The Narrative Of My Generation Is The Yom Kippur War

In the summer of 1974, nine months after the end of the Yom Kippur War, I met the man who became my husband. When the war broke, he was already on vacation, just before his release from the army. Since he was a combat medic, he knew that he was needed in the war and kept on trying to enlist. But was told, "We don't need you; we are winning the war."

Eventually, he too was called to the front, however, by then the heavy fighting was over. My husband was lucky; other men his age had a very different experience. Five students from his year (the class of 1970) in Boyer high school in Jerusalem were killed.

Among them was David Moskowitz, a  good friend of my husband, and his name was mentioned often especially in the first years after the war. I remember my husband saying that he'd gotten married during his army service, and hadn't kept in touch.

Only recently I heard that shortly after he was killed, in May 1974, his wife had a baby daughter. At the age of 40, that daughter embarked on a journey to discover the father she never got to meet. Toward that end, she interviewed several of his friends, and last Saturday, a group of school friends from Boyer gathered around to watch the film that she had produced. The film: “Tal Is Looking for Dad” records her search and reveals the circumstances surrounding her father's death on October 8th.

Tal interviewed family members and friends, and through photos and interviews managed to create a vibrant picture of her young father. The film follows him from the time he was a young boy until his army service at the Armored Warfare. David immigrated to Israel from Czechoslovakia in 1960, with his mother and his sister. His parents were Holocaust survivors, and his father died when he was only 32, on the day of David’s 5th birthday.

They settled in a tiny apartment in Ir Ganim, a very modest new-immigrants neighborhood of Jerusalem. David was an inquisitive youth. He loved photography, math and playing the guitar. Most of his friends were new immigrants like him, who lived in apartments very similar to his.

The second part of the film is about the war. Tal was able to find  the driver of her father's  tank who told her about his  last hours. She thanked him for staying alive so that he could tell her his story. It gave me goose bumps.

At the memorial service for the soldiers of the Armored Warfare in 2013, it was Tal who gave the speech. She said, "My father wasn’t there when I was born. He didn't hold  my hand on the first day of first grade, didn’t shed a tear in the army recruiting office, and didn’t give me away at my wedding. He gave me life. Today, I know that he gave his, surrounded by the best people."

David Moskowitz and his friends from school and the neighborhood were typical new immigrants, they were good students and worked hard  in order to get ahead. He would have gone far, but, from what I saw in the film, David  managed to make the most of his 22 short years. When he was in the eleventh grade he and a friend had a photography business. Moreover, he fell in love, got married, moved to a kibbutz and knew that he and his wife were going to have a baby.

I regret not asking my husband to meet David's family. I have no explanation why we didn't,  apart for the fact that we were young, confused, and even scared. Today, I realize that we had been suffering from trauma.

The screening of the film happened two days after Holocaust Memorial Day, and on the way out, my partner commented that, even more than the Holocaust, the narrative of our generation is the Yom Kippur War. Its  trauma has gone on to affect the next generation as well. It explains a lot about our life.

The essay appeared in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-narrative-of-my-generation-is-the-yom-kippur-war/

"The Parents Circle Doesn't Want New Members"

On a sad day like today, when we lament the loss of yet another victim of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the young Dafna Meir,  a mother of 6 who was murdered in her own home, it is hard to find the energy to think about the possibility of peace, let alone keep working to make it happen.

However, this is exactly what the Parents Circle-Families Forum (PCFF), an Israeli/Palestinian group of bereaved family members of those who died as a result of the conflict, is doing. Although a membership in this organization means the loss of the person/s closest and dearest to you, the Forum has been working, tirelessly and for years, on promoting understanding between Israelis and Palestinians in order to bring about peace.

For the last 5 months I participated in one of the Forum's activities, and over the weekend we marked the end of the first part of the Narratives Project, an initiative organized by PCFF. The Narratives Project brings together two groups of Israelis and Palestinians for a series of meetings. The two groups spend one weekend together in Beit Jala where they get to know each other, and in addition, there are 6 more day meetings. At the end of the process the two groups are supposed to find common projects to work on them together.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-parents-circle-doesnt-want-new-members/

A Coal Stove In Auschwitz and Other Monuments

On the last evening of the Na’amat journey to Poland, our group of 32 women was standing next to the Warsaw Uprising Monument, in memory of the Polish rebellion against the Nazis.  Suddenly one of the friends asked me how I felt about this monument.

I didn’t know exactly what to say, but after spending five days in Poland visiting places like Majdanek, the Kielce cemetery, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, I had no more room for yet another monument, this one seemed like many others.

One of the reasons why I wanted to go to Poland at this time was to try and bring the Holocaust closer to my heart and to personalize its immensity. As a child I felt connection to the Holocaust on a personal level through childhood heroines like Anne Frank.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-coal-stove-in-auschwitz-and-other-monuments/

"We Do Not Know What A Jew Is. We Only Know Men"

Once you leave the reception area in Yad Vashem and start walking toward the dreaded unknown, you first encounter several small trees. Those are the threes in honor of the Righteous Among The Nations.

In my youth there was no doubt in my mind that had I lived in the time of the Holocaust I would have been one of the few brave women and men who had risked their lives to hide Jews. But once I had children of my own this certainty had started to dissipate. It was a disturbing feeling, still I knew that the responsibility of a family and having too much to lose would have prevented me from doing the right and human thing.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-do-not-know-what-a-jew-is-we-only-know-men/

"Unknown Sister": Na'amat's Journey To Poland

Earlier this year I saw on Facebook that Na’amat, the Israeli women’s organization, affiliated with the workers’ union (Histadrout), is taking a group of women to Poland. That trip, entitled: “ Unknown Sister” will focus on the forgotten heroines of the Holocaust.

I signed up immediately, going on such a journey with other women feels like a an easier, perhaps more accessible,  introduction to that chapter in the history of my family and my people, which until now I tried not to think about.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/unknown-sister-naamats-journey-to-poland/ 

Instead Of Berlin? See Under Zoo Aretz Zoo

My father left Berlin for Palestine in 1934, he was only 21 year old and was able to obtain a certificate since the firm  he worked for relocated  to Israel. The rest of his family was not so lucky, his parents and one brother were killed by the Nazis, and another brother survived the war but remained permanently scarred.

Then in 2000, my daughter decided to study music in Berlin. It was right after she had attended a music festival  in  Weimar, Germany. It was part of  the newly founded East West Divan by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said.

I got the first reminder that, sixty years later, Berlin was still not just any other city even before she even moved there.  My daughter  showed my father the location of her future student housing. Looking at the address, my father realized that it was the same address as his old school. Indeed once she moved into the dorm, she sent a photo of the memorial statue indicating that this was the site where the Jewish School, Adas Israel ,used to be.

In the five years that my daughter stayed there I visited Berlin several times. In 2000 the city had not yet become a desired destination for Israelis. It was still a relatively sleepy town, at least on its east side where it was dark and empty at night and no one spoke English. Even the city’s landmark --: Potsdamer Platz, had not been completed yet, and the government offices took their time moving into the new  capital.

Around the same time my father moved into a sheltered living. As we were packing  his belongings we found a pile of old letters from his family  back in Berlin. The letters dated from 1934, when my father left,  till 1939, when the family was forced out of Berlin. We knew about the letters  but my father never talked about them and I don’t remember   him looking at the letters. .

We decided to loan the letters to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, there is not that much material about domestic Jewish life in Berlin at that that time and the museum was excited to have them. The letters were transcribed (since my grandmother wrote in Gothic letters), typed out, and then translated into English (since I don't know German).

Nothing dramatic was described in the letters, but  they expressed  fear and despair. My grandparents hoped that my father, their oldest, son would be able to help. They urged him to write more and reproached him for not doing so. One brother thanked him for the books which he had sent from Palestine, and the other brother was grateful for the new suit that he had gotten from him. They all appreciated my father for all that he had sent and apologized for always needing more, they were proud people..

I read the letters only once, I couldn't look at them again. It wasn't that I had forgotten earlier about my family or about the Holocaust, but I thought that I was able to disconnect the old from the new. Yet after reading the letters Berlin was never the same for me.

Berlin is a great city, and right now it is also a metaphor for better opportunities and better life for young Israelis who are disillusioned with the situation here. Back in 1975, in similar circumstances, the great satirists of the time ( B. Michael, Hanoch Marmari,  Kobi Niv, Ephraim Sidon, and  Dudu Geva among others) produced a brilliant, and funny, book of social commentary: Zoo Aretz Zoo. One of their remedies was  that we'd all move to  New Zealand.  Perhaps we could use that as a metaphor instead of Berlin?

 The essay appeared in The Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/instead-of-berlin-see-under-zoo-aretz-zoo/

“I Don't Want To Spoil The Party": Some Unpleasant Facts about Barbara Pym's Biography

 JUN.02.2013

I have been debating whether her 100th birthday is an appropriate opportunity to discuss some unpleasant facts in Barbara Pym’s biography.  But since Barbara Pym herself loved to expose different types of unpleasantness I decided that I might as well do it now. 

 I shall start with a personal story.

In 2004 when I wrote my PhD dissertation on Barbara Pym’s 1950s novels I stayed in Oxford Britain for 3 weeks to work on her manuscripts.  For days I sat at  “Modern Papers”  a special material room at the Bodleian Library. One day I came across an early version of, what later became, her first novel  Some Tame Gazelle. It tells the story of two sisters Barbara and Hilary and they are portrayed as two middle-aged spinsters. In the scene below they are knitting  for the poor Nazis who, having  lost the war, are in exile in Africa:

 Miscellaneous papers, 1973, n.d. Shelfmark: MS. Pym 99 Extent: i + 173 leaves

 “‘Oh dear’, sighed Barbara, putting down the vest she was knitting for the Nazi exiles in Africa”. . . Of course it had been rather extravagant of her to use such an expensive wool to knit a Charity garment , but she excused herself by remarking that after all the Nazis were rather “special people” Friedbert had been a Nazi. “Dear Friedbert”, she murmured, rolling her eyes.She was wondering whether to wear her little swastika brooch or not.  Dear Friedbert had been so pleased at this sign of her presumable sympathy with the National Socialist Party. ‘Die Deutche ugend liebt ihr Vaterland’. . . how did the rest of it go, something about following the Fuhrer, anyway she had it written on the speech of Hitler’s that Friedbert had sent her once, such a long time ago. Liebfraumilch always reminded Barbara of the Rhineland which she had visited in the spring when she was twenty. The Nazis were young and arrogant then and she had hardly known which she liked best Hans of Friedbert.  “The sad state of the poor Nazis in Africa is a subject very dear to my heart’ ‘Yes’ said Mr. Harvey ‘ we must do all we can for them. Of course I suppose everyone realized that the Nazi regime could not last for- ever. Hitler was a powerful personality, but after he went there was really no one to lead them’. Barbara had always thought that Friedbert would make a good Fuhrer, and much handsomer than Hitler.   

Nothing had prepared me for the shock and the nausea which I felt upon reading this passage. In the mid-1930s Pym, among others in her Oxford social milieu, was apparently infatuated with the outward symbols of Nazism. At this period in her life she can almost be considered a Nazi sympathizer. This part of Pym’s biography has not been fully explored or satisfactorily accounted for.  According to her biographer Anne Wyatt Brown, she never fully explained that episode in her personal history. Yet Brown mentions that Pym was an impressionable 20 year old and apparently in love with a German student at the time (1992: 33).

 Although I read in her biography that Pym has been to Germany 5 times from 1934 to 1938, it did not register. But this flippant (almost silly) passage of fiction with its seemingly innocuous information was too sinister  for me.  At one point during that summer I even considered dropping the project altogether. I tried to calm down by reminding myself that Pym was very young at the time, I read books which could help me understand the zeitgeist in 1938. But one book of newspapers clippings from 1938 convinced me that one had to be quite blind not to see what was growing in Germany at the time. Still many chose not to see, even Jews like my grandparents refused to believe and stayed in Berlin.

 So I decided not to judge the young Barbara Pym too harshly and completed the dissertation.

 In the six post-war novels, Germany and the Holocaust are not mentioned even once. Pym may have been uneasy about her past attitudes, but instead of dealing with the existence of evil she has created an alternative church-centered world, where civility rules and where evil is replaced with human faults which are humorously criticized and ultimately forgiven. No doubt, this is a much more pleasant world.

Your Town’s Poor or Doing the Right Thing

I often think about courage especially in the context of the Holocaust. In my youth there was no doubt in my mind that had I lived in the time of the Holocaust I would have been one of the few brave women and men who had risked their lives to hide Jews. But once I had children of my own this certainty has started to dissipate. It was a disturbing feeling, still I realized that the responsibility of a family and having too much to lose would have prevented me from doing the right and human thing.

Contemplating on the right thing I usually remember two sources which are significant for me: the first is the Halachic principle of “your town’s poor come first.” The meaning here is that you first have to take care of those who are the closest to you; your first obligation is to them. Metaphorically your town’s poor could also be your children and your family. It is hard to forget the wonderful scene from Mary Poppins in which the mother fights for women’s rights but neglects her own children.

However, as Rabbi Yuval Cherlow stresses,  in taking care of our town’s poor first, we should never lose sight or close the door on the rest of humanity.

In light of this Halachic principle, the sacrifice of non-Jews who did hide Jews during the Holocaust is even more heroic and admirable.

 The second source is literary and, although it approaches the issue of doing the right thing from a totally different angle,  I find it equally effective.  Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility  starts when Mr Dashwood dies and his son John inherits all his wealth. The son made a promise to his father to take care of his step mother and half sisters, but his wife Fanny Dashwood dissuades him from doing so. Austen brilliantly presents John’s conversation with his wife in which she slowly and methodically builds a case why not only does he owe those poor women nothing, but actually they are in debt to him.

This scene is ironical and almost absurd, but it is also familiar and truthful. Thus, whenever I find myself in a situation when such rationalizations are resonating, I ask myself: “am I being a Fanny now ”?

Not finding justifications why I shouldn't do the right thing is not much, but it's a start. So today instead of lamenting my lack of courage, I shall remember the brave men and women, from different countries in the continent, who hid Jews during the Holocaust all the while not convincing themselves why their action wasn't  necessary. And I will be forever grateful for what they did for my people and for the rest of humanity.