14 May—Today, 14 May 2023, marks the 75^th anniversary of Israeli independence in 1948. It’s a crying shame that a nation had to be established as a refuge for a minority. Any minority. The State of Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, of course. But don’t forget that just about a century earlier—26 July 1847—Liberia, which had been established in Africa in 1822 as the American Colonization Society as a refuge for black Americans, including slaves, declared its independence.

Moving back to the United States, then, the second Sunday in May became America’s official Mother’s Day in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating it as a national holiday to honor mothers. So here’s The Monitor’s annual musical tribute to mothers. Or mammas: