Part IV: A Personal Journey to Truth
[By Dr. Bill]
*Bill uses initials throughout his account in order to protect privacy
In the early 80s, I concentrated on my practice and my family. We moved from Queens to Long Island in 1984 and purchased a large home with an office and practice attached. I also kept my practice in eastern Queens. I alternated days and put in five to six days a week. I was not doing anything remotely in the nature of political activism. We joined the local Reform congregation which was only two blocks from our home; primarily for social reasons, and my wife wanted the boys to have a background in their religion. They both became bar mitzvah and the older one even went through confirmation. The younger boy confessed his atheism to the rabbi during a confrontation in class, and was told he could leave; so he did. He opted out of the confirmation ceremony. It created a bit of a local stir.
I’m proud to say they both grew up to be loving husbands, successful businessmen and superb fathers. My wonderful bonus - six grandchildren. If you’ve read this far, thank you for indulging an old man.
By 1984-5, the internet was starting to emerge. The monitors were clunky, bulky TV consoles, the computers were two foot high metal towers, and the internet connection was by telephone. It made noises straight out of Star Trek and was slow slow slow. It was fascinating. Welcome to AOL, America On Line.
The great thing about AOL was that you could be completely anonymous by simply inventing a pseudonym. There were chat-rooms and discussion sites on every subject imaginable. The Palestine/Israel conflict was tailor made for this format.
I now had a place where I could express my views and point out some history, without fear of repercussions. Over time you would come to know who your allies and friends were; and who were trying to disrupt the threads.
In the late 80s an Arab-American gentleman whom I came to know well contacted me privately. He unfortunately died in his late fifties of a sudden and massive heart attack. I won’t say his name here out of respect for his family’s privacy; but he was a member of a very prominent and successful Palestinian family. I will just refer to him as I.N. He lived a few states over, but we did meet personally on two occasions. I miss him, I miss his wisdom and mostly I miss his friendship.
Eventually he asked me if I would like to be on the board of advisors of an organization that advocated for Palestinian rights and statehood. At that time, some of the names on that board included Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein and Hannan Ashwari.
At first I was hesitant, after all - who was I; I wasn’t anybody, just a middle class dentist with a couple of private practices. He persuaded me that was exactly what they wanted - just some regular people - not necessarily ones with nationally and internationally recognized reputations. The board was by design, half male, half female, half Jewish, half gentile (Christian, Muslim and atheist). The famous names were basically there for show - and the Arab ones were no doubt as a favor to him because of his family. The regular folks did the grunt work.
My friend was not the director; that was an American professor from upstate New York. I got to know him very well, or so I thought. I did not know his heart. Not until after I.N. suddenly died.
Part V next week!
