How my writing kids (ages 10-12) would vote to change society

      When I went to meet with my Writopia writing workshop kids this evening, I'd just read that voter turnout in my town was a mere 20%, and that really depressed me. I know it's not a Presidential election year, but municipal elections count. We're electing the people who run our towns and cities and perhaps most importantly, our schools. As it turns out, there was a late burst which brought us up to 33%, but still, that's pathetic.

If you don't vote, folks, you shouldn't complain when things aren't the way you want them to be. Yes, there are problems with the system, and yes, it often feels that our voices don't count nearly as much as the deep pockets of corporate interests, but not voting is an illogical option.

We always do a short writing warmup, and this evening, I spoke to my kids about how sad I was about the low voting turnout and so for the 10 minute warmup, I asked them to think about what issues would be important to them if they had the power to vote.

The answers were worth listening to - particularly for politicians.

• more subjects in school, such as social studies, chemistry, and much more.
• more gun safety.
• more air conditioning, because some schools don’t have any air conditioning.
• more activities, so kids can learn more, such as music, karate, art, and more.
• more recycling.
• more medicines for sick people.
• more homes for the homeless.
• no more war.
• no bullying, not just in school, but everywhere.
• good education for kids, and parents get paid a good amount of money.
• healthy food in school cafeterias.
• more food donations for the poor.
• food for less money, for poor people that have at least a little money.

• All guns illegal
• no homeless people, and everyone has a least a small apartment
• Things cost less
• You can drive at age ten, but only in small cars, and you can’t go on main roads or highways
• School lunches gave real food, and not some horrible mixture of stuff that they call salad.  Also, they have a real menu, and fancy waiters and stuff
• Everyone gets a phone, at age seven in case of emergencies, but it only calls parents and 911 until they're older
• no homework, you spend six hours in school why should you spend another hour with mountains of homework
• no war

• I would change gun laws. I would make guns illegal all over the world. They don’t solve anything. Except killing people.
• I would make a law so that people of any race could vote.
• Cafeteria Lunches. They suck and they aren’t healthy. I would make sure every kid in America would get a healthy lunch.
• Every kid could get a good education.
• Every adult could get a good paying job. And they would get paid more than the minimum wage.
• Make sure that schools are safe for the kids. Make sure that no shootings happen or bomb threats… Make sure there are at least 2 police officers on guard every day.
• There wouldn’t be as many homeless people. Make sure they have food, water, and a little shelter.
• People that live in places where a lot of hurricanes, tsunamis… happen. They could have a place where they would be safe. Equipped with food, and water, and most importantly candy… J.K( but candy would be nice)
• Mostly,CHILD ABUSE!!!!! IT’S REALLY NOT O.K AS THE WORLD CHANGER I WOULD MAKE SURE ALL OF THE KIDS IN THE WORLD WOULD BE SAFE.
• NO RACISM!!!! IT KILLS PEOPLE ON THE INSIDE!!!

That 10 minute writing prompt told me so much about kids in city schools.They want more from their education than core curriculum and standardized tests. They want arts and music and the things that other kids have.

Holding class in Stamford on the day after a woman was shot dead in a city park, these kids want gun safety laws.

But most this was the sentence that spoke to me most: "No racism!!! It kills people on the inside!!!"

Out of the mouthes of babes...

Cognitive Dissonance

Like most Jews in the Diaspora, I was brought up to support Israel unconditionally. I was excited to bring my quarters to Hebrew School every week to insert in the slots in the JNF folder, so that when it was filled a tree would be planted in my name in the Holy Land. Dad's sister made aliyah in 1949 and she and my uncle raised their family on different kibbutzim.

Over the last 10 years I have had an increasingly hard time reconciling the vision of Israel I was brought up with to the current political reality, and it has made it impossible to maintain that unconditional support.  This put me in the awful position of being berated in synagogue on Shabbat when I went to say kaddish for my father and get away from politics, by a man who thought I (and indeed, all Jews in the Diaspora) have no right to such misgivings.

Last night, when I saw the racist joke tweeted by Israeli talk show host and socialite Judy Mozes, I wondered if the Israeli government is trying purposefully to destroy their relationship with Jews in the Diaspora.

You see, Mozes' husband, Silvan Shalom, was appointed last month by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead negotiations with the Palestinians and to oversee strategic dialogue with the United States. What better way to oversee strategic dialogue with the United States than to have your wife make a RACIST JOKE ABOUT OUR PRESIDENT DAYS AFTER RACIALLY-BASED SHOOTING OF NINE INNOCENT PEOPLE?!!

Then we've got Michael Oren publicly disparaging POTUS on every conceivable front -while pushing his new book.  That's after Netanyahu accepted the GOP invitation to address Congress prior to the Israeli elections, in a massive breach of protocol, and had the chutzpah to claim it "wasn't political", but meanwhile was broadcasting it from his website and collecting signatures at the same time.

Here's my question for Israelis and their government: we just lost nine wonderful Americans to racist violence. Let's call it what it was - we lost them to white supremacist terrorism. To people who hate Jews as well as blacks.

And guess what, Israel and Netanyahu? The people you are aligning yourself in the United States? They aren't speaking out against racism. In fact, they are avoiding it at all costs. Rick Perry called it an "accident," then "pivoted" to blame it on drugs instead of racism. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee said "I'm not a South Carolinian" . Lindsay Graham said "The confederate flag works here."  

For strategic and pragmatic purposes, Netanyahu's government chose to ally itself with the right-wing evangelical base of the Republican party. During the Bush era, one of the Israeli embassy outreach officers to the Evangelical community came and spoke at our synagogue, and I asked him: "Why is Israel aligning itself with Evangelicals when they believe there should be an Israel so that the Rapture can happen and then if we don't accept Jesus as our personal Saviour we take the down escalator to Hell?"

He shrugged and said, "We don't believe in the Rapture, and we need the support now."

Well, I hope that support works for you, Bibi & Co, because in currying support with the right, you are losing the support of Jews like me who remember what it was like for us. Who remember that it was not so long ago that it was our families that were discriminated against and reviled. And that's why we believe in social justice and fight against racism and discrimination - not perpetrating it and allying ourselves with those who do.

During the Gaza bombing campaign, someone forwarded me the most disgusting racist anti-Palestinian screed I'd read in a very long time. If you'd substituted Jew for Palestinian, it could have been written by Goebbels. I forwarded it to my Rabbi, hoping that he might say something about it in his sermon - warning people about the sin of Loshen hara, reminding them about Joshua and the Spies, etc. But instead, he made an excuse - that when people are under stress they make bad choices.

Trust me, I understand that. I've made a lot of bad choices under stress, and continue to do so, and most likely will continue to do so. BUT....I was really disappointed by that response, because as Seth Godin pointed out so well recently:

I'm sick of being told to keep my criticism of Israel "in house" by people who ask "where are the moderate Muslims? Why aren't they speaking out?" only to see continued behavior that I find reprehensible from the highest levels of the Israeli government.

"People like us, we don't do things like that." 

Judy Mozes made her racist tweet against our president on the anniversary of the death of Jewish civil rights activists Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who along with James Chaney were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi during Freedom Summer. She should be ashamed of herself. And Israel should be ashamed of her.