Moishinspiration from Rae at MHP

I constantly find myself getting inspired with ideas for new Moishe events, and Thanksgiving was no exception. We had a small quite Thanksgiving this year, which left us with way more left overs than ever (for some reason we cooked for the usual 20-ish guests even though there were only going to be around 10 of us this year), and the opportunity to actually sit down and all talk to each other. Every year for the past five or so years a Cambodian family, friends of my mom, spend Thanksgiving with us. Since they're first visit I discovered the mother and daughter make rocking spring rolls, but at our bigger Thanksgiving meals, I hadn't really gotten to learn much more about them. I vaguely realized that the mother and father had both come to America as refugees, but I hadn't really taken the time to think about what that implied about the type of things they had experienced. This year though, after dinner as I wandered into the living room after finishing the dishes, I heard my mother's friend talk about what he had gone through under the Khymer Rouge. He talked about occasions in which there is no explanation for his not being killed. He told us about how devastating it was to hear that the Americans were not going to help the Cambodians, and to be turned away at the Thai border and sent back to the killing fields. I had read a book about life under the Khymer Rouge by a doctor who had escaped Cambodia and later starred in the movie "In the Killing Fields," so I was not unfamiliar with what had gone on, but it was so different to be in the presence of someone who had been through it. And that made me think, what if my mother's friend came to speak at MHP? We've all heard so much about the Holocaust, but many of us are unfamiliar with other genocides. How can we say "never again" when it has happened again, just not to us. So from Thanksgiving, came the seed of what I would like to be a series of "No More" lectures.

On a less somber note, a shout out: Thanks for visiting us Brady! We had a blast. Can't wait to see you and the rest of team Moishe USA in Jan!