Another Night at the Garden

This Again: It is with fear, anger, and profound disappointment that Abq Jew confirms what you, his loyal readers, already know from the extensive news coverage of the event:

Last night, The Former Guy (TFG) gathered deplorable myriads (how could there be so many?) - of, in the unrepeatable words of Hedley Lamarr -

"rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists" 

in New York City's famed Madison Square Garden - where the Knicks and Rangers play! where Billy Joel performs! - for what many have rightly described as a fascist rally, with deeply disturbing overtones of the 1939 meeting of the pro-Nazi German American Bund at the same venue.

Not to make light of it, but what is left, after all these years, of Abq Jew's mind is "a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."

Wait, it gets worse. TFG is reportedly scheduled to return to the Land of Enchantment, appropriately on Erev Halloween, when all the other ghosts, ghouls, and goblins are also scheduled to appear.

This reported sighting has just appeared on TFG's official Events calendar. Yes, TFG will apparently be coming to Albuquerque on Thursday to hold a noon rally at CSI Aviation at the Albuquerque International Sunport. Tickets are available online on a first-come, first-served basis. 

Abq Jew is sure you can imagine just how thrilled he is to learn of this - probably as thrilled as you are. As with everything TFG, there remain an entire plethora of reasons - misunderstandings, swindlings, and the ubiquitous who knows what - why TFG's return may not take place as announced.

Among them - TFG's campaign still owes Albuquerque more than $200,000 (plus interest) in security costs and paid time off for city employees tied to his 2019 campaign rally in Rio Rancho, according to Mayor Tim Keller’s office. 

While this debt - and other debts, to other cities - may or may not be legally collectible, there is still ... the embarrassment. But TFG does not get embarrased - and, as we all know too well, has no sense of shame.

So. Back to TFG's campaign's fascist rally, at Madison Square Garden, which Heather Cox Richardson termed "a rally so extreme that Republicans running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight."

In February 2019 - shortly before TFG's last visit to New Mexico - Abq Jew published A Night at the Garden, which dealt with the eponymous film about the 1939 rally, Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy Thompson, Philip Roth, and - perhaps most importantly - Isadore Greenbaum.

Which Abq Jew proudly provides, in its entirety, below. Still crazy after all these years.

A Night at the Garden

It Can Happen Here

February 19, 2019

Yes, the Academy Awards are coming up - on Sunday February 24, to be exact. Among the Oscar nominees this year - for Best Documentary (Short Subject) - is a film that shows what happened when it almost happened here.

If you haven't heard of A Night at the Garden - you will. On CNN and MSNBC. But not on Fox News! Ari Feldman reported in The Forward on February 14:

Fox News Rejects Ad For Oscar-Nominated Short About American Nazism 

Fox News will not air an ad for an Oscar-nominated documentary about American Nazism, the Hollywood Reporter reported. 

The 30-second ad, called “It Can Happen Here,” is for “A Night At The Garden,” a documentary short about a 1939 meeting of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization. 

That infamous meeting, which gathered 20,000 people in New York’s Madison Square Garden, was a dramatic show of American support for Hitler — and of American anti-Semitism. 

Banners hung up in the Garden read “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans,” and “Wake Up America. Smash Jewish Communism.” The crowd yelled “Seig Heil!”

A Night At The Garden is pieced together from archival footage of the event, recalls the shocking level of determination and organization achieved by American Nazis and their supporters. 

But Fox News rejected the ad for the short, which is meant to warn that Nazism and fascism can happen in American. The ad, which Fox News’ leadership deemed “not appropriate,” was meant to be aired for the Sean Hannity’s show, historically the most-watched cable news broadcast. 

“It’s amazing to me that the CEO of Fox News would personally inject herself into a small ad buy just to make sure that Hannity viewers weren’t exposed to this chapter of American history,” said Marshall Curry, the director of the short.

Sinclair Lewis predicted it in It Can't Happen Here.

It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical 1935 political novel by American author Sinclair Lewis, and a 1936 play adapted from the novel by Lewis and John C. Moffitt. 

Published during the rise of fascism in Europe, the novel describes the rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values.  

After his election, Windrip takes complete control of the government and imposes a plutocratic/totalitarian rule with the help of a ruthless paramilitary force, in the manner of Adolf Hitler and the SS. The novel's plot centers on journalist Doremus Jessup's opposition to the new regime and his subsequent struggle against it as part of a liberal rebellion.

And Philip Roth updated it in The Plot Against America.

The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh.  

The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels.  

The narrator and central character in the novel is the young Philip, and the care with which his confusion and terror are rendered makes the novel as much about the mysteries of growing up as about American politics.  

Roth based his novel on the isolationist ideas espoused by Lindbergh in real life as a spokesman for the America First Committee, and on his own experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey.  

And it was fully on display when the German-American Bund held a rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, on George Washington's birthday. Jason Daly of Smithsonian Magazine wrote in 2017 about "A Night at the Garden":

The film shows about six minutes of the rally, including the American Nazis marching into the hall in the party’s brown uniforms, reciting the pledge of allegiance and listening to the national anthem before giving Nazi salutes. 

It also includes a piece of a speech by Fritz Kuhn, the leader of the German-American Bund (the American wing of the Nazi party), in which he rails against the "Jewish-controlled media" and says it’s time to return United States to the white Christians who he says founded the nation.

But first - please watch the film (here or here.) It's only a bit over 7 terrifying minutes long.

Here is how it gets better: with a remarkable display of Jewish bravery.

At one point during the speech a 26-year-old plumber’s helper from Brooklyn named Isadore Greenbaum charges the stage and yells, "Down with Hitler." 

He is beaten up by Bund guards and his clothing is ripped off in the attack before New York police officers arrest him for disorderly conduct. 

In court that night, the judge said, 

“Don’t you realize that innocent people might have been killed?” 

Greenbaum responded, 

“Don’t you realize that plenty of Jewish people might be killed with their persecution up there?”

Philip Bump of The Washington Post wrote in 2017 about Isadore Greenbaum:

Shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area in 1989, the Los Angeles Times spoke with local residents about the likelihood that they, too, would experience a significant quake at some point in the near future. 

One man the newspaper spoke with was stoic about the prospect. 

“When it comes, it comes. Not much use worrying about it,” local fisherman Isadore Greenbaum told the paper. “I remember when one hit a ways back, some of the people didn’t know what it was, and I told ’em it was just a whale scratching its back.” 

What the Times doesn’t seem to have known is that they were speaking with someone with a proven track record of bravery in the face of danger. 

Isadore Greenbaum was arrested in 1939 for charging the stage at a rally of 22,000 Nazi sympathizers in the middle of Manhattan, enduring a beating at the hands of the uniformed stormtroopers who were providing security before being dragged away by the police.

Another historical note: Famed journalist Dorothy Thompson was present at the Bund rally, and at one point was temporarily evicted.

For laughing. 

Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as being equal in influence to Eleanor Roosevelt. 

She is notable as the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and as one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s. She is regarded by some as the "First Lady of American Journalism."

 At the time of the Bund rally, she was married
to Sinclair Lewis, who wrote "It Can’t Happen Here."

Starting Again in 5785

In the Big Inning: And so, here we go again. After a short week full of holidays - Sukkot Chol haMoed, Hoshana Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah - we Jews are blessed to start anew the annual cycle of Torah readings. Chapter 1, verse 1! Except for those communities who folllow the Triennial Cycle. For those who do: Chapter 5, verse 1!

Abq Jew is of course thrilled beyond belief that his New York Yankees - the best and most celebrated team in the history of baseball - are once again in the World Series. He is less thrilled that his team will be playing the Los Angeles Dodgers, who shamefully left his home town of Brooklyn in 1957. 

By which time Abq Jew and family had also moved (see June 2023's Let's Twist Again!) - but only to Valley Stream! Still in New York State!

Got the blues?

Yes, what with Jewish events in and around Israel and Jewish events in and around the US of A and Jewish events all over the world - it's hard these days to get over the blues. See Abq Jew's handy guide above.

But back to Bereshit - which many now transliterate (as opposed to spell) Beresheet, for fear that TFG will say something ... well, you know.

To counter all the antisemitic "protests" taking place everywhere - and especially at certain US colleges and universities - Abq Jew here presents the teachings of Rashi on the first lines of the first book of our sacred Torah.

Who was Rashi, again? Oxford Bibliographies reminds us:

Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (b. 1040–d. 1106), commonly known by his acronym Rashi, was the single most influential Jewish Bible commentator of the Middle Ages. Rashi’s works include a commentary on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), a commentary on the Babylonian Talmud, and various Halachic works and responsa. 

Of these works, his commentaries on the Pentateuch and on the Talmud are by far the most commonly read and studied. He was a foundational influence on Jewish Biblical scholarship ....

When the Israel-haters call us Jews "colonizers" - this is what we tell them.

בראשית. אָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק לֹֹֹֹֹא הָיָה צָרִיךְ לְהַתְחִיל אֶת הַתּוֹרָה אֶלָּא מֵהַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם, שֶׁהִיא מִצְוָה רִאשׁוֹנָה שֶׁנִּצְטַוּוּ בָּהּ יִשׂרָאֵל, וּמַה טַּעַם פָּתַח בִּבְרֵאשִׁית? מִשׁוּם כֹּחַ מַעֲשָׂיו הִגִּיד לְעַמּוֹ לָתֵת לָהֶם נַחֲלַת גּוֹיִם (תהילים קי"א), 

 

שֶׁאִם יֹאמְרוּ אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם לְיִשְׁרָאֵל לִסְטִים אַתֶּם, שֶׁכְּבַשְׁתֶּם אַרְצוֹת שִׁבְעָה גוֹיִם, הֵם אוֹמְרִים לָהֶם כָּל הָאָרֶץ שֶׁל הַקָּבָּ"ה הִיא, הוּא בְרָאָהּ וּנְתָנָהּ לַאֲשֶׁר יָשַׁר בְּעֵינָיו, בִּרְצוֹנוֹ נְתָנָהּ לָהֶם, וּבִרְצוֹנוֹ נְטָלָהּ מֵהֶם וּנְתָנָהּ לָנוּ:

בראשית IN THE BEGINNING — Rabbi Isaac said: The Torah which is the Law book of Israel should have commenced with the verse (Exodus 12:2) “This month shall be unto you the first of the months” which is the first commandment given to Israel. What is the reason, then, that it commences with the account of the Creation? Because of the thought expressed in the text (Psalms 111:6) “He declared to His people the strength of His works (i.e. He gave an account of the work of Creation), in order that He might give them the heritage of the nations.” 

For should the peoples of the world say to Israel, “You are robbers, because you took by force the lands of the seven nations of Canaan”, Israel may reply to them, 

“All the earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whom He pleased. When He willed He gave it to them, and when He willed He took it from them and gave it to us” (Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 187).

Yes, Abq Jew is - as are Jews around the world, except those in the Land of Israel - most undoubtedly suffering from, but occasionally enjoying, what the Berenstain Bears proudly proclaim to be Too Much Yuntif.

And thus, in almost closing, Abq Jew curiously brings you, his loyal readers, a selection from The New Yorker's Shouts & Murmers titled

Excerpts From A Sitcom Set in New York City
by Writers Who Are Clearly From California

INT. APARTMENT—NIGHT

Best friends REBECCA (an intern at a boutique book publisher) and HANNAH (an intern at a fashion magazine) live together in an affordable, two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. 

They’re throwing a party tonight, like they do most weekends, because their average-size, twenty-five-hundred-square-foot apartment overlooking Central Park is perfect for accommodating big groups. 

In the kitchen, Rebecca is chatting with MIKE, an attorney at a large corporate law firm, whom she’s just met.

MIKE: This is a great place you guys have here. So quaint and cozy. How’re you liking it?

REBECCA: It’s O.K., but a little cramped. So I’m thinking of moving into a two-bedroom place by myself so that I can have an office.

MIKE: Makes sense.

REBECCA: How about you? What part of New York City do you live in?

MIKE: I’m on the Upper West Side.

REBECCA: Nice! So easy to get to from here!

MIKE: I know, right? Just a short subway ride away!

And finally, depending on when you're reading this -

Good Yontif! Good Shabbos!

Tell It In Bay Ridge

Christopher Columbus, MOT! As we approach the Jewish Holiday of Sukkot - and as we pass by Indigenous Peoples Day, observed by New Mexico's (and many Elsewhere's) Native Peoples - we sorta skip over what used to be, and in some places still is, the traditional Italian Holiday of Columbus Day.

But today (actually on Yom Kippur!) everything changed. Italians have been dispossessed, and Columbus Day has been restored, for better and for worse, to its rightful owners: The Jews.

ICYMI - Graham Keeley of The Times of Israel (and everyone else) just reported some version of the story -

Study finds Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe 

Researchers analyze DNA fragmented remains believed to be world-shaping explorer’s; they say any further narrowing down of his origins remains elusive

MADRID (Reuters) – The 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, Spanish scientists said on Saturday, after using DNA analysis to tackle a centuries-old mystery.

Several countries have argued over the origins and the final burial place of the divisive figure who led Spanish-funded expeditions from the 1490s onward, opening the way for the European conquest of the Americas.

Many historians have questioned the traditional theory that Columbus came from Genoa, Italy. Other theories range from him being a Spanish Jew or a Greek, to Basque, Portuguese or British.

To solve the mystery researchers conducted a 22-year investigation, led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, by testing tiny samples of remains buried in Seville Cathedral, long marked by authorities there as the last resting place of Columbus, though there had been rival claims.

They compared them with those of known relatives and descendants and their findings were announced in a documentary titled “Columbus DNA: The true origin” on Spain’s national broadcaster TVE on Saturday.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the program.

“And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.” 

Abq Jew is sure that the first question to cross your minds, already disjointed from reading Abq Jew's entertaining and informative blog posts, is -

What's the Nafka Minah?, the Jewish Chronicle explains, is

... a colloquial, yeshivish question meaning "What's the practical difference?" It has no neat English equivalent. You might say "What's the nafka minah if she's Christian or Wyccan? The children still won't be Jewish" or "I still can't taste the nafka minah between Coke and Pepsi."

The Talmud frequently asks mai nafka minah (meaning literally "what goes out from it" in Aramaic) to identify the practical halachic consequences of abstract or theoretical arguments. 

For example, it gives three answers to the question of which biblical verse teaches us that a Succah may not be higher that 20 amot (about 30 feet.) A nice theoretical discussion; but then the Talmud wants to know what the nafka minah of the contrasting positions might be in terms of how a succah should be constructed.

The phrase embodies a characteristically talmudic sensibility; that thought, however abstract, should effect or express some practical consequence in the world.

Abq Jew would like to point out that he first argued for Columbus's Jewish identity in his now-classic May 2012 blog post Christopher Columbus, MOT?. 

The new research (many say, but others, of course, don't) only builds on those arguments that Abq Jew presented way back then. 

So. Columbus the Jew or Columbus the Italian - what's the nafka minah? Abq Jew can think of two. Ok ... three. There may be more, but Abq Jew cannot think of them right now.

1. Bay Ridge must be told.

For those of you, Abq Jew's loyal readers, who are not from New York - Bay Ridge is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Originally settled by the indigenous Canarsee Indians, Bay Ridge is now home to a lot (that's a technical term) of Italian Americans.

For whom Columbus Day is practically a religious holiday, even though it started out as a one-time celebration that President Benjamin Harrison thought up to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy.

That was in 1892, the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage, following lynchings in New Orleans, where a mob had murdered 11 Italian immigrants.

2. Borough Park must be told.

For those of you, Abq Jew's loyal readers, who are not from New York - Borough Park is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. 

Borough Park is home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities outside Israel, with one of the largest concentrations of Jews in the United States. Orthodox and Haredi families have an average of 6.72 children, none of whom heretofore have had reason to celebrate Columbus Day.

3. Columbus Circle must be told.

For those of you, Abq Jew's loyal readers, who are not from New York - Columbus Circle is a traffic circle and heavily trafficked intersection in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located at the intersection of Eighth Avenue, Broadway, Central Park South (West 59th Street), and Central Park West, at the southwest corner of Central Park.

Columbus Circle is (of course) named after the monument of Christopher Columbus in the center, and  is the point (who knew?) from which official highway distances from New York City are measured.

And NYC's Columbus Circle is but one of very, very many places, things, and events named after the First Colonizer. 

So now we must ask -

or

You may have noticed that these days, joyful celebration of Columbus, Columbus Day, and pretty much anything Columbus is ... restrained. 

If not outright hidden or prohibited.

Sure, Columbus was a great man who did great things. But he also did bad things. The result is that we here in America have not been able to come to terms with Columbus the man. 

Or with our Founding Fathers, for that matter.

In the years and years when Columbus was celebrated for the great things he did - he was Italian. Why is it that now that Columbus is Jewish - all we talk about are the bad things he did?

Columbus the Admiral sought to serve Ferdinand II and Isabella I, the Catholic Monarchs of a newly-unified Spain. 

Columbus The Jew was a different man entirely. 

Will Columbus The Jew be good for The Jews?

Seasons of Love

The People of Israel Live: The October 7 pogrom opened an old Pandora’s box. The questions asked about G-d during the Holocaust and through our long history of persecutions were raised again on that black day. 

Where was G-d? Where was His infinite mercy in our moment of need? And why do we keep talking to Him even when He doesn’t seem to be responding?

As we approach Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement, these are questions that we Jews all over the world are asking now, have always been asking, and will be asking until the arrival of the Messiah. And perhaps afterward.

Lubavitch International Editor-in-Chief Baila Olidort offers one response.

Editorial: The People of Israel Live

By Baila Olidort

It was a sunny, balmy day when I visited the site of the Nova Festival, and the Nahal Oz army base several months ago. As we stood in the charred remains of the observation room, where the young IDF heroines on duty on the morning of October 7 were burnt alive, a rabbi recited the Kaddish. 

The place was a charcoal shell, soot, ashes and the smell of smoke still filling the air. I heard myself uttering the plea–which we now say every day in the prayers between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: Avinu Malkeinu, our Father or King, avenge the spilt blood of your servants. 

It reminded me of my visit to Poland some years back when I walked through the barracks and stood speechless at the ovens in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The earth outside was covered in a carpet of fresh green grass, as if to conceal what happened there, as if to silence the voices of the murdered millions who continue to call out. 

But I heard. I heard their voices “crying out from the ground.” The sun was setting, the buses were leaving, but I couldn’t tear myself away. I owe them, I thought, as their unheeded cries thrummed in my head.

The October 7 pogrom opened an old pandora’s box. The questions asked about G-d during the Holocaust and through our long history of persecutions were raised again on that black day. Where was G-d? Where was His infinite mercy in our moment of need? 

Yet at the funerals of all the murdered, mourners chanted the Kaddish: Yitgadal v’Yitkadash Shmei Rabbah they said while burying their loved ones who were slaughtered when no one came to their help. 

The prayer extolls G-d’s greatness. Although confused by what felt like His absence, I too found myself crying out to Him to avenge the spilt blood of our people. 

A year later, when hostages are still being held and Israel continues to fight for its life, I am not sure how to understand this. 

How do we understand the Jews of the Shoah who went to their deaths with the Ani Maamin–”I believe”–on their lips? What was this declaration of faith about? Why do we keep talking to Him even when He doesn’t seem to be responding? We deeply want to keep Him in our lives, to maintain our bond with Him even when we feel He fails us. Why?

I am not the first to wrestle with this question and I won’t be the last to accept that it remains unresolved–that I cannot plumb the depths of the mystery around this relationship, and around the unrelenting faith that the Jewish people continue to avow in times of great darkness and profound uncertainty. 

Just listen to the songs Israelis have been singing in recent months, and again on October 7. 

The lyrics are optimistic, promising that Israel will prevail. They are about our unshakable faith in G-d and His unbreakable covenant with us, his eternal people. About our strength to withstand all the attempts to destroy us. 

One song that has become wildly popular since October 7 declares the eternal survival of Israel: “For even in our highs and lows and in our most difficult hours, Hashem watches over us and none can overcome us . . . The people of Israel live.” 

On the first anniversary of October 7, I listened to Israeli radio. All through the night, every individual who was killed in this attack was named, talked about and remembered. 

That’s how it is in Israel–every person counts, every death leaves a vacuum. The void is therefore huge, with Israel in profound mourning. And even as it mourns, it is pursued by persistent, powerful and ruthless attempts to annihilate us. 

Why haven’t we given up? What is it that keeps the people of Israel going against an avalanche of evil bent on destroying us?

The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks considered this question. 

He suggested that perhaps it is not certainty that defines our faith, but the courage to live in its absence. 

Maybe that is why, as ravaged as Israel was by the October 7 massacre and the subsequent attacks, its people have become stronger, not weaker, more determined, not hopeless. 

Going into Yom Kippur, it is good to know that even as our questions stand in all their fullness, we are right to deepen our conversation with G-d. 

For it is especially in the great uncertainty of our time that this mysterious reservoir that we call faith makes it possible for us to gain and grow. Maybe this explains how we carry on instead of caving in, and why the brutal and barbarous enemies that surround us on all sides fail always to crush us.

Am Yisrael Chai. 

May the Jewish nation be inscribed and sealed
in the book of life and peace. 

 And then there was this surprise from NYC's Park Avenue Synagogue.

Park Avenue Synagogue introduced a new practice during Rosh Hashanah to mark the end of a Jewish year that included the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 and the war and turmoil that has followed: 

A cohort of Broadway performers sang “Seasons of Love” from the popular rock musical “Rent” on the bimah. The performance took place during services on Thursday, Oct. 3, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. 

According to Cantor Azi Schwartz, it was the first time Park Avenue Synagogue hosted Broadway performers on the bimah during High Holidays. He told the New York Jewish Week that he wanted to tell the congregation that 

“Broadway can be your home, the sanctuary at Park Avenue can be your home and Judaism is your home — and they all exist together.” 

“Our year has been filled with sorrow and strife. How can we celebrate? How can we kvetch, knowing the pain of the hour? Our response, authentically, is by way of love, seasons of the love,” 

said the congregation’s senior rabbi, Elliot Cosgrove, introducing the performers as they began singing from the back of the room, making their way to the bimah. 

Cleared for Publication

A Poem: By Israeli poet Dael Rodrigues Garcia. Translated by Michael Bohnen, Heather Silverman, and Rachel Korazim. One of two poems read by historian and writer Simon Schama at the London October 7th Memorial.

* Announcers on TV and radio say this before reading the names of the soldiers killed on a given day. It means the families know already. The word hutar is used here and in the line referring to “open season."

**Hidden places: The poet noted that this is a reference to a Talmudic discussion of Jeremiah13:17 “If you do not heed this, my soul will cry in hidden places because of pride.” Our sages explained that God has a hidden chamber where He weeps for Israel’s pride which was taken from it and given to other nations. The sages questioned the presence of weeping, since I Chronicles 16:27 says that “it is joyful in His place. They explained that the innermost chambers are for hidden weeping, while in the outer chambers there is no weeping. Talmud Hagigah 5b.