Several months after my liver transplant in December 2022 my friend Raoul asked , if I could elder care his father, Professor Bertell Ollman, a renowned Marxist scholar. The eighty-nine old has just retired from NYU. He was in the early stages of forgetting everything. I agree. I neeed money. His father was a kin man to me. The job entailed eating lunch with him and watching TV unti he fell asleep. Raoul had a four hour break from his 24/7 existence with his father, who wasn't quite sure who he was.
After Raoul departed the apartment on Bleecker Street, we watched nature programs and popular movies. Nothing heavy. We sat surrounded by walls of books. Maybe ten thousands on philosophy and revoution. Two hors on his father retreated to his bedroom. A nap. I returned to the living room and picked out books. I I searched each book for a meaningful paragraph about overthrowing the capitalist state in the upcoming revolution. Later I read to him. Each a word to flourish his still revolutionary soul.
Two years ago I read his 2011 Letter of Resignation from the Jewish people to him. Forty-five minutes of his writing condemning the Zionists abandoning the Jewish culture of the Diaspora to seize Biblical lands from the Palestinians. All of it is pure genius and ends with these words.
"As far as I’m concerned, the comedian, Lenny Bruce, provided the only good answer to this question when he said, "Dig, I'm Jewish. Count Bassie’s Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor is goyish… Marine Corps – heavy goyish… If you live in New York or any other big city, you’re Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you’re going to be goyish even if you’re Jewish… Kool-Aid is goyish. Evaporated milk is goyish even if Jews invented it… Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish.… Negroes are all Jews… Irishmen who have rejected their religion are Jewish… Baton twirling is very goyish.”
To this I would only add, “Noam Chomsky, Mordechai Vanunu and Edward Said are Jewish. Elie Wiesel is goyish. So, too, all ‘Jewish’ neo-cons. Socialism and communism are Jewish. Sharon and Zionism are very goyish”. And, who knows, if this reading of Judaism were to take hold, I may one day apply for readmission to the Jewish people.
When I shut the letter, Professor Ollman said, "I don't agree with all of that."
"You wrote that."
"I did?"
"Yes."
The professor shrugged and smiled kindly. Still the Marxist monster of the Capitalists. No recollection in his cobwebbed mind of the struggle, but I recognize his genius and anytime I speak to him about the impending revolution he smiles and wishes us success. He was a man to be followed. By the CIA and FBI. An enemy of the state. Forever. Every time we were together at his aparment in the NYU professorial dorms, I assured him that I was there to protect him from the Feds. And I was serious.
The only way to forget is not to remember - James Steele - Fugitve
1968 forever never forget, comrades!
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