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8 | SEPTEMBER 26 • 2019

essay

Shana Tovah-

ah-ah-ah Achoo!
A

llergies are nothing to
sneeze at.
As a kid, I didn’
t
understand. I sailed through
my childhood without ’
em,
barely understanding what they
were. My only
exposure was one
poor kid in my
class who left
a trail of soggy
tissues wherever
she went.
Then I upped
and moved to
Michigan — and
my sinuses have never been the
same.
I don’
t know what exactly
I’
m allergic to, but I do know
it appears in the air as soon as
the summer’
s over and wreaks
havoc in my nostrils through
the winter.
I walk around with my eyes
squinted — people think I’
m
studying the clouds or pon-
dering the cracked ceilings or
something — until they hear
my man-the-lifeboats, let-it-all-
out kind of sneeze. It’
s like an
internal earthquake, so loud it
sends small animals scurrying
for safer ground. And then
there’
s a whole lot of uncontrol-
lable sneezes chasing right after
that first big seismic one. They
come in bunches of 10, at least.
I’
m walking around with red
eyes; my head is stuffed. It’
s
plain old miserable. I spend a
lot of time sneezing up a storm
and doing that awful chhhh-
hh grinding noise from deep
in the back of my throat that
somehow offers a little relief
yet causes people walking near
me to cross the street in alarm.
And every year, I think about
that poor kid in my class, who
sneezed her way through her
childhood, and how no one
ever wanted to hold her hand

(eewwww) and, boy, if I could
go back in time and whisper
to my younger self some sage
words of advice, I’
d definitely
say something about that.
I feel that kind of stuff comes
back to bite you later. You know
how it is, you get back from
the world whatever you put out
there and all that. Smile and the
world smiles with you. What
goes around, comes around. Be
mean to a kid with allergies and
you might wind up with them
yourself later in life and, boy,
will those tissues haunt you.
Here we are, it’
s almost Rosh
Hashanah. We’
ll hear the shofar,
dip the apple in the honey, “do”
tashlich (which, you’
ve got to
admit, is one of the fishiest cus-
toms we have). It’
s a great time
to reach out to others, rekindle

some relationships, even if you
barely speak during the busy
year. (In my case, I’
ve been
reconnecting with my best bud
of the season, Claritin.) There’
s
just something about the new
year that inspires connection.
Keep in mind that whatever
warm and fuzzy vibes you’
re
sending out to the world will
likely make its way back to you
when you need it most.
So, if you’
re like me and also
suffering from seasonal allergies
these days, I have one thing to
say: Bless you, bless you, bless
you and shanah tovah!

Rochel
Burstyn
Columnist

HMC Was
Appropriate Venue
A letter in the Sept. 12
edition protests the use of the
Holocaust Memorial Center
as the venue of the Close the
Camps demonstration against
the T
rump administration’
s
treatment of detainees, saying
the site selection trivializes the
Holocaust. It states, “I was led
to believe that the purpose of
the Holocaust Memorial Center
was to preserve and protect the
memory of the more than 6
million Jews murdered in the
Holocaust.”
I concur on the HMC’
s
purpose. But what is the
memory for if not to move us
to raise our voices when a leader
builds his support by exploiting
bigotry?
At the risk of alarmism,
consider the tragedies of
Pittsburgh and Poway — and of
Charlottesville, El Paso, Quebec
City and Christchurch — each
a miniature Kristallnacht whose
perpetrators assumed our
president’
s rhetoric gave them
license for unspeakable crimes.
Dare we wait until the detention
centers sink to the depths of
Auschwitz before we cry foul?
The Close the Camps rally
did not trivialize the Holocaust.
It invoked it as a warning that
even if we don’
t reach that
destination, we’
re on the road
toward it. That warning is why
the Holocaust Memorial Center
exists, and its use as a venue was
thus entirely appropriate.

— Elliott Shevin

Oak Park

Content Over
Appearance
Yes, the Detroit Jewish News
is now glossy, and newsprint
won’
t come off on our fingers.
However, the original purpose

of the newspaper is to inform its
readers. With so many American
Jewish people ambivalent toward
Israel, isn’
t it your obligation
to keep your readers informed
about Israel?
How many people know that
Post T
raumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) is a growing problem
in Israel, from the very young
to the elderly? How many
readers know about sirens going
off constantly and that Israelis
have seconds to reach bomb
shelters? Do they know about
the constant rocket attacks from
Gaza and the West Bank and
how many hundreds of acres
of farmland have been burned
from incendiary balloons?
Is it no wonder that so many
uninformed Jewish people
take up the Boycott, Divest
Sanctions (BDS) cause. That
is directly attributable to the
media constantly talking and
writing about the “plight”
of the Palestinians. Do they
provide a balanced reporting of
what the Jewish people living
in Israel suffer through daily?
Do they ever report that the
Palestinians are the aggressors
and Israel only reacts when they
are attacked by them? Do they
know about Iran’
s presence in
Israel’
s neighboring countries of
Lebanon and Syria? If you don’
t
write about them, then who
will?

—
Annette Gerus

Commerce Township

(Please read the publisher’
s Rosh
Hashanah message on page 5
regarding the dramatic changes
impacting the print media
industry and the Jewish News.)

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