May 29, 2020 “​…expel them so they don’t contaminate”     Nasso 5:3

Nearly 60% of U.S. Covid deaths were 75 years or older, more than half (30K) in long term care facilities. Back on 3/11 when WHO called this a “pandemic,” but Donald Trump, despite intelligence from China and Italy to the contrary, described America’s risk as “very, very low,” Menorah Park/Montefiore, on their own initiatives, instituted protective strategies, began taking employee temperatures, and ended group dining and recreation. That same day, Trump’s CDC still permitted gatherings of 50 and actually restricted testing. Nor in the next few weeks did CMS, which promulgates Medicare requirements for nursing homes, issue preventative measures or even routine isolation procedures. Attending only to politics rather than really leading, Trump should be held accountable for the deaths of thousands of helpless elderly in dozens of facilities with, regrettably, less foresight than the two exemplary Cleveland ones.

May 22, 2020 “The Levites shall safeguard the performance of the assignments” Bamidbar 3:7

With his four sackings of Federal Inspectors General, his latest the State Dept. I.G. who was investigating unethical practices there, Donald Trump has seasoned his Russian-style swill of corruption by throttling accountability to the American people. Whether his inept and dishonest Covid-19 response, his illegal manipulation of Ukrainian aid, the monitoring of his implementation of a $3 Trillion stimulus or the apparent new scandals he’s quashing at State, Trump’s scheme to avoid blame is to destroy the entire apparatus of oversight. His Biblical precursor, Ahab, conducted a similar purge of prophets who decried his idolatry and larceny. Ultimately confronted by Elijah, his reign was doomed. Today, in the absence of an effective Congressional response, Trump’s insolence will proceed unabated.

May 15, 2020 Do not aggrieve another man…        Behar 25:17  

The murder of Ahmaud Arbery has a 106-year-old Georgia precedent: the kangaroo court conviction and lynching of Leo Frank, a young Jewish-Atlantan entrepreneur. Concurrently, the U.S. Army manual actually warned of Jewish “malingerers” and IQ-testing of “eastern European” immigrant U.S. soldiers had demonstrated that Jews were intellectually inferior, data anticipating by nearly 100 years Charles Murray and his epigenetic perfidy. Real estate red-lining and restrictions on Jewish education and employment were also precedents so analogous to the African-American experience that it’s inconceivable that the Jewish mainstream today, so anxious over the surge of alt-Right anti-Semitism, is not seething over the obvious connection between vigilante or constabulary violence against Blacks and the historical Jewish experience.   “I did not speak out; then they came for me…”        

May 8, 2020 ” You shall leave the corners of your field for the poor ”     Emor 23:22

While “Staying-at-Home”, we applaud the “essential” workers who permit us to have food and necessities, provide, at great personal risk, health services, deliveries, and municipal services, and who computer-educate our children. What is clear, however, is how few of these people have the blessings of guaranteed healthcare, retirement, sick pay, parental leave, child-care nor the ability to rely on savings in case they’re furloughed. And when the Payroll Protection loans expire next month, many more will be laid off. The CARES Act, extending unemployment benefits and granting them to “gig” workers, doesn’t begin to solve the societal problem of not insuring that middle to low-income and dependent Americans have these vital needs met. Denying these as basic rights punishes the working poor already enduring meager wages and job insecurity. Now, when so clearly we can see the bounties we reap from their labor, it’s time to advocate and fight so that every American’s needs are met in ways that most of us view as vital for ourselves and our own families.