Amy Mittelman - Beer, Women, History, Nursing % %

Time 2021-01-03 18:04:11

Web Name: Amy Mittelman - Beer, Women, History, Nursing % %

WebSite: http://www.amymittelman.com

ID:155487

Keywords:

Beer,Mittelman,Amy,

Description:

This is the final part of the talk I gave, December 12th,  at the Jewish Community of Amherst in honor of Human Rights Shabbat.The law (Civil Rights Act, 1965) restored the rights the 14th and 15th  Amendments had originally granted to the newly freed slaves. The 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited literacy tests and required federal oversight of voter registration in areas where less than 50 percent of the non-white population had not registered to vote. The law greatly increased black voting in Southern States. In Mississippi, participation went from 6 percent in 1964 to 59 percent in 1969. The Voting Rights Act provided both the federal courts and the federal government a variety of resources to ensure that there would be no discrimination in voting access.A 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County vs. Holder ruled section 4b of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. This section contained a formula to determine which states required federal preclearance before making changes to their voting laws. This ruling led many southern states that had previously required the preclearance to change their voting laws, making them more restrictive. Several states engaged in mass purging of voter rolls, increased identification requirements and reduced the number of polling places. In the last election cycle, we saw many pictures of mostly black and brown people waiting on long lines to vote. One observer has called long voting lines the new poll tax.As many of you may know there are currently two runoff Senate races in Georgia. The primary and runoff system in that state is itself the product of racist desires to keep black s from voting as a bloc and therefore gaining electoral power.  From 1917 to 1963, George had a county unit system for primaries. This system privileged, in a similar way to the electoral college, rural areas where most black did not live.In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled this system unconstitutional. A Georgia Congressmen, Denmark Groover, a committed segregationist, stated that he supported the creation of runoff system for elections because it “would again provide protection which … was removed with the death of the county unit system.”Groover believed the runoff would “prevent the Negro bloc vote from controlling the elections.” Georgia recently announced it was reducing the number of polling places for early voting for the election on Jan. 5. Georgia has never elected an African American Governor, lieutenant governor, senator, or Secretary of State. The first African American Attorney General was elected in 1998. Of course, if the Democrats win, a black man, and a Jew will both become Georgia Senators.  (I know that sounds like the beginning of a joke) Reverend Raphael Warnock would be the first African-American Democratic Senator from the South.When I read the Joseph story, I wondered why it is in the Torah?  What purpose does his story serve? Joseph’s story gets us to Exodus and places the Israelites in Egypt where the legacy of his accomplishments has disappeared. The sense of fragility that the story conveys has greatly increased among American Jews in the past four years. Although, as an aggregate, wildly successful, American Jews have wondered if that success could be taken away. Could the rise of white nationalism lead to more anti-Semitism and an increase in hate crimes? The short answer is yes.One of the goals of both the Tikkun Olam Committee and the Tzedek Initiative is to join learning and study with action. The action I am proposing in connection with Human Rights Shabbat is for the JCA to give its support to Fair Fight, one of Stacy Abrams’ voting rights organizations. According to their website, Fair Fight promotes “fair elections in Georgia and around the country, encourages voter participation in elections, and educates voters about elections and their voting rights. Fair Fight brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in other voter education programs and communications.”I recently made calls with Fair Fight. They strictly enforce their non-partisan status and neither of the candidates are mentioned in the call script. We can support them through donations and by helping in their efforts to expand voting access in Georgia and across the county.************************************************There are  six days left before the Jan 5th election in Georgia. if you have time, please try to make some calls to get out the vote.Next week, I will provide a review of 2020. Happy New Year!Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... This is the second part of the talk I gave on Dec. 12 for Human Rights Shabbat. Lunch and Learn is a weekly group at the synagogue where I lead discussions, based on texts, centered around relationships between African Americans and Jews. We focus on ways for us, as Jewish Americans, to become more actively  and consciously anti-Racist.In Lunch and Learn, we often discuss the gradual process by which Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants and their descendants became white. In the area of citizenship and voting, the process was more immediate. Once any immigrant naturalized, they could vote. Before 1920, this meant fathers and sons. After passage of the 19th Amendment naturalized female immigrants could vote, making them more fully citizens. An untold story of the suffragist fight for the franchise was the role of black women. Their involvement in expanding American freedom continues to this day. In 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, I believe black women saved our democracy.Southern whites, in enacting Jim Crow, to replace slavery as a means of enforcing racial separation and hierarchy, used a variety of methods to prevent African Americans from voting. Southern legislators placed the poll tax at a high enough rate that it was effectively out of reach for all poor people, black and white. The rigidly hierarchical nature of post-Civil War Southern society meant most blacks and many poor whites did not own property which was another Jim Crow requirement for voting. Southern states also had literacy requirements which were difficult for poorly educated blacks and many poor whites to pass.  Again, naturalized Jews, living in mostly Northern urban areas faced none of these hurdles when going to vote.Many of the current requirements in various states around voting which we probably take for granted and assume they have always existed include voter registration which often ends as early as a month before election day and identification requirements. Most of these were enacted in the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century by both white Jim Crow Southerners and white northern reformers to limit voting access for blacks, immigrants including Jews and Italians and poor whites.In 1948, when the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, President Truman, a Democrat, proposed a suite of legislation that would have made a significant dent in the Jim Crow edifice. He advocated the creation of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, an anti-lynching law, anti-poll tax legislation and the prohibition of discrimination in inter-state transportation facilities.Today’s parsha ends with Joseph in jail. He has been falsely accused of attempting to sleep with his master’s wife. In the Jim Crow South black men were routinely accused of trespassing with white women and were frequently lynched for this supposed crime. Lynching was the underpinning of a system of ongoing and daily intimidation by whites of black people. This continuous intimidation served as another barrier to voting.Truman’s Civil Rights program went nowhere because southern senators and congressmen, overwhelmingly Democratic, vehemently opposed it. Progress towards dismantling Jim Crow would have to wait for almost 20 more years. One of the first cracks in Jim Crow disenfranchisement of African Americans came, in 1964 when the 24th Amendment, prohibiting poll taxes in federal election was ratified.On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson, with Martin Luther King, Jr. by his side, signed the Voting Rights Act. This deeply significant piece of legislation was enacted after the longest filibuster in American history. People, marching from Selma to Montgomery endured great violence and sometime death to help secure passage of the Act. Demonstrations in other places, such as St. Augustine, Florida also convinced the nation that it was time to make the Jim Crow system of segregation illegal.Next week, I will post the final  part of the D Var. Happy Holidays!Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... This is the first of three parts of the talk I gave on Saturday at the Jewish Community of Amherst.Shabbat Shalom,Today is Human Rights Shabbat. Every year, Tru’ah, which used to be called Rabbis for Human Rights invites congregations to celebrate the 1948 UN signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year Tru’ah is focusing on Article 21 which states, unfortunately in patriarchal language, :(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.In 1948, when these very inspiring words were adopted, African Americans living in Jim Crow South did not have access to any of these rights.  In 1920, almost 2,000 blacks lived in Charlottesville, Virginia. Only 30 voted in the 1920 presidential election.Today’s parsha begins the Joseph story. In preparing for this D’Var, I read the whole tale which spans four Shabbats. Looking at the arc of the story, it can be read as Joseph’s journey from Slave to Citizen. Co-incidentally, that is the title of a book by Frank Tannenbaum which Branch Rickey read when he was contemplating choosing Jackie Robinson to break the color line in professional baseball.More broadly, Joseph’s life was also the story of a foreigner and his descendants achieving great success in a foreign land. This immigrant story, read on its own as a novella, is resonant with the success of Jews in America. Joseph was able to move from having been bought and sold to becoming the chief economic advisor to the Pharaoh. The number of Jews in President-elect Biden’s cabinet reminds us of Joseph’s success.For Joseph, slavery was not a permanent status or mark. For African Americans, brought in chains to this land, beginning in 1619, slavery was a permanent condition. The Civil War ended this inhumane institution and the brief equalitarian period of Reconstruction brought constitutional amendments which enshrined citizenship for all people and voting rights for all men, black and white.The 13th amendment abolished slavery and the 14th and 15th established birthright citizenship and granted black men the right to vote. The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870; at that time Federal troop still occupied wide swaths of the former Confederate States. Once federal troops were withdrawn, following the 1876 election, jurisdiction over voting returned to the individual states. By the late 19th century, most Southern blacks had effectively lost their voting rights. Since citizenship and voting, in a democracy, are inextricably linked, the disenfranchisement of blacks was complete.Next week I will post the second of the three parts of this talk.Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... This Saturday, December 12th, I will be giving the D Var Torah at my synagogue, the Jewish Community of Amherst. I am giving the talk in honor of Human Rights Shabbat.  December 10th is Human Rights Day. Every year, the United Nations commemorates the day in 1948 when the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.The UN, in its description of Human Rights Day describes this years  observance as an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want, the need for global solidarity as well as our interconnectedness and shared humanity. The town of Amherst, Massachusetts celebrates Human Rights Day every year. This year they will be having a socially distanced ceremony. You can read the proclamation here.I encourage everyone to read  the full Declaration. My talk concerns Article 21 and voting rights. I will post, at least part of, the talk next week.Stay tuned. Happy HanukkahShare this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... I am writing this post while I am in the midst of trying to reconcile my checkbook and then pay my bills. I usually try to do the reconciliation when the statements arrive so I don t have to do both tasks, which are very tedious, at the same time. This month, I didn t manage to do that.The fact that I even reconcile my checkbook makes me a bit of a dinosaur. If you google about check reconciling, you get mixed answers. Anecdotally, I know that young people, like my sons, don t balance their checkbook. Most young people write only a few checks; they often don t even carry money.We don t write that many checks but we do use our ATM card a lot.  ATM purchases and automatic withdrawals make up most of our bank statement. I probably still balance my checkbook every month because my mother taught me how to do it years ago and it is a habit.Paying the bills is actually easy because I pay them online. What takes time is sorting through all the snail mail to weed out what I have to pay each month. Most of the mail is repeat requests for donations. I schedule my charitable giving throughout the year so I usually only donate to each organization once. That doesn t stop them from sending me monthly or even more frequent reminders. It is such a waste of paper.The other part of bill paying that takes time is recording the amounts in Quicken. Credit card bills often have several purchases which have to be coded into different categories. That can take a lot of time. I originally got Quicken to be able to track how much we were spending each month. I also use it to balance the checkbook; using it is another habit.Reading what I have just written makes me realize that it might be time to examine these habits and see if I need to continue them. Surely there is an easier, less time consuming way to track my expenses.I also realize that I am extremely fortunate that I have enough money to cover my needs and live comfortably. I know that this is a very difficult time for many people who are facing evictions and lack of employment. I so hope that Congress will pass an interim COVID relief package before President Biden is inaugurated in January.Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... On Thursday I got an email from Venmo that someone had changed the primary email associated with my account. Before I could focus on what I had to do, my Gmail inbox was suddenly populated with almost four hundred emails. They were mostly emails confirming I had joined or subscribed to something. Of course, I hadn t.This was very overwhelming, and I didn t know what to do first. Venmo wanted me to change my password so I tried that. It didn t work; I think because it no longer recognized my email address. I sent emails to Venmo support, receiving a response that they would get back to me in twenty-four hours.I tried to call Venmo, but you can t reach customer support by phone. I also found out that Venmo will not cancel any payment. You must deal with your financial institution. On Thursday I called my bank to make sure that no payment had gone out to Venmo. On Friday, because I couldn t reset my password, I went to my bank and put a stop on Venmo.On Saturday I was finally able to access my Venmo account and I saw that on Thursday there was an unauthorized payment to Buydig.com for over one thousand dollars. I rechecked that the payment hadn t gone through and then I cancelled my Venmo account. I emailed Venmo informing them of this and asked them to remove the payment. I got no response.On Monday, the bank called and said that Venmo had tried to put the payment through, but it was blocked. I will never use Venmo again. They were completely useless and have terrible security.While I was dealing with Venmo, I deleted the four hundred emails. I then found out from a friend that what had happened is called a subscription bombing. The point is to distract you while they try to access your financial information and sites. The article I read said that you could keep getting emails for months or years.I am still getting about 6-8 emails a day from the subscription bomb. I first tried to put a filter on everything that was in my spam folder. That did nothing. Now for each email, if I can unsubscribe, I do. Then I make an individual filter, directly deleting it. Then I mark it as spam. It is very tedious. If any of you know of any other way for me to deal with this, please let me know.  Happy Thanksgiving.Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... Earlier this month, the big news in craft brewing was the closing of beer importers, Shelton Bros. The company existed for twenty-four years and were early importers of craft beers. They introduced America to different beer styles, such as sour beer. The company s bank pushed them into liquidation; a victim of COVID-19 and the recession. You can read more about the closing of Shelton Bros. here.I found this news interesting  because of a personal  connection to the firm. One of the Shelton brothers is Will. He is the dad of Zach and Max who are among my son Alan s best friends. I have  known Will for over twenty years.For a while he owned a brewery in Western Massachusetts, High and Mighty, which made great beer. I gave a book talk about Brewing Battles at the Jones Library and we served Will s beer.  The brewery only lasted a few years and then Will moved to California. There, for a while,  he worked with Pete Slosberg from Pete s Wicked Ale.  He then started a new brewery, Concrete Jungle. Will is now back in Massachusetts.The demise of Shelton Bros. reflect changes in the brewing industry. The country has over 7,000 breweries. Many of them are very local and supply farm to table restaurants. American brewers now make many of the unusual and exotic styles that Shelton Bros imported, making them less competitive. You can read more about Shelton Bros, in an article from 2017 by Andy Crouch.Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... On Saturday, MSNBC and other news networks declared Joe Biden the new president-elect. Hearing that news, I felt more joy than I have experienced in a long time. We had planned to go to a Protect the Vote demonstration in Northampton. We went and it turned into a celebration.Watching the people in the street and listening to all the cars honking, brought to mind scenes of liberation from other countries and other times. 75 million Americans voted, defeating fascism, and defending democracy. That is an awesome accomplishment.Because we live in a 24/7 news cycle, cable stations still need things to talk about. Besides continuing to chronicle the insane behavior of Trump and his Republican minions, the other topic of news is supposed divisions among different parts of the Democratic Party.My wish is that we all take a deep breath, work in Georgia to create a Democratic Senate, and give Joe Biden a chance. Before we vehemently deride him as hopelessly moderate, let s remember that Franklin D. Roosevelt was not inherently radical. If the Biden-Harris administration gives us a 21st century New Deal, shoring up and expanding the safety net, I will be really happy.Here is a video of the celebration in Northampton.Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... I did not get a good night s sleep as I was watching the election returns. Most of the things I worked on did not come to fruition. Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell all retained their seats. It will be a stretch for the Democrats to gain control of the Senate. I do think Joe Biden will probably get elected but Trump may try to create havoc with multiple lawsuits. I am trying to see something positive in all this, but it is difficult.This morning the phrase, Don t Mourn, Organize was running through my head. This is what Joe Hill, an Industrial Workers of the World organizer wrote in a telegram to Bill Haywood, prior to being executed in Utah.“Goodbye Bill: I die like a true rebel. Do not waste any time mourning — organize! It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.”After Trump’s election in 2106, many new groups emerged to provide resistance to Trump. Swing Left, Indivisible and other groups need to stay active, even if Biden is elected. The only way to get change and move closer to a more equitable and just society is by grassroots organizing. Although I need some time to process what has happened, I  am planning to participate in a Count Every Vote demonstration in Northampton today at 5 pm. You can find a similar event where you live by clicking here.Don’t Mourn, Organize.Here is Pete Seeger singing about Joe Hill:Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading... Vote early if you still can.There are only six days left so mailing your ballot is not a good idea.If you have a ballot, don’t mail it.Bring it to an early voting site, a drop box if your town has them, or your Election Board.If you go to vote in person, bring identificationBring a pen.Wear a mask.Be prepared for long lines.Pack a lunch.Bring a chair.Bring your friends and family.If you returned your ballot, see if you can check on its status.In Massachusetts, you can use track my ballot ma.Volunteer to help campaigns in swing states.Make phone calls.Text.Help cure ballots.Staff a voter protection hotline.Vote like your life depends on it because it does.Vote for Joe Biden and  Kamala Harris.Take Back Our DemocracyVOTE.Share this:TwitterFacebookEmailPrintRedditPinterestLike this:Like Loading...

TAGS:Beer Mittelman Amy 

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

Beer, Women, History, Nursing

Hot Websites