When I was young, it was a common practice of our family, whenever the opportunity presented itself, to gather round the kitchen table and discuss important events reported in the daily press or on the radio. “Discuss” is perhaps too gentle a term. In fact, what usually began with an intense but fairly calm examination of facts as we knew them, soon became a heated debate of the merits of various points of view and, ultimately, ended with a full blown argument designed, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, to reach agreement as to the “right and wrong” of the issue at stake and the position “any reasonable person” should take. Arguments invariably ended with someone marshaling all the facts, logic and historical evidence available, announcing his/her conclusion and then posing a single word question to all and sundry - “farshtein?” (understand?).
Whether agreement was ultimately reached at that point or put off until some future date, the process always yielded two results - everyone present increased their awareness of the issue and each of us came away with the realization that, if agreement was ever to be reached or a solution found, it would have to be based on a reasonable understanding of the issues in dispute.
Since becoming aware of the existence of the Gantseh Megillah several months ago, I was struck by the opportunity it represented for the publication of a Jewish view on many of the major issues of the day that have an impact on Jews. The importance of this has increased as I and many other Jews, with considerable and growing dismay, watched and listened to news from the Middle East, commentary on the events of September 11th and other matters presented in the general media - news and commentary which often appeared, whether deliberately or not, totally bereft of a Jewish perspective and/or a proper grounding in historical fact - of true understanding.
I discussed this with Michael Fein, Publisher of the Gantseh Megillah, (GM), and the result is “Farshteinen” - a monthly commentary on current events of interest to Jews. It’s purpose is to present a Jewish, (and it is to be hoped a reasoned, logical), viewpoint and, through the publication of reactions and criticisms of the column, a forum for broader discussion of underlying issues.
I do not pretend to be able to reflect the views of all Canadian Jews on the selected topics nor of a majority, nor even of GM, itself. I will however, make every effort to raise issues that are important and are, or should be, of general interest to Jews and non-Jews alike. Your reactions to any particular column, its content, its approach and the underlying analysis of issues covered is welcome and, indeed, solicited. While it is not possible to guarantee that all reactions received will be published, they will all be read and a sample of those which appear to represent common or particularly interesting, provocative views will be published each month.
What Israel Means to Jews: Part I
Several months ago, not too long after the current Intifada was initiated and the cycle of violence and counter violence began, I found myself discussing the situation with an old friend. She is not Jewish but, has always espoused a philosophical outlook and views on a wide range of political issues that are very similar to my own and is a person whose opinions and understanding I have always respected.
The discussion began with her asking what I thought would be the likely outcome of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. I replied that since the failure of the Camp David talks, the defeat of Ehud Barak and, now, the re-institution of the Intifada by Arafat - I was very pessimistic in the short run, (believing that the policies of the PLO and the Sharon government held no practical means of achieving peace or even decreasing the rapidly increasing violence), and totally unsure when the ultimate solution - which I felt, and still feel, will have to consist of two national states living side by side - would come about.
My friend agreed with me - but, then, and much to my surprise, stated that she believed the opportunity for peace had vanished as of the day that the modern State of Israel was created. Genuinely surprised, I pursued the matter.
If there is no State of Israel, should there be no Jewish homeland? Her answer - the Jews should have accepted the British offer of a homeland in Uganda and given up entirely on the idea of re-creating a homeland in Israel, itself.
I was completely stunned.
True, this position meant that foolish arguments such as: there would be peace if only the settlements were evacuated, (so why was there no peace in the years between 1948 and 1967 when settlements did not exist?), or, Sharon, Netanyahu and other right wing Israeli leaders are the real obstacle to peace, (with more than a dozen Israeli prime ministers/governments of all political persuasions since 1948 how could any one be held up as the obstacle to peace?), or, peace depended on allowing most or all of the reported three million Palestinian “refugees” to return to their original homes an effective end to Israel as a Jewish homeland, (should Czechoslovakia welcome back the Sudetenland Germans?, should the comparable number of Jews forced to flee Arab countries now be accorded citizenship and full and equal status in their countries of origin?, and, most basic of all, does the two thousand years of Diaspora history not provide sufficient argument for creation of a specifically Jewish homeland?) - all of which are irritating, sometimes profoundly so - were not being made. But still, Israel should never have been created, should not exist?
This simple, blunt, analysis disturbed me deeply. And, coming not from the PLO or some PLO supporter, or someone I would normally consider an anti-Semite, it disturbed me all the more.
The conversation did not continue much longer. My consternation became very evident. My insides churned. It was only my personal regard for the person sitting opposite and my quickly diminishing sense of self-restraint that kept me from shouting “anti-Semite” and ending the friendship right there. In the event, we agreed to disagree, switched to other topics and called it an evening soon thereafter.
I have had many arguments about the Middle East but few disturbed me so much. All the way home and for days afterward I re-played the conversation, and examined my own reaction to what had been said - a reaction that became stronger and stronger until it turned into genuine anger. All of this made me determined to search my own mind and state - explicitly - why this was.
Actually, the basic answer came quickly - it was only the details, their elaboration that kept me re-thinking and re-thinking the matter for days afterward.
Simply put, I was upset, angry, because, whether I had ever explicitly stated it before or not, I knew that to be anti-Israel, to call for its destruction or question its creation in the first place was, essentially, to be anti-Semitic. Anyone calling for the eradication of Israel is, in effect, threatening the continued existence of Jews - all Jews, whether Israeli or not.
But why? Why did I feel like that? I had never been a Zionist - in the sense that I had never believed that it was not possible to be a “real Jew” living outside of Israel. In fact, I very definitely valued the ability to live in a state that was specifically not a national homeland - Jewish or any other kind - and felt, and still feel, that living in a multi-national state, especially one that is deliberately multi-cultural, is a special and valuable privilege. It is also undeniably true that Jews had survived and, indeed, grown, added to their identity, deepened their own self-awareness as a nation - without a State of Israel.
So why did someone whose views seemed to threaten the existence or question the legitimacy of Israel appear to me as such a threat?
It was obvious to me that this question was far more basic than arguments about possible borders or other particulars regarding some arrangement between Israel and a potential Palestinian state. It was clearly something that lay at the basis of my whole concept of being Jewish - and it merited some careful formulation. Set out below is the first of three parts of the answers to the questions I posed and re-posed to myself.
The Diaspora was not a voluntary thing. While some individuals, secure in their own identity may choose to live outside of their homeland, no one accepts the destruction of their homeland with equanimity. The ability to remain Jewish after 70 AD is a testament to the thousands, millions who struggled to retain and then add to an identity, a nationality. It does not make the loss of the homeland that originally spawned that nationality or the continued lack of such a homeland - any less tragic. Moreover, while learning to survive without a homeland, living as a vulnerable minority in many, often hostile situations, may add to a nation’s or individual’s character, (there are many people who say that Jews living in Israel are in danger of losing their Jewishness because so much of what it means to be a Jew is caught up in the struggle to simply remain a Jew), that vulnerability still remains the ultimate threat. The ultimate threat of destruction.
After two thousand years, the threat of destruction is not abstract, nor does it have the ephemeral qualities of terms such as “extinction” with which historians often record the disappearance of some nation. When the threat of destruction is manifested, it is very real, very brutal and painful. After two thousand years, most Jews have a very real sense of what it means and, even, how it feels.
The holocaust is merely the awful epitome of what has been experienced by Jews everywhere and for what seems like forever. It is made up of small holocausts, of pogroms, of constantly living under the burden of prejudice and bigotry. It has meant learning to accept the very painful because not to meant to suffer the intolerable.
Prior to WW II, most of my family lived in Europe. Of these, only one managed to survive. But that is not the whole story of my experience with anti-Semitism. I grew up in Canada and still remember anti-Semitism in many forms. I remember: - those neat little signs posted outside restaurants and hotels saying: “This Establishment is Restricted to Gentile Clientele” - being told that it was important to work hard in school because our greatest institutions of learning had quotas, special requirements for Jews - stories of how my family had to carefully select summer cottages to rent that were far enough from any road so that it would be difficult for some anti-Semitic thugs to drive by during some night in the middle of the week, (when all the grown men in the family would be working in the city), and throw rocks through our windows.
I remember..., I remember.
Most of all I remember being taken to see a movie whose content was unknown to my parents and watching a dramatized scene of Jews being massacred in some small concentration camp. There was no way my parents could prevent me from seeing what appeared on the screen and, afterward, I remember the great difficulty my father had in trying to explain to me what it was, and how such a thing could have happened.
He began by explaining that what happened in the Holocaust was the reason I had so few relatives and why my mother kept piles of pictures, many of them featuring children of my own age, whose identity had always been a mystery to me. He, of course, made no mention of how, exactly, these lives were ended.
Finally, to my repeated question of “why” he simply said “anti-Semitism”. Trying very hard to find words that a child could comprehend, he said people have been taught to hate Jews. That czars, priests - people in power - had found Jews “useful”, that it was always easy to blame them when things went wrong. This meant they could be persecuted, discriminated against in a thousand ways. It also meant that those not actively responsible for such acts would, nonetheless, tolerate them. Not every anti-Semite, (the word still sounded strange to me but, I listened without comment), would kill Jews but if they hated you, if they told others to hate you, sooner or later someone would. The Nazis had merely brought all of this to its logical conclusion.
Then came the next in my list of obvious and increasingly frightening questions. Could it happen again? Could it happen here?
My father took a long, long time. He was, and remained, the most loyal Canadian imaginable. He had great trouble in admitting, as no doubt had Jews who had lived nine hundred years in Poland, or seven centuries in Spain or thousands of years throughout the Arab world, that... yes it could. If anti-Semitism - the polite anti-Semitism of the neat little signs, the slightly more subtle type that led to restricted access to higher education, or the more brutal variety of a rock thrown through a cottage window at night - was allowed to continue, was tolerated by the majority...... it could happen, again, even here.
And then he turned to me and said: “What I want the most is that, when you are a father, you do not have to teach these things to your child. You do not have to tell them what ‘restricted’ means, why they can’t go here or there, do this or that. I hope you do not have to look at your children and fear...”.
I knew better than to ask “fear what” but, I could not help asking what we should do to prevent all of this.
Speaking very quietly, even gently, he said: “stand up for yourself, fight... when you can.”
“When you can?”
This from a man who had been a wounded, decorated veteran of WW I before he turned twenty and whom I was sure feared nothing and no one? This from a man who seemed to make a habit of buying houses and moved us into neighbourhoods where Jews were clearly not welcome - because he refused to be bullied? This from a man who looked at me with obvious disgust when I unthinkingly repeated something I had been told and innocently asked why Jews could not be soldiers or farmers or athletes?
“We are a small minority, we will always be. Sometimes you cannot fight hard enough.”
Still searching for words that a child could understand, he went on.
“You may have to compromise, to accept something you know is very unfair. You may have to move, the way your mother and I moved to Canada - in order to live another day.”
He stopped there. It was all a seven year old could absorb. We both knew we would speak again.
A year later the State of Israel came into being. It changed everything.
