Category Archives: Israel and Palestine

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” – By Nathan Englander – Book Review

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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What I appreciate most about Nathan Englander’s new collection of short stories, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (publ. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), is not only his gifts as a writer, story teller and psychologically sophisticated observer of people, but that he actually knows something about Judaism, Jewish history, modern Orthodoxy, Ultra-Orthodoxy, the secular Jewish world, the state of Israel, and the place of the Holocaust in the psyche of the Jewish people.

Mr. Englander was born in 1960 in New York, raised on Long Island and educated in Orthodox schools through high school. In his mid-thirties, he moved to Israel where he lived for five years, but returned to the states and moves between Brooklyn, New York and Madison, Wisconsin where he teaches fiction and creative writing.

His Jewish/Israeli/secular background plays itself out in all his stories. He is at once an insider and outsider, sympathetic to the Jew as victim and vanquisher, and he knows Jewish tradition, though I suspect he  is no longer Orthodox himself. I sense, as well, that despite the darkness that undergird his stories, he sees the world through a comic and ironic eye as some of his stories are at once absurd and hysterical.

Englander’s eight stories, mostly involving Jewish characters and 20th century Jewish experience, touch upon many themes; the limits of love using the Holocaust as a backdrop in the title story (“What we Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”); the very different fates and destinies that befall two Israeli sisters who move into the West Bank after the 1967 Six Day War with their husbands and children to establish a settlement that eventually grows into a city (“Two Sisters”) – one sister loses her husband and all her children in war and a freak accident and the other survives with 9 children; the revenge-filled encounter with an anti-Semitic bully in America that is reminiscent of Bernard Malamud (“How We Avenged the Blums”); a dream sexual fantasy of a married protagonist who has lost his faith but is still plagued by Orthodox Judaism’s moral strictures (“Peep Show”); the influence of a person’s family history, familial bonds and memory on his heart, mind and soul long after everyone has died (“Everything I know About My Family On My Mother’s Side”); the ease towards paranoia among Holocaust survivors who, in an unlikely setting of an American seniors summer camp, accuse another survivor of being a former Nazi (“Camp Sundown”); the pain and loneliness of a once famous writer whose fan base is now old, dying but ever-demanding (“The Reader”); and the legacy of the death camps on a boy survivor who returned after the liberation as the only one left in his family to his boyhood home to discover his “governess” plotting to murder him in order that her family will keep his family’s farm (“Free Fruit for Young Widows”).

Every story is provocative, imaginative, engaging, entertaining, moving, and memorable. As a whole, they challenge the modern Jew to think about the nature of one’s Jewish identity in modernity, the role of religion, God, faith, culture, and history in forming who we are, and our capacity for evil and revenge. These stories are complex and operate on multiple levels from the real to imaginary to allegorical. They will leave you impressed by Englander’s skills,  moved and wondering – who am I?

Two Narratives – Two Truths

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Stories, Uncategorized

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Much will be said in the coming days and weeks about what negotiations mean, what Israel and the Palestinians are willing to do and give up, whether the gap is just too wide, and whether a two-state solution is possible given current thinking on both sides.

I have just begun reading an important new book published last year called Side By Side – Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine edited by Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-on (zal), and Eyal Naveh of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). Developed over the last 15 years by Palestinian and Israeli scholars and educators, this work represents a wholly new way of teaching the Middle East to Israeli and Palestinian High School students. Regardless of one’s identity, both sides likely will be surprised that, more often than not, each holds a one-dimensional view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will obstruct peace-making.

The two narratives and interpretations of the meaning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are set side by side in 400 pages. Clearly, we live in two worlds and our understanding of the same historical events are very different.

Each side’s better understanding of the “narrative” of the other will hopefully result in a softening and opening of the heart to the other’s identity and experience.

No one in the Middle East wants to be a fry-ar (Israeli slang; “sucker”). Negotiations will be very difficult.

We here should be giving Secretary Kerry every benefit of the doubt in his efforts to facilitate negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians towards a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution of this conflict. Criticism of Kerry should be silenced. Mocking him, especially by Jewish media pundits should be quelled. What is important now is to support this renewal of negotiations. The alternative to a two states for two peoples resolution is more war, more suffering and a darkening of the landscape to death and the destruction of dreams.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls – A Biography” – Book Review and Recommendation

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Jewish History, Jewish-Christian Relations, Uncategorized

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If you have ever wondered what is so significant about the Dead Sea Scrolls, arguably the most significant archeological discovery of the 20th century, and would like a handbook to explain it all, this book by Dr. John J Collins, Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University, is for you.

The author has studied the more than 900 scrolls (some of them little more than fragments) for more than three decades. He tells the fascinating story of the discovery of the scrolls in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd looking for his lost goat, reviews all the theories about the small community at Qumran near the Dead Sea whose nearby caves kept the scrolls preserved for 2000 years, and describes the bitter battles swirling among Christian and western scholars since the scrolls were first discovered.

These scrolls are among the most famous archeological finds ever, and Dr. Collins explains why:

“The reason why the Scrolls…caught the imagination of the public is due to the fact that they come from a time and place of exceptional importance in the history of the Western world. As primary documents from Judea in the time of Jesus, they offer a window on the context in which Christianity was born, if not directly on the movement itself. More directly, they give us an unprecedented view of what Judaism was like before the destruction of Jerusalem and the rise of the rabbinic movement…before the church and synagogue constructed their official genealogies. The stakes, then, for both Judaism and Christianity are considerable, since the new discoveries potentially place official accounts in question and undercut the authority of religious authorities.” (p. 236-7)

A central figure that appears in many of the scrolls who was called “The Teacher of Righteousness” has inspired many Christians to believe that this was another name for Jesus, but there were a number of people at the time who were regarded as Messiah figures and there is no credible evidence that clearly identifies this figure as the Christian Savior. The question is, was this community Jewish or proto-Christian? Dr. Collins, a practicing Catholic, is categorical:

“As scholars have increasingly recognized in the last quarter century, the Scrolls are documents of ancient Judaism. Despite sensationalist claims, they are not Christian, and do not witness directly to Jesus of Nazareth and his followers. Nonetheless, they illuminate the context in which Jesus lived, and in which earliest Christianity took shape.” (p. 240)

The scrolls include portions of every Biblical book, except the book of Esther, along with many other manuscripts that have been found nowhere else. They are primarily sectarian documents (though some are apocalyptic) and delineate rules governing the behavior of those who lived in the Qumran community. Dr. Collins notes that the Essene sect, as they are known, came into being because of disagreements with other Jews on the exact interpretation of the Torah, the proper cult calendar and the state of the Temple cult in Jerusalem. It did not come into being because it believed in the coming of the messiah or the final battle between the sons of Light and the sons of Darkness.

Though not mentioned explicitly in Hebrew or Aramaic sources (nor, for that matter in the New Testament), the Essenes are known in Greek and Latin sources including Philo, Josephus and Pliny. Collectively, these ancient authors described virtuous cult members who refrained from animal sacrifices and spurned city life, who spent their time praying and copying texts, who shared common meals, eschewed ownership of property, held no weapons of war, rejected slavery, and were concerned about ethics. It is debatable about the degree of monasticism in the community, as suggested by the female skeletal remains in the Qumran cemetery, though some may have been married with children while others were celibate and misogynist.

As is the case today, there was great diversity in the Judaism of the era:

“Rival sects and parties hated each other with a perfect hatred. Nonetheless, there were also unifying factors— the belief in a single God, shared scriptures, widespread concerns about purity and correct observance,…shared ethnic identity. The people were arguably extremists who disagreed with the ruling priests in Jerusalem in particular around the setting of the Jewish calendar.“ (p. 179)

The Essenes vanished from history after 200 years and had little discernible influence on later Jewish tradition. The movement separated itself from the priestly traditions in Jerusalem and from the emerging Pharisaic rabbinic tradition that focused on interpreting the fine points of the Oral and Written Laws. In the end, the Essene cult was a small sectarian movement outside mainline Judaism and too extreme to have enduring appeal.

This very readable volume explains it all, and I recommend it both to students of the Temple period, early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, and anyone else who wants to understand what the Dead Sea Scrolls are really all about.

Finding Light Amidst Darkness – D’var Torah Pinchas

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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How to read the story of Pinchas, a shatteringly brutal tale of love and violence? That is the question in this week’s Torah portion, especially for the modern Jew?

The story begins this way:

“Now YHVH spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Pinchas, son of Elazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned my venomous-anger from the Children of Israel in his being zealous with My jealousy in their midst, so that I did not finish off the children of Israel in my jealousy.” (Numbers 25:10-11)

What did Pinchas do to attract God’s attention? Without due process he took his sword and in one thrust plunged it into the back of the Israelite man Zimri and through the belly of the Midianite woman Cozbi who were locked in an amorous embrace, and Pinchas killed them dead.

The Torah tells us that God credited Pinchas with having saved thousands who God was about to kill Himself, but Pinchas’ righteous rage kept God’s violence at bay. Then God rewarded Pinchas with “briti shalom – My covenant of peace.”

If this were the entire story many of us would despair its implications. Indeed, Jewish extremist rabbis in Israel have used this story in recent years to justify attacking Reform rabbis in the manner Pinchas attacked Zimri.

Thankfully, the midrashic and esoteric traditions explore deeper truths hidden in this grim tale that offer meaning rather than despair.

Most rabbinic commentary justifies Pinchas’ deed as virtuous. There is, nevertheless, a mystical strain that regards Cozbi’s and Zimri’s love not as a great sin at all, but as a union so pure and beautiful that the world could not contain it.

For this understanding I’m grateful to Rabbi Jonathan Omer-man and Rabbi Yosi Gordon. They have brought forward the reflections of some of our greatest mystic sages, Rabbis Isaac Luria, Chaim vital, Abraham Azulai, and the Izbeca Rabbi (“Learn Torah With…” – July 22, 1995) who wrote:

“There are ten degrees of fornication in the world. At the lowest level, the worst, the will to sin is even greater than the desire to perform the act, and the person has to urge himself on to sally out into the world and sully it. At each ascending level, however, the protagonist’s will becomes progressively more powerful. At the tenth and final level, which is extremely rare, the desire is so powerful that no human will in the world would be strong enough to vanquish it. We must conclude that it was not a sin at all, but God’s will. Zimri and Cozbi, far from being wicked sinners, were a couple ordained from the beginning of creation.”

In other words, Zimri’s and Cozbi’s love was so high and exalted that it could neither be realized nor sustained in the real world, reminding us of the forbidden love of Romeo and Juliet and the maiden and her beloved in The Song of Songs 8:6-7:

Ki azah cha-mavet ahavah, /  kasha chishol kin’ah.      

“For love is fierce as death, / passion is mighty as Sheol;

R’shafeha rispei esh / Shalhevetya.

Its darts are darts of fire, / A blazing flame.

Mayim rabim lo yuchlu l’chabot et ahavah / Un’harot lo yish’t’puha.

Vast floods cannot quench love, / Nor rivers drown it.”

The Kabbalah teaches that though Zimri’s and Cozbi’s soul-love defied the tragedy of their real life together, they came back into the reincarnated life of Rabbi Akiva who built his famed academy.

In light of this, how might we regard Pinchas?

To the modern eye his reward of the “covenant of peace” seems unjust and wrong. Most traditional commentators, however, emphasize Pinchas’ motive as pure, l’shem shamayim, for the sake of heaven. The Kabbalists said that though Pinchas sincerely sought Truth, he did not grasp nor understand Cozbi’s and Zimri’s love.

There are two slight variations in the text that give support to this view. The first is in the writing of Pinchas’ name – Peh-yod-nun-chet-samech (Numbers 25:11).  The yod is written unusually small suggesting that God’s holiest Name – Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh (which at times is designated by a lone yod), and Jews (Yehudim) – Yod-heh-vav-daled-yod-mem) that begins with yod, are diminished when a Jew engages in violence, even justified violence.

The second variation comes in the vav of the word shalom – shin-lamed-vav-mem – meaning “wholeness.” The vav here is strangely broken in the middle suggesting that the wholeness of this covenant – briti shalom – (indeed, any agreement that’s reached by destroying one’s opponent) will inevitably be a flawed and incomplete peace.

Is it not true? Real peace cannot come from violence and war.

Lest we despair, Rabbi Omer-man reminds us of Zimri’s and Cozbi’s love, of its exalted purity despite transgressing tribal taboo, and that even in situations as dire as this one “there is light [even] when we [believe we] can only see darkness.”

Shabbat shalom.

Sinai and American Efforts for Peace – D’var Torah Hukat

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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In this week’s Torah portion Hukat, Miriam dies and the people complain bitterly that there’s no water (Numbers 20:3-5). God tells him to take his rod and order the rock to produce water. But Moses, old and weary, instead of ordering the rock strikes it with his rod. Though the people drink God punishes Moses from ever entering the Promised Land.

Talmudic sages said that Moses’ faith wasn’t strong enough, that because he failed to sanctify God in the sight of the people God deemed him unworthy to lead them into Canaan.

RAMBAM explained that Moses lacked compassion, that because the people were on the verge of death from thirst he should have spoken kindly to them instead of with words of rebuke.

Others say that in losing his temper Moses lost his moral authority to be leader.

And some say that because Moses claimed credit for the miracle of the water without acknowledging God, the Almighty denied him what he dreamed for most.

And there’s yet another explanation.

Earlier at Massah and Meribah (Exodus 17) the people also had complained of their dire thirst. Similar to our portion God told Moses to take his rod, but this time to hit the rock instead of speaking to it.

Why? What was different then vs now?

The answer is that Sinai intervened between the two events. There, at that lowly mountain God sought a new way for the people, to erase the experience of slavery, to create a new people in which force would yield to reason, physical strength to law, violence to dialogue and compassion.

God intended that a new age was to begin, the messianic age, and Moses was to be the Messiah. However, when Moses hit the rock instead of speaking to it, he showed the people that Sinai had actually changed nothing, that God was just a more powerful Pharaoh with bigger magic and greater violence.

In a modern midrash on the “Waters of Meribah,” Rabbi Marc Gelman writes movingly of what God intended for the people, then and now (Learn Torah with…Vol. 5, Number 16, January 30, 1999, edited by Joel Lurie Grishaver and Rabbi Stuart Kelman):

“When my people enters the land you shall not enter with them, but neither shall I. I shall only allow a part of my presence to enter the land with them. The abundance of my presence I shall keep outside the land. The exiled part shall be called my Shekhinah and it shall remind the people that I too am in exile. I too am a divided presence in the world, and that I shall only be whole again on that day when the power of the fist vanishes forever from the world. Only on that day will I be one. Only on that day will my name be one. Only on that day Moses, shall we enter the land together. Only on that day Moses, shall the waters of Meribah become the flowing waters of justice and the everlasting stream of righteousness gushing forth from my holy mountain where all people shall come and be free at last.”

Turning to the present, we ask how we can apply the message of Sinai to the most challenging problem facing the Jewish people – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Sinai teaches that the power of the fist must give way to a vision of Oneness, and that vision requires us as American Jews to publicly support our own American effort led by President Obama and Secretary Kerry to help the Israelis and Palestinians resolve their conflict diplomatically in two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security.

The status quo in which Israel occupies another people is morally, religiously and practically unsustainable. Israel will lose its soul, its democracy and/or its Jewish majority if it continues to occupy millions of Palestinians.

Israel must be helped to choose and the Palestinians must be helped to choose a new way that leads our two peoples and two nations towards acceptance of the other and a peaceful resolution of this conflict. The extremists on both sides need to be contained and controlled. Each side will need to make significant compromises for the sake of peace.

It will not be easy, but that, I believe, is the greater meaning of Sinai and we ignore it at our own peril.

Theodor Herzl said more than a century ago when envisioning a State for the Jewish people –  Im tirtzu, ein zo agadah – If you will it, it is not a dream!

If Israel and the Palestinians will it, peace is also not a dream.

 

Secretary Kerry’s Speech and J Street’s Open Letter to the American Jewish Community

06 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a powerful and important speech [watch] at the American Jewish Committee conference, calling on American Jews to make their voices heard in support for negotiation efforts and a two-state solution. The speech was not given much attention from Jewish groups, but I, as a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, believe that it is important to elevate Kerry’s call and to make sure that our community is vocally supporting Kerry’s efforts in the Middle East.

In that vein, J Street has released an open letter to the American Jewish community, which I hope will be circulated and read by many in an effort to galvanize support for a reinvigorated peace effort. The text of the letter can be found here. [ http://jstreet.org/blog/post/an-open-letter-to-the-american-jewish-community_1 ]

The next few weeks provide a critical window of opportunity to do all that can be done to ensure that negotiations move ahead. I urge you to use this open letter as a jumping off point to encourage to your friends and communities to vocally and actively support Secretary Kerry’s efforts.

The Kotel in 1911 Had No Mechitza

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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A member of my congregation, Peter Marcus, has shared with me film footage taken by his uncle, Murray Rosenberg, a newsreel photographer, in 1911 when he visited Palestine. The entire film is worth watching, but the relevant footage at the Kotel begins at about the 19 minute mark (the film is courtesy of the Spielberg archive). The film shows clearly that men and women prayed side by side at the Kotel a hundred years ago, without controversy.

The Western Wall was never considered an “orthodox synagogue” until the late 1960s when the plaza was cleared and a mechitzah (divider between men and women) was erected.

The most recent behavior of the Hareidim against “Women of the Wall” (WOW) who wish nothing except to pray and read Torah on Rosh Hodesh (the orthodox spit on the women, throw chairs, scream slanderous epithets, and behave like spoiled toddlers) is a source of shame to the Jewish people at this holiest site in Judaism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0zpbDGjHAE.

Why I Recommend Peter Beinart as a Synagogue and Jewish Community Speaker

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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A column appeared in the May 20, 2013 Jerusalem Post by Rabbi Eric Yoffie entitled “Synagogues, Red Lines and Free Speech” that he wrote in response to the recent decisions of two synagogues in New York and outside Toronto to cancel appearances by Pamela Geller, an inflammatory anti-Islam activist, who Rabbi Yoffie characterized as a “a bigot and purveyor of hate.” http://blogs.jpost.com/content/synagogues-red-lines-and-free-speech

He used the incidents to revisit the theme of free speech in synagogue settings, and drew helpful “red lines” for rabbis and synagogue leadership when considering who to invite to speak.

Rabbi Yoffie writes first of the consequences of shutting down legitimate debate:

“A synagogue that shuts down discussion whenever a wealthy donor is offended may appease the donor but will ultimately drive away its own members and lose its standing in the community…”

He says, however, that some speech is inappropriate in synagogues:

“Synagogues must have red lines. A synagogue bima is not an open forum; it is a platform used by a Jewish religious institution to promote Jewish values and strengthen the Jewish people and the Jewish state. There are people who should never be invited to speak there and things that should not be said there.”

And he drew clear “red lines”:

“Invite those with a firm commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic  state; who, when criticisms are offered, will offer them with love and respect; and who are sensitive to Israel’s security needs and oppose terrorism against Israelis and Jews—indeed, who oppose terrorism in all forms and at all times.”  

Rabbi Yoffie noted that Peter Beinart has that “firm commitment” to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Truth to tell, Peter is among the most important speakers on Israel and the state of the American Jewish community that I have invited to my congregation in recent years.

Peter is the author of “Crisis of Zionism,” the senior political writer for The Daily Beast, editor of its blog “Open Zion,” and Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York.

Yes, his views are controversial. Nevertheless, as a modern orthodox Jew, his writings on Jewish values, the American Jewish community,  Zionism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comport with surveys that show that most American Jews agree with most of the positions he articulates.

I invited Peter a year ago to debate David Suissa, the President of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, because despite the wide gap in their positions I wanted my community to hear two intelligent people argue respectfully the great issues facing Israel and the Jewish people, and they did not disappoint. (See http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/peter_beinart_and_david_suissa_debate_zionisms_crisis_20120517)

Given that Rabbi Yoffie mentioned Peter prominently this past week, I was curious to know what impact Peter’s writings have had and whether he had been invited to speak before congregations and communities despite the controversy his writings have stimulated.

I called Peter and learned that, indeed, he has spoken on a number of occasions to Reform, Conservative and Orthodox synagogue communities including my own at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles (Reform), as well as at Temple Israel of Boston (Reform), the Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. (Reform), Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan (Conservative), the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (Orthodox), Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan (Orthodox), Manhattan Jewish Center (Orthodox), and to other Jewish organizations including the 92nd Street Y, the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism’s Board of Trustees, the Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco JCCs, the Jewish Funders Network, and the Israeli Presidents’ Conference.

I know that there are those who remain uneasy about Peter’s views while many others who are unfamiliar with them. Both groups would find interest not only in his book, but in three articles he penned in The Daily Beast.

The first explains why he does not support BDS against Israel proper; http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/12/why-liberal-zionists-won-t-join-bds.html

The second explains why he believes Israel is not an apartheid state: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/why-israel-is-not-an-apartheid-state.html

And the third is harshly critical of the American political left for ignoring Hamas’ abuse and brutality against Palestinians living in Gaza: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/08/the-pro-palestinian-left-s-hamas-blindspot.html

In short, I encourage my colleagues, congregations and Jewish organizations to invite Peter Beinart to their communities to address the great issues confronting American Jews and Israel. His thinking is often different from what we hear from others. His approach, however, is a welcome alternative especially given that so many American Jews feel alienated from Israeli politics and policies, and uncomfortable with positions taken by much of the organized American Jewish community.

“A German Life – Against All Odds, Change is Possible” by Bernd Wollschlaeger – Book Recommendation

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Stories

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Bernd Wollschlaeger, born in 1958 in the small German town of Bamberg, is the son of a former Nazi tank commander and member of one of the elite units of the Wehrmacht, the Germany army, for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross personally by Hitler.

Bernd loved his parents and admired his father, but growing up he needed to know all about what his father refused to discuss with him, what the Nazis did to Europe, Germany and the Jews, and what was his role.

When Palestinian terrorists murdered Israel’s Olympic athletes in 1972, the German press noted that again Jews had been killed in Germany. The fourteen year-old Bernd wanted to know what that meant. However, he could not get a straight answer from his parents. What he learned about the Third Reich at school horrified him. When he asked his father about German crimes his father told him that Bernd’s “teachers were all communists and liars and that a Holocaust never actually existed.”

Curious too about Judaism and Jewish faith, Bernd sought out a small orthodox Jewish community in his home town where he met and befriended a Holocaust survivor who began to teach him Judaism. Increasingly rejected by his own family, these mostly elderly Jews became Bernd’s new family.

One day he read about a peace conference being held in a nearby German town for Israeli Jewish and Arab youth organized by Neve Shalom. He decided to attend and from that point on his life would never be the same again. He now wanted to visit Israel.

In 1978 Bernd sailed to the Holy Land. He was reunited with his Israeli and Palestinian friends, fell in love with Vered, one of the young Israeli women, visited his Palestinian friend Chalil, and prayed at the Kotel. There, before the ancient stone wall he felt a spiritual stirring he had never known before. A kindly Orthodox man, watching him in his reverie, approached and encouraged him to seek out and reclaim his n’shamah, his Godly soul.

Bernd returned to Germany, completed his medical degree, converted to Judaism, and made aliyah. These acts severed whatever bond was left with his father and family.

In Israel, Bernd joined the Israeli Defense Forces as a medical officer, served for two years in the West Bank during the first Intifada, married and had a son.

The First Gulf War frightened his American-born wife, and so with a heavy heart he agreed for her sake to move to Florida. They divorced three years later. Bernd remarried and had two more Jewish children. Today he is a practicing family physician and an addiction specialist.

Bernd wrote of his remarkable journey, love of Judaism and Israel, and self-search:

“Initially, I came to seek answers about the Shoah, the crimes committed by Germans against [the Jewish] people, and of course the role my father played during that part of German history. Now I feel that there are other issues I need to explore. Why am I so attracted to this country? Why do I feel at home here? Why does Jewish faith and prayer seem to touch something deep inside me? Now I am searching for who I am. Since we’ve been here in Jerusalem, I’ve felt so close to finding it, but I still don’t know….

Many stories have been told by survivors, but this memoir (publ. by Emor Publishing, 2007) is the first I have read written by a child of a perpetrator.

When his own children asked about his family past, Bernd vowed not to do as his parents had done:

“I decided to break the wall of silence and tell them the truth about me. I needed to express what compelled me to dramatically change my life. I finally had to explore the relationship with my father and how it was overshadowed by the Holocaust. Our unresolved conflict and his denial motivated me to search for answers, and I found them within me and my acquired faith: Against all odds, change is possible…”

Dr. Wollschlaeger spoke to my synagogue community during this year’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration. We came to know of him from our member, Claudia Ehrlich Sobral, a child of survivors and a documentary film maker who produced “Ghosts of the Third Reich” which highlights Bernd and several other descendents of high ranking Nazis confronting the legacy that each carries.

Bernd’s courage to confront the truth and the transformation he underwent in order  to create a new life despite his family’s past amazes and inspires. His memoir will move you and I recommend it.

Hag Shavuot Sameach!

Be Not Afraid

28 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Health and Well-Being, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity

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When I was 9 years old my father died, and my world suddenly changed. Overwhelmed by loss and grief, only the support of family and friends helped me move through that dark period.

What was clear was that I had no control over the ultimate questions of life and death. In the years that followed I compensated by studying and working hard. I thought about God, studied Jewish history, theology, and tradition, became a progressive Zionist, and learned to speak Hebrew, all in the interests of finding safety in something greater than myself.

Indeed, the fear of death and the loss of control are powerful human motivators for both good and bad. Many of us, from fear, turn inward in self-protection against the “other.” We narrow our vision, constrict our hearts, minds and politics, and we focus on our self-interests assuming we have no choice because the “other” guy is a threat.

However, building our lives on fear has consequences. Yoda famously said, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, [and] hate leads to suffering.” (Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace)

John Steinbeck opined along the same lines saying, “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts…perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”

Both are right. Though fear is a natural response alerting us to imminent danger, many of us are so plagued by historically embedded fears that we imagine hostile phantoms when none exist.

The challenge is for us to be able to distinguish real and present danger from phantoms, and then be able to evaluate the true measure of the threat and respond appropriately.

Two emails came to me this past week that have drawn me to this consideration of fear. The first was a report circulating on the Internet that all the Jews of Norway had decided en masse (some 1300 souls, according to 2012 population surveys) to leave that country, saying:

“It seems what Hitler failed to achieve the Muslims have accomplished. In a few weeks Norway will be ‘Judenfrei.’ The last 819 Jews are leaving the country due to its rise in anti-Semitism…”

The implication, of course, is that the world wants the Jews dead, or to vanish. The problem with this Internet “report” is that it is a complete fabrication, according to the Norwegian Jewish Community and the ADL.

The second email came from a Israel advocacy organization that began:

“In a hostile and uncertain world, it is reassuring to know that two great democracies—the United States and Israel—continue to find security in their support of one another.”

Yes, of course, the United States and Israel are great democratic societies and strategic partners, but why is it necessary to start from a place of fear to motivate Jews to support Israel financially and otherwise in its legitimate needs?

For years many Jewish organizations have fed on Jewish fear, the Holocaust, Israel’s wars and defense against terrorism, to appeal for money rather than on the blessings of Zionism, our people’s historic and successful building of a modern state based on the prophetic principles of justice and peace as written in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

It is not surprising, of course, how successful these organizations are because there is in the Jewish heart a deep reservoir of fear. Our history is long and hard, even as it is remarkable and enriched. I believe it is time to stop the fear-mongering. (See my blog from April 15, 2013 – “Israel on Her 65th Birthday – Taking Pride in Her Accomplishments”)

Fear-mongering is not only unnecessary, it is counter-productive because it blinds our people’s vision, focuses us on the short-term tactics rather than long-term strategy, divides Jewish community, alienates many of us and our young people, separates us from our allies and true friends, provokes inappropriate speech and action, and satisfies only the most extreme self-fulfilling prophecies of doom.

I take seriously the teaching of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid.”

In the coming weeks and months due to the important efforts of the Obama Administration to bring Israelis and Palestinians back into negotiations to settle their conflict once and for all, Israelis, the Jewish people and the Palestinians, along with moderate Arab states, will be tested perhaps as never before. Will we continue to build fortresses against each other, or will we build palaces of peace side by side?

I know that either choice carries risk. The greater risk, however, is to do nothing because the status quo is unsustainable, and the longer it continues Israel’s democracy and Jewish character will be compromised. As long as both Israel’s and Palestine’s security needs are assured, the risks of making peace, I believe, will be worth it.