Brookwrite

Flecting again

by Doug Brook
Southern Jewish Life columnist

Home is where you hang your houndstooth hat. Great distances, and even smaller ones, from home are often filled only by tiny mementos, brief reflections, and old habits that die harder than drawling an extra syllable into every word in the English language except "orange," which is reduced to just one.

For example, to this day at any Saturday morning service, when the Rabbi announces the page for the full kaddish, the voice of Uncle Max Sarasohn channels through mine, as if still in the row in front of us, muttering "kaddish shalem, not kaddish shalem." Nobody knows why I do it. That's their loss.

As we begin a new year, and recover from the requisite hangover, it's time to reminisce on years past with solemnity, humility, and perhaps a fleeting tinge of regret.

But when you get sick of doing that, read these highlights of recent years that also ended in four. For example...

On June 20th, 1984, the United States and Israel held unprecedented joint military exercises. This disturbed many of Israel's neighbors, until representatives of the eighty-fourth battalion, based in California, assured them that the joint exercises were purely medicinal.

One month later, on July 20th, the U.N. Security Council demanded a cease-fire in the years-long Iran-Iraq War and, while they were at it, took the opportunity to condemn Israel again, this time for not resolving the conflict by then.

That was just before the July 23rd election of the Eleventh Knesset in Israel, an event which showed that even though people don't understand how or why people get elected to Parliament, somehow they still do.

A senior Israeli election official said, "at least it's not the Electoral College." The same official later admitted that he first became involved in Israeli government because he heard that they "have a lot more parties than the Americans."

This election led to the formation of a National Unity government as quickly as possible, two months later. It was co-headed by Shimon Peres as the Vice Premier, Yitzchak Shamir as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Jerry Mathers as The Beaver.

After the success of June's joint military exercises, on December 11th the U.S. and Israeli navies held joint exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean. At first they were stymied by new smoking prohibitions aboard naval vessels, but things got better when they realized their ships had so many water pipes.

Looking back another ten years, on September 10th, 1974, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin started a four-day visit to Washington D.C., holding extensive talks with President Gerald Ford and senior administration officials, trying to clarify once and for all where the Washington Senators had moved this time. Once Rabin learned that they it was a baseball team that left Washington and not the U.S. Senate, he flew home in disappointment.

On November 20th, the UNESCO condemned Israel for its archaeological digging in Jerusalem, acting on concerns that they might uncover stuff that further undermines claims that Israel doesn't belong there.

Jumping ahead, on October 17th, 1994, Israeli and Jordanian negotiators initialed a peace treaty, agreeing that if things went well for a few days they might come back and sign their full names.

This was almost as significant to the future of the Jewish people for years to come as the previous month's premiere of Friends on NBC.

Jumping even farther ahead, on April 30th, 2004, a U.S. court ruled that John Demjanjuk was, in fact, a Nazi guard. He remained in the news for several more years, as multiple judicial appeals sought to overturn the lower court's ruling of how to pronounce "Demjanjuk."

Later that summer, in Athens, Gal Fridman became the first Israeli athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, opening the eyes of Jews around the world to the heretofore inconceivable reality that windsurfing was an Olympic sport.

Finally, in January, 2014, both readers of this column decided once again that, despite their experience reading this column, they'd still look at the rest of the magazine.

Doug Brook is a writer in Silicon Valley who read the novel "Nineteen Eighty Four" in 1984, just for the irony. For past columns, other writings, and more, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, like facebook.com/the.beholders.eye.