Rabbi Ken Chasen
Allan Axelrad
Stephen Axelrad
Karen Axelrad
Eve Axelrad
Joel Axelrad
|
Eulogy
for Harriet Axelrad
Delivered by Allan Axelrad
My mother was filled with love. Love for her children, grandchildren,
her great granddaughter, and her many other relatives and friends. She
loved literature and all the arts. In truth, her love reached out to all
humanity and to the physical world in which we live, our planet Earth.
Caring was not enough for her; her love for people and the planet involved
responsibility and action—in this sense, it was political.
One of Mom’s poems was titled “We The
People”:
We the people
Built a country based
on democracy.
We the people
Welcome folks of different races
and colors.
We the people
Can make or ban nuclear weapons.
We the people
can clear the air and clean
the water.
We the people
Can save the forests and plant
more trees.
We the people
Can take charge of our destiny.
We the people
Can use our power to heal the
planet.
When Mom was born in 1916, women did not have the right to vote or hold
office; they were not full citizens. That would change in a few years
with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Citizenship
for Mother was a precious right and serious responsibility.
She first voted in a presidential election in 1940, helping to reelect
Franklin Roosevelt, as she did in 1944. He was one of her great heroes,
as was his wife Eleanor. His successor, Harry Truman, was another great
figure to her, evoking local pride, for he, like Mother, was from Missouri.
Just recently, while bedridden with cancer, Mother read a 900 page biography
of Truman, with great enthusiasm.
In the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, Mother was preoccupied with raising 5 children.
Of course, there was World War II, and I have childhood memories of our
Victory Garden and Mother stopping the car to pick up hitchhiking men
in uniform. I also have memories of how she abhorred the Red Scare and
the fear mongering and demagogy of the 1950s. In these years she was an
active participant in Planned Parenthood and strongly opposed governmental
regulation of women’s bodies. She supported fully legalized contraception
and she supported the right of women to choose whether or not they wished
to bear a child. She enthusiastically endorsed the Civil Right’s
Movement and actively worked to integrate the Pacific Palisades, for well
into the 1960s no local realtor would sell or rent to African Americans.
One more note about the 1960s, when both the Democratic and Republican
parties failed the American people with the war in Vietnam, Mom sought
an alternative and joined the Peace and Freedom Party.
In the years that followed, Mom was active in the anti-nuclear movement
in particular and the peace movement in general; she strongly supported
environmentalism; she reached out to immigrants; supported Jewish causes;
and she supported a variety of medical causes. Even as her body was being
ravaged by cancer, she continued to read the newspaper, keep up with politics,
and care about the world in which she lived. She was particularly outraged
by the invasion of Iraq.
With her passion for life and justice, she was a wonderful role model
for all of us. I would like to conclude with her poem titled “Rejoice”:
Sing a song of loving
Of feeling and of life
Pushing into nowhere
Guns, hatred, and mad strife.
Glorify the rainbow
Flowers in the fields
Plant food in the garden
Till their harvest yields.
Limbs were made for dancing
Music for romance
Nothing has been ordered
Time to take a chance.
Do the work you care for
Leaving time for fun,
Spreading your horizons
Dazzling in the sun.
|