If you want to read from the beginning of this overly long project, start here.
I've been searching through Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day column and reading the ones that deal with Jews, Israel, Palestinians, etc.
For this post, I'll be looking at 1955.
* * *
Holy shit.
So...for 1954, I ended up with 17 column posts.
For 1955, there are 33!
Thirty-two of those mention Jews or Israel. And then one mentions Palestinians.
No, it's not that Eleanor Roosevelt never thought about or wrote about Palestinians. It's just she usually referred to them as Arabs.
Now I'm going to go through and see if there are any I can eliminate. There may be posts where she just quickly mentions going to a Jewish event. Or if she doesn't say anything I find particularly interesting, I'll skip.
One thing I saw, while quickly going through, is that in 1955, she traveled back to Israel. I saw a few columns labeled with Tel Aviv.
* * *
The good news is I was able to eliminate four right off the bat, because they were doubles.
They probably included both the word "Jew" and "Israel". I search for the words separately.
I went through and closed the window for the columns where Roosevelt briefly mentions attending a Jewish or Israel-related event.
I'm left with 19. That seems like it should be more manageable than 33.
* * *
The first column is dated February 14, 1955. Valentine's Day. And also my nephews birthday, one of my sister's wedding anniversary and the other sister's first-date-with-her-husband anniversary.
Roosevelt says that during the past week, she had lunch with a woman she knew from the United Nations (Zena Harman) and one of the Israeli consul people (Esther Herlitz).
Lord Wiki knows of both these women, and I see they are written about in other places. So I added them to my list of possible future posts.
Anyway, if I'm understanding things right, Roosevelt met with these women as preparation for her upcoming trip to Europe and Israel. She told them and also her column readers that her reason for the trip was to gather insight for two articles she was planning to write about Israel.
She doesn't specifically say that this is the reason she met with them. It could be that she met with them for other reasons and her upcoming trip was one of a variety of topics.
But since all she mentions is the conversation about her upcoming trip and she doesn't refer to them as friends, I'm guessing that was the purpose of the lunch.
I just realized something, though. Roosevelt says that she told these two women that the trip was entirely a business trip.
Why did she feel the need to tell Harman and Herlitz this...AND her readers?
Was someone pressuring her to have exciting adventures? Go to a theme park? Spend a day at a relaxing spa?
Or maybe people were criticizing her for traveling? Did taxpayers help pay for her travel? Did she still have to use Secret Service?
I just Googled and ended up learning that the whole presidential Secret Service thing began under FDR. I had no idea! I'm not going to read the article right now...but here's the link if anyone is interested.
* * *
I've decided I'm not going to go down a rabbit hole about why Roosevelt was insistent that her trip was business-only.
But maybe clues will pop up somewhere. Somehow.
Oh! Maybe it was just about glorifying busyness. Roosevelt's self-worth might have been tied up tightly with whether or not she was being productive.
*.* *
Here's some really sweet few words from Roosevelt.
I saw my granddaughter, Mrs. Van Seagraves, off on the train for Carbondale, Illinois, on Thursday afternoon late and was very reluctant to see her go. Having had my young niece, Mrs. Edward Elliott, with me in New York for five days and then my granddaughter for five days has spoiled me completely.It is much fun to have young people around the house. Even though a good many people may come and go at all times, it is not quite the same as having someone really staying with me and thinking and planning each day together at the breakfast table.
Okay.
So now I have another theory.
Maybe the niece or the granddaughter (or both!) were begging Roosevelt to let them come with her to Europe and Israel. She reluctantly said no, explaining she was going to be too busy. In order to make sure they believed her about it being a strictly-business-trip rather than a rejection, she wrote about it in her column.
It's probably why she also said those super sweet things in her column. Not that they weren't true. But she probably wanted to make extra sure, they got the message that she loved them.
I'm also thinking that if Roosevelt did do some fun, frivolous things in Europe or Israel, it's probably not going to be in her column. She probably took those memories with her to the grave.
Though, I get the feeling that Roosevelt is the kind of woman who wouldn't do the fun, frivolous things after telling everyone it was just-a-business trip. I think it would make her feel too guilty.
* * *
Roosevelt's March 7 column deals with UN stuff and refugees.
I think this might be the first time that Roosevelt uses the term Palestinian.
She says, For instance, a separate group looks after the Palestinian refugees because they have full rights of citizenship in the Arab countries.
I didn't know that.
Is it still true?
I'm going to read something from the Human Rights Watch website—"Human Rights Policy on the Right to Return"
Before reading, I asked Lord Wiki for some quick gossip. He says people have criticized HRW for having an anti-Israel bias. I shall keep that in mind as I read.....
* * *
I started reading and then realized I have no idea when this was written.
There's no date.
BUT at the (whatever) time...most of the 1.5 million Palestinians have citizenship and are well integrated socially and economically, although some 278,678 are still living in camps.
Lord Wiki is helping me out. He says that in 2014, there were 2.18 million Palestinians in Jordan. Around 370,000 live in refugee camps.
Wow.
Lord Wiki also says that Jordan is the only Arab country where Palestinians are fully integrated.
I'm going to go back to reading the Human Rights Watch thing. I'll try not to let it bother me that I don't know when it was written. Or maybe there will be some hints.
Well...1963 is mentioned...as in the past. So I know it's sometime after that then.
The article says: In Lebanon, in sharp contrast, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are stateless and over half live in overcrowded camps. The right to work is severely restricted, and massive poverty has become the norm.
Why do we hear so much about the mistreatment of Palestinians in Israel but rarely hear about their mistreatment in Lebanon?
Or maybe things are better for them now in Lebanon.
I got another date, by the way.
1982. There's a mention of an Israeli invasion. Invasion is a pretty weighted word...which makes me think maybe there's some merit to the idea of HRW being anti-Israel. Although I can't say the word isn't deserved. I have no idea what happened.
BUT....then HRW says:
Initially the response of host Arab states to the incoming Palestinian refugees was to offer them refuge on the assumption that it would be temporary. When it became obvious that the problem would be protracted, the policies of Arab states toward the refugees changed, and the initial sympathy was coupled with an insistence on Israel's ultimate responsibility for them. As a result most Arab governments strongly opposed resettlement and naturalization of the refugees. Instead, they adopted policies and procedures aimed at preserving the Palestinian identity of the individuals and their status as refugees.
This is the kind of thing I've heard from Zionists. So...I feel it leans more towards sympathetic-towards-Israel.
One of the biggest Zionist talking points is that Arabs/Muslims have SO much land and Israel is just a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty country. Why can't the Jews have that little piece of land and be left in peace?
Another thing I've heard is that Arab and Palestinian leaders want Palestinians to be perpetual victims, because it makes the Israelis/Jews/Zionists look bad.
Here's more from the article:
For example, as the Palestinian liberation movement gained momentum, this created political and sovereignty tensions within some host countries. This was further exacerbated by attacks on Israel and Israeli citizens carried out by Palestinian guerrillas from the territory of those host countries which then bore the brunt of reprisals from Israel - often resulting in deaths and injuries to the local civilian population.
I'm not sure if this article is the black sheep of HRW. But it doesn't seem to have an anti-Israel bias to me. It seems to come down pretty hard on Palestinians.
Ah....saw more dates. The latest is 1996.
I was just reminded again that I'm an old lady.
Because I was thinking: Oh, 1996. So, this is a recent article.
* * *
My feeling after reading that article is Palestinians are treated like shit by many people. Yet Israelis seem to be the sole target of their wrath. AND the wrath of all the passionate supporters of Palestinians.
It's kind of like if, with all the antisemitism in the world, Jews concentrated all their wrath on Germany and Germans and ignored all the other countries and people who have wronged them.
And the Germans led a movement that purposely murdered six million Jews!!
Israel is far from perfect but they are even further away from being Nazis.
If Jews can spread out their outrage beyond Germany, I think Palestinians can spread their outrage beyond Zionists.
* * *
I wonder which country has been the best for Palestinian refugees. Which country has the most thriving Palestinians.
I'm doubting it's anywhere in the Middle East.
Maybe Europe? The United States?
I tried Googling various things to find the answer. When I Googled one thing (maybe wealthy Palestinians), I spotted an article about Chile. I didn't read it, because I wasn't sure it would have the answer I was looking for. I kind of had doubts there'd be an answer.
But then I ended up with Lord Wiki's page on the Palestinian diaspora.
He lists 19 famous Palestinians. Five of them are Chilean.
Famous people aren't the only people who thrive, though. So it doesn't completely answer my question.
But it might be a hint towards the right direction.
I just glanced up and saw Chile is also the place with the largest Palestinian diaspora outside the Middle East.
* * *
I'm thinking I should get back to Roosevelt.
I'm going to move onto March 16. That's one of my niece's birthdays!
Roosevelt's trip has begun. The column is labeled as being from Rome.
Roosevelt says they drove to Cambous which has a camp for children who are brought over from ghettos of Morocco.
I did some Google-mapping and Googling. Cambous is in France.
I should have read the first lines of Roosevelt's column more carefully. Although it's labeled as Rome, she says, The night train from Paris to Montpellier was a comfortable trip and we arrived at 7:30 A.M.
Why is Rome mentioned then?
Maybe she was in Rome at the time of writing/posting?
Anyway, on the map I saw that this Cambous place is in France. And Googling led me to seeing it's near Montpellier. It's some kind of archaeological site.
* * *
Roosevelt talks about the camp.
There's a castle involved. She says it's used for administrative and classroom purposes. There's also a girl dormitory and a boy dormitory with sixteen kids each and a monitor to guide them.
I'm getting the idea these kids might be orphans?
Roosevelt writes:
After three or four months at this camp the children are prepared to proceed to Israel. A few children, however, must stay much longer because when they arrive they are emotionally and physically so upset that they require special care. Some of them are sent to Switzerland, but all of them know that they are preparing to go to Israel and become citizens of their own country.
I was thinking there was only 32 children at this place. Then I read:
Most of the youngsters have come from large families and horribly crowded conditions. Some of them have unbelievable case histories. All 200 of them, however, ate in the big assembly hall with the guests when I was there, and you could not help thinking that on the whole they were a very bright-looking group of children, healthier and more normal than you would have expected.
It's not sixteen kids per dormitory but sixteen kids per dormitory building.
And I read the first part wrong. It's two boy dormitories and ONE girl dormitories for each group.
And the groups are determined by particular religious observation.
It seems odd to me that they're divided the same among each group. Each religious group has exactly 32 boys and 16 girls?
I'm wondering if kids were pushed into the wrong religious groups in order to get the numbers to fit perfectly.
Maybe I'm making too much of this.
Maybe Roosevelt was just being approximate.
* * *
I've spent like 10-15 minutes trying to get more information about these camps.
It's been a struggle.
Finally, I ended up with Lord Wiki. He has an article about the migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel. It's not a happy picture.
Lord Wiki says they experienced racism from Ashkenazi Jews.
He says: In 1950, the immigration office in Marseilles handling prospective North African immigrants wrote that "these abject human beings" would have to be kneaded to shape them into Israeli citizens.
And he also says: Complaints were made about the influx of 'orientals', 'human refuse' and 'backward people'.
This is making me think that those kids in the dormitories were NOT orphans but children taken from their parents in order to reshape them.
It's happened to brown and Black children in the Americas and Australia. So I wouldn't be surprised to know it had happened in Morocco.
* * *
Well, I just finally paid for a newspaper subscription!
I talked about planning to do this awhile back. I think it was when I was doing the Mengele post? I kept running into the you-need-a-subscription-blocking-things. But I managed to keep finding sites where I still had some free articles left.
So....
Lord Wiki had a link to where he was getting the quotes I quoted above. It was from Haaretz, and they wouldn't let me read the article.
Haaretz is a left-wing newspaper in a country that learns right, so I'm quite glad to support them. Plus I want to support journalists, period.
Also, since I'm tending to blog about Jews and Israel lately, Haaretz will probably be a very valuable resource.
I've gotten only a month subscription, by the way. The price for a year seemed a bit daunting. Although now I'm seeing it would save me $38 dollars. But that's only if I keep paying for and using it for a full year. If I end up using it a lot this month, I'll cancel and re-order the year subscription. Maybe.
Anyway....
The article that pushed me to buy the subscription is called: "We Saw Jews With Hearts Like Germans': Moroccan Immigrants in Israel Warned Families Not to Follow" by Ofer Aderet.
Ouch.
The guy who compared Jews to Nazis was a soldier for the Israeli Defense Forces. He wrote the sharp words in a letter to his family, suggesting that they stay in North Africa.
I wish it was just one disgruntled soldier. But Aderet reports that there are many similar letters in the archives.
Another soldier wrote: The European Jews, who suffered tremendously from Nazism, see themselves as a superior race and the Sephardi [Mizrahi] Jews as belonging to an inferior one”
The Polish Jews seem particularly offensive to the Moroccan Jews. One soldier said, The poles control everything.
So if Jews want to join in on the Jews-control-everything trope and not target themselves, they can specify Jews of a different nationality.
Another Moroccan Jew said that Polish Jews see Moroccans as savages and thieves.
This is far from the first time I've heard about white Jews being racist. When I was younger, though, I was fed the fairytale that Israel is the wonderful Jewish homeland that not only welcomes Jews from every country but works hard to go out and rescue these Jews.
I wish that fairytale was true.
Maybe someday it will be.
* * *
Now I'm seeing a third complaint about Polish Jews.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe the Moroccan Jews called all white Jews "Polish".
* * *
Aderet says 70% of the soldiers (whose letters were examined) wished they could go back to Morocco.
That's disheartening.
* * *
It seems Haaretz didn't always lean left. Or it was a type of left-wing that is quite different from what left-wing is today.
Aderet reports that, in 1949, a Haaretz reporter went undercover in an immigrant transit camp and then published an article where these things:
This is an immigration of race such as we have never before known in Israel..We have here a people at a peak of primitiveness. The level of their education borders on absolute ignorance, and even graver is [their] incompetence at absorbing anything intellectual
Only slightly do they surpass the general level of the Arab, Negro and Berber inhabitants from their places [of origin]… They are completely subject to primitive and savage instincts..What can we do with them? How can we absorb them? Have we considered what will happen to this country if they became its citizens? One day the rest of the Jews from the Arab world will immigrate! What will the State of Israel look like and what sort of level will it have if it has citizens like these?
It's so horrible to me that people whose people have been a victim of racism can turn around and be so racist themselves.
* * *
I'm moving onto Roosevelt's March 17 column. She's still at the camp.
She writes that the children have to carry their own water, because when they go to Negev in Israel, they'll have to do the same.
Roosevelt writes:
To illustrate some of the fears and superstitions these children come with, let me tell you the story of one little boy who arrived a week ago with his brother. He told us there were nine children in the family but six had died, and his mother said that she would lose all the children if they stayed with her, so he and his brother had been sent away. He had a watch on his wrist that his father had given him as a parting gift and he said he would keep it carefully. One little brother, aged 7, was left behind, and quite simply this little boy said: "He stayed with my mother to die."
If six children die in a family, I wouldn't say it's superstitious to worry that more might die.
* * *
I imagine some people pointing out that Moroccan Jews were treated just as bad or worse in Morocco. I don't know the history yet, but I figure there's a reason they left Morocco.
The thing is, though...people shouldn't be in situations where there are multiple groups in the competition of who's-treating-us-worse.
Wouldn't it be a step up for humanity if each marginalized group was marginalized in only one country. Then everyone could just happily immigrate to all the countries that will welcome them with love and acceptance.
* * *
I'm hoping to find most of the rest of 1955 columns uninteresting, because this post is already long enough.
I'm thinking I might just finish with the trip to Israel and then for the rest of the posts....just provide links in case anyone wants to read.
* * *
In her March 18 column, Roosevelt writes about going to a place called Camp Grand Arenas. It's where Jewish Moroccan families stay until the next boat comes to take them to Israel.
I Googled the camp, and there are actual results. Since this post is long enough, I'm just going to add it to my list of possible future posts.
* * *
In her March 23 column, Roosevelt met with the wife of the President (President of Israel?) Mrs Ben Zvi.
I just Googled. It turns out Israel has presidents. I had no idea. Lord Wiki says the role is mainly ceremonial.
Mr. Ben Zvi was one of the presidents. He had the job for the longest time—from 1952-1963.
Anyway...Roosevelt says that Ben Zvi kept telling her that American Jews need to come to Israel. Roosevelt writes:
I took it for granted that she wanted them to come and visit, but I found that she meant they should come and stay here. This seems to me a little more than I can ask, for we don't want to give up our American citizens. But I do think there could be a far greater exchange of visitors and Israel would welcome more people who would want to come to work for one or two years on some special project.
It's nice of Roosevelt to say that she doesn't want to give up American citizens.
See? This is the position people should be in—where both countries want you.
How nice it would be if both the Jews in Israel AND all the Arab countries were fighting over Palestinians? I mean fighting over having them rather than fighting over who has to take them.
And wouldn't it be nice if Moroccan Jews were fought over by Moroccans and Ashkenazi Jews. What if the letters home from soldiers read: Mom and Dad, I know life is fabulous in Morocco. But you should try living here! People are so nice!
* * *
In her March 24 column, Roosevelt writes about her meeting with Mr. Ben Zvi.
He reiterated what has been said so often before, namely, that Israel's representatives are ready to sit down at any time to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement with its neighbors.
I'd have more faith in these potential negotiations if there was less racism.
Maybe I'm being unfair, though. Maybe the president and his crowd were less racist than those in the military.
Maybe the military was extra racist?
If there was (is!) widespread racism in Israel towards other Jews, I think that needs to be fixed before there can be any hope of there being peaceful relationships with Palestinians.
No. Racism can't ever be completely fixed. But I think it can be reduced.
Or maybe not. That's probably too optimistic. Looking at what's happening in the United States. As some people try to become less racist, it seems this is making other people more racist.
* * *
I wrote the above yesterday afternoon and later started thinking it goes both ways. As people become more racist and more outwardly racist, I think this is pushing the other side to become more strongly anti-racist.
* * *
In her March 25 column, Roosevelt talks about immigration in Israel.
She writes:
Some of these problems we have known in the past in America when our immigration was heavy. As we all know, children adjust rather quickly to new surroundings and become more or less easily absorbed in the life and customs of their new country. Many parents, however, cling to their old customs and thus there is a rift between two generations. They are trying hard to meet all such problems here, but it is no simple matter.
In some ways, this applies to families who aren't even immigrants.
It's hard to keep up with all the slang, all the various acronyms, the social media platforms that keep popping up.
(And I'm sitting here thinking is acronym the right word? Like for things like TBH and OMG. Am I embarrassing myself by not knowing the right word for all this?!)
I can imagine how more challenging it would be if there was also a whole new language to learn, one that the kids are learning in school and us struggling to catch up.
I wonder, though, if the Internet has made language-learning more accessible to immigrants?
* * *
I would hope a political influencer today would avoid using the phrase cling to their old customs.
I think in the 1950's, the melting pot idea was preferred over a salad bowl/stew kind of thing.
Well..I mean.a left political influencer.
I think many right-wing influencers would still push for a melting pot. And they would actually be a step up from those who want to restrict any new ingredients from getting into the pot. I mean besides potatoes, rice, milk, sour cream, cottage cheese....
* * *
March 26.
Roosevelt talks about meeting with cave dwellers from North Africa.
This is a prosperous village. It was established five years ago for 120 families. Each family has six acres of its own, plus owning in common 250 acres of orange groves and 250 acres of avocado groves. Most of the families are large, each having from eight to 10 children, and since education is compulsory they go to school until they are 14 years old. After that, most of the youngsters go to work to help support their families.
I think this was in Israel. But I'm not positive.
She says they went to visit the cave folks after visiting a training institution in Pardessiya which is in Israel. She doesn't describe traveling, so I'm guessing the caves were in the same area.
Roosevelt says that the main industry for the community is rugs woven by the women. But they were also working towards depending more on agriculture.
She met the head man of the village. He spoke Hebrew, Arabic, and Italian.
I wonder if most people in the neighboring areas were also from North Africa.
And that got me thinking...or hoping...maybe the Ashkenazi racism towards Moroccan Jews wasn't universal. Maybe it was more common in certain places/communities. For example: The Defense Forces.
This is probably wishful thinking on my part.
* * *
In her March 28 column, Roosevelt talks about visiting Youth Aliyah Ramat Hadassah, Szold Village.
She says the village is a screening center for 225 youth Aliyah centers.
The place held about three hundred kids who would spend a month or two there.
I'm guessing that many of these kids were orphaned by the Holocaust.
Roosevelt writes, Some of them have no parents, and many at first understand no language which is spoken by the workers.
Why were kids WITH parents coming there...without their parents?
Was Israel making it easier for kids to come alone rather than with families?
Were they separating children from their families in order to quicken the whole melting-pot process?
* * *
Hadassah has a page about youth aliyah.
The program is still in place.
It kind of sounds like their version of fostering.
They say:
Nearly a third of Israel’s children live in poverty, according to a 2020 report by the National Council for the Child in Israel. In addition, more than 450,000 children suffer from high-risk situations such as physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, learning disability without access to proper resources, or a lack of basic rights.
Youth Aliyah sets at-risk children in Israel on the path to a successful future, and since 1934, over 300,000 young people from 80 lands have graduated from Youth Aliyah.
That seems like a lot of poverty.
What is it here in the United States?
The United States Census website says there are two measurements. One puts the child poverty percentage at 5.2% and the other 15.3%
Both of those numbers are much less than 1/3.
The Statista website has Israel at 22.2% which would be closer to 1/5...or 1/4.
They show the United States being not so far behind—21%.
The three best countries? Finland, Denmark, and Iceland.
* * *
Getting back to Hadassah and the Aliyah stuff.
They talk specifically about Ramat Hadassah Szold.
It was found in 1949 for refugees from Yemen and young Holocaust survivors.
It's still in action, providing assistance to both immigrants and Israeli-born youth.
The Hadassah website says:
Special programs at Ramat Hadassah Szold include high-tech precision tool making, animal therapy, horsemanship, and Jewish study.
These programs combine to provide a strong foundation of psychological strength, vocational preparedness, and Jewish literacy.
That sounds nice.
Hopefully programs like this are more about supporting young people and their families rather than pushing assimilation or equating poverty with child abuse.
I live in a state where parents can be investigated for child abuse if they provide medically-recommended trans-affirming healthcare. That along with all the times in history that children have been removed from homes for the purpose of assimilation and exploitation has made me a bit weary of interventions.
BUT sometimes interventions are needed and sometimes the services provided are actually decent.
I'm hoping Ramat Hadassah Szold is one of the good ones.
* * *
In her March 29 column, Roosevelt writes about getting a tour of Haifa with the city's mayor. There were playgrounds, clubs for children, children orchestras, and lots of rose bushes.
It sounds lovely.
* * *
In her March 31 column, Roosevelt writes about medical care in Israel.
The hospitals here have been integrated with the Public Health Service, and a type of community service has been worked out that should prove quite valuable to both the community and the doctors. The hospital is in the background for use when it is really needed, but a young doctor and a nurse are assigned to an area in which 250 families live. They provide all medical care, with the help of occasional "specialist" visits, which include dental and psychiatric work.
That reminds me of soap operas (and other TV shows) where one doctor seems to be in charge of almost all medical care.
I guess it's a reality for some places and communities.
I love the idea of a small town doctor who knows and cares about everyone...where the patients are also neighbors.
* * *
Roosevelt speaks very fondly of Ben Gurion in her April 1 column.
She seems very impressed by him, writing: Mr. Ben-Gurion typifies...the pioneer in Israel, a man who felt he must live on the soil and make things grow and be as self-sufficient as possible.
If you're wondering what I left out with the dot, dot, dot....it's just another person she named who, she thought, had similar qualities.
I thought the quote looked better without the second name.
But now I feel it looks like I'm trying to hide something.
* * *.
Roosevelt talks about visiting various communities—a settlement of new arrivals from North Africa, a new city in Beersheba, and a village of Indian Jews from a place called Cochin.
Plus, they visited some industrial type projects.
I wish the negative stuff about the Polish mistreatment of Moroccans weren't true.
The stuff that Roosevelt writes about is so hopeful and lovely.
I like the idea of various kinds of Jews moving to a new homeland—working together and helping each other.
The good stuff is probably true to some degree.
* * *
Just as a reminder: The events Roosevelt talks about don't actually coincide with the publication date.
I noticed that, though she talks about more of her Israel adventures, in her April 2 column, the location is listed as New York.
Then I looked back and saw that New York is also listed for April 1.
I went on my Washington Post app to see if locations were listed at the beginning of articles. They are.
Well...I checked two or three.
I guess it's a writing custom?
Do most publications do it?
It seems kind of unhelpful if the place written about doesn't match the place where the writer is at.
I just checked more articles in the Washington Post, and some do NOT have locations.
* * *
Anyway....
On April 2, Roosevelt writes about meeting with forty women in Israel. She writes:
They were able to tell me of their efforts in this council to prevent duplication and to integrate all the women coming into Israel. They realize, of course, that there is a tremendous amount of education to be done, but they are making every effort to bring the change about as quickly as possible.
I'm not sure what duplication refers to.
As for integration...hopefully it was at least somewhat about sharing a variety of cultures rather than pushing one way of life onto others.
That being said, although I'm all for multiculturalism, I think some amount of shared culture is nice.
It's like with TV. It's wonderful that there are so many TV shows to choose from. There are so many shows available now that you can have a group discussion where for every TV show one person mentions, all the others respond with Never heard of it.
But it's nice that there are a few TV shows, that if one brings them up, almost everyone in the group will say something like Oh I heard that was good! or We watch that too! or We tried it. It's not my cup of tea.
To have a shared culture, we don't need to have all watched Game of Thrones.
We just need to know that it exists, and it's a TV show.
* * *
I'm having (extra) mental health issues.
I'm not sure I want to continue with this project....which is upsetting, because this was bringing me lots of joy and a big sense of purpose.
Now I just feel really blah about it. Not just the Eleanor Roosevelt posts but all of it.
I think I need to take a break for a couple of weeks and then figure out what to do.
I probably am going to quit Eleanor Roosevelt, though.
Right now it's mainly my OCD, phobia issues, anxiety, social issues/self esteem that are causing me grief. But also, I think I have a touch of Eleanor Roosevelt burn-out.
* * *
This is all bad timing, because I just bought the Haaretz subscription.
I tried telling myself it's fine. I can just read it in a non-researching way. But when I think of reading it, it makes me feel unhappy. I fear it will be a reminder of the shitty state I'm in—being passionate and excited about a big project and then suddenly feeling blah...and lost.
Adrift.
What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there
was life after death, and
we could easily talk to our
dearly-departed on the Internet?
The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts
