Tuesdays Without Alma, But on a Wednesday

Hello and welcome to the debut post of Tuesdays Without Alma! I’ve been toying with the concept of this blog for quite awhile, and now that it’s finally taking shape I already find myself overthinking things and have rewritten what will be its introduction at least 8 times. I’m getting better at naming conventions, though, and am no longer using “Untitled”, “Untitled 7”, “Untitled Untitled” in the drafts section, so I think I’m finally on to something. That something might only be puns which have nothing to do with the subject matter of the post itself, but I digress.

Like we’re all used to hearing on a Zoom call right at the top, before we dive in today let’s first do a bit of housekeeping. The name of this blog is, sure, an old reference to something which was once very solidly in the zeitgeist so if you’re confused, take a look at the About page! We lost Alma in 2006, but I’m still a little obsessed with her and try to channel her wisdom on a daily basis. Does this include her insane love of garlic, no, but not everyone’s perfect; I do, however, try and emulate her ability to have the hard conversations, so let’s dive in!

2023 already feels like a weird place to be. We’re only one month in, and in some ways it feels like we’ve made such incredible strides towards a better place and in others it feels like we’ve taken two steps forward and 55 years back. We’ve all become pundits, experts on topics we only learned the existence of a month ago, and we’ve drawn so many lines in the sand we don’t know how we’ll ever be able to get back to where we parked the car. It seems like we’ve lost nuance, context, and get a little too caught up in code words and confirmation biases these days. That all sounds like giant, sweeping generalizations and I’m shouting that the apocalypse is nigh? Probably. But I’ve also noticed some of the nationwide trends I jokingly predicted in 2015 before Trump secured the White House have come to pass (what a fucking depressing thing to brag about), and I don’t really want to continue to quietly make predictions and keep my fingers crossed that someone else will continue to do all the work.

And also, let’s call a spade a spade – I am also still in the throes of Job Hunt 2023 and my cat can’t take hearing me talk about these things anymore. So I’ve created this space to not only keep my writing and researching skills sharp, but also to try and shed a little more light and a (hopefully) different point of view to contextually discuss how eerily similar some of today’s headlines ring certain alarm bells in my head.

Working with Holocaust survivors and their care takers for the past 6 years has also shown me that I’m not just paranoid or (my favorite) being overly sensitive over certain developments in the past decade – many survivors across the country have voiced facing retraumatization and fear since the Trump administration took office; the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine and nations’ responses to Russian aggression have also only exacerbated their fears. So I’m hoping this space and its subsequent posts can fill what I feel is a bit of an informational void and dive a little deeper into these topics.

In addition to peppering in my commentary that absolutely no one asked for and probably never will in the history of time, this space will also feature multiple series:

• “Alma’s To Be Read List” will highlight interesting articles, books, and other written bodies of work I think Alma would have salivated over. Alma was a voracious reader and I miss having her around to chat about interesting things I’ve been reading. I lay some of the blame for my insomnia at her feet – growing up, she used to let me stay up as late as I wanted as long as I was reading. I couldn’t be using my post-bedtime hours on anything other than reading because she assumed I would get tired/bored quickly and turn off the light. She quickly saw this was a massive mistake on her part, as she would drag my door open at 3am and say “I didn’t mean you could use this loophole to stay up ALL NIGHT”. It had gotten to be such a habit that I still, decades later, will be reading in bed and discover that it’s 3am; if only I still had Alma around to give me the side eye and make me turn off the light…

• One genre which was revered in Alma’s household that I did not fully appreciate until my early 30’s is that of the biography. Whether it be by podcast, by library book, by obituary, learning about the history makers who don’t make it into the standard schoolbook has become one of my new obsessions. So the series “If You Like ____, You Should Know ____” will feature women, people of color, trans activists, anyone who isn’t a middle aged white man, etc. who I have been admiring recently.

• “Never Again?” is a series which will discuss the instances of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity that have occurred since the Holocaust. Though the phrase “Never Again” is closely tied to Holocaust and human rights education, unfortunately a staggering number of attempts at wiping out entire populations are still happening.

• “In Memoriam” is a series which will discuss Holocaust memorials and how these will be even more integral after we’ve lost the last Holocaust survivors. (Yes, Holocaust survivors are still with us! At the end of 2021, the Jewish Federation of North America estimated that there were still 80,000 survivors here in the U.S. alone.) How we remember and show tribute can sometimes be just as important as learning the history itself, and I’ve had the unique and privileged experience of studying Holocaust memory and memorials across Europe. It’s not only an interesting topic in and of itself, but as more eloquent people have studied and pointed out – it provides lessons and comparisons for the way we memorialize loss here in America as well. And we’ll cover said coverage here, which will sometimes have overlap with Alma’s To Be Read List, because we love a crossover.

So that’s a brief sketch of what this space will look like. I am aiming to post on Tuesdays (because we love being on brand), but honestly this first post is coming to your feeds on a Wednesday so just pretend that my posting schedule is crafted solely to keep you on your toes. We all love an air of mystery, right?

Posts in the near future will cover the erosion of women’s and people with uteruses’ rights (which could be further impacted with a ruling coming out of Texas soon); the shocking decrease in knowledge on the Holocaust and how this could impact future legislation; and the first feature in the Alma’s To Be Read List series covering a brilliant article on what America might take away from Germany’s efforts on how it remembers its past.

So stay tuned, and thanks for reading!