I planted a tree today.
The grayish-bluesy sky was gloomy, threatening to rain, and I was standing in my garden thinking:
“Good”.
 Some days drag themselves like there are elephants hanging onto each hour. I had no plans, no list of anything to do, no calls to make. I thought,
“Bob, plant a tree”.
Letter to my (new) cousin, married to my blood cousin, who is justifably distraught over where our country is torn now, and how his own family suffered so much pain long ago because of their skin color. Funny, never met him, but I feel like I know him, and what is eating at him. I really care:
Bernie, whatever you call yourself, you’re good enough for me. And there are milions and millions and millions of “me” who aren’t ignorant, or hateful or under the illusion that one kind of person is somehow magically more valuable than another kind of person. What you wrote on Facebook is passionate and well-written–not that you need my opinion–I hope you get enough positive reinforcement to dilute the pain I read in your words.
America, Please, Don’t Do this!
By Robert M. Katzman © July I, 2018 (Canada Day)
Eyes flicker open in the darkness. I hear the battery wall clock ticking, so I must still be living. Pale morning light is peeking past the loose drawn shades covering some of this small house’s dozen large windows. If this were a fort, no way to defend it. But on a sunny morning, cool wind outside, shades up and windows open a bit on four sides, I don’t need electricity to clear the stale air or illuminate my house.
Wearing my usual long black T-shirt with the screaming American Eagle on it, the one that stops near my knees so I always appear modestly dressed to a morning visitor, expected or not, except for the fact that its only about five ounces of opaque cotton, I decide to do my morning routine, parts of which I’m recording here for future anthropologists. Present day people may be less entranced.
(Read on …)
Facebook Ain’t Your Buddy, it’s a Sly Pickpocket of Your Secrets!
by Robert M. Katzman March 21, 2018
Having had a little time to think about this intellectual hurricane of fury about Facebook and betrayal in the quiet black fields of Wisconsin where nothing has sprouted yet, but the promise of innocent plants seeking the sun remains,
An American Jew’s Bold New Plan for a Sane,Â
Peaceful and Prosperous State of Palestine
(part 9)
© by Robert M. Katzman
Man, I ain’t no dreamer—R. Katzman
Published May 18th, 2007 in honor of my father, Israel, on the seventh anniversary of his death, at age 87. I chose to not update the statistics because they aren’t the point of this article. This is about ideas. About change.
First, some background: My family came to America between 1902 and 1916 from Eastern Europe, where some of my immediate ancestors were murdered during the World War One years and the rest by Hitler later. They were non-combatants. I grew up with grim tales of unending, irrational persecution and in sync with my left-of-center politics beginning in the later Sixties, I wouldn’t wish that kind of terror and life on anyone.
Meeting Marsha Michael, Who Solved My Problems in Israel (Part 4)
by Robert M. Katzman © October 31, 2017
Â
My landlady, (land-person?), Orly, suggested I meet her friend Marsha Michael whom she felt would be somebody I’d like to talk to. She was right, but for assorted reasons. But with meeting her for dinner, came the Katzman Food Curse. More on that later.
Marsha, a lovely woman who is my contemporary, which is much safer to say than listing a person’s age, like that matters, except to say that we both know who Harry Truman was and why he’d be a better President of the United States today—even though dead—than the insanity we have in there now.
Marsha, besides being a very smart, politically active citizen of Israel by way of New Jersey, meaning any opponents of hers better watch themselves, was very easy to talk to and educated me about a growing protest movement in Israel to end the endless war between Palestine and Israel and create an actual two-state reality.
She is involved in a group called: http://womenwagepeace.org.il/en/