I sit on the couch, petting my Westie’s white coat. Daisy, like all dogs, enjoys when I rub her belly. She feels safe and secure. And as she shuts her eyes, mine feast on another episode of Northern Exposure (Amazon Prime).

You see, almost every night, I’m binging on two or three episodes of the show.

And I wonder, “How many of my young readers have ever seen an episode of Northern Exposure?”

“Who knows?”

“But I bet the number is real low. But I wager the old timers will remember the program.”

I think, “I watched that show from 1990 to 1995. And during its six year run (110 episodes), I never missed one.”

So you may ask, “Mort, why were you so addicted to that TV show?”

“Well, I loved the Alaskan panoramas filled with Denali, forests, salmon and moose, the weird story lines and the cast of outcasts surviving in the American wilderness. Our last frontier.”

You see, I grew up in a small country town in the Catskills. A town with about a thousand folks that was quite similar to the town of Cicely, Alaska. We too had our flora and fauna, our eccentric cast of town folks and some pretty astounding storylines. Northern Exposure was a warm plate of nostalgia served to a country boy feasting on grits. A town with a tavern, where the locals raised a glass or two to the greatest nation on earth.

But most of all, I loved the fact that the protagonist, Dr. Joel Fleischman, (Rob Morrow) is a handsome NYC member of the tribe and Dr. Joel’s love interest, Maggie O’Connell, (Janine Turner) is an absolutely beautiful shiksa. What a shayna punim! With a stylish, boyish haircut and that brown mole located one inch south of her left eyebrow. She was the embodiment of an American beauty. A living fantasy. And I, like every Yiddisha boychick, craved kissing that mole. I desired to touch perfection and feast on America’s sweetest piece of eye-candy. And this Jewish M.D. and his shiksa had chemistry. You could see it in their eyes. They were a thing. And, yes, those were the days.

The show was also chock-full of Judaism: talk of bar mitzvahs, seders, schmucks, Magen Davids, the cup of Elijah, the prophet and circumcisions, Kaddish and kippahs and not a whiff of anti-Semitism.

Yes, you remember those days.

How we kvelled, knowing that we were living in the “Promised Land.”

So now you’re wondering, “Why did Mort entitle his story, The End of the Jewish American Renaissance?”

Well, what I didn’t know at the time, was that Northern Exposure represented a high point in the Jewish American renaissance. But with the benefit of hindsight, 29 years worth of hindsight, I realized that during that period, (1990 to 1995), we Jews were living the American dream. We were in a cultural renaissance. We felt safe and secure. It seemed that nobody hated us. Well, almost nobody.

And now, I want to sing about the good old days

Okay, now is your time to sing this Russian folk tune with me. All together now:

Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
Think of all the great things we would do?

… Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
La-la-la-da-da-da
La-la-la-da-da-da
Da-da-da-da, la-da-da-da-da

Let’s thank Gene Raskin (writer) and Mary Hopkin (singer) for the memories.

Yes, we thought, “Those were the days, my friend, our renaissance would never end. For we were young and sure to have our way. Well, we lost and America started its regression back into the Dark Ages. Our run had ended.”

By 2015, the writing started to appear on our walls. And by 2024 our walls were covered with blood-red graffiti.

Rampant anti-Semitism floods the internet;

Neo-Nazis in full uniform marching and sieg heiling down our streets;

Torch-bearing Nazis chanting down the streets of Charlottesville, “The Jews Will Not Replace Us.”

Protestors burning Israeli flags and ripping down posters of hostages;

Bigots terrorizing Jewish students on American campuses;

Presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT failing to understand the meaning of “genocide”;

A former US president breaking bread with America’s leading Neo-Nazis;

A former president saying, “There are good people on both sides” with one of the sides being American Nazis;

Jews being murdered in front of their synagogues;

Cemeteries being desecrated: tombstones up ended and covered with black swastikas;

A land where Jews feared wearing stars of David around their necks or kippahs on their heads or placing mezuzahs on their doorposts.

Well, I’m still sitting on that couch, now scratching Daisy behind her ears and watching another episode of Northern Exposure, when I nod my head and think, “We had a good run, too bad it’s over.”

Cool globes Jerusalem, Environment of Israel 22 August 2013. Dror Feitelson via the PikiWiki – Wikimedia Commons

On the evening of Shabbat, I watched TV in the den of my sister-in-law’s home.

The day before, we sat shiva for her late husband.

Now, she turned on her television, to watch services performed in a Conservative temple in San Diego.

I studied the bema, the Torah and the stained glass depictions of the Ten Commandments and I wondered, “How many miles is it from San Diego to Jerusalem?”

So I asked Google.

“I’m not sure how many miles it is to drive from California to Israel, but it’s 7,629 miles as the crow flies,” she replied.

“Wow! We’re worlds apart. I’m literally on the other side of the globe.”

As I listened to the cantor and rabbi sing and play guitar, I wondered, “What would the rabbi say in his sermon about the Gaza War?”

And toward the end of the service, the rabbi mentioned, “If you want to donate money to help Israel through this terrible war, please donate to…”

That was it!

No mention of the names of Israeli soldiers who had died in battle that week.

No mention of the hostages still held captive by Hamas.

No words about how the war was going.

No mention of what’s happening in the UN.

So I asked my sister-in-law, “Is this the way American temples are treating Israel during its time in crisis?”

And I thought, “Wow, we really are, worlds apart.”

My back hurt, but I continued to walk my dog, only stopping to have a one-sided dialogue with the leadership of Hamas as they hid behind the night sky.

“Hamas, on October 7, what the fuck were you thinking?

Were you high on drugs?

How could you launch a surprise attack on Israel with a few thousand Hamas soldiers and civilians and expect a victory?

Have you no regard for the lives of Palestinians?

Yes, you captured a couple of hundred hostages and yes, you killed 1,200 Israelis.

And yes, you will declare victory. But that’s not how you win a war.

Yes, you lulled Israel’s security network into sleep mode. They believed you posed no or little threat to Israel’s security.

And yes, the IDF or was it Mossad labeled your surprise attack plan as ‘aspirational.’

But you knew the power and the size of  the IDF.

But you knew the power of the Israeli Air Force with its fighter jets, drones and bombs.

Yes, you gave Israel a bloody nose, a black eye and two fists to the kidneys.

But you knew that within hours of landing those blows, thousands of Gazans would die.

Did you think that praying to Allah or Putin or Iran or the UN to perform some sort of a miracle would work to rescue a bunch of murderers, rapists and kidnappers?

Maybe you thought the pope would issue a ceasefire edict preventing the total destruction of Gaza?

Maybe you thought the United States would not support Israel and not send munitions, weaponry, aircraft carriers and intelligence?

Maybe you thought Egypt would open its border and allow you to escape into the Sinai?

Maybe you thought Hezbollah or Assad’s Syrian army would jump into your fight?

Maybe you thought Abbas would create a second front on the West Bank?

But you knew that wars were not won on maybes.

Maybes lead to bloodletting exercises that are doomed to failure and shirtless surrenders.

Doomed to death, destruction and suffering.

You studied the history of  the Jewish/Arab conflict for the last 100 years.

You understood that almost nothing has changed in those 100 years, except that Israel became a first-rate powerhouse and you are at best third rate.

You read Bibi Netanyahu’s Wiki page.

You knew when it came to the death of Israelis by terrorists, Bibi turns into a vindictive animal:

A bear poked in the eye with a stick, who rages with his claws into the faces of his adversaries;

A pit bull, who sinks his canines deep into your skin and muscles and never lets go.

A bloodhound who knows how to sniff out the hiding spots of rapists and killers of children.

You knew that your invasion would melt Bibi’s brain and make his blood boil.

You knew that Bibi was brought up old school, part of a generation that mandates two eyes for every one.

You knew that this old-school warrior loves teaching tough lessons like:

Terrorists must pay for their crimes with their lives;

Jewish lives must never be cheap;

Terrorists must pay a price for hiding behind the apron strings of their mothers or wives or grandmothers or in the prayer rooms of a mosque or under children’s hospitals;

Don’t shot your rockets from your own backyards;

That the media, no matter how hard it tries, will never intimidate or manipulate Israel’s war plans;

That the masses—who never gave a shit about Jews—will never be allowed to dictate Israel’s actions,

Your plan never made any sense:

Even with a major tunnel network, your plan was only a suicide mission.

A kamikaze attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, but caused the total destruction of Gaza.

Even with thousand of rockets hidden in miles of tunnels and under hospitals and mosques,

Your plan made no sense.

Even with your guns and knives hidden in teddy bears and incubators, your plan made no sense.

I stopped ranting and started walking. I felt the pain grow in my back. And as my dog pulled me, I remembered how for eons people made stupid decisions about going to war. Rash decisions made out of desperation. Decisions made with little thought to their consequences. And again, I asked the night sky, “Hamas, what the fuck were you thinking?”