To be in the presence of Bill Ayres, former Catholic priest and co-founder of WHY Hunger with Harry Chapin, is to be bathed in the warm glow of hope and love.

During this week that we celebrate, and try to replicate in some small way, the life and actions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Bill Ayres’ life gives us some practical instructions of just how to do it.

As with Dr. King, the driving forces of Bill Ayres’ activism are his faith, and his love of the dignity of all human beings.  It’s what’s guided Bill’s life for some six decades—in addition to a unique sense of how music can change individual lives, and through it, the world.  With the Grammy Awards less than three weeks away, it’s important to note the increasing urgency of intertwining the works of artists with social action, the way Harry Chapin did during the final decade of his brief life.

Our Bill Ayres of Huntington Station, NY, whom I know and love–the real Bill Ayres, as I call him, so he cannot be confused with the Chicago-area, headline-grabbing, violence-winking, Weather Underground’s Bill Ayers —is the real, long-term radical social activist. His indefatigable efforts fighting hunger and poverty continue to make a difference in thousands of lives each day. Beyond his remarkable work fighting hunger, poverty and food insecurity with singer/songwriter Harry Chapin, and the Chapin family over the past 5 decades, Bill Ayres’ own life and work is the stuff of inspiration. 

That’s why it’s fitting that Huntington’s Bill Ayres—our Bill Ayres– shares a birthday with long-time Civil Rights leader, Julian Bond, on the day before Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. Not only did both men march and work with Dr. King, but they devoted most of their lives to practicing the kind of targeted, effective, never-ending non-violence which Martin Luther King preached.  Our Bill Ayres— and Julian Bond–personify the very best in service to others, which Martin Luther King Day has come to represent.

Both became aware of the continuing struggle for civil and human rights in this country at roughly the same time.  Bond co-founded the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) while a student at all-Black Morehouse College in 1960, where he first met Dr. King.  He risked his life registering new voters during Freedom Summer in Mississippi, in 1964.  Ayres, entered the seminary to study the priesthood, in 1963—not to escape the troubled world, but to embrace and repair it, influenced by the teachings of Catholic progressives like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

In 1966—the same year Bill Ayres entered the priesthood–the overwhelmingly white, male Georgia House of Representatives refused to seat Julian Bond —despite his being elected to represent his Georgia Legislative district—Martin Luther King came and preached against the illegal and racist action of the Georgia Legislature, and organized a march in support of Julian Bond’s right to serve.  Five years later, Bond co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading civil rights organization, which continues to be a strong voice against discrimination and hate to this day, nearly a decade after Bond’s death at the age of 75, in 2015.

Bill Ayres, our Bill Ayers, would be the last person to encourage any comparison between his tireless efforts battling hunger, poverty and powerlessness, with the work of Julian Bond, or, especially of Dr. King.  Regardless of Bill’s self-effacing modesty, the similarities are there for all to see.

 Just after the 50^th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, I interviewed our Bill Ayres, in the New York City headquarters of WHYHunger, and in the tranquil beauty of his beloved Heckscher Park in the Village of Huntington, L.I., not far from his home. We peacefully strolled around the Park’s calm lake, when I asked him about the influence of Dr. King on his life’s work:

 “In 1963, I was in the March on Washington, I was a kid, in the seminary.  Then I marched with him lots of times, heard him preach in the church, read all his stuff, and, I knew that racism was an evil; poverty was an evil and that they were all very much connected…”

Bill Ayres attended the Immaculate Conception seminary in Huntington for six years in the early 1960’s where he began reading Dr. King’s “stuff”, as he described it. 

 “The inspiration for me in all of this is, of course, the social teachings of the church and the Gospel of Matthew, and lots of other places.  King is kind of the one who put that into action.  Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator driven out of after a military coup in 1964, wound up in Boston College and taught with a friend of mine up there and at UN.  I met him a few times and heard him speak.  He had this whole thing that the root cause of hunger is poverty and the root cause of poverty is powerlessness—I repeated this mantra to Harry Chapin a couple of times when I first met him.  That’s always been our theme.”

We stopped walking as Bill’s kind, gentle-blue eyes, underscored that point:

“It’s the powerlessness that comes from on top, from oppression; racial oppression, sexual and, economic injustice.  That’s where we came from and that’s where we’ve always been.

Serving Catholic parishes in conservative Long Island towns like Babylon and Seaford, Father Bill Ayres, did not look the part of the “radical priest,” despite, his deep, Catholic Worker beliefs.  I asked him if he ever met the Berrigans, the “radical priests” of the 1960’s, arrested on many occasions for protesting the War in Vietnam, and destroying draft board records, as depicted in the recent TV series “Fellow Travelers.”

“Interesting.  I met them, but didn’t know them. After I was ordained there was a priest friend of mine, who was a friend of the Berrigans.  And Berrigan invited him and me to meet Thomas Merton.  I never got there.  Berrigan couldn’t go and we cancelled the whole thing.  It’s one of those missed opportunities.  I was on marches with the Berrigans; I was part of the anti-war movement.  I would have loved to have met Merton.  His book, The Seven Storey Mountain, influenced me to become a priest.  He was a convert; He was a big influence on lots of people including me.  A remarkable man.”

Thomas Merton’s writings and teachings influenced not only Bill Ayres, but generations of progressive Catholic activists to move well beyond the fundamentalist strictures of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church establishment.  In the recent TV series “Fellow Travelers,” one of the main characters “Skippy,”—played by the actor Jonathan Bailey—is a Catholic, social activist who opposed the church’s complicity in the War in Vietnam as well as its’ dogmatic positions against marriage and homosexuality, kept a copy of Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain on his night table.

It was the Church’s unyielding restrictions against priests marrying that drove Bill Ayres from the organized priesthood.  After 13 years of serving two Catholic parishes, Bill met and fell in love with his wife, Jeannine, to whom he’s still married 45 years later.  But while, Ayres may have formally left the priesthood, his life of service to others never left him. His congregation grew to a national size when he met Harry Chapin by interviewing him on Ayres’ radio program “On The Rock,” in 1973.

Serendipitously, Chapin’s great-aunt through marriage was Dorothy Day, one of the heroic figures in Bill Ayres life:

“If You look on my desk, I have a picture of Dorothy Day.  I used to go down to her gatherings on Friday night on Christopher Street. (In NYC)  I was very influenced by Dorothy Day; she was one of my role models, radical Catholic, sort of who I am.  Harry and I talked about her, “Well, you know, I’m related to her,” he said, “and he was proud of it”.

It was Bill Ayres who alerted me to the remarkable book by Day’s granddaughter Kate Hennessy, “Dorothy Day:  The World Will Be Saved by Beauty,” which, in intimate and exquisite detail, illuminates the life that the revolutionary Catholic worker lived, and how much she accomplished for others.  And it was Bill, ever the teacher and mentor, who took from his personal bookshelf, a the dog-eared, underlined, hard-copy of a book—a guide for social action, really—which meant a lot to him—and gifted it to me.  It was his copy of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “ a blueprint for honoring—and acting for– the humanity in all of us.

Bill Ayres’ all-encompassing humanity can leave you in quiet awe, and I was sure he must have had the same effect upon Harry Chapin, whom he met while still a practicing priest.  I asked him if Harry believed in God:

“There’s an interesting thing here,” Ayres said.  “ I’m a Catholic priest here and he’s this rock and roll guy.  An interesting partnership. He loved it. He just thought it was a wild thing.  He called me “Wild Bill” because I did all this crazy stuff.  But he said to me, ‘you know, I’m not a believer; I come from a bunch of agnostics; I grew up in the Episcopal Church, I sang in the Episcopal Church.  But I’m not really religious. ‘

“However, he evolved.  And, part of the evolution was that he saw the goodness in the people who were running these food pantries and soup kitchens.  And he had this great line, “I believe in the believers.”

 “ Just a few months before Harry died, we were having this conversation about religion.  He said , “I believe in God.”  Big breakthrough.  “But I don’t believe in a god of fear or vengeance.  I believe in a god who loves people.  I believe in a God that gives lots of hugs.”  Harry liked to hug people.   He and I talked about Jesus over the years.  The whole thing is love and justice; it’s what’s it all about.”

 My favorite of Bill Ayres’ books, from which I seek inspiration, hope and guidance frequently, is his simple, soul-refreshing teaching tool which he wrote with his radio soul-mate, Pete Fornatale, entitled “All You Need Is Love..and 99 Other Life Lessons from Classic Rock Songs.”  The book is dedicated to Harry Chapin, especially for Chapin’s use of his music, song and story-telling gifts to help “millions more to have food in their stomachs, dignity in their lives and hope in their spirits.”

It’s what our Bill Ayres has devoted a lifetime of service to doing, and still practices every single day.  To me, it’s the perfect message, and model of behavior, for Martin Luther King Day, and for each love-filled moment of our lives.

Elise Stef-An-ICK:  as sick as she’s slick–

That smile, that guile, that festering pile.

She knows “HOSTAGES,” are kidnapped by Hamas;

Not criminals arrested for attacking police with sticks.

At Harvard, she must have cut her Criminal Law class.

Elise, Elise, you busted valise,

You pitiful, pliable piece of wood.

Your every move is lathered with grease,

Fundamentally, you’re no good.

Election denier, serial liar,

You and Georgy Santos set your own pants afire.

Sixty courts ruled the election was fair,

So what? She said.  Why should I care?

At Harvard, she must have cut her ConLaw class there.

Elise, Elise, you busted valise,

You pitiful, pliable piece of wood.

Your every move is lathered with grease,

Fundamentally, you’re no good.

From pro-choice to pro-life,

With the flick of your tongue,

From Kasich to McCarthy to Trump,  all pure bung.

No flicker of remorse from your changes of heart—

None left.  You removed it yourself with a knife.

Stef-An-ICK, Stef-An-ICK–no time to panic,

Mere weeks after she’s stripped of her see-through Santos,

No ethos, or pathos, nor even his pilfered pantos.

Just whip up a new lie, a slimy line of attack,

Only this time let’s lynch someone who’s liberal and…Black.

Elise, Elise, you busted valise,

You pitiful, pliable piece of wood;

Your every move is lathered with grease,

Fundamentally, you’re no good.

Now it’s Harvard holding HOSTAGES,

With Elise at the gates,

Carrying her tiki-torch

Ablaze with her own self hate.

If only she could believe she was first-rate.

Like her Golden Calf she bellows, bullies, and averts her eyes,

Screams “anti-Semitism”, while winking at his use of Hitler’s

“Vermin” and  “Blood Poisoning” Big Lies.

Her mouth wide-open, like her pockets, for catching flies,

And money, from Extreme Right Wing dark money guys.

Elise, Elise, you busted valise,

You pitiful, pliable piece of wood,

Your every move is lathered with grease;

Fundamentally, you’re no good.

“Stef-An-ICK, Stef-An-ICK,” the J-6 crowd shrieks,

“Take care of our fascists, criminals, and hairy-horned creeps.”

“So we killed a few cops, and smashed through the Capitol’s windows & walls,

And defecated all over Congress’ halls. We’re the victims! We’re Hostages!’

And, waving her Harvard Law Degree, Stef-An-ICK said:  “I have to agree.”

Elise, Elise, you busted valise,

You pitiful, pliable piece of wood,

Your every move is lathered with grease;

Fundamentally, you’re no good.

Elise Stef-An-ICK, oleaginous up to her neck,

Has debased REAL Jewish Hostages,

By comparing those innocents to such criminal drek.

What has she hidden far back on her shelf,

Or deep down in the darkest hole?

Perhaps Elise is hiding what’s left of herself—

She’s already sold out her soul. 

(Joe Biden throws down the gauntlet against the greatest threat to American Democracy since the Civil War, the last illegal insurrection vs. the United States Government.)

Here’s the link to the full speech given by Joe Biden at historic Valley Force, PA, on January 5, 2024–the day before the 3rd Anniversary of the violent insurrection against the government of the United States–organized and led by Donald Trump and his stormtroopers.

In his address, Biden cited specific quotes of the words “Vermin” and “Blood Poisoning” used repeatedly by Trump, echoing the precise terms used by Adolf Hitler in his speeches and in “Mein Kampf”, and in Nazi Propaganda agains the Jews.

I didn’t expect much.

I’m not much into Christmas decorations or holiday lights, and haven’t been for many, many years.

As the youngest of four kids growing up on Long Island, N.Y., the chore of laboriously lighting the house for the holidays and then taking them back down in early January, often fell to me, since no one else in the family had the time, nor interest, to do it.

Each year was a challenge to come up with some kind of different decoration other than the same old dreary, random string-of-lights on trees or outline of a portion of our split-level house. In my junior year of college — the year of the shootings of students at Kent State — I came home from school determined to make the lights send a message to our politically conservative neighborhood.

With the Vietnam War raging, and two years after I lost my childhood friend, Henry York in the Tet Offensive, and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated, I thought it was time to turn our Christmas lights into a form of political protest. So I carefully strung the lights up in the form of a giant peace sign on the front of our house, making it clear where we stood on the War, in our heavily Republican town.

When my mother’s brother Eddie — an early MAGA-ite clinging to the cave dwellings of prejudice — arrived for Christmas Eve dinner — he burst into our house shouting about why we were displaying a “Communist Sign,” out front. Never one to be bullied, my mother — a Catholic Workers’ kind of Catholic — thrust her chin out to her physically much bigger brother, and told him a “Peace” sign was completely in the spirit of Christmas, and that would be that.

That was the last time I decorated my parents house for Christmas, and I was glad to be done with the onerous — and what I considered to be a pointless task — since, to me, commercial Christmas had lost its meaning. When I converted to Judaism some years later, I was relieved that holiday decorating was no longer part of my annual duties, although it took me a while to let go of it, especially the Christmas tree. Old, emotional habits die hard.

So this year, when we scheduled a family trip to an over-the-top decorated family farm in Sonoma, California, named “Dillonland,” I was expecting to be disappointed. However, since I was with my son and granddaughters, I knew I could endure anything.

“Dillonland” was a dizzying hodgepodge of lights and vinyl blow-ups of movie characters, and when we entered the property and greeted the Dillons, I joked that all they needed was to pipe in the music of Bob Dylan to set the right mood. My joke fizzled like an exploded light bulb. So, I decided to just observe the delight of our youngest granddaughter, Age 8.

She didn’t disappoint, running from one display to the next; borrowing my I-phone camera to snap photos of one bizarre, blitz of lights after the other. Watching her made the entire experience into fun.

But, the most unexpected joy came in the hour-long ride home, when I sat in the back seat on one side of this effervescent eight-year old, and my son, her father, sat on the other. She began to softly sing a song she learned in Spanish for her holiday concert, entitled “Doy Gracias Por Muchas Cosas,” or, “Things I’m Thankful for,” by Hap Palmer. While she sang in her light, lilting voice, she gently massaged her father’s head, to relieve a migraine he had earlier.

Since I love to sing along with her, and make things sillier, I asked if she could teach me the song, since I was on a 222 day streak of learning Spanish on Duolingo.

“No Grampy,” she said firmly. “I sing; You enjoy.”

And, so I did.

She sung the entire song in the impeccably natural Spanish accent that bilingual young children have, and as she chanted the opening line — Doy gracias por muchas cosas — we were all silenced by the innocence and beauty of the eight-year old’s voice, including her grandmother who was driving the car, and is blessed with a sweet, lyrical voice of her own.

In soft, clear tones, our girl, known as G, followed the song’s instructions to “let me tell you what they are,” these things for which she was thankful — muchas cosas:

The English version of this beautiful song can be found here:

but it does not compare to the gentle, loving Spanish lullaby which young G sang for all of us:

Doy gracias por el mundo, (the earth)

Doy gracias por el mar (the sea);

Doy gracias por mis amigos (my friends),

Doy gracias por ser como soy (to be me).

Doy gracias por el sol (the sun),

Doy gracias por cada arbol (each tree);

Doy gracias por mi casa (my home),

Doy gracias por ser como soy (to be me).

Doy gracias por mi comida (my food),

Doy gracias por mi libre (to be free);

Doy gracias por las estellas (the stars),

Doy gracias por ser como soy (to be me).

So, I just sat back and enjoyed, while Ms. G, sang softly, and gently massaged away all of our pain, her angelic voice transporting each one of us to a place of beauty, light and joy, during the darkest of times.

(The cover of 14th Sentry Edition of Mein Kampf, published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Mass; originally in 1943, with copyright renewal in 1971. Translated by Ralph Manheim. All quotes of Hitler’s writings, are taken verbatim from this edition, with pages indicated.)

Donald Trump is celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the publication of Adolf Hitler’s “ Mein Kampf” a year early, by plagiarizing Hitler’s hate-filled screeds, written by the deranged sociopath and mass murderer, while the Nazi leader served time in Landsberg Am Lech Fortress Prison in Germany, for attempting to overthrow the government of Germany. Trump’s repeated uses of Hitler’s phrases “poisoning the blood” and “vermin,” are directly from the propaganda playbook of the most evil enemy the United States has ever faced, responsible for slaughtering six million Jews, and encouraging violent acts against millions more, from 1933-1945, through Europe and around the world.

Hitler’s quotes are directly from Mein Kampf, while the juxtaposed Trump quotes are from speeches, interviews and articles from June, 2015 through this past weekend of December 16, 2023.

From Page 327, Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler: 

“ In heedlessly ignoring the question of the preservation of the racial foundations of our nation, the old Reich disregarded the sole right which gives life in this world.  People which (sic) bastardize themselves, or let themselves be bastardized, sin against the will of eternal Providence, and when their ruin is encompassed by a stronger enemy, it is not an injustice done to them, but only a restoration of justice.  If a people no longer want to respect the Nature-given qualities of its being which root is in its blood, it has no further right to complain over the loss of its’ earthly existence….A new spiritual rebirth can come, AS LONG AS THE BLOOD IS PRESERVED PURE.”

September 27, 2023, Donald Trump in a video interview posted on the conservative website National Pulse:

“Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions and insane asylums. We know they’re terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have .”

From page 289, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, on “Blood Poisoning:”

  “All great cultures from the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.” 

December 16, 2023, Whittemore Center Arena, Durham, New Hampshire, Donald Trump on “Blood Poisoning.”

“They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

From page 286, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler, on mixed-race “defilement of the blood.”

“Historical experience offers countless proofs of this.  It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people.  North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines of a large scale.  By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture.  The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to the defilement of the blood.”

November 12, 2023, Veterans Day Speech, Claremont, NH, Donald Trump on “vermin:”

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, on dehumanizing Jews:

•    “ All who are not of good race in this world are chaff.” (pg. 296);
•      “If the Jews were alone in this world, they would stifle in filth and offal.” (pg. 302)
•      “He (the Jew) is and remains the typical parasite, a sponge who like a noxious bacillus, keeps spreading as soon as a favorable medium invites him.” (pg. 305)
•      “ He (The Jew) is the “scourge of God.  In the course of a few centuries they have come to know him , and now they feel that the mere fact of his (the Jew’s ) existence is as bad as the plague.”  They are “eternal blood suckers.” (pg. 310)
• “The Jew poisons the blood of others, but preserves his own.” (pg. 316)

June 16, 2015, Announcement of Candidacy Speech for President, Donald Trump:

“When Mexico sends its’ people, they’re not sending their best; they’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing their problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists…And, its coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and from the Middle East…”

From page 562, “Mein Kampf,” Adolf Hitler on “Jews as Black parasites:”

“Bear in mind the devastations which Jewish bastardization visits on our nation each day, and consider that this BLOOD POISONING can be removed from our national body only after centuries, if at all.  Consider further how racial disintegration drags down and often destroys the last Aryan values of our German people…THIS CONTAMINATION OF OUR BLOOD, BLINDLY IGNORED BY THOUSANDS OF OUR PEOPLE IS CARRIED OUT SYSTEMATICALLY BY THE JEW TODAY.  SYSTEMATICALLY, THESE BLACK PARASITES OF THE NATION DEFILE OUR INEXPERIENCED YOUNG BLOND GIRLS AND THEREBY DESTROY SOMETHING WHICH CAN NO LONGER BE REPLACED IN THIS WORLD.”

January 11, 2018, Donald Trump in Oval Office Meeting discussing immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries: (as reported in Washington Post, by Josh Dawsey):

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here? Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.”

From page 325, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler on Blacks and Jews defiling Germany:

“With Satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in the wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.  With every means he tries to destroy the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate.  Just as he himself systematically ruins women and girls, he does not shrink back from pulling down the blood barrier for others, even on a large scale.  It was and is Jews who bring the Negroes to the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of RUINING THE HATED WHITE RACE by the necessarily resulting bastardization, throwing it down from its’ cultural and political height, and himself rising to be its’ master…And so, he tries systematically to lower the racial level by a continuous poisoning of individuals.”

All we want for Hanukkah is a ceasefire in the Hamas/Israel War, the release of the Hostages, and an end to to slaughter of civilians in Gaza, on the West Bank, and in Israel.

The Non Profit Quarterly gives a detailed and compelling explanation of our Jewish Call for Peace. As we light the remaining Hanukkah candles over the next few nights, THIS is what we asking.

Organizing a Jewish Call for Ceasefire: A Conversation with Jewish Voice for Peace

We light our Hanukkah candles for a ceasefire.

Israel

Peace