This is a story I have always known, a story I grew up with. It is the story of how in Germany on Kristallnacht, Nov 9th, 1938 the mob which was destroying the houses of all the Jews in Mainz came to the house in which my Jewish grandparents lived. There they were met by Maria, my family’s Catholic cook, who faced the mob and said, “Why are you here? You know these people and you know they have done nothing to harm you.” And the people left the house untouched.

Nor was this the only story my grandmother told me of such kindnesses. I heard of their gardener, who had to be let go because Jews were not allowed to keep Christian servants, and who became Hitler’s gardener, and managed to get vegetables to my grandparents during the first two years of the war before they were able to escape. And when they did leave, the butcher gave them a smoked beef tongue, which they ate while riding the trans-Siberian railroad till they got to Vladivostok, where they took a ship which got through Japan before Pearl Harbor, and eventually landed in Seattle, where they were able to tell me these stories as I grew up. My grandmother told me the stories to teach me that not all Germans were bad. I remember that she said the Holocaust could happen anywhere; it could happen in Canada, or in the United States. And with that absolute sense of certainty about the world that teenagers have, I claimed that it could never happen here. Now, forty plus years later, I believe she was right and I was wrong. But sadly, I cannot tell her that in person. I can only show her that through what I do in the world.

I’m a total supporter of immigration reform that recognizes the impracticality of deporting nearly 12 million people who are in our country without proper documentation. Let’s find a way to bring them out of the shadows. But, I also look at the immigrants who are here WITH proper documentation, who have been working for years – separated from their families, and I implore Congress to consider and honor those people with reform legislation that helps reunite them with those they love.

The phones have been ringing off the hook here as word spreads of the threatening intrusion upon our editor’s home. It’s heartening to hear some empathetic voices after weathering the days of hate mail that followed Tikkun‘s decision to present an award to Judge Goldstone for standing up for human rights in Israel/Palestine.

Sometime late last night or in the wee hours of the morning, vandals glued threatening posters to Rabbi Lerner’s door and around his home. Some posters attacked Lerner personally; others targeted liberals and progressives more generally, accusing them of supporting terrorism and “Islamo-fascism.” Here’s an excerpt from the statement that he and his assistant Will Pasley sent out via email this afternoon:

Part 1 of this mini-series was posted here on Tikkun Daily.

Bringing Our Authenticity into the Workplace
In the workplace, as in the home and elsewhere, many people forget about including themselves when it comes to connection. I have already written (“Is Resentment Inevitable?”) about how leaving ourselves out can lead to resentment. How does this apply in the workplace?

Including yourself means bringing your opinions and visions when you have them, even when there may be disagreement. It also means being willing to say no when you are being asked for something that will not work for you. In addition, if you really want to bring yourself fully into the picture, you will need to learn to ask for what you want.

Discussing Disagreements
Many people are used to hiding their opinions when they are not aligned with the general flow of things. Others argue for them forcefully, to the point of expressing disrespect for others’ opinions. Rarely have I seen the capacity to express divergent opinions and lead a productive discussion about them. What can help?

All around the musical village
The alarm-clock chased the vulture.
The sands ran through the hourglass -
Pop! goes your culture.
…………..(old children’s song)

“Good evening,” said Neil Innes, as he stepped out onto the Hughes’ Room stage last Thursday. “It’s wonderful to be.”

He opened with “I’m the Urban Spaceman“, ended it after 30 seconds, smiled at the audience and said, “Thank you. That was a medley of my hit.” I laughed, though I remembered that he had started his show at Edinburgh Festival 20 years ago with the same song and line. But then he’d performed the whole song, and now it was just a thumbnail from his (and my) past.

I first saw Neil Innes in 1969 in Boston, when he was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, a UK band of art-school graduates who were heavily into surrealism and dada art. They performed a 30 second Neil Sedaka parody called “Kama-Sutra“, a painfully extended blues song (“Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?”) in which Neil played a guitar with a four foot long neck, explaining sotto voce that, “this next song will feature a long guitar solo.” Other songs included an electric trouser press, and a female mannequin leg with built-in theremin, which made screeching sounds if you moved your hand close to it. There were about a dozen members in the band, and they were quite wonderfully manic.