Pull out your phone and press record. As Elie Wiesel said, quoting Leviticus, "Don’t stand idly by if you witness injustice. You must intervene. You must interfere.”
Too many people I know - friends, family, secular, religious - refuse even to discuss these things, let alone act. Comfortable in their situations, or overwhelmed, or just “too busy “ with their lives, they have abdicated responsibility. Sooner or later they, or their children and grandchildren, will suffer the consequences.
Even more than in LA, the DC takeover has hit that type of person, the one not used to seeing a large, intimidating police presence, right where they live.
Here in Munich we have a "NS Documentation Center" (National Socialist = Nazi) which has excellent info-displays and is very well visited. I went through it a few weeks ago and felt great depression for days after because it told our (America´s) present and - if it is not stopped -future. So much of what took place during the Hitler takeover is like what is going on in my home country today. As an ex-pat living abroad I don´t have Trump and its consequences in my face as my fellow Americans at home do. And I think they all can use a visit to the NS Documentation Center! Trump now has his "brown shirts," just as Hitler did. The old series "Holocaust" should definitely re-run, in America and all over Europe. Just as a reminder!
Some day, God willing, we’ll have museums here to remind people of the evils of the Trump era. There will be tours of sites where atrocities occurred - so we will remember.
The harvest of the fruit trees around me is now over and I am glad. I was continually keeping a look out and worrying about the workers. Seems that ICE concentrated their efforts in town. They would go from one section to another. Many of the small businesses are owned by either Mexicans or East Asians.
Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that I would worry about the well being of fruit pickers.
The sending of troops to Washington, LA, or any other city that votes blue is not about crime. It is about power and control. Trump and the Republicans know that their policies are widely unpopular and realize that they may not be able to hold onto power in the 2026 elections. The only way to hold onto power is to take control of liberal Democratic areas and suppress the vote in these areas, combined with other voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering. Trump wants to eliminate mail-in voting and electronic voting machines, making it more difficult for everyone to vote, which benefits Republicans. The establishment of fear of ICE harassment of people of color who can legally vote and mostly vote blue is an objective and is working. My sister, who lives in LA, has a boyfriend who is an Egyptian immigrant working on a visa for a tech company. He lives in fear every time he goes to work, even though he has papers to legally be in the US, but he does not yet have a green card. He is a light-skinned Egyptian and looks like a typical Latino, which makes him even more scared. My point is that people who live in fear will not vote, that is the purpose of what Trump is doing!
Too many people I know - friends, family, secular, religious - refuse even to discuss these things, let alone act. Comfortable in their situations, or overwhelmed, or just “too busy “ with their lives, they have abdicated responsibility. Sooner or later they, or their children and grandchildren, will suffer the consequences.
Even more than in LA, the DC takeover has hit that type of person, the one not used to seeing a large, intimidating police presence, right where they live.
Here in Munich we have a "NS Documentation Center" (National Socialist = Nazi) which has excellent info-displays and is very well visited. I went through it a few weeks ago and felt great depression for days after because it told our (America´s) present and - if it is not stopped -future. So much of what took place during the Hitler takeover is like what is going on in my home country today. As an ex-pat living abroad I don´t have Trump and its consequences in my face as my fellow Americans at home do. And I think they all can use a visit to the NS Documentation Center! Trump now has his "brown shirts," just as Hitler did. The old series "Holocaust" should definitely re-run, in America and all over Europe. Just as a reminder!
Some day, God willing, we’ll have museums here to remind people of the evils of the Trump era. There will be tours of sites where atrocities occurred - so we will remember.
The harvest of the fruit trees around me is now over and I am glad. I was continually keeping a look out and worrying about the workers. Seems that ICE concentrated their efforts in town. They would go from one section to another. Many of the small businesses are owned by either Mexicans or East Asians.
Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that I would worry about the well being of fruit pickers.
Thank you, Rabbi! This essay is terrific. And inspiring. And practical, too.
Thanks so much, Elizabeth!
The sending of troops to Washington, LA, or any other city that votes blue is not about crime. It is about power and control. Trump and the Republicans know that their policies are widely unpopular and realize that they may not be able to hold onto power in the 2026 elections. The only way to hold onto power is to take control of liberal Democratic areas and suppress the vote in these areas, combined with other voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering. Trump wants to eliminate mail-in voting and electronic voting machines, making it more difficult for everyone to vote, which benefits Republicans. The establishment of fear of ICE harassment of people of color who can legally vote and mostly vote blue is an objective and is working. My sister, who lives in LA, has a boyfriend who is an Egyptian immigrant working on a visa for a tech company. He lives in fear every time he goes to work, even though he has papers to legally be in the US, but he does not yet have a green card. He is a light-skinned Egyptian and looks like a typical Latino, which makes him even more scared. My point is that people who live in fear will not vote, that is the purpose of what Trump is doing!