Good morning,
Today is graduation day for my nephew, Johnathan Kopkin, having completed his Juris Doctorate from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I’m not going to wax poetic about Johnathan but suffice it to say that we are all proud of him. Importantly, my sister would be proud of him.
ONE CAN DISAGREE AND STILL RESPECT AND WORK TOGETHER
Johnathan’s mother, my sister, passed away in 1996 at age 37. In Johnathan’s honor and Gale’s memory, I’m sharing something written by her best friend from our days as kids:
“Today, as I spend too much time arguing about politics, I miss my friend, Gale Sonnenberg, z”l, sister of Glenn Sonnenberg. Gale was a conservative. I, as all my Facebook friends know, am a liberal. We loved to discuss politics, and we would argue and argue until we got to a point of clarity and agreement. It turned out that we had the same goal - making this country a better place, including for the poor and the suffering. We had very different ideas about how to reach those goals though. She believed in private action; I believe in a substantial role for the state.
The thing about Gale that was really inspiring is that she put her Conservative values into practice, making the world a better place by her private actions. She taught business law in a Los Angeles Community College. Her students were mainly poor women of color. For all of my liberal thoughts and proclamations, I was teaching in a university with a predominantly white, rich student body. Gale did more for social justice by, as she put it, helping those women pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
For all that I might want to talk about how the very fact that bootstraps are needed for poor people of color is a stain on our society or how the problems of systemic racism need systemic responses, Gale was doing social justice work just by teaching people without privilege. I don’t think she would have called it social justice, but maybe she realized it as her special mitzvah.
I miss a country in which we can have actual democratic deliberation in which we can find common goals and change each other’s minds.”
Gale would have liked this and likely would have agreed with each sentiment. And she most assuredly would not be happy the current political situation.
I wish Gale were here to celebrate her son’s accomplishments. I wish she were able to debate with Renee right now, as two people who differed on politics now and then, but agreed on basic concepts of human dignity, community, and right and wrong. Hopefully, our nation can return to civil dialog about issues of policy.
Have a good day,
Glenn
PS:
Yes, that’s Gale at her law school graduation. Our grandfather, Eddie Abrahams, is to her right. I have no idea who the other guy is.
Have a great day. We’ll be celebrating in Boulder today!
Glenn
From the archives:
Congratulations to Johnathan from us!
Our best to Johnathan on this special day. And yes, I miss his mom so very much.