Dear Gary

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My most recent blog attracted more than the usual number of responses. (Three.)   Customarily, I have no way of knowing whether anyone reads these things, so I appreciate almost all responses (but not the ones asking whether I am related to Jeffrey Epstein; how come no Times of Israel readers ever ask whether I am related to Baruch Halevi Epstein of Pinsk, the Torah Temimah, Jacob Epstein, the sculptor, or Brian Epstein, who managed the Beatles? No, maybe, no, and no.) 

With your kind permission, I will respond to my three interlocutors.  Perhaps that will encourage more of you to engage.

A. The first correspondent noted that I had appropriated the title “Eyeless in Gaza” from Milton’s “Samson Agonistes” and had also quoted at length from W. B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming.” He suggested that I abandon social and political punditry and focus on areas in which I might have a tad more training and insight than your average village idiot.

Poetry, he suggested.  The next five paragraphs comprise the blog that I am not writing in response, for fear of reducing my readership from three to one.  (Gratitude and appreciation to my lovely, long-suffering, and loyal wife, who reads what I write no matter what, sometimes with a puzzled expression.)

Samson Agonistes is a dramatic poem that tells the story of a Jewish warrior chosen by God to lead the downtrodden Israelites in their battle against the wicked Philistines.  After a series of mythic victories, he is ultimately defeated by his own moral weakness and betrayed by a woman.  Blinded by his enemies, he is transported to Gaza as a hostage, to be ridiculed by the triumphant savages.  The poem relates his despair at having failed in his mission, and his refusal to blame God for his own deficiencies.  He engages in dialogue with Delilah, the woman who betrayed him, a Philistine adversary whom Samson, even blind, challenges to combat, and his father, Manoah, who plans to ransom him.

Having no desire to live in his current state, diminished and failed, he rejects ransom.  Instead, Samson allows himself to be taken to the festival of Dagon, where the defeat of the Jews is being celebrated.  He prays for one final heroic burst of strength and tears down the pillars of the huge banquet hall to which he is chained, killing himself and all of the enemies in attendance.  “ תמות נפשי עם פלישתים,” he says.  Let me die together with the Philistines.

Write a 500-word essay, focusing on one similarity and one distinction between Milton’s poem and the current situation in Gaza.  Hint:  Milton believes that God’s victory and salvation are inevitable, even though we may delay them through our own obstinacy and failure.  Faith, repentance, and redemption will ultimately prevail.

Yeats isn’t so sure.  Following the devastation of World War I, Yeats is fairly certain that civilization is done for, and redemption is no longer available through faith.  “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world;” the worst people, full of “passionate intensity,” have wrecked everything; and, in the absence of enduring values, the “savior” slouching toward Bethlehem to be born this time is not a deity, but a “rough beast.”

Write a 500-word essay, explaining how Yeats’ Christian symbolism is totally antithetical to an authentic Jewish religious perspective.  Compare and contrast the views of the two religions with respect to the conditions necessary for the advent of the Messiah.

B. The second response was complimentary, if misguided.  “Have you given any thought to running for office?”  I facetiously responded that I can barely walk; running is out of the question.

But the more serious answer, aside from the most obvious one–that no one other than the aforementioned wife, God bless her, would vote for me, is that I am in awe of those who are willing to take on that responsibility.  I am as confident as millions of other Israeli citizens that I could do as good a job as that collection of clowns, heroes, mediocrities, visionaries, public servants, and blowhards who populate the Knesset, in debating and devising policies, but the choices that they are compelled to make in implementing them are terrifying, forbidding, and formidable.

Just imagine:  sending soldiers to war, deciding when and whether to attack and when to appease, choosing whether to save this mother’s hostage son today while putting other mothers’ children at risk in the future, implementing necessary reforms that will create unrest in the streets, making budgetary decisions that affect sustenance, military readiness, and education, balancing the need to maintain international support from often inimical allies with the need to take decisive, sometimes unpopular, action, war and peace, life and death.

I thank God that I do not have to make those decisions.  I thank God that there are people willing to make those decisions.  I wish that the ones making the decisions showed more awareness of the magnitude of the responsibility they bear.  And I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone who actually desires and seeks the position is not qualified for it.  I wish that they showed more respect for opinions held by others.  Political opponents can be wrong without being evil.  Every reform is not a death blow to democracy.  Every view with which I disagree is not fascism.  Open dialogue often results in productive compromise.

So I won’t run; I will just pray for the welfare and wisdom of the government.

C. The third comment was predictable, given the fact that I had described the direction in which I thought effective governance would lead.  For whom would you vote?

Ayelet Shaked.

But if I were really to engage in politics, it would be in a manner that allowed me to avoid all of the difficult decisions described above, and focus on something in which I have a measure of expertise and would also improve conditions in and for Israel.

My new political party–the Anglo Party.  It would be agnostic on all issues, with members free to vote their consciences.  The variety of political beliefs among Anglos is sufficient to assure that all views would be represented. The Party will have no policies other than the promulgation of comprehensible English.

The most important plank in the platform of the Anglo Party:  Anyone whose job requires him or her to speak English should be capable of doing so. Fluently. Political parties desiring the AP to join a coalition must pledge to form a panel of native English speakers to approve all appointments of diplomats to English-speaking countries. It is very nice that people are fighting over judicial appointment committees, but this is a matter of public relations life or death.  I am sick of seeing Columbia-educated, articulate, Palestinian lawyers debate our well-meaning but tongue-tied representatives.  I understand that every Israeli in politics believes himself or herself capable of speaking English in public.  They are not.  Someone will have to break the news to them.

For all other jobs, proficiency in English will not be required, but anyone who lacks such proficiency will NEVER talk English in public (Ehud Barak, are you listening?). 

At home, all English translations will be vetted by native English speakers  This includes menus, street signs, telephone and other bills–my current Bezeq bill in the names of אהובה וגארי אפשטיין is translated “beloved Gary Epstein.”  The credit card entry for my purchase at the roasted nut store-גרעיני יוסי–is translated Nuclear Yossi. This must stop.

If the party is successful it will have the salutary side effect of providing employment to many elderly Anglo pensioners who could work with their Israeli grandchildren to get it right.  To the army of kashrus inspectors, we could add a corps of English monitors, policing proper usage.

American, Canadian, British, Australian, and South African English speakers are, of course, included.  The jury is still out on other Commonwealth countries, but we will strive for a big tent.

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Aren’t you glad that I only received three comments on the previous blog?