Carol Bergman

He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt …from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.

― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

The drama's done says Ishmael at the conclusion of Melville's masterpiece. He has survived the wreck and lived to tell the tale of Captain Ahab and the whale. He steps forth as courageous witness to record his testimony. The prose is biblical in its intensity, or Shakesperean, or both. There is little time or space for the reader to breathe. The waves pound the beach and the survivors on the beach. All of us, if we are not in government, are on that selfsame beach gasping for air, grasping for solid ground as we are thrown onto dry land entangled in seaweed and the detritus of the slaughtered leviathan—our body politic, ourselves.

Every day has its drama, and its personal challenge, as we try to prepare for what may come next. In the smallest of ways, in the largest of ways, each family will feel the impact of the draconian upheaval in Washington. My EU friends write notations of commiseration as though they might somehow escape the consequences of what has transpired here. It would be foolish to diminish what has happened, I tell them, or to turn away for long. That said, I recommend poetry, odes to nature, musical inspirations. As Yeats was walking down a busy Fleet Street in London, with its grey cement sidewalks, he heard the sound of a fountain and was transported back to his childhood wanderings in Innisfree.  Lines such as this console a crenellated spirit:  "And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow."

Dropping slow. Only Yeats could have written this. I attempt a line: The sky tonight, on the top of the ridge, is cloud-filled. And that is all I can write. The poetry becomes prosaic with worry. Nearly dusk and the water main break just north of where I live is nearly fixed, workers underground and above ground in freezing temperatures. For this, at least, I am grateful today. To have free-flowing clean water.

Human madness is cunning and feline, Melville wrote, and it shape-shifts into forms blatant and subtle. It is irascible, it is rigid, as unfathomable as the white whale, a sperm whale—the  largest of its species—it sleeps vertically to be closer to the surface. If we flail against it, as Ahab did unrelentingly, how will we survive? How to make order out of the chaos of "executive actions," and continue to live purposefully for the greater good? 

Is it madness to have any expectation of progress now, however we define it? Or shall we remain in perpendicular stasis like a whale at rest?

 We were all once strangers in this land.

-Bishop Marian Edgar Budde, @ Washington National Cathedral, 1/20/25

I had a nightmare last night: ICE has arrived and is taking my relatives away, back to the country where they were born, only to be sent to the Gulag, or to death camps.  There is nothing I can do to stop their deportation, and even though I assume I am safe, because I was born in America, I am not safe. During the next round-up, I, too shall be deported, my rights as a citizen obliterated.

After a strong cup of tea, I pulled up the text of the 14th amendment to reassure myself that as a First Generation American, I am indeed protected by the Constitution of the United States. Here is Section 1, in full:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Strangely, though the text is clear, and numerous lawsuits are already pending against the new administration, I was not reassured. It was Elon Musk's "salute," to the audience on Inauguration Day that gave me pause, and worse. I know a fascist salute when I see one.

And he did it once, and then he did it again. The CNN reporter caught it and commented on it. Later in the day social media started some chatter, but not firmly enough from my point of view. I began to regret turning down the offer of Austrian citizenship. In Austria and in Germany, the fascist salute is illegal. Musk would have been arrested and charged. He might have received a fine, or a six month prison sentence. The use of Nazi phrases associated with the salute is also forbidden.

The Nazi salute is also banned in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In Switzerland and Sweden, the salute, or "gesture," as it is sometimes called, is considered a hate crime. The Swiss softened the restriction in 2014 with these words from their Supreme Court: "If the person giving  it was only expressing their own convictions." Well, the Swiss have a history of such moral waffling regarding Nazism.

Is Elon Musk a neo-Nazi, pretending to be a neo-Nazi, a South African white nationalist neo-Nazi, or none of the above? He was born in South Africa in 1971 during the apartheid regime, steeped in the privilege of all white South Africans. Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and Mandela and de Klerk finally reached a peaceful agreement on the future of South Africa at the end of 1993, an achievement for which they jointly received the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. 

With an apartheid-loving, anti-Semitic grandfather who migrated from Canada to South Africa, one is just left to wonder about the grandson and what was in his mind as he made the "gesture." I am sure the now released Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other January 6th reprieved prisoners, enjoyed what most law-abiding Americans, no matter their political affiliation, would consider a despicable display.

One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leapt out -- single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world.

-C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

On Sunday, the Sunday before the inauguration and/or coronation as some are calling it, I went for a  walk before the snow storm with my friend Helene, my Covid walking partner. We still meet once a week to walk and talk often picking up neighbors along the way. The pace varies depending on fitness and age, but we accommodate each other. When I returned home my husband mentioned that he had a plan to talk to his cousin in Ashkelon, on the border with Gaza. Three hostages and Palestinian prisoners were about to be released. The sensation of hope ascending in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and in the West Bank, where there has been so much death, and so much suffering, was good news, or good enough news. The diplomats have been working nonstop. Would the ceasfire hold? As I rewrite this blog post, there is concern about Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank, as vicious as ever.

It's exhausting to contemplate the history of the Israelis and the Palestinians across generations, two beleaguered people. That's the word that comes to mind: beleaguered. 

Before layering up to dig out our car, I checked my email only to find a confession in the form of a poem from a soldier I know. I had contacted him about the four-week "witness to history" writing workshop for Consequence Forum I'll be teaching beginning February 17. The soldier wishes to remain anonymous.  His plight is universal: he has been taught to kill, yet may abhor killing. Once home he suffers from PTSD because the killing has damaged him beyond repair.

Confessions of an Unknown Soldier

If you are reading this it is because I may be dead

And if I am dead I can freely confess my sins:

They were cowering on the floor when I shot them

I wish I had died then too

I wish I had said: I am one with you

or

Walk with me out of  this hellscape

into the future

But I was afraid, I was a coward

Shooting shooting shooting

A panicked obedience

Never did I imagine myself in this place

A bombed-out city of rubble, rotting flesh, lacerated bones

In prayers for the dead

Rabbis, Priests and Imams

say

May there be peace

and reconciliation

Amen

Our ways of seeing are not yet adequate to our predicament.

-Teju Cole, "A City on Fire Can't be Photographed," The New Yorker  1/10/25

And out of this worldwide festival of death, this ugly rutting fever that inflames the rainy evening sky all round—will love someday rise up out of this, too?

-Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Despite the ceasefire announced as I write, the historical animus that triggered the war in Gaza will not end quickly and not without a truth and reconciliation intervention. So I don't know where to begin talking about the war in Gaza, or the war on Gaza, or the war within Gaza. And we'd might as well include the war in the West Bank, on the West Bank and in The West Bank and the war on Israel and within Israel. The anguish of old wounds and hardened hearts floods the conversation, if there is a conversation. Even in the small town where I live there are raging rifts. On most Saturdays since October 7, "pro" Palestinians are on one side of the street in front of the library and "pro" Israelis on the other waving flags and shouting at each other.

After weeks of deep reading and rereading, listening and interviewing, I've decided that all I am able to write regarding the tragedy of Israel and Palestine are my own experiences, personal feelings, and considered observations. They may not be worth anything at all, and certainly I am not an influencer, but I am a descendant of the Holocaust—what  is known by those who are observant Jews as a secular Jew—an American who has never been to Israel, a journalist, a progressive in my politics and life choices. And though that doesn't sum me up, it's enough for the purposes of this blog post. Maybe there is one reader out there who will appreciate what I have to say and what I have already said. But even if there isn't, no matter, I will write what I feel compelled to write.

At the end of this blog post you will find definitions, codified in international law. I begin with those definitions in my thinking, some training I have had in mediation and conflict resolution, and the years I worked on an anthology of stories by humanitarian workers. The foreword to that book, Another Day in Paradise was written by John Le Carré, a great humanitarian. I use the lens of a humanitarian to consider war and war mongering, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide. The definitions of these atrocities are etched in my consciousness and their consequences clear to see within minutes in a digital world. There are extensive investigations before an atrocity is named, and legal action taken, but even before the investigations they are rarely in dispute.  

When I asked a sampling of more or less progressive American Jews whether their opinion/feelings/observations have changed since the Hamas atrocity of October 7th and the Israeli atrocity of the decimation of Gaza, to a person they said: "What would  you have done?"  Where did this script originate? None of the people I asked the question are diplomats, politicians, or military personnel so their knowledge of what could have been done, other than what has been done, is limited at best. Still, their response shocked me. To a person they never mentioned the suffering of the Palestinian people. To a person they said that there will never be a Palestinian state. Nor did the ceasefire announcement in Qatar and Washington mention Palestinian statehood or humanitarian aid entering the strip.

In addition to Israeli relatives and friends, I have educated, clear thinking, warm hearted Palestinian friends who have been so distraught that we have not seen each other since October 7th. They are living in exile from their promised land, which is also Israel's promised land. How these two related  peoples—Israelis and Palestinians—will ever live in peace is beyond my knowledge and skill to predict, or even my imagination as a writer to predict.  So, I will leave you, dear reader, with an open invitation to comment on this blog post. In the meantime, I offer definitions and a brief reading list. Please feel free to add to the reading list in your comments.

                                                                                                ***

Definitions

Source: Wikipedia, double-checked with UN sources

 Genocide: To destroy in whole or in part the group as such; physical obliteration; cultural annihilation  The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), also known as the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to enforce its prohibition. It was adopted in 1948 in response to the atrocities committed during World War II. The Convention has been ratified by 153 states including Israel.

Ethnic Cleansing: A purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and  war crimes.

Crimes Against Humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians.[1] Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals.[1][2] Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law[3] and, like other crimes against international law, have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution.

The Rome Statute is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted in Rome, Italy in 1998 and entered into force in 2002. The statute defines the crimes under the ICC's jurisdiction, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.

Universal Jurisdiction: one of the oldest principles of international law, holds that certain crimes are so serious that any country in the world can bring a criminal case against the perpetrators. In the 18th century, that rule was used for crimes like piracy; in recent times, it has been used to prosecute genocide and war crimes.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 

ICJ cases involve countries, while the ICC handles prosecutions of individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The ICJ is an organ of the United Nations, while the ICC is legally independent of the UN.

The ICC is a court of last resort, intervening when a state's legal system collapses or when a government is the perpetrator of heinous international crimes.

The ICJ is a civil court.
 

A Brief Reading List

David Fromkin, The Peace to End All Peace

Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land

Edward D. Said, The Question of Palestine

Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

Adam Kirsch, On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence and Justice

The medium is the message.

― Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Before photography, before film, before AI, before the printing press, there were cave drawings and oral storytelling,  painting and sculpture. 23-year-old Risa Oshinsky's  three-dimensional ethereal Afterlife, resembles ancient artifacts. Hung from wires, it swings gently when the doors to the Dorsky Gallery open. And then its articulated parts settle and catch the light. What is this, I wondered, as I walked around it, mesmerized, and snapped a couple of photos with my iPhone, modern technology capturing something that felt primal. Up close, I deciphered bones. Were they human? I hoped not.

"I wanted to create a space for people to confront morbidity," Risa told me on the phone the other day. I caught her in California on vacation with her family before she heads back to New Paltz to finish her last term at SUNY.  Afterlife is her BFA thesis project.

"I suffered from panic disorders when I was young. Somehow the horror genre in movies and books  helped me cope. I worked in a Haunted House when I was in high school," she said.

Staged by professionals, Haunted Houses and Forests are an industry these days which says something about the fear level in our culture. School shootings, lockdown drills, pandemics, bullying—and that is a shortlist—are  all amplified by instantaneous news scrolls on social media. Catastrophe, and the threat of catastrophe, hits young people hard.

Talking to her empathetic sculpture professor, Michael Asbill, about anxiety as fuel for making art, he suggested that Risa attempt a sculptural project using bones. She would be in good company: Henry Moore, Damien Hirst and Orozco, all used bones in their work, as does Professor Asbill himself.

"I meet all my students where they are," he says, " but I suppose you could say that Risa and I found each other."

He told her about a roadkill dump site at the top of a steep slope where carcasses are thrown by the police or roadworkers. Roadkill is a manifestation of humans encroaching on natural habitat; ours is not a thoughtful, shared environment and the dump is not a sacred burial site. Though it's legal to harvest meat and bones in New York State, not many can stomach the stench at the site or the vista of dead bodies.

It takes about two weeks for a carcass to decompose before the bones slide down towards the river. Risa collected a stash, soaked them in dish soap, scrubbed them with a toothbrush, bleached them with hydrogen peroxide, dried them, and sorted them into boxes, a painstaking process.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, she is a vegetarian. "I love animals. I'll stop to help a wounded animal on the side of the road," she told me. "Working with animal bones is calming, intimate and meditative."  The shape of the work, its meaning, surfaces as she cleans, handles, and sorts the bones. 

"Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment," Marshall McLuhan once said. Risa has seen beyond the boundary of her own still young life. Embedded in her work is the admonition to take care of the environment and each other.

Listening can make it possible for us finally to come to terms with one another.

-Walter Kempowski, All for Nothing

At the beginning of every academic year, and then at the beginning of every term, I reaffirm my dedication to teaching and learning. I talk to students whenever I encounter them—young, old, or in their maturity. And I remain a student myself, raising my knowledge base on a variety of subjects, and studying a foreign language. I try to have deliberate, extended—live—conversations daily, or conduct interviews for articles and this blog that challenge thinking, opinion and belief, my own included. I particularly make time and space for college students when I chance upon them, which I do frequently in the town where I live, home to a SUNY (State University of New York) campus. The students are baristas, servers, attendants at the pool where I swim, working long hours for minimum wage while they study and try to support themselves. They are attending a state university, not an elite school, and many do not come from wealthy families. Day to day life is a  challenge that most in my circle, and the privileged students at NYU where I was an Adjunct Professor until 2020, have never experienced. I write recommendations for graduate school, ask about majors, encourage them not to drop out or drop away from academe. I have a prejudice for the acquisition of knowledge that will not quit. Tragic events that interrupt children's lives and education, such as gun violence or war, are avoidable. But we must support the peacemakers, nationally and internationally, and we must listen, even in the circumscribed spheres of our lives—or  especially there—in the communities where we live.

 Recently, I met a young woman—I  will call Flo—at  a café I frequent regularly. She's a barista there and was just coming off duty. I was waiting for a friend and had some time. She told me she was a student, and I told her I had been a professor at NYU and still teach narrative nonfiction writing. She perked up. She wants to be a writer, she said, but feels thwarted by financial strain and disinterested professors. She was losing interest in getting her degree. I couldn't imagine that her professors were disinterested, but didn't question her experience. Still, I was heart sick. How can a young woman, already in college, be so discouraged? It really hurt me. What she needs is a mentor, I thought to myself, a mentor, if only for a few minutes, or just these few minutes, in passing. I asked what she likes to read and she said she didn't like to read and, by the way, did I have any tips to "get through" Beowulf and Chaucer. So I gave her some tips, not for "getting through," but to begin a relationship with these ancient works, and to get into the minds of the writers and oral story tellers who lived so long ago. "I write poetry," Flo then told me. "And I like Malcom Gladwell's books."

"I thought you told me you didn't like to read?"

"My teachers don't care what I have to say. I usually go off on tangents. "

"I would love you in my class," I said.  "Are you sure your professors don't care what you have to say?"

"That's the way it feels to me," she said.

"Ignore disinterested professors," I suggested. "Maintain interest in yourself and your education. You've paid your tuition, don't waste it."

I'm reading a biography of John Quincy Adams at the moment and reminded myself of Abigail, his mother, admonishing her already well-educated and accomplished diplomat son as he took his seat in the Senate. John Quincy did not shun his mother's advice, and he remained respectful to her in his letters. But that was then, this is now. I wondered how my direct advice was landing, if Flo would find it intrusive, or amusing. I gave her my card and encouraged her to stay in touch. I want to know how she does this spring, I told her. Like all children and young adults, throughout the world, she deserves mentors—parents, teachers, experienced adults—who care about her education, a safe environment in which to learn, and no student debt.  

This post is dedicated to all my students, past and present, and to all the children in war zones.