A Country Comes to a Standstill

April 16, 2007
28 Nisan 5767

A notice appeared in our mailboxes last week. It informed all citizens that a representative of the Home Guard would be calling during this coming week between the hours 16:15 and 21:45 (military time, of course) to pick up each family’s emergency kit—including gas masks and other protective paraphernalia—providing a receipt to pick up a new kit at a local distribution center.

Well, as new immigrants, we don’t have an emergency kit! All this time we have been exposed to danger, falsely clinging to the illusion that the “bomb shelter” in our apartment (yes, we have a room right here, I’m sitting in it now, typing away) would provide ample protect should—heaven forefend—a katyusha, scud or other projectile land on us.

I guess the friendly representative from the Home Guard will present us with a coupon to get our “new” issue emergency kit. I plan to get the gas mask model for bearded men, a very popular design here in Israel. Given so much saber rattling from Iran, Hamas and—recently from Gaza— al Qaeda, maybe an emergency kit isn’t such a bad idea.

Today at precisely 10:00 AM a siren sounded. Now, with the threats from all around us you might think that we would head straight into our secure room, not exactly. Last night began what in Israel we call our national “Days of Awe,” or “High Holy Days”—the commemorations from Yom HaShoah ve-HaGevurah (Holocaust Memorial Day) through Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and culminating with Yom HaAtzma’ut (Independence Day). During Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron all Jewish places of entertainment are closed. With the exception of the few foreign stations, all broadcast channels on radio and television play only programs appropriate to the themes of memorial—about the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah and about the struggles for Israel’s survival on Yom HaZikaron. Finally, with the fading of the sun at the close of Memorial Day, the celebrations begin as the BBQ’s light up and the bands begin to play as we begin the festivities of Yom HaAtzma’ut.

That siren at 10:00 AM marked the solemn minute when the entire country stops—traffic, commerce, teaching, everything—and people stand at attention in sacred memory of those who died during the Shoah.

It is an amazing sight. On the streets everything comes to a standstill. The traffic stops (even on the highways) and people get out of their cars to stand for the duration of the siren’s blast. The ubiquitous cell phones attached to the ears of most Israelis come away (disconnected?) and there is reverent silence for one minute. I have never seen anything like it anywhere else.

This morning Wendy and I decided to take a walk so that we would be out and about when the sirens went off. At precisely 10:00 AM we heard the piercing sounds. We were sitting on a low wall at an intersection near our home and immediately stood at attention—even Kipper seemed to sense the solemnity of the moment and didn’t squirm about. Cars stopped in the street and the drivers got out. Pedestrians stood in their places. The huge industrial cranes (Israel’s “national bird”) ceased their load-bearing motion in mid-air. Everything stopped—almost.

We watched, and it was interesting to see who continued about their business while the rest of us stood at attention. Arab cars continued past (it was obvious as the women were wearing Muslim head coverings). But, also moving about normally were what appeared to be Europeans (or Americans) who make up the many foreign diplomats, NGO workers, and UN employees that live in our neighborhood. It struck me that as all-encompassing, as this moment of memory was it was not universal.

Quite frankly, I can understand why our neighbors might not stop when the siren sounds next week in memory of those fallen in Israel’s wars (a clearly national commemoration), but this silent vigil was in memory of the victims of the Shoah! Isn’t the message of the Shoah universal? Is the Holocaust only a Jewish memory?

The front page of today’s Jerusalem Post carried the headline, ‘Worldwide violence against Jews surging.’ The study conducted by Tel Aviv University, notes that the change in the nature of the incidents as well as the number is cause for concern. Now, more and more, people as well as property are the targets.

In an op-ed piece in the same paper, Manfred Gerstenfeld writes of the distortions of Holocaust memory. First is what he calls “Holocaust promotion,” encouraging the extermination of Jews to finish Hitler’s work. This is manifested in some neo-Nazi groups and in extremist voices from the Muslim world. Next he cites “Holocaust justification,” suggesting that the Jews were responsible for their own destruction.

Gerstenfeld suggests that this view is promoted by many of those who seek the destruction of the State of Israel. Then there is outright Holocaust denial—those who claim that the Holocaust is a Jewish lie. A not-too-subtle variant is “Holocaust depreciation,” which belittles the severity of the Holocaust, suggesting that reports of the extermination of Jews were “exaggerated.” Another category is “Holocaust equivalence,” alleging that the Nazi’s behavior was similar to the actions of the Allies such as the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima. Then there is “Holocaust inversion,” which targets Israel and Israelis claiming that Israelis have become the Nazis of today. Holocaust inversion has made major inroads in the Western world and is being used to legitimize the very existence of the State of Israel today.

As Gerstenfeld notes, “Portraying Israel as a Nazi state enables its enemies to kill three birds with one stone.” It delegitimizes Israel by associating it with a symbol of ultimate evil; it allows for attacks against Jews by equating them with the perpetrators of evil and genocide; and, it frees Europeans of remorse and shame for their history of lethal anti-Semitism going back many centuries.

If the truth be told, most of the world is sick and tired hearing about the Holocaust. It seems that we Jews are obsessed with it. That may be why many of the non-Jews living and working in Israel may not have stopped when the siren sounded (though many, I am absolutely sure, did). And that, my friends, is why we must continue to remember.

Those who remember the Shoah first-hand are almost gone now. Of the 110 eyewitnesses who testified at Adolf Eichmann’s trial, only ten are alive today. If we do not remember the lessons of the Shoah then “Never Again” will become an empty slogan with as much moral meaning as “Drink Coca Cola.”

That is why it is so enormously important that—at least in one place on earth—almost an entire nation comes to a standstill for one moment in sacred memory. And for a full day a people that loves to party refrains from cafes and restaurants, gives up on shopping and outings, and watches documentaries and memorials instead of The Simpsons and Seinfeld. It is just one of the many things about Israel that make it so unique—and why I live here.

Shalom from Jerusalem.

The Messiah on Wheels

April 6, 2007
18 Nisan 5767

Today is the Shabbat of Passover. On Christian calendars it is Good Friday. The confluence of these holy days is all the more remarkable because, this year, both the eastern and western rites of Christianity will be celebrating Easter Sunday on the same day. We Jews are not the only ones who get involved in the intricacies of lunar and solar cycles, so, too, do our Christian and Muslim neighbors. Following two different calendars, western and eastern Christians celebrate their major holy days of Easter and Christmas often weeks apart but this year, all celebrate Easter this Sunday just as we Jews bid farewell to our Passover festival. For we Jerusalemites that means that our city is the sacred destination of thousands of pilgrims as it has been at this season for millennia. The faithful and the curious, Christians and Jews alike, have been converging upon the Holy City this whole week to the delight of the merchants—Christians, Jews and Muslims who welcome the refreshing stream of visitors and shoppers after the long draught of the Intifada.

Jerusalem has been the destination of pilgrims since the days before the Bible entered the religious imagination of the people who gave it to the world. According to Jewish tradition the rock that crowns the Mount at its symbolic heart is Even ha-Sh’tiyah—the very foundation stone of the world. Thus it is believed that the mount upon which the Temple was built held sacred significance before David conquered the city and Solomon built the House of God there. Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac as told in Genesis, is identified with that hill, thus making the patriarch the first pilgrim to Jerusalem in Jewish tradition. Since the Temple was built, Jews have been bound in sacred covenant with this place; commanded to appear three times a year at the festival times of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, to bring their festival thanksgiving offerings to God—in pilgrimage, a sacred journey. In Hebrew we call these festivals the Regalim from the word for feet, because of the walking that was required to reach the Holy City.

For hundreds and thousands of years, Jews and then Christians have made their way on foot from their homes, often across seas and even continents, to express their devotion to their faith and draw strength and inspiration from the holy stones of this sacred city.

During this, our second Passover in Jerusalem, Wendy and I decided to make a kind of mini-pilgrimage from our home over-looking the Old City, down Hebron Road to the ancient walled town some two miles below. It was an incredibly beautiful spring day; the weather was clement and the wildflowers spread a beautiful carpet in the empty lots and open spaces along our way. We made our way past the old British prison at the top of the hill near the derelict train station (just waiting for restoration—it’s bones are so good) and then began our descent past the Hinnom Valley (Gai Hinom in Hebrew, which became Gehenna in Greek, and is the Biblical metaphorical source for the post-Biblical concept of Hell in Christianity and the divergent concept of Gehinom in Judaism).

Before too long (it was mostly downhill at this point as you would expect of a descent into Hell…but paved with Jerusalem stone, not good intentions) we found ourselves at the foot of the city walls. We decided to make our way along the walls up to Mount Zion and into the Zion Gate in order to avoid the crowds that we knew would be massed at the Jaffa Gate. We were rewarded not only by lighter crowds, but also by a spectacular view of the valley below and of the terraced gardens from Mount Zion above us.

Once we entered the Old City through the Zion Gate the human crush of the crowds and the cacophony of people speaking in a dozen different languages engulfed us immediately. We hadn’t seen Jerusalem like this in years! Slowly we elbowed our way through the snaking throng and made our way to the Cardo, the ancient Roman commercial street in the Jewish Quarter, covered over now and restored as a shopping area. We were hoping to find some wedding gifts and decided to look in on two of our friends who had stores along the street. Both were very busy, a real change from recent years and we were happy to wait before speaking with our friends. At the shop of Ezra Dayafani, a scribe who does beautiful calligraphy, illuminated manuscripts and work in silver, I got to help out, relieving his assistant by translating for some customers so she could wait on the many customers that were converging on the tiny shop. That was a real treat for me.

Ezra doesn’t just make and sell scribal artwork: each Torah scroll, every set of Tefillin (phylacteries), his illuminated works and manuscripts are works of his soul as well as his hands. A British family came in to buy a set of Tefillin for their son who would become a Bar Mitzvah this coming November. In keeping with his soul-filled approach to his work, Ezra sat with the family and explained each and every step of the process of making the Tefillin and described how the scrolls they contained were written and explained the significance of the shapes of the letters inscribed upon the parchment. As Ezra explained in Hebrew, I translated into English for the family. I also added editorially that Ezra made a set of Tefillin for me (a gift from Wendy when I turned 50 to replace my old set) I told them that every time I put Tefillin on for prayer, I could sense Ezra’s kavannah—his devotional concentration, as he inscribed the scrolls and made the leather boxes to contain them. I was moved to help this family; they must have been moved by Ezra’s gentle piety as well because the father decided to buy a second set for himself.

Wendy and made our own purchases at Ezra’s and decided to leave them at the shop to be picked up next week when we found out that the unusually large crowds meant that there was no bus or taxi service in or out of the Jewish quarter and we’d probably have to walk all the way—uphill—back home.

This time we were brave—or foolhardy—and began to trek up through the main streets of the Old City. For those who have never visited our city, please don’t be mistaken, when I use the term “main streets” I do not mean “highway” or any other broad boulevard or, even, “street” by usual connotation. Most of the streets of the Old City are through the Suk (Arabic for market)—stepped paths lined by shops and stalls selling an incredible array of tourist items, antiquities (many right out of the kiln), fabrics, bric-a-brac, spices, meats (a nice camel’s head, perhaps), jewelry, pastries, you name it… Vendors yelling and cajoling, guides barking their spiels in Spanish, French, English and even Nigerian—all part of the river of humanity, and we were salmon swimming upstream while, so it seemed, the river was as rivers do flowing emphatically downward. We struggled and we strove with all our might until we emerged, finally and triumphantly at the Jaffa Gate to begin our ascent to our home in Talpiyot once more past Gehenna to our heavenly view of the Holy City. Our pilgrimage was completed just like those of millions of Olei Regel—pilgrims both Jewish and Christian—before us.

Looking at the faces of my fellow pilgrims I can imagine that little has changed in the millennia that have passed since the first pilgrim set foot upon Jerusalem’s sacred soil. They were flushed with the experience of Jerusalem. It is soulfully intoxicating. And in the millennia since the first pilgrims, pilgrimage and religious tourism have been and, I suppose, always will be Jerusalem’s major industry. The shops and commercial life of the city have always revolved around the visitors who come here to bask in the special spiritual atmosphere that is so unique to this place. As a result, over the centuries, a variety of entrepreneurs have cropped up to take advantage of the influx of tourists to find new ways to separate them from the contents of the pilgrimage purses.

For Christian tourists, especially at this time of the year, some of the shopkeepers along the Via Dolorosa—the traditional path that Jesus took to Calvary—rent wooden crosses for the faithful to carry on their own journey to the place where Jesus was crucified. These crosses (much smaller and lighter than the original) have been modified by some creative shopkeeper who has added wheels to the bottom of the crosses making them easier to carry along the journey.

Not to be outdone, for Jewish pilgrims there are also wheeled innovations. The City of David Foundation rents for Olei Regel who don’t want to use their regalim (feet) the patented Segway. Now, if you are not familiar with this device, it is a two-wheeled scooter upon which you stand. The wheels are on either side of you and the machine moves in whichever direction you lean. It sounds completely unsafe and unstable, however, gyroscopes in the mechanism keep it upright at all times and even the very young, the very old and very uncoordinated can use it. Not only does this obviate your need to walk, your feet don’t even have to touch the ground as you glide your way on your pilgrimage!

Christian pilgrims have been emulating Jesus’ march to Calvary burdened by the cross for centuries. Jews have made the journey by foot to Jerusalem as long as Judaism has existed as a faith. Jews and Christians, consider what our forbears—those ancient pilgrims—would have thought of all these wheels! Whether one’s faith anticipates the advent of the Messiah for the first or second time, can you for a moment, in your wildest imagination picture the Messiah on wheels? What would this mean? How would this alter faith? How would it change the world?

I think that I will continue to make my own pilgrimages on foot without wheels of any kind, thank you. In some things I am still a traditionalist. Besides, I would be too worried about falling from one of those Segway things and miss out on all the beautiful scenery along the way. One of the wonderful things about our religious traditions is that they teach us to slow down, to appreciate the world and those who inhabit it. Pilgrimages help us literally to step out of the everyday hustle and bustle of our lives and to take an alternate route—even if only for a brief time—as we journey through life. I highly recommend the excursion.

A happy Passover and a happy Easter to those who celebrate.

Shalom from Jerusalem.

Getting Along Like Cats and Dogs

April 2, 2007
14 Nisan 5767


It is the 14th of Nisan (the month formerly known as Datsun), the month of Spring, as it is known in the Bible, the first month on the Hebrew calendar and the month in which we celebrate Passover arguably the most important holy day in the sacred cycle of the Jewish year. On Passover we celebrate our liberation from Egyptian slavery more than 3,500 years ago and in the dramatic retelling of the Haggadah narrative we rehearse the ancient story whose message is as fresh today as the greens we eat to remind us of the hope that story inspires. No Jewish holiday, neither Shabbat nor even Hanukah is as universally observed, as is Passover. Such is the compelling power of freedom’s story.

Passover is the national story—the defining mythos—of the Jewish people. Formerly a nomadic loosely confederated band of clans—slaves among slaves to the Egyptians—we emerged from bondage to begin a journey towards freedom and national identity culminating with the revelation of Torah on Mount Sinai. There, upon the flinty rocks of Sinai a nation and a people—Israel—were forged, and there our destiny was made manifest. So powerful was the Exodus that each Shabbat, each holy day is another reminder—a zecher lizi’at Mitzra’im—commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. And every Passover we literally relive the experience as the Haggadah exhorts us, “In every generation everyone is to view themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”

Passover, of course, focuses upon the Exodus, the escape. Only the beginning of the story relates the hundreds of years of our sojourn in Egypt (the numbers of years is debated by scholars both ancient and modern). At first we were welcomed to Egypt, in fact, it was our salvation. There was famine in the land of Canaan the home of our patriarch Jacob and his growing clan; only Egypt provided hope against almost certain starvation. Thanks to Joseph (assimilated into the “Egyptian” Zaphenath-paneah, vizier to Pharaoh), the Hebrews found refuge and succor in Egypt.

However, all was not perfect. Towards the end of the story of Jacob and Joseph in Genesis we are told that our Hebrew forebears were settled in the land of Goshen because it was most suitable for their flocks and herds. It was far away from Pharaoh and most Egyptians, “For all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians (Genesis 46:34).” You see, it seems that much before a pharaoh arose “who knew not Joseph” and enslaved the Hebrews there was ill will between our ancestors and their Egyptian neighbors. Why? Our ancestors were shepherds. The ancient Egyptians counted the ram among their gods, perhaps these nomadic shepherds who raised sheep (for food) were abhorrent to the Egyptians.

If we symbolize the Egyptians by one of their other gods—the cat, and the Hebrews by the shepherd’s trusted companion—the dog, it might be fair to characterize the ancient relationship between the two peoples as being like that between cats and dogs—they simply could not get along. Just like cats and dogs, fighting and enmity, territoriality and tension have defined their age-old relationship. And so, it seems, this animal drama has played on fairly consistently throughout history from generation to generation from era to era.

We tell our story of the Exodus, the Egyptians have theirs. In ancient tales, going back at least 2,300 years tracing back at least to the account of the Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera around 300 B.C.E. (drawing from earlier Egyptian sources) the Jews were kicked out of Egypt as the source of a plague. They were led out by a man named Moses (whom later sources identify with an Egyptian priest named Osarseph) and resettled in Judea. In their story the Hebrews are the villains, not the liberated. As they told it, Moses was a renegade, and God had nothing to do with the Exodus at all (which is probably why our rabbis chose to leave Moses out of the Haggadah—except for one passing reference—and emphasized God’s role). Cats and dogs.

Earlier, in the 7th century B.C.E. a Jewish garrison colony was set up by the Persians in Egypt at Elephantine. It even had its own functioning temple carrying out many of the same sacral rites as the Temple in Jerusalem until it was destroyed some two hundred years later by the Jews’ Egyptian neighbors. Some of the Egyptians’ calumnies against the Jews at that time sound very much like those cited later by Hecataeus. Cats and dogs.

In 110 C.E. the Egyptians and Greeks in Alexandria dredged up these stories again to “prove” to the Roman rulers that the Jews followed the strange laws given by Moses that were contrary to Roman law and unlike the laws of any other peoples. So much mischief resulted that there was an uprising by the Jews in that city that spread through many Greek-speaking Jewish communities in the Roman Empire during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Cats and dogs.

There have been periods—very long periods—when the cats and dogs have gotten along fairly well together. Alexandria (the same Alexandria mentioned above) has historically been a model of cosmopolitan sophistication and even tolerance. Elsewhere in Egypt, Maimonides found refuge in Fostat (near modern day Cairo) when he was forced to flee his native Spain). In fact, up until the advent of Zionism and the modern state of Israel, Jews have played a significant role in the cultural and commercial life of Egypt. The cats and dogs have at least called a truce at times.

In 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel (the modern incarnation of the Exodus as a defining moment in the national identity of the Jewish people) the cats and dogs were at it again. The fighting came to a climax in 1956 following the Suez War when the ancient Jewish community of Egypt was forced to pack up and leave the homes and businesses behind and become refugees in an exodus not of their choosing. Tens of thousands of Jewish refugees became homeless leaving behind them assets worth millions upon millions of dollars in the currency of the day. Cats and dogs.

However, unlike those Jews uprooted decades before in Europe, the Jews of Egypt had a home waiting for them—Israel. Many chose other destinations: Europe, the United States, Mexico and South America. But, for any and all who sought refuge and a welcoming home, Israel opened its heart to them. This is a fulfillment of the Passover promise of redemption.

And there are more promises in the Passover story I believe. Let me share another, perhaps more fanciful story, a kind of fable if you will.

Last October Wendy discovered a black cat in our entry. There are many feral cats in Jerusalem; they rummage through the garbage, hunt vermin and eye humans with a great deal of wary suspicion. But this black beauty wasn’t one of those wild ones. It was obvious that she had once been a house cats. And more, she was obviously “with kittens.” Wendy, God bless her, took pity upon the little mother-to-be and began feeding her—much to my chagrin, as I do not like cats (I am quite allergic to them); I am distinctly one of the dogs. Nature, being nature and taking its course, she eventually gave birth in our planter box to three kittens. And Wendy continued to bring food and milk, promising me that she would stop her ministrations as soon as we left for our trip to California in November. True to her word, she stopped—I emphasize that she stopped—actually, she hired the boy who watered our houseplants to continue the feeding, “just until the kittens are big enough to take care of themselves. Otherwise they’ll starve!”

This continued until January. Now we were buying sacks of cat food in addition to our monthly ration of dog food for Kipper. One day we found that one of the females was no longer to be counted among the little family; in Jerusalem this is not an uncommon fate as outdoor cats have a very low survival rate—we chose not to speculate upon its fate. Then Wendy left for a conference in California in January and left instructions for me to feed the cats. Now remember, I do not like cats—at all, nor, I might add, does Kipper. We’ve always suspected that he was part cat (a “dat” perhaps, half dog half cat), because of the way he acted so cat-like for a dog. But this is where the story gets interesting.

Not being one to ignore instructions from Wendy (unless absolutely necessary, of course), I dutifully prepared the cat food and brought it down to the little feline family as I took Kipper for his daily afternoon constitutional. It was about two days into this routine that something strange began to happen.

At first, the cats would begin to look for us (obviously looking out for the meal) then they began to follow us out onto the sidewalk. And, as for Kipper, he acted strangely himself. His fur didn’t go up in aggression and he didn’t growl at them. He almost seemed to—dare I say it—accept their presence in his domain. Gradually, little by little, the little family ventured farther and farther along the walk with us until, by the fourth or fifth day, two of the three cats accompanied us on the whole walk. Now picture this: here we are, me and this oversized Chihuahua walking down the sidewalk with an honor-guard of two cats right next to us—what a sight!

And, it gets even better…now the cats look for Kipper to go for a walk (even when it isn’t suppertime) and Kipper looks for them. They actually seem to like each other! The cats still don’t like other dogs (they run right away when one approaches) and Kipper seems to hold other cats in as much contempt as ever, but our happy family seems to get along just fine, thank you.

So, what does this mean? Well, if Kipper (of all dogs) can get along with cats, maybe it is possible for human dogs and cats to be liberated from the enslaving bonds of enmity which restrict and conflict them. We desperately need such transformative redemption now every bit as much as in ancient days.

Today our news is filled with hopeful possibilities for diplomatic breakthroughs emanating from the Arabic world—from Saudi Arabia in particular—tenuous and fragile as the overtures maybe they are at least cause for hope. At the same time we have more cat howls and screeches from other quarters in our region—from Iran and (unfortunately) even Egypt. And, here at home, we have our shares of barking dogs that see any concession or compromise as a sign of weakness and capitulation.

I hope and pray the Kipper and the cats are a harbinger of better times when even traditional enmities can be put aside—not without caution perhaps, but with a measure of mutual respect. Cats and dogs…if they can do it, why can’t we?

I wish you and yours a happy holy day of spring renewal.

Shalom from Jerusalem