Carol Bergman

 

 

We are not hardwired to forever endure evil but not commit it.

-

-Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza; A Reckoning

 

 

When James Baldwin was invited to visit Israel in 1961, he observed brutality at every checkpoint. I caught one of the filmed interviews he gave on an Instagram feed recently. "Wherever we go, there is always a border," he told reporters interested in him and his pilgrimage. He went on to say, "The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of 'divide and rule' and Europe's guilty conscience for more than thirty years."

 

The image of divide and rule—in  a stark physical sense—stayed with me. I am missing my Palestinian-American friends, friends I have not seen since the October 7 massacre and the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Once in a while I write a text or email just to say: "Thinking of you, hope we can get together for a coffee and a hug soon." Once in a while, I receive a reply.

 

These friends, friends of many long years, know my backstory and my politics. They are educated and well-traveled yet, in this terrible historic moment, our friendship has been cast asunder. Though the rift feels biblical in its intensity, the antidote is obvious: build bridges and do not stop building bridges.

 

This week, I interviewed a new barber in town. His name is Mohammed Shadi Aldalaq, Mo for short, and his reputation for artistic haircuts is growing as fast as hair in summer. In the two days I hung out with him in his cozy, comfortable shop, there was a steady stream of customers. A mother with three kids in tow—all needing cuts—was  delighted by the reasonable prices; two balding men, including my husband, appreciated Mo's sensitivity; a young student with thick curly hair had specific instructions about the latest haircut fad.

 

Teachers and barbers often run in families. The tradition in Mo's family began with his refugee grandfather in the Zarqa City Refugee Camp in Jordan, one of the camps created in 1948 by the International Red Cross to accommodate the uprooted Palestinian families during the Arab-Israeli war. Palestinians consider the forced displacement and killings during that war their "Nakba," or catastrophe.

 

Mo's grandfather taught in the camp and also learned how to cut from an experienced barber. He passed the skill along to his son, who passed it along to Mo, who started cutting hair when he was 14.

 

"Do you like to draw?" I asked him.

"When I have time."

 

I wasn't surprised. He has the hands and eye of a sculptor.

 

A sign above the cash register in the shop reads: Work hard. Stay humble. It was a gift from his wife, Shadia, a finishing touch before the shop opened a year ago in August at the southern end of the New Paltz bus station.

 

On the second day of my visit, I met Shadia whose father, Radi Serdah, is well known for his entrepreneurial ventures. He owns New Paltz Taxi, the Trailways bus stations in New Paltz and Kingston, and Main Street Auto on North Chestnut. American born and educated, Shadia does some of the billing for her dad.

 

She fell for Mo in 2015 when she was visiting her mother's Lebanese-Palestinian family in Zarqa City, Jordan where Mo grew up and was still living with his parents. His mom was cooking that day and Shadia said, "She's a terrific cook. I want to marry someone in this family."

 

During our conversation, Mo was pulling up photos from his phone of his mom, and all his nieces and nephews; he has four sisters. Before the Nakba, the family owned orchards in Jaffa, he said. My heart sank. Jaffa is the Hebrew name the Rabbi gave me on my wedding day. It means beautiful, and I have cherished it quietly over the years. But it's also an ancient city on the Mediterranean, not far from Tel Aviv. An Arab majority city during the Ottoman era, it still has a large Arab population, and is now best known in the US for its oranges.

 

More of the family's story unfolded with another photo. Mo and Shadia are sitting on a balcony. They are engaged, they are in love, they are laughing. In the foreground, the remaining tents in the Zarqa Refugee Camp are visible; they abut what became a built town over the years. Beyond them a desert landscape, hills, some low slung houses, and Israel. Mo says, "And there, in the distance, is Palestine." The longing in his voice was like an ocean sounding, or the lament of a cello's basso notes.

 

I hadn't mentioned that I come from a Jewish Holocaust family. In the moment, it seemed irrelevant. I do not feel any longing for Israel and have never visited, though I have always been curious about its culture. I am grateful my parents chose the multi-ethnic United States as their safe haven from genocide. Praise be it remains a safe haven, I thought to myself, as Mo expressed two of his American dreams—to work hard, to own a house one day with Shadia.

 

It is foolish and unhelpful to compare atrocities—the Holocaust, the Nakba, the October 7 terrorist massacre, the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Cause, effect, vengeance in a continuing bloody cycle. The history of the decimation of  Gaza and its people will be written by those who survive, or their descendants, not by me or anyone else discussing and arguing the unrelenting invasions, massacres, atrocities and bombings.

 

 

 

 

And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge…

 

-William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

 

 

Former New York State Governor Cuomo looked and sounded like an old dog throughout his resurgence into the limelight. But if Cuomo was an old dog wreaking vengeance without media savvy, Mamdani was a puppy with a blue sky smile. Are we kicking an old—"experienced" – dog  to the curb and elevating an–"inexperienced"—puppy  to higher office?   That's what many in the city fear, including many of my city friends. 

 

I had intended this post as comedy today. Reading the news every morning is hard enough, and the image of the old dog and the puppy amused me. Even though I moved out of the city in 2018, I still follow every electrifying, insane New York city election. But this one hurt and, in the end, was not amusing. It was amplified by hate, ageism, innuendo, tropes, and entitlement, an echo of the devolution of political discourse and language, especially on social media, but  not only on social media. Despite Elon Musk's getting-to-Mars fantasies, there is no Planet B, as yet. We have to settle down and try to make things work right here. I hope you will join me in an experiment to broaden and steady our frontal lobe thinking, as follows:

 

1.      Study in earnest-- and with as open a heart and mind as possible-- any issue which engages and challenges your life. Read  more, scroll less. Get more informed—more  educated—than you have ever been.  Read what you would not normally read in the mainstream media. Read and listen to media from other countries. Podcasts are available in abundance.

 

2.     Try not to assume that your point of view is the right one, or the only one. Consider-with an open heart and mind-other points of view. 

 

3.     Mentor anyone younger than you are. Showcase your experience, but allow new ideas to surface. 

 

4.     In general, listen more, talk less, as per my last blog post.

 

5.     Define and then re-define smear words, stereotypes, imprecise phrases. Study their historic source. Study propaganda. Take notes.

 

6.     Take a deep breath. Exhale.

 

I look forward to your findings and observations in this  utopian experiment.  We can reach for the stars, and one another, right here on earth.

 

 

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way… For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best."

 

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

 

 

         

I have a new friend in town and we have so much to talk about that there is very little oxygen left in the café. We usually hang out for two hours or so, though I could listen to him and talk to him all day. I have no illusions that we'll agree on everything we discuss as we get to know one another, but it doesn't matter, the air is clear, the conversation is civil, there is no judgment at the table.

 

 It seems particularly important these difficult days to practice deep listening especially when we are just getting to know someone and their politics. What if our opinions are deeply held and divisive?  The tenor of conversation must remain respectful if we are to remain at peace with ourselves and one another.

 

Tea and empathy. Talk less, listen more. These are my mantras as I interview people, run a writing workshop, or cultivate a new friendship. Though we have no need of bomb shelters in upstate New York, and hopefully never will, we are enduring internecine warfare, gunshots ringing out across a peaceful suburb in the dead of night, hatreds old and new ascendant even among relatives, friends and colleagues. How easy it is for fury to turn violent, three-time poet laureate Joy Harjo reminds us in her poem, "Overwhelm." She warns that a country that "drinks from illusion," can "go down."

 

Listening to a Haaretz podcast this morning, I heard a still sane reporter gasp for breath as he used what Aldous Huxley called  "pleasant sounding vocabulary" to describe mass murder in Gaza and a missile attack on Haifa. After a while I did not hear this reporter's words, I felt his breath, escaping from his chest with a hiss, like steam. He was burning up inside.

 

Even in the safe enclave where I live, I encounter hatred daily. There is shouting and accusation, racialized slurs, and palpable fear. A man at a dinner party challenges what I have written and misunderstands my intention: to describe accurately, to report deeply, to understand a different point of view and analyze it with discipline and attention. I receive belligerent emails and delete them, turn my back on rage, move sideways out of range. Hatred is not sustainable. If it persists, we will annihilate each other.

 

We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!

― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

 

 

 

The asylees and refugees arrived for a resume workshop. I could imagine my refugee parents in that room pulling an old suitcase with all their belongings, all their valuable dog-eared, well-fingered documents neatly held in a small satchel, the sorrow of family and friends left behind visible in their gestures and facial expressions. I am here because the United States took them in, a lifeline.

 

I had volunteered that day because I wanted to do something useful after the strengthened restrictions at our southern border and the belligerence against our neighbor to the north. We share a 5,525 mile border with Canada, the longest international border in the world; our problem becomes their problem, and though we may share firefighters during a wildfire season, as we did on the Minnewaska Ridge in upstate New York last summer, we don't share a culture of acceptance when it comes to refugees and asylees. According to the Pew Research Center, and the UNHCR, Canada leads the world in refugee resettlement.

 

I have two cousins who grew up in Canada because the refugee agency placed them there, separating our family. This happens a lot, even today, or even more so today. My husband and I recently mentored Nathan, a young Tamil man from Sri Lanka. His family was displaced during the Civil War after his father was killed. Nathan and his mother and sister fled, eventually reaching a refugee camp in Tamil-speaking South India. Because he was young and fit, Nathan was sent by the UNHCR to America to work and study; his mother and sister were sponsored by relatives in Canada. But Nathan had been granted asylum in the United States, which meant that he could not request asylum in any other country. "At least we are close enough to visit," he told us during one of our last visits before he disappeared. His mother's promise to find him a bride could be easily fulfilled from within the Tamil community in North America, he assured us. But he was having a hard time. He'd finished some schooling, received his US Citizenship, but he was still living with six other unmarried asylees and working two menial jobs. We had him over for dinner most Fridays to cook together, practice English, talk about everything and anything, a surrogate family, but not his family. And then he'd disappeared. We heard he was visiting his mother and sister in Canada.

 

At the workshop, I was matched with a young man from the Arab-speaking world whose father and uncle had been killed in a civil war. His schooling had been interrupted, his family scattered, many killed; his mother was missing and assumed kidnapped. I didn't get the full story; that wasn't my job. I had to find a way to create a one-page resume quickly so that he could find an internship or volunteer position while awaiting asylum, which can take years.

 

The young man has to be nameless here—asylum is not guaranteed, and deportation is always a possibility now—but suffice to say he was sophisticated, educated, a former competitive swimmer and marathon runner, easy to work with—eager like most young people are—to complete his education and remake his life. I enjoyed myself, enjoyed getting to know him, enjoyed helping him. I am a swimmer, too, so that was our first touching point. Many others followed.

 

It takes a village, and this young man had lost his through no fault of his own.

 

 

I hope that cisgender people realize that we are fully formed human beings, and often after our transitions, we feel even more fully formed. And getting to know us as people, rather than as just trans people, is very important.

 

-Erin Reed, author of "Erin In The Morning" Substack, in an interview with Kairo Weber in Sociologists for Trans Justice

 

  

The trans son of a friend of mine suffered for more than 15 years before he figured out that he wanted—needed—to transition. Raised in the Hudson Valley, he's living in New York City now which I would have thought—before talking with him recently—was congenial for trans men and women. But, since the 2024 election, the atmosphere, if we can call it that, is anything but congenial. "I've put my 'I'm proud to be trans tee-shirt away'," S. told me. "I don't want to be targeted again on the street."

 

Please note I am keeping S. anonymous here, for several reasons. He's a professional who works for a private organization that caters to trans men and women, and he's active in the trans community. But he's had his share of challenges. "I still need to go to a gynecologist," he told me. "Just imagine what could happen if the doctor has not been trained properly, or has never met a trans person before?"

 

I am not sure it is entirely analogous, but my conversation with S reminded me of what it was like for women not that long ago who wanted to procure birth control, or an abortion, without being sent to prison. And here we are again, fighting for the basic freedom to choose in a democracy.

 

Fortunately for S. and many others these days, he has a loving, empathetic, educated family, and he grew up in a liberal enclave. But when I asked about his high school experience he said, "I kept my identity to myself."  I wondered why that was necessary in a "liberal" town, but didn't probe further.  I felt sad that closeting in public, or at work, may again be necessary to feel safe in the threatening, abusive eco-system we are all navigating right now, especially if we are in any way "different." 

 

June is the month to celebrate the courageous, vocal LGBTQ+ community. Despite fear and struggle, they carry on, they resist.

 

An Addendum to this post: Human Rights Watch Issues Scathing Report on Anti-Trans Healthcare Bans in the US.  A first-of-its-kind Human Rights Watch report documented the impacts of trans youth care bans in-depth.  Here's the link:

 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/03/us-bans-gender-affirming-care-harm-trans-youth

 
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Human Rights Watch released a sweeping report on Tuesday detailing the harrowing experiences of trans youth, their families, and their healthcare providers in the United States—a first-of-its-kind analysis, the global non-profit says.

"It is the first comprehensive account by an international human rights organization to document how US state bans on gender-affirming care violate fundamental rights—including the right to health, the rights of the child, the right to non-discrimination, and the right to personal autonomy," said Yasemin Smallens, an officer in the LGBT Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, who is the document's principal author.

The report is titled "They're Ruining People's Lives": Bans on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Youth. Smallens told Erin in the Morning that, while gender-affirming care bans are often framed solely as an "LGBT issue," these findings situate trans health care within the broader framework of international human rights law. The bans may outlaw surgeries, hormone therapies, or affirming psychotherapy; they may criminalize providers of such care and punish parents who support their trans child.

The report was based on 51 interviews across 19 states with transgender youth, parents, healthcare providers, and advocates. The testimonies were pseudonymized to protect interviewees amidst growing political attacks. Even with guaranteed anonymity, however, Smallens said during a press conference that trans people and their loved ones were reluctant to speak out, especially upon the election of Donald Trump.

"With time, people were more and more afraid to speak to me," Smallens said. The report also notes that it was largely limited to trans kids who had supportive parents, and that the harm runs even deeper for trans kids in unsupportive families.

However, these narratives are vital in informing public debate about trans health and policies, especially as junk science and studies are elevated by the Trump Administration and anti-human rights zealots. In May, Trump's Department of Health and Human Services released a 400-page anti-trans screed full of pseudoscience and transphobia couched in graphs, charts, and the veneer of statistics and academic rigor.

"People are talking about the ontology of sex as opposed to the people that these policies are harming," Smallens said. "But these histories and these stories will remain."

Participants described navigating the current minefield of care barriers as devastating. "I want [lawmakers] to know they're ruining people's lives," one trans teen, identified as Sophia, said.

Multiple families reported having to move or otherwise change their location of care on two different occasions; when they fled to one place, another ban was enacted. Parents said they pay tens of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for out-of-state care. They discussed doctors who have abruptly stopped care without warning, and that even the appearance of offering a referral sparked fears of legal action under states' "aiding and abetting" laws. One family reported that their gender clinic was targeted by an arson attack.

At the same time, the report supported and was supported by the overwhelming body of evidence that shows trans-affirming care is life-saving. Many of the trans young people profiled were happy, thriving members of their community until the healthcare bans, or the threat of such bans, drove children to attempt suicide.

"It felt like I wasn't allowed to have puberty and be happy and just be a regular child," said Kai, a trans youth. "I had to feel horrible and depressed and suicidal because it isn't who I am—to be in a woman's body, to be going through a female puberty—because I'm not a girl."

Meanwhile, Smallens struck a hopeful note about the potential for radical change at every level, issuing recommendations for the Oval Office and Congress cascading down to the most local levels of government—things lawmakers and officials can do to protect trans kids, their families, and their providers. State legislatures can enact "Shield Laws," which protect doctors from out-of-state, anti-trans prosecution. Medical boards can reaffirm their support of holistic, evidence-based best practices when it comes to treating trans patients. County officials can resist orders to investigate families for providing gender-affirming care to their trans children.

When these kids are allowed the care and support they need, Smallens' report highlights the potential for trans joy, growth, and resilience. One parent, Grace, said her son used to cry at his own reflection until he accessed gender-affirming care. "Shortly after [he started] testosterone, I walked by and he was in the bathroom grinning, grinning at himself [in the mirror] like an idiot," she told Human Rights Watch "And I'm like, 'What are you doing?' And he said, 'I finally feel like myself.'"

 

 

It's strange that  the world would allow this to happen to us.

-a Gaza survivor

 

The huge death toll led soldiers less to question the purpose of the war than to feel deeper solidarity with those who endured it with them. 

 

-Adam Hochschild, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918

 

 

The Russian bombing in Kyiv has intensified this week and I've been worrying about Ukrainian friends still working in the city. The fighting in Sudan has eased somewhat and the truce between India and Pakistan is holding, for now. The Israeli bombing of civilians in Gaza continues. And it's Memorial Day today in the United States as I write; we are honoring our soldiers, those who were killed, and those who survived. The day demands different music, not my usual John Coltrane or Keith Jarrett, but Beethoven or Bach's B Minor Mass. And a long walk and talk in the sunshine with friends.

 

I once asked my Neo-Freudian psychoanalyst mother, a refugee from a genocide, if she thought that war and its preamble—hatred  and violent aggression—is baked into our DNA. Freud believed that the commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is all the evidence we need: we descend from murderers whose love of murder was in their blood. Our unconscious does not believe in its own death and we act as though we are immortal. A UN worker I know agrees with this assessment of the human species as fatalistically war mongering. But he has seen too many wars, and the consequences of those wars. Several former soldiers I know have segued to humanitarian work after their deployments. What explains their choice?

 

My husband was in the US Navy—the Seventh Fleet—but bristles when he hears, "Thank you for your service." He was on active duty two years and in the reserves for six. In boot camp, he had difficulty obeying orders without questioning those orders, not his place as an enlisted man. He was too young and too undereducated to understand geopolitics, the military-industrial complex, or American foreign policy. But he was, somehow, resisting military swagger. I am grateful he did not see combat. Instead, he saw the world. On his ship—at sea for two years—he befriended Americans from the heartland, young men he never would have met otherwise. Perhaps all high school graduates should serve in the military, or a domestic Peace Corps, to broaden hearts and minds. 

 

I refuse to lose hope in the possibility of ceasefires between warring nations, within nations, and within this nation where I was born and raised.  I refuse to lose hope in the evolution of the American sub-species. Though we have devolved in our current iteration, the opportunity to evolve as a people, as a nation, lies before us, beckoning.

 

 

 

If people decide to emigrate, they will have their reasons. For most, it is not an easy decision or any easy process. It is best to show understanding and solidarity. People will have things to offer from various positions. We will have to work together. .. I am incredibly fortunate to have such choices. 

 

-Timothy Snyder, 1:54 am, 4/5/25

Yale Daily News

 

 

Timothy Snyder, Yale historian, author of On Tyranny and On Freedom moved his family to Toronto last summer. The University of Toronto offered him safe haven, space and freedom to continue his work without constraint. Jason Stanley and Marci Shore, two other Yale historians, will also de-camp to the University of Toronto.

 

I have read Snyder's good-bye letter in the Yale Daily News with attention. The word "obfuscation" comes to mind. Also the words: "the fear factor." From one sentence to the next there are shifts and shadows. To paraphrase: No, this has nothing to do with Trump 2.0. Yes, I'll continue lecturing in the United States and continue my important global work. And so on.

 

I suppose there is another way—or  more than one way—to understand what is happening:

 

1.    Universities all over the world are recruiting American academics with gusto, a new brain drain.

2.    The academics in exile are similar to the Russian dissidents who now live and work abroad.

3.    The academics in exile echo the governments in exile during World War II. When the "war" is over, they will return to the United States. Hopefully.

 

I felt the fear factor the other day myself when the Authors Guild, host of my website and blog, sent around a petition to sign after Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights in the Library of Congress was fired. The Guild portrayed the termination as serious, another "power grab" by the administration, and a threat to writers.

 

After wrestling with my hesitation to sign, for no other reason than an amorphous fear factor, I added my signature to the petition. My hesitation surprised and concerned me. Then I remembered a cousin of mine telling me that she never signed anything, a caution handed down from our Holocaust survivor ancestors. The Nazis used lists for their round-ups and deportations to the death camps.  This is an inter-generational trauma that will not quit. Nonetheless, it must be resisted.

 

Though stunned and saddened by Snyder's exile, I understand.  He's a high profile professor who may find himself in someone's deranged crosshairs if he remains in the United States, or he might be forced to self-censor to protect his family even though he has challenged his readers not to "obey in advance." 

 

Snyder has asked for solidarity. I pledge mine for the duration.

 

 

 

There is no such thing as toxic masculinity. There is cruelty, there is criminal behavior, there's abuse of power. But if you do any of those things, you are not masculine. That is anti-masculine. The far right, just to be political, conflating masculinity with coarseness and cruelty, that could not be less masculine.

                                                                                 

-Scott Galloway, on The View 4/11/25

 

 

I don't think the guy who owns the Jeep spray painted  top to bottom with "patriotic" graffiti is a swimmer. If he is a swimmer, I might have noticed his "patriotic" tattoos in the sauna—I am sure he is covered with them—and  I would have talked to him. Probably. On the other hand, that Jeep looks a bit BOLD in a celebratory aggressive way. And, of course, I know who the guy voted for because the name of that PERSON is in BOLD letters woven into the "patriotic" symbols. All of it red, white and blue. God Bless. America.

 

 I've only had one unpleasant encounter in the pool with a buff and beautiful tattooed guy since Covid restrictions were relaxed and we began our laps two to a lane again. Sometimes the buff and beautiful guys with wide wingspans aren't as considerate as the formerly competitive women swimmers with wide wingspans, of which I am one. I try to reserve a lane for a time when women I know swim, thus no unpleasant encounters, but this is not always possible. I don't anticipate or assume trouble, I try to relax. And certainly, of late, the guys with big trucks and celebratory jeeps and wide buff wingspans are a bit friendlier, probably because they are feeling better about themselves—acknowledged , respected, and in power in DC. What's a feminist to make of all this? I will read Scott Galloway's book, Notes on Being a Man (November release) to clarify my ideas.  I think Galloway is "right on the money," as Joyce Vance would say, but he's a complex thinker—and an excellent speaker—and I want to make sure I understand him.

 

If you were around in 2003 during the Iraq war, you might have noticed all the Jeeps and Humvees on the roads in your 'hood blasting music. Were all the owners returning soldiers? I don't think so. I never noticed any women or trans women driving these vehicles, but I may be wrong. Let's say I am not wrong, let's say I'm right on the money. Why buy a Jeep or a Humvee for daily use, like taking the kids to school or going to the supermarket? I remember saying to my husband, "We're all at war now, which is what Pope Francis said, more or less. He said we were witnessing a Third World War "in small pieces." Wars can also be domestic, among our neighbors, between our neighbors, within ourselves.

 

And here we are, here I am, in the once-great United States of America where there is suddenly so much dis-unity, struggle and pain that graffiti on a jeep in the parking lot of my gym inspires a blog post. Please keep in mind that though I'm not a pundit, I'm just a person, I do know one thing for certain: none of us can remain innocent or detached  for long in this time of deep division and catastrophic cruelty. Every family, every person, will be impacted in some way.

 

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
  a branchless trunk, and what I most regret

is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

 

― Federico García-Lorca,  1898-1936

 

  

The 6-year-old twin boys are sitting on their parents' laps, their legs dangling to the wooden floor. They jump up whenever Anna Librada Georges asks them to follow the claps and stomps of a simplified flamenco routine. The 9-year-old girls sitting next to me are best friends; their parents have dropped them off.  Hands go up as soon as Anna asks a question.

 

"Did you know that we can listen with our eyes?"  she asks as she introduces her guitarist and explains that they communicate constantly, albeit nonverbally.

 

Anna, bi-lingual and bi-cultural, is also a psychotherapist. The daughter of an immigrant from Spain, she is tuned into children in an unusual way—through the language of the dance she has been studying for many years, both in Spain and the United States. It's an ancient improvisational art form based on lament, or jondo, a deep song. And today, it has a healing, unifying power as the adults in the room encourage their children to participate and try to relax themselves. I can feel the bands of worry and despair loosen.

 

"Let us ask for connection to our people," Anna continues as she repeats the simplified flamenco routine so we can all practice.  Now what we are doing feels like a deflection, or an escape, a strange thought, but a pleasant one. It is easy to forget what has transpired in the United States, to wake in the morning in momentary forgetfulness, at least, until reality crushes again. So here we are, and here is Anna, up from DC to revive our spirits, the adults on their feet next to the carefree children, and we are all clapping and stomping. My husband, is feeling very carefree. He has been a flamenco aficionado since  I met him, if not before. I wish we were dressed more flamboyantly for the occasion, but no matter, we are into it, connected through music and dance.

 

"It's a scary and unsettling time," Anna tells me in a phone interview after the event. "I tell my clients—some of whom have lost their jobs—that we need to stay connected, we have to listen to each other and we have to believe each other."

 

Anna's husband, Jack, a former United States Navy diver and photographer, now works as a Public Affairs Officer for the Navy. He's a federal worker who is witnessing first-hand the daily disruptions. When I ask if he works at the Pentagon, there is a beat before Anna says, "Not in the actual building. He's elsewhere."

 

"And will you be deployed again?"

 

"It's always possible."

 

I mention that my husband was in the Navy, though I was never a "Navy wife," and my husband was not a career officer; he was discharged before we moved to London. But Anna starts to chat more confidingly about the unsettled military life. Jack and Anna are raising two daughters, nearly 10 and 14 now; they are already world travelers.

 

Writing in my journal the day after my interview with Anna, I reflect on children dancing joyously, how they are our future, how we must continue to protect and nurture them, and to take care of ourselves during this trying time.

 

On 16 November 2010, UNESCO declared flamenco one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity

 

 

In the United States, as soon as several inhabitants have taken an opinion or an idea they wish to promote in society, they seek each other out and unite together once they have made contact. From that moment, they are no longer isolated but have become a power seen from afar whose activities serve as an example and whose words are heeded.

 

 

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835-1840

 

 

Praise be, the dandelions have popped on the SUNY New Paltz,  NY campus and the ponds have been restocked with fish. Students are preparing for their final days of the semester and the academic year, and I am walking towards The Terrace to meet with Beth Albright, one of the founders of Ulster Corps, a consortium of volunteer organizations gathered today to discuss affordable housing initiatives in the county. The loss of federal funding simmers below the conversations as I try to persuade Beth to agree to an interview for a profile. How did she get into this altruistic work? What is her backstory?  She is self-effacing and distracted so we agree to postpone a decision about an interview. She promises she'll think about it. An on-the-record interview is a gift to the journalist and must never be forced. In the meantime, I plan to study volunteerism, its history and purpose in 21st century beleaguered America. So I will begin here, today, with this blog post.

 

I moved to the Hudson Valley in 2018 and had been a city dweller all my life, an activist, but not a volunteer in the American sense of the word.  I had always associated the word "volunteerism" with  President George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light," which I read as a Republican administration's abnegation of responsibility. In other words, if citizens work gratis, the government won't have to pay for services.  For example, in 1736, Benjamin Franklin founded the first volunteer firehouse. Most fire fighters in the Hudson Valley are still volunteers who are on 24-hour call and hold day jobs to support themselves and their families. I pose the question: Is it a good idea to have volunteer first responders, or government funded professional first responders?  Or both, as needed?

 

I supposes I am ambivalent about volunteerism, and a democratic socialist at heart, my hopes for a future America closer to those of Bernie Sanders and OAC, both of whom believe in taxpayer supported universal health care, for example. But I also have memories of my doctor mother's volunteerism in the Mt. Sinai Hospital's Adolescent Health Clinic and with the Margaret Sanger Clinic, before it was Planned Parenthood. She had a successful, lucrative private practice, and two growing children which kept her busy. Yet she made a decision to give back. She was a refugee, and grateful for the safe haven and opportunity of America, in its glory days.

 

After the tragedy of the September 11 attacks, the American Red Cross reported processing 15,570 new volunteers. In the co-op where we lived, everyone helped workers who could not get home, and comforted frightened residents who lived alone. We met in the lobby, an ad hoc committee formed, and we organized. We walked down Second Avenue to donate blood; sadly it was not needed. These communal actions connected us and gave us purpose as citizens, neighbors and survivors. We formed a corps of volunteers organically, poised to help others in need. We were fearful, but unbowed, our spirits strengthened, our hope for the future intact. In the midst of an unspeakable atrocity, we carried on.

 

This post is dedicated to all the federal workers who have been terminated, in celebration of their service and courage.