Rally Against Veterans' Flag Convoy and in Support of Hampshire College.

As noted in the previous post, Hampshire College's decision to resume flying the American flag in the wake of the protest by a veterans' group led the organizers to cancel the  second demonstration scheduled for a week later. However, another group, the "American Flag and Thin Blue Line Convoy," decided to go ahead with their showing of the flag along a route running from UMass via Amherst College to Hampshire. In the meantime, a group of leftist Pioneer Valley activists hurriedly organized a counter-demonstration on the Amherst Common.


Raise our struggle! (We have markers)

Both events were small. The Convoy claimed just over 200 participants. The counter-demonstration was even smaller. When I arrived fewer than 10 minutes before the announced start time of 10:00, there were only three people there, just starting to make signs. "We have magic markers if you want to help," one of them told me ("and glitter," another helpfully added). Even when the event got going, between 10:15 and 10:30, there were only between about two and three dozen people present. By the end, the total was over 100, and perhaps around 150 by my count--still a far cry from the 1500 that the organizers claimed for their veterans' protest at Hampshire a week earlier.

Whereas the veterans' protest was sharply focused on a single issue and a  clear outcome --"Raise the Flag!"--the program of the present event, called "Raise Our Struggle," might best be called eclectic: a counter-demonstration against the convoy, combined with wide-ranging demands for social justice and denunciation of the bigotry and racism associated with the election campaign of Donald Trump, as well as a call for "hands off Hampshire College," in response to the abuse that the latter was suffering for its flag policy.

The event announcement epitomized the grab-bag approach and generalized, flailing, post-election anguish:

A rally and gathering in defense of our plural and diverse communities in Amherst and beyond.

In Amherst and communities across Western Massachusetts, some of us are proud of our country and the flag, and others are not, but all of us recognize that Hampshire College has been subject to an unprecedented attack on their community's autonomy and character as a progressive and critical space. Reactionary nationalist forces have invaded their community with direct racist and xenophobic threats to impose a political vision that erases the experiences, voices, and history of immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ communities, youth, Muslims, indigenous people, Jews, other marginalized and oppressed communities, and the working class. Elected officials and politicians, from local Democrats to Donald Trump have spurred on and defended this assault, more concerned about the American flag than the proliferation of hate crimes and open bigotry in our communities.

This is not about any symbol. This is about human beings. The assault will not stop at Hampshire College. The same forces want to lay siege to communities of color, college campuses, and progressive institutions of the marginalized and the working class. They fly the thin blue line and celebrate the police, not for their own safety or peace, but to shield police and the state from scrutiny, from checks on the violence daily inflicted on black, brown, and working class neighborhoods. Forces of reaction wish to wrench apart our communities , not in the name of freedom, liberty, or patriotism, but dominance, blind authority, vulgar power, and profit.

We humbly recognize that we are on stolen land, and we need to respond with stewardship in solidarity with indigenous peoples, not to reclaim territory for nationalism and imperialism. We must do our part in Amherst, but free our hearts, minds, and bodies to support the struggles of frontline communities across this country and the world. We will not forget our past, our history, our struggles for liberation and freedom.

An Injury to one is an injury to all!

The first remarks by a Springfield activist addressed the theme of social justice in the age of Trump.

"What do we want? Free speech!"

About 20 minutes later, demonstrators took up positions along the sidewalk and in the crosswalk at the intersection of Pleasant and Spring Streets as the convoy approached.

The convoy organizers had asked "that there only be american flags, thin blue line pro police flags, gadsen [sic] flags, or flags pertaining to any branch of military. No confederate flags."

Blocking the street (a violation of the law) in order to stop the convoy, they shouted, "What do we want? Free speech!" (Other chants included: "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.")

A sheriff's car accompanying the convoy (a service the convoy organizers paid for) halted and prudently allowed the protest to go on for a few moments. Frustrated, the convoy participants made u-turns and found an alternate route. A moment later, an Amherst police vehicle arrived. The officer advised the demonstrators that they were not allowed to block a public way, and they returned to the Common.


"We're badass!"

Jubilantly proclaiming that they were "badass" for having briefly interrupted the progress of convoy, they continued with their program.

School Committee member Vira Douangmany Cage, the only Amherst elected official to participate (though in a private capacity), spoke of social justice, denounced the outside politicians who had taken part at the Hampshire College protest last week, and criticized Amherst's government for not intervening.

(The Business Improvement District had nothing to do with the rally.
The sign was presumably left over from the "Merry Maple" celebration.)

"Hands off Hampshire College"

Hampshire College professor Uditi Sen (my colleague in history) defended the institution's decision to remove the flag, offering what might be characterized as the predominant view among the faculty and administration.

Few outside the academy may share this view (or even understand the argument that she was trying to make), and that is their right--but the nature of that disagreement makes all the difference.

Mount Holyoke student and conservative activist Kassy Dillon covered the convoy and the demonstration on the Common on social media, mocking the College and the protesters. That, of course, is her right, as well. Part of her coverage included live commentary of the rally via Periscope.

Unfortunately, some of the respondents to the feed chose to offer particularly hateful responses (for which, it should be stressed, one cannot hold Ms. Dillon responsible). They ranged from the childish to the racist and full-blown neo-Nazi.

It was a perfect illustration of the toxic political landscape at the intersection of internet journalism and social media. Often it's not even so much the actual reports as the unmoderated responses and "talkbacks" that are the problem. Here, the problem is all too evident.

And 2017 is not even upon us.

* * *

Press coverage

In contrast to the brief and bland report on WLLP Channel 22, the Springfield Republican's Mary Serreze (@maryserreze) did a notably thorough job of covering the event from the standpoint of both parties.

Civic Forum: The Velvet Revolution of November 1989 and Beyond

Because I'm teaching my course on modern East Central Europe again this fall, it seems an appropriate time to remember the so-called "Velvet Revolution" (a sappy term I never liked) in the course of which dissidents peacefully forced the hard-line Czechoslovak communist regime from power in 1989.

The driving force behind the revolution were the dissidents such as Václav Havel, associated with the Charter 77 human rights movement. As the spirit of protest spread throughout the bloc in the fall of 1989, they organized themselves as  the "Civic Forum" (Občanské fórum, OF).

I acquired this small--I guess you would call it a (?)--mini-placard some years ago in a Prague antiquariat. It displays the name of the organization against the background of the Czechoslovak flag. It is the size of a small bumper sticker (193 x 63 mm.) but is printed on stiff (now yellowed) pasteboard and thus lacks adhesive, which makes me wonder what its intended use was: for display in apartment or store windows? (After all, Havel's famous essay on "the power of the powerless" anchors its notion of "living in truth" in the story of those who agree vs. decline to accede to the regime's supposedly meaningless and harmless demand that they place its propaganda signs in their windows.) For display in an automobile? And when? The dampstaining at the bottom suggests that it was actually placed in a window where it would have been subject to condensation arising from a heated interior in cold weather.

It is at once an inspiring and a sad memento. Although Czechoslovakia had been an island of liberal democracy among the post-World War I successor states that drifted toward authoritarianism, it became one of the most hardline communist states after 1948, and indeed, its leaders (in contrast to those of Hungary and Poland) refused even to nod to the de-Staliniziation "thaw" in the wake of Krushchev's denunciation of Stalin's crimes in 1956. Following the short-lived and optimistic episode of the "Prague Spring," crushed by Warsaw Pact tanks in August 1968, the regime pursued a quietly brutal policy of "normalization."
Despite this long history of resistance to reform, the communist regime collapsed in only ten days in 1989 in the face of determined citizens jingling their keys and refusing any longer to be afraid. Former dissident Václav Havel became president at the end of December 1989.

By 1991, however, the movement split into conservative-capitalist and liberal factions. The latter triumphed in the elections of 1992, and the latter passed from the scene.  A cautionary tale about politics in more ways than one.

May 3: Polish Constitution Day

Constitution Day (Święto Konstytucji 3 Maja or Święto Narodowe Trzeciego Maja) marks the promulgation of the Polish Constitution in 1791, the first in modern Europe (that of the French Revolutionaries came into being only in September of that year). Banned by the communist regime, the holiday was once again officially recognized in 1990.

The Constitution remained in force only until a new Partition of Poland in 1793, but its influence was profound. Professor Marek Zebrowski summarizes:

The Enlightenment Era in Poland brought an economic revival as well flourishing of arts and literature. Writers such as Hugo Kołłątaj and Stanisław Staszic postulated far-reaching political and social reforms and laid the groundwork for the Polish Constitution. The process was officially launched in 1787, when Ignacy Potocki was selected to coordinate the project. A lively constitutional debate ensued and lasted almost four years. It pitted two camps against each other—the reformists who wanted to strengthen the government and extend voting rights beyond the landed gentry, and the powerful landowning class that was loath to relinquish their cherished privileges.

The successful vote for the 1791 Constitution was a result of a carefully planned surprise, practically tantamount to a constitutional coup d’état. Most of the Sejm’s deputies were on holiday and procedural calls for a quorum were ignored. Supporters of the Constitution occupied the chambers and the public gallery, and their overwhelming presence secured a passing vote. Since saving Poland’s uncertain future was paramount in the minds of its drafters, the new Constitution was a pragmatic mixture of progressive and conservative ideas. It called for a return of the hereditary monarchy and it restricted some privileges previously granted to religious minorities. On the other hand it abolished the liberum veto law, extended legal protection to a wider sector of Poland’s citizens, and restored the right of the monarch to nominate ministers that would be responsible to the Sejm. The progressive features of the 1791 Constitution, such as the habeas corpus provision that covered all property owners and a clear statement that all power emanates from the will of the people, were clearly rooted in sixteenth-century legislation and political theories of such reformists as Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski (1503-1572) and Wawrzyniec Goślicki. . . .

The May 1791 Constitution was translated into French, German, and English and many prominent figures, including Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, praised Poland’s progressive thinking and democratic spirit.

These objects and documents associated with the promulgation of the Constitution and the subsequent revolutionary upheavals are from the great Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. (Closed for extensive renovations for several years, it may reopen in 2018).

Resources:

Extensive discussion and English translation of the Constitution from Wikipedia.

May 2: Polish Flag Day

Early Polish nationalists and the interwar republic celebrated May 3 as a national holiday, recalling the promulgation of the Constitution of 1791. The communist regime instead celebrated May 1, the international labor holiday, emphasizing class over nation. Although the former was restored to the calendar after the fall of communism, May 2 arose as a new holiday, mid-way between the two, in 2004.


The official Polish tourism website explains:

Polish national colours are one of the few in the world of heraldic origin. They derive from the colours of the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Poland and the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the Polish flag, the white symbolises the white of the Eagle, which features on the coat of arms of Poland, and the white of the Pursuer – a knight galloping on horseback, which features on the coat of arms of Lithuania. Both charges are on a red shield. On the flag, white is placed in the upper part and red in the lower because in Polish heraldry, the tincture of the charge has priority over the tincture of the field.

The red and white colours were first recognised as national colours on 3 May 1792, on the first anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of 3 May. They were officially adopted as the colours of the Polish State by the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland in 1831 during the November Uprising. After Poland regained independence, the appearance of the Polish flag was confirmed by the Legislative Sejm on 1 August 1919.

Here, the British and Polish flags fly over a tent of the forces of the Polish Government-in-Exile in Scotland during World War II.

Is Your Restaurant Breeding Bolsheviks?

When we visited Boston earlier this fall for a little family gathering, we stayed, for sentimental as well as practical reasons, at the classic Parker House (now, technically, Omni Parker House).

As I had my breakfast and glanced across the room at a couple of the friendly and accomplished restaurant staff, I could not help but wonder what brought them here and where they might end up in 20 or 30 years.


Home of . . .?

The Parker House, founded in 1855 and now celebrating its 160th anniversary, is famous for many things, from the foods that it introduced to the American table (Parker House rolls, Boston Creme Pie, Boston sc[h]rod) to its distinguished clientele: from the "Saturday Club" of Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz, Dana, et al., to occasional visitors such as Charles Dickens.

However, I could not help but think of the famous figures who worked there long before they attained world renown: namely, two of the most influential radicals of the twentieth century. Future Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh worked there as a baker from 1911 to 1913, and in the early 1940s, Roxbury resident Malcolm Little worked there as a busboy. It was only after going to prison in 1946 that he converted to Islam and became Malcolm X.


A kind of long but indeterminate period of time which will live in infamy?

Because it's December 7 today: Admittedly, the Omni Parker House website screws things up, saying, "Malcolm X was a busboy in the early 1940's during the Pearl Harbor invasion." Sorry: there was a Pearl Harbor attack on one Sunday morning, but the Japanese invasion--as I thought everyone knew--failed to materialize. There is after all a reason that we still use FDR's phrase, "a date which will live in infamy." Not a week or a couple of months or several years. A date.


"So Ho Chi Minh conceivably could've baked a Boston Cream Pie?"

Just before Thanksgiving, even CBS News alluded to the political connection:

"Malcolm X was a busboy," he said. "Ho Chi Minh worked in the bake shop."

"So Ho Chi Minh conceivably could've baked a Boston Cream Pie?"

"Yes, he could." And Malcolm X presumably could've cleaned up after somebody that had just eaten one.

Who's biding his or her time in the restaurant that you patronize, while dreaming of greater things? Treat them respectfully and tip generously. It's the right thing to do. And besides: who knows?

The Other 9-11 (s)

Since we have so many flag controversies here in Amherst, let me make clear that Hampshire College, like other major institutions in town, lowers the flag to half-staff on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

That said, the main commemorative event in recent years actually memorializes something totally different: what the organizers call "the other September 11," namely the coup that toppled the socialist regime of Salvador Allende in Chile on that date in 1971.

The organizers generally issue a disclaimer explaining that the purpose is not to minimize the tragedy of the September 11 attacks of 2001, although the juxtaposition certainly serves to contradict the simplistic notion of an "exceptionalist" United States as unalloyed force for good--and, on 9-11, innocent victim. In any case, on a practical level, the programs serve as a way of getting students interested in Latin American studies as the fall semester begins.

I mention all this because it underscores the fact that a given date is often the occasion for many anniversaries, which one momentous event tends to eclipse.

A few years ago, I posted a list of these other 9-11's, and they include some events that were arguably of equal or greater world-historical significance: from the victory of William Wallace at Stirling Bridge (1297), and the opening of the battle in which the Turks were stopped at the gates of Vienna (1683), to the British victory at Brandywine in the American Revolution (1777) and the American victory at Plattsburgh (Lake Champlain) over the British in the War of 1812 (1814).

How many do you recognize?

Post-Thanksgiving Digestif (cheers and fears)

Thanksgiving became a regular national holiday only in 1863 when President Lincoln called upon the nation "to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." Some of his predecessors had, however, declared individual days of thanks at various times of the year. In the meantime, the autumn holiday was celebrated in New England (the Governor of Massachusetts proclaimed a Thanksgiving in 1816). By the 1840s, the holiday was gaining currency elsewhere in the country.

Indeed, we find it mentioned in some of the earliest letters of Emily Dickinson. As it happens, the weather preceding the holiday in 1847 was much the same as it was here this week (except that then it rained rather than snowed). Writing from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary to her friend Abiah Root in January 1848, she recalled:

We all went home on Wednesday before Thanksgiving & a stormy day it was. . . . The storm did not at all subside that night, but in the morning I was waked by the glorious sun himself, staring full in my face. We went to church in the morning & listened to an excellent sermon from our own minister, Mr Colton. At noon we returned and had a nice dinner, which, you well know cannot be dispensed with on Thanksgiving day.

The combined historical origins of the festival and its institutionalization by Abraham Lincoln long made Thanksgiving a "Yankee holiday," an image that did not dissipate for several decades after the Civil War.

* * *

Cheers!


I subtitled this post "cheers and fears" because, this year, I seemed to detect more stress on the alcoholic beverages that best accompany the Thanksgiving repast--"a nice dinner," as Emily put it--as well as a few stories (maybe everyone is desperate for a new angle) that play up the dark side of the holiday--in jest, to be sure. Maybe it's all in my head, but that's as good an excuse as any.

Although the article explaining how best to pair wine with each Thanksgiving food is a perennial feature of the periodical press (and now online food and beverage sites), it seems that the cocktail is receiving new attention. We have pieces desperately trying to come up with clever new drinks (1, 2). (Turkey bouillon? Puréed potatoes? Dude! Seriously?) And we have pieces that poke fun at those pieces and call for simplicity and common sense (1, 2). Although I always appreciate any good recipe, I have to admit that I (unsurprisingly) incline toward the historical.

We know of course that the Pilgrims and their descendants drank a lot (even or especially at funerals), but theirs were the typical drinks of England and the evolving colonies: beer, wine, and spirits such as rum, or beverages including these as ingredients. (More on that in a coming post.)

For those seeking something more modern but still historical, there is a 1960s drink called the Thanksgiving Special, but it is in essence the same as the "Darb," which dates back to circa 1930 and is thus suitably historical. (1, 2, 3).

Moving a bit further back in time, I'd recommend the "Sangaree" (1, 2), which as Ted Haigh explains, is vaguely related to but not at all the same as "sangria." Traceable to the eighteenth century, when it evidently was a popular item in Caribbean whorehouses, it was made of some blend of alcohol (at first, red wine), water, sugar, and spices; it did not consistently include citrus.  A good modern version uses red wine and cognac.

And next time I give a big party, I'm certainly going to consider mixing up a bowl of USS Richmond Punch, named after a Union Civil War ship (1, 2). Ingredients for this one include rum, cognac, port, Grand Marnier, and champagne. Don't drink and sail (and don't even think about using one of those nine-inch smoothbores) if you've had one of these.

Cheers!


As for fears:

At Slate, legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick uses the famed White House holiday ritual to poke fun at the fuss over the recent White House executive action: Obama’s Thanksgiving Amnesty: Will the president’s turkey pardon start a wave of unauthorized poultry immigration?

With minds that must have been moving along in the same groove, the folks over at Destination America TV came up with a special on "When Turkeys Attack":

There's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide when predator becomes prey. Our nation's turkey population has grown from 300,000 to a staggering 7 million in only 70 years. It's become an epidemic that will ruffle anyone's feathers! Fearless, intelligent and territorial, turkeys are taking over, terrorizing unsuspecting, innocent townspeople all over the country. In this one-hour Thanksgiving special, we'll see personal video of turkey attacks and hear from the surviving victims.

Damned immigrants. It's actually pretty funny.

By contrast, here's what turkeys fear:

(This one is from The American Hysterical Society. Hat tip to my friends at the American Association for State and Local History [AASLH] discussion group.)

* * *

Here's what I fear: The ever greater encroachment of coercive commercialism upon our holidays.

It's not about some naive and idealistic lament for lost purity. Any historian should know better than that. Commerce and culture have long been intertwined. (Don't forget that Johannes Gutenberg began his entrepreneurial career hoping to make a killing by selling "holy mirrors" to pilgrims.) To portray the problem as one of corporate "greed," as is typically the case, is also misguided: that is to psychologize the problem and cast it in moralizing rather than structural terms.

There are two problems: the cultural and the ethical.

When I was a senior in college applying for various scholarships, I was asked in one interview in a swanky Chicago highrise, "What do you think of 'the attenuation of periodicity'?" Since I had to devote most of my relatively unsophisticated Midwestern brainpower to figuring out just what the hell the question even meant, I suppose my answer was not very good. (Spoiler: I did not get the scholarship.) Nowadays I could probably give a better answer. I teach my students that premodern times in Europe were characterized by dramatic swings of activity and temperament: we speak of the wild fluctuations of "feast and fast." Modern rhythms, by contrast, are much more flattened: we have few holidays and work most of the time (even the weekend is a relatively recent development). The advent of 24/7 service and shopping, though a benefit in many ways, has only accentuated this tendency.

As anyone of a certain age can tell you: it used to be that one did not see Christmas decorations and other signs of the holiday or its marketing until Advent, or at least, after Thanksgiving. Nowadays, it seems, they appear ever earlier. Beginning on Halloween, the Hallmark Channel (not that it is a measure of anything but itself) replaces its regular programs with Christmas programs.That's nearly two months of this tedious treacle.

Again, it's not only about commerce, as such, but about losing our sense of time. When the entire period from October through New Year's becomes one long and increasingly undifferentiated marketing season, we lose our sense of the distinctiveness of the holidays that define it, and perhaps of the seasons themselves. The purpose of holidays is, after all, to mark differences in time.

As for the ethical: as one who grew up in a region in which some combination of blue laws and custom kept almost all stores closed on Sundays, I am glad that we have moved beyond that particularistic religious restriction on citizens' activity in a secular republic (though--fun facts to know and tell--you still can't buy alcohol in Minnesota or a car in Wisconsin on a Sunday). Personally, I therefore also have little sympathy for European handwringing that the end of anachronistic store-closing laws endangers mom-and-pop stores (Germans call them Tante-Erna-Läden). Ironic, of course, to see supposed leftists defending capitalists. (1) There are more consumers than small capitalists, and when both partners in a marriage have to work, being able to shop in the evening or on Saturday afternoon is a de facto necessity. (2) The logic of the economic system, as the German socialists pointed out more than a century ago, is that the small owners will go under anyway. They will survive only to the extent that they can offer a distinctive benefit or value.

Conservatives love to trumpet that supposedly salvific Pilgrim switch from socialism to capitalism: As if the insane desire to buy more stuff on "Black Friday" (even the Brits--who don't celebrate Thanksgiving--have succumbed to the mania: with predictable results) were not bad enough, an increasing number of enterprises (not only large chains) are now opening on Thanksgiving day itself: which is to say, requiring the workers to show up rather than celebrate the holiday with friends and family. Staples, for example, decided to open its stores at 6:00 p.m.--as Adam Vaccaro of the Boston Globe quipped, "(because nothing says “Merry Christmas” like office supplies!)." In Massachusetts, our surviving blue laws keep the stores themselves closed, but the staff of the corporate headquarters still had to report for work.

Somehow, I do not think that this is what our "Pilgrim Forefathers" had in mind.

It's especially ironic, given that historical Thanksgivings were occasions whose very nature precluded the carrying on of ordinary activity. That's what I meant about time. The first such national proclamation, by the Continental Congress, in 1777, included the injunction to refrain not only from frivolous entertainments, but also from "servile labor."

So, no, the ethical issue is not mere "greed": it's not even clear that opening on Thanksgiving is profitable, as such, but the logic of competition pushes stores to stay open, and that in turn inexorably attracts more shoppers. In the process, workers are forced to give up one of the few universally observed national holidays; many federal holidays are marked only by public institutions, banks, and the like, rather than retailers. (Airports and related travel facilities may be a different matter, though it's a myth that Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year.) As one analyst put it, retailers have created a "Catch-22" for themselves: "the more they do this Thanksgiving shopping thing, the more people will think it's normal, and then the retailers will have to open even if it's not profitable." And the workers will work and we will shop, and once again, we will have lost something of that precious feel of time--and rest.


Thanksgiving vs. "Franksgiving"

Of course, the seeds were planted long ago. In 1939, November had five Thursdays, and that seemed to mean a reduced Christmas shopping season, which, as NPR tells us, "worried large retailers who lobbied FDR to move up Thanskgiving. He did." Then, as now, presidential executive action was controversial: Republican Alf Landon denounced the President as a "Hitler." Many others simply mocked and sulked. And so, states where the progressives were in control celebrated the holiday on November 23, while conservative states rejected what came to be called "Franksgiving" and stuck with November 30. (a video here; can't embed it, for some reason).

Increasing numbers of people are now actively resisting the consumer binge of Black Friday. And then there's "Cyber Monday." Slate tells us it's "the dumbest fake holiday of the year," while Mashable, tongue-in-cheek, lauds its superiority to Black Friday. Still, we all need to buy things sometime, and the convenience and benefits of the online marketplace are not to be underestimated. But how do you know whether you really need something--or someone else really needs that gift?  Here's a handy flowchart, courtesy of Callie Enlow at Good magazine:

full image and story

Choose wisely.


[updates: correct edit posted; link added]

The Lighter Side of the Fall of the Wall (3)

Although contemporaries immediately recognized the historical significance of the opening of the Berlin Wall, comics were almost as quick to find material in the event.  Some pretty good stuff emerged in the coming weeks and months.

Here, a few selections from The Late Night with David Letterman Book of Top Ten Lists (Pocket Books, 1990):

Top Ten New Names for the Reunited Germany

10. Keggerland
9. Just Plain Volks
8. Siegfried and Roy
7. Aryan Acres
6. Argentina East
5. The Love Shack
4. Nazichusetts
3. Switzerland's Bad-Ass Neighbor
2. Home of Das Whopper
1. CIndy

(IMHO these are much superior to the list of ways to make communism fun again and return to or exceed the level of the Top Ten Things Overheard at the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Of course, as a historian of German nationalism, I have to give high marks to "Just Plain Volks"--though one wonders whether the writers understood the full significance of the term, "Volk," or were just deriving it from Volkswagen. No matter: authorial intention remains inscrutable, and we can all enjoy. # 3 is likewise a top candidate, though of course, as a resident of the Baystate, I also have to give plaudits to "Nazichusetts."

The Lighter Side of the Fall of the Wall (2)

Although contemporaries immediately recognized the historical significance of the opening of the Berlin Wall, comics were almost as quick to find material in the event.  Some pretty good stuff emerged in the coming weeks and months.

Here, a few selections from The Late Night with David Letterman Book of Top Ten Lists (Pocket Books, 1990):

* * *

Top Ten Ways to Make Communism Fun Again

10. Spell it with a "K."
9. Have Castro do guest shot on Cosby.
8. Add mechanical shark attraction at Lenin's Tomb.
7. Have Revlon introduce new "Khmer Rouge."
6. Give everybody red birthmark decals to wear on forehead.
5. Adopt "Lovable Loser" persona--like the '61 Mets.
4. Get Skip Gorbachev to do a 'Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" commercial.
3. Hire "The Chicken" to disrupt Politburo meetings.
2. Have Den Xiaopeng cry during Barbara Walters interview.
1. Less centralized economic planning; more rock.

(IMHO not as good as the preceding set, though # 7 remains a classic. 5 is good, especially if you are a sports fan. And at least it was good to teach the average viewer the term, "Politburo.")

The Lighter Side of the Fall of the Wall (1)

Although contemporaries immediately recognized the historical significance of the opening of the Berlin Wall, comics were almost as quick to find material in the event.  Some pretty good stuff emerged in the coming weeks and months.

Here, a few selections from The Late Night with David Letterman Book of Top Ten Lists (Pocket Books, 1990):

Top Ten Things Overheard at the Berlin Wall

10. "I came for the political freedom--I'm staying for the McRibs!"
9. "Is this the line for Batman?"
8. "So many Bennetons!"
7. "As long as you're already in the trunk, let's go to a drive-in."
6. "We're coming to save you, Zsa Zsa!"
5. "Here in the West, we don't have to pay a lot for our muffler."
4. Finally I can realize my lifelong dream to attend a taping of the PTL Club."
3. "Let's stay at Dave's house!"
2. "This ought to scare the crap out of the French."
1. "We're going to Disney World."

(FWIW: Personally, I think # 10 is a lot better than 8 and 9, for example. Or 3 and 4, for that matter. But 1 and 2 are good.)

Fall of the Wall Disclaimer

Today of course marks the 25th anniversary of the opening/fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was a striking event for those of us who watched the scenes play out across our television screens, the more so for those of us with personal or professional connections to Germany and German history.

However, because every major news organization will be covering the anniversary in full--indeed, ad nauseam, I've decided to limit my own posting here and just follow the conversation. Be prepared: most of the commentary will not be from the most sophisticated perspective (expect lots of triumphalism, sweeping generalization, and banalities that pass for profundity, but amidst all the empty chatter, there will be a few morsels of insight.

I will post a few smaller items, some serious, others--not so much.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on the tumblr for images associated with the event (#fall of the wall; #Mauerfall)


[updated image]

Wishing You a Pleasant 5773! (holiday greetings then and now)

A very happy 5773 to those celebrating Rosh Hashanah this year.

Or, as David Letterman said last year:

It's Jewish year 5772, and all day I've been writing 5771 on my checks. That's the 30th consecutive year I've told that joke. 

Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year (literally: head of the year), is an intriguing holiday for a number of reasons. To begin with (no pun intended), it falls not in the first month of the year, but the seventh, and is seen as the "birthday of the world": just one of four types of new years in the calendar. The name Rosh Hashanah as such does not occur in the Torah, which instead describes the day as "a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation." It is thus akin to the Sabbath, in addition marked by sacrifice and the blowing of the shofar, or ram's horn (1, 2) . (Many other customs and rituals evolved in the intervening centuries.) In addition, though, it constitutes the beginning of a period of introspection, repentance, and charity culminating in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These ten days are referred to as the "Days of Awe" and thus bear a certain resemblance to Ramadan, which is in a sense historically derived from them.

German Jews at prayer on Yom Kippur in the 18th century

(larger image and source)

As I noted last year:

The image of the divine particular to this season (and especially interesting from the standpoint of book history) is that of God as scribe or bookkeeper, keeping records and rendering judgment on the lives of individuals in various heavenly ledgers and archives.  According to the rabbinic interpretation, he records the judgment for the preceding year on Rosh Hashanah, but the verdict is not final until it is "sealed" on Yom Kippur. Thus, the emphasis is on constant repentance during the ten days. Prayer, repentance, and good deeds, it is said, can still avert a negative judgment up to the moment that the gates of judgment close at the end of the Day of Atonement.

Accordingly, the traditional greetings for the New Year and Days of Awe are:

From Rosh Hashahah through Yom Kippur:

Shana tova: a good year
L'shanah tova tikatevu v'tichatemu: May you be inscribed and sealed [in the Book of Life] for a good year

Leading up to/through Yom Kippur:

G'mar chatima tova: roughly, May you be sealed [in the Book of Life] for a good year [literally just: a good sealing]

As has been the custom, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent greetings to Israel's President Shimon Peres: "Happy holiday and a Happy New Year to you and the entire Israeli nation." He also expressed the desire of the Palestinian people for peace, and the hope that the new year might bring steps in that direction. Peres, for his part, replied, "I know the past year has been a difficult year, but we mustn't give up… we must continue to strive for peace." In a separate Facebook message to the wider public, he said, “Peace is the greatest blessing to our children,” and warned against intolerance: “Don’t put up with racism or violence of any kind, with religious or political extremism, or discrimination based on race or gender.”

As chance would have it, such holiday greetings, personal as well as political, were the subject of several good articles in recent days.


In the cards

Hezi Amior, Israel Collection Curator at the National Library of Israel, traces the history of the Rosh Hashanah greeting. The first documented instance dates to fourteenth-century Germany. By the eighteenth century, the custom had spread to the new center of gravity of Ashkenazi Jewry in Eastern Europe. The development of the modern postal service coupled with new technologies of graphic reproduction in the late nineteenth century brought about the triumph of the greeting card in the age of mass print culture. In fact, he says, during the two decades before the end of World War I, "the vast majority of the mail sent by Jews in Europe and America consisted of New Year cards." They loomed large in the volume of mail in Mandatory Palestine and the new State of Israel, too, until the rise of the residential telephone and mass media in the 1970s finally led to the decline of the century-old practice and print genre.

Not surprisingly, as in other cases, the content of the cards reflected the very contemporary concerns of the societies in which they were produced. There were of course traditional religious and historical motifs. With the rise of political Zionism, the cards, around the world and particularly in the Land of Israel:

feature central Zionist values, such as agricultural labor, a return to Biblical paradigms, the local landscape, cultural and economic undertakings, milestones in reclaiming the land and founding of state institutions, the immigration struggle, the Haganah ("The Defense"), the settlement movement, and so forth.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, famed victim of antisemitism at the turn of the century

[source]

pioneers in the old-new land: "Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy"

[source]

Following the War of Independence, and "especially between the Six-day War and the Yom Kippur War," the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) featured prominently in such greetings, often depicted at holy sites. In this 1967 example: victorious soldiers rejoicing at the Western Wall in Jerusalem (which Jews had been forbidden to visit since 1949 under the Jordanian occupation):

[source]

As Amior observes, "these greeting cards recall a time of ideological unity and naïve and uninhibited national pride" in a nation still under construction.


Sacred, secular, and socialist
 
Matti Friedman, one of my favorite journalists over at The Times of Israel (full disclosure: I write for that publication, too), has a fine piece on a subset of this cultural tradition: "Bialik and Kipling, but no God: How kibbutz pioneers marked Rosh Hashanah." Few concepts cause more confusion than the notion of a "Jewish state." The typical American or other outsider, unfamiliar with an identity that comprises an ethnicity as well as a religion, mistakenly tends to assume that it either cannot dispense with or involves only the latter. Many of the early Zionists were not religiously observant, but they often drew upon elements of tradition in their efforts to create a "secular Judaism," a concept that is therefore perfectly logical in this context but may sound strange in others (it's virtually impossible to imagine a "secular Christian" culture). 

Matti's article tells the story of these efforts by "the deeply spiritual socialists who were responsible, more than any other single group of people, for creating the state of Israel." He focuses on The Kibbutz Institute for Holidays and Jewish Culture at Kibbutz Beit Hashita, whose archives "cover the better part of a century of Jewish holiday celebrations but are entirely uninterested in God, rabbis or law."

“For the first pioneers Judaism was very important, in addition to the ideology of returning to the land of the Bible, working the fields, agriculture, socialism, and humanistic values,” said Mordy Stein, one of the teachers at the institute. “In essence, they were creating the new Jew – the old Jew, the Diaspora Jew, was what they were rejecting, and they rejected Diaspora religion because it represented the old Jew.

“They didn’t want rabbinic Judaism, because they identified it almost mathematically with Exile. They wanted new ways of expressing Jewish values and holidays according to their new understandings about the new Jew, so they started to create traditions that were much closer to the biblical concept, the agricultural concept, the natural feeling of a Jew living in the land of Israel on the land, which had been forgotten over 2,000 years,” Stein said.

As Institute founder Aryeh Ben-Gurion (nephew of the first prime minister) characterized Rosh Hashanah: "These are borderline days between the end of summer, the season of death in the universe, and a new birth, the beginning of a new life cycle in nature and agriculture and new relations between the sky and the earth, between rain and soil." One of the typical cards from the pre-statehood 1940s thus emphasizes the synthesis of nature and culture: the sun of the seasons, bringing forth crops and heralding a national rebirth as it shines down upon a new agricultural commune protected by characteristic fence and watchtower.

As is often the case, perspectives change, and the Institute in the meantime includes some traditional prayer in its contemporary liturgies and educational materials. As Matti puts it, "God is no longer taboo." He also suggests that the Institute's program and vision are not passé. He  concludes by noting that, although the pure socialism of the kibbutz movement now seems a historic artifact, its approach to the holidays just might have a future among the many people who value ritual and tradition and crave community but are unwilling to cede the definition and practice of religion to the Orthodox.

The solemn day of Yom Kippur is, or used to be, the one holiday that most Jews, however, lax or secular in their practice, tend to observe in some fashion. In fact, it has been said, this was one reason it was relatively easy to launch an emergency call-up of Israel's reserves when Arab armies launched their surprise attack in 1973: one knew where to find the troops. Had the attack come on Rosh Hashanah, they would have been dispersed around the country on picnics and other outings. (New revelations about the intelligence and communications failures on the eve of the war came from the archives just this past week.)

Still, as a story in today's Times of Israel notes, even those who mark the holiday in some form or fashion may not do so in  traditional ways. Many secular Israelis may attend the opening evening service and then go cycling the next day rather than attend hours of services with which they are not familiar or comfortable. The article describes various organizations that, akin to the Kibbutz Institute, are attempting to craft meaningful forms of engagement with the holiday for the non-observant: including secular study of religious texts, liturgy drawing upon contemporary literature and music, confessional services "focusing on community and nation," and commemorations of the 1973 war.

As author Ben Sales notes, "Yom Kippur lacks an element of national heroism central to such holidays as Chanukah and Purim, which many secular Israelis observe," but "the ideas of self-improvement and forgiveness should resonate with everyone." In other ways, it is therefore easy to integrate the observance of Yom Kippur into modern secular sensibilities and lifestyles. "Green Prophet," an environmental organization that calls itself a "sustainable voice for green news on the Middle East" from all peoples and faiths in the region, offers tips to "Make Yom Kippur Your Day to Help Green the World."

Eventually, the standoff in the years after the Yom Kippur War led to the breakthrough that began the long, torturous, and still incomplete "peace process." As the example of Presidents Abbas and Peres reminds us, political leaders as well as individuals often exchange holiday greetings. The excellent new Israel Archives blog of State Archivist Yaakov Lozowick has been releasing a steady stream of new material. Last week, it shared exchanges of New Year greetings between Presidents Carter and Reagan and Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Responding to Carter's holiday wishes in 1979, Begin wrote:

In accordance with the ancient calendar the year 5739 had ended and, in ushering in the New Year 5740 we pray that it may, indeed, be blessed. The twelve months gone by will be remembered as the year in which the Camp David agreement was concluded and the treaty of peace between Israel and Egypt was signed. And as you rightly state, Mr. President: 'This new year finds the ties between our two countries stronger than ever.'

What a difference three decades make. But on to lighter topics.


Several cultural organizations, including the National Yiddish Book Center on the campus of Hampshire College here in Amherst and the Magnes Museum in Berkeley, have resurrected and updated the old traditions by allowing web visitors to send e-greetings of vintage cards. A few examples from the Magnes:

 [source]

[source]

Still, my favorite, which perfectly captures the combination of spiritual and secular, observance and irreverence, has to be this one. As a window into a cultural mindset, it just says it all.

I'm all out, so I'll stop here.




Resources


• Last year's post
• Hemi Amior, "Shana Tova from Alfred Dreyfus," Ynet News, 17 September 2012
• "Rosh Hashana Greeting Cards in Jewish and Israeli Tradition," from National Library of Israel (a fuller range of examples, from which Amior selected his illustrations)
• Matti Friedman, "Bialik and Kipling, but no God: How kibbutz pioneers marked Rosh Hashanah," Times of Israel, 16 Sept. 2012
• Ben Sales, "The un-Orthodox approach to Yom Kippur in Israel," 23 Sept. 2012
• Miriam Kresh, "Make Yom Kippur Your Day to Green the World," Green Prophet, 23 Sept. 2012
• Yaakov Lozowick, "Jewish New Year Greeting Exchanges From Presidents Carter and Reagan and Israeli Prime Minister Begin," Israel's Documented Story, 20 Sept. 2012
• "Rosh Hashanah E-Cards from the Magnes Museum," The New Centrist, 9 Sept. 2009