No Training Wheels

April 4th, 2026

Asher needed a bicycle. Our five-year-old grandson had one already, but it was old and getting a bit too small for him. The old bike was a gift from the neighbors across the street. It had been their grandson’s bicycle. It was blue and orange with Hot Wheels decals on it. It also had training wheels. My wife complained that the training wheels were noisy and kept Asher from listening to her when they rode together around the neighborhood. It is possible that Asher simply did not want to listen to her, but the training wheels do in fact make a racket. In any case, the old bike was no longer suitable, so Karin searched the Internet for a replacement.

She found one. There is a bicycle manufacturer in Indiana that makes rides for kids. The bikes are high quality and pricey. The bikes even have hand brakes which is kind of unusual for kids that age. Karin sent Asher’s measurements to the company, and they suggested a 20″ small bike for Asher. Asher selected a bicycle with a pink frame and aqua blue tire rims. Karin ordered the bicycle and it was supposed to get delivered by FedEx three days ago. Asher was thrilled.

The bike did not show up three days ago. On the FedEx website it showed leaving Indiana four days ago, arriving in Chicago, and then leaving there just after midnight on Wednesday morning. We assumed it would get delivered around midday. By Wednesday evening, the website still showed the package as leaving Chicago with no further update. I worked at a trucking company for almost 28 years, so I got suspicious. We live near Milwaukee. Milwaukee is only ninety miles from Chicago. If the bike was still on the trailer, then that trailer probably was not going to Milwaukee. On Thursday morning, I saw that the bicycle was in Syracuse, New York. It had been misloaded in Chicago and took an unnecessary trip of several hundred miles.

Asher was not pleased. He spent all Thursday asking when bike would come. The website said it would get delivered on Friday. We didn’t trust that. We told Asher that it might come on Friday, but it was not for sure. He still was not happy.

Friday morning was rough. The anticipation was overwhelming. About every five minutes Asher asked me, “Did the doorbell ring?”

I would answer, “No”, and then I explained that the FedEx driver usually would not ring the doorbell at a delivery. Asher replied to me,

“Well, Oma (Karin) told me they ring the doorbell!”

Okay, well, then maybe they will.

Right after lunch time, the FedEx driver pulled up and manhandled the box to our front porch. I was waiting for him. He scanned the code on the box, took a picture of our door, and said, “It’s all yours.”

I rang the doorbell for him. Asher never heard it anyway.

I let Asher know the bike was here. Jubilation erupted in the house. I followed the simple instructions to assemble the bike. It wasn’t hard, and manufacturer included a set of tools to do the job. I could have had it put together more quickly if Asher hadn’t talked constantly and given me unsolicited advice on how to do the work. I got it done.

Asher put on a jacket, shoes, and helmet. I had the seat as far down as it would go. The bike has no training wheels. It’s a big boy bike. Asher got on it and I prepared to guide the bicycle until he could it balance and peddle it on his own.

We never moved. He sat on it and said, “Whoa…wait. I am too high on the bike. I can only reach the ground with my tiptoes. I’m scared. I don’t want to ride.”

This was disappointing. He got off of the bike, and I put into the garage out of the way. I told him,

“When you’re ready, the bike will be sitting here.”

I don’t know when Asher will get his courage up and go for a ride. There’s no rush. Maybe he will be ready by summertime. The bike will be waiting for him.

Community Reintegration Center

April 4th, 2026

I pulled into the parking lot of the Community Reintegration Center. The center is a rather ugly brick structure. Its primary purpose is to keep some people inside and other people out. The housing area has translucent windows that allow light inside, but do not allow the occupants to look out. The building is surrounded by high fences with razor wire on the top. The place is no way welcoming, not on the outside and definitely not on the inside.

The Community Reintegration Center (CRC) is a jail. Period. I saw no evidence of anybody being reintegrated into the local community. The whole point of the facility is to keep the folks inside separated from the community. Those who are incarcerated within its walls are referred to as “residents” on the CRC website. Residents? Really? I guess in a strange way they chose to reside there, but they are prisoners, plain and simple. Why not just call them that?

I went to the CRC to pick up a young woman’s personal property. It’s not a major issue to pick up her stuff, but I don’t like doing it. This is not the first time that I have had to recovering her belongings, and it’s always a cause for anxiety and melancholy. The CRC has a visitor center, which is the first stop for anybody entering the building. At least they don’t call it a “welcome center”, because it’s not. The people working there are polite and professional, but the hall is a bit like an ER: nobody wants to be there. Nobody.

Since I was not there to actually visit the woman, I did not need to go through a security check. I did have to show my ID, twice, while I was there. After I told the guard who I was and why I was there, she called the lady in the property department to come on down, and then she told me to sit and wait.

The waiting area was strange. There was a total of nine chairs arranged in a square formation, three rows of three. The chairs were spaced well apart. The area seemed to be designed to isolate the visitors from each other. One guy who came into the center initially thought to sit in the row of seats that were closer to the entrance for the security check section. He decided to move back to where I was sitting when he realized that those seats upfront all had handcuffs dangling from them.

I sat and waited. It was kind of like going to the DMV, except more intimidating. Nobody is in a rush and there is no place else to go. I had time, so I gazed at the official bulletins posted all over the walls. Other people came inside. Two of them were obviously lawyers. The man and the woman might as well have worn uniforms. They both had that professional legal appearance: they wore suits and carried serious business paperwork in their hands. They had that look on their faces that said, “Let’s get this shit done and get out of here.” Actually, everyone had that look on their face, including me.

At last, the lady from property showed up. She was a tiny, older Black woman wearing a black surgical mask on her face. She carried a large plastic bag in one hand and some papers in the other.

She asked me for my ID. I fumbled for it. She told me to take my time. She asked me how I was. I told her that I had done this sort of thing before. She gave me a questioning look. I tried to clarify what I meant by saying,

“Not here, but for the same person.”

She nodded. Then she told me,

“When I was young, I made some bad decisions. Then I had time to think about what I had done, and I considered my options. Don’t give up on her.”

I replied, “I don’t. I can’t. My wife and I care for our grandson fulltime.”

Then lady asked me, “How old is he?”

“Five.”

She sighed and said, “Well, maybe he won’t remember any of this.”

I considered that. Maybe she is right. But this stint in jail isn’t the whole story. This is just the start of a long absence. The boy will remember something, even if it’s only a feeling of abandonment. He won’t forget, not entirely.

She had me sign the paperwork. I grabbed the bag. As I walked away, the woman called after me, “Don’t give up on her!”

As I tried to open the exit door, I called back to her,

“I won’t!”



Going Downhill

April 2nd, 2026

I’m old enough to have had friends and family members die from chronic debilitating diseases. A sudden death is traumatic. I know this because one of my younger brothers died in a car wreck at the age of twenty-eight. But a slow death, one in which there is a gradual disintegration of mind or body, is agonizing. It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck. The progress of the disease seems to be inexorable, and human efforts to stop or even to slow it down are often futile.

My mom died from Alzheimer’s disease. I have close friend whose father is suffering from the same tragic ailment. My friend’s father used to be a brilliant mathematician. Now he’s not. Now the man has great difficulty with walking up stairs and performing a number of other everyday tasks. The father, oddly enough, can still improvise music on the piano, but his other mental faculties are slipping away. My friend tells me that sometimes his dad is okay, meaning that his father hasn’t gotten any worse. The disease plateaus for a while and then continues on its negative path. There is not a smooth downward trajectory. The disease attacks the brain in fits and starts, but the overall direction is always clear.

I had two friends from work, both of whom died from cancer. One of them suffered from a type of blood cancer. The other had a brain tumor. Both of them received treatments, chemical and/or radiological. Each of them rallied for a while. I remember in visits with each of the two men how their wives would light up at any good news. The wives encouraged their partners and told them that they were getting better and it would be okay. My two friends did get better, but that was only a brief interlude, and eventually they both succumbed.

I had another brother who died from complications of alcoholism. Officially, he died of a heart attack, but it was more than that. He didn’t take care of himself, and I don’t think he wanted to live. His mental and physical decline were in many ways similar to that of somebody with Alzheimer’s. My brother would have a severe medical crisis, then he would recover, but he never quite recovered to the previous level of health. He always dropped down a step. I, along with many other people, hoped that he would turn things around one day. Other folks with addictions have been able to do that. My brother didn’t.

I sometimes speak of watching somebody else slowly die. I don’t think anybody actually just “watches” somebody whom they love die. To me, it is impossible to simply observe the destruction of someone else in a disinterested way. It’s not like going to see a Greek tragedy in a theater or binge watching a slasher movie on Netflix. The person who cares about the individual who is desperately ill is not just a spectator. That person is also a participant in the drama.

I am currently a participant in the struggle of a young person who seems to have the same disease as my brother. I love the person and I cannot separate myself from their suffering. I hope for their recovery, but I often feel completely helpless. I know I cannot save the individual.

So, what is left? There is hope. It is perhaps a forlorn and irrational hope, but it’s all I have. I cling to that hope despite all evidence that it is pointless.

That’s what I do.

Thy Will Be Done

April 1st, 2026

“When people say, ‘We will pray for you’ we are not asking God to do what you want, but what God wants for us.” A comment from Don Timmerman of the Casa Maria Catholic Worker in Milwaukee, WI

I know Don Timmerman somewhat. I haven’t seen him in years, but we have interacted at times. His words about prayer made me think. When I pray for someone, I generally keep the petition rather vague. I will ask God to give the person what they need. I usually don’t really know what the individual needs. I know what they want but wants and needs are very different things. I assume that God knows what the person needs most, and that God wants to give them whatever that is. So, basically, I’m asking God to do for the person what He/She already plans on doing. It seems like a good way to get prayers answered.

Implied in Don’s statement is something that I find interesting. If we are going to pray or chant or meditate for the benefit of another person, then we have to at least try to understand what God, or whatever is in charge, wants for that individual. That requires a clear mind and discernment. Quite often what we imagine to be a blessing for someone is not, and vice versa.

There is a story about the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung. If somebody came into his office excited about getting a raise or a promotion at work, Jung would frown and tell his client, “Well, we will get through all this somehow.” If, on the other hand, the patient came in and told Jung that he had just been fired, then Jung would smile, and say, “Let’s open a bottle of wine! Now, we can make some progress!”

Zen Buddhism says that there is no good and no bad. I’m not sure I agree with that idea completely, but there is some truth in it. The fact is that what we perceive as good or bad is sometimes situational. I believe that there are things that are inherently evil, but I have found in life events whose nature seems ambivalent. I keep asking, what is God’s will? Another person might try to understand the flow of the Tao. How do I align my desires to the great design?

Somebody I love is in jail and they will almost undoubtedly go to prison. This will cause the person suffering, and it will also negatively affect all those who care about her. However, is this incarceration necessary for the ultimate benefit of everyone involved? It might be. I don’t know. I can’t know.

All I can do is pray for the person and try to give them some support during this time of trial. I have to strive to understand “what God wants for us”.

Still?

March 30th, 2026

A day ago, our grandson, Asher, asked us about somebody whom he loves dearly. This individual went to jail a week ago. That incident was not completely unexpected. Actually, my wife and I knew that it would happen at some point, but we just didn’t know when. It was one of those events that hover on the edge of consciousness until suddenly they are at the very center of life. The incarceration of this person is now our focal point, whether we like it or not.

Shortly after the individual went into custody, Karin and I patiently explained to Asher that the person had made some mistakes and broken some rules and could not visit with Asher for a while. We left the term “a while” intentionally vague. Asher is used to this person being in and out of his life. For a variety of reasons, she has been absent for short periods of time, so Asher is not terribly concerned. Not yet.

Asher asked my wife yesterday afternoon when he would see the person again. Karin told him again that she was in jail. He asked,

“Still?!”

Yeah, still.

Asher does not know that we are probably talking about an absence that most likely will last for years. “A while” probably means “a very long while”. I don’t think he can understand the idea of the person he loves being gone for such an extended period of time. The boy is only five years old. For him, a year is basically forever. For the person he loves, the time in jail will flow into prison time. That is all but certain at this point. His separation from the person will not be total. They will see each other, but much less frequently than they have been able to do in the past. This situation will eventually become real for Asher, and that realization will hit hard.

I can’t wrap my head around the idea either and I have a lot of years behind me. There was a time when my wife and I thought that this person would be able to take over the raising of Asher, which is a task we do now. That may still happen in the distant future, but it is sinking in that my wife and I are all Asher has for the next several years. That is a sobering thought.

A Backhanded Blessing

March 25th, 2026

She’s in jail. A person who I care about very much was incarcerated two days ago. It sucks. It’s really hard to give that event a positive spin. The person is looking at more than just jail time. They are staring at potentially years of prison. In many ways it’s a grim future.

On the other hand, it could be worse. I guess things can always be worse. The person is an addict. Their drug of choice is alcohol, although I am not sure that the word “choice” is accurate or appropriate. I think that for this individual the ability to exercise free will is much diminished. They aren’t in control of their habit. It is in control of them.

For weeks now, actually for years already, I have agonized about what this person would do next. My wife and I have lived in fear, a fear that this young woman would die. The person we love was unstable and sick, and with her anything was possible. We never knew what would happen. As I was told once, “The pattern is that there is no pattern”. That is the truth. There has been nearly constant chaos for as long as I can remember.

Now this person is in a location with structure and routine. She is relatively safe, well, as safe as person can be in a jail. Jails can be scary places. I spent just a few hours in a jail, and I remember quite clearly moments of raw fear. The only advantages of her being in a jail are that she probably cannot harm herself or others. Jail is not a good answer to her problems, but it is the only answer currently available.

The truth is that since this person was incarcerated, I have been breathing a sigh of relief. I am not as scared as I was just a few days ago. That does not mean that all is well. It isn’t. This turn of events brings new challenges for the young person and for everyone who cares about her. We’ll get through it together, but it will be hard. I look at the bottom line in this situation: she is still alive. Everything else is secondary to that.

It bothers me that in our society the best we can usually do for a person with mental health issues is to lock them up. We have a decades-long War on Drugs that has never had any real successes. Our country frequently blows up boats that may or may not be bringing drugs into the U.S., but we don’t make nearly the same amount of effort to understand addiction and its treatment. We only care about people with mental health problems when they inconvenience or endanger us. If a person decides to use a drug to quietly commit a slow-motion suicide, we are okay with it. We don’t care about the harm that addiction causes because we don’t care about the common good. We only give a damn when it hits home, and hits hard.

I prayed, and still pray, every night for the person I love. I prayed that she would survive. God answers prayers, but often in odd ways. Sending this person to jail is a backhanded blessing, but I’ll take it.

Set Yourself on Fire

March 20th, 2026

I had never heard anything about self-care until after my wife and I became fulltime caregivers for our grandson, Asher. It initially felt like an alien concept to me, and it seemed a bit self-centered. It sounded like encouragement to take care of Number One above all things, and I had trouble with that. After all, Karin and I had to focus on Asher who was just a tiny baby when we started being his foster parents. Being there for Asher was, and often still is, an all-consuming activity.

The plan at first was for Karin and me to act as foster parents for only a limited period of time, maybe for a year or so. That scenario did not work out. That time frame dragged out to eighteen months and eventually our role as foster parents morphed into being Asher’s legal guardians. We came to the realization that our commitment to raising Asher was open-ended. We were his caregivers for the duration. We were in it for the long term.

I think for me that epiphany is what changed my mind about self-care. I finally knew that I was not involved in a sprint. I was running a marathon and so was my wife. We had to take care of ourselves in order to care for Asher. We had to learn how to pace ourselves, and how to share the burden. Karin and I became acutely aware of how much we needed each other. In a way caring for Asher makes our marriage stronger because we have to work together to raise Asher. Neither of us can do the job alone. We have a common goal.

This being the case, we have to avoid burnout. We have to keep tabs on each other’s health and wellbeing. The most often asked question in our home is, “Are you okay?” This is not a frivolous question. We really need to know. Likewise, Asher also ask us this same question, because he needs to know that we are able to be there for him. He depends on us for stability and safety.

Karin and I give each other permission to take breaks. She gets to go to her knitting groups. I get to meet with my friends for coffee or a beer. We take turns watching over Asher. We are able get support from our friends. We are concerned for each other out of love, and also from a sort of enlightened self-interest. We cannot afford to have either of us flame out. Both of us have to be functioning in order to provide for Asher. In in the end, it all revolves around Asher.

Self-care is not selfish. It is simply accepting the fact that we are mere mortals with limitations. As a friend told me,

“It does no good to set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm.”

My Kind of People

March 15th, 2026

I was at The Daily Bird a couple days ago. I had to drop off somebody who had an interview at Meta House a few blocks away. I didn’t know how long the interview would take, so I wandered into the café to get a cup of joe and a breakfast sandwich. I also brought a paper tablet with me so that I could write a snail mail letter to a friend in Pennsylvania. I like doing that sort of thing.

The Daily Bird is a scruffy, working-class kind of place. It’s totally not Starbucks. It’s not much like anything else either. Years ago, that coffee shop was called the Fuel Cafe. That particular business was also rather informal. The Fuel Cafe had a strong motorcycle vibe to it (the owners of Fuel sponsored the annual “Frozen Snot Ride” at the tail end of the Wisconsin winter). Daily Bird keeps a bit of the biker motif, but the proprietors lean heavily into the theme of drug prevention and recovery. That makes total sense to me, and it is timely.

Daily Bird has all the old tables and ancient wooden booths left over from the Fuel Cafe. The only real difference now is that the new owners painted damn near everything, both inside and out, in a godawful bright yellow. I will grant you that the color scheme makes it easy to find and recognize the coffee shop. A person can see it from blocks away. It’s definitely an upbeat hue. It’s hard to be depressed in the café. However, I think it might be rough on a person who is already wound tight. I have to believe that they got the paint for free. I can’t imagine paying money for gallons and gallons of lemon-yellow paint.

Next to the counter is a table covered with brochures and pamphlets. On it there are free samples of Naloxone (Narcan), an opioid receptor antagonist. Narcan can save somebody who has overdosed. There are also free fentanyl test kits. And there are pregnancy tests available. As I mentioned, this is not a typical café. The owners are concerned with wellbeing of the local community in a very hands-on sort of way. I think it’s kind of cool.

I had to use the restroom halfway through my mug of coffee. I noticed quickly that there was no mirror in the room. Instead, written above the sink in bold, black letters was this:

“You look GREAT! Now, wash your hands!”

Sage advice.

The coffee was good. The breakfast sandwich made fresh, and I appreciated that. The music played in the coffee shop was eclectic. The baristas probably picked it out. I took some time to observe the folks who came into the place. I suspect that they were almost all locals, denizens of the Riverwest neighborhood. I bet that the customers all have interesting stories to tell. They looked intriguing. They looked real. In other places, say in a Starbucks, people sometimes come in dressed to impress. Not so at The Daily Bird. It seemed obvious to me that the clientele has no desire to put on a front. They are who they are and that is kind of refreshing.

A portion of the customers got a coffee and immediately went out the door and lit up a cigarette. Keep in mind that it is still winter here in the north country, and the weather was cold on the morning I visited the café. I have to assume that at least a few of them were down to their last two acceptable addictions, and they were making the most of the opportunity to feed their need. So be it. Caffeine and nicotine usually don’t result in a fatal overdose. The long-term effects are a different story.

I sat for a while and then I had to pick up the person with the interview. I had finished my letter and my coffee. I enjoyed the time at The Daily Bird. I plan on coming in again. They are my kind of people.

Play Dates

March 8th, 2026

“When is she going to be here?”

That was Asher’s endlessly repeated question on Friday. Asher and his kindergarten classmates had Friday off from school. I had spoken to the mother of one of the girls in Asher’s class a few days before, and the mom had suggested that her daughter and Asher have a play date. After school, I asked Asher what he thought of the idea, and his eyes widened as he grinned. He exclaimed,

“Yes! Yes! It will be my first play date!”

Asher thought it was a really big deal, and actually it was. The first play date is a milestone of sorts for a little boy or little girl. It is a major step in how they socialize with other kids. It’s true that our grandson, Asher, went to class every day with this girl, and they interacted while they were in school, but a play date is something different. It’s an unstructured meeting, or perhaps it’s just structured differently. In any case, the children come together in a new environment with new possibilities. That’s exciting. It’s also an opportunity for potential growth, whether or not the kids see it that way.

When I was in kindergarten, eons ago, there were no play dates. You saw your schoolmates in the classroom, but not anywhere else, unless they happened to live in your neighborhood. My parents did not like the idea of me or my six younger brothers interacting with other children, even when we were much older than Asher is. Our family had kind of fortress mentality. Outsiders were looked at with suspicion and sometimes hostility. We were rather isolated, maybe more so than other children of that time.

Our kids had friends from school, and they did sometimes get together with them. I don’t know if we ever had anything that we called a “play date”. The meetings our children had with others were more informal and haphazard. Maybe, it was better like that. I don’t know. Those were different times. Now, it is rare for any parent to stay at home to raise a child. A generation ago, my wife was home with our kids while I worked. My experience with the caregivers of the students in Asher’s kindergarten is that they are all working/studying fulltime. Asher is almost unique in the sense that both of his caregivers, Karin and me, are retired and we can be with him all the time if need be. I doubt that any of his classmates are in a similar situation. Because the adults are so busy with their jobs, it is necessary to carefully schedule any meeting between the children. That means we have to organize play dates, whether we like it or not.

In any case, Asher was enthusiastic about seeing the little girl. The weather forecast to be rainy on Friday, so meeting at a playground was out of the question. We determined that it would work best if the mom and her daughter came to our house for a visit. Asher was ecstatic. As I mentioned, he kept asking,

“When is she going to come?!”

My answer was, “In (fill a number in the blank) hours.”

Then Asher would ask, “Is that a long time?”

That depends on who you are. For me it wasn’t very long. For Asher, whatever I told him was an eternity. At last, his classmate arrived. It took a while for her to get out of the car and into our house since she insisted on putting on a dress over whatever else she was wearing. She looked great when she walked through the front door.

Her mom brought a pizza in with her. We all sat at the dining room table and ate. The girl and her mother often talked together in Spanish, but they spoke in English to Asher, Karin, Asher’s mom, and me. The kids played with Asher’s overabundance of toys. Karin and I sat with the mother and had a long conversation with her. I think that was important to do. The children need to get to know each other better. The caregivers need to do that too. We need to understand each other in order to build trust and a sense of community. It is hard to do that at the school. The adults often seem harried, and it is hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion while a parent is dropping off their child just before class begins.

The Friday session went well. Asher and his friend had a good time, and Karin and I learned some things about the girl’s mom. I feel confident that we will eventually set up another meeting.

Yesterday, I got a text from the father of another of Asher’s other classmates. Asher is very fond of this girl. The dad was excited about getting Asher and his daughter together. Since the weather was supposed to be good, the father and I decided to meet together today at the playground of South Shore Park on the edge of Lake Michigan. I told Asher about this development. At first, he was thrilled. Then he started complaining that he really didn’t want to go to the playground. He wanted a play date with the girl, but I think he wanted her to come to our home. I explained to him that the dad wanted us to meet at a playground. Asher repeated to me that he didn’t want to go here. He was very upset. He started sobbing. I said,

“Okay, I’ll text her dad and tell him that we can’t come for the play date.”

Asher replied firmly, “NO. Don’t do that. It’s fine.”

He still had tears on his cheeks, and he continued, “It’s okay. I should go. I don’t want her to cry.”

This afternoon, Karin, Asher, Asher’s mom, and I met with the girl, her sister, and their dad at the park. It went swimmingly. The kids ran wild. The adults talked and got more familiar with each other. We were at the playground for two hours. It was a good time, truly.

Asher told me, “This is the best play date ever!”

I’m sure it was, at least until the next one.

Haifa Republic

March 3rd, 2026

There is war again in the Middle East, which at this point in history feels almost normal. Israel is fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as attacking targets in Iran. Iran is returning the favor by striking Israeli sites. The odd thing is that all this mayhem is shifting the focus away from the endless violence in Palestine. The conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is suddenly second page news. That’s too bad because the violence between Jews and Arabs is not going away. In fact, it just seems to get worse.

A friend of mine from our old synagogue lent me a book a few days ago. It is Haifa Republic, written by Omri Boehm. It was published in 2022, a year before the Attack in Israel by Hamas. The author argues for fundamental changes in the politics of Israel, actually in the very nature of Israel, in order to resolve the festering hatred in the Land between the River and the Sea. It’s a tall order.

Boehm argues that Israel cannot be both a Jewish state and a liberal democracy. Israel can’t have it both ways. There is a tension that will eventually tear the country apart. It is a country where some people are more equal than others. Boehm sees this situation as being unsustainable.

A central theme in this book is that both Jews and Arabs must “remember to forget”. That sounds like an oxymoron, but perhaps it isn’t. He argues that the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba trap Jews and Arabs in the past. Trauma does that. Anybody who has experienced intense trauma in his or her life know how hard it is to move forward, to start life again. Remembering to forget is not about erasing the past and pretending that nothing happened. It is about accepting and learning from that past trauma and then using the lessons to build a better future. Memories can be a prison. Forgetting can be a release.

Boehm writes, “If the establishment of a Jewish state is part of the Holocaust’s history- this is a fact that no Israeli would deny- then the history of the Nakba is an inseparable from the Holocaust’s history.”

It’s a package deal.

So, what to do? Boehm suggests the founding of a Jewish/Arab federation in Palestine. It would be a place where all people are citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. Jews and Arabs would have autonomous communities within the framework of this federation. Boehm notes that the early Zionists proposed just such a federation. Also, Menachem Begin, of all people, drafted a plan for a similar federation in 1977 while negotiating a peace treaty with Egypt. It’s not a new idea.

Today, this plan seems almost absurd. Since October 7th, 2023, things have gotten much worse. Boehm’s book is in many ways outdated. However, what are the other options? More ethnic cleansing? More terrorism? More hate?

Peace always seems like a pipe dream. Until it happens.