I do not think I know how the world in which we live got to be what it is today.
MY PRECIOUS GRANDCHILDREN, THE WORLD IS A SCARY PLACE, AND I AM SORRY THAT YOU MUST NOW LIVE IN A SCARY PLACE.
When Grandpa and I were growing up in the 1950’s, the world was safe. We talk about taking the train into Manhattan when we were preteens with our younger siblings alone and exploring the city. We talk about walking anywhere at any time. When we became adults, we learned that the 1950’s was the safest decade in the history of the world.
Yes, in the history of the world. Coming from that era, we Boomers have a skewed sense of the world. We expect what we had. What we have now is even more scary to us.
“We are Charlie. “ That is a phrase that is being repeated after the terrorist attacks in Paris. The world leaders seem to be standing together in solidarity against terrorism. Words are easy. Posturing is what they are now doing. Posturing is easy. The hard truth is not easy.
It seems that France knew about these terrorists. France did not budget to surveil known terrorists and these known terrorists were not being watched. It was too expensive for them.
There are five million Muslims in France. There are a half a million Jews. This terrorist attack on a newspaper was accompanied by a terrorist attack on a Jewish deli where four Jewish men were killed. Heavily armed soldiers have been dispensed to French Jewish schools and French Jewish neighborhoods in a show by the French government that they will try to protect their citizens. The Jews of France are leaving in droves. Last year, the most immigration to Israel was French Jews. Again, Israel has opened its doors to those French Jews who should, but do not feel safe, in their own homeland. I cannot get the newspaper photograph out of my mind of a young boy, maybe six or seven, outside a French Jewish school, looking at the heavily armed soldiers. This Grandma is the child of Holocaust survivors and feels the fear, the uncertainty, and knows that that little boy now feels the world is a scary place. He is about the age of two of our grandchildren.
A “well known” person in France, not identified by Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News, January 13, 2015, was quoted as saying that before World War II and Hitler, the optimists stayed in Europe and died in Auschwitz and the pessimists left for New York and are alive.
This Grandma wanted to know who said that and made Grandpa go back over Brian Williams reporting of this quote. No name and no position was given. Only an unknown source gave the quote. It is scary that the person might be afraid to be identified with the statement.
All over the news, and with Brian Williams reporting that night, were the previous attacks on Jews in France and elsewhere this year. When we played back the segment, what came to the forefront was a terrorist attack this year upon tourists who were visiting a Jewish museum in Belgium. Grandpa and this Grandma love to travel. When we travel, we visit synagogues and Jewish museums around the world too. We were planning another vacation in Europe this year. As of the events of this week, the aftermath and the rhetoric, the trip is postponed. We are not going to Europe this year. We may never go back to Europe again, and that is painful.
Right after we finished watching our taping of the NBC Nightly News, we watched Jon Stewart and the Daily Show from January 12, 2015. He had a segment about race, ethnicity, and prejudice that was brilliantly written. There was Jon Stewart, a Jew, and his cast of a Black woman, Muslim man and white man. The Muslim man was saying that Muslims around the world have apologized for the small group of Muslim terrorists and tried to debunk statements such as that the U.S. Muslim country allies are not really on our side, etc. He said Muslims have to apologize twice and twice as hard in the current world climate of fear. Once is not enough if you are a Muslim. In turn, each of the cast were commenting about whether or not they, as a individual, were also responsible for evil in the U.S. instituted by criminals and those evil of their race or creed.
I think I know how the world in which we live got to be what it is today.
We are being pulled apart as human beings. In this time of fear, we are not really pulling together. We are separating and staying in our racial or ethnic societies for comfort and support and safety. I remember Brian Williams or a newspaper saying that unemployment is high in France and many of the young Muslim men are disenfranchised, having no jobs and no thought of a future better than today. France is not alone. All of Europe is suffering economic hardship and unemployment of the young men. So, is much of the world. If someone sees no future, someone has nothing to lose, and no reason to be on this earth.
France has its economy as an obstacle to protecting its citizens from terrorism. So does much of the world. Do we have enough resources to watch all the potential terrorists in our scary world?
But, most unfortunately, war and strife and fear are the way of human beings, my precious grandchildren.
The reality hurts.
How lucky we are that your grandmother and great-grandparents had the opportunity to come to America to live. Appreciate your country and give it your loyalty. However, GG (great grandmother) said you never know when a Hitler may come again and you, as a Jew, have no tomorrow. This Grandma would hate to think that, “Next year in Jerusalem,” which we say at the end of every Passover Seder would apply to us who have found asylum in America and that we, too, may need to flee to safety in Israel one day, rather than just visit one day.
This Grandma is so sorry that the world is such a scary place and is not going to seem less scary as you grow up. We will try keep the news from you as long as we can so we will not see the look on your face that we saw on that little boy on a Paris street glancing at the heavily armed soldier in front of his French Jewish school. It is hard enough to hear you talk about the security at your school in America.
With little joy,
Mema
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