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.”