David Andrew Jaffe's Blog, page 6

The World and our Obligation to Educate about Israel

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Not long ago a friend from the States asked me what she could be doing to help with the current situation in Israel.

It was an excellent question. One I was happy to answer, but felt a bit under-qualified to do so. But I tried my best, since I wasn’t sure she’d find a better source.

How You Can Help

I said three things:

People are coming to Israel to volunteer. Just make sure to research the trip well, so that you’re actually coming to make a difference.Donate. Similarly, do your research. There are plenty of very good places to give your hard-earned money, but just as many others that would be happy to rob you blind and not use it for any useful purposes.Educate yourself to the best of your ability, and see yourself as a PR agent for Israel. Stand up and speak out, since there are so many voices throughout the world that are condemning Israel.Volunteer and Donating

At the beginning of the war, it felt like the whole nation was coming together to make a difference. But like in everything else in life, normality settles in. And as much as the question of what we can be doing applies to someone living far, far away, I find myself wondering it all the time as well, despite being a short drive away from the terrors of war.

The role of our soldiers is obvious. The rest of us: It’s way harder to figure that out.

Volunteering is, of course, extremely important. However, as life has basically returned to relative normality, most of us don’t have the opportunity to volunteer. Despite the war, we have jobs. We have responsibilities. Our day is already jam-packed. On occasion we may have a day or two to take a bus somewhere to pick some strawberries. And whatever we can do is great. But it’s too seldom to feel like it matters.

And sadly, more than a few of us barely has any cash to make much of an impact on what’s happening around us.

Educating the World

Which is why I want to speak about the third option I gave. It costs little to nothing to educate yourself. And opportunities to speak out and stand up for Israel are everywhere. In fact, they tend to come to many of us without seeking them out.

I’ve debated with some friends about the value of trying to educate the world about the truth of what happens in Israel. Those who are opposed make very valid points. Most people have already chosen what to think, and nothing will sway them otherwise. And there is a driving force of antisemitism that can’t be ignored. Obviously if someone comes from a place of Jew hatred, good luck convincing them that Israel is not committing apartheid.

But there is a sphere of influence. There exists the few out there in the world who either have not yet formulated their opinion, or have some room for movement in what they’d be willing to adjust. And we can’t shake our obligation to reach those people. It is a powerful responsibility, and it belongs to all of us.

Collective Responsibility

And that’s where we all come in, where every one of us has some level of responsibility.

We’re all online. We’re all out there in the world. And we all see and hear things we wish we didn’t. So the question is: What are you going to do about it?

The easiest thing in the world is to do nothing. To sit back and let the world think what it wants to think. To make excuses why we don’t wish to get involved. And to preserve friendships even though we fundamentally disagree about a very controversial and heated topic.

But is it the right thing to do?

I seriously doubt any of us will look back ten years from now and feel pride for the moments we stayed silent. For the moments we didn’t speak up when our people and our country were being relentlessly maligned by those with very ill intensions.

But we can’t ignore the fact that the task before us is a challenging one.

I seriously doubt any of us will look back ten years from now and feel pride for the moments we stayed silent.
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Defending Israel and Losing Friends

We need to be better educated than those we wish to argue with. That takes time and energy. It means exploring complex topics. And it means exposure to things you never really wanted to think about.

It means conflict. It means heated replies to your statements. Our soldiers are dying on the battlefield. I think the least we can do is take a little heat from an ignoramus on Twitter.

And yes, it means we might lose a few friends.

This last one is the one I struggle with the most. I know intuitively that if someone will relentlessly criticize Israel for defending itself while ignoring the rape, massacre, and cruelty of October 7th, they’re probably not someone I should be friends with in the first place. And deep down they may have always hated me just for being born a Jew.

But I love my friends. I care for them greatly. All of them. Even long after they stop caring about me. And the hardest thing for me is to just turn them away.

Our soldiers are dying on the battlefield. I think the least we can do is take a little heat from an ignoramus on Twitter.
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Can’t Shirk the Obligation

But this isn’t just an activity or a hobby.

This is an obligation.

We are obligated to know what’s happening and to explore what happened in the past as well. We can’t just look past Israel’s history. We need to pick up a book or read some articles or listen to some podcasts. We need to form educated viewpoints.

And even though some of us might keep an eye out for opportunities to give people a different perspective (my world is Quora), the rest don’t have to look. The possibilities will likely hunt you down.

Someone on your Facebook or Instagram page will accuse Israel of apartheid or talk about the moral equivalency of Israel and Hamas. And you’ll want to stay out of it, for all the aforementioned reasons.

But you can’t.

If you have the ability to shift even one person’s viewpoint, don’t you think you at least need to try?

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Dall-E 3: Not a Terrible Start

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I’ve been working with Dall-E for a few months now, and I think the time has come to give my review.

First off, I’d like to say the wonderful world of AI for all sorts of purposes is very fun. It’s a great time saver, and I think it will both revolutionize the way many of us work… but will also damage most of us in many, many ways as well. I think people are already becoming just a little less creative. I mean, why bother creating when you could have a machine do it for you just as well, much quicker, and for little to no money?

Technology: To Embrace or Not to Embrace

It’s really an age old question. And in the end we are forced to choose to embrace technology, or just watch as the world advances around us.

Humans need movement. When technology gave us lives void of movement, we needed to choose to find other ways to move… or become unhealthy and slovenly.

So too, humans need to be creative. So if our computers are going to do all of our creative work for us, we will need to find alternative outlets for our creativity. Or the world will become routine and boring, which would be awful. But I have faith we will find ways to enhance our lives without damaging the essence of humanity. Perhaps we’ll one day look back and we’ll be so much farther than we could have ever expected.

So what is Dall-E? It’s Chat GPT’s text-to-image software. You put in a prompt, and shortly after it either spits back an image… or it tells you your request is in violation of its policies. So if I say “Create a cartoon of a hamster eating a muffin while riding on a scooter, wearing a top hat, with dozens of dancing caterpillars in the background”, I might get something like this.

Dall-E does some things amazingly well… and some things far less so.

How to Use Dall-E

Here’s how I’ve found to use it correctly: Stick to animations. It can create incredible, detailed, sometimes shockingly high-quality animations.

Be meticulous about forming intelligent prompts. This is true, in my experience, of a lot of AI. If the program can misinterpret what you’re looking for, it often does. For some of my print-on-demand work, I use Chat-GPT to devise tags. A list of 15. If I just told someone to make the list, they could probably figure out how to format it intelligently. Chat GPT needs to be told that words needs to be separated, individual tags should have commas in between them, and after the comma there should be a space.

Is doing this fun? Not particularly. But you only have to do it once! After that you have a usable template that’ll work every time.

So if you’ve crafted a beautiful prompt and you want an animation, you’re in luck. If that’s what you’re looking for, you can get some amazing results from Dall-E.

Dall-E’s Imperfections

There are four things, however, where I think Dall-E is really not so good. We’re in the first generation of this technology. I have no doubt there will be extreme improvements. But in the meantime, if you want to try this out, be wary of the following four items.

First, Dall-E is terrible about letters and spelling. For whatever reason, 80-90% of my requests with words turn up everything from misspellings to absolute gibberish. Mind you, this is even when I put the word into the prompt explicitly. Dall-E is very smart… but borderline illiterate.

So if your goal is to make something like custom business cards or flyers for an event, I suggest you use Dall-E to generate the images, then use those images in a different software.

Mistakes

I’ve already mentioned that Dall-E struggles with making things that seem like authentic, realistic photos. But even though the cartoons are excellent, they’re often riddled with errors. An extra finger here, a detached tail there (notice anything funny about the zebra?). Sometimes the mistakes are very obvious. But other times you need to be extremely careful. You could end up publishing something or using an image promotionally not realizing the glaring error hidden within.

So the important thing is to make sure to carefully check each and every image you generate.

Restrictions

Possibly my biggest issue with Dall-E surrounds its uber-restrictive policies. I constantly have to generate and regenerate prompts to get something close to what I was looking for. There are so many rules, many of which are highly subjective. I was constantly walking into walls trying to get something even remotely resembling what I was looking for.

It brings me back to my teaching days when I had students who were trying to make PowerPoints about certain biblical stories. Every time someone did a Google search for “sword”, they got locked out of the system. Why? Apparently it’s a term used in some gay pornography. And because of that relatively obscure use of the word, dozens of children will have their education interfered with unnecessarily.

It’s important to always look deep within policies. Yes, I understand that you want to avoid violence and “sensitive” topics; however, maybe be a little less restrictive on what defines those terms. If not, we’re heading in a direction whereby soon you’ll get an error message for the prompt “Create a cartoon bird”. Somebody, somewhere will be able to find what’s offensive there!

To Dall-E or not to Dall-E

Finally, the program has a problem with consistency. So, for example, if you wanted to create a character and multiple images using the same likeness, either this is impossible or I haven’t yet figured out how to do it. This would be rough if you wanted to create a theme for a particular marketing campaign or wanted to illustrate a children’s book.

So, in my final assessment: If you are looking for individual animated images, and you have the patience to craft the perfect prompt and possibly do it a few times until you like the results, Dall-E is for you and can produce marvelous things. But it is filled with limitations. I have no doubt the program will continue to get better and better. And it very well might be the best that’s out there at the moment. In the meantime, enjoy what we’ve got. Learn to master what’s in front of you. And embrace the world of AI. It’s not going anywhere!

The post Dall-E 3: Not a Terrible Start is featured at Jaffe World.

The Surprising Root of Antisemitism

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What is antisemitism?

Is it a logical system of beliefs derived from a thought-out, reasoned set of issues people might have with the Jewish people?

Or is it something very, very different?

Solving Antisemitism?

Trust me when I say I’m not setting out to solve antisemitism. Or hate in general.

Neither are a logical or reasonable goals. Hate is a part of human nature and antisemitism has existed as long as Jews have existed. So long as there are Jews, there will be those who loathe the Jews.

But why? Even if one could successfully claim (they can’t) age-old tropes like Jews control the media and the banks and Hollywood, why would that inspire hatred? And what does a random Jewish kid at Yale have to do with some mysterious cabal of evil Jews running Bank of America behind the scenes?

And even if someone truly despises the actions of Israel during an unprecedented time of war, what connects a tiny country in the Middle East to some kid in Atlanta who has never been to Israel and never even really thought of visiting?

Can Hate Be Logical?

Hate in general, when based on a bias against an entire group, is illogical. It can have a mildly logical explanation, based on experience and what not, but that does not make the outcome reasonable. For example, if someone was attacked by a group of Cubans as a kid, they might develop a painful bias against all Cubans. And because of their history, we might view them with a certain level of sympathy.

But if they were to be rude to a waitress upon hearing a Cuban accent, our sympathy would immediately go away. Yes, you were hurt. And yes, the assailants shared an ethnicity. But this poor girl just wants to serve you mozzarella sticks, get her tip and go home and watch Stranger Things, without some asshat in her crappy restaurant giving her a hard time.

She likes reading magazines, she loves dogs, and the waitress deal is to support herself while finishing her political science degree. She wasn’t there when you were assaulted, didn’t know it happened, and would likely have called for help if she witnessed it. She may have even been assaulted herself.

Why? Because the perpetrators were lousy human beings. Not because they were Cuban, but because every group for all of world’s history has had crappy people. Every race, religion, or whatever has had great people and awful people. And judging a group, any group, by its lowest elements is unfair.

But it happens all the time.

The Root of Hatred

But experience isn’t the root of all hatred. Certainly not other people’s experiences. If it were, we’d hate everybody. All the time. Constantly judging every existing group by something someone did at some point in history. And no one would be left in our lives.

So why does someone choose to hate one group based on vague premises and not another?

Surely hate can also come without experiences. Sometimes it’s taught. A parent instills terrible values into the hearts of their children. Or a community has a certain way about it, and all its members get swept up in the waves of bigotry.

And their might be some explanation at the root of all of this. But it’s likely lost in history, and the blind dislike for others ends up just being passed on to new generations without any reason that could be offered. It just is.

Innate Hatred

But some hate goes well beyond experiences and education. It’s innate.

I’ve read about this before. Watched small pieces of it over the years. But what I’m witnessing from the world at the moment is like nothing I’ve ever seen before in real life. And some people have been jarred out of their stupor, since not only have they not experienced this before, but they were entirely unaware of its existence.

It is my contention, possibly controversially so, that antisemitism is illogical. It’s not based on experience or facts. Some elements may be learned, but what’s at play here goes far deeper than that. Because it sometimes exists in a vacuum, absent of all rhyme or reason.

Almost as if some in the world have been born with an involuntary emotion. Despite our most vigorous attempts, most of us have struggled to fight off feelings of jealousy or fear. They’re just a part of who we are, and we didn’t choose for them to be there.

And some people–many people–were born hating Jews. It’s just a part of them as well.

Their only problem is it’s socially unacceptable. Well, it is most of the time.

The True Thoughts and Feelings

What I mean is, most of the time if you walk around expressing your hatred of any group in this day and age it will be met with resistance. You’ll be accused of bigotry. Racism. You’ll be labeled as the bad guy.

So millions of folk walk around with twisted and nasty views that they just keep to themselves, for the sake of self preservation.

But then something happens.

It could be on a small scale where one Jewish person does something revolting with lots of press and publicity. And all of a sudden the fangs start to show. People feel a little more comfortable expressing their true thoughts and feelings.

But it’s small. It’s temporary. And the rest of the world gets very uncomfortable around this hatred, because it’s so easy to demonstrate that it’s based on isolated individuals.

Antisemitism Shows Its True Colors

In walks Israel, under the microscope of the world like no other country in history.

At the beginning of this conflict, most people were looking at Israel with a level of pity. It had just been attacked. It’s people were severely harmed. The timing was still wrong to pour venemous words and actions on the Jewish people.

But then the tide turned. Israel did the unthinkable. It acted aggressively to defend itself. The Palestinian PR machine started working overtime, and thousands if not millions of antisemites, people whose hearts always pulled them toward Jew hatred, lifted their heads up and realized their moment had come.

The innate feelings in their hearts were stirred.

Vile words have been spoken. Dangerous acts of violence have been committed.

And now we watch. We watch as people show their true colors.

And we wonder whether or not the Holocaust we all hope to never see happen again, really could. Are we really just one or two steps away from the next disaster to befall our people?

We say “Never Again”. But do we still really believe it’s true?

The post The Surprising Root of Antisemitism is featured at Jaffe World.

Ruining My Poor Instagram

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It’s hard to escape the difficulties of the day.

I think when things get mighty tragic, we all need a release that has nothing to do with the suffering.

It was especially challenging during Corona, since everything and everywhere was Corona-related for two years of our lives. The news? How this or that country was affected by Corona. How the economy was being impact by Corona. These are the celebrities or politicians currently hanging out at home, making dumb videos during lockdown. Social media, from Instagram to LinkedIn, was Corona 24-7.

There was no theater or sports or hobbies. Just disease watch, all day and night.

War vs Corona

But the war is at least a little different. Sure, my life became inundated with things that were war related. Work was impacted. School was impacted for the kids. And my Facebook feed was littered with pithy one-liners that make those who agree feel nice, but go completely ignored by those they seek to influence.

But we all had our one place to hide, since it’s a big world out there, and not all of it was immersed in a war.

For me, as always, it was Mixed Martial Arts. It was fight news. It was catching up on the craziness from the night before, watching the most talented mixed martial artists in the world bleed for my entertainment, as they’ve been doing for me for nearly a decade.

Politics was not a part of my experience. Sure, it came up on occasion. Donald Trump attended some fight cards and some fighters expressed their admiration for him. But I never gave it much attention, since Trump’s been a gimmick of television entertainment since long before he was president of the United States, whether it be his own reality show or having a cameo in Home Alone 2 or getting inserted into the storyline of pro wrestling. He’s a bombastic and divisive individual. So I just considered it part of the show.

But it’s not real politics. I wasn’t choosing which fighters to admire based on their stance on abortion or homosexual marriage. I watched people fight each other, and that’s why I was there.

Unpleasant on Instagram

But the other day I had an uncomfortable experience.

I’m not one for unfriending and unfollowing people to take a stand on an issue. I have never unfriended anyone on Facebook because I didn’t like what they had to say on a topic. And I’ve never unfollowed someone on Instagram because their post rubbed me the wrong way. Well, that is, until recently.

I am a firm believer in doing everything in my mental power to separate art from the artist. If I couldn’t benefit from the talents of people who had thoughts and beliefs repellent to me, I’d be beyond limited in what I could enjoy. I refuse to not laugh at the television antics of an actor because he wrote a tweet a few years ago that upset people’s sensibilities. Not my style. And if I discovered that the music I was listening to was written and performed by an antisemite or a racist or someone who supports violence against children or someone who butters his bread with the butter side down, I’d shrug and continue on listening.

The world is filled with abhorrent thoughts and opinions, and sometimes they are possessed by the people who create great movies and songs and standup comedy routines. To the best of my ability, I try and ignore the former to appreciate the latter.

But when I saw two UFC fighters in a row posting on Instagram about the war, and accusing Israel of genocide, a piece of me broke.

And I clicked to unfollow them almost immediately.

Next Level Too Soon

It’s not really about separating the art from the artist. I still appreciate both of their talent. And I’ll still watch them fight. And I even enjoy their banter and antics as entertainers in the fight world.

But there are three reasons I had to step away:

First of all, this war is young. When I saw these posts, Israel was still burying people massacred on October 7th. Babies were being taken into captivity! I’m all for nuance and debate and an intelligent discussion about the overall situation. But everyone has their limits. When your family has just been massacred, you’re not yet ready for a contrarian opinion.

The dust needs to settle.

This was more than I was yet ready to handle.

Instagram is for Happy Fun

Second, this is Instagram. It’s for happy fun time. I don’t take it seriously at all. For the most part it exists in my life for three reasons: Updates about and pictures of friends, UFC news and clips, and dumb memes that will hopefully get a smile out of me.

When my Instagram feed is filled with offensive political nonsense, it’s taking a mindless outlet in my life and turning it into a hostile and uncomfortable environment. We all need our safe places to separate ourselves from the hardships of life. If you damage my corny and meaningless happy zone with false accusations of genocide, I’m forced to stop following you. You have every right to your misguided and ignorant opinions. But I also have every right to not interact with them at all.

UFC is Apolitical

Finally, UFC is one my greatest escapes in this world. I’ve even written about how enjoying this incredible sport is one of the ways I was able to tolerate being apart from my children when they were pulled off to the other side of the world. I love watching the fights and I am beyond grateful to have this outlet.

But among other reasons for this love is that it’s an apolitical environment. Sure, people will cheer for those from their home country. That is and will always be a part of sports.

But for the most part, the political and religious opinions of the individual fighters are left at home. No one cares. We’re all here to watch incredible athletes put there health on the line to entertain the hell out of us. And the two fighters I unfollowed have entertained me plenty. I have followed their careers and will continue to do so. They are both Muslims, and I am under no illusion they can approach the war with Hamas objectively, or that we would be able to have a pleasant interaction if we were to meet in person.

But that doesn’t mean I need to see their ignorant and hateful rhetoric on Instagram.

I moved on.

Sadly, I was left with no choice.

The post Ruining My Poor Instagram is featured at Jaffe World.

The Food Question to Ruin a Day

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When the war began, people quickly found a new way to be obnoxious online. Just when you thought we had mastered every possible way.

Sometimes a little bit of frustration was well-placed, but most of the time it was trash. It was people masking their frustration at their own inability to make a difference by trashing other people simply living their lives.

What Gives You The Right to Criticize?

On the night of October 7th, after Shabbat, I recall someone asking on a Facebook group if any food places were delivering that night. What followed was a string of criticism. Not a single helpful answer, just people ripping into the one asking the food question for its insensitivity and poor timing.

No one came to her defense.

No one considered the possibility that maybe her husband was just pulled into reserve duty or she didn’t know the whereabout of her sister who was at the Nova festival. Maybe she was so shaken to the core by the complexity of her situation, she couldn’t fathom cooking for her three kids. She just needed to be able to make a call and get some food. She didn’t need judgment. She didn’t need people giving her a hard time and making her incomprehensibly difficult time worse.

Or maybe she was an insensitive person who cared more about a late-night slice of pizza than a massacre of our people in the south.

But what gives you the right to criticize? What gives you the right to assume it’s the latter without even contemplating the possibility it’s the former?

The Dance of the Self-Righteous

This became a theme of my social media feeds for a few weeks. Someone dared to do something even remotely normal, and the gallery of the self-righteous emerged to show their displeasure. They spewed their hateful venom over anyone who dared seek a recipe or advice on government offices or needed to check if a restaurant was still open. And all the time ignoring the greatest irony in all of this: What were they doing on Facebook in the first place? Surely they should either be volunteering or sitting in a corner crying. There is no other choice, yet they had the audacity to waste their time mindlessly scrolling… looking for opportunities to criticize others for being normal.

Thankfully this uncomfortable period subsided, and it became normal again to ask questions, seek advice, or otherwise frivolously spend time on the internet doing what the internet’s best for. Facebook went from people attacking those who can contemplate anything in the world other than the war, to defending those who needed a night to get out of the house or wanted to find the best fried chicken in Jerusalem.

Yet it’s not 100% over. There is still shreds left over, despite the fact that we’re four months into the war. And someone decided to express their ridiculous demonstration of their enhanced virtuous abilities… at my wife.

The Fateful Food Question

My beautiful spouse made the grievous error of asking for suggestions for how to prepare a food item on Shabbat. Where did she ask her food question, daring to ignore the dangers and difficulties of living in times of war and destruction? On a Facebook group called Israeli Foodies.

This group is exactly as it sounds. It’s filled with people who are fans of food, and live all over Israel. Perhaps they are ever so slightly snobbier about food than the average person. So they gather in their own corner of Zuckerberg-land to share thoughts and ask questions.

My wife’s question was not deep. Nor meaningful. It was a simple food question. And of course it was! Why should it be any more than that? It’s literally a group for food-related questions, with the only twist being that it’s related to Israel. To ask for the best sandwich place in Tel Aviv is an acceptable question. To ask for the best place to buy shoes in Chicago is not.

And there are basically only three acceptable ways to react:

Provide a thoughtful and meaningful answer to the question at hand (ideal)Click some type of reaction, like a thumbs up (acceptable)Not get involved in any way whatsoever (also 100% acceptable)

Now, if your reaction is anything short of the first two, the third option suddenly becomes the absolute best one available. No one needs a dumb joke. No one needs an answer to the wrong question. And no one needs to be judged by others because they asked something that for whatever reason you didn’t find acceptable.

The Damage

But some self-righteous moron decided this was her opportunity to step on her soap box and preach to a crowd of people who really didn’t appreciate her poison.

This was the general gist of what she said:

I can’t believe what I’m reading here. There’s a war going on just a hop away from all of us, and you have the audacity to ask a trivial question about food? No one cares about your stupid food problems. I saw this and all I felt for you was bitter contempt and disgust.

Now I should say two things. First, the feed was filled with good and thoughtful answers to the question. With zero judgment. Not every answer was great, but everyone was polite and well-meaning.

Second, although the comment had a few wimpy ‘likes’, the general sentiment of the group was outright angst at the way she was talking. People reported her. And the comment was eventually removed.

But the damage was done. Feelings were hurt. People were incensed. And a mindless debate ensued with a woman who didn’t understand anything about the world.

We’re Carrying On

We’re all carrying on. With heavy hearts. We’re still sad. And stressed. And checking the news constantly.

But life is moving forward. There’s no other choice. We do what we need to do, and even what we want to do. Because that’s part of being a person.

She should understand this. While our children were bleeding on the battlefield, this self-righteous awful person was scrolling around on Facebook looking for people to shame because they aren’t as virtuous as she is. She could have been out distributing sandwiches to soldiers and bottles of water to evacuees. But she was instead on her phone using the precious minutes we have in this world to shame others and make people feel bad.

She lives in a sad and lonely reality.

I hope she grows out of it soon.

The post The Food Question to Ruin a Day is featured at Jaffe World.

Preposterous Poetry: 53 Limericks to Brighten Your Day

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What are the origins of Preposterous Poetry?

I am 46. Too young to be considered old, to old to really look, act, and feel young anymore. It’s an odd time in life. Where wisdom is slowly creeping in, but only so much as to be able to convincingly remind yourself at all times of your own ignorance, and how little you’ve accomplished in comparison to where you expected to be at this point.

But sometimes you need to step back. You need to reevaluate. You need to see where you have made inroads, where you need to move on from your dreams, or where you need to turn up the heat to get a step closer to where you want to be.

Those thoughts, in many ways, are the birth of my latest book: Preposterous Poetry: 53 Limericks to Brighten Your Day.

My North Star

I have a north star. I have a writing dream. I want to write a novel. It’s been my guiding light for many years now, yet there are two main things holding me back. The first is not possessing the right idea. I keep hoping that one day I will wake up to find myself in possession of the perfect story, and then the book will just start flowing from my fingers to the keyboard.

The other thing is a nagging feeling that I’m not ready yet.

This feeling keeps leading me to choose other, dare I say simpler endeavors. It has resulted in four non-fiction books. Four works that are born out of decades of contemplation about my life and what I’ve picked up along the way. Writing them was an intense and rewarding experience. However, it didn’t leave me nearly as fulfilled as I hoped it would.

And I still sat around knowing I had not yet written my novel.

But what’s in between? I obviously can’t just not write, and wait around hoping something pushes me over the top. Writing is a part of my soul. If I stop, it hurts.

And I don’t want to write a crappy novel, wildly unoriginal and dull.

The In Between

So I’ve contemplated in-between projects. Things to fulfill my need to write as I get closer all the time to tackling the big task. There’s a lot more to come, but this current project has scratched an itch for a little while.

And that’s how we got here.

Why did I write a book of poetry?

It makes no sense. I don’t even like poetry. I would love to appreciate poetry, but sadly my brain just doesn’t comprehend it. I can appreciate the sounds, but the words tend to mean nothing to me.

I know it’s not really a rule… but generally speaking, people who hate poetry don’t write books of poems.

The Mighty Limerick

But limericks are different. They’re quick. They’re easy. They’re simple to understand. And they’re often biting and witty and fun. I can’t handle a page of metaphors about clouds and flowers and candles. I’ll fall apart trying to grasp what any of it means. But a five-line quick burst of silly, mindless humor? That has my name written all over it!

So I came up with a plan for how I could write and compile a book of fun limericks… and just about nothing went as planned.

My ultimate vision was a family project. I’d write hundreds of limericks. Every day I would write a few more about whatever topic I could think of. I’d have fun with it. Just poke around at the silly things that go on in my mind. Hopefully make myself laugh a little bit.

The next hope was my many artistic family members would help me narrow the list from however many I wrote to a mere fifty or so of the best and funniest of the batch, and then would choose ones to illustrate.

But it turns out in the end… they couldn’t be less interested.

Preposterous Poetry: A Lonely Project

So Preposterous Poetry became a very lonely little project for me. But it’s OK. I work well by myself. I just sat and wrote hundreds of these little limericks, and then went through them all repeatedly until my favorite 53 were staring at me. These are hard processes for people. How do you create something and throw it in the trash? Yes, of course, it was more like picking the most delicious looking apples. No one ever leaves the grocery store feeling guilt for the ones they didn’t choose.

But they didn’t make those apples.

I left behind my creations. And that stings just a little bit. But I made it through the process, and after a lot of shockingly hard work, I had the outline of book #5.

But I still couldn’t figure out how I was going to illustrate fifty poems. First of all, that’s a whole lot of work. Second, it’s not exactly something I consider myself good at. Yes, I’ve dabbled in art during my few years on this crazy planet. But I’m good at what I’m good at… and not so good at the rest of things. And creating some hysterical drawings that anyone would actually want to look at is a bit beyond my bread and butter.

In walks Dall-E and the wonderful world of Artificial Intelligence.

Dall-E and I Worked Together

Like so many of us out there, I’m a bit of an AI skeptic. I know it’s producing miraculous things. And I’m also well aware that we’re left with two choices at the moment: Embrace the technology and emerge in the near future at the forefront of the movement, or ignore things for as long as possible, only to find yourself playing catchup when these skills are required of you.

Reluctantly, I choose the former.

Reluctantly, but also with excitement. Because when the task is done well, the results can be amazing.

No, Dall-E is by no means perfect (a review to come!). And it can be quite restrictive. But the results speak for themselves, and I’m very happy with most of the images created for Preposterous Poetry (and all of the ones in this blog post).

And here we are.

Preposterous Poetry is not a deep, moving, powerful book. Truth is, that’s hardly what most of us need right now. It’s silly. It’s fun. It’s lighthearted. The goal is to make you laugh. And smile.

If you do, the world is a better place. I’m here to bring the tiniest little light into a world overflowing with darkness.

Enjoy!

The post Preposterous Poetry: 53 Limericks to Brighten Your Day is featured at Jaffe World.

Silence and the Use of the Word Genocide

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Getting involved in a Facebook argument is futile.

No one has ever emerged victorious in these wars of words that often drag on and yank people into the mud. So I don’t engage. I stay far away.

That is, until I feel like I can’t keep silent.

And that’s what happened to me the other day, as I saw words like “genocide” flung around haplessly. I broke my golden rule: Stay out of it.

Why did I break my rule, you ask?

Bombing Human Shields

A friend made a post that sounded something like this:

Hamas sucks for using human shields. But that’s no excuse for Israel to bomb the hell out of those human shields.

And before I knew it, I was immersed in an internet war of words. And like the IDF who are entrenched in enemy territory, I was all alone there, fighting the good fight with no one there to help out. No one on my side. Just a sea of people who look at us from the outset as the ones doing wrong who need to justify their every action.

From the moment I got involved, I set three rules for myself. I didn’t want to be like the many other people out there who were engaging in rhetoric with no goal in mind. And were accomplishing nothing. I needed to be different.

Rules of Engagement

These were my three rules:

Do not rely on pithy one-liners. Right now the world is immersed in a battle of one-line memes, each side preaching to a cheering choir. And those single sentence or no-fact statements are not making a difference. Yes, the world is filled with people who can’t handle too many words. Nevertheless, I won’t be a party to it. No argument by just willy-nilly tossing around terms like “genocide”ethic cleansing” or by comparing Hamas to ISIS. The people I speak to deserve more respect than that.Conversely, don’t be overly wordy. I can’t stand when I’m scrolling through a discussion, and all of a sudden I see a response that looks like a novella. Yes, it’s nice that they’re relying on facts and fully explaining their thoughts. But for whom? No one’s ever going to read it. In the ADHD world of the internet you get mere minutes to make your point. If someone needs to scroll through an endless sea of words, you’ve written your response for absolutely no one. You wasted way too much time, still no one will read it. It’s a full-on lose-lose.Finally, don’t get nasty.Attacks of a Different Kind

It’s no secret. People on the internet are mean. They feel comfort sitting behind their computers, many miles separating between them and the person they’re insulting. And they say awful things. They accuse the person they’re addressing of being stupid or illogical or heartless.

Part of the reason they do this is simply because they can. But part of it is an aspect of rhetoric. It’s effective… but manipulative, mean-spirited, and irrelevant, since it doesn’t actually bolster an argument.

We hide behind personal attacks when we don’t feel confident about what we’re saying. If we can’t win the hearts and minds of those listening with our arguments, we try to win by other means. It’s the verbal equivalent of someone losing a fight and turning to biting or kicking below the belt. Yes, it might result in a win. But it’s not fair, and doesn’t speak well of the one who resorts to such tactics.

So I promised myself I wouldn’t be that guy and stuck to my guns.

Truth is Unimportant

But I was not in friendly waters. And every time someone said something demonstrably wrong, I watched as the number next to that little thumbs up icon just went up and up. The modern day equivalent of an audience cheering for someone who said something excellent during a debate.

But I’m sorry to say, their points were not good.

They ranged from ignorant to downright unsympathetic.

And it’s so very hard for me.

In my mind, knowledge and truth are eminently valued. Where making the better, more reasonable, more thoughtful point should carry water. But I live in a world that doesn’t respect any of that. People form opinions based on quick judgments rather than deliberation and an attempt to truly understand the situation.

They follow trends. They listen to the nonsense spewed by their favorite celebrities. And they pick sides based on irrelevant factors, like who has the more modern weapons, rather than looking at the whole of the situation.

Yet I still found myself involved. And frustrated. And angry.

Haphazard Genocide

The core of my anger was at one particular person who haphazardly invoked the word “genocide“. Why do people choose to use that particular word to describe the actions of the IDF? It’s a deliberate and nasty technique, meant to rile up Jewish people, the victims of one of the world’s most prolific genocides. It’s essentially telling Israel that we’re no better than Nazis, a laughably heinous claim they would never make with direct language.

I asked the fella if he felt the actions of Hamas on October 7th were also acts of genocide. His response: No… but I don’t want to explain my reasoning to a stranger on the internet.

Ah. So you’re willing to publicly accuse Israel of genocide, but not willing to explain why Hamas is not engaged in genocide? When Hamas sets out to massacre Jews indiscriminately, and states explicitly their hatred for all Jews and their desire to continuously murder as many as humanly possible, that’s not an act of genocide? But when Israel defends itself after being attacked and does everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties against an enemy that uses them as human shields, we’re the genocidal maniacs?

And you don’t want to explain your reasoning to a stranger?

What Could It Be?

I’m not one to run around crying antisemitism whenever a Jew is at the receiving end of mistreatment or on the wrong end of bias. But I struggle to understand this logic in any other way. How can you look at one person’s heinous actions and quickly forgive, and another person’s relatively reasonable actions and condemn? Something’s happening here. Something deeper than logic. Something more powerful than reason.

It’s called hate.

It’s deep within your heart, whether or not you realize it’s there or understand it.

For certain we can’t always be in the wrong. And when you perceive that we are, what else can that be called?

The post Silence and the Use of the Word Genocide is featured at Jaffe World.

The War: What Else Is Happening?

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We are at a crossroads politically in Israel right now.

Fact is, when the war subsides there will be new elections, and the current government will likely, and deservedly, be gutted. There will be investigations galore. Some will lose their jobs. Who knows? Some might even go to jail.

For certain there will be lots of scapegoats and a lot of finger pointing. But even if it takes years to get there, the truth will come out.

Someone dropped the ball on October 7th. Someone is responsible for what happened. For what we let happen to our country, to our brothers and sisters.

Those responsible should have a lifetime of sleepless nights. And their day of reckoning can’t come soon enough.

The Economy

I’ve had a handful of discussions in recent weeks. Israel, as we know, is riddled with problems. The economy is a mess. And pretty much everyone living here suffers financially, in ways that are completely unnecessary. The government has the power to make the requisite changes that can make our society thrive.

It just chooses not to.

Why not? I’ve heard many explanations. But they all fall short. Israel deserves better. But there’s one explanation that bothers me the most.

We’ve got bigger fish to fry. There’s a war going on right now that’s consuming our lives. We can’t be expected to consider Israel’s security concerns while simultaneously tackling all of Israel’s other issues too.

I believe this is utter nonsense. In every way. For many reasons.

No Excuses

First of all, yes, things are worse now. But Israel had major security concerns before October 7th, and will always have massive security concerns. This does not exempt the nation from looking in other directions to figure out how it can improve. It’s just an excuse.

The world has not stopped turning. The universe’s problems have not stopped piling on. Someone dropped the ball on October 7th. But there are many other plates still spinning. We don’t need more to come crashing down around us.

Second, there are people out there whose lives and careers are, or at least should be, dedicated to other causes, wholly unrelated to Israel’s war efforts.

Right now I’m trying to get my Master’s degree converted so that Israel recognizes it. I applied some time in August and there’s been no movement. This usually takes two months or so. When I contacted the Ministry of Education, they said it will likely take at least six months.

Why? Because there’s a war going on.

The Ministry of Education and the War

Now, I’m certain there are people who work out of their office who are doing reserve duty at the moment, thus slowing work flow. And there are others with loved ones toiling away in Gaza at the moment. Their fears have an impact on their daily workflow. Admittedly, to some extent that’s true for everyone here, and some a lot more than others.

But the war will be won with or without the existence of the Ministry of Education. Life continues, despite the challenges going on around us. And if your purpose is dedicated to something not related to the war, why should you get to use the war as an excuse to do everything poorly?

There are people in Israel dedicated to the economy. Dedicated to housing. Dedicated to transportation. These all have major issues that need to be addressed. They can’t be continuously ignored, otherwise progress will never be made. I can’t just stop doing my job and claim it’s because there’s a war going on. And neither should they.

A Better Country to Return to

And finally, despite the fact that the war doesn’t directly benefit from these other entities seeking to do their job well, in the big picture it could be massively beneficial to the war efforts also.

Think about it.

A reserve-duty soldier is sitting in a dark room somewhere in Gaza. He’s frightened for his life. He’s exhausted. He misses his wife and kids. Feels like his whole life is moving along without him, and he’s nervous to someday return to a world that’s different from the one he left.

But he’s not fully disconnected from the universe. There’s internet. Occasional phone calls. Word of mouth. He knows, at least generally, what’s going on around him.

And a calm, functional country can mean the difference between having the wherewithal to intelligently defend his nation, or God forbid make an error that can cause him or someone else to lose their life.

We need to be a better nation and to continuously improve at what we do, so that our family and friends on the frontline have fewer distractions. They shouldn’t have to worry about increasing property taxes or renewed judicial reform insanity. They should only hear reports of all the people who’ve been so kind and helpful to their family in their absence. And how Israel’s economy is thriving. And how despite hardships, Israel keeps progressing forward, becoming a better nation every day.

What’s Our Role?

I know that there’s the potential for feeling insensitive by continuing to live our lives despite the fact that minutes away there are people risking their wellbeing so that we can all have freedom. It’s a painful reality of the current situation. We continue on with our world while they suffer. While they live in fear. And while some of them don’t even ever return.

So what’s our role during all of this? How do we enhance their experience while they bravely defend Israel’s right to exist?

We do so by making it a more warm and comforting place to return to. And by not distracting them with the relative nonsense of our lives while they’re battling in the thick of terror and madness.

Their responsibility is to work night and day to ensure we exist. Our responsibility is to facilitate them being able to do so, and making sure the country they return to is one worth fighting for.

Never use the war as an excuse to not do what you’re here for.

The heroes are counting on us to be better than that.

The post The War: What Else Is Happening? is featured at Jaffe World.

We Had No Idea What Was Coming

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We were so young. We had no idea.

Just the other day I sent a Google Earth image to guests to help them find our home. At first I marveled at the appearance of our building. It looked so different. It lacked the signature green gate that has become part of the basic description of how to find our place.

And then I looked at the date.

2018.

I sighed. In 2018 I was probably panicking about something. There was some terrible world affair or local nuisance that was making my life feel challenging. And yet I can’t remember 2018, the goods or the bads. It feels like a lifetime ago.

In 2018 We Had No Idea

In 2018 we had no idea some disease would come from China and turn the world upsides down. We had no idea tens of thousands of people would be flooding the streets in massive government protest.

And we had no idea Israel would be attacked in one of the most gruesome and revolting actions I’ve ever heard about. That we would be plunged into a violent war, and we’d be checking the news daily to find out if we’ve lost someone we love.

We had absolutely no idea what was coming.

And what a confused and twisted reality we would soon be living in.

And that reality presents itself daily in the most peculiar of ways. Yes, we’re all checking the news way too much. And our hearts sink and we start to shake when we read about another soldier casualty or another heinous terrorist attack. Or we reach another milestone, such as 100 days since hundreds of our people were taken hostage.

How Are You Doing?

Those moments are miniature hells. They shock us back to a reality we have trouble stomaching. One moment we’re sipping a cup of coffee almost enjoying the morning, and the next moment we’re feeling the slightest tinge of depression taking us over again. We’re reminded that our delight in the small measures of life is happening while someone no different than ourselves withers away terrified in a dank tunnel in Gaza.

It happens multiple times a day. And it’s painful. But I’m thinking of an even smaller moment. And a far less obvious and less significant inevitable everyday occurrence.

A co-worker sees you in the office and offers a friendly, “How’re you doing?”

This used to be the simplest moment of the day. You’d just say “fine” or “good”. You might reciprocate with the same or a similar question. And then you’d be able to fully move on with your day as if nothing at all happened.

As normal as normal gets.

When the Simple Becomes Complex

Yet that ultra-simple moment no longer feels simple. Even a small, oft-repeated, ubiquitous morning ritual has become the source of stress and discomfort for me and I imagine countless others.

Someone asks you how you’re doing and one of two things happen. The first possibility is you answer normally. You say you’re doing great. Or fine. Or whatever you’re accustomed to.

And then an odd feeling of guilt washes over you.

Am I really fine?

This morning I checked the news and saw the faces of two more victims of the war. Two more beautiful souls snatched way before their time who will never hug or be hugged again.

And that normal everyday feeling of not much at all is replaced by a handful of guilt. Am I even allowed to be “fine”? A hop, skip, and a jump from where I’m standing right now my friends and family are risking their lives so that I can live more safely. Is it appropriate for me to enjoy this coffee? Or to laugh and make stupid jokes? Or to simply go on with my life like nothing ridiculous is really happening in the world other than doing paperwork or preparing a presentation for work?

The Pause

And the other option is a pause. An awkward pause. For all of your life you just answered the question right away. There was no contemplation. If anything, it’s just a rote word or two that simply comes out. Without any thought or feeling. It just is.

And now you’re stuck.

You don’t want to say you’re OK, because deep down you know it’s a lie. It’s a lie that doesn’t matter. But you struggle to let the words exit your lips.

Then you do anyway. You look down when you answer. Why? Because you know that it’s not an accurate answer. You’re just trying to exit from this awkward moment as quickly as possible, without creating a scene.

What you want to say is, “Honestly, pretty awful. I’ve spent the last several months of my life in a constant state of fear and dread. Every time I look at the news, which is dozens of times a day, I have a mini-panic attack. What am I going to see? Will I have lost a friend? Will a face look familiar enough for me to do a deep dive to try to see if I’m connected to the latest casualty? Is the conflict going to spread further than it’s current boundaries? My body has been filled to the brink with tension since October 7th and my every movement contains within it a sharp combination of fear, anger, and sadness.”

But instead you end up saying, “I’m fine thank you. How are you?”

You don't want to say you're OK, because deep down you know it's a lie. It's a lie that doesn't matter. But you struggle to let the words exit your lips.
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The Baseline Has Changed

I suggest we stop playing these mental gymnastics with ourselves and just accept two things:

First, we’re always going to mindlessly ask others how they’re doing, and the responses are not going to be laced with much meaning. It’s a daily ritual we’ve become accustomed to, and it’s done entirely without thought. It just is.

Second, when we said “fine, thank you” in the past, it had a meaning. It basically meant, “Things are alright. They could be better, but they’re mostly solid. Now I’m going to go on with the rest of my day.”

But now it means something different.

The baseline has changed. OK isn’t OK and fine isn’t fine.

The ritual will likely always appear the same.

But the meaning is something entirely new.

And who knows if it could ever go back to the way it was.

The post We Had No Idea What Was Coming is featured at Jaffe World.

Son of Hamas: A View from Within

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Since the war with Hamas began on October 7th, I have been consuming information. Besides checking the news all day long, I have read articles and books, listened to podcasts, and watched videos galore. And I’ve been trying desperately to keep an open mind. It’s not at all easy when your country’s under attack, your friends are risking their lives to keep you safe, and propaganda is hitting you hard from every angle.

But I do my best. It’s well-documented that I’m not always a fan of my own country. But I can’t state it enough that my problems with Israel are based on either societal characteristics or abhorrent policies toward its own citizens. They are not based on security matters. At all. I love my people, I want them healthy and safe, and I want Israel to exist forever.

So I come to the discussion with an inherent bias, as I believe all people do for all issues. But that doesn’t mean I’m at all closing my mind off from the possibility of understanding things deeper and from multiple perspectives.

Son of Hamas

In my research, I stumbled upon the book Son of Hamas, by Mosab Hassan Yousef, and I knew it was something I had to read.

I really enjoyed reading his tale, and found myself constantly wanting to find out what happens next. Mosab was raised in the home of an extraordinarily pious Muslim religious leader in Ramallah, who would found an organization known as Hamas. Mosab’s environment led him toward a virulent hatred of Israel, and through a series of mishaps found himself taken, beaten, interrogated, and imprisoned by the Israeli military.

While in prison, Mosab discovered the true nature of his fellow Hamas cronies. Not only did some of their religious fervor simply annoy him, but he witnessed them brutally torture other prisoners in order to obtain ridiculous confessions of laundry lists of sins that were comically absurd. These signed confessions would then be sent to their home communities leading to alienation of their families.

It was in prison that he grew a distaste for Hamas, but also where he was recruited to become an informant for Israel, a role he did with distinction for years. During those years he discovered Christianity, decided he wanted a different life, and ultimately abandoned everything to attempt to start over again in America.

I liked the entire book, and even though I’ve heard people say many of these things before, there is a certain level of honesty and authority coming from someone with Mosab’s background.

I wanted to take two quotes from the book and talk about them a little.

Can You Destroy Hamas?

Hamas was not an organization as most people understood organization, with rules and a hierarchy. It was a ghost. An idea. You can’t destroy an idea; you can only stimulate it. Hamas was like a flatworm. Cut off its head, and it just grew another.

I’m going to be very honest here.

This quote scares the crap out of me.

It calls into question the entire war effort that our beautiful friends and family have been fighting and dying for for months now.

If someone were to tell me that they were going to college to become president of the world, I would speak to them about more realistic goal setting. First, sir, the position you seek does not exist. Second, even if it did, it would be way out of reach for almost all of humanity. So it’s best to take things down several notches, so you could make real accomplishments in life.

Questioning the Narrative

Every time I read about Netanyahu declaring we will remain in Gaza until we’ve fully eradicated Hamas, I panic a little. Are we setting ourselves up for inevitable failure? Is this goal something that actually can be accomplished? Or something we can come close to quantifying?

How many members of Hamas must die before we declare their organization “eradicated”? Doesn’t Hamas exist outside of Gaza? Wouldn’t we need to launch a greater incursion into other Arab territories and possibly other countries to root out every single member?

And even if every last member were arrested or killed, can’t anyone alive just declare that they are now Hamas, thus setting us backwards in our goal? And couldn’t this take place at any point in history? Won’t the rebuilding of the concept begin the moment we exit and give it oxygen to grow again?

These are thoughts I’ve had since day one of the war, but when I think them, they’re just concerns. When Mosab says them, with everything he’s seen and knows, there is significantly more authority. He put one of my greatest fears into words, and did so long before October 7th.

What is the answer to these powerful and extremely reasonable concerns?

The Source of Fighting

I asked myself what Palestinians would do if Israel disappeared—if everything not only went back to the way it was before 1948 but if all the Jewish people abandoned the Holy Land and were scattered again. And for the first time, I knew the answer.

We would still fight. Over nothing. Over a girl without a head scarf. Over who was toughest and most important. Over who would make the rules and who would get the best seat.

Again, this is something I understood intuitively, but something I often fear saying out loud. Why? Because my voice has no authority on the topic. I could scream from the rooftops that there are societies in which people think and behave differently than in the West, but at best I would be ignored. At worst, I’d be accused of racism.

But some people were born to fight.

I recall many years ago being stuck on a bus in Gush Etzion. The roads were closed because there were a slew of Palestinians attempting to throw rocks at vehicles. Until the problem was solved, the bus wasn’t going anywhere.

But something shocked me when we finally went home. The road was covered with stones. What had happened? Absent cars to chuck rocks at, they tossed them anyway. They littered an empty road with rocks, without actual targets!

Why?

Because they fight. Because they’re angry and aggressive. If there aren’t Jews in Israel to fight with, they’ll fight with each other. If they’re alone, they’ll fight with an empty road.

It’s just who they are.

So I ask: How do we win this prolonged war? How do you defeat an enemy, when that enemy is an immortal concept? And how do you stop violence and aggression when it’s a part of their DNA?

The post Son of Hamas: A View from Within is featured at Jaffe World.