No wonder everyone's got A.D.D.

Or
Hyper is as Hyper (Linking) Does

Went online to get update on Boston situation and watched video of Prez making statement to the press and the next thing I knew...

I'm distracted by sidebar link to another site where I now begin to read text of Obama speech given during his recent trip to Israel and learn through yet another link that much of what he said there echoed the words (sometimes word for word) of 50's and 60's  Community Organizing mentor... 

...Saul Alinsky -- the  radical activist who I now learn, through yet another link, once threatened to stage a "Fart-In" at a Rochester Philharmonic concert --but wait a minute, I want to get back to the Israel thread --and I do, but somehow I get waylaid and now I'm reading about...




..Menachem Begin  and his years as leader of The Irgun--and his battles with Ben Gurion and the rest of the early Israeli leadership and in particular the story of the plight of the ammunition supply ship The Atalena ...which is where I go next and find myself in familiar territory because the story of that ship is...


..covered in detail in the final chapters of a novel by Paul Gropman called The Magicians (which I just completed) which tells the story of the efforts of a small cadre of Zionist activists in the US struggling to help raise money and awareness of what was happening to the Jews  in Europe during WWII ... 



...and features author and Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht who in addition to penning some of the most popular film comedies and dramas of his day, played a major role as supporter of  the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews under leadership of ...

...Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook) who formed the Bergson Group which worked to raise money to  to get refugees into Palestine.  

"Why did we respond the way we did? The question should be, why didn't the others? We responded as a human and as a Jew should." - On his Holocaust activism, 1973.

Note to self:  Search for more information about The Joint Distribution Committe (JDC) where my Uncle Harold Trobe had a distinguished career--that included leading and organizing major efforts to  provide  homes and services for post-war refugees throughout Europe.

...And Hillel Kook took  his "cover" name from his favorite philosopher... Henri Bergson who I now learn once said  “The eyes only see what the mind is prepared to comprehend. ”  which could serve as a brief summation of what was and wasn't done to rescue the victims of Nazi Germany during the war . 

Now I'll open my "history" window and see if I can make my way back to Boston before I have to get back to work...

(apologies again for formatting sloppiness--

but I can't seem to fix and Blogspot Help is no help)