Last week, Denyse Wang Stoneback, Democratic candidate for  Illinois State representative of the 16th district, spoke before a small gathering of mostly Jewish voters in an apartment of my condo high rise.

As a Progressive, I was impressed that she checked all the boxes of my social, moral and political scorecard.

But what left the most glowing impression was the way she handled the Q and A session, especially the opinions posing as questions. Most notable of these issued from a persistently challenging  schmuck, a fellow Hebrew I will call Donald Plump. Yarmulke-crowned (apparently full-time), he actually asked  her what she thought of Israel.  How the hell does one respond to a loaded-with-tendentiousness  cross-exam like that?  Did the schmuck think it  at all possible  for Denyse to reply ” Sorry, Jews just aren’t my bowl of matzah ball soup.”? Naturally, she simply said she was for Israel.  As an Orthodox Jew, he was likely a supporter of the crook Netanyahu who has cozied up to the crook Trump and was likely wishing that her answer would be taken by the crowd as an  implyed endorsement of Netanyahu.  Not by me.  And probably not by the a majority of the Reform, Conservative and secular Jews in the cluster, who do not conflate anti-Likud with anti-Semitism. After all, we were well aware that ours was the portion of the Israeli population–not the Orthodox portion– who have consistently taken up the vast majority of  military arms against  all forces bent on destroying Israel.

Sorry. I seem to have strayed off-message.  Which is simply:

VOTE FOR DENYSE