Thank you for publishing Rabbi Linda Holtzman’s op-ed about why a ceasefire in Gaza isn’t enough, we must also stop arming Israel.
Today, we got news of the first Gazan child — in this case, a baby — dying of hypothermia. She froze to death because there is no adequate shelter in Gaza, it’s winter, and it’s freezing at night. With its relentless bombing, shelling, and deliberate destruction of housing, hospitals, universities, and schools in Gaza, Israel reduced 90% of Gaza’s homes to rubble.
The ceasefire agreement required Israel to send in desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, 600 trucks a day of tents, tarps, bedding, blankets, food, infant formula, and potable water, medicines, and medical supplies. Israel has at most sent in 100 trucks a day. The tents Gazans have been living in for months are torn apart by winter storms; they need new tents, tarps, and blankets to keep them as warm as possible.
Israeli troops occupy most of Gaza and have killed unarmed civilians, including children who are searching for wood to burn or looking for the remnants of their homes in the increasingly occupied eastern part of Gaza. Israeli army Chief Eyal Zamir said a few days ago that the “Yellow Line” in Gaza, which demarcates Gazan land occupied by Israel, is Israel’s new border, meaning Israel will almost certainly never give back the portion of Gaza it’s supposed to be only temporarily occupying.
There is no ceasefire, no food or shelter or medicines for the Gazans. Given that Donald Trump gave birth to this “ceasefire” and so-called peace plan, he needs to hold Israel accountable. Palestinian children are just as precious and deserving of life as Israeli children.
Genie Silver, Wynnewood
…
It is both astonishing and appalling that Rabbi Linda Holtzman fails to grasp the irony — and hypocrisy — of her invoking the holiday of Hanukkah to support her efforts to block certain defense aid to Israel. The Maccabees, the heroes of the Hanukkah story, not only successfully revolted against the oppressive Syrian Greek empire, but they zealously fought against the assimilation of the Jews of that time. And where did these historic events in the second century BCE take place? In the land of Israel!
As an anti-Zionist, Holtzman does not believe the Jews have a right to live in a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Despite the attempts of so many of Holtzman’s allies to distort what Zionism is (with many even despicably comparing Zionists to Nazis), the definition of Zionism is actually quite simple: it is the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland. And an overwhelming percentage of Jews identify as Zionists.
On several occasions, Holtzman describes Israel’s response to the horrific slaughter of Oct. 7, 2023, as genocide, as if that’s a given. Never does she even mention Hamas, a terrorist organization which perpetrated brutal killings, burning of babies, and rapes and sexual mutilations (and glorified it all). No, Rabbi Holtzman, fighting back against an organization whose entire cynical strategy is based on hiding behind Gazan civilians in order to generate more casualties is not genocide. It’s a war against a truly genocidal enemy, a war that the Maccabees would have supported and led.
Richard Lowe, Oreland
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
There are roughly 343 million of us in America — a nation where diversity runs from Alaska’s frigid glaciers to the sweaty honky-tonks of Key West, and where the political divides run even deeper. And yet there is one thing that unites all of us.
One day, one way or another, in a land with more firearms than people, gun violence is going to come home.
At about 5:45 p.m. Saturday, after spending an afternoon offline untangling strings of lights and, finally, admiring the glow of a lit Christmas tree, I looked back at my phone and a brief moment of holiday joy in what has been a very rough 2025 vanished into the void. There had been a mass shooting at Brown University, my alma mater.
What unfolded over the next few hours on national TV was both stunning and a numbingly familiar ritual: the news conference where the mayor announces that two students have been killed and nine others seriously wounded; the phone interviews with terrified undergrads locked down in darkened dorm rooms, furniture pushed hard against the door; the grainy video of a male gunman clad in black.
The only real difference from Uvalde or Leland, Miss., was a personal one: Picturing mentally the moments of horror inside the building where college friends like my junior and senior-year roommate and my girlfriend learned to build everything from artificial limbs to nuclear power plants, just blocks from the newsroom where I’d toiled until 2 a.m. putting out the Brown Daily Herald, and the hockey rink where I’d go early with my history book to save seats right behind the penalty box.
Police gather on Waterman Street in Providence, R.I., on Saturday, during the investigation of a shooting.
As I write this on a snowy and overcast Sunday morning, we still don’t know the names of the two students who were murdered during a finals-week study group inside the Barus and Holley engineering building, let alone the twisted motives of whoever killed them. Yet, to anyone who’s been part of the Brown community, as I’ve been since I studied in Providence from 1977-81, it feels as if relatives have been senselessly taken from us.
That’s because the Brown community is a family — a large, messy one where people fight and bicker all the time (as I myself did back in August, when I ripped the current administration for a compromise with the Trump regime), a trait which tends to make students and alums love it even more. There’s a reason that some folks call Brown “the happy Ivy” — a communal bond that one lunatic with one of as many as 500 million guns in America tried to shatter in a few horrifying minutes.
But that’s what every mass shooting is, in one way or another: an attack on community, the very essence of being human, committed by one atomized individual who’s lost that connection and who has easy access to a weapon that lets him shatter it for everyone else.
I understand what some of you are thinking. Brown may be a happy place but it is also an elite one, which rejects nearly 95% of the hopeful young people who apply there. Is a shooting on an Ivy League campus bound to get more media attention than one at an HBCU homecoming, let alone a working-class community? Sure, but a mass shooting at Brown is also a grim reminder of a cross that we all bear — every class, race, and religion — in a nation that’s jumped onto the wrong track.
Brown University is a messy, happy family, but so was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-daySaints near Flint, Mich., where a gunman killed four people in September before setting the place on fire, and so was the birthday party in Stockton, Calif., where three children were gunned down in August, or October’s alumni celebration at a bar on Saint Helena Island, S.C., where four people were senselessly murdered.
Friends and family of victims of a shooting at a high school homecoming celebration embrace in downtown Leland, Miss., on Oct. 11.
No family is safe in the United States as long as we continue to lead the world in manufacturing two things: weapons of mass murder, and the unvarnished rage and alienation that pulls the trigger. Or as long as our so-called leaders pretend there is nothing that can be done, aside from muttering empty prayers as blood dries on a sidewalk.
A mass shooting at an Ivy League university is something that even gets the attention of our president as he shuttles between weekend golf outings. Donald Trump, after honing his uncanny knack for making things worse by posting and un-posting incorrect information on Truth Social, told reporters on a tarmac that “all we can do right now is pray for the victims, and for those that were very badly hurt.”
No, Mr. President, that is not all you can do.
You could, for starters, ask Congress to ban the kinds of assault weapons that aren’t used to hunt deer yet are all too effective at mowing down college students or grade-schoolers — something that actually happened, imperfectly but with positive results, in this country from 1994 until 2004.
But a POTUS who’s very busy micromanaging his obscenity of a new White House ballroom has no time or interest in curbing the uniquely American curse of gun violence. To the contrary, Trump has — nearly 11 months into his second term — taken a series of actions to ensure it’s easier for fugitives or people with severe mental illness to purchase firearms, and for gun buyers to avoid child-safety devices.
That does seem par for the course for our golfing president. Why would a man who wantonly murders people on Caribbean boats and is OK with foreign-aid cuts that have already killed hundreds of thousands of sick or starving children in Africa or Asia get worked up about some inconvenient carnage at a college engineering lab?
Trump’s mini-me, Vice President JD Vance, also weighed in as he always does (as caught by menswear guru and internet sage Derek Guy) after an American mass shooting — with thoughts and prayers and assurance that he is “monitoring” a situation that, by implication, he is helpless to do anything to prevent.
Still, the vice president’s thoughts and prayers for the Brown shooting seemed especially galling since this — unless I’m mistaken — is the very same JD Vance who in 2021, boosting his pro-Trump bona fides, told a right-wing gathering that “universities are the enemy.”
Look, let’s be clear: We have no idea yet who the Brown University shooter is, although a “person of interest” has now been taken into custody. The shooter could be a student angry over a grade or perceived disrespect, or someone with deranged thoughts that don’t neatly fit into our tribal politics. Or, it could be someone who buys into the Trump/Vance hate speech that elite universities are “woke” enemies of the people. Either way, in a better world, a true leader might wake up rethinking his despicable past words toward a community that is deeply suffering.
Looking back on my own experience, I think the reason that Brown is “the happy Ivy” is because — more than its rival schools — the university has since the 1960s walked the walk on the best and truest mission of higher education. That is teaching young people to think for themselves, with a curriculum that encourages engineers to study poetry and poets to study oceanography. It’s what makes Brown great, and what authoritarians like Trump and Vance can’t stand.
There’s never been a Brown alumni president, but if there was — and maybe this is a little boosterism — I’d like to think they’d been taught that it’s wrong to lie to America that there is nothing you can do to curb violence. And that they’d understand that a true leader is the one who builds up our communities, not tear them down.
I mourn today for my Brown family, but until we find the moral courage to do something about gun violence in America, no family can feel safe.
EL PASO, Texas — A small group of immigrants gathered in the lobby of the Richard C. White federal building downtown hereon a cool early morning in November. They waited to be allowed up to the seventh floor, where they would appear before a judge as their case made its way through the immigration system.
Among them were Noemi and her 6-year-old daughter, Abigail. They had driven more than four hours to get to their court date and were hoping to head back the same day. While Noemi was soft-spoken, Abigail was sharp and spirited, more than willing to answer all the questions she was being peppered with by strangers.
She spoke about where she was from (El Salvador), her favorite show (Bluey), about school (It’s all right), and about her older best friend (She’s 8).
Abigail has been in the U.S. since 2021, arriving with her mother in search of a better life. They were welcomed by a Bidenadministration that, despite its many faults, initially asserted an immigration policy that was deeply humanitarian.
But that was then.
While the immigrants sat and waited, Sigrid González introduced herself. She was a volunteer doing court accompaniment. They could not offer legal advice but were there to observe and help immigrants plan — did they bring a car? Do they have kids in school? Do they know whom to call? — in case they were detained.
“ICE is here. They have a list. We don’t know who they will take,” González said. “This is not to frighten you, but to let you know.”
Later, as the elevator doors opened on the seventh floor, a group of about half a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were indeed there. Dressed as civilians but still in uniform: blue jeans, sneakers, and dark jackets.
El Paso has not seen the kind of excessive use of force seen in places like New York, but as in immigration courtrooms across the country, ICE agents stand in wait to arrest people who are following the rules.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator after he exited a New York immigration courtroom in June.
The government’s strategy is to ask the court to dismiss an immigrant’s case, making them eligible for expedited removal, a relatively quick process under which a noncitizen can be deported back to their country, potentially without any additional immigration court hearings, Emmett Soper, a former immigration judge in Virginia, told me.
In practice, however, ICE agents regularly detain immigrants regardless of a judge’s decision on dismissal.
“I denied every single motion to dismiss. I set the case for a further hearing. I gave all the required advisal, things like that,” Soper said. “Every single person was arrested, to my knowledge, after I denied the motion to dismiss.”
The Trump administration is not stopping at ignoring due process, it is also working to reshape the immigration court system. Soper is one of about 100 immigration judges fired this year. There is no explanation for the dismissal of the judges, other than many of them having a record seen as out of step with the administration’s hard-line approach.
Instead of an experienced jurist like Soper, who took the bench in 2017 and understands that every case should be given a fair hearing according to the law, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is looking for people who want to be a “deportation judge” and want “to restore integrity and honor to our Nation’s Immigration Court system.”
In case there was any doubt what the Trump administration wants to restore, DHS clarifies in a recruitment ad: “Defend your communities, your culture, your very way of life.”
Bring the hammer down on criminal illegal aliens. Defend your communities, your culture, your very way of life.
As Abigail sat next to her mother inside Judge Judith F. Bonilla’s courtroom, coloring an image of two cats sitting side by side handed to her by the court clerk, it was hard to see what the White House is so afraid of.
Noemiwas so concerned about her legal case that she would only speak with me on the condition that her last name not be used. She did not have a lawyer. The judge asked her a series of questions and she responded in turn: She had no family in the U.S., she had not been a victim of a crime, it was her first time in the country, she had never been arrested. She was not afraid to go back to El Salvador.
It was clear from her answers that Noemi did not want to fight her case.
The only relief available for her, the judge said, was voluntary departure. If she took that option, Noemi waved her right to appeal but it left the door open for them to return legally in the future.
“I want voluntary departure,” she said.
Noemi and her daughter had 90 days to leave the U.S.
Outside the courtroom, Noemi met with González, who asked her if she wanted to share any contact information in case they were detained by ICE. Noemi looked confused.
“I have voluntary departure; can they still take me?” she asked. Based on experience, González did not hesitate to answer: “Yes.”
I have been thinking for weeks about Noemi’s face at that moment. How to describe what it looks like when someone who has gone through the legal process and made peace with the fact she cannot stay in the U.S. must still face the random cruelty of an administration that sees her and her 6-year-old as a threat.
Crestfallen, Noemi shared her information with González.
Across the hall, the ICE agents began to move toward the elevator. Apparently, they were leaving. Everyone around Noemi and Abigail sighed in relief. The mother and daughter were not among those taken, which that day included a man and a mother and her older son.
As Noemi and Abigail left the federal building to drive back home through the west Texas desert — back to the life they had built for themselves over four years and now had 90 days to leave — the only thing I could think was, how does this benefit America?
By the time more than 700 people had found coats at the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia’s annual coat drive last month, JFCS volunteer manager Brianna Torres should have been exhausted.
Instead, she was exhilarated.
“Honestly, this is one of our most favorite days of the year,” she said, taking a break from shepherding the 60 volunteers helping hundreds of folks choose free winter jackets and coats for themselves and their children at Congregation Rodeph Shalom.
Sometimes the line stretched around the historic synagogue on North Broad Street.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Torres said, with a smile. “We feel good — giving and receiving.”
JFCS’s roots date to 1855, when philanthropist and Jewish educator Rebecca Gratz founded the Jewish Foster Home, and to 1869, when United Hebrew Charities was organized.
These days, JFCS’s client base has grown beyond the Jewish population it once primarily served. It offers a multitude of services, including help with basic needs, mental health and wellness, support for Holocaust survivors, older adults and their families, help for children and families, and for people living with disabilities, as well as an LGBTQ initiative.
“We’re an organization that is very focused on the equal value of every human being,” said Robin Brandies, JFCS’s new president and chief executive.
When the giveaway ended, 900 of those human beings had chosen 1,200 coats out of 1,600 donated.
“It is our responsibility to make the world a better place,” Torres said. “Our main forefront is dignity.”
That’s why, she explained, the coat drive, while massive, didn’t resemble a rummage sale. “We’re trying to create a boutique type of atmosphere.”
People look for coats during the winter coat drive at Rodeph Shalom synagogue last month.
Volunteers hung coats neatly on racks by size, not piled in heaps. While many people were served, only 35 at a time were allowed in to “shop” in the synagogue’s huge community room. They could look at and try on coats at leisure without jostling for room.
Volunteers helped them choose their coats while other friendly volunteers packed their coats into bags along with flyers describing more of JFCS’s services.
Leftover coats wind up in JFCS’s mobile pop-up, “Our Closet in Your Neighborhood.” The agency brings a truck loaded with all kinds of clothing, from shoes to coats, and sets up mini boutiques in synagogues, churches, and community centers around the region. Fresh produce is also often available.
Last month’s coat drive was Brandies’ first as JFCS’s new president and chief executive. She replaces JFCS’s longtime executive Paula Goldstein, who retired Sept. 1 after more than 40 years of service.
“I’m blown away,” Brandies said. She walked into the synagogue’s community room and almost immediately ended up helping little King James, 3, get zipped into his new jacket.
His mother, Jessel Huggins, of Strawberry Mansion, brought five of her 13 children to the coat drive.
As they waited to choose, three of the boys, Shar, 6, Boaz, 7, and Prince Jedidiah, 8, said they hoped for winter jackets themed with Sonic the Hedgehog characters — Sonic and Tails, the fox.
Sadly, they weren’t available, but at least Boaz and Prince Jedidiah got blue coats — the same color as the hedgehog. Shar landed a gray camouflage one. Their older sister, Shaly, 13, managed to snag her dream coat, a jacket with fur around the hood.
“This is my first time coming,” Huggins said. “Buying coats for 13 kids is a lot.”
LaToya Adams, of West Philly, stood in line, hoping she’d find a coat for herself, her daughter, 20, and her son, 7. “We can’t afford coats with food stamps being cut off — and right at Thanksgiving.”
People wait in line to get into the winter coat drive at Rodeph Shalom synagogue last month.
“The money I do make has to go to the bills,” she said. “I’m just trying to find a good-paying job. It’s a burden. It feels like you have a weight on your shoulders and you can’t get out of it. We’re trying to survive, and them giving a coat today helps.”
Brandies came to JFCS after serving as the leader of Abramson Senior Care. The two organizations joined on Oct. 1 to provide more seamless care for older adults and their families in a program now known as Abramson Senior Care of JFCS.
Abramson had offered more health-based care with JFCS, providing other types of services to seniors, including help with housing and food. “A family can make one phone call” on a 24-hour hotline to access services, Brandies said.
Sometimes there are emergencies, like a person calling late at night after noticing an elderly neighbor had tried to cook herself a meal and ended up having a minor fire. Usually, though, Brandies said, the calls are from people seeking advice on how to care for an aging relative.
Brandies, who had earlier careers in law and fundraising, said she became a fierce advocate for older adults in the 10 years she spent at Abramson.
“People don’t like to think about aging,” she said. “It’s possibly the most universal and least sexy of causes. It’s not as sexy in fundraising circles as donating” to programs for children.
“Everybody ages and needs help at some point,” she said. “But we’re not educated [as a society] as to the best way to be there.
“As the percentage of the population that’s aging increases, we have fewer people going into senior care professions,” and there are fewer resources available to help the elderly. Many are aging alone, with no families nearby to help.
“Seniors don’t want to be infantilized,” she said. “They want to continue to live their lives with as much dignity as possible.”
This article is part of a series about Philly Gives — a community fund to support nonprofits through end-of-year giving. To learn more about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.
For more information about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.
Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia
Mission: Jewish Family and Children’s Service (JFCS) of Greater Philadelphia strengthens families and individuals across generations and cultures to achieve stability, independence, and community.
People served: Over 30,000 annually
Annual spending: $14,899,000 for 2024-2025
Point of pride: The recent merger of JFCS and Abramson Senior Care (now Abramson Senior Care of JFCS) expands access to comprehensive social and healthcare services for older adults and their caregivers across Greater Philadelphia.
You can help: We invite individuals, families, groups, corporations, and more to contribute their time and skills to a variety of community-based volunteer opportunities.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker spent last weekend arguing that amendments to her H.O.M.E. initiative are “trying to pit the ‘have-nots’ against those who have just a little bit.” But what is divisive about making sure those who are the least well off are prioritized? According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition and National Alliance to End Homelessness, extremely low-income households (households making 30% of the region’s annual median income or less) are facing the brunt of the housing crisis. City Council’s amendments propose reallocating 90% of the funding for certain programs to residents making 60% of the annual median income or less, as opposed to going to residents who make up to 100% of the annual median income. So her argument that this is a “subtraction” carries no weight. What is being subtracted? Moreover, if she really wanted to address the housing crisis, why would she not allocate assistance to those who, according to experts, need it the most? The amendments simply call for a reallocation of funds to those who need it the most. Nothing about that should be divisive; it is simply good policy, but Mayor Parker’s language about it certainly is. Mayor Parker is dividing Philadelphians, not progressives in City Council.
Jeff Wasch,Philadelphia
$100K visas
There’s no question that many American-born medical professionals would rather work in urban areas where they and their families can enjoy the amenities that large cities offer and their children can choose from a wide range of schools to attend. For years, foreign-born medical professionals have been filling positions in undesirable locales across rural America. President Donald Trump just levied a $100,000 H-1B visa application fee on foreign-born medical professionals, among others. If Nephrology Associates of the Carolinas closes because it cannot hire enough doctors, its dialysis patients will need to travel one hour each way to Charlotte, N.C., three times a week. I wonder if these dialysis patients in a city where residents overwhelmingly voted for President Trump now regret their 2024 vote.
Paul L. Newman,Merion Station
Balance of powers
According to analysts, the oral arguments heard recently by the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Slaughter give clear indication that the majority intends to gut/overturn the governing precedent (the Humphrey’s Executor v. United States decision) that restrains executive authority over independent agency heads. This will solidify the “unitary executive.” The reins will be removed, and Donald Trump will consider there to be no remaining limits. He will remove any Fed governor, Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner, or, for that matter, even common civil servants as he sees fit, without repercussions. Historians should note Dec. 8, 2025, as the date that marks the end of our system of government as we have till this point understood it. Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged as much in a sarcastically phrased question. The salient question for America’s future is whether his sarcasm was because he does not believe there will be harm, even given the breadth of this decision, or was the sarcasm because he simply doesn’t care? Political ideology currently seems to trump considerations of justice or tradition. The court clearly seemed to indicate it is going to eliminate the balance of powers insofar as it restrains the executive. I suppose it is somewhat understandable that the Founding Fathers did not explicitly spell everything out in detail. There seemed to be some presumption that honor and gentlemanly decorum would prevent outcomes such as we see today. And as quaint and naive as that may have been even then, how could the intervening generations have been so naive as not to have foreseen this downside potential, and responded appropriately with more explicit legislative restrictions? Even in my lifetime, since Kent State, Richard Nixon, and Iran-Contra, how could we have continued forward with such naivete, having never explicitly delineated the constitutional limits of executive power? How could we have been so stupid?
W.B. Yeats certainly saw this coming: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold … The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Michael Cahill, Phoenixville
Grand old flag
So the city’s Department of Public Property “aimsto replace each flag twice a year,” and “shift crews perform a weekly check”? I must be driving the wrong Parkway. The flags I’m seeing look like they were the originals hung during the Bicentennial in 1976. Some look like they fail to reflect decades-old regime changes. The folks at public property need to check their maps, adjust their GPS systems, and reverse their binoculars. Some of the Parkway flags are looking mighty sad.
Mike Egan, Plymouth Meeting
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
I am not new to end-of-life care — as a nurse and someone who has worked in healthcare for most of my life, I have helped numerous friends, family, patients, and clients at the end of their lives.
Yet, the transition to long-term care for older adults is vastly different. Over the past few weeks, I have witnessed the demoralizing treatment of this firsthand as family members close to me have tried to manage their loved one’s urgent hospitalization and the fallout afterward; it was a wake-up call.
My 80-year-old relative was diagnosed with metastatic cancer seven years ago. During the pandemic, they had emergency surgery as their cancer spread to their spine and caused partial paralysis in their legs. The surgery was successful, and for a long time, medication kept the cancer contained. But last month, the paralysis began again, and they were back in the hospital requiring another urgent spinal surgery.
At first, their acute care was phenomenal. Then, as they became physiologically stable, and it became clear they couldn’t go home but would need long-term care, everything changed.
When it comes to the transition into long-term care, families have no control over some things, yet are expected to control the minutest details of others, writes Marion Leary.
I watched as my family members, over the course of two weeks, grew increasingly overwhelmed, exasperated, and exhausted. They began to look as though they themselves were going to require hospitalization. The amount of information being thrown at them, in no coordinated way, was utterly overwhelming. In contrast, the lack of information being shared with them was similarly overwhelming and stupefying.
Though my family members were at their loved one’s bedside more than eight hours a day while in the hospital, and repeatedly asked the medical team to discuss any plans with them, their loved one’s healthcare proxy, the team continued to only relay pertinent information to the patient who was in excruciating pain, on pain meds, is hard-of-hearing, and was recovering from spine surgery and anesthesia .
Not surprisingly, the information rarely made it back to my family members. Not once during the week postsurgery, as they were trying to plan for the looming hospital discharge and the associated next steps, did that happen.
At no time did anyone from the surgical or oncology team discuss follow-up plans with my family members. This sparked a cascade of misinformation and omissions that became the foundation for the steep learning curve that is rehabilitation and long-term care in our healthcare industry.
Due to the progression of the cancer on the spine and the ensuing paralysis, my family’s loved one needed to go to acute rehab from the hospital, but what acute rehabs were available, where they were located, how long one can stay and then where they go afterward, how it would be decided, and how it would be paid for was a mystery for my family to decipher.
Their loved one would need to start radiation therapy once the surgical wound healed, but how they would be transported from the acute rehab to the medical center and when that would begin was also, apparently, for the family to figure out. At one point, my family member asked the social worker how transportation to the radiation appointment would work; the social worker shrugged their shoulders and told them to try an Uber.
An Uber, for a medically fragile, at the time stretcher-bound, individual. It would be funny if it were not contemptible.
Almost all of us who grow old will need some long-term care — and yet, based on our experience and the experiences of so many others, there is no system in place, writes Marion Leary.
As my family member’s loved one became more stable and progressed in their rehabilitation, their follow-up medical care became the next problem to be solved.
Oncology appointments were scheduled while at acute rehab; luckily, they could be done virtually. To our surprise, though, the acute rehab personnel would take no responsibility in assisting their patient in attending these medically necessary appointments. They refused to help turn on the iPad or log in to the medical portal for the appointment. Once again, it was the family’s responsibility to figure out how this would happen.
Ultimately, my family member had to physically go to the acute rehab to turn on the device and log their loved one into the portal. Dealing with an ill and injured loved one is hard enough while juggling your own life responsibilities, but requiring family members to drive 40 minutes (each way) in the middle of a weekday to an acute rehab facility with licensed medical providers — to assist the facility’s own patient with their necessary medical appointments because the facility’s licensed medical providers refuse — is yet another unnecessary and callous hurdle to make families jump.
In situations such as I have described, families have no control over some things, yet are expected to control the minutest details of others. Make it make sense.
I am not naive to the plethora of troubles that come with being sick, injured, low-income/low-resources, or elderly in this country.
I ran a nonprofit organization years ago that helped people pay for medical expenses. I worked with clients who were not only trying to keep their loved ones alive but were also trying to manage and pay for their care. I repeatedly witnessed how our healthcare industry put up every possible roadblock and hurdle; how loved ones became increasingly despondent.
In the U.S., there are over 61 million older adults, those aged 65 or older — this is 18% of the population. This number is expected to grow to 22% of the population by 2040. That will be close to one-quarter of the U.S. population. Yet, there is no coordinated system in place to help older adults and their families transition to long-term care and navigate the inevitable healthcare challenges they will face — let alone face them with grace and dignity.
The “not my problem” “hot potato” approach our healthcare industry has taken is criminal.
With nowhere else to turn to help my loved ones, I reached out to a colleague who specializes in palliative care. They provided helpful resources and echoed what seems to be the sentiment of many providers: “Our ‘system,’ it’s garbage.”
Many patients and families who have gone through this experience know this to be true. Yet, we continue to perpetuate, accept, or be resigned to a system that treats older adults and their families, as my colleague accurately stated, like garbage.
Which is mind-boggling, as most of us, if we are lucky (or unlucky, given the circumstances), will grow old. Most of us have relatives who will grow old. Almost all of us who grow old will need some long-term care — and yet, based on our experience and the experiences of so many others, there is no system in place.
None of the resources we eventually found came from any healthcare provider or social worker in either the hospital or the acute rehab.
None.
Only after using ChatGPT and reaching out to colleagues were we able to start putting the pieces together. ChatGPT recommended our local county aging corporation, which provided helpful resources for transportation and the Pennsylvania Elder Law hotline.
Through this whole process, we have remarked — and felt genuinely nauseated over — what other older adults who need long-term care do if they don’t have family support or financial resources. We are still at a loss.
But I am not about to shrug my shoulders or be resigned. I am not willing to place the burden back on the sick and aging, nor their families. I implore my healthcare colleagues to acknowledge the faults in the system, accept the burden of care, and do better.
Marion Leary is a nurse, public health advocate, and activist.
A proposal in City Council aims to amend the so-called resign-to-run rule that requires elected city officials to give up their seats if they want to run for another office.
Philadelphia voters have already rejected a similar plan twice, once in 2007 and again in 2014. A third attempt stalled out in Council in 2020.
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who proposed eliminating the rule last year, is back with a modified measure that would allow city officeholders to keep their seats while running for a state or federal office. They would still have to resign to run for another city office, such as mayor.
Sorry, councilman, but there’s no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. Many of the same good government reasons that require resigning to run for another office still hold.
Namely, running for office is a full-time job. The fundraising, campaign stops, debates, and town halls that take place during the day, nights, and weekends leave little time for officials to do the six-figure day job they were elected to do.
Depending on the office, running for a statewide or federal seat could also require additional travel across the state that would further distract from serving the constituents the official was elected to represent.
There would also be the temptation to use taxpayer-funded city resources — including the car, office, and staff — to help with the campaign. That is in addition to the taxpayer-funded salary and benefits elected city officials would collect while campaigning for a higher office.
Lastly, the elected official could also leverage their position against other candidates to benefit themselves or donors.
City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas said he would like to see the “resign-to-run” rule eliminated, but for now he was trying to strike a compromise.
The arguments for allowing an elected official to remain in office while campaigning for another job just don’t hold up.
The main argument is that it will allow more competition. For example, Thomas said some of his Council colleagues may have entered the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans — a five-term Democrat from the 3rd District — if they did not have to resign.
But even under the current rule, there is no lack of competition for Evans’ seat. Eleven people have already announced their candidacy, and the primary is not until May 19.
The diverse field already has a number of excellent candidates, including several who have never run for office before. Voters will have plenty of good options.
Thomas argued voters would benefit if the field included Council members. “There could be even more great candidates,” he said in an interview.
Thomas said city officials faced an uneven playing field, since state and federal elected officials do not have to resign to run for another office. That is true.
Three of the congressional candidates hold state elected office. But the better reform is to require state and federal elected officials to resign to run for another office.
As the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Voters are already fed up with professional politicians. It is even more annoying when an official gets reelected and months later launches a bid for another office.
Even with the current rule, there is no lack of competition for retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans’ seat, Paul Davies writes. Eleven candidates so far are vying to succeed the five-term Democrat from the 3rd District.
That scenario may soon play out with Gov. Josh Shapiro. He faces reelection in November, and many assume he will run for president in 2028. That means if Shapiro is reelected governor, he could spend much of the first half of his second term campaigning in Iowa, New Hampshire, and beyond.
After then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched his first bid for president, he would go on to spend 262 full or partial days out of the state in 2015. He traveled with a security detail that included New Jersey state troopers driving black SUVs with the state’s license plates, costing taxpayers more than $600,000.
Likewise, when then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) ran for president in the same election cycle, he missed 50% of the votes in the Senate.
Thomas conceded it would be difficult to balance city duties while running for an office that would require campaigning across the state. But he said city officials running for a congressional seat in Philadelphia while holding office would “not miss a beat.”
That may be true since Council doesn’t meet in the summer. But that’s an argument for making Council a part-time job, especially since they can, and some do, hold second jobs.
Philadelphia’s resign-to-run rule was added to the Home Rule Charter in 1951. At the time, the Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan organization established in 1904 to combat corruption, strongly supported the rule.
After then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched his first bid for president, he would go on to spend 262 full or partial days out of the state in 2015, Paul Davies writes.
Any measure that prevents corruption still seems like a good idea. But surprisingly, the good-government group’s position has “evolved,” Lauren Cristella, the head of the Committee of Seventy, said in a statement.
The organization “reluctantly” supported the repeal of the rule in 2014, citing the need for more competition.
But Philadelphia voters rejected the effort. Just as they did in 2007.
This time, the Committee of Seventy said it would only support ending the resign-to-run rule if it was part of a broader reform package that includes term limits and “stronger safeguards for ethical, transparent government.”
The Committee of Seventy said the proposed change in its current form only serves the “political interests, but not the public interest.”
Rest assured, if the resign-to-run rule were modified to allow city officials to run for state and federal office, it would just be a matter of time before Council tried to repeal it altogether.
Even Thomas said he would like to see the rule eliminated, but for now, he was trying to strike a compromise.
Philadelphia has long been criticized as being “corrupt and contented.” But reforms like resign-to-run and the city’s strict campaign finance regulations passed a decade ago are models of good government.
Indeed, only a couple of cities and states have a resign-to-run rule. Philadelphia should champion its position as a good-government leader.
Harrisburg — which has no such measure and some of the worst campaign finance rules — would benefit from following the city’s lead.
By now, it is beyond obvious that Donald Trump is unredeemable.
Trump assumed the Oval Office in 2016 as the most inexperienced, untruthful, and unstable president in modern history, if not ever. He has only grown worse.
This past year, Trump has been a one-man wrecking ball, attacking norms, institutions, public health, higher education, the rule of law, and the Constitution. Never before has a president led such a relentless assault on the United States and its allies, while cozying up to dictators.
Trump has literally waged war at home and abroad, sending federal troops into cities, deporting thousands of immigrants without due process, and murdering alleged drug runners without providing any evidence.
The list of corrupt and egregious abuses of power is long and growing by the day.
But perhaps more shameful than Trump is how so many who know better have enabled him — including many top officials in Pennsylvania.
The list includes U.S. Sens. Dave McCormick and John Fetterman, as well as U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, and dozens of GOP representatives in Harrisburg and Washington.
Each one has played a distinctive role in putting Trump above their constitutional oath. Many other Republican officials across the country, along with the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court and right-wing media, have enabled and emboldened Trump’s worst instincts. The collective cowardice has damaged the United States and forever stained each individual’s place in history.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman speaks at the Penn Ag Democrats Luncheon at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg in January.
Fetterman was the only Democratic senator who voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi, an election denier who represented Trump during his first impeachment.
Bondi is not an independent law enforcement official. She worked to undermine legal proceedings and elections before becoming attorney general.
Bondi promoted conspiracy theories during Trump’s impeachment trial, traveled to New York to criticize the judge and prosecutor overseeing Trump’s criminal trial, and came to Pennsylvania to spread false claims about the 2020 election.
Yet, Fetterman still voted for Bondi.
Since getting confirmed, she has overseen the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under Bondi, prosecutors have defied court orders, attacked judges, dropped criminal cases against Trump allies, targeted the president’s perceived enemies, and bungled the Jeffrey Epstein files.
U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.) speaks during the opening session of the National Treasury Employees Union Legislative Conference in Washington in March.
Fitzpatrick, a Republican who represents Bucks County, initially voted in favor of Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill that gave tax cuts to the super wealthy, added $3.4 trillion to the deficit, and cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid and food stamps spending.
He later voted against the final version — after it was clear it would pass without his support. Fitzpatrick is now scrambling to keep health insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, from soaring. But his initial vote set the current course.
Fitzpatrick, who is up for reelection in November, represents a swing district. He tries to appear bipartisan, but votes with Trump on most major issues. He voted against impeaching him and rarely criticizes the president’s abuses of power or corruption.
The rest of the Pennsylvania Republican delegation in Congress has also largely remained unanimous in its support for Trump and his extremism. Dozens of federal and state officials in Pennsylvania, including U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., York) and State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin), shamed themselves and the country by working with Trump to overturn the 2020 election. Efforts that led to a violent insurrection.
Still, they continue to support Trump’s wayward ways.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday addresses the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pa., in April.
Sunday, the top law enforcement official in Pennsylvania, has been largely missing in action since getting elected 13 months ago. He has failed to stand up to the Trump administration when its actions harm Pennsylvanians.
Instead, Sunday has deferred to Gov. Josh Shapiro to lead legal fights after Trump cut funds for education, public safety, farm aid, and SNAP benefits. Shapiro has filed or joined more than a dozen lawsuits against the Trump administration, while Sunday — a Republican who served two terms as the district attorney in York County — has laid low.
U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick during a panel discussion at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in July.
Just weeks after taking his Senate office, McCormick cast a key vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as the defense secretary. McCormick, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, backed Hegseth despite knowing the Fox & Friends Weekend cohost was utterly unqualified to keep America safe.
Hegseth went from whining about the “woke military” on TV to overseeing a Defense Department with nearly three million military and civilian employees and a budget of $850 billion.
Hegseth’s only military experience was time spent in the National Guard, where he was flagged as an “insider threat” because of tattoos linked to white supremacists.
He was an incompetent manager who was forced to step down from two tiny nonprofits because of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct. Others said Hegseth routinely passed out from excessive drinking, including while on the job at Fox News.
All of that was known to McCormick and the 49 other Republican senators who voted to approve Hegseth despite their duty to ensure cabinet nominees are qualified.
Hegseth quickly demonstrated he is unfit for the job. Just weeks after getting confirmed, he used an unsecure messaging app to text classified war plans to a group that mistakenly included a journalist.
In the wrong hands, the war plans — which included information about weapons packages, targets, and timing — could have endangered the lives of troops. If other military officers shared similar classified information, they could have been court-martialed.
Hegseth’s purging of career military leaders is also making America weaker, as he places loyalty to Trump above competency, distinguished service, and merit.
Hegseth has overseen the bombing of alleged drug boats that violate international law and amount to extrajudicial killings. The legal rationale is dubious at best and may constitute war crimes.
At the very least, the deadly strikes are immoral and violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
McCormick did not respond to requests to comment on whether he regrets supporting Hegseth. During McCormick’s Senate campaign, he talked up the West Point motto of “duty, honor, country.”
Like so many other so-called leaders, those ideals have taken a back seat to serving Trump.
One day, Trump will be gone — but his enablers will have to answer for the damage they helped to wreak.
This week’s Shackamaxon is about the mayor’s housing plan, micromanaging tables and chairs, and Gov. Josh Shapiro’s abilities as a dealmaker.
Not yet H.O.M.E.
Initially, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s $2 billion proposal to build or restore 30,000 homes seemed like a point of consensus between the administration and City Council. Yet, Parker’s attempt to expand the income limits, particularly for the Basic Systems Repair and Adaptive Modifications programs, has proved to be a sticking point, and the war of words is escalating.
The mayor has been campaigning for her plan across the city, including at places of worship. She’s cast Council as unwilling to help those who have “paid up and prayed up.” A majority of Council members took issue with that description, insisting all they want to do is ensure the neediest residents have first dibs on the resources.
Frankly, the temperature in this debate has gotten much too high. Under either side’s plan, income levels will be expanded, and most of the benefit will go to people making less than 60% of area median income.
Instead of fighting Council over income levels, Parker should have pushed them to allow for more market-rate construction in areas that aren’t in and around Center City. Ironically, the city’s chief housing officer, Angela Brooks, published an article for the National League of Cities that makes the case to do exactly that, citing a Moody’s report that shows that much of the city is undersupplied when it comes to housing and calling for a market-smart response.
Yet, much of Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy plan is geared toward demand-side support that may help individual households, but won’t reduce the rapid appreciation in housing costs for the hundreds of thousands of families across all income levels who will never apply for or receive any of these benefits.
Cindy Bass during the first day of Council’s fall session in September.
Wait outside
Shackamaxon readers are familiar with Philadelphia’s tradition of councilmanic prerogative, which gives district Council members total discretion over land use and transportation questions within their districts. Typically, this means big civic questions like what to do with a closed middle school, how to renovate an aging library, or whether to proceed with an ambitious street redesign.
It also means that district members have control over even the most minor of concerns — like whether a restaurant can place tables and chairs outside.
In most of Philadelphia, you actually need a city ordinance to do this. That’s right. A restaurant or cafe owner can’t just notice it is a nice day and decide to set up outdoor dining. There isn’t even a simple permit system. Installation requires Council approval, which means getting your district Council member’s sign-off. That can be easier said than done.
After the pandemic demonstrated that expanded outdoor dining can be done without causing an uprising, City Council created a few (what I call) micromanagement-free zones for restaurants, where the process is simplified. (To her credit, 3rd District Councilmember Jamie Gauthier included her entire district.)
Even then, they must secure a $1 million insurance policy, pay a $227 annual licensing fee, and hire an architect. Yes, an architect must be involved just to put out a few tables and chairs. At Thursday’s City Council hearing, one restaurant owner claimed the process was more difficult than getting his food safety certification. For restaurants outside the designated zones, Council authorization is still required. This puts them at a competitive disadvantage against restaurants that already have the benefits of being located inside a zone.
At-Large City Councilmember Rue Landau, whose brother, Rich, owns Vedge, has come to the aid of these forgotten eateries. She proposed and passed a bill to expand the “by-right” areas, freeing more businesses from Council’s micromanagement. While the bill should help more restaurants navigate the process, they still face the prospect of waiting months or years for city approval, in a process many entrepreneurs say seems designed to trip them up rather than bring them into compliance.
Even with the limited assistance on offer, the effort still attracted the ire of 8th District Councilmember Cindy Bass. Bass, one of Council’s most prolific practitioners of prerogative, viewed the bill as an imposition on her right to dictate how things should be done. Even though Landau carved out Bass’ entire district from the legislation, Bass still felt the need to beat up on the proposal at a committee hearing.
Saudia Shuler (left), dressed as “Saudi Claus,” helps Averie Love, 11, pick out a new bicycle during a 2017 Christmas toy giveaway in front of Shuler’s restaurant in North Philadelphia.
Favors for fraudsters
Bass isn’t against all restaurant owners, however. This week, she pushed through a resolution honorarily renaming the intersection of Broad and Pike Streets for Saudia Shuler.
The North Philly mom and owner of Saudia Shuler’s Country Cookin’ rose to prominence as the “camel prom mom” in 2017 after hosting an extravagant Dubai-themed send-off for her son. The event included three different luxury cars, three different luxury outfits, and three different dates, alongside a camel and sand.
Shuler told journalists at the time that it all cost just over $25,000. She also held an extravagant toy giveaway later that year, handing out 100 bicycles and 800 presents to local kids.
Unfortunately, Shuler’s story did not end there. The next year, she was indicted for Social Security fraud. In 2019, she pleaded guilty, admitting to taking nearly $40,000. That means much of her generosity was coming at the expense of taxpayers and Social Security beneficiaries. Somehow, this episode went unmentioned by every member of Council, and her honors were passed unanimously.
Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks at SEPTA’s Frazer Shop and Rail Yard in Malvern in November.
Gov. Dealmaker
After a four-month-long impasse over the state budget, some may have questioned Gov. Shapiro’s credentials as a dealmaker. Yet, this weekend, the ambitious Abingtonian demonstrated his mediation skills, helping to broker a deal between SEPTA and its largest labor group, the Transport Workers Union Local 234.
The agreement averts a strike that could have started on Monday (or even last Friday, according to a few operators who told me they thought action was imminent that day).
This is now the third time the governor has come to SEPTA’s rescue, although this time he managed to pass up getting behind a podium at a news conference. For riders hoping to avoid service interruptions, these interventions have been welcome. Still, I can’t help wondering why the Transport Workers Union had an easier time making a deal with Shapiro instead of with Scott Sauer, the first general manager to start his career as a rank-and-file operator.
