Veteran’s Day

Days like this are hard.

Today is about remembering those who fought the fight, made the sacrifice, and those who still continue to do so.

While today, the country may appreciate us for what we have given up and faced so they didn’t have to, tomorrow they’ll forget and we still have to deal with it.

Please take today to remember that serving in the military, regardless if a service member has ever been to combat, is a sacrifice. You lose friends, you miss out on watching your family grow and change, you can’t be there to give or get support. While your friends can build lasting friendships and relationships, servicemembers pack up their lives and move every 6 months or so.

Then they get to war. We grow up trying to be good people, then we are constantly faced with the cognitive dissonance of having to do things that “good people” don’t do. We see things that cannot be unseen, hear things that cannot be unheard.

If America is serious about honoring our nation’s vets, please let today be the day that we all take a vow to be supportive and understanding of the struggles our vets are going through because of what they have done to preserve our freedom. This freedom which is once again being threatened in a very real and present way, on our own soil, by extremists and brainwashed masses.

Don’t ostracize us because we are different.

Our experiences mold who we are and we have done and seen things that we are fighting like hell so you never have to deal with here in the US. We are helping you preserve your way of life, help us reintegrate into normalcy once we are no longer able to serve.

Some gave all, and the ones that are left only ask for patience and understanding.

Happy veteran’s day.

Jew -ish

Many people don’t realize this, but I’m a Jew. I don’t try to hide it, but most people just don’t realize it because they say I don’t “look” or “seem” like one…

Recently one of my coworkers was speaking in a negative manner about how some Jews are sensitive to the topic of whether or not “Jew” is a race/ethnicity or only a religion; especially when the topic is being debated by non-Jews (or gentiles.) He was positive Judaism was only a religion and its followers had no basis for a claim to it being a culture in its own right. My coworker looked to me as he spoke expectant of approving nods…what do you think I did?

Race, religion, and ethnicity are hot button topics in politics and the world. It’s rare that anyone would find me discussing them in a social forum unless I’m with people I absolutely trust.

It is so difficult for anyone these days to express their opinions about these issues without causing a major divide; something I try to avoid.

I scan my feed and I have friends, wonderful people doing great things for mankind: doctors, lawyers, service industry workers on whose shoulders the white collared are able to rest in order to focus on finding cures for cancers and methods to end world hunger. These people – Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Americans, non-American, Republican, Atheist, Green Party, self proclaimed “Red Devils” – everyone has an opinion that they feel passionate about and want to share and garner support for.

I’ve always admired those who are able to pick a side and fight fervently for that belief, but I personally have been plagued with a consideration of mankind that appreciates all differences and thinks they are all equally valid. There is no one, “right,” way.

I see you, my educated, worldly, war hardened, life trodden, friends and family. I feel you enraged at hate crimes and crimes against humanity. I witness you getting blindly dragged into media projections…which is the same fate that the perpetrators of those hate crimes and executioners of crimes against humanity fell to that led them to succumb to a mob mentality and carry out those unjust acts. I ask you to pause.

The law, and a commonly held belief in our great nation and schools of psychology, states that what separates a child’s mind from that of an adult is a lack of the ability to think critically. Blindly accepting the clearly skewed and sensationalized stories on the leading, and independent, news networks is essentially causing you great people to willfully accept the regression from adult to a childlike state absent of logic and criticality.

There are reasons behind every action. Before you start to think Islam is bad and teaches hatred because a group of extremists targeted and viciously raped us of our false sense of security, remember, we followed orders and killed many innocents as well. Before you think all Catholics are horrible and perpetuate a culture where the victimization of children by religious figures is accepted, look at what the Pope is doing and all of the support he has. Before you start rallying against Jews in Israel, before you start questioning the legitimacy of their claim to the holy land and whether or not “Jew” is a religion or ethnicity, educate yourself a bit on the history and understand that it is a very complex topic and that we, as Americans, were not the first ones to call this land our “home” either and the legitimacy of our claims to it could just as readily be called into question.

What did I say to my coworker? I told him that I am a Jew and that the issue about whether it’s only a religion or a culture has been debated for some time amongst the social science sectors.

Judaism is a religion, but being Jewish is also a culture and a heritage apart as a whole people were enslaved and forced to be nomadic; does this mean that they shouldn’t have a homeland? Does this mean that those Jews who are not from Israel aren’t really Jewish if we choose to accept that Israel is the homeland of the Jews. What about Muslims in Israel? Does accepting Israel as a Jewish State invalidate their claim to the land as their home as well?

My personal belief (which I rarely share on these topics) is that no, it doesn’t.

There are reasons behind sensitivities. There are reasons, and whole cultures on both sides of the pond, behind ignorance. We have the freedom to ask questions. Do it. We have the capacity to think critically. Use it. In the meantime, I urge you, my beautiful friends of all colors and backgrounds, to be TOLERANT and spread the message of tolerance within your circles.

True world peace is a lofty and potentially unobtainable goal, but a world without violent war could be within our reach, and tolerance just might be the key.

This has been my 2.7 cents.