Fifteen Seconds

 

Rorschach Hoop

Boston's baseball season ended with the Red Sox in the basement looking up at the other teams in its division. And our New England Patriots now seem to be cruising to their poorest finish since Before TBE, the Tom Brady Era. So it's a natural for all eyes to turn to the Celtics as they compete to hoist an unprecedented eighteenth championship banner to the rafters of the Boston Gahden. In that spirit this new Photo-blog has a basketball theme. The post also contains a link to 'Shooting Hoops', a favorite Photo-essay of mine which is replete with hoop photos and stories.

If you recall, my previous Photo-blog featured a Spoiler Alert at the outset cautioning it was to be more 'blog' than 'Photo'. But I promised to resume the old format for the next posting, this one. I'm staying true to that promise .... almost. The Photo-blog will highlight one particular image and narrative which raised a stir when it was first viewed, but is apropos for today.

the stir-raising image

Here's what transpired .....

Before my photography was primarily presented online, I regularly created 'brick 'n mortar' photo exhibits with selected photos complemented by accompanying narratives. One such exhibit, Shooting Hoops, was accepted for a month long  showing in Newton Free Library's main gallery. This was very exciting as so many of my friends, family, students, colleagues, and basketball buddies would attend the Opening Reception. Unfortunately, no sooner than the exhibit was mounted, it appeared it would have to be taken down.

Why?

After I painstakingly hung all twenty-five framed photos, the director of the library's display spaces called to say a patron had complained about one of the pieces, one which featured a hoop adjacent to a massive stone wall.  The setting was in an Israeli kibbutz in northern Israel, a stone's throw from the Lebanese border.  Somehow the complainer was offended, most likely by the accompanying text, titled Fifteen Seconds.

Here's what I wrote...

Fifteen Seconds

'This hoop was photographed in Israel. I composed the image placing the unassuming basketball hoop in a corner to be overshadowed by a looming concrete and stone structure.  Note the speakers within the tree branches.  They do not play music, announce score updates, or provide Public Service Announcements.  They are sirens which sound the alarm for everyone on the court, or anywhere nearby, to sprint to shelter entrance #26 before an incoming missile lands.  Entrance #26 leads to the stone reinforced bunker providing a temporary, secure haven...if you get there in time.

Fifteen seconds....For Israelis living within range of Hamas or Hezbollah rocket fire, that's how long they have from the moment, any moment - 24/7 - the siren blasts a Red Alert signaling missiles have been launched.  Fifteen seconds to reach a shelter before impact.  They hope they can make it.  They hope everyone in their family can as well. Fifteen seconds - 24/7.

Imagine trying to live your life that way. I can't.'

Now back to Newton where my freedom of artistic expression was being challenged.

Anyone for a game of H.O.R.S.E?

I replied to the library director that my exhibit is a body of work for which her edit was not an option.  If the director was adamant about removal of Fifteen Seconds, I would... but I would also remove all the other pieces leaving the gallery walls bare for the next four weeks of the scheduled showing.  I'd also call the city weekly, Newton Tab, and recount what had transpired.  After a few testy back and forth  exchanges, and the director's consultation with the Library's legal advisors, the exhibit remained hung intact.  It even had an additional feature, this statement posted nearby: 'views expressed by the photographer are not those of the Library'.

In the end, this sorry episode was a win for freedom of expression and a loss for censorship.

Epilogue

The Opening Reception turned out to be a grand affair.  Aside from my guests there were many library patrons who stopped by.  BTW, none complained about any of the images; in fact I made a few sales! If the crowd didn't have to vacate the library by its 9 PM closing, the festivities would have gone into OT.

Balloon Art and photo by Naomi Greenfield

One more thing...my photograph Fifteen Seconds was taken at the kibbutz where some of my relatives live.  For years, the entire area had been enduring rocket attacks.  Two months ago, after Hamas' October 7th massacre, the entire kibbutz was evacuated.  Today the family remains displaced somewhere closer to central Israel and two of their grandkids currently serve in the IDF, deployed to undisclosed bases.  

For all of them the war is in OT without an end in sight.

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A Vision

 

Blue ribbons as a reminder of the hostages

Spoiler alert 

In a departure from my usual Photo-blog format, this time I’m compelled to pen a post that is more ‘blog’ and less ‘Photo’. No worries if you prefer to skip this one and not consider my point of view, just read no further. I hope you’ll come back for the next posting.

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From the River to the Sea, Palestine Could be Free

When pro-Palestinian protesters gather and show their colors, you’ll always find me on the opposite side of the street with a Stand With Israel group.  

March for Israel - Washington DC November 14, 2023
more than a quarter million supporters came to DC that day

When the pro-Palestinians begin chanting ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free’, surprisingly we do share common ground, albeit with one important stipulation - Hamas must first be defanged and its ideology expunged from the territory. Only then can two critical goals be achieved: 

• Opening a pathway for a responsible governing body to step in and join with Israeli counterparts in pursuit of the elusive Two State Solution.
• Restore a sense of security for Israelis to heal their psychological wounds after the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. 

For context: since 2007 when Hamas staged a coup violently ousting the democratically elected governance of Gaza by the Palestinian Authority, it focused on its sole mission, the destruction of Israel. Such a modus operandi was incompatible with creation of a future Palestinian State peacefully coexisting alongside Israel. In the ensuing years Hamas continued doing what it does best: launching rockets indiscriminately into Israel and staging periodic cross border attacks and kidnappings. It did not work to establish institutions to administer the civil society under its control. Additionally, it siphoned funds the international community poured into Gaza intended for assembling infrastructure. It used those funds to build and fortify underground tunnels, literally creating a subterranean city. Despite whatever deprivations the Egyptian-Israeli blockade may have presented, Hamas managed to amass stockpiles of weapons of war and sufficient fuel and food to withstand a lengthy siege. That cache was withheld from Gazans as they struggled for supplies after Israel launched its post-October 7th counterattack.

Looking ahead: 

When all hostages Hamas grabbed during that barbaric October attack are returned to their families, the IDF must complete its mission to destroy  Hamas. 

Perhaps then will Palestinians, in conjunction with their brethren in neighboring Arab lands, be enabled to elect new leaders ‘of the people and for the people’ and adopt a new mission statement - building a state peacefully living alongside Israel. At that point, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine could really be free’.

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Empty Seats

 

Friday evenings before the Sabbath, Jewish families traditionally gather for a special meal. With everyone seated at the table, the blessing over wine is recited, a sip is taken followed by savoring a chunk of challah dipped in salt. Homes instantly become infused with a special warmth and sweetness. In Israel last month as meals ended, three to four thousand young adults throughout the country left their seats and headed out for the much anticipated Super Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. The festival grounds were at a stunning natural location full of trees near Kibbutz Re’im situated about three miles from the border with Gaza. It was to be a joyous night and day of music and dancing. 

It wasn’t. 

As the sun rose in the eastern sky the unimaginable became reality. More than 1,000 Hamas attackers clad in body armor carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades were storming the festival grounds and nearby kibbutzim. 

They came on trucks, motorcycles, and paragliders. 

They blocked the exit roads and went house to house.

They hunted. They raped. They slaughtered. They kidnapped.

By the time the orgiastic pogrom ended, over 1300 Israelis had been murdered and more than 200 men and women, some US citizens, and children as young as 9 months were kidnapped and taken back into the tunnels under Gaza. For Hamas, these hostages would be used as human shields in the inevitable Israeli retaliation.  

As Israel continues its mission to destroy Hamas’ ability to ever strike Israeli citizens again, the entire Gaza Strip has become a war zone and conditions have deteriorated. As expected, a dozen United Nations agencies have repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into the Strip. 

But where is the expression of outrage at the crimes Hamas perpetrated? 

Where are the UN resolutions of condemnation?

And where are the calls for immediate humanitarian release of the hostages?

The silence is deafening.

Next Friday as families once again gather for their Shabbat meal, there will be many empty places at the table, too many. 

The captives need to return to their seats. 

They must not be forgotten. 

Am I the enemy?

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Who's Crying Now?

Mendush

She went back to the room where it happened to check on Edan. He was her first son and the first grandkid of the family. The little guy was resting comfortably, albeit from the induced nirvana of sucking on a cotton plug soaked in sweet Manischewitz wine. That’s standard operating procedure after having a brith milah, the thousands of years old ritual circumcision which all Jewish males experience when eight days old. Edan was not alone in the room peacefully zoning out in artificial bliss,  standing by the window looking out was his grandfather, Mendush. Edan’s chest was rising and falling rhythmically, Mendush’s not so. His was shaking erratically. The family patriarch was crying. Mendush crying? - those two words should not even appear in the same sentence. It’s oxymoronic. But nevertheless, the patriarch was crying.

What elicited this out-of-character behavior? Everyone found Mendush irrepressible, fun loving, and quick with a joke. But crying?, no. As a boy back home in pre-war Poland Mendush was  deemed a gonif, literally a thief, but in the affectionate form, gonif is a lovable rascal, mischievous at times but never with mal intent. That’s the Uncle Mendush I always knew and loved.  

my Uncle Mendush on the far right,

my father at the top center

circa 1930s

His rascal-ness was to prove more than a quirk, it was a life saver. In 1940 after the Wehrmacht goose-stepped into town, Mendush and my father, his older brother, were soon rounded up, subjected to abuse, then deported for forced labor. Having a touch of  gonif-ism helped keep the brothers alive until liberation five years later. Had it not been for Mendush’s periodic ‘organizing’ to find a potato or other food scrap, my father always said he wouldn’t have survived the deprivations of those years. 

But why was Mendush crying? 

Looking back, the euphoria of freedom at war’s end quickly tempered with realization that of his family of five, only he and his brother remained. And of their grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, twenty in total, a mere three lived to see the sun on VE Day. Fortunately three other family members had previously emigrated to the US settling in Brooklyn and the Bronx. With the birth of his new grandson Edan, something unimaginable when first standing in the ashes of the Holocaust, Mendush gazed through the window and was suddenly overwhelmed with pent up emotion. For a few moments as he and Edan joined for some quiet time, he was not the gonif we knew. He was the scarred branch from a tree stump whose other branches had been hacked away. Against all odds, he witnessed emergence of a new green shoot. Call it Edan.  

  

 

 In Nirvana

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Mendush speaking to university students 

in Frankfurt, Germany

2009

Making the motzi blessing on the challah 

at my son's wedding

2004

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NB: I started composing this post before an unthinkable calamity struck in Israel on the recent holiday of Simchat Torah. Early in the morning of October 7th the world awoke to news of the most lethal attack on Jews since the Holocaust ended seventy five years ago. Never Again became Yet Again. That morning Hamas terrorists emanating from the Gaza Strip breached border barriers in southern Israel and perpetrated an orgy of cold blooded murder, rape, and kidnapping, while capturing the entire assault on camera. The attack shook not only citizens of Israel but sent shock waves of disgust, anger, and fear through Jews everywhere. My parents, uncles, aunts, and relatives of their generation, all Holocaust survivors, are gone now. I can’t fathom how they might have reacted to this gut-wrenching trauma. Given the latent PTSD they all carried from their blackest of days, in a way I’m relieved  they weren’t with us to witness this most heinous Yet Again outrage.

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Time to Go

“When … the … moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, … that’s amoré”

‘That’s Amoré’ - lyrics by Harry Warren 1953

In the 50s, aside from his comedic shenanigans partnering with slapstick sidekick Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin was famous for crooning this classic pop hit. So whether it’s Neapolitan, deep dish Chicago, or New York style, pizza is on the short list of everyone’s favorite comfort food. In That’s Amoré, the pie was deemed a lunar projectile delivering a payload of love. Tapping onto pizza’s versatility, I made use of it as modeling a life in transition, mine. 

How so, you ask? Here’s the scenario…..

Once the exit strategy for closing out my forty year career in periodontics was set, I needed a way to break the news to patients. Many of them had faithfully been coming to my office since Day One. Even those with fewer years of allegiance believed my staff and I would be there, like forever, and wondered what’s next for me.  

Maureen, Ana, Me, Deborah, and Rosemary

The answer I gave was to consider my whole persona as a pizza with three slices - one for professional pursuits, i.e., practice and teaching, a slice for expressing artistry, primarily photography, and one devoted to family and community. With career retirement approaching, the size of the practice slice would begin shrinking. But guess what, the other two slices would get bigger. When the practice door eventually closed signaling Time to Go had arrived, the two other slices would then comprise the whole enchilada, or pie in this case. My Chapter II Encore would then officially begin. Of course this new pie would still be divided into more pieces as additional slice options undoubtedly presented. 

  

Sometimes Time to Go arrives in a much shorter, less mathematical fashion. 

Sylvie

Special moments with my granddaughter Sylvie after a weekly pre-school class come to mind. At school, just before the closing bell sounded, kids would sit cross-legged in a circle for a parting song. Then with a “so long for now” to her beloved teacher, we went for lunch at Sylvie’s favorite place, Bertuccio’s, aka Bertucci’s to most folks. No need for a menu, her regular lunch choice - kid’s pizza, chocolate/vanilla Hoodsie & wooden spoon, lemonade (always cut with water to avoid an afternoon sugar buzz), and  crayons for placemat embellishing. You might think that with all cheesy parts of pizza consumed and Hoodsie scraped clean, it was time to call for the check and head home. 

It wasn’t. 

As long as unadorned areas of placemat remained, there was always more coloring to do. And there was still more. With our weekly lunchtime ebbing away, Sylvie pivoted attention to the scattered arcs of now cheese-free pizza crusts. Once all were carefully placed on the pie plate’s perimeter and transformed into a ‘carbohydrate clock with big and little hand crayons', we knew then it was Time to Go.

Arrivederci. 

Twelve ten or two PM? - either way it was Time to Go

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Special thanks to my friend Gail for reminding me of the pizza slice story during a recent dinner get together with other good friends.

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