Let’s begin at the end—Go see Michal Aviad’s new film Dimona Twist. This marvelous movie is also about my mother, about women who lived in Casablanca and other modern French colonial cities that resembled Paris far more than Dimona.

Women and their families who migrated with dreams of a Jewish harmonious Garden of Eden found themselves deceitfully and deliberately pushed off trucks in God forsaken far away places like Dimona, Beit Shemesh and Bat Yam, to fulfill a national dream of conquering the desert and settling the land; an aspiration that others dreamed for them. The Women could not comprehend the display of superiority by the locals and were furious at the arrogance of “the first Israel toward the second Israel,” which was, as one of the women says, without justifications. read more

Today, August 26, is a celebration of a long journey for women’s equality marked by the many who fought for it.

The list is long, but the thrust of the struggle for women’s rights began in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848. It witnessed Susan B. Anthony’s clarion call for women’s right to vote, which was finally granted in 1920. Women’s Equality Day was conceived by Representative Bella Abzug to commemorate the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Abzug led the successful act in the U.S. Congress in 1971 to designate August 26 as Women’s Equality Day. read more

This is my response to a political email you sent me supporting Trump.

I must say that it astonishes me that any Jewish person, observant or not, could support Trump’s views. Only a short time ago in Germany, Italy and the Soviet union, demagogues arose who started out with Trump’s exact rhetoric. They demonized minorities of all sorts, including Jews and other ethnic groups, disabled people, LGBT, people of different political philosophies.

Have you seen the propaganda posters of Jews as vermin and thieves? Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini blamed Jews for the economic ills of the time. Those leaders also said, as Trump says daily that they were the only one who could save humanity. The logical conclusion for their policy of vilification was the Gulag and Auschwitz. read more

I did not pay much attention to the intertwining of love and voting, until I had a conversation with some friends, working class women.

I was aware that research indicated that in 2016 working class white men tended to vote for Trump, yet he was losing working class women. I have not however, explored or questioned the domestic dynamics of husband and wife who split their votes.

I have known this group of women friends for a number of years; they are all remarkably hardworking, often holding two or three jobs. I have been meeting with them quite frequently and we have shared personal stories and recipes, and exchanged holiday gifts; we mostly stayed away from politics. But in the last few months we have been talking about the rise of Trump in the political arena. read more

Michael Bloomberg spoke last night at the Democratic National Convention about patriotism, leadership, and hope and found Donald Trump failing in all categories.

Bloomberg’s message was one of several eloquent, compelling, and significant speeches, each deserving attention and admiration.

I single out Bloomberg because he offered what few could, a peer review of Trump.

Bloomberg, who by all accounts is far wealthier than Trump, did not speak about his own fortune; instead he reminded Trump of the riches of the American legacy. Bloomberg called on the American Framers to spell out the nation priorities, “When the Founding Fathers arrived here in Philadelphia to forge a new nation, they didn’t come as Democrats or Republicans, or to nominate a presidential candidate. They came as patriots who feared party politics.” read more

Since Monday, the Republican National Convention has featured a historic spectacle of vigilante justice.

In a mere two days it has demonstrated how in an instant an ordinary crowd could become an ugly screaming mob. Each day of the convention has been punctuated by mostly law-abiding and mostly nice people morphing into a mob screaming with hatred and glee, “jail Hillary.”

Whatever people may think of Hillary Clinton’s use of email, last night’s mob at the convention didn’t sound like the Law and Order slogan the Republicans keep claiming as their property. The convention sounded more like the French mob screaming outside the Dreyfus trial, like the mobs that attacked Jews in pogroms in Europe and like the historic mobs breaking into prisons to lynch black Americans. read more