Welcome to Buenos Aires

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, news traveled across the backyard fence as women were hanging up the laundry or by the ubiquitous party line. If you don’t understand either, then you’re too young. Too young to remember when there was a time of innocence and isolation in America.  Those golden years after World War II and before America got mired in Vietnam.

Sometimes it seems that America has gotten swamped in those Ozzie and Harriet Days. We’ve become schizophrenic. Those of us that are old enough want to hang on to those idyllic days that now seem to live only in our recollections. Our reality is different. 

We pump our news out through 24/7 news cycles. We get our news through the currents of smartphones, smart tvs and smart wear-it-while-you-walk technology.

Yet, despite this, we are still woefully ignorant of things that happen beyond our borders. 

A bombing in Paris? Yeah. We heard something about that. ISIS beheads another journalist in Syria? Sure. We saw that headline as we swiped our way to the newest Kardashian story.

It’s always been like this in America. My hope is to somehow change that. To get a toehold in the little crack and start prying it open. Let Americans know that there’s another world out there. Another culture that is filled with life, love, laughter and drama.

In Buenos Aires, there’s a flourishing Jewish Community. A population that has not been able to dodge the tragedy brought about by man’s brutality — or sometimes man’s stupidity. It’s this that I hope to be able to turn, well not the spotlight on, but maybe a flashlight.

The blog will have its life cycle. It will have ups and downs, good days and bad days. There will be times that the blog is sick with fever and times that it feels like soaring to the summit of Everest. Regardless, the blog will assume its own life; it’s own vital signs. It will shift with the breeze and examine nooks and crannies that may have been explored then put aside before it moves to the sunset

The blog will be rambling. It is birthed with the idea of Jewish news in South America, but, like life, it won’t be pigeonholed. It will combine news that benefits everyone and frequently accounts that are only of interest to me.

I’m appreciative and beholden to the JJ for giving me a spot to set my voice; a room to add my two-cents to the cacophony of noises; and a place to speak about my affection, admiration, and respect for the Jewish community hidden in South America.

Life has been good to me. I’ve traveled to — and worked in — 155 countries. I’ve seen things and gone places that kids I went to high school with only get to read about in a book or watch in a movie. 

Now married to a beautiful Argentine woman, I call Buenos Aires home. I can sit on the sidewalk cafe, observe the people go by and I turn my words loose and tell them to float. 

I hope you’ll hang around for the experience.