It’s insane. Right? - The Jewish Standard

When I attended Newark’s Chancellor Avenue School, a long time ago, it was no surprise that all of our teachers excelled at the basics — reading, math, writing, social studies, and a broad array of other subjects. How else could they begin to prepare us for high school and college? So years later, when I was applying for a teaching position in Newark, I took the requisite Newark Teacher Certification exam and had plenty of role models to follow into the profession. But a moment occurred as the test was about to begin that I shall never forget. The exam, prepared by the Educational Testing Service, was a typical multiple choice test, supervised by a proctor whose first instruction was to put our signature on the bottom of the test. At that moment, one of the test takers, another future educator, raised her hand and asked if the signature should be in script or print. I will never know whether she passed or failed.

I recall this now because of an article in a very recent edition of The Star-Ledger called “New Jersey Drops Basic Skills Test for Teachers and Adds a Controversy.” Its thrust is that according to Bill A1669, just passed by the New Jersey Legislature in a bipartisan vote and signed by Governor Murphy, teachers are no longer required to pass the Praxis basic skills test, which was the prevailing statewide tool for their licensing. Got that? The teachers of our children can now obtain teaching licenses without mastering basic skills. That’s equivalent to getting a driver’s license without knowing how to drive!

This is what is meant by insanity. If our teachers cannot pass basic skills tests, New Jersey won’t even consider improving their caliber. Instead, they will remove any obstacles requiring them to be able to read, calculate, and master other aspects of their job. It’s insane, right?

But insanity isn’t limited to hiring teachers.

In our State of Israel, thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students are exempt or self-exempt from the draft. A mere trickle, under 400 of 10,000 drafted, have committed to military service. The vast majority of their rabbis, parents, and communities support and encourage this unwillingness to serve. Yet here in New Jersey, many of our own eligible and most esteemed Jewish youth have postponed their educations and put their lives on temporary hold to commit to service in the IDF. Many of them will stay on in Israel as olim. They are all heroes, including our own grandson, a paratrooper, who has seen months of service in Gaza. Is it not the height of insanity and chutzpah for those charedim, who live in Israel, to continue to accept numerous tax benefits, while evading the military? These draft dodgers cannot even maintain that they have heel spurs! It’s insane, right?

Then there’s January 6, 2021, the day our nation’s Capitol was attacked by a wild band of insurrectionists attempting a coup against our government. It was a day of violence and hate, death and destruction, now being falsely recast as a day of love by our incoming president. Revisionist history has no place in our history books but it shall prevail. The spineless Republicans who are terrified at the thought of disagreeing with Trump and are increasingly fearful of rejecting his lies will have the last word. We were all witnesses to the nightmare that prevailed but we are now being taught and trained to disavow what we saw with our own eyes and justify and decriminalize the efforts of the fanatics who attempted to tear down our government and reject and rebuke our Constitution. Is this America? It’s insane, right?

But perhaps you want to hear more about insanity? How about the Gulf of America? The late Alex Trebek, host of TV’s “Jeopardy,” must be rolling in his grave. Can Trump arbitrarily, with no possible justification, change the name of the Gulf of Mexico? May I suggest that Washington, D.C., be known as Mar-a-Lago, D.C.? Or how about New York City being called Donaldland? Or what about the USA becoming the United States of Trump or maybe just Trumpland? It’s insane, right?

Then we have the wars that our president-to-be is fomenting. Do you have any interest in fighting, and possibly dying, to acquire Greenland? Does it even matter that neither Denmark, its legal owner, or the Greenlanders themselves have any desire to become subjects of Emperor Trump? Would it be heroic for your sons to serve in a military battling to overwhelm Greenland? Should they use A-bombs on our ally? It’s insane, right?

I’ve been to the Panama Canal. It’s a nice peaceful place, quite interesting to see, a real engineering marvel. So should we send troops down there to overtake the Panamanians and reclaim the canal? It’s insane, right?

And is making Canada our 51st state a normal and peaceful activity? Should we now go to war with our friendly neighbors to the north? Maybe we can use Russia’s imperialism with Ukraine to demonstrate how it’s done. It’s insane, right?

I think that insanity really began to prevail when we first heard that Matt Gaetz was Don’s choice for attorney general. Perhaps there could have been a worse choice, but that’s hard to imagine. Who might that have been? Trump is unavailable for the job but he might have been a logical candidate. He’s certainly very familiar with the legal system. It’s insane, right?

Who among us can really accept all this? It’s unprecedented and it’s truly crazy. It’s insane! Right?

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of eight. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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