- “Among the Midnight Cynics” Family Security Matters (22 January 2016) online at
http://www.org/publications.detail/print/among-the-midnight-cynics.
- 2.”Nations on the Move, Now and Then” Family Security Matters (27 February 2016) online at http://www.org/publications.detail/print/nations-on-the-move-now-and-then
- Book Review of Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Introduction to
Zionism and Israel: From Ideology to History. (London and New York:
Continuum International, 2012) on blog Retrievals, Preservations and
Speculations (16 March 2016); reposted on EEJH (18/5/2016).
- “Of Mosques, Moms and
Mayhem”: Review of Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, The Jihadi Dictionary on
Family Security Matters (23 May 2016) online at http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/of-mosques-moms-and-mayhem,
Reprinted in CBRNE Terrorism Newsletter (June 2016) pp.2-3; online
athttp://www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter-com; also in American Center for
Democracy No. 1139 (26 June 2016).
- “What to Kill for? What to Die
for? What to Think About?” Family Security Matters (20 June 2016)
online at http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/what-to-kill-for-what-to-die-for-what-to-think-about
- “Anti-Semitism Again: Why Do They Hate Us So Much?” Retrievals,
Preservations and Speculations (17 July 2016) online at http://simmsdownunder.blogspot.com/2016/07/anti-semitism-again;repr.
East European Jewish History (18 July 2016 ) online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eejh
- “Young Volunteers Fight with Kurds against Isis” Family
Security Matters (2 August 2016) http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/print/young-volunteers-fight-with-the-kurds-and-against-isis
- “Recipes -
Gourmet Foods and Drinks of Forty-Seventh Street.1947-1953” Retrievals, Preservations and
Speculations (2 August 2016) online at http://simmsdownunder.blogspot.com/2016/08/reciipes.
and reprinted on EEJH (4 August 2016) online at eejh@yahoogroups.com
- “Sacrifice”
Family Security Matters (4 August 2016) online at : http://www.
familysecuritymatters.org/ publications/detail/sacrifice
- “Contemporary Violent Death” Family
Security Matters (18 August 2016) http://www.
familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/print/contemporary-violent-death
- “9/11
as a Moment of Historical Transformations”
Family Security Matters (7 September 2016) http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/911-as-a-moment-of-historical-transformation
- “Reading,
Misreading and Misunderstanding Literature, History &
Philosophy: Here we Go Again” on EEJH (Tuesday,
11 October 2016) also on Retrievals, Preservations and Speculations (10 October 2016).
- “Phantasmagorical
Man”, review of Susan Roland. Hitler’s Art Thief: Hildebrand
Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the Looting of Europe’s Treasures (New York:
St Martin’s Press, 2015) Retrievals, Preservations and Speculations
(13 October 2016); reprinted on EEJH (16 October 2016)
- With Dov Bing, “The Worm in the Apple: Raubkunst, or
The Art of Nazi Looted Art”, Mentalities/Mentalités
28:3 (2016)
- “Anti-Semitism as Catachresis” Mentalities/Mentalités
2 :3 (2016) online, n.p.
- « Je suis consterné… » in “Reflections on the AAA Boycott
Resolution”, ed. Zev Gerber in Iggeret No. 88 (Fall 2016) pp. 7-8.
- “The World Turned Upside Down” Family Security Matters (18 December 2016) online thttp://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/world-tutrned-upside-down
Saturday 31 December 2016
Publications in 2016
Although a fair number of books, articles and essays, as well as poems and sayings have also appeared or are still to be published, the following is what can be considered officially puboished in 2016.
Wednesday 28 December 2016
Sayings for the end of 2016
Murky Sayings for the End of 2016
Good Deeds Go Unrecognized
Uncle Toby Shandy would
gently and discreetly pick a fly off the dinner table and put it outside
through the window. This became an
emblem of sentimentality. If a fly is
caught in your car, and you open the window to let it out on the other side of
town, does it know where it is, and cannot ever find a new life?
The Solitude of Galaxies
I have decided to give up on
the world as such, most of the galaxies, stars and black holes that already
have names, and stop trying to count the stars.
Only such vast stretches of blackness, anti-matter and uncreated
potentialities not yet expressed, these perhaps I can handle with
equanimity. They are not yet implicated
in the seasons of terrorism we have known in our lifetime. But everything else is. Except for my own
close family and few close friends.
Disoberdience
Unlike criminals who break
the law out of greed, hate and uncontrollable passions, the most honourable of
men and women break the law when the law is evil, when it crates the situation
in which evil may be committed with no consequence, if not with a reward. Not passive resistance in the face of
unacceptable actions of the state, but deliberate deeds to right the wrong, no
matter what the consequence or cost.
To Whom Can We Turn?
We live in an age when
ignorance masquerades as arrogant bluster, when it usurps the place of
enlightenment, and when justice is undermined by whining miserable
cowards. We are asked to tolerate the
intolerable, to excuse the murderer on the grounds of equity, and to bite our
tongues in the face of egregious lies.
When the corridors of redress are the sources of corruption, where can
we turn?
Text and Counter-Text
For as long as I can remember
and anyone whom I ever knew, for two hundred years almost, to the Napoleonic
Wars, no one ever felt safe or thought caution could be relaxed. There is no use dreaming backwards to a gold
age of peace and safety and idle to speculate on a future without war,
terrorism, violence and malice. If
animals truly lived in peace with one another, there might be a modicum of
hope. Why side with the graceful
antelope, when the loping hyena must feed itself and its family?
Holiday Spirit
Every year, no matter where,
people complain in newspapers that celebrating Christmas is a bore, a terrible
ordeal being forced to sit with relatives one does not like, and stuffing
oneself with foods that are not good for your health. Turn the page, the complaints are that too
many are alone and destitute, lack support and comfort even for a day or an
evening.
Festival of Lights
One says of Hannukah it is a
scandal: the Maccabees were fanatics and puritans who opposed the openness of
Greek cosmopolitanism and access to free thought and aesthetic
sensitivities. Another says the Seleucid
Greeks and Antiochus were ruthless barbarians, cruel dictators and corrupters
of the righteous. Light the menorah
candles, enjoy the sweet oily jelly-doughnuts, and spin the draydle for
a chance to win some fine chocolate coins.
In the Galut
When you lift up the stone, the
slugs, ants, bugs and other creepy-crawlies race about, confused by the light,
fearful of the world above. schlemiels and shlamozzels squeal:
give us back our rock, turn off the lights, let us hide from reality. Help, they cry, let us be safe little nothings.
Don’t take away our toys. Do anything
you want out there—murderer and slander—terrorism and delegitimize our
homeland—but leave us alone. Please,
give us back our little pishkele, our begging box and bowl. Don’t make us uncomfortable in our dark
self-delusions. If we complained to the
authorities, they would laugh at us, stomp on our heads, call us bad names,
like kike and sheenie, or even worse: Zionist and Jew. Please love us and protect us, no matter at
what cost in principles, morals, ethics, integrity or loyalty to our thousands
and thousands of years of traditional learning. Above all, don’t make us think.
Back To Nature
Wordsworth thought the world
was too much with us, and he found more wisdom in the woods from wind in the branches
than in any school or philosophy. We
think the world is too much with us when we neglect our studies, fail to learn
logic, and forget history. He must have
meant the world of men in their materialism and positivism; and yet he
turned in society for the sake of
irrationality, emotions and unconsciousness. Whence all this madness. Ours is rather a symbolic tree, formed in
history, with luminous branches, spreading enlightenment—freedom, justice,
truth, independence, defiance, rationalism, compassion and wit. Our wisdom is our ancestors engaged in debate
and controversy, never accepting dictates that obfuscate reality, always
challenging the thoughtless imposition of myth and ideology.
With Him Will I Dwell
In nights of trouble, we
stand in the shadows and call for help from our friends and neighbours. One
says to go away and stop making so much noise.
Another says to wait until tomorrow because things maybe better by
then. The third says, here, take this
sack of sandwiches and fruit, then run off.
Says the fourth, you can wait there until the morning, but then you must
leave. When the fifth opens the window, he says in a whisper, open the door and
wait in the vestibule, and later you must depart. And the sixth? He says come in and stay with
me until it is safe to leave. Then the
seventh one says, hide in my cellar as long as is needed. The eighth says, stay with me, and tomorrow I
will go take you to a place of refuge.
The ninth says, you are my friend and neighbour, and you are now part of
my family. The tenth says nothing.
The Hunt
A charcoal black cat inches
its way down the drive, heading for the bushes, the hydrangeas where it
lurks. From the other side of the house,
the ginger creature stares across the lawn.
It too waits. Then beyond the
plum tree, sidling its way into the tall grass, creeps through the rotting
slats of the old gate, the white cat, somehow never sullied by its
homelessness. All three of them seem to
know, though they never say a word. The
birds are at alert. The dozens of
sparrows rise up to the branches. The
black birds stand in mid-peck, hop this way and that. Gently I slide open the kitchen door, take
hold of my long range pistol, well-charged with vinegar, and spray and growl
and spray a wide loop across the grass.
The birds are gone. The cats have
disappeared. The plums lie on the shaded
lawn. Sooner or later, all will return to play this game again, although my own
part is not guaranteed. Who knows if the
hunter will be awake or the gun loaded?
Life is fickle.
Murky Sayings for the End of 2016
Good Deeds Go Unrecognized
Uncle Toby Shandy would
gently and discreetly pick a fly off the dinner table and put it outside
through the window. This became an
emblem of sentimentality. If a fly is
caught in your car, and you open the window to let it out on the other side of
town, does it know where it is, and cannot ever find a new life?
The Solitude of Galaxies
I have decided to give up on
the world as such, most of the galaxies, stars and black holes that already
have names, and stop trying to count the stars.
Only such vast stretches of blackness, anti-matter and uncreated
potentialities not yet expressed, these perhaps I can handle with
equanimity. They are not yet implicated
in the seasons of terrorism we have known in our lifetime. But everything else is. Except for my own
close family and few close friends.
Disoberdience
Unlike criminals who break
the law out of greed, hate and uncontrollable passions, the most honourable of
men and women break the law when the law is evil, when it crates the situation
in which evil may be committed with no consequence, if not with a reward. Not passive resistance in the face of
unacceptable actions of the state, but deliberate deeds to right the wrong, no
matter what the consequence or cost.
To Whom Can We Turn?
We live in an age when
ignorance masquerades as arrogant bluster, when it usurps the place of
enlightenment, and when justice is undermined by whining miserable
cowards. We are asked to tolerate the
intolerable, to excuse the murderer on the grounds of equity, and to bite our
tongues in the face of egregious lies.
When the corridors of redress are the sources of corruption, where can
we turn?
Text and Counter-Text
For as long as I can remember
and anyone whom I ever knew, for two hundred years almost, to the Napoleonic
Wars, no one ever felt safe or thought caution could be relaxed. There is no use dreaming backwards to a gold
age of peace and safety and idle to speculate on a future without war,
terrorism, violence and malice. If
animals truly lived in peace with one another, there might be a modicum of
hope. Why side with the graceful
antelope, when the loping hyena must feed itself and its family?
Holiday Spirit
Every year, no matter where,
people complain in newspapers that celebrating Christmas is a bore, a terrible
ordeal being forced to sit with relatives one does not like, and stuffing
oneself with foods that are not good for your health. Turn the page, the complaints are that too
many are alone and destitute, lack support and comfort even for a day or an
evening.
Festival of Lights
One says of Hannukah it is a
scandal: the Maccabees were fanatics and puritans who opposed the openness of
Greek cosmopolitanism and access to free thought and aesthetic
sensitivities. Another says the Seleucid
Greeks and Antiochus were ruthless barbarians, cruel dictators and corrupters
of the righteous. Light the menorah
candles, enjoy the sweet oily jelly-doughnuts, and spin the draydle for
a chance to win some fine chocolate coins.
In the Galut
When you lift up the stone, the
slugs, ants, bugs and other creepy-crawlies race about, confused by the light,
fearful of the world above. schlemiels and shlamozzels squeal:
give us back our rock, turn off the lights, let us hide from reality. Help, they cry, let us be safe little nothings.
Don’t take away our toys. Do anything
you want out there—murderer and slander—terrorism and delegitimize our
homeland—but leave us alone. Please,
give us back our little pishkele, our begging box and bowl. Don’t make us uncomfortable in our dark
self-delusions. If we complained to the
authorities, they would laugh at us, stomp on our heads, call us bad names,
like kike and sheenie, or even worse: Zionist and Jew. Please love us and protect us, no matter at
what cost in principles, morals, ethics, integrity or loyalty to our thousands
and thousands of years of traditional learning. Above all, don’t make us think.
Back To Nature
Wordsworth thought the world
was too much with us, and he found more wisdom in the woods from wind in the branches
than in any school or philosophy. We
think the world is too much with us when we neglect our studies, fail to learn
logic, and forget history. He must have
meant the world of men in their materialism and positivism; and yet he
turned in society for the sake of
irrationality, emotions and unconsciousness. Whence all this madness. Ours is rather a symbolic tree, formed in
history, with luminous branches, spreading enlightenment—freedom, justice,
truth, independence, defiance, rationalism, compassion and wit. Our wisdom is our ancestors engaged in debate
and controversy, never accepting dictates that obfuscate reality, always
challenging the thoughtless imposition of myth and ideology.
With Him Will I Dwell
In nights of trouble, we
stand in the shadows and call for help from our friends and neighbours. One
says to go away and stop making so much noise.
Another says to wait until tomorrow because things maybe better by
then. The third says, here, take this
sack of sandwiches and fruit, then run off.
Says the fourth, you can wait there until the morning, but then you must
leave. When the fifth opens the window, he says in a whisper, open the door and
wait in the vestibule, and later you must depart. And the sixth? He says come in and stay with
me until it is safe to leave. Then the
seventh one says, hide in my cellar as long as is needed. The eighth says, stay with me, and tomorrow I
will go take you to a place of refuge.
The ninth says, you are my friend and neighbour, and you are now part of
my family. The tenth says nothing.
The Hunt
A charcoal black cat inches
its way down the drive, heading for the bushes, the hydrangeas where it
lurks. From the other side of the house,
the ginger creature stares across the lawn.
It too waits. Then beyond the
plum tree, sidling its way into the tall grass, creeps through the rotting
slats of the old gate, the white cat, somehow never sullied by its
homelessness. All three of them seem to
know, though they never say a word. The
birds are at alert. The dozens of
sparrows rise up to the branches. The
black birds stand in mid-peck, hop this way and that. Gently I slide open the kitchen door, take
hold of my long range pistol, well-charged with vinegar, and spray and growl
and spray a wide loop across the grass.
The birds are gone. The cats have
disappeared. The plums lie on the shaded
lawn. Sooner or later, all will return to play this game again, although my own
part is not guaranteed. Who knows if the
hunter will be awake or the gun loaded?
Life is fickle.
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