I’ve been told I’m “chosen,” that being Jewish makes me a member of “God’s Chosen People.” This is the same logic as being told white makes you supreme.
Listen.
Being in The Supremes makes you supreme and you know nothing about it unless you’re Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard or Diana Ross, 
which happens to be a very exclusive club of women who earned the right to call themselves The Supremes.
This is what’s missing, the idea of earning something instead of being born into it and this is dangerous since it steals the friction of struggle necessary to find what you’re chosen to do.
Are you chosen to be a bookkeeper? Maybe if you love tallying-up accounts receivable and deconstructing itemizing deductions.
Are you chosen to be a waitress? Maybe if you love pouring coffee and chit-chatting with cranky regulars.
Are you chosen to be born in poverty, to be dragged behind a truck if you’re gay, to be lynched for whistling at a white woman if you’re black, to live your life in shame on the other side of the wall if you’re Palestinian.
Then the answer is no, it’s not a choice, it’s an unlucky break.
Not being black, which is a beautiful skin tone. Not being gay, which is a gorgeous desire. Those things make you lucky, if you ask me. Once you’re comfortable in your own skin, they can’t steal your pride. As for desire, your penis points to what your penis wants. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
On the flip side of desire, being born into poverty is an unlucky break since it can be traced directly to a plague of human indifference. Being born a Palestinian is an unlucky break since it’s little more than a random title for random people born at this random moment in time at a random geographical location.
59 Palestinians were slaughtered this week while Benjamin Netanyahu and Ivanka Trump celebrated with champagne and selfies.
I don’t blame President Trump. He promised to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel and he did what he said, unlike 3 previous president who said the same thing: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Those 3 presidents weren’t so insecure they needed to see their face on a coin. This president craves craves constant attention and a place in history.
Trump sees himself as fulfilling prophecy but it’s fiction unlike 59 people being dead which is real but not really important if you can flip a coin with your own face on it to see what fate has in store fore you.
Jesus Christ.
In light of this, I’ve decided to be Un-Chosen.
If I haven’t earned it, then I don’t want it. If I haven’t put in the time to get to the other side of failure, then the accomplishment isn’t mine to claim. If I haven’t struggled against something I thought I couldn’t do only to find I could do it on the other side of the struggle, then I need to acknowledge the weakness in my own nature and rise up.
Or shut up!
Sipping champagne and posing for selfies while people are being slaughtered is the worst kind of war crime, it’s privilege slapping poverty in the face when clearly the slap is needed in the other direction.
So what should Israelis do hand the country over to the Arabs and hope for the best? If anything ever happens to that government there will be a second holocaust of hatchets and knives. I agree there is an awful problem but what do you propose the Israelis do? Have you ever read the Hamas charter, Hezbollah? If Israel disarmed today they’d be dead by tomorrow. If the Arabs disarmed there would be peace forever. And it’s very easy to gamble with other people’s lives and children when you live in Greatneck or Greaterneck. Try living in Tel Aviv or Haifa and then tell me about peace.
I’ve never been lucky enough to live in Tel Aviv or Haifa. I’ve also never been lucky enough to live in Greatneck or Greaterneck. I’m sure all of those places have pluses and minuses.
I live in Chicago where we have an epidemic of gun violence on the south side which is a national disgrace. I’m sorry to report, I don’t have the answer for the south side of Chicago or Gaza. But I think locking people in poverty is the oldest trick in the Apartheid Play Book.
I was talking to The Ghost Of Yitzhak Rabin. He said we could do better, much better. I agree.
I don’t buy into the narrative that charters or books teach people to hate and kill. Even if they do, you can let it go. I was taught being gay was worse than being a drug addict when I was growing-up and I realized it was nonsense. I also shed the racism I was taught by people I loved who should have known better but were too intellectually lazy to question their own thinking.
I’m gonna start with me. Here’s hoping you start with you. I certainly will not repeat the lies I’ve been told about people I don’t know who are living in Hell in a week where 59 people were slaughtered and treated like an afterthought.
Thanks for commenting, Rachel. It’s appreciated.
You didn’t answer Rachael’s question. What is the solution? Should Israel just go away? 1967 Auschwitz borders? Have you no sympathy or understanding for the plight of the Jewish people? The Left in the U.S. and Europe never has a kind word to say about any Israeli leaders accept a few on the hard left. Look, I hate the occupation and the wall. The fact of the matter is they save Jews. Hezbollah has 200,000 rockets aimed at Israel via their masters in Tehran. The Middle East is not the Middlewest. In the Middlewest you can solve any problem over coffee and cake. It’s a whole different world in that region. Propose something constructive or I would kindly suggest staying silent on the issue.
I don’t think it’s kind to suggest staying silent. In fact, it’s just a PG-13 version of saying Shut The Fuck Up. So why not man up, Moshe? Say it like you feel it.
As for coffee & cake, it wouldn’t solve a thing in Chicago. But I’d be a fool to turn down coffee & cake.
I appreciate what Rachel said. I even appreciate what you said. But I never put it out there that I have the answer. I do think a good start would be for everyone to re-read “Mother Night” by Kurt Vonnegut and reflect on the moral of the story: we are what we pretend to be so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
Last thing, I sympathize with the families of the 59 slaughtered. I do not sympathize with the families who were toasting over champagne & selfies.