I cannot understand those Jews who consider Tisha B?av as an ancient story from history that doesn?t ?speak to them?. ?How can something that happened so many years ago have anything to do with me?? they say. How can any Jew be so shortsighted, I wonder, as to see our history as a collection of short unconnected snapshots, instead of the ongoing dramatic movie that it is?
On Tisha B?Av, Channel Two aired a documentary that shouts out for someone to write about, talk about. The film was about a few Israeli families, children and grandchildren of people who survived the horrors of the Shoah and then made their lives in Israel. These children and grandchildren are now adults and have decided to leave Israel to reclaim their ?roots? in Germany and Poland. They want to have German or Polish passports specifically because they want to have a place to ?run to? when life in Israel becomes unbearable. The documentary showed a woman going from clerk to clerk in the Ministry of the Interior office of a small German village, searching for her grandfather?s original birth certificate and explaining in English that her grandfather once lived in the town and owned property. We see her finding the location of her grandfather?s home, now an empty lot, and she says to the camera, ?See, this land is mine! I own land in [x], a village in Germany, and it?s been waiting for me to come claim it!? Later in the film, her mother in Israel is interviewed about her daughter?s desire to pursue her ?German identity?. She is not happy about it, but what can she do? She says, ?Israel is our home. I have no other home.?
This documentary frightened me. I grew up in the United States, where I heard many times that Jews should never buy anything made in Germany - a car, a washing machine, or anything else. I remember hearing that we shouldn?t buy Volkswagon ?Bugs? because they were produced in Germany. Not buying anything German-made may not have affected the German economy, but it was a way to make a statement. Things have certainly changed. And now, an Israeli woman, whose grandparents were lucky enough to survive the concentration camps, is searching for her ?roots? in Germany, hoping to find her grandfather?s birth certificate, official proof so that she can apply for a German passport. With this passport, she knows there will always a ?safe? place to escape to. Irony of all ironies?.
These misguided Israelis are simply Jews who are looking at the present and their own lives through the lenses of the wrong pair of glasses. They are the glasses that they have been handed by the rest of the world, the modern capitalistic I-must-have-it-now-and-only-the-best civilization. This civilization makes things the highest priority of our lives, and when things are more important than people, history and continuity feel irrelevant. Family may be important - but what happened to your grandparents is already too far away to be taken seriously. The Jewish people may have wandered in exile for thousands of years, but if life is tough during the last 55 years, we can always run back to those pleasant places our relatives came from; those places where Jews were so loved.
I am reminded of Bnai Yisrael when they left Egypt. Some of them wanted to return to Egypt when life in the desert became too difficult to bear. Maybe in that situation, there was at least the issue of longing for the familiar (as miserable as it was) and fear of the unknown. This is not the case with Israelis whose parents and grandparents barely escaped the claws of the Nazis and who now want to declare their very own German ?identity?. These are Jews living in the Jewish homeland, Jews whose family members survived the past and started anew in a new land, our own land. Their strange desire to reconnect with Germany or Poland reflects an extremely twisted and sad form of thinking.
What continues to amaze me is that there are Jews in Israel who not only cannot relate to Tisha B?av, our long-term history; they are trying hard not to relate to the realities of only sixty years ago, which in our existence as a people is undeniably short-term history. Even worse, there are Jews in this country (unfortunately, many of them are in positions of great authority) who are denying the shortest-term history of all - what happened yesterday and today.
On Tisha B?Av, Channel Two aired a documentary that shouts out for someone to write about, talk about. The film was about a few Israeli families, children and grandchildren of people who survived the horrors of the Shoah and then made their lives in Israel. These children and grandchildren are now adults and have decided to leave Israel to reclaim their ?roots? in Germany and Poland. They want to have German or Polish passports specifically because they want to have a place to ?run to? when life in Israel becomes unbearable. The documentary showed a woman going from clerk to clerk in the Ministry of the Interior office of a small German village, searching for her grandfather?s original birth certificate and explaining in English that her grandfather once lived in the town and owned property. We see her finding the location of her grandfather?s home, now an empty lot, and she says to the camera, ?See, this land is mine! I own land in [x], a village in Germany, and it?s been waiting for me to come claim it!? Later in the film, her mother in Israel is interviewed about her daughter?s desire to pursue her ?German identity?. She is not happy about it, but what can she do? She says, ?Israel is our home. I have no other home.?
This documentary frightened me. I grew up in the United States, where I heard many times that Jews should never buy anything made in Germany - a car, a washing machine, or anything else. I remember hearing that we shouldn?t buy Volkswagon ?Bugs? because they were produced in Germany. Not buying anything German-made may not have affected the German economy, but it was a way to make a statement. Things have certainly changed. And now, an Israeli woman, whose grandparents were lucky enough to survive the concentration camps, is searching for her ?roots? in Germany, hoping to find her grandfather?s birth certificate, official proof so that she can apply for a German passport. With this passport, she knows there will always a ?safe? place to escape to. Irony of all ironies?.
These misguided Israelis are simply Jews who are looking at the present and their own lives through the lenses of the wrong pair of glasses. They are the glasses that they have been handed by the rest of the world, the modern capitalistic I-must-have-it-now-and-only-the-best civilization. This civilization makes things the highest priority of our lives, and when things are more important than people, history and continuity feel irrelevant. Family may be important - but what happened to your grandparents is already too far away to be taken seriously. The Jewish people may have wandered in exile for thousands of years, but if life is tough during the last 55 years, we can always run back to those pleasant places our relatives came from; those places where Jews were so loved.
I am reminded of Bnai Yisrael when they left Egypt. Some of them wanted to return to Egypt when life in the desert became too difficult to bear. Maybe in that situation, there was at least the issue of longing for the familiar (as miserable as it was) and fear of the unknown. This is not the case with Israelis whose parents and grandparents barely escaped the claws of the Nazis and who now want to declare their very own German ?identity?. These are Jews living in the Jewish homeland, Jews whose family members survived the past and started anew in a new land, our own land. Their strange desire to reconnect with Germany or Poland reflects an extremely twisted and sad form of thinking.
What continues to amaze me is that there are Jews in Israel who not only cannot relate to Tisha B?av, our long-term history; they are trying hard not to relate to the realities of only sixty years ago, which in our existence as a people is undeniably short-term history. Even worse, there are Jews in this country (unfortunately, many of them are in positions of great authority) who are denying the shortest-term history of all - what happened yesterday and today.