Family Matters

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

Thank you so much for abiding with my week away. I spent several days at an Oregon state park supporting my very hard-working and long-suffering daughter as she closes in on a lifelong climbing goal, and then I was taken down for a day or two by having received a Covid and flu shot on the same day. (Please, if you have not yet been vaccinated for either of these, I would implore you to do so as soon as possible.)

Meanwhile, it’s been a non-stop Mamdan-athon. The Jewish world, it seems, can think or speak of little else. I’ve read so many Jewish opinions on the man that my eyes are twirling in my skull. As with so many other Jewish issues, I warm to one perspective and then I’m yanked toward the opposite side by another.

Still, this much unequivocal clarity remains: I don’t like the guy. At all. But this election is yet another minefield of complexity and it’s not enough to say he sucks — the composite calculus here is important to think about in depth. I will say much more about this tomorrow in a newsletter I’ll devote solely to him, but today I want to touch on a couple of other urgent topics.

Let’s start with the much more sobering one so we can end on a higher note.

While no one has a crystal ball, including me, we have very good reasons to believe that SNAP benefits are going to go away on November first, which is this weekend, and stay gone through the end of the year. I have seen every indication that the GOP wants to destroy the holidays for Americans in order to cause maximum national pain, which they will say is the Democrats’ fault — and because so much of their base is so profoundly gullible and manipulable, yet again it won’t matter what the truth is.

Fam, I personally know so many Jews who are already in dire straits. And here is a very sad truth: over the last decade, I have called local Jewish Family Services on behalf of at least a half dozen people, saying — about one friend or another — she has stage four cancer and she can’t work or she is widowed and dying and so flat broke that she can afford no comfort items like an air conditioner in heat stroke temperatures in Florida or explaining about a range of other terrible situations. I have never, not once, had a single one of them offer assistance of any kind. I don’t know what they’re there for. I’m not saying they do nothing and help no one, I am just saying that I have never experienced any measure of help from any of them.

The friend I have in mind right now has four children. One is very cognitively impaired and also has diabetes that requires multiple injections a day. She is also supporting two elderly parents who can’t provide those injections due to shaking hands. The seven of them live in a single trailer with no income and no car. The $900 she received from SNAP covered most of each month, though toward the tail end of each, she often feels forced to ask friends for help. But now even that meager amount will be gone.

And I know many others who are in unfixable situations and on the true edge of privation as well.

I feel we are entering a genuinely apocalyptic time. And as a community, I desperately want to find ways that we can keep the most vulnerable among us afloat.

So I wanted to gauge what people would think of this idea:

What if we set up a fund and asked anyone who can to contribute just $5 a month? I know there are some for whom that’s not possible, and maybe one of them can receive our help instead of being able to provide it at this time.

But I think most of us could probably manage $5 a month without too much difficulty. There are thousands here. If only 200 of us could do this, we could give $1000 to a different Jew in dire straits each month.

I would create a transparent fund where the amount collected would be visible to all. I would transfer every single penny of that amount to a Jew in desperate need each month. I would post proof of that transfer and — if the recipient is amenable — maybe even share some details about the person we’re assisting (though their identity could be hidden at the same time if that’s their preference).

Fam, every single one of us will need help at some point. While I don’t believe in karma in a simple or literal sense, I do believe we have to invest in community to have a community. It would mean a lot to me if we could provide this kind of support to very vulnerable Jews together.

When I post a poll here, I have absolutely no way of knowing who is answering, let alone what their answer is, so please do vote and please be authentic about how you feel about this.

Thanks in advance for your response.

On a more uplifting note:

There’s a Jewish documentary titled Four Winters about the Jewish partisans who mounted a guerilla resistance to the Nazis during World War II, and a couple of you have asked me whether I’ve seen it, hoping to talk about it. I haven’t yet seen it — but this morning, I had a great conversation with the filmmaker about the possibility of bringing the film (which isn’t available to stream and hasn’t been released to a general theater audience) to the Never Alone audience, virtually.

I watched the trailer and it gave me chills. I’m honestly dying to see it. And if there’s enough interest from you, I’m confident we can set up a private virtual screening where we can talk directly with the filmmaker, Julia Mintz, afterward.

So please take (literally!) less than two minutes to watch the trailer and then I’d be grateful if you’d respond to a second poll:

Okay, fam. Thanks so much for talking to me here. Again, I promise to be back with you tomorrow with my in-depth thoughts about Mamdani, as they’ve evolved. (Spoiler: I still really, really don’t like him but I have more than that to say on the subject.)

Till then, love and light, strength and sustenance.

Am Yisrael Chai.