Showing posts with label Prisoners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prisoners. Show all posts

March 17, 2024

The Hostage's Cry

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "The Hostage's Cry."

Tick-tock.
The days are, oh, so long.
The years of the past now seem so short.
I am waiting for salvation.
In my heart, I pray over and over:
“Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d,
King of the Universe,
Who sets free those in bonds.”
I know you are coming to rescue me.
I am waiting for you.

(AI generated image via Craiyon)
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April 29, 2020

Towards Peace and Freedom Among Nations

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "Towards Peace and Freedom Among Nations."
Natan Sharansky showed tremendous personal strength and integrity to respond with humor and wit while suffering under the Soviets in prison, separated from his wife, deprived of all outside contacts, placed in “punishment cells” cold, hungry, and sleep-deprived, and regularly interrogated to try to get him to incriminate himself and his fellow refuseniks and human rights activists. Sharansky is truly a hero who stood up as a Jew persecuted in the Soviet Union and as a human rights activist leading the way to help other refuseniks to get released, with eventually millions escaping through the “Iron Door” to emigrate to freedom in Israel and the United States.

Yesterday, we celebrated Israel’s 72nd Independence Day, so I will add that for too many years since the founding of the State of Israel that the Soviets armed and supported the Arab League nations in warring against Israel and in seeking its destruction. However now, Israel and Russia not only have an anchoring of social idealism in common, but also Israel has 15% of it citizens from there. Further, as Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan decades ago, and has a warming of relations with the Gulf States, perhaps Russia will also continue to come around to growing a mutually beneficial friendship with Israel.

(Free Photo via Pixabay)

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April 11, 2015

Disabled, Can You Imagine?

A very important article in the Wall Street Journal by Anthony Weller about what it's like to Paralyzed From The Neck Down.

Weller has suffered for 10 years with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. 

He describes losing everything...from "incalculable personal pleasures" to being "totally helpless."

And what's more, you have to save your chips in asking others for things, because "you'd be asking the whole day."

"Say goodbye to any sense of personal space, too"--in needing everything, you're essentially left like an open book to everyone around you.

Here, I can't help thinking about those moments of personal indignity--in caring for our own bodies--that even that someone else must be there for.

Then, there is the just sitting around and endless thinking..."There isn't much else to do."

I remember learning about some medieval torture methods and one involved lying a person down in the space cleaved into the stone face of the dungeon and there a person would essentially rot--not being able to move, sit or stand up, or even roll over. 

How long could a person last like that before completely losing their mind?  

While Weller says that he used to imagine being paralyzed as feeling like being "encased in stone," but now he see it more that your limbs just ignore you, to me whether you are paralyzed in your own body or embedded in medieval stone, the challenges physically and mentally are as scary as anything that can be imagined. 

How do you keep your sanity, let alone any hope?

Weller says, you live in the past, "happiness isn't is, but was, [and] you try not to contemplate the future too much."

G-d should have infinite mercy on his creations and lift up the fallen, cure the sick, and release the innocent that are imprisoned...please, please, please let it be. Amen.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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June 29, 2014

Solidarity For All Our Children

The global Jewish community has been rocked by the abduction of 3 teenagers (ages 16, 16, and 19) by Hamas, a terrorist organization that rejects peace and is dedicated to "obliterate" Israel . 

I saw a photo someone posted on Facebook where it said that the families of these boys had empty seats at their beautiful Shabbat table, and I couldn't imagine the grief of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and other family and friends of these poor children.


Walking in the community around Washington, D.C., I see signs such as this with "Bring Back Our Boys" with ribbons tied to trees--and I am deeply moved by people's expression of grief and hope. 


This all happening just weeks after another extremist Muslim group, Boko Haram, abducted over 230 Nigerian schoolgirls, and the rallying cry for "Bring Back Our Girls."


I read how the these girls are being threatened with being sold in a massive human trafficking crime against humanity and can only imagine the rape and other torture they must be enduring by their captors. 


I remember as just a child in day school seeing photos and videos from the Holy Land of what these types of terrorists did to their victims--it was horrific!


Aside from the general torture, beatings, isolation, and starvation, I saw images where they literally wrapped their prisoners in barbed wire, including their genitals--it was not just grotesque, but pure and utter evil. 


I never forgot these images of unbelievable cruelty, and wish only for the return of all these children and for the people that would take them to be brought to true justice. 


May G-d have mercy on all our children!


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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November 11, 2013

From The Window In the Nursing Home

I visit the nursing home pretty often to see my mom who is there. 

While I try to focus on my mom and her needs, I do notice other patients there. 

The images are deeply impactful on me...here are ten that are on my mind today:

1) The husband and wife who are both in the home in a shared room--the wife is wheelchair-bound and the husband dutifully pushes her around the floor. This weekend, I saw them together at the nurses' station asking for some crackers. When the nurse came back with some individually wrapped crackers in cellophane, the couple took them and went off down the hall happy as clams.

2) The lady at the table who is overweight, but always asks for more food. She doesn't talk much except to ask for more dessert. She stares at the other patients and seems annoyed and upset with them.

3) The guy who was a lawyer, but now has dementia, and sits and talks half to himself and half trying to engage others, but all that comes out is sort of gibberish. So others just nod or say something to politely acknowledge him, but can't converse with him with any meaning. 

4) The lady in the room who sits in a chair hunchback. She never seems to leave the room or the chair. Sometimes, she watches TV and other times appear to be crocheting. Mostly she sits hunchback, looking uncomfortable, but settled for the long hall like that. 

5) The woman who sits outside her door in the hallway. She is in a wheelchair, and she doesn't say anything, but she stares at you while you walk down the hallway. She sits there watching--sitting and watching. 

6) The younger but still old disheveled guy. He comes into the dining room to eat, but gets food all over himself. He sits alone, always. He eats quickly, leaves half his food, and gets up and goes out while everyone else is still picking away at their food. 

7) The lady with a wall of baseball caps. She has no hair, maybe she has cancer, I don't know. She usually is in bed, sitting up. The caps look like they have a lot of meaning to her, but I'm not sure if it's because she's a sports enthusiast or why.

8) A lady in a wheelchair that pulls herself along down the hall. She puts one foot in front of the other in these baby steps motions, and the chair moves along, slowly, but at least she is mobile, somewhat. 

9) This weekend, I looked out the window of the home, and there was a woman on the sidewalk. She had fallen on the ground, on her butt. Her walker was next to her, but she could not get up. Some people were near here, apparently trying to get help, but not wanting to touch or move her themselves. I ran for the floor nurse, and she came to the window to see. She said is that so and so, which meant nothing to me, and then she ran off to help her get up. 

10) A lady sits downstairs by the glass windows--she is dressed up fancy like older healthy people are want to do. Next to her is an older gentleman in a turtleneck, but he is just visiting and is her son. They seem to be sort of wealthy as they sit upright in the high-back chairs and discuss family and what she's been eating at the home. They look askance at some of the other patients who are crying out in pain. 

The nursing home, like the hospital is a horrible place to be, even when you have to be there.

In both places, even the most caring doctors and nurses and attendants, cannot make up for the fact that you are a prisoner of age, failing health, and disability--and let's face it, even if many are nice or attentive, not everyone is. 

I am still unclear why people must suffer so--why we haven't found a better way to end good, productive, and loving lives.  

I am not sure that people are really even focused on this issue of old age, because it's not sexy, it's at the end anyway, and "they had the chance to live their lives."

Maybe, it's because we simply don't have the answers yet, can't afford what they would take, or we would just rather not deal with mortality, pain, and suffering when there are so many other things to do. 

But one day, we all will face the piper--and it would be comforting if we had better answers.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 7, 2013

Eyes Wide Open


This is an interesting video on Plato's Allegory of The Cave. 

It is long-winded, but if you watch a little I think you will get the point.

In the video prisoners who are kept in the dark, chained, and with no real view of the outside world, have a limited perception of what exists out there.

They see shadows, but what is a shadow compared with the reality of true people, places, and things. 

When one prisoner is released outside into the light and the wonders of the world, he sees and experiences the greatness, the complexity, and the beauty of it all. 

The world, he sees, is much more than a shadow on a darkened wall. 

Watching this video, I think how fortunate I am to be able to have an education (and I am actually in a class this week). 

It is wonderful to learn and grow--and have one's eyes opened to all there is out there. 

True, not all the topics that I encounter and learn about are of great interest to me (sometimes, like everyone, I feel like I just want to get some Zzzzzs), but just being exposed to different topics and ways of thinking is a great opportunity in and of itself. 

I think sometimes, how lucky I am to live in the 21st century in an age of globalization, opportunities for advanced education, and all the technology to bridge time and space and see more than many who came before us. 

I imagine that compared to G-d, we are like the prisoners in the cave who only experience and see a minutia of reality, and G-d is out there over us, omniscient. 

Someday, G-d releases us from our mortal bodies and we ascend to heaven to partake of his greatness and then our eyes are truly opened as well. ;-)

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