8 | JULY 4 • 2024 
J
N

essay

Please, Don’t Talk to Me 
about Politics!
P

lease, don’t talk to me 
about politics! I just 
can’t hear it anymore. 
There’s nothing new to say. 
We are stuck on repeat. 
Please, don’t talk to me 
about politics! Instead, I want 
to talk about how to live in a 
better world, a saner world, a 
heart-centered 
world. Or, at 
least, how it 
feels to live in 
this one. 
I want to 
talk about how 
much it hurts to 
see the world on 
fire. I want to talk about how 
wrong it is that our children 
pay the price for all our adult 
insanity. I want to talk about 
how helpless I feel and even 
how guilty. How is it that I get 
to live such a good life while 
others suffer? How is it that I 
was lucky to be born here and 
they were unlucky to be born 
there? I didn’t do anything 
to deserve it. They didn’t do 
anything to deserve it. Life 
shouldn’t be such a crapshoot. 
And, if you have to talk to 
me about politics, don’t talk 
to me about the past. Let’s be 
forward-thinking, future- 
facing. Will somebody please 
come up with a real solution 
here? 
If you have to talk about 
political figures, I’m almost 
begging you please, please 
don’t talk to me about Trump. 
I could live the rest of my life 
without hearing the name 
Putin as well.
If you must talk to me about 
political figures, talk to me 

about Anne Frank, Desmond 
Tutu and Yitzhak Rabin. 
Talk to me about Mahatma 
Gandhi, Martin Luther King 
and Harriet Tubman. Talk to 
me about every person that 
dared use their great imagi-
nation to solve the impossible 
problems of their time. I only 
want to hear from people who 
believe that life is worth living 
and that the future is going 
to be beautiful. Bring me the 
wildly optimistic and the 
unabashedly hopeful. 
Please, just don’t talk to 
me about politics. I know the 
house is divided. I know that 
the world is in filibuster. I 
know that they’ve been invad-
ed, ripped out of their homes 
and God, my God, I know 
that my brothers and sisters 
are still living in the bowels 
of Gaza in some godforsaken 
tunnel. So that’s why you have 
to stop talking to me about 
politics! We just can’t live this 
way anymore! I refuse to live 
this way anymore.
Someday, I’m going to die 
and fly away from here. 
Until then, I’ve got to find a 
way to make the world more 
livable. 
Let’s be clear. I’m not 
calling for a ceasefire. I’m 
going much further. I want 
an International Day of 
Mourning. I want it old- 
school shivah style — where 
you sit on the floor to mourn 
the dead — mothers hold-
ing mothers, fathers holding 
fathers — and children play-
ing outside throwing balls 
over the fence and catching 
them back from the other 

side.
I want to spend the whole 
day howling at the sun and 
the moon, pleading with 
Mother Earth to show us how 
to be reborn. 
I want to turn off the world 
like I do my computer — 
restart. Reboot, clear out all 
the old programs so that we 
can process again. 
Come on people! We 
invented the nuclear bomb! 
We can send people to the 
moon! Let’s use our imagi-
nation here. Are you actually 
telling me that we are going to 
land on Mars before we make 
peace on Earth? Does any-
body else think that this is a 
waste of human potential? 
Is anybody out there? 
Anybody? If you’re hearing 
this from another planet and 
you’ve got a better way — now 
is the time to step forward. 
Please don’t talk to me 
about politics. Talk to me 
about love. How much you 
love your children, your dogs, 
the way the sunlight makes 
the lake dance or the taste of 
your grandmother’s recipes. 
Talk to me like your grand-
mother talked to you when 
you were little. Reassure me. 
Make me laugh. Hand me 
sugar cookies. Wrap me so 
deeply and so entirely in your 
love that nothing else but 
peace feels possible. 

 

Rabbi Tamara Kolton, Ph.D., is an 

independent rabbi, psychologist, 

author and feminist mythologist. As a 

rabbi for over 20 years in the Detroit 

community, Rabbi Kolton has shared 

life’s greatest joy and deepest sorrow 

with thousands of people.

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued from page 7

Rabbi 
Tamara 
Kolton, Ph.D.

lighting a proud Jew-hater 
validates a growing interna-
tional trend of hypocrisy. By 
giving a platform to bigotry 
and censoring Jewish voices, 
the venue and its owners not 
only disrespected the Metro 
Jewish community, but also 
sent the message that social 
justice doesn’t matter for the 
Jewish people. 
They would rather embolden 
extremists like Seales, who 
regurgitates some of the most 
venomous attacks against 
Jews in her performances.
Giving Seales the stage will 
warrant consequences, as 
her fan base and those who 
attended unfamiliar with 
her controversies will feel 
emboldened to dehumanize 
Jewish people online and in 
public spaces. We must hold 
institutions accountable for 
their actions and fight for a 
society where Jew-hatred, or 
any form of bigotry, has no 
place. There is nothing funny 
about Jew-hatred. 

Adar Rubin is director of mobilization at 

#EndJewHatred.

Correction

In “JBAM Honors Legal 
Achievers” (June 20, page 36), 
the reported quote from Judge 
Mark Goldsmith contained an 
error. Judge Goldsmith’s cor-
rect words are:
“
As Jewish judges and law-
yers we have not simply an 
opportunity, but an obligation, 
to teach the centrality of kind-
ness and justice through our 
commitment to the law. 
“My lifetime in the law 
teaches me that this our best 
hope for unifying our very 
contentious planet and trans-
forming it into a peaceful one.” 

