Herz for . . .

It bodes badly for our Republic that we are so quick to cancel another for a stupid remark. The same thought police that comes today to cancel Ms. Figueroa is the one that will cancel you tomorrow for expressing your unpleasant or out-of-vogue idea.

All Ms. Figueroa did was say the quiet part out loud. Her constituency, her popularity, comes in part from her ethnic connections. She is probably right that I (another Jew lawyer) can not understand her experience and that of a large portion of her constituents as she can. If she had railed against white males and the patriarchy instead of noticing that this white-male was Jewish, she would be a hero of the DEI movement right now.

But even if she is right as to her understanding, it is possible she might still be good for people like me. If her concern for “minorities” is broad enough (i.e. includes my minority), I might be able to overlook the anti-semitic remark.

On the other hand, a would-be challenger could easily enough make the argument that her experience and commonality with certain constituents does not redound to their benefit. Maybe the Jew-lawyer could make a case that Ms. Figueroa is too close to advocate for what is best for her community and defeat her at the ballot box.

But this is unacceptable at the Democratic City Committee. She challenged their preferred candidate, and now is run out on a rail at the first opportunity.

Her “pattern of antisemitic comments” is two statements that she made with regard to one man. That she picked on his identity is just human nature. We are tribal, and sometimes lesser instincts grab a hold of us. Sometimes, a certain stereotype fits. I don't know either of the players here; I don't know how well Mr. Jacobson might fit a Latino stereotype of the Jewish-lawyer.

It's not up to the DCC to force her expulsion. They made their view known. They should have let the voters decide if there is “an innate inability to effectively serve all

members of her constituency and the City of Stamford.”

But the pièce de résistance, the topper of toppers is this: “It is untenable that she remain in office where the absence of bias and prejudice are critical to fair and just service to the City and all of its people.”

Talk to a moderately conservative or religious person, or someone who wears a MAGA hat, about our experiences with those in office. Using this “bias and prejudice” standard, many would agree that the “innate inability to serve” is as evident in her accusers as it appears to be in Ms. Figueroa.

What could have been used as the opening of a robust conversation has instead been used to silence and suppress, in service of what?

David R. Herz, Bridgeport, CT

Republican Candidate in the 126th.

The following was shared via e-mail by the Connecticut Bar Association to its members on June 13, 2024. I share my response below.

Dear Members,

Words matter. Reckless words attacking the integrity of our judicial system matter even more.

In the wake of the recent trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump, public officials have issued statements claiming that the trial was a “sham,” a “hoax,” and “rigged”; our justice system is “corrupt and rigged”; the judge was “corrupt” and “highly unethical”; and, that the jury was “partisan” and “precooked.” Others claimed the trial was “America's first communist show trial”—a reference to historic purges of high-ranking communist officials that were used to eliminate political threats.

These claims are unsubstantiated and reckless. Such statements can provoke acts of violence against those serving the public as employees of the judicial branch. Indeed, such statements have resulted in threats to those fulfilling their civic obligations by sitting on the jury, as evidenced by social media postings seeking to identify the names and addresses of the anonymous jurors and worse, in several cases urging that the jurors be shot or hanged. As importantly, such statements strike at the very integrity of the third branch of government and sow distrust in the public for the courts where it does not belong.

To be clear, free speech includes criticism. There is and should be no prohibition on commenting on the decision to bring the prosecution, the prosecution's legal theory, the judge's rulings, or the verdict itself. But headlines' grabbing, baseless allegations made by public officials cross the line from criticism to dangerous rhetoric. They have no place in the public discourse.

It is up to us, as lawyers, to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.

Respect for the judicial system is essential to our democracy. The CBA condemns unsupported attacks on the integrity of that system.

Sincerely,

Maggie Castinado, President, Connecticut Bar Association

James T. (Tim) Shearin, President-Elect, Connecticut Bar Association

Emily A. Gianquinto, Vice President, Connecticut Bar Association

I might respect this message if a similar message issues every time the press attacks the Supreme Court. Where was this organization when the press had fits about Dobbs v. Jackson, or New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen?

I was at a CLE two weeks ago at which Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Administration and Management Antoria D. Howard suggested that this bunch of smart attorneys should be able to find a way around Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

I request that you distance our organization from such sentiments as well, especially when propounded by people who hold such prominent public office.

Where is this organization every time a conservative justice is harassed or it is suggested he stand down on some pretext?

It's only integrity when we apply the same standards to all actors. Anything less is politics.

You are right that “words matter.” This organization's measured silence speaks volumes as well.

Maybe the aside was tongue-in-cheek, but maybe it speaks to something.

At 71 I'm focused more than ever on doing what I can to try to secure peace, justice, and environmental sustainability for future generations. But there's also the pressing matter of how my generation (you know, the one that had everything and ruined it) can try to age with grace and wisdom.

from Stew Friedman, who does leadership stuff at Wharton.

You are so full of shit. Your generation has everything and has grown everything. Celebrate what you have created. Why are you buying into the impending doom narrative?

The world is greening. See Patrick Moore on this,

We are richer than ever and coming out of poverty at rates blowing past the U.N. goals for taking us out of poverty. This doesn't really get at the results we've created, but gives a little of the picture: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bjornlomborg/2023/02/13/prioritizing-the-best-solutions-for-sustainable-development/

You are right on the babies. Maybe we should have young co-eds actually vision out their lives. Maybe we should return to G-d and family and what brought us where we are .

Maybe we should be questioning the wisdom of Marx, Marcuse, Derrida and all the bullshit they have given us. Here's an analysis of that: https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1191-why-feminism-is-one-of-the-deadliest-and-most-destructive-forces-in-human-history-member-exclusive

Anyway, enough of my time on this.

Go out, breathe the air. Tell me if you really think the world is about to end.

I don't think it is, or is in danger thereof, unless we give in to the crazies trying to take over our college campuses and public conversations.

Cleaning up my computer, I found this piece, which I could not find as having published. It is unfortunately more relevant today. Maybe the mantra should be “Check Your Hate”

Two years now I have been at Sacred Heart's commemmoration of Kristallnacht.

Two years this has left me unmoved.

Last year, I came expecting to be made to feel uncomfortable. I am an orthodox Jew. Surely, a Catholic school's commemmoration in a Catholic Chapel would have some religious content or at least context to it, maybe a shout out to some apostle or the J-man himself for a lesson we should be taking.

It could have had a gesture across the religious divide, taught me something about where Catholicism has come, or how it has grown from its grievous indifference and even complicity in the events of World War II, and how it might have been a part of the fomenting of Jew-hatred that still infests this world, and how it is now praying and acting to celebrate the sanctity of every individual, saved according to Christian doctrine or not.

There was one glimmer of hope for me. At the end of the ceremony last year, one young lady from the choir, on her way out of the chapel, turned to the front of the chapel and bowed in acknowledgement of the place she was in.

With lowered expectations I came again this year. I was still underwhelmed.

It started with the politician's reference to his faith which his policies don't reflect.

It continued with exhortations to inclusion and seeing the humanity of the other, which of course has a place. Some of these terms are increasingly politically charged, or seemingly to me anyway, were used to push an agenda on the back of the Jews.

Then a chaplain got up decrying what some have done in the name of religion, but it is National Socialism, perhaps a religion of a different sort that ferried the evil of anti-semitism through the Holocaust.

The lesson supposedly is that it is not enough to say “I didn't,” but one must fight white-supremacy and anti-semitism, these two somehow linked, along with insurrection, by more than one.

The keynote, do not say the word hate.

In closing, it was suggested we must remember, now more than ever.

I suggest this is not particularly actionable advice.

What should we not forgot? Not to kill Jews today. Most of us have that one down. Less obvious today than it seemed when I originally wrote this.

What is missed, what our children have not been taught, is that the “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956.

The point is the Holocaust wasn't a one-off by distant people. It was simply the springing up of an anti-semitism that has simmered since there have been Jews, perhaps aided by a European enlightenment that was in the process of discarding G-d, losing along the way our absolute basis of morality.

The point is we do hate.