Month: February 2017

Leaving…

 

I am moving back to France. Not an easy decision, but in the end, the need for change won out. It was time, as my friends at 826 Valencia put it, for a new adventure. There are other reasons, of course. The high cost of living in San Francisco becomes a greater burden as I age and my ability to make money diminishes. The result of a lifetime of decisions made for reasons that did not enhance my bank account may just be that I cannot continue to live in this city I still love. So it goes. I can live with that.

The ascendance of the abominable Trump had something to do with it, but not very much, and, after all, I may very well be faced with President Le Pen, another malignant nightmare.

I was able to overcome election despair because volunteering at 826 gave me hope. The people who run this program are doing something terribly important by helping the children learn to think independently and inspiring them to express their thoughts. Teaching a child that what he thinks and feels really matters is an important step in countering the growing racism and misogyny that threatens us all, and the cynicism that allows it to happen. If I had even the smallest hand in helping a child find her voice, I will have done something worthwhile.

The booklet in the photo is indeed a treasure chest for me but the treasure is not in the memories, it is in the future of these bright and beautiful children who can create a world better than the one they will inherit. When Barack Obama was elected I thought we had achieved a significant milestone in our achingly slow climb out of the slough of genocide and slavery in which this country was born. Certainly the last election was a major setback but it doesn’t have to be fatal. I look at these children and realize their gift to me was a belief in the cyclical nature of progress. They can take back the future and we can help.

So I leave here with very mixed emotions. I do believe it is the best thing for me but I’m saddened to leave my very good friends and the extraordinary effort of hope that is 826 Valencia. I will, I must, find another way to contribute.

Resist. Persist. Act.

©2017 Ron Scherl

A Letter from Barbara Lane

Dear friends and family:

Yesterday I resigned from the JCCSF.  I had planned a community panel, to take place on February 8, in response to President Trump’s executive order on immigration with representatives from the ACLU, American-Islamic Society, a rabbi who would speak about the Jewish experience with exclusion, and an immigration attorney working with the sanctuary movement in San Francisco, moderated by KQED’s Scott Shafer. The purpose of the panel, free and open to all, was to inform and allow community members to ask questions.  It was approved by my boss.

 

Late yesterday afternoon I was informed the JCCSF did not have the bandwidth at this time to host this event, that perhaps we could re-schedule it two weeks down the road. Among the reasons cited were security issues and concerns about the “messaging” of the event.

 

For a long time I have struggled with the fact that certain issues (mostly to do with Israel) are off the table for discussion at the JCCSF, largely due to concern about the reaction of conservative donors (remember the debacle at the Jewish Film Festival?).  It has always been my belief that the JCCSF is precisely the place that those discussions SHOULD take place.

 

The current climate with the Trump administration makes ever more essential informed and open discussion.  Particularly in regard to the JCCSF’s stated intention to spend the first 100 days of the new administration doing just that and assigning me to develop programming in that regard, this panel seemed not only appropriate but necessary.

I’m proud of the program I’ve helped build over the past 11 years.

Thanks for all your support.

Barbara

Dear Barbara,

I am so proud of you. It is easy to express opinions and beliefs, so much harder to act on them. In this time, when everything we care about is threatened, the only power we have is in moral principles and the willingness to act on them.

We can all sit back, sign petitions, and send $5 to the ACLU or MoveOn. It’s right and we should, and it’s really all most of us can do, but from their cave of fear and compromise, the JCCSF has given you an opportunity to take a stand – and you have.

Thank you and congratulations.

Now I call on Feinstein and Schumer and the rest of the compromise-prone Democratic “leaders” to lead. Stand up for the constitution and damn the consequences. There is no compromise with a tyrant. Resistance is the only way to preserve our democracy.

Thanks again,

Ron