They Shall Not Pass

My mother visited Israel not long after the '73 War and came back with a few records of Israeli songs from that conflict, part of the soundtrack of my childhood. Songs that became Israeli classics like Naomi Shemer's "Lu Yehi" (Let It Be) and Yehoram Gaon's "Ani Mavtiah Lakh" (I Promise You).

Songs that prayed for peace, for the safe return of loved ones serving at the front, about the desire to live normally without threat of conflict constantly hanging over Israel, the loss of youthful innocence as yet another generation underwent a baptism of fire, gratitude to God and the dedicated men and women protecting Israel's borders from enemies bent on the destruction of the Jewish state.

This song isn't one of the best known, but it stuck in my mind as a child. A song originally recorded by the Golani entertainment troupe during the war it's strident tone directed at the enemy "You shall not pass" and vivid imagery struck a chord, especially as I knew that some of my mother's friends or their children had fought on the Golan.

It wasn't until I learnt the biblical book of Amos as a teen that I fully understood the reference in the song's opening. I think of these verses often in recent years as the horrific war in neighbouring Syria goes on and on with no clear end in sight, every so often spilling over the border with a "stray" shell or rocket or mortar landing on the Israeli side, mostly without injury, but also killing and wounding Israelis working or living near the border fence, most recently hurting a young girl from the moshav of Alonei Habashan near the Syrian border.

The passage from Amos seemed to describe the chaos and displacement of the war in Syria and a government that had pushed its own people too far with its oppression and harsh rule.

ג כה, אמר ה", על-שלושה פשעי דמשק, ועל-ארבעה לא אשיבנו: על-דושם בחרוצות הברזל, את-הגלעד. ד ושילחתי אש, בבית חזאל; ואכלה, ארמנות בן-הדד. ה ושברתי, בריח דמשק, והכרתי יושב מבקעת-אוון, ותומך שבט מבית עדן; וגלו עם-ארם קירה, אמר ה" (עמוס, פרק א)

 3 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron. 4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, Which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad. 5 I will also break the gate bar of Damascus, And cut off the inhabitant from the Valley of Aven, And the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden. The people of Syria shall go captive to Kir,” Says the Lord.

The truce that ended the Yom Kippur War kept the border with Syria quiet for decades with a clear DMZ between the sides policed by UN peacekeepers and a border gate that allowed the passage of Golan Druze from Israel to Syria for family visits, marriages and studies. When Syria combusted all of that gradually fell apart, peacekeepers held hostage by militias on the Syrian side, the rhythm of life on the Syrian side of the Golan turned to turmoil and atrocities.

More than ever this song from over 40 years ago is relevant to our region. Please Hashem keep the soldiers on the Golan strong and alert to protect our northern borders and all who dwell close to it.

Beating the dust

Headed to southern desert highlands today to escape the dusty heatwave in our part of the country, counterintuitive I know, but true. Was many degrees cooler in the high desert and the air was refreshingly clear and dust free relative to the murk around our home.

Delightful lunch with dear friends in their Beer Sheva abode, followed by an outing to the Ramat Hanegev nature reserve and Makhtesh Ramon, which gave its name to the technical term for this uniquely local type of geological feature.

We saw large numbers of spring birds all along the drive south, feeding in fields and flying overhead. Flocks of white storks, swallows, buzzards, kites and more.

On scrubland by the roadside at the entrance to Beer Sheva much to the kids' delight we spotted a camelherd with his dog and a herd of camels, including young.

Travelling through Ramat Hanegev with a short stop at Borot Lutz we noted how when we last visited this area Pesah two years ago, same time of year, the area was covered in a wealth of flowers in all hues. This time there were almost none that we could make out, a few scattered clusters of mustard and that was it.

Elsewhere the children were intrigued to be driving by an army base where recruits were doing basic training and PT.

Visiting Mitspe Ramon this time of year we saw lots of ibex (native wild goat) with their adorable babies effortlessly scaling the cliffs. We now feel a close affinity to the mothers with twins. The human kids were entranced by the animals and wouldn't leave until it was almost dark.

The Tory and the Communist

Indulge me a ramble through childhood memories.

When I was a kid my uncle, an Orthodox Jew, fan of Mrs Thatcher and an activist in the Campaign for Soviet Jewry, and one of his best friends, a card carrying member of the British Communist Party and secular humanist, would always greet each other thus, if you'll excuse the post-Holocaust Jewish black humour "We may disagree on almost everything, but if and when they round up the Jews again, they'll put us side by side against the wall to be shot".

The message was clear, their politics were polar opposite from each other, but they still knew they were brothers and they knew full well that only a few decades earlier Jews of every kind regardless of religious or political affiliation had been slaughtered wholesale simply because they were Jews.

It was a very powerful message to grow-up with.

At Shabbat or Sunday tea time in our home you could find trades union activists and city gents, Zionists, internationalists, fans of Mr Begin and supporters of Shulamit Aloni, Hassidim, dyed in the wool British "establishment" Jews who's ancestors had come over in the 17th century, veterans of WWs I and II, Jews who'd fled Iraq, Germany, Iran, the USSR, Poland, Pakistan, Egypt and Aden, lots and lots of teachers and academics, members of the British Conservative, Labour, Communist and Liberal Democratic parties, the odd Likud member and on one occasion Labour MK Avrum Burg.

Many were Orthodox Jews, many were not, some were the very proper British Anglican retirees from the top of the street, or the Pakistani Muslim neighbours from across the road who's grandmother liked to practise her English and swap recipes with my Bubbe, the family of Lithuanian dissidents who were terrified that the KGB were after them, or the Cypriot Christian couple from round the corner who came especially for my grandmother's rogelakh and cinnamon-raisin kikhelakh.

The biggest lesson I learnt from all this was that people do not fit in to neat boxes, right or left, black or white, positive or negative. Or rather that there could be people who were absolute evil, but those were thankfully rare, and the vast majority were far more complex than that, and that most were fundamentally decent people trying to figure out what was good and just in a turbulent world. The fact that many reached opposing conclusions on this did not negate their humanity or their decency.

It seems trite to have to say this, but it is one of the most valuable life lessons I ever learnt from my family, that you can be resolute in your own opinions, ideals and values, and yet have a home which is open to those who disagree with you, are diametrically opposed to you, are completely and utterly different from you. You can share afternoon tea and biscuits while have a civil but heated debate about everything under the sun. And you can still be friends and neighbours when you've agreed to disagree.

Just because this is a cliche does not make it less true.

Ma'ala Ma'ala

We had to run an errand next to the Ramle on Friday to a mason's workshop. We've had some urgent repairs to carry out on our flat, among them replacing a counter top.

Not terribly exciting stuff you might think except that the workshop and office are located at the edge of Ramle's bustling shuk, a warren of old alleys, historic buildings, derelict buildings and a general feeling of Israel as it was 30 or more years ago, as though time has stood still. 

The towns of Ramle and Lod are home to a substantial Indian Jewish community, and Israeli-Indian singer Liora Yitzhak filmed the video clip for her recent single "Ma'ala Ma'ala" at the colourful Ramle-Lod market. Wending our way through the Friday crowds with her Bollywood inspired routines playing in my mind's eye I half expected folks to erupt in song and dance at any moment.

Reaching the workshop we were instead greeted by the most beautiful Yemeni Hebrew singing of prayers for the High Holy Days rising above row after row of neatly stacked slabs of shiny granite and the din of powerful industrial strength fans and tools. On the factory floor, covered in white stone dust from kipa to shoes, stood the chief stone mason, practicing his Yom Kippur davening while cutting counter tops. If he ever records an album I will be first in line to buy it, truly an amazing voice.

Our business concluded he and the sales woman in the office sent us on our way with a plethora of blessings for the New Year, smiles and kisses for our babies and more delightful singing.

Out in the shuk again preparations for the coming holidays were in full swing. I started thinking of Liora Yitzhak's song again, with it's focus on starting afresh, maybe it's the time of year, maybe it's just the out of left field way my mind works, but somehow it always makes me think of the Yom Kippur hymn "Ya'aleh Tahnuneinu", about our prayers ascending to Heaven.

May all our prayers breach the gates of Heaven, may we all be blessed with a year of positive new beginnings, good health and creative energy. Gmar hatima tova. May we all be inscribed in the book of life and all good things.

In thy blood, live

"And when I passed by thee, and saw thee wallowing in thy blood, I said unto thee: In thy blood, live; yea, I said unto thee: In thy blood, live;" (Ezekiel 16:6)

It's a strange time of year to be in Israel, plumbing the depths of pain and the heights of elation. A few friends asked me today how people here do it. How they can be mourning the loss of thousands of our finest men and women while preparing for tonight's celebration of independence. 

How you can go in to a shop today, grief stricken, emotions churning from the very public mourning all around, but the cashier will wish you "hag sameah", happy holidays, in advance of Independence Day. 

The contrast is jarring, even offensive, and yet it is so natural because the two aren't separate, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut are two sides of the same coin and you cannot have one without the other. 

You can't have the joy of Sukkot without the sombre reflection of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

You can't celebrate our freedom on Pesah without recalling the terrible suffering of our slavery in Egypt. 

You don't have the celebratory joy of a wedding without breaking the glass and remembering the destruction of ancient Jerusalem and the Temple, and the terrible loss of Jewish life and freedom those events led to.

It's a very Jewish perspective of the balance of life and of acknowledging the cost of our freedom and thanking those who sacrificed before allowing ourselves to celebrate that freedom. There is no completely unbridled joy, but by the same token there is no mourning without hope. Even as the biblical prophets describe the horrors about to be inflicted on Israel they speak also of the comfort of the redemption that will come too. 

While it can feel wrenching for someone to be thinking of tomorrow's holiday even as you yourself are in the depths of today's mourning, that is part of the message. Our mourning isn't pointless, our losses were not without meaning.

Religious Jews add something important between Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut, a special prayer service which adds perspective to both. Before eating we say a blessing over our food, before celebrating our independence after centuries of harsh exile we thank God for this miracle of national rennaissance and pray for those who perished in its realisation. 

I often hear my American friends saying "freedom isn't free" and bemoaning the way that they feel their nation fails to acknowledge the price paid for their independence and comfort. 

In Israel it's built in to the culture, not just because we still have a draft, not just because our nation remains threatened by hostile neighbours 68 years after our battle for independence, but because of this link between our Memorial Day and Independence Day. Every schoolchild knows that you don't celebrate Israel's birthday without first honouring and thanking those who sacrifice to keep us safe.

It's all one package. 

Never Forget

My grandmother had an album where she kept photos sent to her and her aunt by her sisters'-in-law in what was then Poland (today Ukraine). These are some of the 60 members of my grandparents' family who were murdered by the Nazis - men, women, children and babies. Some murdered in the forest by local Nazi sympathisers, others in the Belzac death camp.

 
 We know what happened to them because another cousin managed to survive the war by pretending to be a Polish Catholic. She spoke fluent Polish, wore a cross, attended church regularly, memorised Catholic prayers and was able to pass as a Polish Catholic woman. Unable to rescue any other family members she witnessed their fate, including the murder of her own husband and baby.

They are ordinary people taking ordinary family photos with no idea that this would be all that remained of them because they themselves would be turned to ash and dust by strangers who hated them simply because they were Jews.

They were not "collateral damage", their deaths were not an accident of war or plague or natural disaster or famine but cold calculated murder by the Nazis and their allies who devoted huge resources from their formidable war machine to the erradication of these peaceful civilians simply because they were Jews.

The mind cannot fathom the meaning of 6 million human beings let alone the mass murder of 6 million human beings. It doesn't have to though. Look at these children and parents, these are the faces of the 6 million, the silent testimony to the evils some of the most technologically advanced and supposedly civilised nations on Earth carried out against some of the most productive, hard working, learned and peaceful people on Earth. .

These are the family I will never know, the great-aunts and uncles and cousins who exist only as photos because they were exterminated by Hitler's henchmen. The children who are forever children, reminding us of the children they never bore, the generations of cousins who never were, the gaping hole in our family.

They have no voices, we must be their voices, voices which refuse to let the world forget or twist the memory of the Holocaust.

If you hear people question, if you hear Holocaust deniers or belittlers, supposed academics who question whether it really happened, don't be silent. Keep these photos in your mind, remember these faces of those murdered in the Holocaust, remember them and their suffering, their horrific deaths.

Etch the warning in to your soul - even the most civilised, rational and scientific men and woman are capable of the most heinous crimes against their fellow humans. Do not let others say "it could not happen today", "it could not happen here". Never forget so that it may never happen again.

After you! No after you!

Five random immigrants to Israel meet at a bus stop: an older Ethiopian lady with several bags of heavy shopping, an immaculate elderly Argentinian couple with matching his n hers walking sticks, a middle aged Briton with a massive sack of toys and a young Indian man with what looks like a month's supply of eggs.

The bench at the bus stop only seats three.

Cue ten minutes of "after you" standoff as all five try to insist the others must take the seats, even though not everyone even speaks Hebrew well enough to argue with more than hand gestures.

Resolution: the three women sit, but they budge up so that the elderly Argentinian can sort of squeeze in with his wife with his tush half off the seat while the Indian stands nearby and the two men exchange complements about each others' impressive handlebar mustaches in a mix of broken Hebrew and sign language.

Would have made an amazing Gashashim or Hamishiya Hakamerit skit.*

* veteran Israeli comedy groups