It’s hard to imagine that it was just about a year ago when we woke up on that November morning and were faced with some confusing news. While we knew that Donald Trump was running for president, I can’t imagine there were many who thought he would actually win the election. I remember watching the results come in, still sending my daughter off to bed, and telling her that she didn’t need to stay up to see who won because there was no way Mr. Trump was winning. And while there are times in my life that I will admit to lying to my daughter to get her to just go to bed, this was certainly not one of those times. This was an election that got under people’s skin. It heated up Shabbos meals, it caused extreme disagreements amongst families—and then the results confused a nation. There were plenty of people who just needed a change. I, for one, was one of the Americans for whom Obamacare was just a complete disaster, so when it came to a new president I just wanted something far away from the Democratic party. At the same time, I just couldn’t wrap my head around voting for Trump. My friend and I were kidding around a week or so before Election Day and decided we were going to write in “Josiah Bartlet.” For those of you who are “West Wing” groupies, hameivin yavin (he who understands will understand). However, when I actually went to vote, there was something wrong with my registration and I couldn’t vote. There certainly was a part of me that was relieved that I would not be personally responsible for the results of this election.

“The West Wing” was a show from 1999-2006 featuring a Democratic president and the White House staff on their day-to-day life working in the West Wing. This show was on while I was finishing up high school and starting college, and it truly was inspirational and influential in choosing my major in school. My uncle used to joke around and call me CJ (the White House’s female chief of staff). While I was well aware that President Josiah Bartlet was a fictitious character, I longed for his ideals and leadership and really didn’t think either candidate held a flame to the character that Aaron Sorkin created for me.

I was a student for most of the duration of the series. Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment was just brewing on college campuses at the time. I had an opportunity to work for an incredible organization that developed ad campaigns for college campus newspapers countering the horrifying protests of student groups that were creeping up in Ann Arbor, Boulder and Stanford. I saw firsthand what was going on, and this was all pre-BDS. I was lucky enough to not be on a campus like that. I was able to speak my mind on international relations and economic policy in classrooms and lecture halls—even in a post-9/11 world. Maybe I was naïve then, but I never felt that we were a nation divided as much as I do today.

Thanks to the good people at Netflix and Hulu, we get to go back to the good ol’ days and watch television shows from my high school and college days. I’m always blown away by how politically incorrect these shows were, even the ones created fewer than 20 years ago. When I’m binging “The West Wing,” I wonder if America was ever as idealistic as that show made it out to be. The things you can discuss on network television these days is mind-blowing. We seemingly live in a flatter world than ever before, in a more open-minded society. Yet, when sharing a minority opinion at a crowded Shabbos table, and I can personally attest to that, it’s just not fun. It’s as if the world is more open minded to everyone’s extreme liberal opinions, but when you express an opinion that’s a little more to the right—either politically or religiously—the same due respect does not necessarily apply.

My daughter asked me a couple of days ago if there are more terrorist attacks today than there were when I was her age. I honestly didn’t know and fumbled up some answer. She then posed the question to some much smarter friends of mine, who explained that hatred can spread faster these days and that it appears to have become much stronger recently. It’s easier for people to act on that hatred and take matters into their own hands. It was also brought to our attention that even before the Las Vegas shooting, which took place a couple of weeks ago, there was another shooting in a flyover state in which five additional people were killed, yet that tragedy had minimal press coverage. We live in a world of a 24/7 news cycle, and anyone could be reporting news in any sort of media. The subjectivity that comes along with this is extreme and can be difficult to decipher. It’s hard to raise children in this environment, but it’s also hard to just be a human. How do we make meaning of the tragedies? How do we find meaning in the good news? How do we not become desensitized and still develop empathy?

We are led by both political and religious figures for whom we have high expectations—or maybe we just expect them to lead. And while some of the behavior of those leaders could certainly be unacceptable, the fine lens through which we critique their actions is almost just as unbelievable.

We critique others, but do we actually critique ourselves the same way? We somehow have no problem voicing opinions on the actions of elected government officials, rabbanim and administrators of religious institutions (whether we choose to affiliate ourselves with those organizations or not). Yet, one can be thrown into a tizzy when hearing an opinion slightly different from our own. Ask 20 different people for their opinions on Bowe Bergdahl’s sentencing, and you’re bound to get 30 diverse responses. I will be the first to admit that this is my problem as much as many others around me. I shared an opinion and the surrounding thought process with my father about a currently heavily debated issue and I think I still shocked him, even after 35 years of being his daughter.

For the time being, our president is our president, whether we like it or not. So why can’t we just remind ourselves of the mantra “if you have nothing nice to say, then just don’t say it”? Because if you’re anything like me, that’s just not fun. So maybe we’ll try to be slightly more polite and just be nice.

By Rachel Zamist

 Rachel Zamist has lived in the Passaic community for the past 32 years and has watched it grow and transition. She is the beaming mother of Mimi, a seventh-grade student at Rachel’s own alma mater, YBH.