallen to Israel for burial. But this did not happen; Yehuda and his fallen fellow soldiers were left where they fell. The bodies were not returned for burial until after the 1978 Camp David Accords.  They were left for 5 years in the desert. After the Accords, IDF soldiers with specially trained dogs were brought to find the remains which were identified with their tags and with dental records. Yehudah was brought to Kever Yisrael in Har Herzl military cemetery.

Yehuda’s death was a terrible tragedy in a terrible war, and it took a terrible toll on my parents.

 My father was a Holocaust survivor who had lost most of his family, including his first wife and 2 sons, murdered by the Nazis.

My mother never recovered emotionally and died 11 years later of cancer, but grief definitely played a part.

I was 18 and my parents were devastated. There was no such thing as grief counseling then, and we survived in our own ways.

My parents and I were flown over to Israel by the Israeli Government in December, shortly after Yehudah’s death was confirmed as his platoon which had been taken prisoner by the Egyptians was released after 5 weeks, in prisoner exchanges. We stayed on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu where we all were assigned jobs; for my parents, my father especially, work was therapy as he was skilled with a sewing machine and mended all the kibbutzniks’ clothes.

It was a strange, difficult time in Israel after the war. People were mourning; every family had lost someone or had a wounded son.

To give you some perspective, the population of Israel at the time was under 3.5 million; 2,688 soldiers had been killed and about 9,000 physically wounded. These numbers do not take into account psychological injuries. There was a sort of numbness in the people, which ran parallel with frenetic activity and partying of the youth. The economy was pretty poor then and people were struggling. I was only 18 and spent a lot of the time on kibbutz. It took me years to even realize that I was also psychologically affected, not least because my parents, my mother especially, were prisoners of their grief and were functioning at a very low level, getting the bare minimum done in order to live; it was a very quiet house.

Fortunately I was able to focus on my medical studies and with the seeming carelessness of youth, I had a busy social life and was active on campus, editing the student newspaper, getting involved in student politics, campaigning for the release of Soviet Jewry etc. Around 1970 Ali Kazak had come as a PLO lobbyist and started whipping up pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel sentiment on campuses. There were rallies and there was violence but I feel it is far worse today.

Unfortunately, Israel has had to make too many sacrifices in fighting for her freedom and very right to exist.

But, until Moshiach comes, we must be prepared for this terrible ongoing loss of life in defence of our land; we must be strong and of good spirit, Chazak veAmatz, because Eretz Yisrael is all we have.

It was true for Yehuda and it remains true today.

Far all those, nearly 28,000, who have fallen in defence of Israel, and as victims of terror:

YEHI ZICHRAM BARUCH.

Am Yisrael Chai.

One Damn Thing After Another

Suddenly the house is so quiet. Suddenly I have time to organise my thoughts and put them down in writing. And of course, I go blank.
After the torrent of events and celebrations and some glitches - good old raisins and almonds, sweet and bitter- suddenly I am drained. Depleted of adrenaline. Just plain old tired, with my 60 year old body creaking and groaning and whingeing about everything. Shut up, already! Here, take a Celebrex and leave me be!

The last of the Pesach visitors left this morning and after weeks of Party Central, endless noise, people wandering about looking for things to eat, Olympic-level grocery shopping, sampling every kosher eatery in Melbourne after Pesach at the behest of My Daughter The Chef, after the Seudahs and Yom Tovs, including all the celebrations for 2 new grandsons and a Sefer Torah, after all the 2, 3 and 4-year-old grandchildren battling for control of the toy stroller/easel/scooter/teddy- quiet.
Even my work phone has gone quiet- not complaining! Need a break!

And the weather has gone all wet and mopey, after 2 weeks of almost perfect days, children playing in the garden, meals fressed al fresco. Today- grey and windy. (Sort of how I feel.)

And Mother's Day yesterday. Bless. Mother's Day is not for mothers of young children, and if I ever hear another idiot say 'But EVERY day is Mother's Day', I will afflict them physically. All I ever wanted for MD was to be left alone for the morning and not to have to do laundry or cook or work or anything. I never wanted poxy breakfast in bed - yuk- but I was polite enough to fake it until the kids actually understood that I didn't want it. When the kids were grown and had kids of their own, we started doing brunches at home, because people who take small children out to brunch on MD are delusional. Adults can take out their mothers, do whatever they want, why not? But it is only torture to take out a bunch of young kids,  and I can assure you that the mothers of said kids are not having a good time.  I speak as a grandmother of 13, KA'H, B'H, ptu-ptu-ptu, but even one small child will make eating out unbearable as a rule. So please, be sensible, save all that for when your kids are grown up enough to actually pay the bill.

And the 'Yoms'. Yom HaShoa last week, Yom HaZikaron this week. As a member of a family of 2nd generation Holocaust survivors who also lost a brother in the Yom Kippur War, I feel bookended by misery. I still don't know how they switch from sorrow to elation the way they do in Israel, from Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut; flick. From wailing sirens to dancing in the street.

So I guess this is what passes for a breather in my life! I sound like I am complaining, but I'm not. My life is privileged and amazing even if I don't go around hash tagging how blessed I am. It's just life: 'One damn thing after another', as Mark Twain put it.

But I don't know what to do with myself. So I thought I'd write about it.

(Huh, looks like the sun's out again.)

WE SHOULD NOT EXIST

We shouldn't exist. We should never have been born, conceived, thought of. We, the children of the survivors who lost their first families, their spouses, their children, their extended families. 

My father should have been able to stay in Dzialoszyn with his wife and sons, his sisters, their mother. He should have been a successful tailor and his 2 small sons should have grown up and learned trades or professions, along with their unborn siblings. 

My father in law should have been able to live comfortably in Sosnowitz along with his parents and siblings. He should have married a nice Jewish girl from Sosnowitz and settled down to raise a family, who would then raise theirs in turn. 

Maybe some of them could have gone to Israel - which would have been established anyway and where Jews lived even before it was declared an independent state- to live a Zionist dream. But if not, they would have probably stayed in Poland. Or maybe gone to America to seek their fortunes. 

My father's and father in law's parents should have died in ripe old age surrounded by their loving families. 

Instead, my father followed 2 of his sisters to Australia, May 1939, as the situation for the Jews was not good. He kissed his wife and little sons goodbye and he hugged his mother and other sisters and promised to get papers for them to join him. 

He tried but he ran out of time. They all perished in the Holocaust. 

My father in law and one brother were the only survivors of their family. Parents, siblings, cousins- all murdered. After a 4 year convalescence in Davos, recovering from the unspeakable horrors of the camps, he went to Australia. He married another refugee from Russia and they raised a beautiful family. 

My father married a spirited Jewish Australian girl and had two more sons, and me. 

I married my husband, children of survivors and refugees together. We have children and grandchildren. We are blessed. 

But we shouldn't exist. 

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME ANTI-SEMITISM WITH YOUR HUMMUS?

I'm not writing this because I am upset about the Australia Day ad. It's a marketing device to sell more lamb, after some 5 years or so of creating an association between the eating of Australian lamb with the patriotism of Australia Day. The ad is pretty silly and has its tongue firmly in cheek. It tries to please everybody - there's Sam Kekovich, for the footy legend lovers! There's Lee Lin Chin for the Multi-Cultis! There's a bearded hipster type who has 'gone native' (hmm, poor choice of expression as you will soon see) and vegan in Brooklyn, allowing for some sledging of vegans. There are other people who are probably some sort of celebrities but I have no idea. It's a silly but pretty expensively produced ad which makes no concession at all to political correctness. I fond it pretty funny, but it won't make me buy more lamb because kosher lamb it hellish expensive and my lot aren't such big fans anyway. And thumbing one's nose at PC is pretty Australian, so I guess I like the ad more than I dislike it.
Now, one of the rules of life is that no matter what happens, there is always someone who will take it too seriously. And political correctness is the latest and greatest way to suck the joy out of anything remotely light hearted or humorous in life. And the next step in PC is not to open avenues of discussion but to shut down debate and shout down anyone who might have another opinion. So comedians such as Chris Rock or Jerry Seinfeld no longer give free shows on university campuses because there are too many people who take offence at the 'microaggressions' in their comedy routines, and the po-faced PC student activists have won. Way to go. <slow handclap>
And of course any political opinion that varies from the PC brigade's is protested and shouted down, often violently, no debate is allowed, and this occurs at universities. Back in the day, the university was the place where all ideas were supposed to be discussed and exchanged freely and fearlessly. But not now, in many such places of higher learning. Never let truth distort one's preconceived opinion or belief! And that's progress.

Enter Ruby Hamad.
Her piece was forwarded to me, because I had no idea who she is, but I sure know now.
She starts off with a tirade about this ad, pointing out that the ad 'contributes to everyday cultural erasure.' The use of the term 'Operation Boomerang' in the ad, where Aussies overseas are brought home to Australia so they won't be deprived of lamb chops on Australia Day, well, that's cultural appropriation. On a day which many indigenous people of Australia call 'Invasion Day', to use an icon like the boomerang, to talk of bringing white people 'home' to Australia, is 'to celebrate the triumph of colonisation.'
As I was reading this, I actually thought she made some good points. Yes, the Indigenous people of Australia had a terrible time of it. Yes, the history of colonisation is a cruel one. When a Mother Country sends out its people in order to exploit resources or land or native peoples, the outcomes are rarely pleasant for either side, one the side that 'wins' is usually the invader, because they have more sophisticated weaponry among other reasons. We see how things played out over the centuries, some ways better than others. From Cortez and the conquistadores in the Americas, to the Portuguese in South America, to the Dutch in the East Indies, to the British in India, in Africa, in the Middle East, and the French in Indochina, and the Belgians in the Congo and so on. And the British in America, whether the 'Founding Fathers' or the military; and the British in Australia, looking for where to park their petty criminals while expanding the Empire.
The era of colonialism spanned many centuries. And that's just 'White European' colonialism. Do I have to go as far back as the Roman Empire? What about Imperial China? Or even modern China, in Tibet. What about Arab Slavers exploiting Africans, and forced conversion to Islam?
Long, long history. Mother country, sends out its people to exploit the resources of another country for reasons of expansion and acquisition of riches. Indigenous people suffer, die, are converted to different religions, are treated as inferiors. Strong establishes mastery over weak. Indigenous culture destroyed by disease, by alcohol, by conversion. That's the scourge of colonialism.

Now for the concept of 'cultural appropriation'. The boomerang as a 'potent and recognised symbol' used to celebrate the 'triumph of colonisation.' Using the recognisable symbols of a defeated people in mockery of them, or just for fun, or because it's there. I confess, I don't like it when Australians or other non Native Americans wear feather headdresses, at parties or for fun. I certainly don't like it when people dress in blackface or brownface for fun, and I have been guilty of this at times in the past (specifically on Purim, wearing a sari and brown makeup complete with bindi. I wouldn't do that now.) I have learned to be more sensitive to issues of race/ skin colour mainly from the US experience, where the twin historic facts of destruction of indigenous people and importation of African slaves have given rise in certain parts (but not all parts) of the country to a form of 'White Guilt'. The struggle to become a post-racist society is a real one, and it continues. (But would I boycott the Village People, because one member is an 'Indian Chief'? No. Would the group, if it formed to day, feature such a character? I don't think so.)

So for the first few paragraphs, Ruby kind of had me agreeing with some of what she had to say, although I didn't like the strident and sophomoric way in which she said it. But she had some decent points.
AND THEN.
And then. She managed to segue into an anti-Semitic rant.
Somehow, selling lamb chops as 'Australian', even though the sheep is not even a native animal! becomes how the Israelis  (i.e., the Jews, not the Israeli ARABS), have stolen hummus.
And in this act of cultural appropriation, they have erased the indigenous link of the Palestinians to their national food; not 'cultural appreciation', but 'cultural erasure'.
And it was then that I realised that Ruby Hamad is an anti-Semite who has completely swallowed the canard of White Jewish colonialism, fed directly by the 'Palestinian narrative' aka the bullshit story negating any historic truth, which fuels the current conflict there today.
Nobody seems to care about historic truth anymore, and this piece will go on forever if I spell it all out, so I will try to use bullet points to destroy her 'argument'.

• Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel. We would not be sitting on the floor and mourning the loss of Jerusalem for the past 2000 years every Tisha B'Av otherwise. We would not pray for Jerusalem every day in every prayer, at every wedding, after every meal, after every Yom Kippur and Pesach Seder, if the connection to Jerusalem and Israel and the Jews were not a deep and true one. 
• There has always been a Jewish presence in the land, whether after the Roman destruction all the way to the Ottoman Empire and after, in the modern era. All the attempts by the (Jordanian) Muslim Waqf to destroy the ancient historic record of the Jewish Temples etc, are doomed to failure, because the record is so strong. And try as you want, Mahmoud, the Menorah is a far more potent symbol of Jewish identity than anything you can come up with. And they just keep finding these coins and sherds emblazoned with menorahs EVERYWHERE.
• From 1948, 800,000 Oriental Jews were stripped of all assets and kicked out of their Arab countries where they had been for hundreds if not thousands of years. Most of these Jewish refugees went to the nascent state of Israel and became Israeli citizens. I can assure you that these Levantine Jews knew what hummus was. (BTW, many spoke Arabic and followed Arabic customs, but they observed the Jewish religion. You could say that these Jews were also Arabs, but don't let that do your head in.)

• Thus, to speak of the Jewish Israelis as if they were all of Ashkenazic origin, or 'white', is complete nonsense. Ditto, to say that modern Israel exists only because a bunch of Europeans who were guilty about the Holocaust decided to give Israel to them in order to assuage their collective conscience is a puerile and ignorant opinion.

• Who are the ethnic Palestinians? I can tell you with certainty the the term 'Palestinian' was reserved for the Jews in Mandate Palestine, and an Arab would have been offended to be called that term. The Arabs were proud to be called Arabs. 'Arab' is not a nationalistic term; it describes a people of a certain culture who speak Arabic. The Arabs of the area had links over family and tribal lines which did not adhere to any borders drawn before or after 1948.
• The term Palestinian, referring to Arabs, mainly but not exclusively Muslim, only came into common use after the 1967 war. There is no ethnic group called 'Palestinian' who have a special and unique culture. They are Arabs and they enjoy Arabic food and music and clothing and language.
• If Jewish Israelis are colonialist, please tell me 1) what Mother Country sent them? and 2) what resources were they exploiting? What sort of colonialism is this? Answer: IT'S NOT. It's return to homeland.
• I could go on and on, filling in the gaps and going over the historic record, but I think this is enough for here and now.

Ruby, I see it like this. The Jews in Israel SHARE with the Arabs a culinary tradition which relies on foods that grow in the area. A Jewish Israeli, as well as an Arab Israeli, is entitled to call the falafel an Israeli national food. Because it is. I'm sorry if you feel that this causes 'cultural erasure' of the noble Palestinian people. Jews and Arabs have a long and chequered history in the area, and I'm sorry if you think that having light skin or blue eyes makes a Jew less of a Jew and less entitled to be in the Jewish homeland. That actually makes you racist, I think. My (blue-eyed) grandfather and (brown-eyed, olive-skinned) grandmother were natives of Tzefat; they were Ottoman Palestinians. They had every right to be there and eat hummus as well as couscous and preserved lemons, and stuffed courgettes and ful, and so do I. 

Your attitude may feel oh-so-noble to you and your fellow travellers, but it's just another example of racist anti-Semitism, and it just feeds into the lies that perpetuate this tragic conflict. Not to mention the reversal of reality. It's not the Jews who want to 'erase' the Arabs; it's the Arabs, specifically the Muslims, who want to annihilate the Jews, and make no secret of it. If the Palestinians wanted peace, they would have had it a while back. They would be minting currency and printing stamps and welcoming tourists to the beautiful Gaza beaches and the historic (Jewish) heartland of Judea and Samaria, aka 'the West Bank'. But they, and all the Arab states, only seek the destruction of the Jews and the appropriation of their land which they have paid for over and over again, with blood and treasure, for centuries.

Yesterday I heard on the radio how avocado on toast was a 'classic Aussie breakfast'. Why, If I were a MesoAmerican, having my native avocado appropriated like that- why, I would ...what would I do? Nothing. Just eat it. Bon Appetit! (Oops, that's French!)

CHOOSING TO DIE/ CHOOSING TO LIVE

I have just read two articles about euthanasia, specifically , of elderly people self-euthanising, that left me immeasurably sad. Nikki Gemmel tells of her mother, crippled by chronic pain after foot surgery 10 months earlier, who chose to end her life alone; and the other of a suicide pact of two scientists, Pat and Peter Shaw, both 87. In both cases, the fear was of dependence on others, having to be cared for in nursing homes, or being 'in the hands of medicos', losing all autonomy. In the case of the Shaws, Peter was concerned that his mind was not as sharp, while Pat was increasingly frail and had recovered from a broken femur not long before. They had 3 daughters who knew of their plans, which they had discussed for many years, and could do nothing about it, nor did they feel that they should. Their parents had always been rational, intelligent and independent people who had lived a full life, travelled extensively, climbed mountains, skied, hiked, had rich lives appreciating music, theatre, wine etc, and had been generally fit and active. One daughter when interviewed said that she would have wanted the parents of 10 years earlier to stay around; but the parents at the end, no; it would have been too hard for them and too hard for her as well, she admits.
Legally, no other person can be involved in these cases of voluntary self-euthanasia, or suicide, as that make them accessories and thus liable to prosecution. So although the Shaw daughters knew of their parents' decision and when they planned it, they were not culpable in any way; but the police and paramedics still descended on the couple's home and there had to be an investigation. This disturbed what had been a peaceful decision to 'go to sleep and not wake up'. Nikki Gemmel feels that 'If the family cannot by law be involved in the wishes of a person wanting to be euthanised, then you are condemning that person to a monstrously bleak and lonely death. One that I, as the daughter, will never recover from.'
These cases are not identical, and I would say that no two are. One was of a woman racked with pain, addicted to painkillers, doctor shopping for them in fact, whose life had been destroyed essentially by a bad medical decision for which the doctor involved has not been questioned, nor does it seem that there has there been any legal measure taken for compensation or any accusation of negligence, according to the article Ms Gemmel published.
The other, a suicide pact between two rational people who were suffering in their own ways and who decided that life did not offer them enough in order to make them want to live.
In neither case were the people demented, nor did they think they were depressed. In both cases, the people were not religious and did not talk of an afterlife etc. It was about fear of dependence, loss of autonomy, and release from physical pain or frailty.

So why am I so saddened by this? Why am I not hailing Dr Philip Nitschke as the saviour of Mankind? There is a part of me that thinks it is a good thing to be able to legally end one's suffering, and I won't argue against it. My religious beliefs do not allow me to commend it, because it is against the basic tenet of Life being sacrosanct and suicide being a sin, because life is a gift from G-d and it is not for us to make these decisions; but the doctor part of me knows that there is such a thing as unbearable suffering and untreatable pain. The big problem is who gets to decide, and how. A doctor and a psychiatrist? A panel of medicos and ethicists? The patient ? The family? Everyone? Surely it would have to be disinterested experts, for there are many situations where children don't want to keep frail parents alive; they would rather push things along a bit to end their own misery or to get an inheritance. A friend of mine is involved in a case where an adult son, who lives interstate and hasn't visited his elderly mother for 4 years, had his mother evicted from her home where she had been living comfortably with carers (but that was getting expensive), placed in a nursing home, and then attempted to expedite the sale of the home, clearly for his own gain; this sale has been blocked by my friend who is the only person advocating on behalf of this elderly woman, who has been a lifelong friend but has no blood ties to her. Meanwhile, in the nursing home, the previously ambulant woman has been confined to a wheelchair, has developed, terrible eczema,  bedsores- an indication of poor nursing if ever there was- and has slipped into early dementia. The court case is pending, but it is pretty clear that the clock is ticking and it will probably be too late for her no matter what the decision. So I don't think it's a good idea to have family involved in decisions regarding euthanasia, even on the basis of this one case.

So who should decide?  When is a rational, non-depressed person who fears dying without dignity and loss of autonomy, really able to make a sole decision, or a suicide pact? Maybe the pact was the idea of the dominant person in the relationship? Poor pain control, emotional despair, loneliness - no, these things are not 'depression', but quality of life issues; maybe these can be improved.
There is a 'slippery slope' here, and I'm not the first person to say that. But I don't argue that life can become unbearable and people can become fixed on the idea of 'the final exit', the 'big sleep' as the answer to their suffering.

But I have recently lost my father-in-law who passed away on his 93rd birthday after a difficult couple of years of declining health, especially in the last 2 months. His physical dependence was great and his quality of life had plummeted. Yet still, he never ever talked of ending it all. He relished every minute of life, every minute spent with his family; his wife, his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Especially his grandchildren, for whom, with his very last breaths, he had advice and expressions of love and support.
He refused to have carers and his wife took on the burden of his care, despite her own health issues. After 63 years of marriage, she wasn't going to allow him to be humiliated by his frailty and loss of physical autonomy, to be handled by strangers.
She made sure he took his meds, she drove him to his appointments with his doctors, was in constant communication with them. When one of his doctors became ill himself, she took him chicken soup and inquired after his health; the doctor later said that it was the only time ever that such a thing had happened. You might call it blurring boundaries, but it was sincere on her part, and it fostered perhaps a more caring relationship that could only benefit my father-in-law; although his own charm was enough to elicit caring from his doctors and nurses, with the increasing frequency of medical events and hospital admissions.

We talk of dying with dignity and think that this can't be done in hospitals 'in the hands of medicos', which had been a great fear expressed by Pat Shaw. Yet my father-in-law passed away peacefully and comfortably in hospital, surrounded by loving family who were all there to witness his last breath. The 'machines that go beep' were all disconnected at this stage and the staff were solicitous and respectful of the family and looked in on them without disturbing the active dying that was taking place.
It was not easy for us, as observers, but the 'medicos' soothed us and explained every step, and we all remained calm; it was a 'good death', and that is a good thing.

So why so different?  I think that my father-in-law, a Holocaust survivor and a religious Jew, who had been through the depths of Hell 70 years earlier, losing all his family but one brother, had a profound respect for and love of Life. He might have been angry at G-d but he also loved G-d and his religion and sought every other way possible to prolong his life; he felt he had so much more to do, and was tying up loose ends and getting his affairs into order for quite a while before. He left written instructions on how he wanted his funeral to be run, and they were followed to the letter; I and many others thought it was the best funeral service we had ever seen. Here was a man who wanted to be in charge! But he never wanted to hasten the inevitable end. He had something to live for. He had meaning in his life. Despite his pain and frailty and the indignities that they entailed, he loved and was loved.
I think of the Shaws, with their wine appreciation and culture and daughters, and wonder; why was this not enough? I can't imagine that there were grandchildren, at least, they are not mentioned. Wouldn't grandchildren have given more meaning to their lives? Wouldn't they want to be around to see them grow (I almost said, to dance at their bar mitzvahs, but whatever the equivalent, to see them graduate school and university and marry)?

We learn that the patriarch Jacob was the one who prayed that death should come slowly; we see for the first time a deathbed scene in the Bible, where he has time to bless his children and grandchildren. What we think of as an awful, protracted dying, can at least at some stage actually be a part of healing for the children, as they farewell the dying one and they witness his passage from life. Those who have lost a parent through trauma, or sudden death, have a harder time adjusting, as a rule.

So why would someone choose life, and others choose death? It isn't just about pain or loss of independence, and it isn't just about being lonely or being loved. It even isn't just about belief in G-d, for there are even those who, despite belief in G-d, cannot overcome their suffering and plead for death. It's certainly not about having had a wonderful easy life, for we all know stories of people who seemingly had everything, charmed lives, yet chose suicide. But my Holocaust survivor father-in-law loved and savoured every moment of life, despite, or perhaps because of what he had suffered.

It is about a belief in Life, and its worth.

I confess that a part of me is conflicted. Morally, I am against euthanasia; but I have seen situations where I could only envy veterinarians who can euthanise beloved pets who are just suffering too much (yet plenty of pet owners decline this service even for their animals, and prefer to take expensive and extreme measures to keep pets alive). And if there can be a case made for euthanasia, then, shouldn't it be legalised so that family can be involved and not blocked out of the process, condemning the patient to a bleak and lonely death?

I don't know the answer. I hope that I can have the courage to choose Life if the choice is given to me.

SOMETHING STINKS IN COLOGNE

Well, the new year began with lads behaving badly. Cricketer Chris Gayle was fined $10,000 for making inappropriate comments to sport reporter Mel McLaughlin during an interview, basically chatting her up on camera. Jamie Briggs lost his ministerial position for what sound like a drunken pass at a consulate employee in Hong Kong. Lots more, but let's stay with that for a minute.

Let's pick this all apart. Firstly, what is striking is the size of the punishment for these misdemeanours. I am not for one second saying that these actions were not deserving of some degree of opprobrium, but I'm not sure that the punishments fit the crimes. So one can chew on that for a bit.
Then, nothing terrible happened really, and if Gayle had made his offer for a drink AFTER the interview was over, or if Briggs had behaved with a bit more decorum, then really, who cares. Private lives. So it's all a storm in a teacup, or is it?

But what also disappointed me was the attitude of Brendan O'Neill, whose columns usually have me nodding in agreement. He is a pretty common-sense sort of fellow, but in this case, I part company from him.
His take is that 'flirtation' has been crushed by the grim, joy-sucking PC people who are acting like a) the nuns who taught him in school, and who are 'schoolmarmish feminists', and b) grim advocates of the perennial victim status of women, thus ironically disempowering women who should be, and usually are, perfectly able to handle unsolicited 'flirtation' themselves.
He goes on to pull more examples of the PC destruction of all that is fun in life, e.g., how campus activists in the University of Wyoming inform students that 'sex that occurs while a partner is intoxicated...is sexual assault'. Says Brendan, 'This would mean that I and absolutely everyone I know has committed sexual assault. Who didn't have drunk sex at uni?'

Well, I for one didn't. Ditto  almost everyone I knew. And it was then that I had this insight: You know when people talk about bullying in school? At school reunions or whatever. There are often people who say how they were bullied and how difficult their school lives were and how they managed to overcome their trauma, etc etc; and then there is always someone who denies that there was any bullying. And that's the way you know who the bully was; the one who denies that bullying took place. It was just fun! It was kids mucking around! What bullying? Don't be so sensitive.

So Brendan, your statement reminds me strongly of this, and therefore I think it is actually quite likely that you did commit sexual assault in some way. Oh, just a bit of fun, a bit of  drunken sex at uni, hahaha, and I wonder if your erstwhile partner would reflect in a similar way on those good old days. Maybe. Probably with great embarrassment.

So I guess what I am saying is, that if you think it's OK for  men to say 'flirtatious' things to women, and I don't mean while on a date or in a romantic situation, but while at work or otherwise 'inappropriately', then you bloody well don't get it, do you?

Men who think that it's perfectly OK to stare at women or to make comments to passing women about their looks or whatever, or who stand about in groups whistling and cat-calling women, or who think it's OK to pinch or pat or grope women, or who think it's fine to pat a female employee on the bottom or make suggestive comments, all the way through to the further end of the spectrum of what went on in Cologne on New Year's Eve, which was indeed violent sexual assault, all have two things in common.
1 A sense of male entitlement, and
2 Profound disrespect for women.

You may think that I am being a bit extreme in comparing a bit of sleazy chat to rape, and I am not saying that they are of equal evil, or even of equal intent. But I see it as a spectrum of behaviour.

Firstly, what gives men the right to even stare at pretty women? And just for the record, I understand that 'men like to look'. So look! Take a quick admiring glance at the beautiful young woman. But anything more than 3 seconds is not a look, it's a stare or an ogle, and it makes the recipient uncomfortable, and that is often deliberate. And any - ANY- accompanying sound made, whether a whistle or a 'phwoar!' or a comment- makes it into a leer, or even a verbal assault, and can either frighten a young girl or truly piss off an older woman. And please don't insult me by saying ' but it is just an appreciation of beauty!'. Yes, I'm sure that everyone who goes to Florence to look at Michelangelo's David is whistling and commenting on his butt. Not. They are usually reverentially silent out of RESPECT.

But women are strong enough to deal with this themselves! They don't need to be told that they are victims! Friends, by the time a woman is old enough to deal with this shit, it's pretty certain that she doesn't have to deal with it any more because she has become invisible to the male gaze, which only bothers ogling/patting/harrassing young pretty things who ARE often bothered by it. Because there is an imbalance of power. So young unempowered women do in fact need a level of protection and advocacy even if only to learn their rights and how to respond to these behaviours. (Mel Mclaughlin laughed it all off and good for her; but an 18 year old apprentice in a bakery or workshop might just need someone to talk to about inappropriate workplace behaviour, just maybe?)

Oh, another thing is the older woman who says, 'I wish someone would whistle at me or chat ME up!' No you don't. What you wish for is to be young again, or prettier than you think you are. You actually do want to be respected, unless you have some sort of personality disorder or have been so inured to disrespect and male entitlement that you think it's normal and acceptable, oh, boys will be boys.

Men who respect women do not ogle or leer or grope them. Ergo, all this 'laddish' behaviour all the way to violence and rape can only exist in the toxic atmosphere of disrespect, male privilege and entitlement. Notice I have not actually said 'misogyny' because that term has been bandied about a bit too freely, but that's there too, at the further end of that spectrum. That was there, in Cologne, and it's there in Sweden, which has become the rape capital of the Western world in the last 10 years, corresponding with an influx of Muslim migrants, and in plenty of other places where male entitlement and disrespect for women exist. And I'm not saying that this is solely Arab Muslim men attacking western women, because it isn't. But that toxic brew of entitlement and disrespect/misogyny  certainly was a feature of what happened on New Year's Eve.

And where there has been perhaps an over-reaction to sleazy cricketers and drunken ministerial behaviours, there has been a shocking under-reaction by the authorities in Cologne and in other places in Europe where similar events have occurred, and the police seem to be paralysed. Let's hope that they are actually working on something to prevent such outrages and to identify and punish perpetrators.

Grim PC, nunnish, schoolmarm feminist, signing off.

Brave New Year

I hate New Year resolutions but I really need to lose a few kilos and my poor old joints will thank me.
So.
I WILL NOT BUY CHOCOLATE.
I won't. I will ignore the come-on red wrappers and whatnot, designed to catch my attention. I will not buy it so then it won't come into the house and it won't be there to waylay me.
Of course I will have to get rid of what is in the house.
Well, I've been doing a bit of 'getting rid of' via my mouth, so at the moment there is not much there in the pantry. I finished the last 3 mini Kif Kafs on Shabbos. The next logical step would be to eat any dark chocolate - less favoured- but it looks like someone ate that already. Maybe it was me, last week? Not sure. The next level of chocolate is cooking chocolate, but fortunately that was actually borrowed and used by one of my kids to cook with. (How about that? Am I the only person who knows the delight of dipping a finger of the Szmerling or Alprose cooking chocolate into hot coffee and licking off the melted bits? Not that I have done that for a while. Not since having milk chocolate in the house, that is.) Drinking chocolate powder doesn't do it for me so that can stay.
OK. Gift packs of after dinner mints? Meh. I think I'm safe.

I WILL NOT BUY CHIPS.
Potato chips, that is. The other kinds do nothing for me. Quinoa corn chips, puh-leeze. I actually made a batch of kale chips, but fortunately one of my kids ate the whole container, so I didn't have to pretend to myself to like them. So I think I have one more pack to dispose of, and maybe a tube of The Devil's Chips, aka Pringles BBQ flavour. I only bought these because they were half price in Coles. I never pay full price. Except when I eat them, then there's a price to pay all right. So NO MORE.

I WILL KEEP ALL ICE CREAM IN THE BASEMENT FREEZER because that way, I have to shlep all the way down to get it, and by then I won't want it any more. PROBLEM: the basement freezer is actually in my basement garage so I will have to walk past it on the way from my car into the house. No, don't tell me I have to not buy Tempo Vanilla ice cream anymore, there would be mutiny from the ranks here. It's not as if I live alone.

It's been a while since I had a personal crackdown on these treats. Of course I've done it before and of course it didn't last. My big problem is that when I deny myself these things, my brain goes all William Wallace on me, paints its face blue, picks up a sword and screams 'YE CANNA TAKE MA FREEDOM!', and proceeds to destroy my efforts in ways I can't even describe, but it ends up with mini chocolate bars magically finding their way back into the pantry and sacrificing themselves to the Maw, the Unfillable Void that can just rear up out of nowhere.

So Zero Tolerance doesn't actually work for me. Well, at least, it hasn't UNTIL NOW.
Now it will work. Now I am SIXTY. I am OLD. I am WISE. I can DO this thing. If I don't do it, I'll have some doctor warning me about my weight and my salt intake and my sugar intake...Oh wait a minute, they already have. But NOW I will really take notice!

Wish me luck. And happy 2016.