One More Cup of Coffee

I am BEYOND thrilled to be participating in...

THE RETURN OF TWISTED MIXTAPE TUESDAY!!!!

It's back as a once a month Tuesday, instead of a once a week Tuesday... but still! MORE MIX TAPES!!!!

This month's mix tape theme is the Soundtrack Of Your Summer. This is a bit of a cop out for me, as my summer actually did have a soundtrack. And it actually is a mix tape. And no, it has nothing to do with Guardians of the Galaxy.

Starting at the beginning of last school year, I built a list of songs that my kids loved listening to. In the car, mostly. That way, I'd know what music to put on when somebody suddenly started having a meltdown. There are a few songs that didn't make the official list, because of fairly obvious reason, but once the list was long enough to fill up a CD, I burned it. And it's been playing in our car pretty much on a loop as we traveled all summer.

To give you an idea of how effective this disc is, last weekend we went to a birthday party in the distant 'burbs. RH screamed halfway home, until I remembered to put on the disc. As the first few notes of the first song played, she became instantly silent. And then, in a perfectly calm voice, she announced, "I happy now!"

Here, for your listening pleasure, is the soundtrack of my summer. Enjoy!





The kids fell in love with this song over the course of the year, on days when we drove downtown to pick up M from work. I would sing a few bars of the song as we crossed the bridge over the Chicago River, and eventually they stopped believing me that it was a real song. Well, now they know every single word.



This song is on a mix M and I like to listen to on a semi-regular basis, so the kids fell in love with it during our drive to Minnesota for Christmas last year. As much as they love it, SI refuses to sing along. "The words go too fast."



I put this track on a mix for myself once upon a time, and I LOVE IT. So of course I played it in the car once in a while. Well, SI fell in love with it. She wanted it, on a loop, every time we got in the car. For months. It's still her favorite song. Actually, she just generally loves Bob Dylan covers, her second favorite track being "Forever Young," as performed by Poppa.



The first of several Beatles tracks. Another one I sang as we went about our business around town. I would sing it to RH in order to get her to hold my hand as we crossed the school parking lot. Again, the children didn't believe it was a real song until this mix came into being.



Every morning last year, as we drove to preschool, I'd surf through the local pop stations, looking for what the kids and I called "bouncy songs." These were songs the kids could happily bounce in their seats to, through the whole six minute drive. This was one of their two favorite "bouncy song."



There are several songs that, starting pretty much at birth, RH has responded really well to. The first song (and one that's not featured in this list) is "Monster" by Eminem, featuring Rihanna. That's one that M nixed for being "inappropriate." Whatever. RH also loves her some Men At Work.



I don't think there is was child alive in America in 2014 who didn't memorize at least half of the nonsense words in this song. And unlike most music that falls into the category of "kids songs," this one is actually a brilliantly crafted pop song that doesn't terribly grate on the adults in the vicinity. So it made the list.



Really, the songs RH loves have a common theme. They're high tempo, with a repetitive guitar or bass riff. I have NO complaints about her love of this song. I love this song, too. So RH gets two giant thumbs up from me on her taste in music. (Yes, Eminem included.)



One of the kids' favorite movies is "Yellow Submarine." When I started making the mix, I put every single track from the movie into it, and slowly whittled away the ones they liked least. They love this track, not exactly sure why, but it's delightful and makes everybody happy, and I'll never turn my nose up at The Beatles.



When I was a kid, my dad used to play this on the guitar. And starting when the kids were very small, I'd sing it to them every time it rained. Sometime last year, DD fell in love with it, so the original made its way into the mix.



So in case there was any question that my kids are, in fact, ridiculously awesome. Let's recap. SI's favorite song is a Dylan cover by the Turkish equivalent of Madonna, RH's favorite song is by Stevie Nicks, and DD's favorite song is Peter Gabriel's magnum opus. It comforts me to know that, all other things aside, I'm at least doing SOMETHING right.



This song came on randomly one winter morning, and SI stopped eating to ask me about it. She requested it three days in a row, and it made the list, and then RH fell in love with it. That up tempo, repetitive riff thing again. It's a great song, and these kids have fabulous taste.



Truth be told, we tried and tried and tried to find a download of the Maccabeats' cover of this song, "Candlelight." But this version was also one of our favorite "bouncy songs." And so the kids are perfectly happy with the original. Plus, I dance like a maniac behind the wheel and other moms in other minivans stare with unbridled awe and shame at my killer moves.



No explanation required.



Another of RH's favorite songs. It always cheered her when it came onto the radio, and so it made the list. Bonus? It's one of M's favorite Billy Joel tracks too, so while I'm recovering from belting along to "Let It Go," M picks up the singing slack and sings this like he's about to win the world championship of karaoke. I love that man.



I am thoroughly a child of the 90s, and my children are more than minimally exposed to the great songstresses of the Lilith crowd. This is their favorite Sarah McLachlan track, I'm not sure why. I always had a thing for "Possession." Then again, they ARE four years old, and I imagine a lot of the subtext is going over their heads.



Like I said, it's one of their favorite movies. I would rather have kept "Nowhere Man" on the list, if it were me, but RH really appreciates this song. And hearing her scream, "Yellow Submaween!" over and over again is awfully cute.



Starting back when we used to have our post-breakfast dance parties, the girls and I listened to a lot of swing. This is a favorite of theirs, and has few enough overt sexual innuendo for M to deem it acceptable for the children.



Another song RH fell in love with after it came onto the radio one day. Repetitive high tempo riff... plus, Mommy sings along and rolls down all the window and blasts the music. And who doesn't love that?



Another song I used to sing them myself, now with a mix tape backup. This one is a CLASSIC. I have no idea how many versions of it I'd heard, but until Madeline came around, I'd never thought of it as one I could really sing. I lover her so much.



Yes, you probably recognize this track from previous mix tapes. The girls love it as much as I do, so it got onto their CD.



Another one my father sang to me as a lullaby, and now I sing it to the girls as a lullaby. When I found this version, my heart kind of exploded a little bit. I put it on the list for the girls without their having ever heard it, and now they adore it. Lucky me, they still let me sing in "the bedtime way," when it's time to sleep.



Okay, fine. You're adults. You can deal with it. Here's the bonus track that ran through my head every time this mix played, despite M trying to keep it away from the kids. You're welcome.

End of the Month Controversy- Israel and Palestine

street art by Banksy

Once upon a time, civilization emerged in what we call Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia means "land between rivers," and the rivers it refers to are the Tigris and the Euphrates, in modern day Iraq.

Many civilizations emerged there. many cultures and religions. Many more emerged nearby, each spreading deeper into the three continents that Mesopotamia bridged.

One of those culture and religion is my own. Five thousand years ago, the Jewish people were nomads, wandering through the deserts that surrounded Mesopotamia. Four thousand years ago, they became the dominant culture in land at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, to the west of Mesopotamia. Three and a half thousand years ago, they were conquered, and their country fell, and they once again became wandering nomads. They wandered to Egypt and were enslaved.

Or at least, some of them were. But a great many Jewish people remained in the former Israel, farming and shepherding, living under the rule of other peoples. So many, in fact, that for another thousands years or so, they remained the dominant culture. Part of what kept them so dominant was the assistance of another nearby people- the Persians. After Xerxes (known in Hebrew as Ahasuerus) took a Jewish girl named Esther as his queen, the Persian Empire was one of the first places and times in human history where Jews were allowed to live as they pleased- worshipping their own God, controlling their own commerce, and existing in their own communities. The Persians even allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. But the land that was once Israel was on the border of another two continents, and constantly at play in the wars of other people.

It was around that time that the Romans, living to the north of Mesopotamia, took over what was once a desert belonging to no-one, and then a Jewish country called Israel, and then the property of Assyrians and Persians and other assorted middle eastern peoples. Within a few hundred years, Jesus was born, and the number of Jews living in the modern day middle east began to become a number of Jews and a number of Christians, and even more numbers of people of neither faith or heritage. A tribe of Jews wandered off into Africa and became lost for millennia, the Christians moved farther north into Europe.

Half another thousand years after this, Mohammed was born and an empire began growing around him, in the land to the south of Mesopotamia. This new culture pushed north into Europe, and east into Asia, and west into Africa- through the land that previously belonged to the Romans and the Assyrians and the Persians and the Jews and nobody.

So now Israel was part of the massive empire of the Caliphate, which covered all the northern part of the African continent, modern day Spain, India, and Turkey. It was a massive empire.

And the Holy Roman Empire fought with the Caliphate, and the land that was once Israel and had belonged to dozens of passing tribes over the past four thousand years traded hands many times.

The Holy Roman Empire didn't only fight against Islam. It also fought against Jews, now living in Europe. They were tortured and killed, and many fled. Some wandered deeper and deeper into Europe, some went back through the former Mesopotamia into India, and some went to their former territory, the former Israel, because they believed it to be their homeland.

When the Ottoman Empire came, that land once again traded hands, and still the Jews who had decided to remain there after the fall of the Jewish country, and the fall of the Persian Empire, and the fall of the Romans, etc. etc., lived in that place- with the slowly accumulating European Jews, and all the other peoples who had come and gone, building their shrines and temples, and taming the desert.

Meanwhile, persecution against the Jews continued in Europe. The Jews wandered farther north, farther east, and as pogroms grew in frequency in Russia, many European and now American Jews embraced a new philosophy- Zionism- and began immigrating to the land to the west of Mesopotamia in larger numbers. In the decade before World War 1 alone, forty thousand Zionist immigrants landed on the shores of what they knew as Israel. And tensions between the Jews and Arabs, which had always been fraught, began to rise.

With the first world war, the Ottoman Empire was cut into pieces and distributed as spoils to the victors- assorted European powers.

The British took what they called Palestine, and kept it under their direct control. European and American Zionists continued moving back to the desert, planting apricot groves and building settlements and cities.

And then came the Holocaust.

When World War II ended, the new United Nations agreed that in order to prevent another Jewish genocide, the Jews needed a home. The British offered Palestine, where many of the Jews were going anyway, and gave it to them.

There were already Jews there. What overnight became Israel again was already home to hundreds of thousands of Jewish people.

America was hostile to Jews. Europe was hostile to Jews, with the exception of a several Scandinavian states who had welcomed Jewish refugees as early as the sixteenth century. Nobody wanted to offer their protection, but Britain had a sliver of land that happened to already be home to more Jews than almost anywhere else on earth, and only having owned it for a few decades, they figured they wouldn't really miss it when it was gone.

But as we know, Jews weren't the only people in Israel. The two thirds of the non-Jewish population in the territory was made of all sorts of people. There were Muslims, who had been living there for half a thousand years, since the Caliphates spread up from what was now Saudi Arabia.

There were Christians, who had been living there since the Roman Empire.

There were dozens of other tribes, with their own religions and their own cultures, who had been living in the land to the west of Mesopotamia since before history.

So the great powers of the world agreed- send the Jews to Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, and the problem is solved. Within a year the Jewish community grew from 30% to 80% of the populations.

The day after the British left, every Arab neighbor attacked the new state. Miraculously, Israel survived. Twenty years later Egypt announced plans to "destroy Israel,"and Israel went to war with its neighbors again, this time expanding territory into the Sinai and the West Bank. After that, the Arab neighbors met and announced their conditions: No recognition of an Israeli state, no peace, and no negotiations. It's an attitude that has continued in Hamas.

And so, despite the existence of a modern Jewish state, there have only been three places in the history of Judaism where Jewish people could live essentially in peace.

The first was Israel as it was four thousand years ago, in its half millennia of autonomy and prosperity.

The second was Persia, when Jerusalem was returned to the Jews to administer as they saw fit.

And the last is the United States, in the last half century, after the struggles of the Civil Rights movement suddenly changed the perception of Jews in America from a maligned "other" to "white." (Ironically, American persecution of Jews had gained momentum during the Civil War, when Ulysses S. Grant issued orders evicting Jews from American territory.) But as the government of Israel continues to grow more and more conservative and aggressive in its fight with Hamas, even America is less welcoming.

There are 8.3 million Jews living in America, spread out through all 50 states. There are 6.3 Jews living in Israel- a territory the size of New Jersey. There's another three million scattered across the world. That's all the Jews on earth.

Everywhere but here and Israel, Jews are a persecuted minority. Hate crimes against Jews continue in France, the country with the third highest Jewish population. Hate crimes against Jews continue in Russia, where they aren't given citizenship.

And Israel's neighbors continue to threaten its total and absolute destruction.

Israel's government is in a position that most of us cannot begin to comprehend. Vastly outnumbered by enemies who take every opportunity to attack, but still they MUST abide by expectations of far distant allies.

And in this situation, the Israeli government has done very, very bad things.

The way Israel treats the peoples of Gaza and the West Bank is unacceptable. The hardships they inflict are often compared to apartheid, and not without reason.

But each time Israel eases the restrictions they place on Palestinian territories, Hamas responds with attacks.

This does not excuse the actions of the Israeli government.

Many Jews (even in Israel) are not Zionists. Many Jews don't believe a Jewish state is a good idea. Many Jews don't believe the Jewish claim to the land that is now Israel but was once Palestine and Roman and Ottoman and Persian and Assyrian and just a desert to the west of Mesopotamia is a valid claim. Some Jews interpret the Torah in such a way as to forbid a Jewish state in Israel.

Source

But Many Jews feel compelled to support Israel, because nearly half of the Jews on earth are there, and part of being Jewish is the constant awareness that somebody is coming for you. Somebody is coming, bent on destroying the entire Jewish people. And Israel is a damn fine target for those people who want to destroy the Jews.

Nearly half the Jews in the world live under the constant threat of annihilation from their next door neighbors, who explicitly demand their destruction. Nearly half the Jews in the world spent the last two months running for their bomb shelters over and over again as Hamas fired rockets. Nearly half the Jews in the world are faced daily with a choice to live in the land where their people have lived for five thousand years, or to flee alone into a world that despises them.

THAT is what's happening in Israel.

There is no doubt that the Israeli government is doing criminal things. But that is not the same as the Jewish people.

Yet, because Israel is THE Jewish State, and because Jews, as all minorities are, find themselves compared to and represented by the most visible entity with the same label, the rest of the world takes out its frustration at the Israeli government on "The Jews."

That's why Jewish students at American universities are being assaulted on campus. This is why random Jewish couples in New York City are being attacked by strangers on the street. That's probably why a 65 year old historian was beaten to death this month in Philadelphia. Because all across the world there was already a nasty streak of anti-semitism, and it is being fed by fury at Israel. The factions of people already attacking Jews has adopted the same language and set of complaints used to attack Jews a century ago.

It is much more complicated than a country ripped from the hands of one people and given to another.

It's more complicated than Jews versus Muslims. The majority of Jews in Israel are not religious, but the ultra-orthodox members of the Knesset have passed laws excusing ultra-orthodox Israelis from their mandatory military service. In what is, for Israelis, not a religious war, the Jews with religious motivation have eliminated themselves from the lines.

It is even more complicated than Jews having their own country to run as they see fit, because the increasingly conservative and violent government of Israel is making it harder for non-Israeli-born Jews to become citizens.

And it is more complicated even that that- because American Evangelical Christians are founding and promoting charities with the sole purpose of moving more Jews out of Europe and into Israel, with the hopes that when ALL the Jews are in Israel it will bring about the second coming of Christ, and the world will end.

But it also serves to convince the growing Anti-American movements in the Middle East, like offshoots of Al Qaeda, that America is connected with the Zionist movement, creating more hatred towards Israel and Jews, and funneling more rockets and fighters into Gaza.

THAT is how complicated the situation is.

Hamas and Israel agreed to another ceasefire yesterday. After fifty days of death and destruction, mostly in Gaza, another shaky attempt at peace is here.

When it fails, as it probably will, be careful in where and how you assign the blame. It is not anti-semitic to be anti-Zionist. Just remember that a people and a country are not the same.

Remember that if the Israeli government wanted to kill Palestinian civilians, they'd all be dead already.

Remember that if the Palestinians weren't oppressed, they wouldn't accept Hamas.

Remember that the people living in Israel, people living EVERYWHERE, have only ever wanted to live free from persecution, regardless of which Empire erased or redrew the borders last time around.

All of this fighting- it is all based on invisible lines in the sand. The same sand we've been fighting in for five thousand years.

Remember that five thousand years is a long time. And remember that we can't change history to suit our needs. It is not black and white, good and evil, right and wrong.

It's a series of events that occurred, and if we are careful, we can learn from them.

And maybe, then, we can build a lasting peace.