Appalling Students

Nachshon Litzedek is a Jewish student at the University of California, Santa Cruz who says he has struggled with his Jewish identity since he was 12 when an Israeli soldier came to his class in Hebrew school, according to the Jewish Faculty Roundtable (JFR), a list-serve for Jewish faculty around the country addressing Jewish issues on college campuses in the United States.

According to JFR, Litzedek said, “The soldier tried to explain to explain to me why he had to shoot Palestinian kids who were throwing rocks at him. They were about the same age as me.” So, on April 20, on Yom Ha-Atzma’ut (Israel Independence Day) Litzedek was demonstrating against Israel. “This is an audacious day to protest,” he said. “One country’s celebration is another country’s catastrophe. I feel obligated to be a part of this because I’m Jewish. If anyone understands ghetto-ization, persecution and genocide, it’s the Jewish people. Specifically because of my Jewish values I can sympathize with the Palestinians.” There is an interesting choice of words here.

When Litzedek speaks of catastrophe he is using the English language word for al-nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” which is how Palestinians describe the victory of Israel in 1948/49. Odd, isn’t it. And, the JFR reports, in the Cesar Chavez Student Center at the university, pro-Palestinian students waved the Palestinian flag over recumbent white-faced bodies participating in a “dead-in,” arguing for divestment from any companies that did business with Israel. The argument was that Johnson & Johnson and Exxon-Mobil were selling products in the bookstore, which they felt was “appalling.” “Why are we investing money in killing people?” asked a Palestinian student. “This is supposed to be a campus that’s committed to social justice... All of the budget cuts wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for war, so how do you feel about San Francisco State spending money on companies that fund the military?” Ah, Israel, it turns out, is responsible for the economic disaster that is California. Who knew?

Litzedek is appalled that Jewish soldiers defended themselves against rock throwers. I’m appalled that the powers-that-be in the Palestinian movement hid behind youthful rock throwers, cameras at the ready to record the massacre, disappointed when there was none, I imagine. I’m appalled that Litzedek seemed unaware that the previous day marked the commemoration of Jews killed in the various wars against surrounding Arab states and civilians killed by Arab terrorists.

The coincidence of dates is striking for another reason as well. On April 20, 1889, a son was born to Alois and Klara Hitler in the small Austrian border town of Braunau. That Israel could celebrate its coming into being on the anniversary of the birth of the Haman of the 20th century is an unparalleled vindication of the triumph of good over evil, a circumstance that occurs with depressing irregularity.

I remember when my youngest son was 11 and we were choosing when to celebrate his bar mitzvah. The synagogue had several dates available, but one stood out in my mind: April 20, 1986, what would have been Hitler’s 97th birthday. When my son was on the bimah, chanting his portion from the Torah, a thought came to mind: “Take that, you Nazi bastard; my son is having his bar mitzvah on your birthday! You fought a war to exterminate us, and failed. Today another Jewish boy has reached adulthood.” Not charitable words, perhaps, but I’m not sure why we should be charitable to those who wished us harm, who would have killed us all.

I don’t want to pretend that I associate calls for divestment with Nazism; it would be absurd. Such actions by Palestinians and their allies are a political means to achieve a political end, a political fight that ought to be countered by political action on the part of Israel’s friends.

Can there be peace in our time between Israel and the Palestinians? Some say yes, but I wonder if generations of hatred, mistrust, fear and loathing can be eradicated by ink on a page. It can happen, I know. Look at Germany and France, enemies since at least the mid-19th century, fighting over Alsace and Lorraine whose territory was French, then German, then French, then German and now French again with the agreement of Germany.

Yes, it can happen, but is now the time it will happen? Is now the time to create a bifurcated Palestine surrounding Israel, each half cut off from the other? Let us explore Palestinian textbooks and TV; then we'll know better.

Advocates of peace now seem to envision an Israeli/Palestinian relationship comparable to that between the U.S. and Canada. They should think instead India/Pakistan.

Passover Reflections 2010

As I sit at this old Olivetti, its motor humming, its keys clickety clacking, its ribbon newly dipped in ink, perhaps the last of its breed still in service, Passover looms. But as you read this, the Seders are memories; the labor of preparations rewarded with the twin joys of hearty fellowship and over abundance of food. The theme of the events was freedom (or if you prefer, of God’s deliverance of His people from slavery). At our Seders for the past few years we mix contemporary song with ancient tradition as we sing the non-Christian parts of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and, to the same tune, “Solidarity Forever.” We sing Negro spirituals (“Let My People Go”) we sing “We Shall Overcome” and Hatikvah. We talk of Civil Rights struggles of the past and debate (for our guests are usually of mixed political views) gay marriage and universal health care. And we do all this in the comfort of our home, in the warmth of friendship, in the security of knowing that in America we are free and safe.

But it wasn’t always this way, we know. In 1943 the Jews of Warsaw, the few who had managed to survive the deportations to Treblinka, knowing that the end was near, gathered what arms they could to make a last ditch effort to… to what, I’m not sure. Not to survive, they knew that was no longer a possibility, and they were not attempting to follow the example of the Jews of Masada or of York, committing suicide to prevent being captured/murdered/humiliated by oppressors. No, the Jewish leadership of Warsaw meant to die with the dignity of resistance to those who were trying to transform them into sheep led calmly to their deaths. If during the fighting a few could escape, so much the better. The sewers were a way out for some, going over the wall for others, but not for many. For the majority of the Jewish survivors of the past four years of systematic starvation and forced deportation to death camps, the goal was to go down fighting. For Jürgen Stroop, the SS commander assigned to crush the rebellion, the challenge was almost too much. Facing unacceptable losses of his men he resorted to burning buildings, one by one, forcing the surviving Jews to flee into adjacent buildings ready to be set alight or into the sewers or onto the streets where they could more easily be rounded up or picked off. In the end, he entitled his report on the successful destruction of the Jews “The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more!” though my English language copy is simply called the “The Stroop Report.”

It was on Passover that the Jews of Warsaw chose to time their rebellion, doomed though it was. Liberation was not gained; there were no miracles, no plagues descending from the finger of God striking the evil ones. We do commemorate the event, however with Yom HaShoah, timed to coincide with the rebellion in Warsaw. In my shul (Temple Emanu-El), each year a diminishing number of survivors rises to recite the names of family and friends who were killed by the Nazis. At Roger Williams University this year Hillel’s third annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture will take place a few days early, on April 8 at 5:00 when we host Deborah Slier and Ian Shine, co-editors of the recently discovered letters of Philip (“Flip”) Slier, a young Dutch Jew who while in a Nazi work camp before his deportation to Sobibor, was able to send out 86 letters and postcards and one telegram, materials serendipitously found only in 1997. The lecture is free and open to the public. (Full disclosure notice: I am the faculty advisor of the RWU Hillel.)

On another subject entirely, Jerusalem was never intended to be the capital of Palestine. In the UN partition plan the city, which had a majority Jewish population, was designated an international zone. Only with the attempt by Jordan to crush the new Jewish state was East Jerusalem, including the entire old city, seized. Israel conquered it in 1967 not from the Palestinians who never controlled it but from King Hussein of Jordan. The newly announced settlements may not be wise, but they certainly are not illegal.