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Just Getting Out My Frustration

27 Oct

I wish I was the editor of a newspaper so that I could put my views out to the public more efficiently. I have written letters to the editor of the Star, but I think I have sent in too many. One got published, but three others did not. Here is my last one that was not accepted for publication. However, due to the vote in the Senate yesterday, and the despair I am seeing, I will publish it here with a few additions.

In last Sunday’s KC Star a letter writer said he was voting for Trump because he was pro-life based on his Supreme Court nominees, specifically Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and now Barrett.  The writer is wrong. The president is not pro-life, he is anti-life.

If he was pro-life, he would insist that everyone wear a mask.  That would save over 100,000 lives according to all scientific estimates.

If he was pro-life, he would leave the Affordable Care Act (ACA) alone, as it provides health care for young adults up to 26 under their parent’s insurance, no lifetime cap on health care payments, no pre-existing conditions clause, and better medical care for our seniors.

 If he was pro-life, he would make sure that all children in our country had access to food, not trying to cut SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, food assistance funds to families.

If he was pro-life he would be working toward a safer environment instead of loosening rules about the air, the water and the environment and work for renewable energy.

If he was pro-life he would reject the behavior of the alt-right and the militias who are attacking minorities, but he does not, instead he encourages them.

If he was pro-life he would work to keep guns away from the mentally ill and ban semi-automatic weapons instead of kowtowing to the NRA.

This administration is not pro-life, it is pro getting votes by playing to a one-topic audience who sees abortion as the only evil in the world. 

This country has passed HIPAA laws to keep the medical records private, including the private discussions between a woman and her physician. That is the law that should be followed!

The Senate should have stayed out of women’s medical health, instead focus on helping the many suffering due to the President’s horrendous response to COVID-19.

Barrett appears to be anti-choice and anti-gay rights. This is discouraging and flashes back to the 1950s. However, we do have laws and precedent for the good. What we really need is a President and Congress who believe in all rights. Who like Pope Francis has endorsed Same-sex civil unions.

We need a truly good person who follows the moral and ethical rules that we should care for the needy, help to heal the sick, welcome the stranger.Unlike these Philistines who mouth words but do not walk the walk and do good deeds.

I am tired of hearing that this President and his evil cohort in the Senate save innocent lives all because they seem to support anti-abortion decisions. But stopping abortion is not really about saving lives, instead it is about controlling women.

They have sinned by trying to cut SNAP. They have sinned by separating children from their parents at the borders, leaving over 500 children without their parents. They have sinned by ignoring the universal laws of dealing with refugees. They have sinned by not helping the sick and dealing nationally with the COVID-19 Pandemic. They have sinned by rejecting science on health care and the environment.

While they need to seek forgiveness, atonement and redemption for the evil deeds they have brought to our country, we need to keep working toward a healthier, safer and better world.

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Taking A New Name In America

29 Dec

We always hear of people saying the family’s name was changed at Ellis Island.  Well my family came before there was an Ellis Island.  They came through Castle Garden in New York City.  And they themselves changed their names.  This is the story of the Litvak/Goldman side of my family.

My Great Great Grandmother.
Here are the descendants of my great great grandparents Rasha (Goldberg) and Yaacov Litvak who were bakers in Bialystok, Russia.

As they came to the United States each of my great grandfather’s brothers changed their last name from Litvak to Goldman.  I guess it makes some sense as their mother’s maiden name was Goldberg.  My great grandfather was the last of the brothers to venture to the USA, but once here he changed his name as well.  Baruch Lev Litvak officially became Louis Goldman.

In a previous blog I recounted my maternal grandmother’s mother’s family (see blog below.  The information in this blog also comes from conversations I had with my grandmother in the 1970s as well as a document my aunt wrote with my grandmother.  We are lucky to have all of this information.

Yaacov and Rasha Litvak, also known as Jack and Ray, had seven children.  All of them immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s.  Avram/Abe, Duddie/David, Barnett, Leah, Tzipora/Tzippy, Chia/Chaya, Louis/Baruch Lev.

Avram/Abe had two daughters, named Martha and Florence, and one son

Duddie, or David, had three children. They also have both English and Yiddish names.  Chappie/Louis was married to Bessie.  They had two sons, Bennie and Miltie.  Itzacast/Harry and Lobel/Sophie were Duddie’s other children. (My grandmother remembered much more about those cousins she saw more often.)

Barnett married Sarah and had six children. Hymie, Ray, Bessie, Phil, Dora and Jack. She remembered a lot about this family. Hymie married Mary and had three daughters.  Phil married Selma and had two daughters.  Bessie married Harry Brinsley.  They had one son, Bert, who died young.  Ray Berber married two times, but never had children.

Then there is the somewhat sad story of Dora who supposedly died by suicide when she as just 18 years old.  The family legend is that she was pregnant by her boss.  This would have been in the early 1900s.

However, I decided to look into this story.  Is it true?  Did she die?  I am not so sure.   I did find her in both the 1900 US census living with her parents, Barnett and Sarah Goldman with siblings as mentioned and a few more: Abe, Hyman (Hymie), Rachel (Ray), Harry, Bessie/Betsy, Solomon, Philip, Jacob/Jack and Dora who was just two.  I know there are extra children here.  Some of these could be cousins who were living with their uncle.  Perhaps my grandmother’s memory was not quite correct.   Or perhaps some of them did not live to adulthood. And so my grandma and aunt did not know of them.

I did find two women name Dora Goldman who died around the time she would have been 18. But I also found a Dora Goldman on someone else’s family tree who has her linked to my Barnett and Sarah. This Dora Goldman married and had a daughter in 1922.  She had a second child in 1923.  But her first husband must have died young, because, Dora remarried in 1934.  She lived in New Jersey.  Is this the right Dora?  I do not know. The tree that linke them did not have a marriage license or a death certificate where I could check Dora’s parents’ names.

I guess I hope that she did marry and did not die by suicide.  I have to continue to research her and see if I can find the marriage license.

The next child of Jacob and Rasha was Leah Kramer and her husband who had six children: Ray, Issac, Louis, Bernie/Dverie, Jack and Rasay/Rashie. Rashie married but died quite young.  ( Rashie’s daughter Rachel/Ray had several children including one son who perished from injuries sustain in World War 2.  She also had several daughters.)

I think it was Louis/Label Kramer who had two sons, Irwin and Donald. A one son had or daughter (not sure if the name was Bernie or Dverie) had four daughters, Shaunie, Peralie, Shushkie and Rosie and one son, Hymie.

Tzippy/Tziporah was married twice, as her first husband died. She had Fannie/Chifeque, Harry and Jack.  Fannie had three daughters, including Ruthie Abrams.  It is funny because Grandma said we were close to her.  And I actually vaguely remember this name. Tzippy’s other daughters were Lillian and Shaynie.

Back to Ruth Abrams. She had a daughter named Berenice, who was married, last name Inhober (?). Who lived in NY and wintered in Florida.   Ruthie also had a son who was a cab driver.  Now this is a story I heard hundreds of time.  One day he picked up a fare and was shot to death!   There were family  debates about this incident.  Some say he was perfectly innocent and just a crazy guy killed him.   But then there are those who said he might have been a ‘wise guy’ who got into trouble with the Jewish mob.

I wish I had answers to this question.  But I don’t. Having his first name would help, I am sure.

Chia/Chaya never had children and died quite young.

Louis Goldman, my great grandfather, who married Ray/Rachel Wolf and had five children. This family has been identified in other blogs.

Of course, the questions are always there. What happened to these families?  After the third generation they lost touch.  My father and aunt and uncle knew them.  But we, the next generation, only have vague memories about a scattered few of these cousins.  But I know that the next generations are spread out in the world and show up in my DNA feeds as third, fourth and distant cousins.

 

https://zicharonot.com/2019/12/19/the-descendants-of-esther-lew-and-victor-avigdor-wolff-wolf/

 

https://zicharonot.com/2016/03/08/louis-of-the-blessed-heart/

 

Breaking Hearts: Children in Distress

8 Aug

I know someone who is a survivor.  Although 95 years old, she still remembers the day she was put on a Kindertransport and saw her mother for the last time.  Although she knows what her mother did made sense, and allowed her and her siblings to survive, she still yearns for the mother who perished in the Shoah.

I have family members who survived the Shoah, but their spouses and children were murdered.  Their families destroyed.  They carried that sadness for their entire lives.  Two of them never remarried and never had other families.  The Shoah, the loss of their children was never forgotten.  How could you forget this?

So, when I see the photos of the children left behind when ICE agents raided the places where their parents worked, I think of these families.   I have to say, how is our government better than those who were in cahoots with the Nazis?   How can the ICE agents say they were just doing their jobs, just as the German soldiers did after the war was over, when they know that there are children being left behind with no one to care for them?   How can that be right?

I am sorry, but what I see terrifies and disgusts me.  For a government to do such acts and for the people to do these acts without thinking about the ramifications to the children, makes me sad for them.   I think they will eventually be punished for crimes against humanity.

When people look at the ICE agents, they see terror.  Is that what the ICE agents want to be known for?  For scaring children and destroying their fragile sense of security?

There are much better ways to deal with immigrants.   And those ways do not include cancelling all USA aid to other countries.  It does not include terrorizing people at the borders.  It does not include ripping children from their families and housing them in mass detention camps. It does not include leaving children unattended.  It does not include calling people coming to our borders for help ‘an invasion.’ It does not include dehumanizing families, children, parents.

What it should include is finding a way for those who have been good citizens of this country, paying their taxes and doing their jobs, a way for them to become citizens.  It allows those in refuge situations a way to find a safe haven.

It should not allow hateful speech and actions spewed at them by people in authority.  It should not include secret cabals spreading hateful language on secret Facebook pages.

Shouldn’t we have learned from the 1930s and 40s when we denied safe haven to those fleeing Europe?  My own family perish in the fires of the Shoah because they could not get visas.

It should include finding safe havens for the children, whose lives have been uprooted in so many ways.   The United States is a country of the people, by the people and for the people, which includes liberty and justice for all.  This administration seems to have forgotten our unique message to help the huddle masses and to be a safe haven.

Everyone should be horrified by what is happening.  And if you are not, then I pity you, because you have lost your humanity.

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