Is Israel going to continue to be 'Fortress Israel'? Or, as we all hope, become accepted into the neighborhood, which I believe is the only way we can move forward in harmony.
With my childhood, it's a wonder I'm not psychotic. I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends.
My parents were Zionists born in Poland. My father was a rabbi who didn't know much about science and ran a grocery store in the neighborhood with my mother's help.
My neighborhood didn't really encourage women, though it didn't prevent women from progressing, either.
There is no need for neighborhood informants and paper dossiers if the government can see citizens' every Web site visit, e-mail and text message.
Even as a kid, I was a businessman. I figured out that if you plucked all the berries off my neighbor's tree and smashed them up, they made a Nickelodeon Gak-type consistency. I sold them to all the neighborhood kids and made stacks of quarters. Of course, the berries were poisonous, and I got in all types of trouble.
I hated, when I was a kid, being told that 'Black people don't do that.' And the white kids at school didn't accept me because I was black, and the black kids in my neighborhood didn't accept me because they thought I thought I was white.
You take care of you and your family first. Then you go to your neighborhood, and then you spread it on out within the community.
There's no reason why children in inner cities or rural areas do not receive the same quality education or opportunities as those in suburbs or wealthy neighborhoods. If we truly believe in giving all citizens a chance to pursue happiness and pursue their goals, then we cannot continue to marginalize entire groups of people.
We must do more to protect our neighborhoods and give integrity to our community plans.
