Posted on 11/14/2003 11:36:14 AM PST by pabianice
Icarus was definitely not Jewish. I have proof.
My story begins with the EAA. The Experimental Aircraft Association is a group of people from all walks of life who share a common passion: love for any man-carrying flying machine. Formed originally by people who built and then flew their own small aircraft ("Experimental Aircraft"), the EAA has grown into a large organization of many thousands of pilots and non-pilots alike who hold the world's largest airshow and fly-in every summer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
One of the EAA's ongoing activities is the Young Eagles Program. Young Eagles offers young people the opportunity to experience flight in a small aircraft. EAA members donate their aircraft and their time to give these rides for the simple pleasure of sharing what they love with others.
Typically, EAA members make sure that other organizations to which they belong know about the program, and will solicit participants from among these organizations' children and their parents. It is not uncommon, then, for several dozen kids and their parents from a local church to show-up at the monthly Young Eagles flying day at their local airport.
Interest and participation in this program is consistently high. As an EAA member and flight instructor, I have enjoyed sharing flying with whomever has shown any interest. It was with considerable anticipation, then, that I advertised the Young Eagles Program at my synagogue, which boasts over 400 families in its membership (note: this occurred in 2000, well before the 9-11 attack).
I posted an invitation in my synagogue's monthly magazine, inviting any interested kids and their parents to call me about arranging a free airplane ride and introduction to flying through the Young Eagles Program. I also made sure that the synagogue's staff knew about the program, and asked them to tell anyone who might be interested. I set-aside plenty of time to answer questions and then arrange to take the kids up in my EAA chapter's airplanes, including mine. The reponse? Zero. Out of over 400 families, not a single person called.
Let's face it. Almost any school-aged kid, if offered a free airplane ride with the opportunity to actually sit in front and hold the controls, would be so excited that she wouldn't be able to stop bouncing up and down for about a week before the flight. So pardon me in laying this one squarely where it belongs - upon the Jewish parents.
Forget all the self-congratulation that is the basis of far too much Jewish policy. You do not have to be a statistician, or be particularly familiar with the central limit theorem or linear regression, to be able to tell from this episode how abnormal is a zero response to such an invitation from among a huge pool of school-aged children. This has to be part of the endless debate over Jewish assimilation within the larger society. For if too much assimilation is bad, then how little is also bad?
As a kid growing-up in a small town -- one that at the time brimmed to overflowing with homicidal, if colorful, anti-Semites -- I heard about assimilation more than I cared to. Even more now than then, an issue for American Jews is to what extent they wish to become a part of what is the non-Jewish (i.e. predominant) culture in the U.S. As a kid, it was clear to me and my agemates what activities were "Jewish" and which were not. As one comedian has related, when he was a kid, his mother would take hand-tools away from him with the admonition, "Bad hammer! Bad hammer! Good book! Good book!" This is a funny story, but the problem is that it is probably true.
I find this incomprehensible and destructive to Judaism. How can any group that conscientiously and single-mindedly separates itself from the rest of the world -- not to mention most of the world's work - truly prosper?
This Jewish aversion to aviation extends to military aviation as well (and we won’t even TOUCH the subjects of gun ownership and self-defense); American Judaism is in some ways an equal opportunity bigot. I served as a US military for over twenty years, a fact of which I am intensely proud, an experience that has enriched my life beyond description, and a background which makes me very unusual among American Jews. Quite simply, I found that there is no more admirable organization than the United States Naval Service. But most Jews will never know that; they don't want to know. Most just roll their eyes and say something stupid and uninformed about "Tailhook." When I explain that "Tailhook" is to the Navy what the Rev. Al Sharpton is to Christianity, they refuse to listen. In the late 1960s, I was the only Jew in the regiment of the U.S. Navy's Aviation Officer Candidate School. Later, I was the only Jewish officer in my squadron of 430 people, including 70 officers. Today, perhaps 2% of the sailors and officers in the U. S. Navy are Jewish. The last time I checked, there were a total of eleven Jewish chaplains in the U.S. Navy. Clearly, American rabbis don't think the military is worthwhile; why should I?
We Jews talk big-time about social responsibility this and leading by example that. But when the rubber meets the road - or, as we say in aviation, the airfoil meets the relative wind - most Jews show their true feelings by avoiding military service. The mind boggles trying to imagine what rabbis think about learning to fly.
We Jews are such big-time cheerleaders for education - as long as it is strictly circumscribed, liberally-correct" education. Such clearly does not include aviation, military service, the art of self-defense, or any combination thereof. The argument can well be made that, outside of modern Israel, the U.S. has given contemporary Jews just about everything we currently enjoy. I've taught flying for over 20 years, and of the well over 1,000 students I've personally instructed, I have never flown with a rabbi. Perhaps some scholar will contribute pertinent passages from the Talmud. Is there some Jewish teaching, which condemns flying? It's certainly not genetic.
Israeli Jews are the best desert combat pilots in the world. But then, Israelis consistently demonstrate a level and degree of commitment to society and religion that most American Jews either just dream about or try finding reasons to scorn. Perhaps living next to unpleasant strangers who want to kill you changes the way one looks at the world.
And what a loss to the individual such nonparticipation creates! The best friends I have made are from military or civil aviation. I'm sure part of it is the dynamics of going to war together; there simply is nothing else of the same intensity in human experience. But beyond that, the military forges a bond among people that cannot be found in any other endeavor: voluntarily - even ferociously -- risking one's life to protect another's; finding the fiery satisfaction in serving the country which has given you everything; becoming part of the best. Recently, my active duty Navy squadron held its 30-year reunion. I was reunited with the people I'd flown with and then hadn't seen in all that time. I had stayed in touch with some of my Navy buddies; others I hadn't talked to in two decades. It felt as if almost no time had passed at all, let alone 30 years. Absent from the reunion was the competition and vying for status that is the norm in any other type of reunion. We met again for the pure joy of renewing the best, strongest, purest friendships we would ever have. Truly, these are friendships that defy the passing of time. Truly, these are friendships most Jews will never know, because most American Jews are taught to strictly avoid the military - let alone military aviation. When I talk about my Navy service to most other Jews, I am met with the double-blank stare of suspicion and ignorance. What a tragedy. Perhaps some day I'll meet one of the Navy's eleven rabbis.
It's clear that you don't choose your passions; your passions choose you. But not one kid in an entire congregation who'd like to take an airplane ride? Please.
And you know, neither the Navy nor flying ever dented my Judaism. The first weekend at AOCS we were marched off to church. It was an honest mistake. Service attendance was mandatory and our Marine Corps Drill Instructor (just back from Vietnam, where he'd earned the nickname "Animal") honestly believed the world's population was divided in two: Roman Catholic and Other. As an "Other," off I went to Protestant services that first week. I thought that was pretty dumb, not to mention a waste of my time, so several days later I momentarily overcame my well-founded fear of drill instructors and went down to the OOD's office and respectfully requested that I be allowed to go to Jewish services from then on. As I was just about the only Jew aboard NAS Pensacola, there were no Jewish services, but that didn't even slow them down. They were horrified that I had been sent to the wrong services even once. After a great deal of activity, it was settled. Thereafter, every Friday evening, a bus pulled up in front of Battalion Two just for me and took me into town to services at the synagogue there. After services, the bus brought me back. This meant I could not go to the AOC Club Friday evening with my shipmates, but on Sunday morning, when everyone else marched-off to church, I got to sleep in. An amiable compromise. The Navy, with hardly a missed beat, accommodated my Judaism beautifully.
The tragedy of Jewish separatism is compounded, because Jews don't seem to understand that they can be both Jews and participants. Yes, personal experience is just that. But equal to my Navy friends, my civilian flying friends are the best. Several years ago I was the victim in a bad accident. I spent months in the hospital. After I returned home in a wheelchair, it took an additional year before I was back on my feet, and then an additional year to find a job. By the time I went back to work I had been out two years and was broke. Who helped? My flying friends helped. They installed a ramp in my house so I could get my wheelchair in and out. They installed extra electrical outlets to power the Stanna Lift I needed to get up and down stairs. They collected money to help get me through each month and to help pay the mortgage and medical expenses so my wife and I wouldn't lose our house. All out of the goodness of their hearts. All without ever being asked for a thing. All because that's the kind of people who fly - in and out of the Navy. And it's these very people who are snubbed when no one in an entire congregation thinks it's worth spending a few hours with them so they can share their joy of flying.
When I started taking flying lessons while I was in college, my mother was worried but she never once tried to talk me out of it (my father was long dead). I had to take extra jobs to afford it, but I never looked back. I didn't want to learn to fly; I had to learn to fly. When I told my mother I wanted to join the Navy at the height of the Vietnam War, she was very worried, but she didn't try to stop me. Since I was only 20, she had to sign for me at my enlistment. And I went to Vietnam, as we both knew I would.
Why do most American Jews steadfastly refuse to participate in so many secular aspects of being American that pose no threat to them while gladly intermarrying, which threatens all of Judaism? Why must a son or daughter be kept from even riding in an airplane, let alone learning to become a flier? What is it about aviation and serving in the armed forces that seems so alien? I really want to know. Is it the tool thing? Is it simple mindlessness amid a sea of lofty-sounding but ultimately hollow ideas and principles? Is it the mind set that nothing involving actually running a machine can be a worthy endeavor? It's painfully clear that Jewish parents discourage a career in the armed forces. Does this extend to anything having to do with any activity in which a person might actually have to get his hands dirty? I hope not, for if so, that's a truly terrible thing to do to children.
Thanks for your attention. I'm outta here now anyway. Going to take a kid up in my 55-year-old antique Aeronca Champ. It's an old-timer: fabric-covered; has a tailwheel; you have to hand-prop it to start it. It's also more fun than you can imagine. And you have to imagine, don't you, because you'll never try it yourself.
The kid's so excited he's bouncing up and down. Too bad he's not Jewish.
Thanks for your essay. It's interesting.
Perhaps a bit long though.
Another thing: a sentence containing the word "I" is inherently uninteresting to anyone who doesn't know you personally.
(steely)
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