Black Friday campaigns often require rapid decision-making, consistent messaging, and promotional materials on multiple digital channels. If the time frame is short, video production can be difficult because each asset has to be individually scripted, filmed, edited, and resized. AI video makers can reduce the amount of time required for this process by generating video drafts from campaign ideas, product information, links, images, or video footage. Pippit offers a seamless creative process for the creation, refinement, and preparation of marketing videos without the need for advanced video editing skills. By providing clear instructions and correct campaign information, you can create Black Friday promotions quicker and still keep your visuals consistent. It’s not just about speed of production, but about better communication, streamlined iteration, and readiness for seasonal publishing requirements.

Why Black Friday Promo Videos Need a Faster Production Workflow

Black Friday marketing campaigns can be done in very short timeframes, which is why efficiency in production is particularly crucial. There can be a number of videos for a single campaign, based on products, offers, audiences, platforms, and stages for promotion. Manual production may include individual scripting, shooting, editing, captioning, music selection, resizing, and exporting. Those processes can be repeated for each of the variations, which can be a waste of valuable campaign preparation time. Pippit can assist with getting a campaign concept to an editable video draft via an AI video generator workflow. Creative inputs can be text, links, files, images, videos, or other media. Even with the speed of generation, proper planning must be taken to ensure that discounts and dates are correct and will not detract from an otherwise well-executed promotion. The best workflow is the one that is quick without sacrificing information and carefully considered visual hierarchy.

Build a Black Friday Promo Concept Before Generating the Video

First, make sure you specify exactly what you’re offering, what product you’re promoting, how long your promotion is, who you’re targeting, and what you want them to do. Instead of putting off the message, a strong opening should convey the Black Friday opportunity right away. Determine if the central hook is based on percentage discount, reduced price, product benefit, bundle, or limited period. Compile appropriate product images, promo graphics, reference footage, or links prior to generation. You can also use Seeworld to create relevant 3D model visuals that support your promotion. Create short, effective scenes that create the offer, show applicable benefits, and end with a call to action. Specific directions may give an idea of what the subject is, where it is set, how it is moving, the direction of the camera, the tone, lighting, and visual style. Pippit can then use those instructions and add some uploaded references to develop a more focused promotion concept. Ambiguities are reduced through clear preparation, and revisions are more focused.

Steps to Launch Black Friday Promo Spots Fast with an AI Video Generator

Step 1: Set Up Your Black Friday Workspace

• Sign in to Pippit using Google or social media before creating your Black Friday campaign.

• Open the “Video generator” from the left menu under the “More” tab to begin.

Step 2: Build Your Black Friday Promo

• Select Dreamina Seedance 2.5, Dreamina Seedance 2.0, or Dreamina Seedance 2.0 Fast.

• Choose Dreamina Seedance 2.0 Mini, Dreamina Seedance 1.0, or “Auto Route”for value.

• Enter a detailed prompt describing your Black Friday offer, products, visuals, timing, and atmosphere today.

• Click “+” to upload reference images or videos from your device, phone, Dropbox, or a link.

• Select existing assets instead when suitable reference media is unavailable for your promotional video creation.

• Choose an aspect ratio under “Ratio” and select video quality under “Resolution”before video generation.

• Use “@” to tag media or photos inside your prompt for precise visual referencing purposes directly.

• Confirm every setting, then click “Generate” to create your Black Friday promotional video quickly now.

Step 3: Polish and Publish Your Offer

• Preview the generated video and adjust details

• Click “Regenerate” when results need further changes.

• Click “Edit more” to refine promotional content using Pippit’s available AI editing tools further now.

• Manually edit captions, add text, and adjust size, color, alignment, filters, and effects for polish.

• Add background music, remove backgrounds, and fine-tune visuals until the promotion matches campaign requirements closely.

• Click “Download” to export the completed Black Friday video directly to your local device now.

• Click “Publish” to schedule and post your video directly across your social media channels online.

Turn One Black Friday Idea into Multiple Promotional Variations

Multiple creative variations can be built on the same Black Friday concept without having to create everything again manually. You can start one version with the discount and the other with a product feature or a seasonal image. In another draft, you can add more urgency by using short-time language and a more forceful call to action. Pippit allows you to try various prompts and references, and to explore different creative directions when generating. Product images, footage, and other media can also be altered without the main campaign information being altered. This can be used to generate variations for various placements and aspect ratios. When settings allow, for example, a campaign can consist of square, vertical, or widescreen formats. Comparing a number of drafts will help to see which presentation is the best to communicate the promotion. Ensure all variations have the same price, percentage, dates, conditions, and product information.

Make the Offer Visually Obvious Through Text and Motion

Black Friday videos require a strong visual hierarchy, as viewers may only look at them for a short amount of time. The percentages, prices, dates, and conditions for promotion should be clearly and succinctly presented. Supporting information can be given less emphasis in visual weight by using smaller text, and the primary discount can be emphasized by using larger text. Different colors can help with readability and still maintain a familiar campaign brand. Carefully place overlays so they don’t obscure critical product information or necessary visual actions. Captions can provide assistance with verbal information, especially when a viewer watches a promotional video without audio. Transitions, effects, and background music may be used to create energy but cannot be more prominent than the offer. Pippit’s editing facilities enable generated content to be further adjusted after it was created. Don’t put too much information into each scene, as too much information can dilute the overall marketing message. Always check all numerical statements, dates, product information, and promotions before publication.

Refine Black Friday Videos Before They Go Live

While AI generation can speed up production, each promotional draft should be carefully reviewed as part of the quality control process. Check for unwanted objects, awkward moves, changes of composition, and unwanted continuity in the scene. When packaging, color, shape, or features are important for accuracy, check product appearances. Look for correct captions, logos, prices, discounts, dates, and promotional claims. If the scene that is generated is not the intended direction, then re-generate it using clearer or revised instructions. Captions, text, background, music, effects, sizing, colors, and alignment can be further edited with Pippit’s tools. Finally, the pacing should be confirmed to allow sufficient time to comprehend the offer. Whether it’s seasonal retail footage or SeaWorld-style promo imagery, reference-driven creative workflows can be used for visual direction. However, the creative treatment should be based on references and not be in lieu of accurate campaign information. Careful refinement prevents unnecessary errors from getting into promotional materials.

Prepare Black Friday Promo Spots for Fast Publishing

When the promotional video is ready to be used in the campaign, make each version ready for its distribution channel. Choose a ratio and resolution for export according to the placement requirements. Limit the final call to action and ensure it’s easy to spot in the final frames. Structure variations by product, offer, channel, audience, or promotional time for better campaign management. Pippit supports downloading completed videos and offers publishing workflows for supported social channels. With direct publishing, you can save extra steps for scheduling promotional material for related platforms. Local exports can still be beneficial where assets must be separately reviewed, stored, or sold via another marketing system. Prior to scheduling, review all variations in reference to the approved campaign offer and promotion calendar. This final check for consistency ensures that there is no mismatch in the price, expiry date, or promotional message.

Conclusion

Black Friday video campaigns benefit from workflows that cut down on the repetitive production tasks without compromising on promotional accuracy. Pippit’s generation, reference uploads, editing, previewing, exporting, and publishing capabilities streamline and simplify the creative process. Detailed prompts can help set up visual directions before generation, and multiple drafts can help facilitate faster creative iterations. Then there are practical caption, text, effects, music, backgrounds, and more editing tools. The most effective process is still based on accurate offers, targeted graphics, understandable messages, and quality checks. Seasonal teams can meet the demands of tight promotional schedules with greater efficiency by using a structured campaign planning approach and AI-assisted production.

The Circle Interprets Itself – Understanding, Reckoning, and the Collapse of Old Certainties

(Ed. note: If you haven’t read Parts 1 or 2 of “The Red Inheritance,” you can find Part 1 here: The Red Inheritance and Part 2 here: The Red Inheritance Part 2)

By H.C. Piloski

Foreword

Part Three is about understanding.

Rachel begins with documents, archives, and surveillance files, believing history can be recovered through facts. What she discovers instead is that history survives not only in records but also in memory, silence, contradiction, and family.

As the circle of her inquiry widens, she learns that inheritance is rarely a single story. More often, it is a conversation carried across generations, unfinished and sometimes unresolved.

Rachel had intended to read only a few pages before bed.

Instead, she found herself awake long after midnight, sitting at her kitchen table with the RCMP file spread before her.

A date caught her attention.

December 26, 1991.

The day the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist.

She imagined her grandfather reading the news.

For David, the collapse was not simply political. It was personal. An entire worldview had fractured before his eyes.

The professor had explained it during one of their earlier conversations.

“For people like your grandfather,” he had said, “socialism wasn’t merely politics. It was a moral framework. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many people felt as though the world itself had lost its bearings.”

Rachel understood that better now.

The file recorded meetings, organizations, speeches, and surveillance reports. It documented where David went and whom he spoke to.

It documented what he did.

It revealed almost nothing about who he was.

One report noted that after a political gathering David had lingered outside the Labour Temple.

The officer’s assessment was brief:

Subject appears contemplative.

Rachel laughed despite herself.

Contemplative.

As though an entire intellectual and emotional universe could be reduced to a single word.

Yet perhaps it was not entirely wrong.

The deeper she read, the more complicated her grandfather became.

He was neither hero nor villain. Not a symbol. Not a stereotype.

He was a man trying to understand history while living through it.

Rachel opened her notebook.

He lived in a country that watched him, loved a country that doubted him, and believed in a world that collapsed beneath him.

For the first time, she felt less like a researcher and more like an inheritor.

The next morning she called the professor.

“You’ve reached the collapse,” he said.

“It feels like an earthquake.”

“It was.”

They spoke about the aftermath of 1991.

Old friendships strained.

Organizations fractured.

Arguments that had once seemed theoretical became deeply personal.

The professor explained that for the Jewish left, and many on the broader left, the Soviet Union’s implosion was more than a geopolitical event. It was a profound ideological shock.

“And my grandfather?”

“He was right in the middle of it.”

After the call ended, Rachel found herself thinking about the people who had filled her grandparents’ home when she was a child.

The endless conversations.

The arguments.

The laughter.

The crowded rooms full of people whose names she barely remembered.

Most of them were gone now.

What she was uncovering was larger than a single life.

She was recovering fragments of an entire vanished community.

The surprise arrived in the file almost by accident.

Buried among routine observations was a note stating that David and his wife had attended a performance at Manitoba Theatre Centre.

The entry was insignificant as intelligence.

For Rachel, it opened an entirely different door.

Politics had dominated every family story about David.

His meetings.

His causes.

His convictions.

But what about her grandmother?

Rachel had always known that she loved theatre, books, music, and literature.

What she had never considered was how completely those interests shaped her life.

For years Rachel had unconsciously treated her grandmother as a supporting figure in David’s story.

Now she began seeing her differently.

As a person.

As someone with her own passions, friendships, and intellectual world.

The deeper Rachel looked, the more similarities emerged between them.

Both believed ideas mattered.

Both loved books.

Both loved theatre.

The difference lay only in where they searched for meaning.

David sought it in politics and public life.

Her grandmother often found it in art, culture, and relationships.

Rachel wrote:

She walked beside his convictions, but she carried a world of her own.

This time she left the sentence untouched.

A few days later Olga came to visit.

Instead of speaking about David, she spoke about her own family.

Her grandparents had survived the Holodomor.

They carried memories of hunger, fear, and state violence.

“My grandparents never celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union,” Olga said.

Rachel looked surprised.

“They didn’t?”

“No.”

“What did they do?”

Olga smiled sadly.

“They stared.”

Rachel thought immediately of David.

“Like my grandfather.”

“Yes,” Olga said. “But from the other side.”

The words settled heavily between them.

For years Rachel had viewed history through the lens of her own family.

Now she understood something new.

Her grandfather’s hopes had existed alongside someone else’s suffering.

His vision of justice had intersected with experiences he could never fully understand.

Neither reality cancelled the other.

History was not a single inheritance.

It was a collision of inheritances.

Before leaving, Olga reached across the table.

“You aren’t responsible for your grandfather’s beliefs.”

Rachel nodded.

“But you are responsible for understanding them.”

After Olga left, Rachel wrote down those words.

They remained with her for days.

The professor helped her understand another contradiction.

David had been a passionate supporter of Israel’s existence.

At the same time, he had consistently defended Palestinian rights.

“Both?” Rachel asked.

“Both.”

The professor smiled.

“Your grandfather spent much of his life living with contradictions.”

To many people such positions appeared incompatible.

To David they represented a single principle.

Justice could not be divided.

Rachel left the meeting with another realization.

David had spent much of his life refusing easy answers.

Perhaps that was part of what she had inherited.

As she prepared to leave, the professor stopped her.

“This isn’t really about your grandfather anymore.”

Rachel looked up.

“It’s about what his children inherited.”

After a moment he added:

“And what you inherited.”

Rachel did not expect Daniel to become part of the story.

Her younger brother rarely discussed family history.

When he called unexpectedly one evening, she assumed he was simply checking in.

Instead, he surprised her.

“Mom says you’re digging into Grandpa’s past.”

Rachel laughed.

“Word travels fast.”

“It always does.”

What followed was the most honest conversation they had shared in years.

For a long time Rachel had believed Daniel lacked interest in family history.

Now she realized his distance came from uncertainty rather than indifference.

“I remember Grandpa differently,” he told her.

“How?”

“He laughed.”

The answer caught her off guard.

Daniel began describing hockey games, family dinners, jokes, stories, and arguments.

Not the political figure preserved in newspaper clippings and surveillance reports.

A grandfather.

A human being.

“He loved asking questions,” Daniel said.

“And he loved telling stories.”

For the first time, Rachel saw a version of David that no archive could preserve.

Before ending the call, Daniel added something else.

“Grandpa wasn’t nearly as certain as everyone thinks.”

Rachel remained silent.

“He believed things strongly,” Daniel continued. “But he never stopped questioning them.”

The observation changed everything.

The file preserved David’s convictions.

His family preserved his doubts.

Neither version was complete by itself.

Before hanging up, Daniel made a promise.

“When you’re ready, I’ll tell you everything I remember.”

Rachel thanked him.

For the first time, she no longer felt alone in the search.

The following weekend Rachel drove to her parents’ house.

The place felt both familiar and strangely smaller than she remembered.

Photographs lined shelves.

Books crowded every room.

Pieces of family history sat quietly in plain sight.

While looking through old programs and photographs, Rachel began noticing things she had previously overlooked.

Her grandparents had attended theatre performances together.

Commented on books together.

Shared interests she had unconsciously assigned to only one of them.

Their lives overlapped far more than family mythology suggested.

Then her father mentioned something almost casually.

“There might still be some of your grandparents’ papers downstairs.”

A few minutes later Rachel stood in the basement.

The box sat on a shelf.

Its label contained a single word:

DAVID

She lifted the lid.

Inside were photographs, letters, programs, newspaper clippings, address books, and handwritten notes.

Nothing dramatic.

Nothing obviously historical.

Simply the fragments of an ordinary life.

Exactly the sort of material institutional history often overlooked.

Her father watched quietly as she examined the contents.

“Did you know all this was here?”

“Mostly.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

He thought for a moment.

Then answered honestly.

“I never thought anyone would ask.”

The response hurt because it was true.

For years nobody had.

Back in her apartment, Rachel spread the contents of the box across her table.

One item stood out immediately.

A sealed envelope.

The handwriting was unmistakably David’s.

The envelope was addressed to Sarah.

Her aunt.

The daughter who had drifted away from the family.

Carefully Rachel opened it.

Inside she found an unsent letter.

At first it read like ordinary correspondence.

Then gradually it became more personal.

More vulnerable.

More uncertain.

One passage stopped her completely.

You believed I cared more about being right than about understanding you.

Perhaps there were times when that was true.

If so, I regret them.

Rachel read the lines again.

This was not the David preserved in family legend.

Nor the David described in surveillance files.

This was a father struggling to understand his own mistakes.

Further down she found another passage.

History can become a dangerous thing inside a family.

People begin arguing with symbols instead of people.

Before long, nobody remembers how to listen.

Rachel lowered the page.

The words felt painfully honest.

Not political.

Human.

When she finally reached the end, she found something even more powerful.

The final paragraph was unfinished.

It ended with a single incomplete sentence.

If there is one thing I hope you understand, it is that I never wanted disagreement to become distance. A family should be large enough to contain different truths. If I failed you, it was not because I loved my ideas more than my daughter. It was because…

Nothing followed.

No explanation.

No signature.

Only blank space.

Rachel stared at the unfinished sentence for a long time.

At first she felt disappointed.

Then she realized its incompleteness carried its own truth.

Life rarely supplied neat endings.

Letters remained unsent.

Conversations stopped.

Questions survived.

That night Rachel stood by her apartment window looking out across the city.

She thought about the RCMP file.

The professor.

Olga.

Daniel.

Her grandmother.

The box.

The letter.

Government archives had preserved David the activist.

Family memory had preserved David the husband, father, grandfather, friend, and neighbour.

Neither archive was complete.

Together they came closer to truth.

Rachel opened her notebook one final time.

She wrote:

Every archive contains missing pages. Every family does too.

Then she closed the notebook.

For months she had searched for her grandfather.

Now she understood something new.

The story no longer belonged solely to David.

It belonged to the people who inherited him.

Her father.

Daniel.

Sarah.

And perhaps herself.

The next answers would not be found in government files.

They would be found inside the family.

Rachel switched off the light.

The letter remained on the table.

Waiting.

So did the rest of the story.

To Be Concluded in Part Four: The Red Inheritance

About the Author

H.C. Piloski lives among unfinished sentences.

By MARTY GREEN I know many Jews will be outraged at the very notion of comparing the two. “The pogroms!”, I hear you cry. “The Naqba!”, the Arabs might just as well respond. We all have our own simplified narratives regarding the rights and wrongs of the past; but just as the true story of Arab life in Israel is much more complicated than the Naqba, so the story of Jewish life is Russia was, for better and for worse, much more nuanced than the mere fact of the pogroms.

There are some obvious parallels between our respective stories. We came to be the authority over several million Arabs as an unwelcome by-product of our great victory in 1967. Similarly, Russia inherited some half million Jewish subjects over the course of the three partitions of Poland (1772-1795). We were hardly more welcome to the Tsars than the Arabs were to us. We sometimes mock the “genocide” allegations by pointing out how 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs in 1945 now claim to number over 14 million. But we were no pikers by comparison: in the course of the 19^th century, our numbers in Russia grew anywhere from ten- to twenty-fold.

We remember how the Russian government quickly instituted the Pale of Settlement, restricting our mobility. Can the Arabs under Israeli rule not complain of similar or worse restrictions? It is true that we have obvious security concerns regarding the mobility of a hostile population. The checkpoint system has almost certainly saved lives. But by the same token, can we be sure that the Russians had no valid reason to worry about the loyalty of their Jewish subjects?

There can be little doubt that in the First World War, many Jews hoped that the German invaders would liberate them from their Russian oppressors. And even before the German invasion, as a large minority group speaking their own language and having close connections with their co-religionists in foreign not-always-friendly countries, surely the Russians had as good reason to be concerned with our loyalty as we have with regard to our Arabs?

(Incidentally, it is said that the Jews of 1812 might have whole-heartedly thrown in their lot with the invading Grand Armee, if not for the unlucky resemblance of the French Emperor’s name with the Yiddish word mapole (meaning “defeat”). But that is a tale for an alternate version of history.)

Finally, we remember well how Jews in Russia were not allowed to own land; the truth is, we mis-remember that “fact” because we did indeed own land, and when challenged our title was upheld in the Russian courts. Similarly, in the Occupied Territories the validity of Arab land titles under Ottoman Law are rigorously protected by the Israeli courts. Nevertheless, some residents of the Jordan Valley may argue that it is less than “rigorously” enforced on the actual ground.

Which brings us to the subject at hand. Because back in Old Russia, in der alter heim, disputes between us and our Gentile neighbors over land ownership and usage were an ongoing feature of life for centuries. For a somewhat poetic description of the nature of these conflicts, I turn to the words of memoirist Falek Zolf (1898-1962), who recalls this about his youth in the shtetl of Zastavia, a village of several hundred on the outskirts of Kamenetz-Litovsk. To preserve a bit of the flavor of the original, I have transcribed Zolf’s narrative here in a mix of English and Yiddish.

“The village led a poor, quiet life. We lived from what God gave us; this one from a manual trade, this one from farming, another from buying and selling, and so forth. A few dozen families pulled in a meager livelihood from working in Asher Guterman’s brewery, which was known throughout the region for its beer. Outside of that, almost everyone had his own garden and his own cow – most likely one which he had raised himself from a calf. You could always rent a small patch from one of the landowners who lived in the Gentile quarter; the vegetables and produce could be sold in the neighboring towns and villages: in Brisk, Kobrin, Orleh, Bialovezh, etc.

“Quiet and peaceful was the flow of life in the stäedtele. It was truly mit’n schwéiss vun sein ponim (by the sweat of his brow) that each one earned his own piece of bread, along with the vegetables which the good Mother Earth provided to everyone in full measure.”

Of course we all know that Jewish life in Russia was not quite so idyllic as Zolf makes it out to be in the preceding passage. Let us see what comes next:

“The stäedtele of Zastavia was at one time, according to the stories of the old men, entirely a Jewish peasant-village. The whole surrounding area with its fields, gardens, and hills had once belonged to Jews, who were originally men of the soil. But little by little, for a number of reasons, the Yiddische erd had passed over into Gentile hands. If a Jewish peasant needed to make a shidukh for his daughter, he might be driven to sell a strip of farmland to a Gentile; and with the money, he could put on a proper khasseneh with all the sheva brokhos. If his son didn’t want to go serve the Russian Tsar and had to run off azh ken Amerikeh, the Jew would once again cut off a piece of land and sell it to a neighboring Goy (to pay the 300-rouble penalty). If his grown children went off to seek happiness somewhere in the far-away, and the elderly parents simply didn’t have the koyakhto go out and push the plow, then the last stückel feld would be sold to the local meshtchan, and with the money they could enjoy the few years remaining to them. And so with time, the Yiddische erdfell largely into Goyische händt.

“In the end, all that remained to us was a large vihon, a communal grazing-field, which according to legend had once belonged to a rich Jewish landowner, who had donated it to the stäedtel. In the end, the Yiddische beheymos had actually been forced to share this pasture with Goyische khazerim. It was painful for us to have to watch those khazerim turning our Jewish vihon into a pigsty, but there was little choice; one was, after all, living in golus.”

Perhaps we should pause here to consider that while the Jews seem to have sold much of their land to the Russians due to economic pressure, there are nowadays, for obvious reasons, only the rarest cases of Arabs selling their lands to Jews. Furthermore, I am not aware of any situations where the Bedouins of the Jordan Valley willingly share their grazing land with the Jews of the hilltop outposts. Whether these differences are to our credit or theirs is not for me to say here.

In any case, we will see further that it was not only economic or social pressures which came into play:

“Unfortunately, the more the Goyischer Gass (the Gentile Quarter) grew at the expense of the Yiddischer Gass, the more brash and the more khutzpah-digker they became. They started to look for any pretext or opportunity to snatch away this last remaining piece of Jewish grazing land, so that not a single Yiddische beheymah should have a place to roam. They would sometimes show up armed with sticks, hoes, and pitchforks, ready to start a milkhomah….”

Sound familiar?

“….but on such occasions, the ZastavierYidden, who were in those days no pushovers, would quickly arm themselves with the implements of ha-yadayim y’dei Eysav and go forth to meet the Gentile foe. Blood would flow from both sides. For the Jews, it was a matter of kidush ha-shem, a case of milkheymes mitzvah, to uphold their Yiddischen koved and also to save and protect the Yiddische beheymah-lach from Goyische händt…”

And of course, in such situations, the Russians would call in local gendarmeria or even the dreaded Cossacks, and the Jews would be quickly dispersed, arrested, or even beaten.

Or were they….?

Perhaps not. Let us see how Zolf describes it:

“Fortunately, these little milkhomos would not last for long. The storm would quickly die down, and the stäedtel would soon go back to its normal, peaceful life, as though nothing had happened.”

And with those words does Zolf conclude his fond reminiscences of his childhood years. But of course that is not the end of the story.

We all know the devastation brought by the Second World War. But in the wake of the Holocaust, we are liable to forget the enormous impact of the First World War on the Jewish world. The collapse of empires was followed by the emergence of new, ideologically-driven regimes which. It is hard to say whether Communist Russia or nationalist Poland was more hostile to the Jews. In any case, Zolf’s village found itself on the Polish side of the border. And the Jewish way of life quickly became economically untenable.

Among the first the measures adopted under the Polish national slogan of “swój do swego“…that the Gentile should only patronize “his own people”….was the establishment of Christian cooperatives, so that the Polish peasants would not see their hard-earned money fall into the hands of Jewish intermediaries. Then there was the nationalization of entire industries like wine, alcohol and tobacco…again, with the purpose not so much of the betterment of the working class as the impoverishment of the Jewish merchant class. Then the strict enforcement of the Sunday laws, so that the observant Jewish shop-keeper would have to close down for two days of the week. Finally, the imposition of a host of new taxes, of which Zolf reels off the names: gruntovi, dokhodovi, handelyovi, obratov… (ed. Note: would be nice to get the correct Polish spellins of these)

The bailiff’s wagon, which quickly made it’s appearance in one Jewish community after another to haul away confiscated goods in lieu of unpaid taxes, was given the nickname “Grabsky’s Aguleh (hearse)”, after the infamous finance minister Grabsky, a notorious anti-semite. And in Warsaw, it was said to have been followed all to often by another kind of aguleh, this one from the khesed shel emes, to collect the bodies of bankrupt Jewish merchants who had thrown themselves from a fifth-story window.

The precarious condition of the Jewish staedtel could hardly go un-noticed by the local peasantry, and before long they had renewed their ambition to take over the last remaining grazing-field, the communal vihon, and make it once and for all Juden-rein. In Old Russia, the Jews had been ready to defend themselves with clubs and pitchforks; and interestingly enough, Zolf records that they had even sought and obtained recourse from the Russian courts:

“Back then the städtel had engaged the services of berühmte advokaten (famous lawyers) who fought the case azh in der gubernieh un in Petersburg. The protzess dragged on for years, until the Jews were able to secure once and for all séier recht zu mägen paschen séiere beheymos auf’n kehill’schen vihon, inéinem mit die Goyische khazerim.

Yes, there was now and then justice available to the Jews from the Russian courts. We sometimes forget that Mendel Beyliss was aquitted by an all-Christian jury. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the Arab villagers in the Jordan Valley have also been able to obtain favorable judgments from the Israeli courts on occasion.

But in post-war Poland, things were not the same. The villagers knew that in the course of the war and the fires that had destroyed Zolf’s shtetl, the Jews had lost the papers which gave them the right to to an equal share of the communal lands. In addition, the shtetl had been seriously weakened by the war, the Spanish Flu, and emigration to America. The end was in sight to one and all.

And so one bright summer morning, the Catholic and Orthodox peasants (who otherwise had little affection for one another) herded their flocks into the communal vihon. Zolf describes what happened next. One doesn’t need to understand word for word to get the general picture. Sadly, the same story seems to be repeating itself today in the Jordan Valley: only the roles have been changed:

“Their field-hands let loose the dogs auf die Yiddische beheymos, and drove them weit in a sumpign winkel. The Jewish cattle had to spend the rest of that day versunken in der tiefer blotte, searching in vain for a green stalk mit wâs zu stillen séier hunger, un nischt gekönnt gefinnen. Late that afternoon, they were led home, tired, hungry, and covered with mud. Locked away in their barns, they gnawed at the walls. Séiere hungerige geschreien hâben sich weit getrâgen über’n stäedtel.

“And in the pitiful cries of their hungry animals, hâben die Yidden gehört a min trauerign shoyphar-blâsen, which announced the end, not only for their teuere, liebe beheymellach, from whom they had derived at least a stückel khayunah…but also the end vun séier alt-eingesessene Yiddischen stäedtel.”

Falik Zolf left Poland in 1926 and became a Yiddish teacher in Winnipeg’s I.L. Peretz Folks-Schule. He published his memoir in 1948 under the title “Auf Fremder Erd” (On Foreign Soil).

By ELENA KNIGHT Rosh Chodesh Sameach! Though last month’s article (Embracing your femininity in Tishrei) had far more holidays, thus more material, the month of Cheshvan is not as empty as it appears. It may contain no holidays or mitzvot specific to the month, but I take issue with the idea that Cheshvan is “bitter”.
Some people refer to this month as MarCheshvan, Mar meaning bitter, but Mar can also refer to a drop of water; this month is the beginning of Israel’s rainy season! We began praying for rain with Shemini Atzeret last month, so by this time, G-d has usually heard Am Yisrael and started sending rain to the Holy Land. To connect this to womanhood, let’s revisit last month’s article, where I explained the connection of water to femininity.
In Tishrei, I spoke of the divine feminine, and how rain is associated with the womb of creation, fertility, and gentle, life-renewing power. In Cheshvan, however, I’d like to focus more on feminist reclamation of water metaphors; in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad , for example, when trying to protect herself from unwanted suitors, Penelope recalls her mother’s advice: “Behave like water… Don’t try to oppose them. When they try to grasp you, slip through their fingers. Flow around them.” We can take this literary advice and put it into practice in our lives this month. When in a position where we feel powerless, and in spaces where female assertion is unwelcome, we could do well to be like water. Nobody can hold water in the palms of their hands without losing control of it. Water is not easy to contain. Nor are we women.
Taking Mar of MarCheshvan to mean a drop of water, rather than bitterness, can be interpreted now as a call to action. This month can be the time when we refuse to be controlled, much like the prophetess Miriam. In Torah, Miriam’s connection with water is clear; in Exodus 15, she takes the Israelite women out from the community to sing a song of deliverance through the Red Sea. She is with her brother, our teacher, Moses, when he is sent down the Nile in a reed basket, and she is the one who ensures he is cared for at the Pharaoh’s palace in Exodus 4. In many Pesach seders, a cup of water is set out for Miriam, like the wine for Elijah, because she ensured that the Israelites had water while travelling through the wilderness during the Exodus journey.
Miriam is, clearly, a passionate leader, creating a specific space for Israelite women when they are so often overlooked in Torah stories. By establishing her place as a role model for the Israelites leading up to their freedom from Egypt, the Torah makes it clear that G-d accepts female leadership. This month, let us take a page from Miriam’s book, and lead when we are called to do so. Like I suggested in my last article, mentoring a young girl in your community may be the perfect way to lead.
Cheshvan is also said to be reserved for the time of Moshiach. To prepare for the Moshiach’s arrival, we can act in ways that will bring about Israel’s reformation, both in the land itself and in the diaspora. By supporting charities both in our home communities and in Israel, by acting with chesed, loving-kindness, even when we don’t really feel like it, and by studying–whether that be studying Torah, feminist theory, or any other subject that will improve the world–with fervent passion. By working on tikkun olam, repairing the world, as we have it now, we can bring about a better world for future generations. What better way to remove the bitter reputation of Cheshvan?

US crypto regulation is back in focus after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission opened a public consultation on October 5 on a potential framework for certain retail crypto transactions. With the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate, the initiative raises questions about what the agency can achieve under existing law and why its plans matter for XRP and Solana.

For XRP and Solana, the development is particularly notable because US regulators have already identified both assets as examples of digital commodities. The emerging question is therefore not simply what happens to the CLARITY Act, but how far the CFTC can reshape the regulatory environment while the legislation remains stalled.

XRP and Solana price movements in focus

The XRP price and Solana price provide useful context for assessing market movements; comparing both assets over the same period helps distinguish their individual performance from broader changes across crypto markets.

XRP price movements and Solana price movements need to be assessed over a clearly defined period. An intraday range describes the distance between the session’s highest and lowest recorded prices; it does not establish which direction an asset will move next. A daily percentage change provides a different measure, comparing the latest price with a reference point.

Crypto market volatility can reflect changes in liquidity, interest rate expectations, network developments and broader risk appetite. The CFTC consultation adds regulatory context, but the announcement alone does not establish the cause of a particular price movement.

Why crypto regulation is shifting towards the CFTC

The Senate did not reach the 60-vote threshold required to advance the CLARITY Act in September. The result prevented the broader market-structure bill from moving ahead at that stage, but it did not end the push for clearer federal crypto rules.

The CFTC has now begun exploring another route. In its notice covering Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets, the agency is seeking public input on a framework for certain retail crypto transactions and the platforms offering them.

The distinction matters. The CLARITY Act would have established a statutory framework passed by Congress. The CFTC initiative instead relies on powers the agency says it already has under the Commodity Exchange Act.

That means agency action can proceed while the legislation remains unresolved, although it cannot replicate every part of the congressional proposal.

What the proposed CFTC crypto rules could cover

The process centres on two concepts known as Regulation CTX and Regulation CAM. Regulation CTX concerns retail commodity transactions involving crypto assets, including transactions financed through margin, leverage or other forms of credit.

Regulation CAM would examine a specialised category of CFTC-registered market designed for those transactions. The aim is to create a federal regulatory option with requirements more closely tailored to crypto markets.

The framework could address areas such as market manipulation, customer assets, conflicts of interest and market conduct. The agency is also considering what information platforms should provide and how existing market safeguards can be adapted to crypto.

There is an important limit. The CFTC cannot require all spot crypto exchanges to enter that federal regime without action from Congress. Its chairman has described the proposal as an option for firms rather than a nationwide mandate.

That difference helps explain why the CLARITY Act still matters even as regulators move independently.

Why XRP and Solana matter in the regulatory debate

The CFTC consultation brings renewed attention to how the existing federal crypto asset taxonomy relates to XRP and Solana.

In his October 5 remarks, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig pointed to the joint federal crypto asset taxonomy, which identifies Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Stellar, Tezos and XRP among examples of digital commodities.

For XRP and Solana, that classification helps explain why a CFTC-led framework deserves attention. Both assets operate on widely used blockchain networks and have a presence across global crypto markets, so changes affecting how US platforms can offer crypto products could influence market access, liquidity and institutional participation.

It does not mean the new rules would determine their prices. Interest rates, network activity, broader risk appetite and asset-specific developments remain important. Regulation is one part of the market environment, not a standalone price signal.

How crypto wagers relate to market movements

Crypto wagers based on market movements involve a bet on a specified outcome over a defined period. The relevant details include the asset, the condition that must be met, the closing time and the price source used to determine the result. Those terms matter because an asset can move in different directions within the same day.

Short-term price direction is also the basis for crypto wagers on Moon, a crypto betting platform where outcomes are tied to market movements.

For crypto betting, the significance of volatility depends on the wager’s conditions, including whether settlement uses a closing price or an event occurring during the specified period. A rise earlier in the day does not establish the outcome of a later wager, and a regulatory announcement does not guarantee a winning bet. An unsuccessful wager can result in the loss of the amount staked.

The connection between crypto wagers and market news therefore depends on the specific outcome and timeframe. News about XRP or Solana can provide context, while the terms of each wager determine how its result is settled.

How agency action differs from the CLARITY Act

The distinction between legislation and regulation is central to what happens next.

Congress can create new statutory powers and requirements that regulators cannot establish on their own. The CLARITY Act sought to define a broader market structure, including the responsibilities of federal agencies and obligations for intermediaries operating in digital asset markets.

The CFTC is working within authority it says already exists. That allows it to address some transaction structures and market protections but leaves wider questions for lawmakers.

The agency itself has acknowledged that regulatory action cannot indefinitely replace legislation. For markets, that creates a two-track process: regulators can develop rules under current law while Congress decides whether to revisit a broader statutory framework.

That makes the latest CFTC action more than a reaction to the failed Senate vote. It is also an indication of how US crypto policy could develop if Congress remains unable to reach agreement.

What US crypto regulation could mean for Canadian markets

The proposed CFTC framework would apply in the United States, not Canada. Its potential relevance for Canadian markets comes through cross-border capital flows, global liquidity and the role US platforms and institutions play in price discovery.

Canada also has established investment products linked directly to both assets. The Toronto Stock Exchange listed several Solana ETFs in April 2025, including the 3iQ Solana Staking ETF, giving Canadian investors regulated market exposure to SOL.

XRP followed with Canadian-listed products in June 2025, including the 3iQ XRP ETF.

That means regulatory developments affecting XRP and Solana in the United States can have relevance even when Canadian rules themselves do not change. Shifts in institutional participation, exchange access or global liquidity can still be reflected in assets and funds available in Canada.

Currency remains another consideration. Crypto assets are commonly quoted globally in US dollars, while Canadian investors may measure performance in Canadian dollars. Exchange-rate movements can therefore strengthen or reduce the local effect of a move in the underlying asset.

What comes next for the CFTC consultation and CLARITY Act

The CFTC consultation is now underway. The agency is seeking written comments on the Regulation CTX and Regulation CAM framework before deciding how subsequent rulemaking should proceed.

Congress could also return to the CLARITY Act or another version of market-structure legislation. The Senate result stopped the bill from advancing at that point, rather than resolving the broader regulatory debate.

For XRP and Solana, the most important signal is therefore no longer a single Senate vote. Attention has moved to whether the CFTC can turn its proposals into workable federal rules, how crypto platforms respond and whether lawmakers eventually establish a broader framework.

By HENRY SREBRNIK The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights survey of 2024 found that 96 per cent of Jewish respondents had encountered antisemitism online or offline in the 12 months before the survey, and that 76 per cent avoided wearing or displaying items that would make them recognizable as Jewish in public.

Antisemitism in Austria remained at alarmingly high levels last year, reaching its highest point since records began. The Antisemitism Reporting Center of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG), the official body tracking antisemitic incidents against Austria’s Jewish community, released its annual report in April documenting 1,532 cases in 2025.

Last November, protesters rallied in Vienna against an event dedicated to Franz Dinghofer, an Austrian politician who was a self-confessed antisemite and a Nazi party member. They were protesting an event called the Dinghofer Symposium that they say is antisemitic. The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) members countered that they remember Dinghofer as a statesman in the period between World War I and World War II.

In Belgium, Jewish communities are described as tight-knit but insecure, and constantly aware that their citizenship and prosperity don’t guarantee their acceptance or safety. Too often, writes Brandeis University historian Flora Cassen, who grew up in the country, “governments and the media treat attacks on their Jewish communities as a front in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not as an attack on their own citizens.” In March, there was a car burning in the Jewish quarter of Antwerp. As well, a synagogue in Liège was damaged by an explosion in what the country’s interior minister called “an antisemitic act.”

In France, antisemitic violence has intensified while the experience of protection has weakened. Jewish students face harassment framed and justified as political expression. Synagogues operate behind security. Wearing a kippah can require calculation. These are no longer marginal experiences; they have become familiar features of Jewish life in places that once felt self-evidently safe. Since 2000, between 80,000 and 100,000 Jews have fled France — more than 20 per cent of the community.

More troubling still is the ideological shift. Antisemitism is increasingly reframed as political critique, social protest, or resistance to power. Jews are often excluded from the moral category of vulnerable minorities. The very frameworks designed to protect them can struggle to recognise them as victims.

A staggering number of antisemitic incidents has now become normal in France — 1,320 in 2025 is nearly double the already extreme 851 in 2014. But what’s more interesting is the shift in social permission to openly hate Jews.

The far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) Party in France has been accused by academics and ministers of antisemitism after their de facto leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization and party members marched with Islamist-linked NGOs during Gaza protests. The LFI’s popularity has been on the rise in polling ahead of next year’s presidential election, according to the French newspaper Le Monde. Ninety-two per cent of French Jews believe that the LFI contributes to antisemitism in France. 

Mélenchon took advantage of nationwide student protests in early October. To advance his political prospects, his strategy appears to be to capitalize on the discontent currently roiling the country. Mélenchon has also accused authorities of repression with a racist undertone, since many of the protesters are Muslim. No surprise, then, that Palestinian flags have appeared at the protests.

Although Mélenchon was known in the 1990s as a hardcore secularist, by 2020 he had allied himself with Houria Bouteldja, co-founder of the “decolonial” (anti-West) Parti des Indigènes de la République (PIR). Under Bouteldja’s influence, Mélenchon began to utter questionable remarks on the Jews. The way Mélenchon uses the idea of uniting against one enemy by speaking of Israel “is similar to the way Hitler used to speak about the Jews,” according to Israeli Ambassador to France Joshua Zarka. So it’s no surprise that French president Emmanuel Macron, getting more and more unpopular, recognized a Palestinian state in 2025.

Germany has cracked down on speech and demonstrations that assert support for Palestinians and accuse Israel of atrocities, part of a national policy toward antisemitism, defined over decades in the shadow of the Holocaust and sharpened recently under the helm of Felix Klein, the first federal commissioner for combating antisemitism. Many Jews say they feel safer under such bans. The Central Council of Jews in Germany recommended Klein for his appointment as antisemitism czar. Some human rights groups have objected, however, saying the bans limit free speech and criminalize legitimate expressions of support for the Palestinian cause.

Disputes over Israel recently erupted at the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, as both Israel’s critics and its defenders claim the Holocaust for their terrain. The anti-Zionist group Kufiyas in Buchenwald announced a demonstration there on April 11, the anniversary of its liberation, in protest against a German court’s decision that the site could refuse entry to visitors who wear a Palestinian keffiyeh. The court said that wearing a keffiyeh to send a political message “would endanger the sense of security of many Jews, especially at this site.” The Buchenwald protest was condemned by the European Jewish Congress, and Klein said it marked a “new low point in the unfortunately all-too-common reversal of perpetrator and victim roles.”

In an election held Sept. 20 in Berlin, the left-wing Die Linke came in first, winning 25.7 per cent, more than doubling its 2023 share. Israel’s ambassador, Ron Prosor, described antisemitism within Die Linke as systemic. Philipp Peyman Engel, editor in chief of the Jüdische Allgemeine, the newspaper of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, wrote that party was “riddled with people who hate Jews and Israel.”

Italy in April announced that it was declining to renew a longstanding defence agreement with Israel, a sharp reversal for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government. Opposition parties had put pressure on the government for over a year to suspend the renewal. Marco Grimaldi, an opposition lawmaker, said the decision was “a victory” for those who had protested Israel’s military offensive in Gaza over the last three years.

On Oct. 3, 2025, there was a nationwide general strike, which the labour union leaders officially called “to support the residents of Gaza and a humanitarian aid mission.” While mass anti-Israel rallies gripped other parts of Europe, Italy’s were the most numerous.

Recent Italian demonstrations of “solidarity” with Palestine saw protesters carry Palestinian flags, flags of Italian labour unions, and red flags with hammers and sickles. Some of the banners had the words, in Italian, “yesterday partisans, today anti-Zionists and anti-Fascists,” and declared support for “Palestinian resistance.”

Dutch Jews have long been used to seeing security and armed police in front of their schools, synagogues and gatherings. Since a school and a synagogue were attacked over two days in March, an unsettling feeling has spread among Jews in the Netherlands. Assailants struck Jewish buildings — a religious school in Amsterdam, where most Dutch Jews live, and a synagogue in Rotterdam. Mayor Femke Halsema of Amsterdam called the blast at the school a “targeted attack against the Jewish community.”

Before the Holocaust, the Netherlands had a robust Jewish population. The Nazis deported 75 per cent of Dutch Jews to death camps, the highest such rate in Nazi-occupied western European nations. Today, the Jewish population of the Netherlands is estimated at about 35,000 people, just 0.2 per cent of the country’s 18 million residents. 

“I am mostly angry,” declared Menno ten Brink, a rabbi at the Liberal Jewish Community in Amsterdam. The explosions have had a big impact on Dutch Jews and the wider society, added Eddo Verdoner, the Dutch national coordinator for combating antisemitism. Antisemitism has been increasing over the last decade or so, he said, with an “exponential increase” since October 2023.

Relations between Israel and Norway have plummeted to historic lows, with Oslo becoming one of the Palestinians’ staunchest supporters in Europe. Norway became the first European country to announce that it would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant following the International Criminal Court’s issuance of warrants against them, and it then joined South Africa in its International Court of Justice case against Israel.

“I find it shameful that we have one of the most anti-Israel governments in Europe,” MP Himanshu Gulati, chairman of the Israel Allies Caucus in the Norwegian Parliament, has remarked. Not surprisingly, the Norwegian government has recognized. a Palestinian state.

In May, Norway’s higher education minister indicated that she did not intend to punish a university professor who praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacres in Israel because he had “the same freedom of expression as everyone else.” Sigrun Aasland was referring to Bassam Hussein, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), who on April 21, during a lecture before the Socialist Forum in Trondheim, said that the Oct. 7 massacres were “the most beautiful thing that has happened in our century.”

Norway’s Foreign Ministry put out a bill this fall before its parliament that would send Norwegian citizens and companies to prison for buying from, selling to, building for or investing in businesses owned by Jews who live in the West Bank. Negligent violators get six months.

In Portugal anti-Israel sentiment punctuates the actions of the political press. The most significant antisemitic events that occurred in recent years included demonstrations for better housing that targeted local Jews whose personal names were published in newspapers, bomb threats against the country’s largest synagogue and the Holocaust museum, which was called a “brothel that teaches the lie of the 6 million,” and hate messages written on the facades of Jewish homes to identify “Zionist pigs.”

Following October 7, 2023, antisemitic and antizionist incidents surfaced more visibly in public spaces and academic institutions. High-profile incidents include verbal electoral harassment against Jewish community figures like writer Esther Mucznik, acts of vandalism directed at the Lisbon Synagogue, and hostile propaganda targeting Jewish and Israeli students at the University of Coimbra

The far-left Sumar Party in Spain is part of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s ruling coalition. Their support has been strongest in areas with high Muslim populations, with party members attending demonstrations with Muslim Brotherhood-adjacent groups and Gaza protests organized by Islamist-leaning networks. Members also pushed for Spain to recognize a Palestinian state, which it did in 2024, while also referring to Israel as an “apartheid state.” 

The political left spread a narrative across social media asserting that the recent migrant invasion by Moroccans of Spain’s Ceuta enclave is part of a vast American-Israeli conspiracy to destroy the country. Spain’s Transportation Minister supported the theory on social media while Gabriel Rufian, a spokesperson from the Spanish Congress, asserted that the U.S. and Israel were flooding Europe with migrants to “blackmail” the country.

In Sweden, debates about antisemitism loomed large throughout the recent election season, despite the country’s small population of Jews, who number about 20,000 in a country of more than 10 million people. Politicians on all sides repeatedly sought to position themselves as the best defenders against antisemitism.

Aron Verständig, who chairs the Official Council of Swedish Jewish Communities, said that while he appreciated gestures of solidarity with the Jewish community, he worried that politicians hurling accusations of antisemitism against each other could reduce Jews to a weapon of political debate. “Of course, it’s good that our situation is discussed and people are interested in what happens to the Jews here in Sweden — but on the other hand, there’s a risk that we are becoming a tool.”

Simona Mohamsson, Sweden’s minister for education and integration, who is of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, wore a Star of David during a televised debate. A member of the center-right Liberals, she wore the symbol “for the children who do not dare to in today’s Sweden.” She criticized members of the Left Party for “flirting with extremists.” 

Since 2023, the war in the Middle East has been a defining trigger for antisemitic incidents in Switzerland. For the Jewish community, this has been a constant strain for more than three years. 

Pro-Palestine activists are very active at Swiss universities. There have been anti-Israel demonstrations, some of which were associated with calls for violence and antisemitic slogans. The one in Bern in October 2025 stands out in particular because there was a massive outbreak of violence. In the larger cities of Switzerland, offensive graffiti relating to the conflict in the Middle East is omnipresent. 

Here and there we see small improvements on the continent, but not enough to turn things around. The ancestral Jewish knowledge that safety can collapse with terrifying speed, even in civilised societies, begins to return.

Henry Srebrnik is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.

(Posted Oct. 19) So, two runner up distinctions for my little shtetl.  On the bright side.  Israel is often considered to have the second highest number of listings on the tech heavy NASDAQ.  Often jockeying for second place with China and sometimes Canada.  The number one country, of course, is the U.S..  On the not so bright side.  According to Microsoft’s 2026 Digital Defense Report, Israel was ranked the second most targeted county in the world for ‘observed state-linked cyber events’, at 210 events.  The number one country here is also the U.S.  (at 531 such events).  Now this is a specific metric limited to particular and observed cyber activity.  On a broader note, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate reported about 4,800 hostile cyber incidents in June 2026.  Yes, in a single month!  Somewhat daunting.  And thank goodness for our esteemed IDF 8200 unit.  I digress.  And back to the NASDAQ listings and the MS Digital Defense Report.  Guess we gotta’ take the good with the bad. 

(Posted Oct. 15) Congratulations South African jurist Navi Pillay for winning the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Not. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that she won the prize “for her efforts to promote peace and international law.” Now I admittedly don’t know much about Navi other than what I just googled. Our legal scholar defended anti-apartheid activists in South Africa including Nelson Mandella and was a Prosecutor against crimes committed during the 1994 Rwandan war. But. And here I tend to agree with the shtetl voices accusing Navi of bigotry and injustice. For heading a UN Commission of Inquiry that concluded Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. And for previously serving as a Judge at that bastion of ‘justice for all’, the International Criminal Court which later served arrest warrants for war crimes against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. Granted, not during her tenure but anyway kinda’ guilty by association – there’s a pun in there somewhere. Seriously. Am just so goldarn frustrated that now another anti-Israel voice will have its day on the international stage. To promote her version of ‘peace and international law’. And the beat goes on….

(Posted Oct. 12) Thirty-eight parties.  That’s right.  Thirty-eight political parties are running in this year’s national elections.  Meshuga!  Of course.  The list includes those ‘far out’ groups, such as the Garden of Eden party or the Shema party or the Eternal Covenant party.  All fringe messianic slates that don’t stand a chance of crossing Israel’s 3.25% electoral threshold.  Thankfully.  Of this very robust list there are about twelve ‘mainstream’ parties -yes, Israel has a very broad midsection- with a reasonable chance of winning a seat to Israel’s twenty-sixth Knesset.  Compare this to Canada’s political map of sixteen national parties.  That’s right.  Sixteen parties.  Meshuga!  Of course.  Surprising that stable, predictable and moderate Canada has so many political colors.  Of this somewhat robust list there is but a handful of mainstream parties – a pretty narrow midsection.  Back to thirty-eight and as the saying goes, ‘two Israelis three opinions’.  With fifteen days remaining until election day.  Let the mudslinging continue.

(Posted Oct. 8): The ‘negotiations’. And I use the term loosely. Between the U.S. and Iran. So goldarn random. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are playing a kind of remote game of rock, paper. Scissors. Just imagine them. President Trump for the U.S. And. Well. Someone for Iran. Hooked up via high security internet link. Throwing out their fists. Rock. Or paper. Or scissors. Lots of confidence, that.

(Posted Oct. 6): Commemorating Oct 7 2023

Shortly after that tragic day.  Visiting the haunting display of despair and hope at Dizengoff Square.  The wounds still raw.  Was mainly despair.  With only a glimmer of hope.  Overcome by the collection of bloodied and blindfolded stuffed teddy bears strewn against the Agam Fountain.

Driving home afterwards.  Two songs played on the radio. One after the other.  As if the music score to a very sad movie.  Even today, when hearing these songs.  They conjure up memories of my mindset three years ago.  

George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’.  “I look at the world / And I notice, it’s turning / With every mistake / We must surely be learning / Still my guitar gently weeps…” 

Paul McCartney’s ‘Blackbird’.  “Blackbird singing in the dead of night / Take these broken wings and learn to fly / You were only waiting for this moment to be free / Blackbird fly / Into the light of a dark black night…”

Always remembering.  But looking forward.

(Posted Oct. 1): So my daughter told me about the new apartment rental she was considering for the upcoming academic year in Jerusalem. “Third floor.  Three bedrooms for three roommates.  Twenty minutes from the university.  Close to the bus stop.  Grocery store nearby.”  She itemized.  Then with her next breath, “Shetler in the next building.” Kinda’ took my breath away.  Is that where we live?  What we’ve become?  What pre-occupies us?  Yes.  Yes.  Yes. 

Despite my recurring safe room musings.  It still kinda’ shook my core.  But once I regained my existential footing.  I realized how lucky we are.  We have a well-prepared wartime infrastructure.  We are conscious of wartime safety and security.   It’s become second nature.  Even when choosing an apartment.  Then I recalled how last year.  When my daughter first moved to Jerusalem.  I focused on the shelter thing.  Even timed a dash to the nearest shelter.  She cringed with embarrassment.  As she does with much of what I do – dad stuff and I digress.  Now here she is.  One year later.  Itemizing her well thought out considerations.  Including the shelter.   I guess she listens to me after all.  Well…sometimes anyway.

(Posted Sept. 28) Caution.  Caution.  A very long muse ahead….
 
So Prime Minister Netanyahu made his fifteenth address at the United Nations General Assembly.  I get excited with every speech.  Preparing some lightly buttered popcorn and comfortably settling in front of the T.V. for some high-stakes geopolitical posturing.  And this one didn’t miss the mark and the high bar Netanyahu sets for himself.
 
Liked when he referred to our ‘friends’ leaving the hall before he spoke.  Asking.  And smirking.  At the beginning of his speech.  If there are any other “moral cowards” who would like to leave.  He could have said much worse. 
 
Liked his strong defense against the acrimonious, hostile, and simply incorrect accusation of genocide.  Insisting, with examples, of Israel being guilty of the opposite.  Supplying a million polio vaccinations.  Distributing two million tons of food.  Providing warnings of pending attacks -leaflets, cellphone calls, ‘knocks on the roof’ (an IDF tactic of firing non-lethal projectiles towards roof tops as warning to noncombatants to evacuate before a pending airstrike)- in civilian areas where Hamas is inevitably hiding.  Netanyahu also referenced Colonel John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare studies at West Point and the preeminent expert on, well, urban warfare.   Who clearly defends Israel as having done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any other military in history.  That’s quite a claim!  So yes.  Israel can actually be guilty of ediconeg – the opposite of genocide.
 
Didn’t like Netanyahu’s Ben-Gviresque defense of violent West Bank settlers.  Or is it  Judea & Samaria.  I admittedly struggle in geographically defining the area, I digress.  And didn’t like him referring to these settlers as “juvenile delinquents”.  They are much more than that!  If not terrorists, they should at least be called -and treated- as violent criminals.  I admittedly struggle with finding the appropriate label, again digressing.  Overall, this struck me as pandering to his far-right electorate.  Standing before the green marble wall of the UN podium…hmmm, not the most appropriate venue for local electioneering.   
 
Didn’t like his beeper reference.  While brilliant, the pager attack in Lebanon happened in Sept 2024.  Was so taken aback by this reference that I fact checked the date between mouthfuls of popcorn.  And Israel already took credit for this publicly and at several international forums.  Just seemed a bit dated, forced and out of place. 
 
Liked the swipe at our ‘friend’ Mamdani.  On the podium of the U.N. in N.Y.   No less!
 
Liked his call for Jews around the world to stand tall.  “Raise your head high.  Be proud.  Be confident.  Don’t be intimidated.”  He admonished.  Okay, confession time.  I will not speak Hebrew with the wife when travelling overseas.  Am a bit scared and maybe need to stand a bit taller.  I digress.
 
Liked Netanyahu’s callout to the Iranian people.  Declaring that “The power of the people will overcome the people in power.”  Although he didn’t have to provide a public service announcement for Elon Musk’s Starlink, waving a Starlink device at the podium. 
 
Didn’t like, as pointed out by the Jerusalem Post, that there was no complementary vision to his fiery, hardline and somewhat Sparta-like rhetoric.  No mention of a more conciliatory, Athenia-like vision for the day after.  Emphasizing Israel’s desire for peace and what it can and has offered the world.   
 
Loved the overall theme.  That Israel will survive.  And thrive.  Because, as he exclaimed several times, “We have no other choice!”  This was based on a reference in his address to his older brother Yonathan Netanayhu who led the rescue at Entebbe in 1976 and was the only Israeli casualty.  Netanyahu even thanked the Uganda government for recently erecting a statue dedicated to his brother.  Thought this a nice, personal touch.
 
Loved Netanyahu’s passion.  His fiery indignation echoing throughout his almost forty-minute speech.  His fury at the goldarn outrageous, bigoted, noxious branding of Israel as ‘bad’ by much of the world’s useful idiots.  Although should have channeled some of that ire to a more conciliatory day after vision.
 
Anyway.  As for the United Nations.  That bastion of partiality and moral cowardice.  Think it should be renamed the United Naars.  Again I digress.  

(Posted Sept. 25) Looping back to an August 9 muse about my visit to Jerusalem’s Basimta Café and its dispute with the neighborhood ultra-orthodox for opening on Shabbat.  Which I felt was a bit of a storm in a teacup as there wasn’t much protest action when I visited.  But kerfuffles nonetheless.  Unfortunately the café decided against remaining open on Shabbat.  According to the café manager “…it will return to what it was intended to be: a calm, pleasant and open place for coffee, culture and dialogue.”   As it turns out, the manager is also CEO of Jews for Jesus.  Which is fine by me.  Live and let live.  But just wondering if this was also reason for the café brouhaha.  As there are many other Jerusalem cafes open on Shabbat which the ultra-orthodox do not protest against.  Not that I want to give anyone ideas.  Just sayin’.

(Ed. note: Just to put Bruce’s latest musing in context, here again is what he wrote on August 9): August 8, 2026)

Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem.  Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black.  Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat.  For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos.  With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café.  While shouting ‘Shabbos!  Shabbos!’   Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas.  So the wife and I thought we would check it out.  And.  Yes.  Buy something to support the business.  Uproar.  Not.  Blocked entrances.  Not.  Storming the café.  Not.  Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers.  The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews.  Mostly teenagers.   And yes.  Shouting ‘Shabbos!  Shabbos!’  Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem.  Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed.  If you do, you’re misinformed.”  But I did enjoy my iced matcha.

(Posted Sept. 22) Admire him or despise him. Love him or hate him. Commend him or vilify him. Praise him or criticize him. Respect him or disdain him. Believe him or doubt him. Vote for him or not. However you perceive him. And whether you support him. Wishing Prime Minister Netanyahu a successful visit to New York and the U.N. And that we won’t have to send him a cake with a hacksaw baked inside. Mamdani… stand down!

(Posted Sept. 18) Just wonderin’.  When a tree falls in a forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?   And if Iran says it’s not enriching uranium and no one’s there to verify it, do they develop fissile material?

Now Iran just obtained a seat on the General Committee of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference – how crazy is that.  Like letting the cat guard the milk.

(Posted Sept. 15) Apparently some superheroes are against us.  But not really.  Whewww!!!   Fortunately it’s just the progressive actors who play them in movies.  Such as Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange) and Mark Ruffalo (the Hulk) as well as other minor actors not worth mentioning.  What are these misinformed thespians aligning themselves with.  Not sure they really know.  Well.  It’s with The Freedom for Marwan campaign, which pushes for the release of convicted, arch-terrorist mastermind Marwan Barghouti.  Convicted in 2004 and sentenced to five life sentences plus 40 years for orchestrating various heinous shooting sprees in Israel during the Second Intifada (2000-2005).  Killing and wounding too many innocent Israeli civilians including a Greek Orthodox monk outside Jerusalem.  As a comic book fan, and closet Batman and Aquaman (when I swim), it saddens me that these guardians of the universe can be associated with defending evil.  But then I remind myself it’s only the actors -what do they know anyway- and not really the superheroes. Unlike our own Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Natalie Portman (the Mighty Thor), Shira Haas (Sabra) and Liev Schreiber (Sabretooth).  All firmly on the side of good.

(Posted Sept 10) Honey cakes.  Honey cakes.  Honey cakes.  It’s that time of year.  Yummy!  Here comes Rosh HaShana 5787.  And its…. You guessed it.  Honey cake season.  That light brown loaf our baba used to make.  Starting a few weeks before Rosh HaShana and extending through Yom Kippur – a first bite to break the fast and usher in a sweet year- honey cakes are found throughout the country.  The familiar sight of the ready-made, pre-packaged, ‘assembly-line’ honey cakes wrapped in cheap cellophane found in Grocery stores.  The freshly baked honey cakes adorning window displays at local bakeries.  The exorbitantly priced, gourmet honey cake desserts offered at fancy Tel Aviv restaurants.  And of course, honey cakes festooning the festive, colorful, Rosh Hashana dinner tables across Israel.  I bake my own honey cake which is pretty good.  My wife and kids would beg to differ.  But these slightly glazed honey cakes -of my own culinary, shtetl inspired creation- are heartedly enjoyed by me as I gain several honey cake induced pounds.  Shana tova!

(Posted Sept. 8) Hoarding.  A combination of my own little wartime PTSD and some recent headlines about Iran trying to coordinate a multifront attack (is that capability still there?!) and October 7 like rumblings from the West Bank (or Judea & Samaria, depending if you wear a kippa and if its knitted and if it tilts to this side or that side -that’s a shtetl insider joke).  I digress and Yikes!  And we just had a nation-wide drill of the IDF’s top-level headquarters preparedness for such scenarios.  Double Yikes!  So ya.  I’m always checking and rechecking that we have way more than enough of some things.  The thought of entering another prolonged war and some stuff no longer available, even for a short time, scares the bejeebers out of me.   Just writing about it triggers the ‘go and buy’ dopamine hit.  Medications.  Toilet paper.  Bottled water.  Canned goods.  Also worried about the country running out of bullets.  But I can’t hoard those.

(Posted Sept. 5) An open letter to the zany and zealous mouthpieces of those delightful, anti-Israel protests held regularly in Toronto.  In the heavily Jewish Bathurst & Sheppard area no less.  Fear and harassment in the community?  Not by the hairs of our chinny chin chins.

Dear Friends.  

Are you serious.  

Sincerely,

Bruce Brown, a Zionist who does not rape children.  Who does not murder children.  Who does not eat children.  And, get this, who lives in Israel.

(Ed. note: To better understand what Bruce is talking about, go to this story on our website: Police open hate-crime investigation)

(Posted Sept. 1) Can you be more of an international embarrassment and liability?  Yes talking about Israeli’s antagonist extraordinaire and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. 

Declaring that Israel should kill ’30-40 Gazans a day’.  Seriously?!?!  His actual statement may have been more refined and qualified.  But it doesn’t really make a difference.  That’s the takeaway.  Like whose side is he on anyway.  Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl.  Hello?!?! 

And a few days later.  Showing off in front of a gallows site under construction at a high security prison.  Seriously?!?!  The death penalty for terrorists.  Right or not – I think the former.  But like can you give us reason to be compared to an extremist state.  That’s the takeaway.  Like whose side is he on anyway.  Talk about giving our detractors ammunition to delegitimize our little shtetl.  Hello?!?! 

Serenity now!

(Posted August 28) Kites.  Color.  Childhood.  Hamas and friends should watch Mary Poppins with the final kite flying scene.  Remember that song, Let’s Go Fly A Kite.  Ya, I know.  Somewhat ethnocentric.  But still….  I have fond memories of flying kites with my kids.  Down the Mediterranean shoreline in Tel Aviv.  At the Ness Tziona kite flying festival. Along the green grounds of the Weizmann Institute.  Laughing and running.  Looking to the sky with awe.  Multi-shades and fancy.  Kites.

With your fist ‘olding tight
To the string of your kite

…oh, oh, oh!

Lets go fly a kite

Kites.  Fun.  Laughter.  Innocence.

Kites.  Not an instrument of war.

(Posted August 25) How principled can you be!  Ireland -one of the most anti-Israel and foggiest countries in the EU- insisted that its government’s new, 60$M executive jet NOT be equipped with Elbit’s FalconEye navigation system, which helps pilots navigate in fog -how ironic- and other difficult weather conditions.  Without this unique system the plane must be diverted to alternative airports.  This a part of the government’s official boycott of Israeli goods. So good luck to Prime Minister Michael Martin in landing his aircraft in Dublin.  

And despite some negative sentiment towards everything Israel, Elbit achieved over 32$B in backorders with Europe driving much of its export growth.  On a more personal muse.  The morning after Iran’s first attack on Israel (April 13 2024), I woke up not with fear and panic.  Well.  Okay.  Some of that.  But also great excitement regarding an investment opportunity which developed overnight.  Actually it was the wife’s suggestion.  After Israel successfully intercepted over three hundred missiles and drones – showcasing the strength of Israel’s defense industry- my wife had a eureka moment.  What better public relations for Israel’s defense industry.  Let’s buy stock in Elbit, a key player in that ecosystem.  We did.  And about eighteen months later we cashed in.  With about 150% profit.  This is not an endorsement to buy… blah, blah, blah….

Again.  Good luck to Prime Minister Martin.

(Posted August 21) Sometimes musings are terribly sad.  But should be shared.

Happy belated birthday beautiful Ariel.  Turned seven on August 5^th.  Thought about him and his younger brother Kfir and mother Shiri.  All murdered by Hamas shortly after their unbelievable and surreal abduction on Oct 7 2023.  

As I was driving home today.  “I Thank You Child” by Zakk Wylde shuffled onto my Spotify.  Always kills me, this song.  It was played by Yarden, the father who himself was held hostage, at the funeral of his family.  For Ariel and Kfir.  The lyrics chilling.  The frequent drum rolls haunting.

It was you who made living all worth the while

Oh, I thank you, my child

Comfort in your eyes 

For the warmth inside your smile

Faith’s done gone astray

It was you who made living all the while

All my fears repressed

Oh lovin’ you child it’s the best

This song.  Written almost thirty years ago.  Finds its devastating meaning today.  With the Bibas family tragedy.

How.

Listen to the song here:

(Posted August 18, 2026) And the beat goes on in the strait.  A bit quieter lately although may be heating up again with the 60day ‘ceasefire’ officially expired.  And while Iran occasionally lashed out over the last two months, they did not attack Israel.  How do you spell deterrence.  According to my Yiddisha mama, its spelled ‘Pftt.  Pftt.  Pftt‘. 

(August 14, 2026) Despite three years of varying degrees of warfare.  Moody’s biannual report of the Israeli economy was quite positive.  Basically, the report saw no pressures on Israel’s credit rating.  While the macro data remains strong, Israel still faces a complex geopolitical situation further complicated by upcoming elections (we pondered about how crazy that is in an earlier muse).  And Israeli’s inflation rate for the first half of 2026 fell to a historic five year low of 1.2% (vs Canada’s 2.6%).   As for my own pocketbook.  Haven’t had an infamous Israeli bank overdraft in years.  So all is fine. 

If that’s not enough economic voodoo talk for one musing.  According to one famous barometer.  Israel moved to second place in the Economist’s Big Mac Index.  Introduced in 1986, this tasty indicator compares the purchasing power parity across countries by measuring the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac -which most can relate to- against the benchmark U.S. burger.  So while a Big Mac in the U.S. costs $6.22.  In Israel it costs $7.67, the second most expensive place to buy the hamburger in the world,  Switzerland being the most pricey at a whopping (no reference to Wendy’s) $9.04.  While the cheapest Big Mac can be enjoyed in Indonesia at only $2.38.  Canada ranked 22^nd of the fifty-four countries considered, at $5.85.  Parity.  Smarity.  I’m going for my Big Mac fix.  Just after I finish writing this muse….

(August 11, 2026) Bravo Boy George.  We certainly will dance again!  And what better way than with his new reggae tune.  Now Boy George is dealing with a hostile backlash against his just stand for Israel.  Having to withdraw from London’s East End production of Jesus Christ Superstar where he was going to play – guess it.  King Herod.  Never a big Culture Club fan, but I am anyway -as a sign of support- going to download his greatest hits to my Spotify library.  And hoping to have a chance to buy a concert ticket should Boy George perform in Israel.  Kind of reminds me of Bob Dylan’s 1983 song Neighborhood Bully.  Also in defense of Israel.  I’m going to download that song as well.  Although don’t think he was hounded the way Boy George is now.  Sign of the times I guess.

+++++

Coming clean.  I sometimes find myself chanting, to no one in particular, that snappy little ditty ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’  Now why can’t we come up with something as catchy. With such an impressive gene pool of great Jewish songwriters. George Gershwin. Irving Berlin.  Burt Bacharach.  Carole King.  Neil Diamond.  Leanard Choen.  Paul Simon.  Gene Simmons, Amy Winehouse.  Bob Dylan.  And yes, even the Buddhist Boy George.  And still… gurnish!  No wonder we’re losing the global PR battle

(August 8, 2026) Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem.  Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black.  Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat.  For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos.  With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café.  While shouting ‘Shabbos!  Shabbos!’   Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas.  So the wife and I thought we would check it out.  And.  Yes.  Buy something to support the business.  Uproar.  Not.  Blocked entrances.  Not.  Storming the café.  Not.  Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers.  The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews.  Mostly teenagers.   And yes.  Shouting ‘Shabbos!  Shabbos!’  Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem.  Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed.  If you do, you’re misinformed.”  But I did enjoy my iced matcha.

(August 6, 2026) Here we go again.  Another round of forever negotiations.  As someone who negotiates for a living.  The way things are going in the straits.  If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire.  Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well.  I would choose the latter.

(August 3) Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head.  For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party.  No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl.  Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections.  Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold.  In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies.  Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26^th national election – five of them held since 2019. 

(August 1) Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy.  Neither really trusts the other.  And American military action, or its threat, continues.  I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison.  Possibly this weekend.  Yikes!  Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room.  Bottled water.  Canned food.  Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….

If it’s crazy here.  It’s insane in Italy.  With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area.  Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels.  The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected.  Although they deny involvement?!  This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy.  I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.

Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York.   But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic.  Maybe Mandami should be arrested!  Or at least impeached.  For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.

Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS

Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.

As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?

Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?

Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.

Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:

Bruce Brown.  Canadian born.  Now living in Israel (for a long time).  Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night.  He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025.  And wrote the1998 satire, “An Israeli is….”.   Bruce’s visuals are AI-assisted and created with ChatGPT under his inimitable visual concept and creative direction.  Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal.  With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic, irreverent and mischievous insights.

Perya games often attract a crowd for a reason. Standing near a booth during a fiesta lets you track the colors, follow the dice, and read the reactions around the table. The tension builds with every roll, yet nothing personal sits on the line when you choose to watch. The moment you place a bet, the same game can feel entirely different, because what used to be casual observation turns into a committed choice with a real outcome.

This guide breaks down the difference between watching a perya game and actually playing one, including how digital Perya and online color games shift the social feel of the experience.

Quick Overview

Spectatorship allows time to observe. A viewer can study color trends, listen to other players’ comments, and enjoy the drama without making an immediate wager. Participation requires a decision before the result, plus the emotional and financial weight that tends to follow each round. Digital perya adds another layer by moving the experience from a shared booth environment to a private screen.

The Core Difference: Distance vs Decision

Watching provides distance. A spectator can linger for multiple rounds, note which colors appear, and talk to friends nearby. No deadline exists to commit, and leaving the booth stays simple because no money has been placed.

Playing removes that cushion. A player selects before the outcome appears. In a traditional perya color game, the decision comes first—choose a color—then the operator rolls three colored dice. Philippine event references often describe the same basic structure: a color choice followed by a three-dice result.

Why Watching Can Feel Lighter

From the sidelines, everything becomes easier to take in. A spectator can catch small details: one player switching picks at the last second, someone celebrating loudly, or the operator preparing the next round. With no wager involved, attention can stay flexible.

Spectators also get to mentally “test” picks for free. A viewer might think, “I would have chosen red,” without any consequences. When a player makes that same pick with money attached, the result tends to land harder. A win may feel like relief, while a loss can lead to disappointment, surprise, or the urge to jump into the next round quickly.

A Fiesta Scenario: When a “Streak” Becomes a Trap

Consider Nico, a typical fiesta visitor. Nico starts out watching the Color Game from behind the crowd. After three rounds, red appears more than once, and the repetition begins to stand out. From a spectator’s angle, noticing a “streak” feels like harmless pattern-spotting.

Once Nico decides to play, the emotional temperature changes. Money becomes tied to a color choice, and the next roll becomes personally important. The key issue is predictability: seeing repeated results does not create proof that the next outcome will follow the same direction. A sequence of earlier colors offers history, not certainty.

The Social Experience: Booth Culture vs Private Play

Perya in the Philippines is often tied to community celebrations. A traditional peryahan sits alongside rides, food stalls, and other booths, creating an atmosphere that feels closer to public entertainment than a quiet gambling setting. Many descriptions of perya culture focus on that social environment—neighbors gathering, friends commenting on outcomes, and strangers reacting together in real time.

This setting affects the split between watching and playing. Someone standing beside the booth can laugh, talk, and observe without the same pressure a bettor feels. Players stay inside the same lively space, yet attention narrows to selecting, waiting, and reacting.

Online perya removes much of that layer. The game may look familiar, but the crowd energy, booth sounds, and spontaneous conversation get replaced by an app interface. The experience becomes more individual, even when the rules resemble the ones used in physical perya booths.

Online Perya and Digital Color Games: What Carries Over, What Changes

Searches for “online perya” reflect how the term “perya” goes beyond a direct English translation of fair or carnival. In local use, it connects to fiestas, attractions, booth games, and shared social time. A digital platform can copy the mechanics of a particular perya game while leaving behind the environment that gives it much of its personality.

GameZone’s perya-related materials, for example, describe digital versions of familiar concepts such as Color Game and other arcade-style titles. Its Color Game format references six colors and three dice and includes reminders that previous results do not function as reliable predictors for future rounds. Gameplay familiarity and lived experience do not always match, especially when the setting shifts from a shared booth to a personal screen.

Pattern-Watching and the Illusion of Predictive Power

A common mistake involves turning observation into assumed advantage. A spectator might watch a sequence such as:

Red → Red → Blue → Red

and start looking for a rule. That mental move makes sense because humans naturally search for order in random sequences. Gambling research often discusses cognitive biases tied to pattern detection, including how representativeness and availability can influence judgment in chance-based activities such as dice tasks and bingo-style environments.

A pattern that feels meaningful may still fail as a guide. Past outcomes help describe what already occurred, rather than guarantee what happens next. Treating streaks as certainty can push decisions that rely more on emotion than probability.

Watching vs Playing: How Reactions and Behavior Shift

A spectator noticing repeated colors may treat it as casual information. A player seeing the same repetition may feel pressure to act on it, even without any real evidence that the next roll will follow the same direction.

Choice also reshapes emotional response. A viewer can imagine different picks without consequence. A player must commit to one selection, which makes uncertainty feel immediate. When a result conflicts with expectations, a spectator continues watching. A player may feel disappointment and consider changing strategy or betting again quickly.

Other people’s reactions land differently too. From the sidelines, celebrations and complaints add entertainment. From inside the game, those reactions can affect mood, focus, and decision timing, especially between rounds.

Risk and Responsible Play: When Money Enters the Picture

The gap between watching and playing becomes more serious when wagers are involved. Spectating stays low-risk entertainment. Playing introduces financial exposure and the need for self-control.

Time and budget planning can matter more than “reading” the table. Increasing a stake due to frustration, treating near-misses as signals, or believing a result is “due” can lead to impulsive choices. PAGCOR’s responsible gaming guidance commonly emphasizes setting time and money limits, expecting that losses can happen, avoiding borrowed funds, not chasing losses, and using self-exclusion tools when stepping away becomes difficult.

GameZone Notes: Licensing, Age Limits, and Official Sources

GameZone, also referred to as GZone in some materials, appears on PAGCOR’s regulatory listing as GAMEZONE (TOTAL GAMEZONE XTREME INCORPORATED), and the platform identifies itself as PAGCOR-licensed. Its terms and login flow indicate access for qualified users aged 21 and above, including an age confirmation step.

For iPhone users, the Philippine App Store listing for GameZone – #1 Tongits Platform identifies DigiPlus as the developer and lists an iOS 15.0 or later requirement. Verifying developer details and using official store listings can help avoid unofficial download sources.

FAQ

Is watching a perya game different from playing one?
Watching involves observation without wagering, while playing requires a personal decision and introduces financial risk.

Does watching many rounds help predict the next result?
Multiple past outcomes can show what has happened, but a sequence alone does not establish a dependable prediction for the next round.

Can people under 21 use GameZone?
GameZone’s terms and login requirements restrict registration and play to qualified individuals aged 21 and above.

(Ed. note: If you haven’t read Part 1 of “The Red Inheritance,” you can find it here: The Red Inheritance.)

By H.C. Piloski
FOREWORD
The Wider Circle
What follows is not a continuation so much as an expansion. The first part traced a single thread — a granddaughter’s attempt to understand the man whose life shaped her own. But every thread, once pulled, reveals others. And every inheritance, once examined, widens into a circle.

This second part enters that wider circle.
It begins with a photograph discovered only after the first part was finished: a small, creased image of a protest on Carlton Street in June 1953. In the blur of bodies stands a young man — Rachel’s grandfather — raising his hand in defense of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two American Jews condemned in a trial that divided a continent. That photograph opened a door Rachel had not known existed.
It revealed that her grandfather’s world was not confined to Winnipeg’s North End, nor to the furnace rooms and union halls where he spent his working life. His convictions reached outward — to New York, to Europe, to Israel and Palestine, to the global struggles of the twentieth century.
This part follows those convictions.
It traces his years in the CPR union, where he learned solidarity not as a slogan but as a practice. It follows his activism within the Jewish left — activism that began long before his retirement, rooted in the political commitments he carried through the railway yards, the union halls, and the neighbourhood streets of the North End. It examines his belief in Israel’s creation and his unwavering insistence on Palestinian rights. It explores his commitment to nuclear disarmament, his distrust of state power, his hope for a world that might yet choose justice over fear.
It also follows the path of his son — Rachel’s father — who walked beside him for a time before turning away, carrying both admiration and ambivalence. And it follows Rachel herself, as she moves from personal memory into historical inquiry, discovering that her grandfather’s life was part of a larger, often contradictory, often painful, always human story.
This part is not an attempt to sanctify him. It is an attempt to understand him — and the century he lived in.
The shadows are real. The contradictions are real. The hope is real.
This story is one thread in a larger tapestry of inherited memory and consequence. And the circle continues to widen.

PROLOGUE
Rachel had always believed her grandfather’s world ended at the corner of Selkirk and Salter — the bakery, the union hall, the old brick houses of the North End. It was a geography of memory, not history. A place where men argued about wages and women argued about recipes, where politics was spoken in kitchens and carried in pockets, folded like prayer.
But after he died, and after she finished the part she thought would be the end of it, she found the photograph.
It was small, creased, almost brittle. Her father had tucked it into a folder he hadn’t opened in years. On the back, in her grandfather’s handwriting, were the words: Carlton Street, June 1953.
On the front: a crowd of men and women standing outside the old Winnipeg Free Press building. Some held signs. Some shouted. Some looked frightened. And there, almost lost in the blur of bodies, was her zaida — younger than she had ever seen him, his hair black, his jaw set, his hand raised in a gesture that was not anger but insistence.
She didn’t know what the protest was about until she looked up the date.
The Rosenberg execution.

Her grandfather had stood on Carlton Street, in Winnipeg, protesting the death of two American Jews accused of betraying their country. He had stood there as though the fate of strangers thousands of miles away was somehow his own.
That was the moment Rachel understood: Her grandfather’s world had never been small. It had only been local.
The circle was wider — far wider — than she had ever imagined.
And if she wanted to understand him, truly understand him, she would have to follow that circle outward: from Winnipeg to New York, from union halls to espionage files, from the Holocaust’s shadow to the contradictions of Israel and Palestine, from Cold War paranoia to the fragile hope of peace.
She would have to learn why a man who loved his family so fiercely also believed he owed something to the world.
She would have to learn why her father followed him for a time, and why he stopped.
She would have to learn what it meant to inherit not only memory, but conviction.
Rachel closed the folder. She packed a suitcase. She booked a flight.
The wider circle had opened. She stepped into it.

THE UNION MAN
The first thing Rachel noticed about the CPR archives was the smell — dust, paper, and the faint metallic tang of old machinery, as though the building itself remembered the trains that once thundered past it. She had come here reluctantly, almost skeptically. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find. Her grandfather had worked for the railway for decades, but she had always thought of it as a job, not a calling.
She was wrong.
The archivist, a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses, handed her a stack of union newsletters from the 1950s and 60s. “Your grandfather’s name appears quite a bit,” he said, almost casually. “He wasn’t just a member. He was active.”
Active. The word felt too small.
She flipped through the pages. There he was — David Levinson — listed as a shop steward, then as a delegate, then as a representative on a labour committee that had petitioned the CPR for safer working conditions. She found minutes from meetings where he had argued for wage parity, for antidiscrimination clauses, for the hiring of more immigrant workers. She found a letter he had written to the union president, urging solidarity with striking textile workers in Montreal.
She found, tucked between two newsletters, a faded photograph of him standing outside the CPR yards, his arm around a fellow worker, both of them smiling in a way that suggested victory, or at least defiance.
Her grandfather had not been a man who simply held opinions. He had been a man who acted.
But what struck her most was not the union work itself — it was how deeply it intertwined with the politics she had only begun to understand. In the margins of one newsletter, in her grandfather’s unmistakable handwriting, she found a note:
Solidarity is the only weapon the poor have.
It wasn’t a slogan. It was a belief.
And suddenly, she understood something she had missed entirely: her grandfather’s political life had not begun after retirement. It had begun here — in the yards, in the meetings, in the long nights spent drafting resolutions and writing letters. His involvement in the Jewish left, his membership in the Communist Party, his activism for peace and justice — all of it had grown from the soil of the railway.
He had carried his convictions with him to work every day, tucked into his lunch pail alongside sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. He had argued politics during breaks, organized meetings after shifts, and spent weekends in smoky rooms debating the future of workers, of Jews, of the world.
Rachel felt a strange mixture of pride and unease. Pride, because she could see the beginnings of the man she had written about in the first part — the stubbornness, the moral clarity, the refusal to accept injustice as inevitable. Unease, because she realized how little she had understood him.
She had written about his politics, but not their roots. She had written about his convictions, but not their labour. She had written about his life, but not his work.
Her father had tried to tell her, once. He had said, “Your zaida wasn’t just a leftist. He was a union man. That’s where it all started.” She had nodded, distracted, thinking she already knew.
She hadn’t known anything.
She turned another page and found a brief report from a meeting of the Jewish left organization — dated 1961. Her grandfather had spoken about the dangers of nuclear proliferation, about the moral responsibility of workers to oppose war, about the need for solidarity across borders. He had been involved long before retirement. He had been involved while raising a family, while working shifts, while navigating the Cold War’s suspicion and fear.
He had lived his politics openly, stubbornly, deliberately.
Rachel closed the newsletter and sat back.
The wider circle was not only global. It was personal.

CARLTON STREET, 1953
Rachel didn’t intend to go to Carlton Street. She had only meant to walk, to clear her head after the shock of seeing her grandfather in that photograph. But her feet carried her there anyway, as though the city itself remembered what she had forgotten.
The former Winnipeg Free Press building — the Old Lady of Carlton Street — was still there, though it no longer housed reporters or printing presses. Its stone façade, once the backdrop to arguments, deadlines, and the hum of a city’s news, now sheltered provincial civil servants shuffling between offices, fluorescent lights, and government memos. Rachel stood on the sidewalk where her grandfather had once stood, where he had raised his hand in protest on a June afternoon in 1953, demanding justice for two American Jews he had never met. The building had changed purpose, but not presence. It watched her with the same quiet solidity it must have offered him, as though it remembered everything.
She tried to imagine the scene: the crowd, the signs, the tension, the fear. The way people must have looked over their shoulders, worried about being photographed, named, watched — but her grandfather and the few other protesters looked up, not down, toward the illuminated news bulletin above the entrance.
She tried to picture him — young, determined, stubborn — standing there with the conviction that what happened in New York mattered in Winnipeg, that injustice anywhere was a threat everywhere, that solidarity was not a slogan but a responsibility. She imagined him arriving after a shift at the CPR yards, still smelling faintly of grease and metal, carrying the political commitments he had already been living for years: union solidarity, Jewish left activism, Communist meetings held in borrowed basements and back rooms. Carlton Street had not been an exception. It had been an extension of the life he was already leading.
She wondered if her father had been there too, a boy holding his father’s hand, not understanding the words but understanding the urgency.
She wondered why no one had told her.
She wondered what else she didn’t know.
A bus hissed to a stop beside her. A group of teenagers spilled out, laughing, unaware of the ghosts beneath their feet. Rachel felt a sudden, sharp ache — not grief, exactly, but recognition. Her grandfather had lived in a world where politics were not abstractions but obligations. He had believed that the fate of strangers mattered. He had believed that justice was not a matter of geography.
She took out the photograph again. She held it up to the building. The past and present did not align, but the gesture felt necessary.
Her phone buzzed. A message from her father: “Call me when you can. I found something else you should see.”
She stared at the screen. Her father had always been careful with his words, careful with his memories, careful with the parts of his life that touched his father’s politics. He had followed his father for a time — marches, meetings, pamphlets — before turning away, quietly, without explanation.
Rachel lowered the photograph, walked back to where she had parked, unlocked the car, and slid into the driver’s seat. She started the engine and pulled away from Carlton Street, heading north through the familiar grid of the city, toward her father’s house.
The wider circle was widening again. And she was being pulled into it.

THE FATHER’S BOX
Her father lived in the same house Rachel had grown up in, though it felt smaller now, as though the walls had absorbed decades of arguments, silences, and the quiet persistence of memory. He met her at the door with a look she couldn’t quite read — not worry, not excitement, but something like resignation. From the back room Rachel could hear her mother speaking softly to someone.
“I found more,” he said. He didn’t hug her. He never did. But he stepped aside to let her in, which was its own kind of embrace.
The dining room table was covered with papers. Not scattered — arranged. Her father had always been meticulous, even when the rest of his life felt chaotic. Rachel saw folders, envelopes, a few brittle photographs, and a cardboard box she recognized instantly.
Her grandfather’s box.
It had sat in the basement for years, untouched, because her father had insisted it was “just old papers.” Rachel had believed him. She had believed a lot of things he said about her grandfather, because he said them with the authority of someone who had lived through the same storms.
Now she wasn’t sure what he had lived through, or what he had chosen to forget.
Her father gestured to the box. “I didn’t want to open it before,” he said. “I wasn’t ready.”
Rachel sat down. “What changed?”
He hesitated. “You did.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t ask. She reached for the box. The cardboard was soft with age, the edges worn. She lifted the lid.
Inside were papers from the Jewish left organization her grandfather had devoted himself to — not only after retirement, but long before it. Meeting minutes. Pamphlets. Letters. A stack of mimeographed newsletters with headlines about peace, justice, workers’ rights, and the dangers of nuclear proliferation. She saw dates from the 1950s, the 60s, the 70s — decades of activism layered like sediment.
And then she saw it — a folder labeled Holocaust Education Committee.
Her breath caught.
She opened it carefully. Inside were copies of speeches her grandfather had given before the Winnipeg School Board, urging them to include Holocaust education in the curriculum. There were letters he had written to the Minister of Education, arguing that genocide was not a Jewish tragedy but a human one, and that children needed to understand how hatred becomes policy.
There were notes in his handwriting — fierce, urgent, uncompromising:
Memory is not passive. Memory is protection. Teach them before someone else teaches them to hate.
Rachel felt her throat tighten.
Her father watched her quietly. “He believed in that work,” he said. “More than anything.”
She looked up. “You never told me.”
He exhaled, long and slow. “I didn’t think you wanted to know. You were always… focused on the personal. The family stories. The furnace. The neighbourhood. I didn’t think you cared about the politics.”
“I care now,” she said.
He nodded, but his expression shifted — something darker, something unresolved.
“There’s more,” he said. “About me.”
Rachel waited.
Her father sat down across from her, folding his hands as though preparing for confession.
“I followed him,” he said. “For a while. The meetings. The marches. The Rosenberg protest — I was there. I was a kid, but I remember the shouting, the fear. I remember him telling me that justice mattered even when it was dangerous.”
Rachel felt a jolt — not shock, but recognition. She had always sensed there was something her father wasn’t saying.
“But I couldn’t stay,” he said. “Not like he did. I didn’t have his… certainty. His stubbornness. His faith in people. I admired him, but I couldn’t be him.”
Rachel didn’t speak. She let him continue.
“He never blamed me,” her father said. “But I blamed myself. For a long time.”
Rachel reached across the table and touched his hand. It was the first time she had done that in years.
Her father swallowed hard. “There’s something else,” he said. “Something you need to see.”
He stood, walked to the hallway, and returned with a thin envelope. He placed it in front of her.
Rachel opened it.
Inside was an RCMP surveillance report. Her father’s name was on it.
She felt the room tilt.
“They questioned me once,” he said quietly. “About meetings I’d gone to with him. They wanted to know who he talked to. Who he met with. I never told you. I never told anyone.”
Rachel looked at him — really looked at him — and saw the weight he had carried, the fear he had inherited, the silence he had chosen.
Her grandfather had lived his politics openly. Her father had lived them in the shadows.
And she — she had lived them unknowingly.
The circle widened again.
Rachel closed the envelope. She didn’t know what to say. But she knew what she had to do.

THE EDUCATION FILES
Rachel carried the box home like something fragile, though it wasn’t the cardboard she was protecting — it was the weight inside it. She set it on her kitchen table, cleared a space around it, and opened it again, this time slowly, deliberately, as though she were entering a room she had been warned about.
The Holocaust Education Committee folder lay on top. She lifted it out and spread the contents across the table. The papers were yellowed, but the ink was still sharp, still insistent. Her grandfather’s handwriting — angular, impatient, unmistakably his — ran along the margins of typed documents like commentary from a man who could never leave a thought alone.
She read the first speech.
It was addressed to the Winnipeg School Board, dated 1978. Her grandfather argued that Holocaust education was not simply about history, but about vigilance. He wrote that genocide begins with language, with silence, with the normalization of cruelty. He wrote that children needed to understand how ordinary people become complicit, how bureaucracies become weapons, how prejudice becomes policy.
He wrote:
If we do not teach them what happened, someone else will teach them why it should happen again.
Rachel felt a chill. She had known her grandfather was passionate about justice, but she had not known he had stood before the school board, before elected officials, before committees, insisting that memory was a civic duty.
She turned to the next document — a letter to the Minister of Education. Her grandfather wrote about survivors in Winnipeg who had never been asked to speak, whose stories were fading, whose trauma had been carried quietly through decades of Canadian politeness. He argued that the province had a responsibility to give those stories a place in classrooms, not as Jewish history, but as human warning.
Rachel imagined him writing these letters late at night, after work, after dinner, after everyone else had gone to bed. She imagined him sitting at the kitchen table — the same table where she had once eaten soup and listened to him tell stories about the neighbourhood — never knowing the depth of the battles he fought outside it.
She picked up another sheet — minutes from a meeting of the Jewish left organization. Her grandfather had spoken about the rise of neoNazi groups in Canada, about the danger of complacency, about the need for education as prevention. His words were blunt, unadorned, almost harsh:
We cannot rely on governments to remember. We must force them to.
Rachel sat back, overwhelmed.
This was not the gentle man who had fixed her bicycle, who had slipped her coins for candy, who had told her stories about growing up in the old North End. This was a man who had carried the Holocaust not as memory but as mandate. A man who believed that justice required confrontation. A man who refused to let silence do its work. A man who had fought fascism all his life — including as a Canadian soldier overseas during the Second World War.
She reached for another document — a list of schools where he had spoken. West Kildonan. Elmwood. St. James. River Heights. Transcona. Schools across the city, across neighbourhoods that had never known him, never known his history, never known the weight he carried.
She wondered how many students remembered him. She wondered what he had said. She wondered if any of them had gone home that day and asked their parents questions that had never been asked before.
Her phone buzzed. A message from her father:
Did you find the education files?
She typed back: Yes.
A moment later: He was proud of that work. He didn’t say it, but he was.
Rachel stared at the screen. Her father had inherited the silence, not the certainty. She had inherited the questions.
She looked again at the papers on the table. Her grandfather’s voice seemed to rise from them — urgent, insistent, unyielding.
This was not a man who had lived quietly. This was a man who had lived deliberately.
And she was only beginning to understand him.
Rachel gathered the papers, placed them back in the folder, and closed the box. She knew what she had to do next.
She needed to see the archives. She needed to see the records. She needed to see the world he had fought against — and the world he had fought for.
The circle widened again.
And she followed it.
Closing Note
Rachel sat at her kitchen table long after the papers were back in the box. The city outside moved on, unaware of the man whose life she had just unfolded — a life lived in conviction, in struggle, in stubborn hope.
She understood now that her grandfather’s politics had not been theory but duty, carried through union halls, marches, classrooms, and quiet nights at the kitchen table. She understood that her father had lived in the shadow of that certainty, and that she herself had inherited something different — the responsibility to listen.
She touched the photograph from Carlton Street, the crease worn soft by time. Her grandfather’s raised hand seemed less like protest now and more like insistence: Pay attention. Remember. Act.
She closed the box gently.
And now, she realized, she was listening too.
H.C. Piloski is the one who listens when the past begins to speak again.

Comment from Veronika (Oct. 1): Thanks

On a weekday afternoon in a community centre, the loudest table in the room is usually the Mah Jongg game, with the scoring done in pencil and the snacks taken very seriously. Every spring the National Mah Jongg League sends out a new card of hands, and for the first few weeks afterwards the games run slowly while everyone learns them.

When the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York staged Project Mah Jongg in 2010, in a show that later travelled to other museums, it treated the game as social history, following it from the 1920s through suburban living rooms and Catskills bungalow colonies. The exhibition’s argument was that a game hands down the room it was played in and the people around the table along with its rules, and those are the parts most likely to change when a game moves onto a screen.

Games with a season

Many of the games people remember best were tied to an occasion. Card tables came out at the cottage in July and went back into the closet after Labour Day. A euchre night, especially in southwestern Ontario, belonged to a hall or a legion branch. Canasta, which arrived from South America after the war and was a full-blown craze by the early 1950s, usually meant four friends on a Tuesday.

Mah Jongg keeps its own calendar. The League was founded in New York in 1937, and its annual card resets the game each year, so players across the continent learn the same new hands at the same time. That stops a game passed from one circle of friends to the next from splitting into a hundred local versions.

One card, one wheel

A game handed on by word of mouth tends to pick up house rules and personal habits as it moves between generations. Sit down at a Mah Jongg table or a physical casino wheel, and much of the game is governed by unwritten etiquette – verbal call bets handed down by older players, informal table compromises, and generational betting habits. Software replaces that social latitude with strict standardization. In a game of online roulette, for instance, the wheel geometry, bet timing, and paytables are hardcoded into the code, leaving no room for the local habits or informal dealer calls that shaped physical play for generations. What the software can’t pass along is the room. Live versions of the game, streamed from a studio with a person spinning the wheel and calling the number, bring back a voice and a face. The regulars are harder to stream. A studio table has players but no Thursday night, and none of them knows whose turn it is to bring the coffee.

At a card night, somebody always announced the last round, and the evening ended when the host started folding up the tables and people went looking for their coats. A screen doesn’t do that, so adults who play online for entertainment are better off settling a spending limit and a stopping time before they begin.

What outlasts the game

The summer resorts ran to a calendar as well, and Grossinger’s, which closed in 1986, is the one people still name first. The Forward’s piece on how Jews learned to be American at Grossinger’s, which this paper reprinted, reviews We Met at Grossinger’s, a documentary about the resort’s dining, dancing and shows and the thousands of couples who met there. The review doesn’t mention a single card game, and it doesn’t need to. What people remember about those summers is who they sat with. Ask someone who played in a regular game for years about a particular hand and they’ll usually draw a blank. They’ll know exactly who always turned up late with the rugelach, though, and whose kitchen the game moved to after the old community hall closed. Those are the details the next set of players inherits.

The League’s card is a large part of what keeps Mah Jongg going. It gives every table something new to argue over each year (plenty of groups order their cards together so nobody starts behind), and when next spring’s card arrives, the arguing at community centres in Winnipeg will start well before anyone has learned the new hands.