Everyone Needs Therapy

Transitions

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:36:00 -0500

Rabbi Zev once told us that a rabbi, a Jew, has to be ready to go to a funeral and then a wedding on the same day, maybe within a few hours, minutes. As a rabbi maybe he didn't have to change clothes. But he did have to change his emotional tone, his presentation, demeanor, shed the sadness to receive the joy.

We have three holidays in Israel this time of year, within a week and a day. Two are very sad, one, Independence Day, very happy. We are called upon to transition, as if from hundreds of funerals, to the celebration of a birth of a nation.* We transition in exactly they way Rabbi Zev says we can and we must.

The first of the three holidays is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

One might think, why not fold it into the next one, Memorial Day?But that all too imaginable Nazi slaughter takes top prize in every genocide contest. It needs a secosl category of horror.

Here, in Israel, survivors of the Holocaust gather in the evening, light candles, sing songs, among others Chai, Chai, Chai, Am Yisrael Chai. We still LIVE. Never forget us. How could we?

FD and I sing in a choir, a makhailah-מקהלה. We meet on Sunday nights with other new immigrants in a modern music hall. An exceedingly talented musical director takes us into our past with song, cultural immersion that reaches the depths of the soul.

For the past several weeks we worked on a few to sing to/with survivors. Share that they are not forgotten. See them smile.

They sit and drink coffee, nibble at cake in the small social hall. In blue skirts and pants, white tops, we sit in chairs opposite them. There is no stage. Candles are lit, stories told. We sing. It is an emotional day. It takes something from us, there's a catch in our throats, a halt to our breath knowing that this living history, in twenty years, is history. We give something to them, but they give us back much more.

Next day I'm walking home from the pool. School just let out. The kids coming from school seem less animated usual. They are in black and white. Everyone remembers.

That was a week ago.

The second holiday-- I promised three-- is Memorial Day, Yom Hazicaron, a week later, another remembrance day but this time we remember the young men and women who have sacrificed their lives so that we can live.

War after war, well before the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews have been elbowing off their enemies, armies, countries, tribes, all collaborating to murder Jews, make us an ex-nation, an ex-people. They considering us to be the interlopers.** Our Torah begs to disagree and the Torah (those 5 books) precedes their holy prophets by 1500 to two thousand years. Just saying. Is it a competition? I feel in this case it is.

Israelis attend town gatherings on Yom Hazicaron , they hear dozens of stories of fallen, murdered soldiers, young men and women, their photographs streaming on Jerusalem stone, parents and siblings breaking our hearts. The music, poignant, sad, true magnifying it all.

This is a reminder that we have so many to thank for the life we have in Israel, a life of freedom. Freedom to say what we want, freedom to wear what we want, freedom to pray as we wish, freedom to seek justice. In America such freedoms are taken for granted, but not here, not when you are surrounded by nations that only allow such freedom to some-- not others.

At 8 pm a siren sounds. It is so loud, ear piercing. No one moves. The sound is absolutely chilling.

A far cry from the barbecues I remember, the parades in the US on Memorial Day. (Can I bring a salad? Sweet corn?)

Then, as evening approaches, a new spirit enters the soul of Israelis gladness, excitement. Tonight there will be fireworks, entertainers in the parks acting, singing, performing for free. Kids running around eating cotton candy, spraying one another with shaving cream. FUN. We shift gears with aplomb. It is not hard.

Last of the three, Yom Haatzmauth, Independence Day. 78 years old and they still want to ___ us.

The Israeli flag

A joke going around, fill in the blank.

Israeli flags are EVERYWHERE.

Today I will go on a hike. I'll show pics tomorrow.

To happy times,

therapydoc

Another article on, well, living Israeli: Actually read this writer anytime.

Amit Segal, A Day to Remember

* It might be argued, the birth of a State. We have been a nation since the great departure from Egypt, slavery, to the Promised Land, promised by the Old Mighty so long as we don't screw it up, so long as we do not become like them, the previous inhabitants. What a story. Read the book.

** To paraphrase the late professor, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

There are 56 Islamic states. There are more than 100 nations in which the majority of the population is Christian.

He goes on to say:

There is only one Jewish state. Israel one-twenty-fifth the size of France, roughly the same size as the Kruger National Park in South Africa In his podcast, the late beloved rabbi, in Covenant & Conversation, on pars hat Kedoshim answers the question, Why do they need land?

Those Sirens

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sun, 5 Apr 2026 11:51:00 -0500

Random flowers in Israel

This war has some Israelis staying home more than usual. Others go about their lives, hardly deterred lest a siren suggest they move to a bomb shelter. Most comply with the sirens. Although we have had few casualities, relatively, nobody wants to be one.

But people who have lived here for decades, maybe their whole lives are out swimming at the clubs, traveling to see friends in other cities, even touring. They have become accustomed to pulling over on the road if a missile warning goes off, ducking into the nearest ditch. This is not something I think I want to do.

These are tough people. I don't think the Iranians had any idea.

Missiles give me pause, being new here. Not that I don't go out, I do, just as long as I know that I am not over a ten minute walk to the nearest public bomb shelter.

Only once did I break that rule, went out on foot with FD to shop for Passover. Of course there's a siren and of course we don't know where the nearest shelter might be. Suddenly even the birds have made themselves scarce.

We knock on somebody's door, people let strangers into their shelters. This time, however, our would-be hosts had already locked themselves down, couldn't hear us through the steel door of their mamad leaving us to watch the skis from under a carport. We saw nothing, and ironic though that may be, I felt disappointed (I hear this is common). We waited for the all clear and went home, shaken.

Did that traumatize us? It traumatized me, I'm still talking about it. Do I have Acute Trauma Disorder? (It is too early to diagnose PTSD). I'm not sure but I don't think so. I'm depressed on and off, and if it weren't my nature to not be depressed on and off, we might say so, but my feeling is that the blues are from feeling confined. Being confined. .

It is cabin fever, not getting out much, no socializing with friends (although there's no reason not to, really, they all have shelters). I take these short walk, back and forth within the ten minute from a shelter perimeter I set for myself. Does this careful, obsessive watch over the distance from a shelter should a siren go off constitute Wartime OCD? Oh, yeah, for sure. But Home Security would approve. And like most OCD symptoms, it is functional.

What's really functional is doing what I would tell any client to do when I get that down feeling that like a new self took over where my old, happy, cheerful self used to live. Using the tools I've spent 40 years teaching at work literally works, thank G-d. They make the blues go away. (There is a song in that) so it is time to get serious and share them. This may seem very obvious but it is easy to let a mood take over a day. Such a waste. So...

My top three beat depression hacks. They work for some, not everyone. That's all the caveat you get. But they can't hurt.

(1) Music

(2) Exercise

(3) Music and Exercise Together.

Today I chose door number three and it worked like a charm. My Apple HEALTH app tells me that I walked 5,341 steps, which isn't enough but it isn't nothing and I stayed within my self-imposed perimeters. As I walked I listened to Israeli songs from Eurovision contests going back to 1975. Those were great songs!

I came home in a great mood.

I am sharing a picture. Taking pictures also makes me happy, make that No. 4. This one, above, is a hedge of flowers. I see a flowering bush every ten feet (I am an American, still have trouble with metric conversion but my guess is that's about 3 meters). They call my city the original Gan Eden, Paradise. I cannot argue.

Oh, and fruit trees, lemons and oranges drop to the sidewalk. I'll have to get you a pic of those.

To resilience! To happiness! To peace, quiet.

Oh, here's a link to my favorite Israeli Eurovision entry, Liora (not Liora Yitzchaki) singing Amen in 1995. When it comes to the war, let it be over soon. Amen.

https://youtu.be/LJkGfeletR0?si=B_HC0Uti3N4f8uMr

therapydoc

What War

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 01:52:00 -0500

I understand that March came in like a lion in the Midwest (USA) where I come from. I feel for my friends and relatives who are still dealing with it. I know someone who can't wait to get planting his vegetable garden. But if I asked, Are you guys cold, they would say: There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.

But being highly cold averse this has never been my jam and I'm glad I didn't have to be there last winter, glad I didn't have to wear bulky clothes or shop for duds bragging newer, lighter, better insulating fabric. Nothing ever really warms me up, I feel like King David must have felt. Nothing like skin on skin.,

When it gets chilly here a simple down jacket is like a fur coat so I'm not complaining. They are everywhere. Israelis start wearing them when it gets down to sixty.

What I'm trying to say is What are a few missiles compared to weather.

I used to close my eyes in Chicago, imagine the beach, try to feel the sun. It is difficult to make that happen, but imagining what milder climes might feel like is better than focusing on the cold.

Truth be known, it hasn't become hot yet but it will, and it will be very uncomfortable. We are in the seventies, it can hit 80 (sorry, I still think in Fahrenheit.

When I go outside I'm blinded by the sun and the color, so many flowers. The pink guys below are not flowers but leaves. Tiny white flowers are tucked inside, gifts of the Old Mighty.

I'm hoping that posting this, doing the research, I can point to the Monet while out on a stroll and say to a friend, that's a. . . a . . . a . . . and the name will come to me.

According to my buddy Chat:

That’s bougainvillea — a very common and beautiful flowering vine in warm climates like Israel.

#keepingsane

therapydoc

Not My Secret to Tell

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 02:46:00 -0500

This being a therapy blog, we touch upon things that make us feel badly and look for a hack to stave that off. Why should we feel bad when we can feel good? There is so much to feel badly about. I tell people in therapy to limit the amount of media they watch. The news will destroy your soul.

Making a social faux pas is one of the things that makes me feel terrible. I will do anything to avoid hurting someone's feelings and tell patients to please scream at me if in any way that is happening. It can happen, however, that we hurt others if we are privy to information and share it without first checking with the person who shared it with us--is this public knowledge?

Oddly enough, without that caveat we assume we can, even should share information. If nobody says, Not for common consumption, seems like fair game.

What do they say about the word assume? (parse it out)

We can, but we are sure to shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot when we tell a secret, even if we didn't know it was a secret. Once the words are out we can't take them back.

It used to be that we had to work to share information but with WhatsApp and other social networks we can share to hundreds of friends and relatives and they will share to more. With a few simple words our voices shout out, Hey! This happened. We don't do it to flex our fledgling egos, not usually, but because we think people really want to know, or should know.

Then, the pronouncement accomplished, we get a text from the person who shared with us initially to say, TAKE THAT DOWN PLEASE. SO AND SO DOESN'T KNOW! ie., grandchildren of someone who passed away, the parents of an injured soldier. That sort of thing.

You get it.

Anyway, don't shoot me. I'm just the messenger.

therapydoc

Wartime and Holidays

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 09:08:00 -0500

If you live in Israel and you talk to folks from your native country, they all say, Stay safe! And I repeat it back, You stay safe! Because the world is a crazy place.

It is March 15, the war with Iran began on Saturday, February 28.

February is a short month so if we do the math that brings us to a 15 day war so far.

Two weeks and a day. Feels longer. But honest, except for an occasional missile from a hostile country, you would never notice. (Why so hostile?!) Israel has a few war songs, but nobody's singing them now. Most of our songs are about the love of the land, our beautiful, bountiful land. As they sang in the movie Milk and Honey,

We want it green and so it's green for us.

We also worked it. By we, I mean Jews. For hundreds of years, under other peoples, it lay fallow, produced mostly rocks. Come here. You will think you are in a first world country because you are.

But back to the war.

It feels inconvenient, is all, or so it feels, not dangerous, not by war standards. I picture Vietnam and napalm, horrible mayhem, mass slaughter. Life Magazine photos. This is not that war.

A week ago if you talked to Israelis they might say they felt that the conflict is winding down. Maybe, but that's in the Old Mighty's hands. Or in the hands of Her representatives. We all hope it is almost over, I mean, the holidays are coming. Everyone has a holiday in the spring. I'm not listing them all, ask your buddy Chat. But for example,.

There's the East Asian Qing Ming celebrates ancestors, sorry, no pic, it felt like adding a picture of people objectified unnecessarily.

And the Japanese Hanami about memory, renewal and nature

Cherry blossoms for Hanami

Hindu holiday Holi-colors and joy, good over evil

Passover matzah: Jews couldn't wait for the bread to rise! Matzah on the run from Egypt so it looked like this

Muslim Eid-al-Fitr

Christians celebrate rebirth, sacrifice and redemption with Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter

Muslims have Ramadan, month of reflection and charity that ends with Eid-al-Fitr

Should be a happy time, no?

And yet the world feels upside down to many of us. We have to b e ready for anything, and I don't just mean in Israel, all over the world.

News flash: terrorism is not the work of the Jews. We didn't invent it, aren't into it.

Living with uncertainty, tolerating uncertainty-this is a life skill, it is something we teach in therapy. Breathe, watch happy shows, laugh at comedians on Facebook and Instagram. Do what once made you happy. It probably still will.

therapydoc

The Hostages

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Mon, 7 Jul 2025 12:56:00 -0500

I ask Chat:

What are the different Hebrew words for hostages?

Hostages, some still in Gaza, חֲטוּפִים

חֲטוּפִים, שְׁבוּיִים, חבל

It isn’t that I don’t know the word. Living here and not knowing the Hebrew word for hostage would mean I live under a rock. But my spelling is atrocious, so I ask to make sure it is correct. For you.

Correct spelling in Hebrew makes a world difference.

A nanosecond reply:

Transliteration: chatufim
Meaning: Kidnapped people, abductees

or שְׁבוּיִים

· חָטוּף (chatuf) – male singular

· חֲטוּפָה (chatufah) – female singular

· חֲטוּפִים (chatufim) – plural (mixed or all male)

· חֲטוּפוֹת (chatufot) – plural (feminine)

Often used for civilians taken by force, e.g., on October 7

I stopped saying thank you to Chat when my daughter AI-shamed me for thanking a computer.

On a roll, I ask for the names of the חֲטוּפוֹת (females) and חֲטוּפִים (males) in Gaza.

The robot directs me to the Chabad website for a more complete list. Chabad is an international organization dedicated to serving the Jewish people and bringing those who have lost their way or who never had a map—back to Judaism.

It is 6 am. Why ask now? So that I can pray with more intention (I am sharing here). It is one thing to have the hostages in mind. It is quite another to name them.

Names, as my good friend Raya told me years ago, are important.

I read that there are 54 hostages still captive in Gaza.

Fifty-four people, some young, some old, still captives, stolen from families and country, some mutilated, some raped, all starved, either dead or languishing in tunnels, alone. It is almost 2 years since their abduction on October 7, 2023.

Of the 54 about 24 may be alive, 30 are confirmed dead.*

How does that happen? How are deaths confirmed and by whom? Why do the dead matter so much, anyway? They are gone, no? Shouldn't we concentrate on the living?

I ask why do the dead even matter, a rhetorical question, with more than a twinge of guilt. I know they matter. I am part of a big club. Members of the club have all lost someone, seemingly for eternity because that person went missing, never to be found again, likely murdered, kidnapped, or drowned. A human who left and never came back.

We got our body back. It was not pretty.

When he went missing 52 years ago I felt, albeit with the naiveté of a teenager, a glimmer of hope that he would come back alive, that he could come back, not as a גוף a body, the container of the soul, but as a living, breathing human being.

It is denial to say (and I like denial very much) that it is the ones who are alive, the living that we really do need, that we need to bargain for, need to get back at any price, the living more than the dead.

But in Chicago, standing in front of a bronze plaque with our brother's name on it, the son of our two parents with bronze plaques next to his, I pause and give honor, shake my head. There is no feeling quite like this. It shatters denial with only a thud.

But still, even though I know the answer, almost to test Chat GPT I type in:

Why is burying deceased hostages in Israel so important ?

Introduction:

Burial is deeply important, says Chat (not making a pun intentionally with the word deeply) not only emotionally and nationally, but also religiously and culturally.

There are five reasons that burial is important:

1. Jewish people have a religious obligation. They are commanded to bury the dead promptly, decorously, an act of kindness that cannot be reciprocated.

Deuteronomy 21:23: “You shall surely bury him the same day.”

Before we die, when we are very much alive to hear the Old Mighty's commandments, we hear a commandment to be holy, this in our lifetime.קְדוֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ (Leviticus 19:2).

A commandment to bury on the same day is an affirmation of the body's sanctity even after death. It should not become as bodies do after our hearts stop beating.

2. Seeing to the return of the deceased to Israel is a moral and national duty.

It provides closure and honor to the victims of terror, the captives.

3. Burial in Israel restores identity.

No longer a statistic, the life has a name and all of the honor that name affords. The body's proper caregivers are family and friends.

4. Burial in the land of Israel returns the deceased to the ancestral homeland of every Jew. There is spiritual merit in this.

It is why the Jewish dead are flown to Israel via El Al Airlines for burial. No matter where in the diaspora a person dies, that person symbolizes a link in an ever-growing chain of national and historical continuity. From ancient prophets to modern heroes, a Jewish person, dead or alive, is one of the people of Israel.

5. Returning a body delivers a blow to terrorism.

It is one swift kick in the uh, psyche, especially today, to sociopaths who resort to this tactic, using the dead as bargaining chips, such unconscionable objectification. Bringing them home is resistance, active protestation to foul play.

There we have it, five neat categories. And Chat didn't even mention that feeling I had at the bronze plaque.

So add the sixth and we have an explanation, cogent reasons why we need them all. Every last one of them.

therapydoc

*From Times of Israel reporting (24 hostages alive: 22 Israeli, 1 Thai, 1 Nepali):

Over a week aga a cry rang out with the news of the death of a young soldier, Yisrael Natan Rosenfeld. The nation, memorializes him, classes are dedicated to this beautiful young man. The shiva in a small tent, standing room only, 500 others. People in Israel travel all over the country to pay respects to people they do not know. This is what it means to give honor. More assassinations followed last week.

Yisrael Natan Rosenfeld

The Kindness of Strangers

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Thu, 3 Jul 2025 00:05:00 -0500

War! What do we even do it for? Absolutely nothing—say it again.

That's Edwin Starr singing the original song WAR. He's railing against the war in Vietnam back in 1969.

I wore a black arm band.

Because genocide is a problem

The war in Gaza, the war with Iran, the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon—these are defensive wars despite what the media says about Israel's so called colonial, genocidal intentions.*

Waiting around for a miracle isn't our style, people.

There are reasons for wars, none less convincing than wishing to avoid genocide. Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023 Hamas warriors invade the homes of sleeping Israeli citizens from across the Gazan border. They murder innocents in their beds and over 2,000 celebrants at a nearby music festival.

Our enemies relish attacking us on holidays. It is a thing.

No small band of marauders, either. This is a rampage of cold-blooded murders, rape, sliced genitalia, body parts, decapitations, the crushed skulls of infants, all in a very short time. The young and the old are captive, still held hostage, starving, traumatized. The words BRING THEM HOME are on the mouths of the lips of every Israeli every single day, many times a day.

Yesterday I started to write about the hostages, the חטופים (cha-too-im) and couldn't. We had an event we needed to get to in Jerusalem and the trip included a trip to Bet Shemesh to pay respects to a friend who lost his wife. We had to get going.

Then something happened on the road, a testimony to the kindness of the people of Israel and I changed course.

New words

For some of you, new words:

A new Israeli citizen is an oleh chadash (male) or an olah chadasha (female).

FD and me as a couple? O-lim chad-shim. עולים חדשים

2 stories.

1. An upper-middle-aged couple in a mall for the first time, new Israeli citizens.

Maybe you've been there, stressed in a new or foreign country. You don't speak the language, not intelligibly, and you have a problem. Maybe it's a lost wallet or phone, a missing child or mother-in-law (joke!). You don't know what to do and ask a random stranger who shrugs because of the language barrier.

That doesn't happen here. That doesn't happen in Israel. They don't shrug. They take a minute to try to understand, to help. Especially if you say you are a new immigrant, olah chadasha. Magic words.

The two of us are lost in an unfamiliar shopping mall, very green, exhausted having circled the mall several times in search of the right parking lot. Apparently there are several. We are hot, thirsty, and loaded down with packages. A new toaster. A coffee pot. New cut glasses (very nice).

We ask people and they inevitably point us to the wrong lot. We can't find an information office.

I break down in an elevator, so tired, almost in tears. I say aloud: Is there anyone here who speaks English who can help us find our car? There is and she does. She accompanies us to our vehicle. Hugs and kisses.

Easy enough, but rental cars, driving on the hills of Israel, needing service for said car, this raises the ante.

2. FD wants to take the scenic route from Bet Shemesh to Jerusalem. I'm driving the S-curves on the hills, a good sport but not enjoying myself. I do not like the car, a Picanto. A few years ago we had rented a Picanto with a bad transmission and on our way up north for a double Bat Mitzvah the car stalled near an Arab village about an hour before Shabbat. This, the second stall. It felt fatal, terrified my grandson in the backseat on the lookout for terrorists, but eventually the car started up and we made it to our destination, thanked the Old Mighty with feeling. We took a bus home from my nephew's little Israeli village and I still have a touch of PTSD when I think about that day.

And here we are again. In a Picanto and it stalls, again on a hill. The motor cuts out completely and it is not starting up. My heart is racing, cars are honking. FD lifts the emergency brake, I hit the flashers. His 100-year old mother in the back seat remains where she is cool as a cucumber.

He jumps out of the car, takes my place at the wheel, tries again. Nothing. He tells me to order a taxi, take it to a gas station, we aren't far from Jerusalem. Bring back a can of gasoline.

But a car pulls over on the shoulder, a beautiful car. There is a beautiful person inside we will soon find this out. All I can think is that this is good. Why would someone pull over if not to help?

I get out and rush over. He has lowered his beautiful windows. In Hebrew I say we are olim chadashim. We are new immigrants. And we are out of gas!

FD figured that part out.

Let me help you.

I'm thinking FD should take over for me. Israeli men like to speak with men, not women. It is still a thing. I wave him over from his perch directing traffic and step back.

They talk for a minute, I'm told to hop in. This fellow will take me to a gas station. We will bring back the petrol.

An angel, this guy.

I tell Amnon (this is his name) multiple, multiple times, that he is a malach (mah-lach), an angel. He keeps waving this off. Any Israeli would do the same thing.

No, only one Israeli did this.

We argue over who pays for gas and Amnon ends up paying for it. He tells me that I am taking away his mitzvah if I pay, taking away his good deed. And, he has an app, whatever that means. The gas is cheap.

There is nothing I can do.

On the rides to and from the gas station he asks many questions. Why now! Why would we come to Israel during a war? Israelis are leaving, he tells me. I explain that my daughter and her family took the first flight they could get, this a few months before the war, to fulfill their dream of becoming Israeli citizens. We followed the following year, as did one of her brothers, our son and his family, all of us unafraid of the war. All of us fulfilling our dreams. And now a second son is coming this summer with his wife and kids, 4 school age children. His wife visited Nova on a mission to Israel following the October 7 massacre and came back to say: We are moving to Israel.

Amnon is blown away. You come, replenish, refresh our nation.

I tell him that the summer we arrived another 600 Jews from all over the world made Aliyah, too.

He did not know this. Unbelievable, you have no idea, you give us so much hope, you cannot imagine. Jewish people are still coming here. Really?

Really.

Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

He's thanking me!

therapydoc

*Jews are forever complaining that Israel is butchered in the media, the reputation of my country has suffered, has always suffered, a complete public relations fiasco. The poor victims, the Palestinians, the world has their backs. This after Hamas takes their humanitarian aid, has stolen it for years to buy weapons. This after Hamas gets them into the war with a lion. Write, people. Talk. Reverse the PR. Many drops in a bucket fill up a bucket and it doesn't have to take long, either.

What a Ceasefire Really Means

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 01:12:00 -0500

What does a ceasefire mean to the average Israeli?

For some it means not getting caught in the shower when missiles are headed their way.

For me it means I meet a neighbor on the street, a kid that I had sheltered with regularly for 12 days, and we take a moment to talk for the first time, exchange words of hope, some of them in French!

We both hope the ceasefire lasts forever.

You know, right, that there's an 8-hour time difference between Chicago and Tel Aviv. Israel 8 hours ahead. But it does not get in the way of love, talking to the people we love with FaceTime or WhatsApp. It all works. Not as great as being physically together, but the next best thing.

My brother and sister-in-law (sister, really) talk and I feel their anxiety, the anxiety of the entire extended family back home.*

Sometimes they call and I'm working because of that time zone thing. I write:

With a patient, will call later.

When I call back I'm under the false assumption that we will be celebrating the ceasefire between Israel and Iran. But no, the reports in the US have successfully polluted my family's interpretation of events. There is pervasive worry that the American bombs did not 'do the job.' The explosion did not take out the uranium, is what I am hearing, appalled. Iranians can still develop their bombs, and worse, they may even have a few nuclear weapons stashed away somewhere in them thar' hills.

Maxar photo, B2-bombers, 6 holes on the nuclear reactor site

Being a doctor, I am quick to respond. The problem is that you caught a virus, I say.

Iranian propaganda is virulent. What do you guess Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is telling his people? Is he going to tell them that the Americans obliterated their nuclear program? Is he going to say that Iran has effectively lost the war?

Uh, no. That is not how dictators communicate. Honesty is not their strongpoint. What Khamenei tells his people goes something more like this:

We won! We brought the Israelis to their knees! They begged for a ceasefire.

LOL.

Adorable.

This, as Israeli planes fly overhead in Iran, booming jets piercing their atmosphere. The IAF, the Israel Air Force, still proudly owns Iranian airspace ya' see. Although I hear they left with the ceasefire. So there's that. Victory for Iran, right?

IAF over Iran

The truth is that the mishigas (mish-ih-gahs, craziness, nonsense, Yiddish but also Hebrew) about how American bombs failed their mission is poppycock (come on, people, the USAF unleashed 30 tons of warheads made out of steel, aluminum, radar absorbent metal, tritonal, all kinds of alloys to make things go boom at that nuclear site). The protest, the lie, is to save face, it is political. Tell the Iranian people that they won. that there is no substantial damage, no set back. Even if they don't believe it, the Americans surely will.

I tell my family that it is all good, too, because Iran will not want to break the ceasefire, the lie in place. Breaking the ceasefire would mean that they did not win, that they have to keep fighting. But they won, so everyone in the Middle East can shower in peace now.

They want you to be afraid, I tell D and T.

In Israel the cultural spirit is courage, not fear. We respect fear but look it in the eye. This is a Zen idea, too, honor your fear but be ready to pull out your light saber.

Israelis have done and continue to do what our forefather Jacob (Yacov) did over 3000 years ago.

Yacov is about to meet up with his brother Esau (Genesis 32:21). Esau a powerful, violent guy most likely intent upon revenge, wanting to kill his younger brother for having grabbed the birthright, finding the nearest camel, and hitting the sand dunes.

Yacov is afforded lots of time to come up with a three-pronged plan for when he meets up with his brother again. When faced with annihilation, a powerful enemy:

(1) don't forget to placate him with gifts, first, to soften him up. Everyone likes presents.

(2) but prepare for war

(3) and pray

We pray, as should everyone, that the war is over, that no more lives are lost (7 Israeli soldiers, only yesterday in Gaza). So no, we are not celebrating, we mourn and we pray for the return of those still in captivity in Gaza, the hostages.

Our dear hostages, you are not forgotten, 22 Israeli, 1 Thai, 1 Nepali

7 gone in Gaza yesterday

* home for a Jew is Israel, that is our tradition. But we all have second homes, right? Jews are all rich, aren't they?

Namaste,

therapydoc

The Lion and the Lamb Idea

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 22:45:00 -0500

'We slept through,' FD mumbles. It is 515am. We're up.

At first I think he means we slept through an alarm to shelter downstairs in our miklat (mick-laht) then realized that is impossible. There is no sleeping through an azakah (ah-zah-kah). We slept through only because there was no alarm last night.

'And the Cubs won,' I mumble back.

I checked the score after thanking the Old Mighty for returning me to life, the first thing a Jew does each day, Modeh ani (moe-deh-ah-ni). Other cultures might do this, too, but it has extra meaning for Jews, is my guess.

Last night we watched some of the ballgame on television. What a feeling, mastering the technology of streaming from an iPad to a television. Two doctors figuring out what had previously evaded them.

This is like getting the Wordle in two. You rise from feeling incompetent and a loser (Wordle in four to six) to brilliant.

But I'm not feeling great, despite the Cub win, too much news about the war being far from over, too many soundbites about Iran's nuclear capability.

Last November when patients in the US panicked after Donald Trump's election I prescribed a moratorium on the news. If it upsets you don't listen, don't engage. Don't read. I've followed my own advice for the greater part of this year and I live in Israel! News about fighting a war on multiple fronts has been highly disturbing, gut wrenching, sad. It is existential and surreal that our soldiers, children, are in danger. The Israel Defense Forces are us. They are our relatives, the children of nieces and nephews, grandchildren of cousins, children of friends.

Now, as civilians we are in danger, too, and it is more and more clear the obscenity of war. I think of October 11, how Hamas started it with their invasion from Gaza, decapitating, mutilating, raping women, stealing humans. This is so ugly, all of it.

So I take my own advice, only read the headlines. Reading headlines is like reading the title of a graphic comic book, the gravity doesn't sink in.

זאב עם כלב ירבץ ונמר עם עגל ירבץ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the calf

To an end to the war, may there be no lives lost today or tomorrow or evermore from war. .

therapydoc

An Ugly America

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sun, 5 Jan 2025 01:20:00 -0600

Eddie Redmayne-Caberet, not pretty

As anyone who knows me knows, I've been a little out of it when it comes to what is happening in the United States. When I left in August to become an Israeli citizen (not giving up my American citizenship!) things did not feel great in the great in the USA. My country felt a little ill, frankly. Abuse and exploitation everywhere. Name it, humans abused it, exploited it. Children even. Violence, so much.

When I was a child we played outside until dark. When I raised my children neighbors relied upon neighbors to keep an eye out. I left a country where kidnapping is a serious concern as are snipers, terrorists.

When I left in August, 2024, just five months ago, I had quit my news addiction. The news pinged my brain, not in a good way. I felt too reactive to the negativity, to the sadness and pain. Violence had become a cultural norm, endemic. Mass murder. How? Why?

When I left America the country lacked the unity, the pride, the hope, the love of decades past. Despite the successes of civil rights activists, human rights activism, lip-service to equal rights, democratic egalitarianism felt dead to me, the rich richer, the poor, well, the Bible says there will always be poor people and poverty is more than a comparison we make with others who are better off, if only in a monetary sense. Making more meaning is nothing to sniff at.

As a child of the 50's being an American, well, one couldn't do any better. A child couldn't have been born to a more hopeful, prosperous, positive culture. Take my fifth grade class, for example. We had a subject called patriotism. It was a subject. Learn the word. Love of country. We hated the Russians! We feared the Russians! We had nuclear drills that required hiding under our desks!

America, my G-d, did we sing that song. Heartfelt. America. G-d shed her grace on thee.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed Her grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

Crazy times. But good. Positive. Upbeat. Strong. Communal. Loving.

Eddie Redmayne-Caberet, not pretty

More than you need to know, but FD is starting work as a doctor in Israel and I have a day with no classes. I took some time to catch up on the news in the US, only news that doesn't depress the hell out of me, and Peggy Noonan's old articles. Most felt dated, but one in particular rang true, depressing or not. And I had to talk about it to someone for I've been feeling it for years.

Peggy Noonan

Ms Noonan, also an idealist like myself, probably not much younger or older than me, nails it by telling us that art glorifies all that is ugly, sad, dark, painful, grimy, gloomy, grim, lonely. 'The uglification of everything' it is called and it is very American today. No one is kind, people are vengeful, emotionally incapable and dumb. Nobody laughs anymore. She sees it in the movies.

Just last night I scrolled through Netflix searching for something light, sweet (but not too sweet) and couldn't find anything. I settled on Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside which really is way, way too sweet but when a person is starving and all there is in the house is ice cream, well, what can one do?

Ted Danson, so charming if too sweet, Man on the Inside

This is not what Ms Noonan is seeing in America.

It is not what we see in Israel, just saying, but at least we get a little closer over here.

Maybe America will change with Trump's presidency, but his denial of sexual harassment as a problem makes me doubt it.

Not like there isn't any of that here in Israel, but the attitude in general is not ugly, it is not depressed. Israel is a strong nation hopeful for an era of peace, an end to exploitation of citizens living under strong armed dictators.

Here the songs are positive, wistful, speak to a better life, allude to there being more to life than. . . this. That particular message is a natural response to the deaths of 800 young men lost in the current war, Swords of Iron.

Other songs, however, are related to unity and love, to the hope of our children, to art and creativity, anything that lifts the serotonin. I know because the first thing I did after hanging my hat in the new country, was put it back on and find a choir and in choir the new songs are in addition to the old songs, as if folk is a tradition, history is current. Song in Israel is more popular than ever, it is a fusion of prayer and pop culture, speaks to love, to being in good company, to singing and creation that lifts the heart, the soul. The United States is diverse, sure, but in Israel the neighborhoods are diverse and yet everyone speaks the same language, aspires to the same humanitarian goals.

I pray that the culture in the US turns itself around. We therapists have always worked with the ugly, the depressed, the pained and the lonely. A living, sure, but also a calling.

We couldn't do this work if we didn't believe that happy is better.

therapydoc

Journal-1

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Tue, 8 Oct 2024 04:58:00 -0500

BringThemHome-the hostages in Gaza-NOW

Journals tend to begin with a journey, like a vacation, or maybe a change in life circumstance. A move, becoming a citizen of Israel would be one of those.

Subtext: Now I have the right to wonder if voting matters in two countries, not just one!

An old time blogging colleague writes Life in Israel, and that is totally worth checking out. But everyone's life is different. Here's one therapist's point of view.

Journal 1, October 7

Actually, today is October 8, 2024

Today marks a year plus one day since the most obscene, most unimaginable chapter in the history of the State of Israel. I can't even begin to put the details of the October 7, 2023 to the page, suffice it to say that what you have read, if the details are exceedingly grotesque and inhumane, well, it all of that is true.

Why should we be surprised. Jewish history is punctuated with massacres. Crusaders out to slaughter. Murderous Cossacks roving into towns hunting Jews. My own grandmother, her soul should rest in Heaven, once told me that Polish marauders, Cossacks, barged into her village, her home, and seeing her in a rocker nursing my father, spared her life. She didn't say much other than that. The czar let the Jews of the village leave that day, assuming they had money for passage, the day a fast day. We celebrate that fast at the end of this week, Yom Kippur.

As a rule, the sparing of Jewish suffering has never been a thing. Witness events in France, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, South Africa, you name it. The streets in North America aren't safe, there's mayhem on college campuses. Having suffered pogroms and a holocaust, a surge of antisemitism is foreboding. And then, October 7, 2023. And it happened on holy land.

G-d's Country

Another version of God's country

That attack defiled a holy land.

Israel is the real G-d's country, Jews and Christians believe, as opposed to Wisconsin, where Heileman's Old Style is brewed. Holiness is in Eretz Yisrael, Israel, if it is anywhere.

G-d's presence is what makes the land holy, Her/His holiness, not ours. We may aspire but most of us don't come close.

And Hamas had the chutzpah to defile it, suspending wartime norms: rampant rape, decapitation and the severing of other body parts, mutilation, wholesale slaughter of 1200 innocents at a music festival. And then joy, the celebration of perpetrators. Nasty, very not holy stuff.

Yes, I'm still working it out.

Difficult to digest, this hatred towards Jewish people disguised as a hatred Zionism. News flash, they are one and the same. Difficult to note the many videos and programs that remind us of what happened.

But that is what we all did yesterday from sun up to sun down. An entire nation grieved their dead their stolen — kidnapped hostages still in harm's way. We grieved between sirens, jarring warnings that missiles approach. Get to a safe place. You have a minute and a half.

For some, sirens are triggering, as they are meant to be, unresolved PTSD of October 7 and the weeks, now month, a year that followed. Not a good year. Traumatizing for some but for others a way of life, how one lives, lived prior to this war. Missiles from Lebanon in the north, missiles from Gaza in the south, going on thirty years.

For Israelis at the borders sirens are not something new.

But to the average new immigrant (me) and to perhaps millions of Israelis, the sounds of missiles are new, as is the fear. When our defenses are down, the sound of sirens screaming, the booms bursting, despite the psychological defense of denial, despite living life as if there is no war, we feel fear.

It is how the enemy lives, too.

Blessings and Peace,

therapydoc

Why Would Anyone Move to Israel, Especially Now?

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Mon, 5 Aug 2024 09:41:00 -0500

FD and I are at Gate B14 to board a flight to Fort Lauderdale.

No, it is not a vacation. This is the first stop. We are moving—intending to spend the rest of our lives in Israel.

(I’m sorry, you know who you are, that I never had the chance to visit your farm).

See, we're finally going. Not a vacation, not a Sabbatical. Not to visit the kids.

We love America, the old America, the tolerant America. Not that we are leaving because the old America has changed, that melting pot, although it really has changed. And we're not leaving because of antisemitism, although that is not a bad reason to leave if one is a Jew. We get it. The Age of Jewish Enlightenment/tolerance is over. Hate has been in the air for decades and it reigns.

We'll be flying El Al, perhaps the only airline flying to Israel, the only armed airline. We leave tonight.

Yes, we know that Iran vows retaliation for the assassination of a beloved leader, read murderer, a plotter and a planner of the destruction of the State of Israel and the annihilation of all Jews. That's the plan for all of us, everywhere, in the Palestinian-Hamas-Arab playbook.

FD reminded me recently that there exists an entire generation of young people who know nothing about September 11, 2001. They weren't born or weren't cognizant of what happened here in New York. The deaths, the collapse of the Towers. This explains at least partly, why they might support the Palestinian people over the Jews. They don't get it that that other team, the one that isn't into Democracy, intends to come for them, too.

The culmination of this war is obviously in G-d’s hands, not President Biden's, although we appreciate his support, and it is not in Bini Netanyahu's. G-d seems to have empowered the Jewish people with intellect and talent and most important, a Torah that is true, and a Talmud, a compilation of books that include prophecies indicating that we will be, in the end, victorious. There will be blood, unfortunately, there will be pain and suffering and violations (read the book of Zachariah) but in the end the Jews will prevail.

We believe this. That we belong there not here. This has been a lifelong dream beginning well before a massacre on October 7 that took thousands of Jewish lives and hundreds of hostages, many of whom are unfortunately gone, martyrs. The dream is inextinguishable in the Jewish soul, it is thousands of years old, precedes all pogroms and massacres. It precedes children and women and men young and old, brave soldiers and soon-to-be soldiers. Such cowards, these Palestinian/Hamas (they are one in the same, people, don't believe what you read) hoodlums honestly. Gangsters. Stealing babies. Mutilating babies, women, men.

There are a few psalms, Tehillim, we say daily, psalms that literally mention Hamas by name. Take a look at Psalm 140. I’m not telling Jews anything they don’t know.

Hamas is a word that means violence. They named themselves VIOLENCE. Wow.

Enough politics, let's talk about me.

The response from the community to our move? Only heartfelt well wishes, so many of them, so much love, such an incredible atmosphere of hope and even, shall I say, jealousy because in the Jewish community Aliyah, becoming an Israeli citizen, is the goal. It is NOT a better you than me These are sincere people, people who truly wish that they could do this, too, that they could muster the finances (no small task, there's never enough). The decision not to move is also about family obligation. My demographic is a sandwich generation. How does one leave elderly parents, many with serious health problems, or children? HOW DO YOU LEAVE PRECIOUS GRANDCHILDREN? Most do not.

But living in Israel is the ultimate commandment, the most important mitzvah.

Many, maybe a third of the commandments of the Torah are about what one must do when living in the Holy Land. The land of Israel, let's just say it, not Palestine. Palestine is for Palestinians. Israel is for Yisraelim. Jews.

Rabbi Cohen said it in one of many beautiful vorts (a vort is a short speech to the congregation, good luck with that). He said that many years ago, in line at Ikea, everyone looked up at a TV at the aftermath of an explosion, a bomb set off in Jerusalem, a pe-gu-ah, a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, perhaps on a bus or a packed downtown restaurant —Orthodox Jewish people searching for remains, bones and skin, heads, legs and arms, pieces of human beings, innocent civilians, blown to bits by a bomb.

What did Rabbi Cohen hear from the shoppers nearby? WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER WANT TO LIVE THERE?

Well, because this is the land of milk and honey. This is the land that Heaven sent and this lovely land is mine. You land, you look around, and you marvel and don't stop.

It is in our blood, it is in our spirit, and many of us long, literally long for Jerusalem. You can’t buy this feeling, it is in our collective DNA or memory, ask a Jungian.

We become citizens of Israel soon after we land on Israeli soil, when an agency, perhaps the Israeli consulate, presents us with ID cards, assuming the office is still staffed. There’s this war going on, you know.

FD's mother, 99, is coming with us. She is already an Israeli citizen but had to come back to the States for a few years, a terrible loss, my sister-in-law. How does one lose a child? But now my mother-in-law is ready to come home, and so are we.

There isn't a person in the community I haven't hugged goodbye. If I missed you I’m sorry. I've been crying for three weeks, sadness, joy, a compote of emotions. This is crazy-making, and as you all know that's a DSM diagnosis.

I’ll post pictures next time.

As we say (as you chutzniks, ha ha) say, having not yet subscribed to this modifier of craziness quite yet. Next Year in Jerusalem.

Come see me.

Blessings,

therapydoc

Natan Sharansky and Antisemitism and Universities, College Campuses

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 20:47:00 -0600

Hidden Heroes: One Woman's Story of Resistance and Rescue in the Soviet Union, Pamela Braun Cohen

My friend Pamela Cohen wrote the book Hidden Heroes: One Woman's Story of Resistance and Rescue in the Soviet Union. Pam knows quite a bit about Jewish refuseniks and Natan Sharansky, one of the many held in Soviet prisons. He lives in Israel today. I had to share his important analysis of antisemitism on college campuses.

Tablet Magazine

October 31, '23
Never Again Is Now
A call for a mass rally in Washington in support of Jewish students and Israel
BY NATAN SHARANSKY

Twenty years ago, upon returning to Israel from a trip to American university campuses as the minister in charge of combating antisemitism, I reported my opinion to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that U.S. colleges had become the beachhead of the battle for the next generation of American Jewry. For the first time, in an atmosphere of growing political opposition to the state of Israel, more and more Jewish students at leading universities—Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and others—told me in private conversations that they were afraid to voice their sympathy with the Jewish state, out of concern that doing so would damage their academic success and future careers.

At the time, I was startled and deeply concerned to see such self-censorship—not in the Moscow of my youth, but in the most powerful country in the free world. I was also surprised then that few Jewish organizations felt a responsibility to get involved in the life of students on campuses.
Much has changed since then. Today, practically every serious American Jewish organization runs programs designed to prepare Jewish students for campus life, including giving them the tools to fight against antisemitism, and to strengthen their connection to Jewish identity and Israel while they are there. In addition, Israeli shlichim, or fellows, have been added to strengthen Hillel teams at almost a hundred universities across the country.

Nevertheless, anti-Zionism—the new antisemitism—is a permanent feature of daily life at American colleges. What is more, Israel’s opponents are equipped with new intellectual weapons: postcolonialist and other “critical” theories, wokeness, microaggressions, and various other ways of conveying the simplistic neo-Marxist idea of a permanent struggle between oppressors and oppressed, in which the oppressed are always right and oppressors wrong, and should be silenced and attacked by any means possible. In this narrative, “white colonial” Israel is always the oppressor, while the Palestinians are always oppressed.

There were many efforts over the past two decades to fight the expressions of this pernicious narrative at universities. They included opposition to the constant flow of resolutions supporting BDS and a push to recognize the connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. There were ups and downs, successes and failures, but the struggle continued.

Despite these long-standing realities, however, no one was truly prepared for the reaction of leading American universities to the horrific events of Oct. 7, when Hamas sent its jihadi terrorists into Israeli territory to kill some 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and take over 230 more hostage. Just as Israelis were shocked by the failure of our intelligence and political leadership to anticipate and prevent such a catastrophe, American Jews and their allies have been shocked by the failure of university leaders to unequivocally condemn the rape, torture, mutilation, and brutal murder of innocent children, families, and elderly people by an organization that has made no secret of its genocidal intentions against the Jewish people.

Instead of unanimous condemnation, what we have heard from college campuses is the full justification of this pogrom—the worst in modern memory—in statements by campus organizations and in demonstrations celebrating Hamas. According to the worldview that guides these deplorable responses, voiced repeatedly by students and their professors, Israel must be blamed for everything because fighting against the Zionist oppressor is how the worldwide struggle against colonialism begins.

With this, the parallel between these contemporary critical theories and the Marxism-Leninism of my Soviet youth has received new proof. Recall that the major pogroms in Eastern Europe started in 1881, when Tsar Alexander II was killed and his murder blamed on Jews. The organization behind the murder, Narodnaya Volya (the People’s Will), was a predecessor of the Communist Party, with both an extremist wing responsible for the killing and a more moderate wing that spread propaganda to the people. When the awful pogroms started, the latter tried to defend these aggressions by explaining that this was how the social movement of the masses—and with it the worldwide revolution—would begin. They argued that their target was not the Jews per se, but an entire oppressive system, which their movement sought to overthrow in the name of justice and liberation.

The rationalization of today’s Hamas sympathizers on campus are remarkably similar to these. And if the connection seemed largely theoretical before, today it is practical, articulated and even acted upon not by extremists but in the heart of the academy. While Jewish organizations were busy fighting tactical battles against BDS and other localized affronts, we failed to see that terrorism received an intellectual rehabilitation in the most prestigious segments of American society. Consider the words of prominent feminist scholar Judith Butler, who in 2006 proclaimed at the University of California, Berkeley, that “understanding Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.”

Even the presidents of leading universities—unlike the president of the United States—have refused to denounce Hamas’s evil, speaking instead about violence on both sides. Those who protest microaggressions are unable or unwilling to differentiate between the most awful forms of pogrom and the legitimate self-defense of the attacked.

As a result, if 20 years ago to be openly and proudly pro-Israel was bad for students’ careers, today it is a threat to their physical safety. The number of antisemitic events, including physical assaults, has skyrocketed since Oct. 7, and campuses are now flooded with the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” For those unfamiliar with geography, this means that there is no place for a Jewish state on the world map.

Israel is currently fighting a war for its survival. We realize that Hamas crossed a red line on Oct. 7 and that for the state to continue to exist, we have to win. In fact, we know that we are fighting not only for ourselves but for the future of the free world, to preserve the values of democracy and freedom in the face of an organization that would destroy them completely.

In a different way, the United States is also fighting a war for its survival. American universities crossed a red line in the aftermath of Oct. 7. The struggle for campuses is therefore a struggle for America and its values—for an America that is liberal, that supports free speech and human rights, and that protects all of its citizens, regardless of race or creed, from vicious, lawless assault.

In 2015, following the terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and on Jewish targets in Paris, I asked the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut whether he thought there was a future for Jews in Europe. He responded that he could not answer my question directly, since he was not part of the organized Jewish community, but that he worried there may not be a future for Europe in Europe—that is, for a Europe that cherishes liberal values and is willing to defend them in the face of barbaric assault.

If there is to be a future for America in America, it is time to step up in defense of its core values, and in this American Jews can play an important role. Let us start with a March of One Million: students, parents, Jewish organizations, and allies coming together in support of academic freedom and against a primitive ideology that silences truth and justifies murderous rampages as a form of liberation.

We have done this before: In 1987, hundreds of thousands of Jews marched to Washington, D.C., to support their brethren in the Soviet Union, chanting the slogan “Let my people go.” In 2002, thousands rallied in front of the U.S. Capitol in opposition to terrorism and support for the Jewish state.
Only this time we will be fighting not only for our own people, but for America as well—for the values it represents and for its continued role as a beacon of light around the world.

therapydoc

All reaction

You and\

Europe’ Great Mistake

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Thu, 9 Nov 2023 08:18:00 -0600

My b-i-l passed this on to me, a must read.

*Europe died at Auschwitz*

Who or what really died at Auschwitz? Here's an interesting viewpoint. The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world.

*I walked down the streets in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz !! We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims in the past 4 decades* !!.

*In Auschwitz, we burned a group of people who represented culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who made great contributions to the world, and thus changed the world* .

*The contribution of today’s Jewish people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. Look at any donors’ board at any symphony, art museum, theatre, art gallery, science centre, etc. You will see many, many, Jewish surnames. These are the people who were burned. Of the 6,000,000 who died, how many would have grown up to be gifted musicians, doctors, artists, philanthropists* ?

*And under the pretence of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the diseases of racism and bigotry, Europe opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride* .

*They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free money from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts* .

*And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe* .

*Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving in to it* .

*It is now approximately seventy years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, twenty million Russians, ten million Christians, and nineteen-hundred Catholic priests who were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated. Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth' - it is imperative to make sure the world "never forgets."*

*How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Centre 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States? If our Judeo-Christian heritage is offensive to Muslims, they should pack up and move to Iran, Iraq or some other Muslim country* .

*We must wake up America, England, Australia & Europe before it's too late* !!.

" *If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools* ”.

Please do not just delete this message; It will take only a minute to pass this along.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world 🌎 ♥️🌹🙏

Why Not Asking for Help is Dangerous

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Tue, 7 Nov 2023 06:52:00 -0600

To a therapist, the best take from the Jerusalem Post video with Mosab Hassan Yousef (yesterday's) is his parting shot, the punchline. The moral of the story.

Mosab Hassan Yousef teaches me something

A Quick One:

We had guests last Friday night. FD and I had flown in that afternoon and hustled to get dinner ready before candle lighting.

It wasn't that we didn't have help, we did.

My sisters-in-law and FD's brother picked up dinner, delicious challah and desserts. They set the table.

But you know how it is, so many last minute things to do before Shabbas, lights to set, configuring the oven to Shabbas mode. It is easier, sometimes, just to do these things yourself than to explain how.

So I was tired by the time we got to dinner, Traveling kills me. By tea I was ready to crash. When it came to tea I grabbed the cakes in the kitchen and a cup of hot tea and summarily spilled it on FD's arm. He acted like I shot him.

True, I do want to learn how to shoot a gun, but trust me, I don't intend to buy one any time soon.

Ever since Friday night he's been joking about being afraid of me.

Upon the tragic splash my sister-in-law immediately chastised me, lectured:

You do too much. You should have asked for help.

My thoughts are on process. This is how a therapist thinks. Timing is everything. She criticizes me when I already feel badly about the spill. Let it be known in my defense, that FD didn't even have to rinse off with cold water. He sat there smiling. Well, not smiling, grimacing. But I don't like his sister in this moment. I say nothing. You do too much doesn't feel helpful.

I know I am being unnecessarily defensive and deserve the 'blame'. But therapists hate blame and criticism. in social relationship. These are odious communications. This a judgement, too, I know. For the record I adore my sister-in-law. We're good.

I ask FD if I can get some ice, not worried about his white shirt. He says he's fine. I believe him. If not, ice would be an immediate go-to in our family. Ice is magic.

Only much later, yesterday, following that last video on the blog, does it occur to me that my sister-in-law is correct. I rarely ask for help and should. Not asking for help can be a bad thing. Nobody is omnipotent.

But face it, a lot of people successfully multi-task and many of us do things we never thought we could do with the help of a YouTube DIY video

Why should people ask for help? Isn't this a country that values independence and autonomy?

Socially, asking for help works on many levels. Asking for help does not constitute dependency. We're not crazy about dependency around here. We've talked about this before on this blog and will do so again in another post. Promises promises. Did you hear that a 69-year old man, Jewish, was beaten by a microphone at a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles and died? For Heaven's sake. But let's stay on topic.

Why asking for help is a good thing

1. It makes other people feel good when they help us.

Usually they feel good being helpful. Being helpful give us self-esteem. Also, people like to help.

2. Two heads are better than one.

The outcome might be a lot better. Four arms better than two. Help is efficient. Tasks go faster. How many times have I thought, I wish there were two of me. But then I think again.

3. Help from someone else might help protect ourselves.

Sometimes we take on tasks that are physically taxing, even dangerous.

Falling off the step stool could be nasty. Dropping a sofa on a toe, ditto.

4. It's sociable.

People like doing things together, making it a we project, more credit to go around. Being able to say, WE did this is a way to bond, fosters brotherhood (sisterhood, they-hood).

5. Most important, perhaps, relying on ourselves is sometimes actually risky.

On that note, let there be peace in the family, peace on earth.

therapydoc

"Green Prince" at Jerusalem Post Conference- Tribal Lust for Power

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Mon, 6 Nov 2023 06:18:00 -0600

7 years ago. Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas leader, discusses the thinking of Hamas.

The thing to look for is the last message, the one at the end. It's in joke form but for a therapist it is so much more than a joke.

Peace,

therapydoc

Facts on The Newest Oldest War:First Post

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sun, 5 Nov 2023 04:30:00 -0600

Maybe you didn’t know this. A tour guide’s review.

TravelingIsrael.com

https://youtu.be/XNf40sBcvKk?si=W0Pv-ksWrHi0Mk8k

Oren explains it better than I ever could.

Arabs and Jews in Israel, a terse history traveling israel.com

Peace,

therapydoc

Bowling Alleys, Mass Murder, Schizophrenia and Hate Crimes

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 14:05:00 -0500

Joseph Cuba, murderer, suffered from schizophrenia

Mass murderer Robert Card suffered from schizophrenia

That sounds like a lot for one post. But it so happens that there have been two mass murders (over 4 makes it massive) in bowling alleys in the past few years, the latest in Lewiston, Maine.

The shooting rampage, took 18 lives and lest 13 injured on October 25, 2023.

Lewiston is a close-knit community. The shooter is a licensed gun instructor. He teaches people (taught them) how to shoot. And here I thought I would learn, now I'm not so sure trusting an instructor is the best idea.

And yet, we have learned that Robert Card, the murderer, a whispy 40 years old, suffered from schizophrenia. This is a disorder that can affect the brain to such a degree that the person with schizophrenia hears voices or sometimes sees things that are not there. Usually it presents with auditory hallucinations and they are paranoid, the person is highly anxious and hears voices telling him (it is usually a him, but not always) to shoot others and then, oftentimes, to shoot himself.

Interestingly, we recently heard of another murderer, a man who murdered a child in Plainfield, Illinois, a Muslim child. It is assumed that the murder is a hate crime because the man who murdered the child professed to not trusting his tenants, Muslims, and intended to do something about it. Eviction, apparently, wouldn't do the job, not according to whatever voices Joseph Cuba had in his head.

'You Muslims must die': 71-year-old Joseph Czuba, said. to remain behind bars, faces hate crime charges in murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume.

Wadea, 6 years old, didn't have a

chance, stabbed 26 times as Cuba looked him in the eyes. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, fared better, although she suffered stabbings, too.

I read: Many Pro-Palestinian and Muslim faith leaders placed the blame for this crime on the shoulders of President Joe Biden, U.S. support for Israel and the media's coverage of the war.

Not a word about what schizophrenia does to a person. This is unbelievable, to me, that in one case, the case of a MASS murder in a bowling alley, schizophrenia is the known cause, the one to worry about, the one to treat.

And in another, schizophrenia had nothing to do with it. Joe Biden, the support for Israel, this prompted a mentally ill man to go off the edge.

Every opportunity, every single one, that the media can glom onto to support the underdog, is blown up, is taken way out of proportion, in this case the slaying of a child. The Palestinian people are afraid to not support Hamas. If they don't they are killed. So yes, they have problems.

But Joe Biden did nothing to cause the death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, no more than he had anything to do with the 18 victims in Lewiston, Maine.

Should the community of Lewiston have been aware that they had a very sick man in their midst, someone capable of a terrible crime? Apparently the police did know, had been sent out to investigate that possibility six weeks before the shooting.

Card was a reservist in the US Army.

Coastal Defense Firearms in Auburn, Maine, refused to issue him a silencer because on the request he wrote that he suffered mental illness. The Sagadhac County Sheriff's Office told the press that Card had a 14 day psychiatric inpatient in July due to concerns about scuffles with other soldiers. He had begun hearing insulting voices in the spring which worsened. He accused three men of calling him a pedophile and said he would take care of it. The men, one a friend, calmed him down and they went back to their hotel where he locked himself into his room and wouldn't come out. This resulted in the hospitalization.

Soon thereafter another incident resulted in an Army well-being check on Card.

Once again Card told a friend to stop calling him a pedophile, but he added that he intended to shoot up the drill center. Authorities called him in, apparently, but he did not show. A unit commander told an officer that Card no longer had any military issued weapons, and at a home visit (Card would not come out to talk), his brother told the commander that Card had no personal weapons, and that he and his father would be sure of that. The unit commander let Card alone to have time for himself.

Note. Untreated schizophrenia only gets worse. Time alone to think is very dangerous. Thinking is the opposite of healthy.

Eighteen people dead.

So. Should the community of Lewiston known about Robert Card? Apparently the important players knew. But not his neighbors. Probably not the people bowling.

Should the Plainfield community have known about the strange man who rented his home to a Palestinian family? Should they have known he would be dangerous?

I hate the word should. But I will say that when we get to know the people in our neighborhood, as Mr. Rogers always advised, we are more likely to find such things out.

That's modern day community mental health.

therapydoc

MOTHERLAND מולדת

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 21:32:00 -0500

The song I wanted to post is called Motherland.

I posted the wrong one, sorry, although that was nice.

Chanan ben Ari, pictured here, wrote the song before the war, grieving the political conflict within the country, seemingly irresolvable differences regarding the Supreme Court.

The war proves that there is no dividing the Jewish people when it comes to defending the country. Forced to defend Eretz Yisrael the Jewish people, at least in Israel, are one..

Here's a link to the article. You might have to look for the place at the top of the page that translates it from Hebrew to English.

In case that's too complicated, here's some of it:

Chanan ben Ari on Motherland

Ben Ari released "Motherland", which he also wrote and composed even before the war broke out, and dedicated it to the State of Israel which is facing difficult and terrible times the likes of which it has never known. "We have the most beautiful nation in the world," he said, "don't look at the news, don't look at Twitter. Go to the streets and see. The nation of Israel is alive."

This morning (Monday) Hanan Ben Ari released a new song called "Motherland", which he wrote and composed even before the war broke out . Ben Ari dedicated the song to the State of Israel, "not the one that was here until a week ago", he clarified, "but to the one we will rebuild when all this is over. When we rise from hell, when we return from the battle. Not because we have nowhere to go, and not from the fire of revenge."

The song is accompanied by a clip with photographs from the last few days, in which we see the good people of Israel in countless voluntary initiatives, reservists at the front who maintain high morale - and even the President of the United States, Joe Biden, appears there for a moment.

That's the cameo worth waiting for, but the video is beautiful. It's embedded below. No matter the song it seems, these Israeli artists make me cry.

therapydoc

חנן בן ארי - מולדת | Hanan Ben Ari

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 21:32:00 -0500

חנן בן ארי - עטלף עיוור | Hanan Ben AriT

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 11:07:00 -0500

They Sing, they sing

If Bob Hope were around today, he would entertain the troops in Israel. I'm sure.

Why Israel is Forever the Fall Guy

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 20:46:00 -0500

I can’t say it any better than this. Even if you only read the first few paragraphs you’ll see where it’s going.

Yossi Klein Halevi in Times if Israel.

I like their reporting in general, Times of Israel.

therapydoc

Taking a Side

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 14:39:00 -0500

I think we can sum it up like this, regarding what happened on college campuses last week and the week before:

If you don't condemn it,

you condone it.

therapydoc

Blood Libel Confirmed

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 05:17:00 -0500

Protest against the War in Gaza at a Skokie Marianos

A prayer meeting in Skokie, Illinois is interrupted by protesting Palestinians harassing Jews trying to get into the assembly hall to pray. There are two thousand Jews trying to pray peacefully in an assembly hall. The mob scene, people praying, people protesting the war in Gaza, is difficult to leave. Hundreds are crowded in a Marianos parking lot where the overflow is parking their cars.

The Palestinians make up a story that one of their children has been run over, a Jewish person did this, wanted to do this. There is no evidence that this happened. None.

Today a New York Times headline reports that Hamas actually failed to prove the accusation that the missile that hit a hospital in Gaza came from Israel. Turns out, it was a Hamas missile that backfired. The Times finally caught on. You can see the video in the previous post.

If you want to blame Israel for something, just don't present any evidence to the contrary

Those who know about propaganda understand that to win a war sometimes takes more than rockets. It can take a good deal of psychological insight. Hamas has it in spades.

Never miss an opportunity to malign the enemy, to make the enemy look really bad, even if that enemy feeds, houses, and finds you jobs on her own turf.

Historically, pre-Crusade but well before that, when Christians (many of whom are now the best of friends with Israel) wanted to slander the Jews they constructed malicious lies about the Passover custom of dipping a finger into a glass of wine, decorating a plate with red droplets. Ten droplets are the equivalent of each of the Ten Plagues.

Dipping a finger, or a spoon, into a glass of grape juice or red wine is a way to teach children to remember the plagues unleashed by God upon the Egyptians because their king, Pharaoh, refused to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

God wanted the Jews out of there, wanted them to go, to inherit their land, the very land that we are fighting over today.

Thus at the Passover seder, to remember the story, to celebrate freedom, we take a spoon, or dab a finger into a glass of red wine, make a droplet on a plate and recite the plagues. We don't use the blood of Christian babies, as the blood libels of old actually believed.

Blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, livestock, boils, hail and fire, locusts, darkness, and the death of the first born son.

Yes, the ten plagues imply death, but the word blood refers to rivers in Egypt turned into blood, God's doing. Let my people go.

The 12th century pre-Crusader libel and many both before and after, is that Jews kill Christian children and dip matzahs into the blood during the seder to celebrate. Absolute libel. Extraordinarily ridiculous, nothing could be farther from the truth. To read more, click below.

The proximity of such charges to Easter was thus also often associated with the continuing belief that Jews were responsible for the Passion and Crucifixion of Jesus. Blood libels, together with allegations of well poisoning, were a major theme in Jewish persecution in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period. They were a central component in the development of modern antisemitism in the 19th century.

Blood libel accusations often led to pogroms, violent riots launched against Jews and frequently encouraged by government authorities.

Murder is expressly forbidden in the Torah, as are the blood sacrifices which were practiced by ancient pagan religions. In fact, Jewish dietary laws (kashrut), forbid the consumption of blood in food and require all blood to be drained from slaughtered animals before consumption.

Thus if a Hamas rocket misfires and hits a hospital in Gaza, Hamas can spin this and jump on the opportunity to lie and say, The Jews did it.

Ditto, if a prayer meeting in Skokie is interrupted by protesting Palestinians harassing Jews, the Palestinians will make up a story that a Palestinians child was intentionally run over by a car in the Marianos parking lot.

This is what we are dealing with.

Those responsible for the mayhem (Palestinian war protesters) maced two policemen.

This is what we are dealing with. You can see, psychologically at least, who is winning the war.

You win if you lie, is the thing. You win if you can slander the enemy, lie about the enemy, make up terrible stories, the more terrible the better. Tale as old as time.

This is the kind of thing you teach your kids?

therapydoc

Misfired rocket from Gaza Likely Caused Deadly hospital blast | AP visua...

therapydoc@gmail.com (therapydoc) — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 07:53:00 -0500

Here's a video of what happened to the hospital in Gaza.

That is from an Al Jezeera news cast soon after the hospital missile firing.

Like everyone else, I saw the news. an Israeli missile hits a Gazan hospital. It must be true, right? It's in the news.

But then I saw a video by Al Jezeera, of all networks, showing that the missile actually originated in Gaza, that it didn't make it, and fell back, landing on a hospital. In Gaza.

In a follow up from an Israeli feed, which had already posted about this, I hear that the missile fell onto a hospital parking lot, not the actual hospital, and only a dozen victims fell to the fire.

In yet another story, we learn that this happens often when Hamas aims at Israel. Missiles fail, they don't make it very far and return to Earth. Gaza. The Iron Dome doesn't have to do the work of snapping them out of the air. They simply fail.

CNN finally acknowledges that the story about the Israelis targeting a hospital is not true but hasn't the guts to apologize for disseminating a blood libel against the Jews without checking it out.

therapydoc