Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Atonement…Judaism Distilled…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Bewilderment,Jewish Themes,Life & Death,My Own Personal Hell,Philosophy — Bob at 3:03 pm on Monday, September 17, 2018

Atonement: Judaism Distilledby Robert M. Katzman © October 1, 2012

This brief speculation, below, about meaning in poetic form was derived from a much more detailed and complicated original true story about my now deceased wife Joyce, grand-daughter Emjay and myself in Ottawa, Illinois ending up involving the Ottowa Police department. I somehow realized there was a poem within it, and decided to separate it.

Atonement Among The Christians 

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Choosing to be in a small town in Central Illinois, over praying for forgiveness for my sins in a Chicago Synagogue on Yom Kippur–the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, is no simple decision

God, may be watching. Possibly, not approving. The risk could be fatal. But then, who knows?

When a person belongs to a group of people whose tiny numbers–less than 2/10ths of 1% of Earth’s entire population of seven billion or so, why worry about God noticing you no matter what you do?

(Read on …)

1964: A Runaway’s Renaissance and a Jewish Boy’s Revenge…by Robert M. Katzman

1964: A Runaway’s Renaissance

by Robert M. Katzman © September 9, 2018

Fifty-four years ago on June 8th, 1964 I ran away from a dangerous violently abusive home. I was fourteen and two weeks away from graduating Caldwell grammar school on the South Side, about a dozen miles south of State and Madison, Chicago’s Downtown.

My story is filled with Ghosts, but it is worth writing down, if only to soothe the Ghosts’ anxiety.

After all, aren’t I part of a world-wide Tribe so often called: The People of The Book?

Who am I to resist that Celestial Design?

It is now long past “What will become of this wild child?”

Now near seventy, I must write, “This is what really happened.”

(Read on …)

September 1, 1939: Real History Matters…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Life & Death,Old Fart Wisdom,Politics,Social Policy and Justice — Bob at 4:59 am on Saturday, September 1, 2018
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Real history matters.
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Today, September 1,1939, when almost no one remains alive who experienced it in either battle or government, Germany invaded France and Poland and World War ll began. The Asian war began much earlier.
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Most people likely have no idea which countries lost more than a million people. The answer may surprise you.
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For those strange people who deny the Holocaust ever happened, well, the greatest number of people killed in the two wars were overwhelmingly Christian or Asian. Many thousands of Muslims from both Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia were also killed. They are included in the numbers above.
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As you read the shocking numbers, it might help to remember that the civilians didn’t start the war.
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When you vote for whomever you vote, it would be good to remember the consequences of who makes the decisions which can make wars begin.
Generally, the war’s leader’s children survived.
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I found this list of 40 countries losses online, but in order of greatest number killed, those 11 countries were:

(Read on …)