Meanwhile, speaking of policy, of which Trump has none, J.D.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Some of the surnames from Spain & Portugal are definitely eye-catching. In Germany, & Austria, Jews didn't have actual surnames until they were finally mandated, in the late 18th-early 19th century. Sephardim had surnames by the 16th century. Before that, it was common to see "David ben Abram". Ben means son of. And many people who went to Israel, much like African Americans did, ditched their Euro names for traditional/cultural names. -
Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Plus the economy sucked, and a good scapegoat was needed. My PT once told me he believes we are not far evolved from territorial primates throwing poop at each other. But then we see the flip side in the animal kingdom, don't we... The compassion of a tribe for a compromised member, the communal caring for the young (ex. whales), teamwork hunting.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse Yes, when people are dealing with economic reversals, it's always so easy to get them to scapegoat a vulnerably community, and the movers and shakers of various societies have long manipulated that shameful tendency of humans to scapegoat some vulnerable group — rather than the economic elites that have made pawns of their lives. We see this so strongly in the propensity of many Americans right now to blame immigrants for their often imaginary economic woes.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Yes, really eye-catching and often unique. My first inkling that this surname — it's Brazelton/Braselton — might be Jewish came when I was a grad student in Toronto and noticed a local attorney with the surname Braseliten. Any variation of Brazelton/Braselton is very uncommon. All spellings of the name are just rare. And that makes me think, of course, that perhaps all variations point back to one family.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm I contacted this attorney and she kindly invited me to come to her office and share information about my family. When I brought her my charts for the first generation of this family in the US (in Maryland by the early 1700s), she asked, "Did it ever occur to you that your family might have Jewish roots?" She pointed out that the immigrant ancestor had named children Jacob, Isaac, and Esther, in addition to other more Anglo names.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Then she told me that her family was Jewish, had been expelled from Spain, and had trekked to what is now Poland. I subsequently discovered branches of that same family in Belgium, and the one person with the surname Brazelton I find by the 1700s in English records is a woman named Judith — again, this makes me wonder about Jewish ancestry. I find people with this surname in lists of those murdered in the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Potatoes are such an iconic middle- and eastern-European vegetable, aren't they? People think of them as quintessentially Irish, and that's true, of course, but people in central and eastern Europe also adopted them with great relish and made them central to their cuisine. Some years ago, my husband and I went to Bolsano where he has some family roots going back to the period when this was Austria.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm We stayed in a little hotel owned by a German-speaking family with deep roots there — spent a number of days, in fact, speaking German all over Bolsano and eating quintessentially Austrian food. The last day we were there, as we packed early in the day to catch the train to Florence, I could smell wafting from the kitchen the smell of lots of potatoes boiling for that day's knödels, and I thought to myself what a German-Austrian smell that was.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
When we were growing this country, we captured & imported Africans to do the hard labor in the fields, imported Chinese laborers who would risk their lives for a pittance blasting paths for our railroads... we are too soft to do the grueling work, but would rather it not get done than welcome in Spanish speaking people - the language many of the "explorers" spoke... Ponce de Leon, Balboa, de Soto, de Gama, Coronado, Pizarro... -
Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Yes! Yes yes yes! That is THE place, and hot pastrami is THE sandwich!! Did you have the cheesecake? And try matzo ball soup there too. And bagels with lox. Get rugala to go! Just OMG. You can't get this food out here, sadly. I try to make it myself with ingredients from the grocery store but it's not the same.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse I think the hot pastrami sandwiches are the only thing we've ever ordered at Katz's — but we do love the cheesecake at Jewish delis, and the bagels, though I forego the lox, which my spouse relishes. Love rugala, too. I'm embarrassed to say I have never had matzo ball soup. His family makes knödels using a recipe that came from a Bohemian great-grandmother, and I think in some ways, those are very much like matzo balls.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Yes, and imagine how lost we'd be without the labor of those people we despise and malign! My spouse and I notice that when streets are being repaired in the hot sun, roofs put on houses in the sun, lawns mowed, trees cut, the laborers are always Latinos. Houses in our neighborhood are almost always cleaned by Hispanic women. Go to a nursing home, and you'll inevitably be cared for by Black women. And we want to blame those folks and send immigrants back?!
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
I make a mean NYC cheesecake. -
lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Have you ever seen the movie "A Day Without a Mexican"? It's a 'funny, not funny' movie. I think that and "Ideocracy" should be shown in high school assemblies. Maybe we'd prevent at least some of the tRump types. -
William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm I haven't seen it. I'm so glad to know about it — will look for it. It makes me think of something John McNeill, who got thrown out of the Catholic priesthood for coming out as gay, wrote in one of his books. He said that if all the LGBTQ people in the world went on strike for a single day, things everywhere would shut down, especially in the "caring" and "helping" professions like education, medical care, and so on. LGBTQ folks are everywhere and much needed.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm It's the best! And I know yours must excel.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse You will freakin' LOVE them! Probably will be served as one huge matzo ball in a rich chicken broth with vegetables, sometimes egg noodlea too. If you are ever sick, matzo ball soup is the ansolute cure - it's called Jewish penicillin and for good reason! 🥣🥣🥣
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Exactly! Here in the nursing home, a lot of the workers are native American, or just "native" as they prefer to say, as in "She is native." Most of them grew up on the reservations. They come from various tribes, a lot of Navajo and Pueblo. The navajo employees speak that language to each other on the job. Many hispanics here too, asian and anglo are the minorities here. It's so interesting!
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Totally 1,000%. They have no idea! The dominance of homogeneity in human consciousness is finally coming to an end, perhaps. Part of our evolution, I believe.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse Yes, not a clue. So many of us have never educated ourselves to think about life from the perspective of others, so that, when the loss of those others suddenly affects our real lives, we're in shock. Or, alternatively, we vote to strip women of rights, never imagining that a woman in our lives (or we ourselves as women) will be affected by what we've set in motion through our votes. Then the chickens come home to roost for us.