Sunday November 26. I fixate on the photo of Sean Bell with Nicole Paultre his about-to-be wife and their laughing baby. November 25, their wedding day. Police fired 50 bullets at the groom and two friends., Sean Bell is dead. Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman are hospitalized, seriously wounded.

They were unarmed.
What makes these cops think this is acceptable? Not a rhetorical question.

Sunday Leslie and I go to the vigil at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, where the two survivors are being treated. Leslie and I always try to show up. Since we moved to Queens three years ago, whenever protest or resistance gathers in Queens, we feel especially bound to show up. Today we seem to be practically the only white people who feel that way–we are almost it for whiteness, aside from the paparazzi. (Just in case you’re wondering are Jews white, on Sunday in front of Mary Immaculate the answer was SOME YES VERY.)

A crowd of maybe 300. The usual chants. The expected rage, such that when one elected official said “we’re not going to be angry� the response was furious.

The Jewish piece? At one point someone shouts, when the Jews get a ticket they burn down Williamsburg.1 Someone else calls shame on those African Americans sitting in church instead of out in protest: if it were the Jews they wouldn’t be in synagogue, he yells.

Jews as positive, if resented, role model.

The Jews stand up for themselves.

The Jews don’t do business as usual when their community is under assault.

The point is not whether this vision of Jews is accurate. Is it prevalent?

The point is how do we build solidarity beyond our own communities? If we stand up for all Jews we ARE standing up for all races and ethnicities. But why not go all the way: if we stand up for anyone we stand for everyone. The point is how do we remember and act on the primary wisdom of the labor movement: an injury to one is an injury to all.

BTW Michael Richards might claim to “adhere to Jewish philosophyâ€?–but who wants him? Don’t we have enough real Jewish shondes? In this vein I confess I would like to know why people like Richards and Mel Gibson think alcohol or rage is an excuse or explanation for the vitriol that pours out of them with hardly any provocation. Aren’t they just revealing who they are?

– Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

1 Referring to an incident in 2004, when a 75-year old Satmar cited for driving while talking on a cell phone, refused to cooperate and so was arrested instead of getting a ticket. Onlookers set fires in protest.