I imagine it's the sort of thing American families fear might happen at Thanksgiving dinner when talk turns to politics. In this case it did indeed involve an American - a Canadian-born cousin, living in the States for a couple of decades now, married to a lovely native-New Yorker and they have two children. He works on Wall Street and became an American citizen recently. We reconnect around this time every year when he is making plans to come back to Canada to attend our extended-family seder with his parents (we had 53 attendees this year). Two years ago, when we exchanged emails, he extolled to me the magical curative properties of Ivermectin against Covid. You can probably guess where this is going.
By the way, I really like him. He's a warm, enthusiastic fellow. Smart, friendly and passionate about many things including his Jewish identity. I appreciate that. I can't say I'm innocent for how things went down. To my wife's dismay - she generally wants to keep dinner talk, whether it be on weekdays, Shabbat, or holidays - as pleasant and anodyne as possible. For her food is love, and controversy of any kind, ruins the taste. Since Passover is the only time of year when my extended family gets together this is usually not a problem. The seder is more like an annual family reunion than a religious event. Most of the time is spent simply catching up on personal news, marvelling at how the kids have grown, and for the older generation, of which I am now an official part, getting health updates. But for me, respecting my wife's wishes presents a certain dilemma at the Passover table. The seder meal is all about having a deeply memorable and meaningful experience.
It seems that the sages who constructed the Haggadah understood the potential for things to go off the rails when you get a bunch Jews together for dinner. They tried to fill the time as much as possible to keep unscripted interaction to a minimum. When we're not reading, we're acting out ritual, and when we're not acting out ritual, we're drinking glasses of wine (and getting drunk), and in between glasses of wine we're singing songs that seem to go on forever, to the point of crying for mercy - Dayenu!
But, there is the meal, and in between bites of food, opportunity for conversation and opinionation. As I say, there is something about Passover in particular, this holiday that commemorates the Israelite deliverance from slavery in Egypt, when we think about the redemption from captivity and the meaning of freedom, that brings out the Pharaoh in me. Well that's an exaggeration, but let's say my tolerance for banal, mundane table talk is at a minimum. One year, I became so despondent listening to people around our seder table gossiping and yakking about sundry nonsense, that I unceremoniously excused myself and didn't come back (I was the seder leader). My thought was, if they don't want to make this meaningful in the spirit of the holiday, then I'm not needed. My wife was not happy with my rudeness. As usual, she was right and I apologized.
This year, meaningful discussion wasn't a problem - back to my newly-minted American citizen cousin. The conversation started innocently enough, about what our kids were doing. One of my daughters is attending McGill and his youngest daughter is starting university next year as well, at Emory. Atlanta I exclaim. That's an unusual choice. Remember he lives in New York, lots of great universities in and around the region. I have a hunch why Columbia wasn't her first choice, but I say nothing. Yeah, the universities in the American south are exploding in popularity, he says. In response to all the antisemitism at the Ivies. Places like Emory, Vanderbilt and Rice are seeing a massive uptick in admissions because the Jewish students don't feel safe. Florida universities are the safest, he says. I'd heard that from my brother whose daughter attends University of Florida in Gainesville. She saw no pro-Palestine protests on campus when they were in full swing last summer everywhere else. I mention that. It's great what the administration is doing to go after all the antisemitism at the universities, he says. By now I'm trying my best to hold my tongue, but can't. I say, so you agree that they should be cutting federal research grants and deporting students? Absolutely, he says, it's about time the government did something. Don't you believe in free speech? I ask. It's not free speech when you're pro-Hamas, he says. It's support of terrorism, and they have every right to cancel the Visa of any student for any reason. I say, they are expressing their political views, and expressing antisemitic views, as repugnant as they are, is not illegal. Anyway, if it got out of hand and resulted in harassment and vandalism, there are laws against that, and it's the responsibility of the local law enforcement and the university to handle it. There's a danger to the federal government using its power to go after people exercising a constitutional right.
That's when the discussion got interesting. He repeated that the government has the right to cancel their Visas if they burn the American flag and express anti-American views. The problem is that the United States has been too tolerant for too long of people who have anti-American values. I responded that in fact, burning the American flag, is not illegal. But it was his use of the term 'anti-American' that was most striking to me, reminiscent of another time considered by many as one of the darkest periods in US history, particularly for the exercise of free speech. I'm talking of course about the McCarthy era, and his House Un-American Activities Committee. A time of persecution in which America had a Grand Inquisitor, and Jews especially ones working in the arts, film and entertainment, were targeted for their communist sympathies and affiliations, and blacklisted. Now we're on the other side, it seems.
My response to my cousin, when he used the term 'anti-American' was simply; And you, I suppose, know what constitutes 'anti-American'?
I don't remember if he responded, but recall the conversation grinding to a halt. We both smiled to show that there were no hard feelings, exchanged supportive words to reassure the other family members listening in (including my wife, who seemed to support him), that it was good to have a friendly disagreement and share different perspectives. I think we meant it, at least I did. Then I said something about how the last time we disagreed it was about Ivermectin, and I chuckled. He said, yeah, not too long ago I was travelling with my son and he wasn't feeling well, so I gave him a dose of Ivermectin and it was miraculous, he was feeling great in less than an hour.
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