In the October issue of the Gantseh Megillah Monthly Newsletter I explained that my determination to define what Israel means to a Jew stemmed from my reaction to a friend who had suggested that the only way peace could have been achieved in the Middle East was if the State of Israel had never been created in the first place and, by corollary, the only way it could be established now was if Israel, as we know it, were to disappear - that if Jews needed a homeland it should have been established in Uganda or somewhere else.
To my mind anyone who considers creation of the State of Israel in 1948 illegitimate or is willing to tolerate its destruction now is, quite simply, an anti-Semite, and, as such, a life and death threat to all Jews, whether Israeli or not. But why? Jewry had existed without a homeland for two thousand years. How did the advent of Israel change that existence? How did it change Jews themselves?
1948 and the years immediately following were so filled with urgent events - the War of Independence, the succeeding wars in 1956, 1967, 1973 as well as the excitement of watching a modern Israel develop and grow - that the historical significance of what has happened has often been ignored or left only partially understood. In my opinion the relation between survival of a state still less than sixty five years old and the survival of Jewry in general has, perhaps, not been fully appreciated by Jews or understood by many non-Jews. In fact, the change in the world - so far as Jews are concerned, before and after the creation of Israel - is so profound and all-encompassing as to defy comparison with any other event in our history since the events of 70 AD.
We can get a quick idea of the size and significance of this change by simply reviewing some of the events, conditions affecting Jewry in the twentieth century - both international and closer to home. The events may not have occurred precisely on May 14,1948 but, they came fast and furious and altered the situation of Jews to an extent few could have imagined. These changes were accompanied by changes in Jews - their demeanor, attitude to the rest of the world, and in their understanding of themselves. It is still not clear whether the latter led to the creation of Israel or vice versa. It makes no difference. In reality, the two feed off each other. In the end it is the changes - both in the situation of Jews in the world and within Jews themselves - that are important.
Consider: Internationally - Before Creation of State of Israel - around the world, from New York to London to the smallest dwelling in the smallest shtetl there is a blue and white Jewish National Fund box - and the unspoken wish for a homeland in Israel is a part of the Jewish essence everywhere - Jewish Diaspora still supports Israel but Jewish National Fund boxes have largely disappeared - we HAVE a national homeland - systematic discrimination and persecution, including pogroms, continues in many parts of the Western world; every Jew in Yemen knows it is a capital offence to climb to the second story of a building or ride a camel - lest he/she be higher than a Moslem0., no one notices; in Ethiopia Falasha Jews continue an arduous, centuries old struggle for survival - not even Jews are aware and could do nothing if they were - shortly before WW II, Hitler convenes international conference to ask major powers who will help him rid Germany of Jews by accepting them as immigrants - overall there is no response; the League of Nations takes no notice, of the individual states present only Australia makes a meaningful offer; Canada says it cannot accept a single Jew because if it does others will ask to come - Hitler learns that ridding the world of Jews will not be opposed. - 1942 the Final Solution is put into effect - Surviving Jews returning to Poland after WW II face pogroms; neither UN nor international community takes notice
Then: Internationally - After Creation of State of Israel - after 1948 oppressed Jewish communities from Yemen in 1948 to that of Russia in the 1970's and Ethiopia in the 1980's result in departure for Israel, under negotiated terms - the free hand given to Hitler with respect to treatment of Jews, and to so many Hitlers since the time of Rome - is finally over. - in 1960's a Pope begins the process of apologizing for what the RC church has done to Jews - in the 1980's the Lutheran church apologizes for its anti-Semitic teachings - starting with those of its founder
Closer to Home - Before Creation of State of Israel - Jews living in even the most “tolerant” of societies are limited by the very fact of being Jewish; a child growing up in Canada is taught not to think about working in a bank, becoming a public servant, or even a police officer, fire fighter - these were out of bounds; throughout Canada Jewish cabinet ministers, judges, senior public servants are virtually unknown - in WW II, Jews provide the highest proportion of volunteers for the armed forces of any ethnic/national group in Canada - none reaches senior officer ranks - in the 1940's two Jewish skiers trapped in snow storm and unable to return to Montreal are refused entry to hotel at Mont Tremblant - one nearly dies of pneumonia - neat white signs indicating: “This establishment is restricted to gentile clientele” abound. - The Montreal Protestant School Board with over 40% its student body Jewish and over 50% of its funds from Jewish taxpayers refuses to allow Jews as Board members or hire Jewish teachers - McGill University maintains “Jewish quotas” for virtually all professional faculties; as late as the1960's the McGill Daily publishes an annual ethnicity report for sole reason of re-assuring anti-Semites on its Board re: proportion of Jews within the student body
Then: After Creation of State of Israel - all occupations are open, restrictions on where Jews can live, eat, or lodge - are illegal across the country; the Supreme Court of Canada receives its first Jewish Chief Justice - Jews sit on the Board and Jewish teachers are common; schools teach about Chanukah as well as Christmas - in the 1990's McGill appoints its first Jewish Principal/Vice- Chancellor
The world has changed. The horrors of what was visited on Jews in the holocaust has been demonstrated, on a universal plane and with indescribable horror as the terrible, ultimate, and undeniable outcome of any argument that Jews are somehow an inferior race, a nation tainted by some unpardonable sin - or, more briefly, of anti-Semitism. Tolerance of anti-Semitism is finally seen as equivalent to acceptance of all that it brings.
With the acceptance that Jews are a people with the same status and right to exist as any other emerged the simple tenet of elemental justice: discrimination against Jews and their persecution is no longer acceptable and, as is the case with other nations, they have a right to a home - a tenet that was stamped with the blood of holocaust and sealed with the courage of those who fought to create the State of Israel.
It is difficult to summarize the impact of these changes.
Toleration of the threat to eliminate the nation is over. But there is a corollary to that fact - one not always obvious to others but very, very evident to Jews.
Simply stated, it is that, if, after all this incredibly long period, creation of Israel ended the acceptance, by the outside world, of discrimination and persecution of Jews and, most fundamentally, of the possibility of their annihilation, then any serious questioning of the legitimacy of Israel, or threat to destroy it means re-instatement of that possibility - and that is an integral part of the definition of contemporary anti-Semitism.
For the two thousand years in which the old order existed, all Jews, no matter how brave, had to accept resignation and compromise as the price of continued existence. All of this - including the ultimate threat of annihilation - had become a part of what it means to be Jewish. It was something each taught to his/her children - even as we remembered the Exodus and prayed to celebrate it next year in Jerusalem. It remained in the deepest recesses of the Jewish soul. It was that aspect of our existence that limited our freedom in its most profound sense. It was what my father hesitated to teach me on that night long ago.
And now it was gone - with one exception.
Each of us has his own version of that exception. For me it came in the spring of 1967. Nassar stood before the world and declared that he would destroy Israel, exterminate the Jews - the sea would run red with their blood. The UN withdrew its peace keepers from all of Israel’s borders, (apparently to give its enemies a clear run at Israel). With a touch of irony that ensured no Jew would mis-understand what was being threatened, Germany announced it was preparing to send thousands of gas masks for the protection of Israeli citizens.
This was no border dispute. It was not an argument about “Palestinian refugees”, or, about whether creation of the Palestinian state that the UN had decreed and Israel had accepted would finally come about in the West Bank and Gaza. Nor was it simply a declaration of war against a state. It was a declaration of war against what had been achieved since 1948, a call for re-institution of an order that Jews, after two thousand years of struggle, could no longer accept and the outside world could not justify.
The declaration was not rescinded after the end of the Six Day War. This was made abundantly clear by the “three no’s” agreed to by the PLO and the Arab states immediately following - no recognition of Israel, no negotiation, no peace. This position, although often expressed more subtly, in more sensitive terms still exists today - as witness the statement of my friend on the conditions for peace in the middle east. And, as always, it has its public and personal dimensions.
Publicly, it is normally stated in the context of a discussion on the future of the Middle East and each of us is drawn to postulate if, how and on what basis peace could be brought to the Middle East.
On a personal level, there is still the matter of what you teach your children - in some ways the heaviest burden of being a Jew. By the time my own children were old enough to be taught what it meant to be Jewish I hesitated. I remembered my shock and my father’s pain when he had begun that explanation for me. Ultimately, I decided there was no choice and I proceeded as carefully as possible.
I told them of the very special heritage spanning close to four thousand years, of the morality that would now be theirs to respect, of the identity it gave them, of the duties it imposed. Inevitably, I told them, also, of the dangers inextricably linked to being Jewish. I was thankful that these were not so obvious, not so immediately pressing for them here in Canada.
I was relieved to realize that, at the Seder, when they were told of the threat of Pharaoh it was merely an ancient legend, a traditional recounting of a distant event that lacked the immediacy of the very recent past that it had held when I first heard it. In fact, when describing all discrimination that had existed, so recently, right here in Canada, I noticed the same look of incredulity on their faces as I had seen when I had answered their questions about Jackie Robinson, told them of the colour bar in baseball and asked them to imagine professional sport without African Americans. Clearly there had been changes.
Still, every time I spoke to my children, or my wife, of what it meant to be Jewish, I invariably thought back to my father’s efforts in that direction. And each time, somewhere down deep I had the sense of having left something out. I told them, but I was not sure they understood. I was not sure they grasped the essence of my fundamentally defining, basic, visceral reaction to every form of anti-Semitism. I was not sure that they understood what I had come to realize was the “great fear”, the great fear that my father - my father who whom I was sure feared nothing and no one, could not bring himself to tell me. The fearful thought that he, himself, had left out - viz.: the possibility that the threat of annihilation might yet re-emerge and that I, as a father, would have to explain it to my children, leaving it to forever colour their view of the world.
Then, this year, this year of so much turmoil in Israel and for Jews everywhere - I knew they finally did understand. On a glorious morning I was handed my first grandchild, a lovely, healthy girl. I know that I exuded joy from every inch of me and then, still staring at this marvel, this wonder, this so long sought after gift, my look changed - not for long but, long enough for my wife to notice.
When we were alone she asked, “What were you thinking back there?”
Without taking the time to formulate my thoughts, with an honesty that convinced her of its authenticity just as it frightened her, I simply said: “I don’t want this child to end up in an oven”.
It was as much a revelation to me as it was to her. It is what ultimately caused me to chose this topic for the first three issues of Farshteinen.
Through all of the changes that came about with the creation of Israel one real threat to the existence of Jews remains - the position of Palestinian, Arab and Moslem leadership and the re-emergence of tolerance for anti-Semitism
