Happy Passover

And Chag Pesach Sameach to you

I am a cheerful (most of the time) atheist of weak protestant extraction, and normally avoid writing anything about religion in general and the Middle East in particular.

My attitude towards religious belief is approximately the same as my attitude towards guns in one’s home; very occasionally, both help someone out, but all too often, they are vehicles and excuses for mass murder.

I have been to many places in the world, but not to the Middle East. I am by no means an even especially well-informed layman on the complex politics of that world.

But I have always admired Jews, who have persevered in spite of incredible persecution for millennia, and who have, on a per capita basis, almost certainly added more to human knowledge and the advancement of civilization. And the state of Israel really has made the desert bloom.

And I have been, as we should all be, surprised, horrified and appalled by the resurgence of anti-Semitism sweeping through the world, and even more at educated people in countries like this one who encourage and tolerate it, often under the guise of opposing “zionism.”

There is and can be no justification for that. Everything I know indicates that Benjamin Netanyahu is a thuggish crook. Everything I know also indicates that Hamas and its ilk don’t deserve the slightest sympathy. “From the river to the sea” is a code phrase for genocide. The expansion of Israeli settlements into certain places is an open and outrageous invitation for trouble.

Which is all I plan to say, now or later, about the politics of the Middle East, except that one side has been one of our staunchest allies. My feelings are likely colored by the fact that the person many people of my generation first knew to be Jewish was Albert Einstein, and the first Palestinian, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan.

But I want to pay tribute to the incredible accomplishments of those who have been Jewish, now and throughout history, and to honor and celebrate this holiday. The short and comic version of Passover is “they tried to kill us; G-d saved us; let’s eat.” However, the world’s Jews have instead largely saved themselves, and in many ways all of us.

By the way, a Jewish person once made my cold and stoic mother cry. He was Jonas Salk, and without his discovery I might not be here, nor you either.

Happy Passover, y’all!