Carol Bergman

My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.

 

― Mary Wollstonecraft,  A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792

 

Desire has trimmed the sails, and Circumstance brings but the breeze to fill them.

 

-George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, 1876

 

In the end, the courage of women can't be stamped out. And stories - the big ones, the true ones - can be caught but never killed.

 

― Ronan Farrow, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, 2019

 

 

 

He holds her hand, which she reads as fraternal. Or, as taking her to the edge again, usually at the moment he announces departures. In that way, the seduction remains imminent, and she feels safe.

 

They are in a neighborhood very close to her home. This, in itself, makes her hopeful. But he decides to take a cab. Too lazy, he says. Working hard all day, so I'll walk you eastward, then I will leave you.  

 

And then, Let's go to the next uptown street. We'll catch a cab there.

 

She is not going home tonight, she realizes, noting the shift of pronoun to "we." 

 

Block after endless block in the mellow summer night and he is still holding her hand. She says, uncomfortably: You are holding my hand. He says, earnestly: Yes, I am.

 

That's so sweet, she says, pretending instead of feeling. As though it made any difference.  She drops his hand and shifts from his left side to his right.  She considers running away, fast.

 

Why did you do that?  he asks.

I don't want to knock you with my bag, she says, frightened.

 

She hopes he will forget he was holding her hand. But he doesn't. She has shifted sides and now he takes it again.

 

His arm is strong and tanned.

The skin on his hand is rough.

He is wearing  a white linen short-sleeved shirt.

He is holding her hand very tightly.

  ***

Less than an hour ago, he had scooted close to her on the banquette and kissed her cheek tenderly. She couldn't read it, at first. He had been to a picnic before meeting her, he said. All the participants, save one, were gay. The insouciant, seductive mood of these gay men was still with him. I escaped quickly, he said. Their conversation was shallow and didn't interest me.

 

And the food?

The food was good. They're in the business, wine and food. They meet in the park once a week during the summer and outdo each other.

 

And who invited you?

 

The former girlfriend of a friend. I couldn't say no. I earned some points by attending, but I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be here with you.

 

When he arrived at the restaurant he was breathless, and demanding. Where is the waiter, he asked. I need a drink.

 

The waiter had an ersatz Anglo name on his tag.

What's your real name? he asked.

His tone was derisive, even cruel.

 

She knew at once that the scorn was sleight of hand, nothing more. But the waiter blanched and left quickly. He had  a sculpted Roman face, and he looked kind. She wondered if he could rescue her.

 

Then, when the incident faded, and the drink arrived, she allowed herself to breathe, to move on. She had to conserve her strength for the denouement.

 

2.

 

Back out on the street in the mellow summer night, his arm is around her waist.  He hails a cab and says: You must come over now. 

 

He is wandering around the apartment like a lost dog. She imagines puppies shadowing him, nipping at his toes. The television and the stereo are covered with white towels. A document is open on the computer. She remains a schoolgirl in schoolgirl clothes, unable to escape, paralyzed. Her life, her ambition, has been interrupted, but only momentarily.  

 

Dedicated to the survivors.

 

 

In traumatic conditions, people think about where they stand amidst larger forces -- and they think about the why as well as the how of life. 

 

-Timothy Snyder, Substack, 12/6/2025

 

'So then you're free?'
'Yes, I'm free,' said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.                                                                                                             

                                                   - Franz Kafka, Amerika, 1924

 

 

In the morning, in the evening, and at night these days, I imagine the small town where I live seen from above by satellites circling the earth. Specially designed instruments are recording our sufferation, as the Jamaicans call it, and sending distress signals to friends and allies overseas. From afar, we appear as distorted, uncouth figures, the detritus of a once proud, functioning nation state. The arrival of masked gunmen exuding the stench of medieval warriors descends like a thick fog on our communities and in our schools. We blow whistles to warn of their arrival, but the threat of inchoate violence penetrates every waking hour. We often feel as though we are being smashed with utmost force, if not physically, then spiritually. We march, we protest, we stand in silent vigil, we attend gatherings with kindred souls, we lay flowers on killing fields, we pray. Some days these antidotes suggested by our pundits and psychologists work, and some days they do not. Yet, we carry on regardless. There is no other choice. 

 

There are those among us, many of whom consider themselves "liberals," who maintain a strict cordon sanitaire around their lives. They do not read the newspapers, or watch the news, or worry about ICE arriving to sweep documented and undocumented brown people into "detention." Why not? I cannot say, but their silence and disregard feels callous at times. I wonder what they are saying to their children, or how they are protecting them from the  hellish realities of our present moment, a paraphrase of Tina Brown's substack today. It is wry, in the British tradition, and often makes me smile, a welcome facial expression after yet another overseas massacre and a lunatic with a gun still at large in Providence, RI.

 

I must not end this blog post, my 50th this year, on such a sour and forbidding note. Timothy Snyder suggests we make eye contact and small talk with everyone we meet, thus "affirming" them and listening deeply to their struggles and point of view. It is a deeply humane practice, and one I attempt to strengthen every day to counteract the negative loop in my head and to affirm my own engagement. Just this morning at the gym I met a buff young guy who works for our local utility company. He has two teenaged kids he worries about and mentioned the tragedy of Rob Reiner's drug-addicted son murdering his parents. I didn't ask this young father who he voted for, of if he voted, but if we continue to converse and get to know one another, I'll make an attempt. It will be my contribution to swinging the next election.

When you allow Palestinians and Jews to study together in the same school, it actually changes their brain chemistry… that's how healing begins.

 

-Amal Mattar, Hand in Hand, Alumna

 

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears...

 

-William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality

 

 

 

As an educator, a parent, and a descendant of the Jewish Holocaust, I think about the next generation, not just in the United States, but all over the world. As a journalist, I search for stories that promise a peaceful future. I remember my own childhood in New York City where the invisible walls of race and class were insurmountable for many. I grew up above 96th Street, but below 125th Street, what political scientists call the "interface." Rochelle, my best friend in elementary school, lived above 125th Street. I've written about Rochelle before, but she came to mind again today as I was reading the Hand in Hand newsletter. Rochelle's mother was a nurse, my mother was a doctor. Both women worked at Planned Parenthood, and they were also good friends. I don't know how Rochelle's mother got her into PS 75, far away from their home, but she did, perhaps with my mother's help. Every morning she picked me up and we walked down West End Avenue together. At the end of the day, we walked back up West End Avenue, walking and giggling and talking, and when Rochelle's mother picked her up to go home, they disappeared behind the invisible wall where Harlem began. Eventually I was able to articulate what that meant, but when Rochelle and I were children, our friendship was all that mattered. Rochelle and I were in the same class in school, our mothers worked together, we loved each other. Children do not experience the walls adults have constructed in their Jim Crow or apartheid laws.

 

It's admirable that in the midst of a war zone, in a divided, violent society, there are parents and teachers, Arabs and Jews, working for a peaceful future for their children. Their utopian ideals have not been shattered. What can an engaged, caring American citizen learn from them as the year turns to 2026?

 

1.    To sustain hope, we begin small, we change slowly. Hand in Hand began with only 50 children in 1998; it now has six campuses. USAID funding has been lost, but the project continues to flourish. Bilingual, it serves 2,000 children and is partially funded by the Israeli government. If ever there is a Palestinian state, and a semblance of restitution and reconciliation, perhaps there will be a Hand in Hand project in the West Bank also.

 

2.    When children are in proximity, they play together, they ease into connection. When adults are in proximity, amd their children are playing together, they talk and socialize. As an act of resistance, and despite fear and hesitation, we must continue to talk to everyone in our lives with an open, tender heart, and with civility.

 

3.    By modeling civic inclusion and equality, children learn civic inclusion and equality. Let us ask ourselves: Are our communities truly inclusive?

 

In November 2014, one of the Hand in Hand Schools was subjected to an arson attack. The school was defaced with anti-Arab graffiti. Just a few weeks ago, a house owned by the President of the Black Cultural Center in New Paltz, the town in Upstate New York where I live, was defaced with racist graffiti. In Israel,  the attack brought out a show of community support for the school. The Israeli police arrested a number of suspects. In New Paltz, there was a community meeting, but no arrests have as yet been made. The 5,000 + miles between these two locations feels like a stone's throw across a wall.

How can people profess faith in Jesus ― who preached love, mercy and care for the oppressed ― while supporting policies that punish immigrants, demonize LGBTQ people and glorify cruelty?

 

Caroline Bologna, Huffington Post, 11/15/2025

 

 

Well, I hope we care. I hope we care because the culture of contempt that has become normalized in this country threatens to destroy us.

          

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, Washington National Cathedral, 1/22/2025

 

 

 

My cousin Randy sent me a link to a Huffington Post article about Maga Christians. He'd forwarded it to the Pastor of the Lutheran church in Ohio where he grew up; his sisters still attend the church. He wanted to know what the Pastor thought of the article. She wrote back a long email, somewhat pained I'd say as she admitted she was frustrated by her parishioners who are not thinking clearly. She loves the blues and the reds with a Pastor's love, of course, but is frustrated by their near total abnegation to "authority." How to educate them and still encourage their faith? How to help them "see" what's going down in too many neighborhoods in our beleaguered country? This is a progressive, thoughtful Pastor's challenge.

 

The moral questions raised by the violent actions, hate speech, and political demands of messianic Christians in America, messianic Jews in Israel, and Hindus in Kashmir, among too many religions and sects throughout the world, are challenging, if not dumbfounding. No one Pastor, Priest, Reverend, Bishop, Rabbi or Iman can untangle them easily. After all, they are men and women of faith, they are mortals, they are as flawed as the rest of us. But they do have a responsibility to their flock. If they become apologists for immorality, or amorality, they become unintentional collaborators with murderous regimes.

 

I'm reminded of Hitler, born into a Catholic family in Catholic Austria, he moved to Protestant Germany where the Nazi Party's propaganda assured the populace that the Führer had the same beliefs and goals as Martin Luther. Luther's teachings contributed to the rationale for the genocide. He even wrote a screed called "Jews and Their Lies." 

 

It is nearly a year since the Bishop of Washington Cathedral, the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, spoke to the politicians in the pews without obfuscation, caution, or apology. If the targeted cruelty of the current administration does not abate in 2026, we must ask ourselves what small actions we can take every day to assuage the pain of those who suffer the most in our communities. Asking questions of professionals who educate and console is one way to challenge the ecosystem of hate. My cousin's email to the Pastor in Ohio was a request for accountability, a morally centered "Christian" example from a man who cares.