Monthly Archives: February 2012

‘There You Go Again’ – The BDS Movement and Israel Apartheid Week – The Truth Can Set You Free

24 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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For the 8th year on campuses around the world, the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement is organizing for Israel Apartheid Week to take place during the next several weeks.

Israel Apartheid Week is part of an international delegitimization campaign against the state of Israel led by the international Palestinian solidarity movement. The delegitimizers equate the racist apartheid regime of the former South Africa with Israel in its policies towards Palestinians living in Israel and the West Bank. However, even a cursory comparison between the old South African apartheid regime and the democratic State of Israel negates the equivalence.

In “An open letter to Archbishop Desmond Tutu” by Warren Goldstein, chief rabbi of South Africa, published in the International Jerusalem Post (November 12-18, 2010), Rabbi Goldstein wrote:

“…Israel has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any of the myriad apartheid laws. To the contrary, Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy and accords full political, religious and other human rights to all its peoples, including its more than one million Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority including that of cabinet minister, Member of Parliament, and judge at every level, including that of the Supreme Court. All citizens vote on the same roll in regular, multiparty elections. There are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in Israel’s parliament. Arabs and Jews share all public facilities, including hospitals and malls, buses, cinemas and parks, universities and cultural [venues]”.

Rabbi Goldstein’s claims are true, but this is not to say that Arab citizens of Israel enjoy the same benefits and rights that Israeli Jews enjoy such as equal access to government funds and services, and the right to live anywhere in the state of Israel. The reality in which Israel’s own Arab citizens live coupled with the injustices experienced by Palestinians living in the West Bank must be addressed if Israel is to maintain its democratic institutions and traditions.

Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank have a different status from Israeli Arab citizens and are treated accordingly. They are not Israeli citizens and they do not enjoy the same protections as do those living in Israel. For them, their fight is and has always been one against occupation. We Jews may not like that claim, but it is a legitimate one born of a century of neglect by Arab and world powers who callously used the local Arab population as game pieces on a shifting board of changing geopolitical aims. While the case can be made that Israel’s strong and often harsh security measures imposed on Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank are a necessary evil in light of terrorism, we cannot ignore the fact that holding this territory for more than 44 years and keeping the residents there under occupation has had a corrupting moral influence on Israeli troops who have served in the West Bank and upon Israel as a whole. Even David Ben Gurion recognized the dangers of occupation when he said in 1967: “Return [the captured territory] immediately, even if no one wants it back; return it.”

The foundational Zionist dream as reflected in Israel’s Declaration of Independence did not envision the Jewish people becoming military occupiers nor did they anticipate the corrosive effects that occupation would have both upon the Arabs and the Jews. However, this truth does not equate to apartheid.

Relative to Israel Apartheid Week I recommend the following piece by Brad Burston that appeared yesterday in Haaretz (“It’s Israeli Apartheid Week. Just tell the truth.”) http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/it-s-israeli-apartheid-week-just-tell-the-truth-1.414182

 

US and Israeli Intelligence on Iran’s Nuclear March – Important Read

17 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Israel/Zionism

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A few days back I wrote about Israeli public opinion concerning Israel ‘s attack against Iran’s nuclear sites. “Yes or No?”

This piece by a veteran journalist is an important read and I recommend it.

Shalom m’Tel Aviv

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/10009-new-weasel-word-on-iran-nukes

Yes or No? What Do Israelis Believe Will Happen With Iran?

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Several have written to ask me what Israelis are thinking about Iran. Since I have arrived here I have been asking that question of everyone I encounter. All I need to say is “Yes or No?” and everyone knows what I am talking about. Everyone is thinking and worrying about Iran, but going about their daily lives as if there is no problem at all. The cafes are full. Kids are in school. People are going to work, seeing friends, and celebrating Shabbat with their families and dear ones.

Two very plugged-in Israeli friends, each of whom is close to the leadership of the country, had opposite views. One said to me, “I think it is a 90% probability that Israel will attack Iran between March and June of this year, because Israel simply cannot allow Iran to become nuclear.” The other said the opposite. “It isn’t going to happen. There will not be a war. It’s not in anyone’s interest. Pakistan has a bomb. We’ve got the bomb. So what!?”

Part of the angst that people naturally feel both here and in America is fed by the media that reports everything related to Iran’s nuclear program. The rhetoric and saber rattling is noisy, harsh and relentless. Yes, Iran has a brutal anti-Semitic government obsessively fixated on Israel and we would be fools to ignore the threat the Iranians pose. However, conventional wisdom says that if there is talk about it, it isn’t going to happen. When the talk stops, then we should worry.

It is the thinking of many here that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak have ratcheted up the rhetoric as a strategic move to pressure President Obama to push harder on sanctions and hopefully provoke protests in Iran that will lead to regime change. Sanctions are having a biting effect and anything could ignite street protests leading to an Iranian spring.

In this election year, an attack against and possible war with Iran led by the United States is remote in the view of most observers. It is the same for Netanyahu who is considering calling early elections to solidify his current popularity in a new Knesset.

If either Israel or the United States were to initiate an attack, Israel can expect missiles to fall on Tel Aviv. When Israelis are killed as a consequence of either Bibi or Obama making the first move, both can reasonably expect to suffer at the polls in their respective re-election bids.

What are Israelis thinking? Everything!

Do they believe there will be a war? Some yes – others no.

Will there be a war? Who knows?

I have also asked everyone here another question – my young ulpan teacher, senior citizens, soldiers, human rights activists, rabbis, working Israelis, everyone I talk to -“Are you an optimist or a pessimist about the future?” To a person each smiles and says, “Yes, I’m an optimist! I couldn’t live here if I didn’t feel optimistic.”

I too worry, but in the end I agree with most Israelis. Call me an idealist, a romantic, an optimist, a fool. But I too tend to say what Israelis say, Yehiye b’seder (Everything – God willing – will be fine.)

Shalom mi’Yerushalayim.

Democracy for Some – Not for All

13 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Israel’s democracy had several significant victories this past week:

First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed as the next President of the Supreme Court Asher Dan Grunis, a jurist who respects an independent judiciary. There are  those in Israel who do not.

Second, the Knesset is expected to pass overwhelmingly next week a bill against sex trafficking by making it a crime to pay for prostitution.   Sex trafficking has reached epidemic proportions in recent years with an estimated 15,000 individuals working in the prostitution industry, of whom 5000 are minors. Violence and abuse are common, and targeting clients will dramatically discourage demand by diminishing supply.

Third, the most serious general labor strike in the last two decades ended yesterday with a victory for the poor with a rise in the minimum wage and more benefits for many contract workers.

Fourth, Israel’s Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein announced that he will decide this spring whether or not to indict Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on charges of fraud, breach of trust, fraudulent receipt, money-laundering and witness harassment.  

And fifth, op-ed articles appear in every newspaper criticizing the government and nation’s leaders attesting to the strength of Israel’s free press.

All the above show how vital is Israel’s democracy, indeed, the only functioning democracy in this part of the world. Not only do Israelis enjoy free  elections, but Israel’s democratic institutions are strong. Free elections without democratic institutions are meaningless, as we are seeing in Egypt and Gaza where elections ushered in anti-democratic parties whose goal is to subjugate the population to a new tyranny of the majority.

In every democracy there are flaws, imperfections and abuses. Such is the case in Israel too. The following news release today is unflattering to Israel and  the Jewish people.

I believe this report to be generally true based on the work of two Israeli   human rights organizations, B’tzelem and Shalom Achshav. Though this report is the product of a UN investigative body, this does not necessarily mean it is anti-Israel propaganda.

The story: A UN investigation charged that Israel has strategically “Judaized” its housing policies vis a vis Palestinians   living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Bedouin living in the Negev.

The announcement was made yesterday by Raquel Rolnik, Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council, on the   right to adequate housing and non-discrimination. Ms. Rolnik, a Brazilian architect and urbanist, recently visited Israel and the West Bank where she met with representatives of the Israeli government, Palestinian Authority and international organizations. She visited Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Negev, Galilee, East Jerusalem, Ramallah, and the Gaza Strip.

Ms. Rolnik said that in the past Israel had an impressive housing record on affordable housing for all its people, but the situation has deteriorated over the last 20 years.

Among her claims is that state land goes for the highest price to maximize profitability, thus forcing Palestinians to move who cannot afford their homes, and that Palestinians and Bedouin suffer from discriminatory practices and land expropriation. She found that Palestinians cannot easily get permits to build or expand their existing homes. As their families grow (it is customary for all the generations in a family to live together in a single dwelling) many resort to adding add onto their homes without permits to accommodate the increased numbers of people.

Tens of thousands of such homes are at risk of being demolished. Ms. Rolnik noted that 70% of the demolitions in Jerusalem are carried out against Palestinians though they make up only 20% of the infractions. Last year Israel demolished 622 Palestinian structures of which 222 were family homes thus displacing 1,094 people.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Ms. Rolnik’s statements evidence of profound “misunderstanding of basic realities” and that she needs to “do her homework.”

One of the inherent problems in Israel and the West Bank concerns jurisdiction and authority. One set of law is applied within Israel itself by the civil authority while another set is applied by the military administration within territories taken by Israel after the 1967 Israeli-Arab War.

When all is said and done, how Israel treats its minorities will determine the moral character of the state. In this regard I was happy to learn today of the Knesset’s impending legislation to protect women and girls from the violence and abuse of the sex trafficking industry. We should all be waiting to see improvement in the way Israel treat the Palestinians living within Israeli jurisdiction.

Shalom mi-Y’rushalayim.

Everything Is Personal Here in the Middle East

10 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Last evening I found myself channel surfing Israeli television when I came across a gripping documentary centered on an Israeli cyclist who pedaled the length and breadth of Israel and parts of the West Bank to meet people and learn about their lives and relationship to the land and state of Israel. He met them in cities, villages, kibbutzim, moshavim, in fields, cafes, bus stops, anywhere they gathered – Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Druze, religious, secular, Holocaust survivors, survivors of war and terror, soldiers in uniform, Jewish and Palestinian refugees, old, young, anyone and everyone.

Each had a story; every story was personal;  each was a tale of heartbreak, strength, perseverance, and courage. Many of these people’s histories were so sad that I wondered how they bore their sufferings.  All spoke Hebrew, some not so well, as either a first language or a tongue acquired later in life. Everyone spoke honestly and from the heart.  As he rolled throughout the land we heard behind his narration poetry and song reflecting the dreams and truths of the peoples’ lives. The visuals were stunning as only they can be in Israel.

This film offered a snapshot of the diversity of people crammed into a small slice of territory and the consequent clash of identities and national aspirations. One young Palestinian originally from Haifa who was visiting family and friends from his home in Germany said; “I was born here. I speak Hebrew and Arabic. This is my home. But I am not an Israeli. Theirs is not my flag. I cannot sing Hatikvah [Israel’s national anthem emphasizing the longing of the Jew for our people’s ancestral home]. This is not my country. They don’t respect me, but I am from here. What can I do!  How can I live here?”

There was bitterness and anguish in his heart. I could not tell if there was also hatred or a desire for vengeance. He seemed resigned, and clearly had decided with his feet where he could live with self-respect and dignity outside this place.

Others expressed their passionate attachment to the land, the meaning of Hatikvah in their lives, and their desire that young Israelis and Jews the world over know the history of this place and why the Jewish state is so important.

Fear and hatred (though come by naturally) motivate too many people in this region and determine many self-destructive politics and policies.

In a separate blog after Shabbat I will tell of my tour of parts of the West Bank yesterday with a member of Shalom Achshav’s “Settlement Watch” team and the most recent controversy in settlement construction.

For now, mi’Yerushalayim – Shabbat Shalom!

A Land of Prophets – Ancient and Modern

09 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Art, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Yesterday I visited Rav Avraham Isaac Kook’s home, an extraordinary “Museum of Psalms” adjacent to it with 150 paintings representing the 150 Psalms based on the Zohar by the Holocaust survivor Moshe Tzvi Halevi Berger (who I met and spent some time with – a sweet lovely 90 year old sage), the home of the famed Hebrew poetess Rachel, the home of her physician Dr. Elana Kagan who treated Jewish and Arab children in the 1910-40s, the home of the wacko “Father of Modern Hebrew” Eliezer Ben Yehuda, and the home of Dr. Avraham and Anna Ticho. Dr. Ticho’s opthamological practice saved hundreds of Jews and Arabs from blindness in the 1920s-50s. His wife Anna was a gifted artist and their home was a cultural meeting center that attracked the likes of Martin Buber and Marc Chagall.

All these sites are situated all along Rechov Hanevi-im (“Prophets Street”) in the heart of Jerusalem. 

This 3-hour tour was part of my ulpan program, and I was privileged to spend it one on one (in Hebrew, of course) with one of my ulpan teachers, a lovely, bright and cultured 27 year-old daughter of Yemenite Jews who were part of the airlift from Yemen to Israel in 1949  called “Operation Magic Carpet.” Those Yemenite Jews thought the plane on which they flew was the eagle referenced in Prophets that would carry the people to the land of Israel in the time of the Messiah.

As I walked back to my hotel on Keren Hayesod in 40 degree weather I was thinking of these modern-day prophets whose homes I had just visited. I then heard chanting that grew louder and louder as I approached the Labor Department courthouse. About 200 energized Israeli workers were protesting the government on this first day of a national strike for higher wages and benefits.  

As usual, Rabbi Dow Marmur offers a consise overview of what this strike is all about, and I offer here with his permission.

Once again I am reminded that this is a land of prophets, ancient and modern.

A CASE FOR SOLIDARITY

I think of Ofer Eini, the Head ofIsrael’s Histadrut Labour Federation, as one of the most seasoned and balanced public figures in Israel. I was, therefore, at first surprised by his recent display of seeming uncompromising militancy on behalf of employees of contractors to whom government and other work is often outsourced.

Though he has good reason to be indignant about the low wages and inadequate working conditions to which these women and men are subjected, it’s such a common practice all over the capitalist world that even the enlightened and socially progressive Scandinavians are said to tolerate it. It may make sense to negotiate with the private employers for better conditions for their unskilled workers, but to try to punish the government for trying to keep costs down by outsourcing services seems excessive and perhaps uncharacteristic of the pragmatic and conciliatory Eini.

So why did he do it? Cynical and seemingly persuasive speculations suggest that because there’re going to be elections in the Histadrut and Eini has been accused by his opponents of being too soft on employers and government, this is his way of showing that he can be tough and therefore deserves to be re-elected.

It has already resulted in a general strike that affects many ordinary citizens. As is often the case in such situation, Eini may end up alienating the general public, perhaps even Histadrut members: an illustration of the vagaries of political life and the possibility of one ambitious person to distort the situation and cause havoc.

That’s the cynical view. But I’ve also heard another opinion forcefully expressed by Shelly Yachimovich, the leader of the Labour Party in the Knesset. Speaking at the Hartman Institute on the first day of the strike – that was also Tu Bishvat, the New Year of Trees which has become in Israel not only a day of tree planting and a reminder of our global ecological responsibilities, but also a day of rededication to social action – she insisted that the strike is a wholesome expression of solidarity with the have-nots.

This may mean that the cynics got it wrong and that the pessimists who fear that the public will turn against Eini are in error. Because the plight of the million or so workers who are employed by contract companies at minimum wage and under appalling conditions, social justice demands firm action. While the government chooses to turn a blind eye in the misguided effort to save money by robbing citizens of basic rights, the Labour Federation is championing the cause of the poor and the disadvantaged.

The two seemingly mutually exclusive scenarios reflect the tensions in Israeli society. The government is prone to sweep social problems under the carpet by claiming security as its priority and even using the Iranian threat as an alibi. Trade unions and the many organizations dedicated to social justice assert repeatedly that unless the ever growing economic and social gap in Israeli society is bridged, its security will be greatly compromised because the citizens are being demoralized.

So it largely depends on where you are on the Right-Left political spectrum. It will determine whether you believe the cynics who seek to discredit Eini or those who affirm solidarity with the downtrodden as a national priority. No reader of the above need to be surprised that I’m on the side of the latter. My faith in Ofer Eini hasn’t been shaken. He addresses one of the urgent issues in Israeli society for which he deserves praise.

Jerusalem 8.2.12  –  Rabbi Dow Marmur

Jessica Fishman’s Sad Story and the Threat to Israel’s Civil Society

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Life Cycle

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Jessica Fishman’s story will break your heart. She is a young Jewish woman from Minnesota whose father was President of their Conservative synagogue and mother was President of Hadassah. Jessica was a Jewish day school student and attended services every Shabbat. As a teen she traveled to Israel, fell in love with the country and made aliyah at the age of 22. Though beyond the age of military service, she volunteered in the Israeli army for two years. She met a young man, fell in love and was engaged to be married. Then her troubles began.

Jessica’s fiancé and his family wanted her to convert to Judaism with an Orthodox rabbi because her mother had converted to Judaism with a Conservative rabbi. They worried that  Jessica’s future children would not be considered Jewish by the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate and could never marry here.

Jessica refused to undergo conversion, saying; “This so upset me that these rabbis would define my identity for me.”

The tension was too much, and she and her boyfriend ended their engagement.

Jessica felt abandoned and disillusioned despite all she had given of herself to the state of Israel. After living here for seven years, she returned to Minnesota and explained, “I no longer feel that this is my home. I feel unwanted, not accepted,…it’s as if they spit in my face.”

Jessica’s story is only one recent example of the destructive impact the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate is having on Israeli society. The unholy alliance between religion and state has emboldened the ultra-Orthodox to impose themselves in more and more areas of Israeli life including the demand that certain bus lines running through Orthodox neighborhoods have separate seating for men and women with women seated in rear of the bus, nearly complete control of the Western Wall plaza by the Chief Rabbi of the Kotel, and incidents such as that which occurred last December in Beit Shemesh when Chareidi Orthodox thugs spit on an Orthodox 8 year-old little girl who was not dressed modestly enough for their taste.

Not unrelated were the massive protests last summer when hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested the squeezing of the middle class in cities all around the state. The protesters complained about not being able to make ends meet, all the while Orthodox religious institutions serving only 25% of the population who don’t work, don’t pay taxes and don’t serve in the military are being massively subsidized by the government.

In response to the Israeli protests, Prime Minister Netanyahu appointed a commission led by Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, the chair of the Higher Education Planning and Budget Committee in the Knesset, to examine and propose solutions to Israel’s economic problems. Among other things, the commission made recommendations to integrate ultra-Orthodox men into the work force, enforce core curriculum in Orthodox religious schools and to limit funding for yeshivas. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajtenberg_Committee  for details.)

It came as no surprise that the commission’s recommendations met with fierce opposition by the ultra-Orthodox religious parties. However, in a national survey only 22% of the country opposed the recommendations. 90% of secular Jews supported it as did even 67% of the religious population, as well as 75% of Likud and virtually 100% of Labor and Kadima supporters.

Why are these recommendations so important? First, they aim to ease the financial burden of Israel’s constricted middle class while also leveling the playing field for all members of Israeli society, including the ultra-Orthodox; and second, they would break the stranglehold of the ultra-Orthodox religious parties over many parts of Israeli life. However, because of the threat of the ultra-Orthodox religious parties to leave the government coalition, these recommendations have been frozen.

For more information on this danger to Israel’s civil society no less significant than the threat from without by Israel’s enemies, I recommend spending spend time looking at the web-site of Hiddush, an organization led by Rabbi Uri Regev that is committed to the separation of church and state (http://hiddush.org/).

L’shalom mi’y’rushalayim.

Impressions From Jerusalem

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This is my 15th sojourn in Israel since my first trip 38 years ago, and as much as Israel has changed in that time it is still the most fascinating and inspiring place I know.

Today I met an old friend for lunch who made aliyah from South Africa in 1970, and he shared with me how difficult life has become for Israelis noting that the mood of the country is very similar to that immediately following the Yom Kippur War in 1973. That war shattered the illusions and optimism that Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Days War had inspired. In those heady six short years between the wars Israelis felt impenetrable, like modern-day Maccabees, capable of overcoming every challenge and believing that at last they were fulfilling Jewish destiny.

Today, in light of last summer’s massive social justice rallies, the current government’s extremist nationalistic policies and the existential threat posed by Iran, it should not come as a surprise that Israelis are disheartened and distressed.

I am here for two weeks to study Hebrew on Ulpan (an accelerated language immersion program), and though my speaking approaches fluency at times it isn’t good enough for me. I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand many Israelis under the age of 45 who speak a mile a minute, far quicker than I remember 20 and 30 years ago. I figure that if I ever hope to engage with them in our common language, I have to do better, enhance my speaking and listening, and meet them where they live.

I asked my Ulpan teacher about why she thinks so many speak so fast all the time. She is a smart and sophisticated young woman younger than my eldest son, and she confessed that she didn’t know, but acknowledged that Israelis today live with exceptional tension, and perhaps that pressured life-style has affected their communication patterns.

That being said, there is no place like this place!

The day after I arrived, last Friday morning, I walked from my hotel in the chilly 45 degree sunshine to Machaneh Yehudah, Jerusalem’s famed open-air market, to buy food for my room and a fine bottle of Israeli Cabernet for my Erev Shabbat hosts. En route I wandered through old neighborhoods and narrow alleyways. Two elderly religious women hauling food carts were talking excitedly about their children and grandchildren who were coming from a Jerusalem suburb to their homes for Shabbat. Children ran by laughing and yelling. Hip looking 20-somethings passed me as well. Other than these human voices the streets were quiet as few cars were about.  I entered the market and barkers were shouting the price of dried fruit for Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees and one of Israel’s favorite holidays, that comes Tuesday night and Wednesday.

So much happens here. On Shabbat evening I prayed with my friends at the Reform synagogue, Kehillat Mevasseret Zion. In the morning , I attended  services at Congregation Shira Chadasha, an egalitarian Orthodox synagogue where women co-lead services with men. The singing of P’sukei D’zimra (a section of the service filled with Psalms and praises of God) especially was moving, melodic and beautiful. Kol isha ( “the voice of the woman”) was clear, feminine and strong despite the Talmudic prohibition against men having to listen to a woman’s voice out of fear that they (the men) will become sexually aroused and distracted from their prayers. I was happy to hear these feminine voices and especially here, in the holiest of cities, for they along with the men were filled with love and Godliness, the essence of holiness.

And then, on Motzei Shabbat kol isha again! It is now an annual tradition on the Saturday night after Shabbat Shira celebrating the “Song at the Sea” (Exodus 15) that HUC’s cantorial students celebrate the life, music and spirit of Debbie Friedman (z’l) who is responsible for initiating the transformation of liturgical music for Reform Jews and many Conservative Jews around the world. Hundreds sang Debbie’s songs, laughed, cried, and expressed gratitude to her for what she gave to us and the Jewish people, again in this holiest of cities.

I have two homes – one in Los Angeles and one here. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Shalom mi-Y’rushalayim.

 

“The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund DeWaal – A Book Recommendation

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Jewish History, Stories

≈ 2 Comments

On a long flight to Israel this past week I read a beautifully written memoir called “The Hare with Amber Eyes” by Edmund DeWaal.  This thoroughly researched work tells the story of four generations of the Ephrussi family, among the most prominent and wealthy Jewish families in pre-World War II Europe. It is a gripping tale about a dynasty acting at the center of the world of art, culture, politics, and finance in two great European cities, Paris and Vienna. It is biography, history, art history, anthropology, autobiography, and memoir written by  a British porcelain ceramicist and Ephrussi descendent.

Hailing from Odessa, the Ephrussis migrated  to Paris in the mid-19th century, then to Vienna, and within weeks of the Nazi Anschluss (lit. “link-up” with the “Fatherland”) of Austria in March 1938 to London. They fled Austria with one suitcase leaving their palatial estate, much property, a massive art collection and library, and interests valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars by today’s standards.

The book’s title takes its name from a small carving in the Japanese netsuke style, one of 264 such figurines collected by Charles Ephrussi (great-great uncle to the author) who was an amateur art historian, dealer and art patron in late 19th century Paris. These animal carvings are the only items remaining of the family’s fortunes. The Ephrussi treasures most likely hang in the world’s  great museums and private collections with no compensation ever  having been given to the Ephrussi heirs.

Edmund DeWaal  is an elegant writer with an artist’s eye for detail. As he weaves the family’s story together set against the late 19th century and early 20th century European art culture and Parisian and Viennese upper-class soirees and balls, he  ponders what it means to belong anywhere and to leave what one has always known. In that sense, this is a quintessential  Jewish story.

Though the Ephrussi family fate was like that of the rest of pre-war European Jewry, there was almost nothing identifiably Jewish about them. They never attended synagogue, did not observe any holidays, were disinterested in nascent Zionism (Theodor Herzl appealed to them for financial support but was politely turned away), and they seemed to know little about or care about Judaism as a faith tradition and religious civilization.

Instead, their social circles were populated by writers, artists, intellectuals, royalty, and business tycoons. In the Paris of the 1880s Charles was  a friend to Proust, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Sisley, Monet, and Renoir. He even appears in top-hat and black suit in Renoir’s famous Le dejeuner des cannotiers (“Luncheon of the Boating Party”) . He was among the earliest and most important collectors of Impressionist art in Europe.

Charles Ephrussi’s granddaughter Elisabeth continued the family’s affinity for the intellectual and artistic elite. She had left Austria when Hitler came to power and earned a law degree in London. She carried on an extended correspondence with the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

The lack of a strong Jewish religious identity eventually took the family far from the large pre-war  Jewish community of Vienna as they continued the process of assimilation that many underwent in the Western Europe of those years. Elisabeth married a member of the Anglican Church who was eventually ordained a Priest, attending Church with him every Sunday. Her uncle (Edmund’s great uncle Iggi), a gay man, lived out the rest of his life in Tokyo as part of that country’s artistic and cultural elite with his long-time Japanese partner, Jiro.

The netsuke carvings followed the family from the moment Charles purchased them in mid-19th century Paris to Vienna. They symbolize this family as constant outsiders. The only reason these object d’art survived as a collection is due to the courage and loyalty of a long time Ephrussi family Viennese servant, Anna, who, when the Nazis ordered her to help crate all the family’s art and books, systematically took them away in her apron pockets and hid them in her mattress until she could return them to the family. They now reside with the author.

Edmund concludes years of research, travel and writing by wondering what it means to belong to a place, to leave it and continue to wander. “You assimilate, but you need somewhere else to go. You keep your passport [in] hand. You keep something private…Why keep things, archive your intimacies?…Just because you have it does not mean you have to pass it on. Losing things can sometimes gain you a space in which to live.”

A provocative thought, but I don’t buy it. For Jews, especially, memory shapes who we are, how we think, what we think about, the nature of our values, and who we will be. Transmission therefore becomes not only an existential necessity but a religious duty.