The Widow, the orphan and the convert

Just before lighting candles for Shabbat a few thoughts about Megillat Rut:

On Shavuot we focus a lot on the issue of fair treatment of the ger, the convert (and with very just cause), but the story of Ruth and Naomi is also about a wealthy established family who have suffered terrible loss and tragedy, returning home to Bethlehem with their new downtrodden status plain for all to see.

"Hazot Naomi?" "Can this be Naomi?" the townspeople say when she returns. We can feel Naomi's shame bleeding through between the lines. The woman from a family used to wearing Biblical era Hermes and Balenciaga reduced to rags, bereft of her high status husband and sons, with her only remaining close family her Moabite daughter-in-law.

Instead of trying to help restore Naomi's sense of self, offer her comfort, it seems she is pretty much left to fend for herself by local people resentful of a woman of means who's family just up and left them during a time of famine, rather than staying behind and trying to help their community.

She is reduced to sending out her Moabite daughter-in-law to glean in the fields with the poorest of the poor. What a fall from grace for Naomi. Forgive me for forgetting my sources, but there are certainly those amongst Hazal who fault the townspeople for abandoning Naomi this way, and certainly Boaz for not initiating help to his kinswoman and excusing himself on the basis that there was a "goel karov mimeni", a closer kinsman who should have been responsible, absolving himself not just of the matter of yibum, but also from just taking the initiative in reaching out and caring for his bereaved and impoverished kinswoman upon her return.

It is Rut the foreigner, the stranger, who takes it upon herself to do the mitzva of tzedaka and gmilut hasadim in the most extreme way possible - by literally giving herself and her labour to to try to save Naomi from her downward spiral of depression and self-loathing in the wake of the terrible tragedies she has suffered. It is Rut the outsider who tries to pick up the pieces and set things right.

Her actions force Boaz to take responsibility and do his duty towards his kinswoman. Ruth's devotion to Naomi shows up the townspeople who do nothing to help this literal Almana and Ger, one of the mitzvot mentioned over and over again in the Torah.

How different from the town in which we live. I am very grateful and proud that we are fortunate enough live in a community full of Ruths, of gmilut hasadim, of tzedaka, of caring for our neighbours and beyond. May we merit to always be in a position to fulfill these supremely important mitzvot, to walk in the ways of Rut.

Shavuot sameah to all Am Yisrael.

If I forget thee Jerusalem

This is the SS Yerushalyim, a ship which brought thousands and thousands of immigrants to Israel in the early years of the state. It is of course named for the holy city of Jerusalem because what greater symbolism could their be for Jews returning to Zion after so many centuries of exile. 

It is also the ship that brought several family members to Israel for the first time in 1954.

The ship sailed from Marseilles and aside from my relatives, almost everyone else on board were new olim from Morocco and a small number of European Holocaust survivors. Almost every day and night there were spontaneous circles of people dancing the hora and singing Israeli folk songs and traditional Jewish prayers.

My mother told me she made good use of her French but most of her fellow passengers were anxious to practice their Hebrew and the family spent much of the time on board strengthening their Hebrew conversational skills with their fellow Jewish passengers.

My great-uncle, who was fond of declaiming the  works of Hebrew poets he'd learnt by heart in his Zionist school as a child, attracted regular audiences keen to hear his dramatic renditions of classics by Bialik and Yehuda Halevi.

During large public prayer services on the deck facing the direction of Jerusalem people teared up as they reached verses such as וְתֶחֱזֶינָה עֵינֵינוּ בְּשׁוּבְךָ לְצִיּוֹן בְּרַחֲמִים.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה', הַמַּחֲזִיר שְׁכִינָתוֹ לְצִיּוֹן.
And may our eyes witness Your return to Zion in compassion. Blessed are You oh Lord, who restores His Presence to Zion

In another few days they would be setting foot in Zion, they would be realising an ancient dream of returning home.

My mother, her brother and their first cousin (the two children in the photo above) were children going on their first big adventure, an entire summer in the nascent State of Israel touring the country and visiting an assortment of cousins and landsman, people who were like family because they or their parents or even grandparents had come from the same village as my grandfather and his family.

They stayed in places as diverse as kibbutz Beit Alfa, Haifa, kibbutz Hofetz Hayim and one of the original small homes that once lined Tel Aviv's beachfront Hayarkon street long before it was redeveloped with glitzy hotels and blocks of flats.

One place they couldn't visit though was the heart of sacred Jerusalem, The Old City, The Kotel and the Temple Mount. Back in 1954 these were deep in hostile territory, occupied by the Jordanian army.

I remember how on my first visit to Jerusalem, nearly 30 years later, but a world away from those times, my mother walked with me around the old Armistice lines, showing me the places where on her first visit to the city a local Jerusalem family friend took them on a walk that included rooftop lookouts, odd angles peeking out of narrow windows in private flats and a visit to Mount Zion, the closest a Jew could come to the Jordanian controlled Old City.

This was how they tried to sneak glimpses of ancient Jerusalem and the Jewish holy sites, all the time fearing trigger happy Jordanian snipers who occasionally took pot shots across the Armistice Line in to the Israeli side of the city.

Walking close to the border they were warned not to take out cameras in case soldiers on the other side decided this was reason enough to shoot. In what is today downtown Jerusalem there were streets cut off with fences and barbed wire, places where locals warned tourists to run across the street as fast as possible or walk in a crouch because that section of pavement or road was directly in firing range from Jordanian guard posts manned by snipers.

In 1954 they stood on Mount Zion looking over the walls of the Old City and praying that one day they would merit walking within those walls and going to pray at the Kotel, the Western Wall.

Nearly 30 years later my mother walked me to Mount Zion, remembering how her teenage self in 1954 had been both awed and terrified of walking so close to the Armistice line and the enemy soldiers patrolling the Old City walls.

All that had changed with the Israeli liberation of the Old City from Jordanian control in the 1967 Six Day War. Jews forced to leave the Old City as refugees in the 1948-9 War were able to return and restore the long neglected warren of ancient streets and buildings.

My uncle, the little boy in the photo below, was one of the first civilians to visit the Kotel immediately after the fighting died down, realising the dream he'd held on to all those years, the fulfillment of those prayers and tears overlooking the then forbidden walls back in 1954.



By the time of my first visit to Jerusalem in the 1980s the Jerusalem municipality was well in to a massive restoration project to clean up and rebuild all that had been damaged during the 19 years Jews had been banned from their holiest sites. Rubbish had been cleared from around the Kotel, the plaza had been expanded to accommodate thousands upon thousands of pilgrims thronging the site and the Jewish Quarter once again was home to Jewish families and Torah learning.

Hearing my mother's Jerusalem stories from the 1950s and early 1960s while walking through a city undergoing such an incredible rebirth it was no wonder we were both in tears by the time we reached the Kotel for afternoon prayers.

The Little Prince

A moving cover of a classic Israeli song from the 1970s, "Hanasikh Hakatan" (The Little Prince). Beyond the haunting melody and beautiful poetry this is a song which memorialises so many.

Israeli poet and songwriter Yonatan Gefen wrote about a childlike soldier he served with during his military service who was killed during a training accident.

Israeli musician Shem Tov Levi put the poem to music and included it in his 1975 album. It struck a chord with many Israelis in the wake of the heavy losses in the Yom Kippur War and has become part of the Israeli national "liturgy" of songs of mourning played and sung on Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day.

My mother heard it during a visit to Israel around the time the album came out and connected deeply with the poignant imagery Gefen borrow from French author Antoine St Exupery's "Le Petit Prince", one of my mother's favourite books and one she read to me often. More than just being a writer who's work she enjoyed, St Exupery was one of my mother's heroes, a Frenchman who fought the Nazis in World War Two and also tried to save the lives of Jews, as such he was also a Hasid Umot Haolam.

A few weeks ago I visited the small southern Israeli town of Yeruham, literally smack dab in the middle of the desert. The version of the song in the clip below is performed by young musicians from the Yeruham Conservatory, many of whom were also involved in a recent project with Professor Francesco Lotoro to record and perform songs and pieces of music written by Jews during the Holocaust, and by doing so preserve the memory of the many Jewish composers, poets, singers and musicians who perished.

I cannot hear this song today without thinking of all these stories, the many people lost to us and very much still with us, the complex modern history of the Jewish people this song represents to me.

Warts and all

Katonti, but there is something I would add to Rabbi Sacks' moving piece. The broken tablets the Moses dropped upon discovering that in his absence the Children of Israel had built the Golden Calf.

The broken tablets of stone symbolise failure, a vast national mistake, a crisis of faith, disappointment - any number of negative aspects of the incident. And yet these too were carried in the sacred Ark by the Levites, symbols of national folly and lack of judgement. Because as a nation we don't only carry with us the glowing successes, the badges of honour, but also our mistakes, our failures.

As a nation our national book, the Bible, records the good and the bad, the times our nation did the right thing and the times we completely messed up. It's a very honest way of viewing one's own history and a very important lesson in humility and in the profoundness of our believe in teshuv, the ability to repent and change and learn from our mistakes.

On Yom Hazikaron we remember all our fallen, the ones who died saving the day with outstanding acts of selflessness and the ones who tragically lost their lives due to friendly fire, a commander's error of judgement or fa aulty piece of equipment. They all risked their lives in the defense of our homeland and people, they knew that wearing the uniform could put them in harm's way for any number of reasons and we owe them not just a debt of gratitude, but as a nation, we owe it to them to learn their stories and in doing so hopefully learn also from mistakes that cost lives. Yehi Zikhram Barukh.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

 

At the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph makes one deeply poignant request: Though I die in exile, God will bring you back to the land, and when He does so, "veha'alitem et atzmotai mizeh", “Carry my bones” with you.

Moses smashed the first set of tablets given to him by God at Mount Sinai, but the Israelites carried them in the Ark, together with the second set, the new tablets and the fragments of the old.

And so it has been throughout #Jewish history; we carry with us all the fragments of our people’s past, the broken lives, the anguished deaths. For we refuse to let their deaths be in vain. Our past lives on in us as we continue the Jewish journey to the future, to #hope, and to #life.

Just a few days ago, on #YomHaShoah, we remembered the victims of the Holocaust. On #YomHaZikaron, beginning tonight, we will remember the victims of the Israel Defence Forces and those killed by terrorist attacks in Israel. What our enemies killed, we keep alive in the only way we can: in our minds, our memories and in our land, the State of #Israel.

There are cultures that forget the past and there are those that are held captive by the past. We do neither. We carry the past with us for as long as the #Jewish people exist, as Moses carried the bones of Joseph, and as the Levites carried the fragments of the shattered tablets of stone.

Those fragments of #memory, of those no longer with us, help make us who we are. We live for what they died for, by walking tall as #Jews, showing we are not afraid, refusing to be intimidated by the antisemitism that has returned, or, as we have seen in recent days, by the sustained assault on #Israel.

On #YomHaZikaron, as we remember those who have fallen or been killed in defence of the State of #Israel, we say to the souls of those lost: We will never forget you. We will never cease to mourn you. We will never let you down.

The blessing of simple things

It was a relief this evening to linger outdoors in the early evening enjoying the refreshing cooler air after a day of heat, dust and dry winds.

More than the change in weather though I was glad to be scanning the pre-crepuscular skies for screaming throngs of soaring swallows and swifts hunting bugs on the wing instead of gazing at the slowly darkening southern sky to catch flashes of rockets and interceptions, faint booms carried on the wind from areas of Israel only yesterday under bombardment from Gaza.

What a difference a day makes.

This evening the drama comes from a begging fledgling jay loudly demanding a meal from its parent, a flock of black cap warblers chattering loudly as they feast on my neighbours' huge mulberry tree groaning with fruit and a nervous laughing dove startled by a myna as it comes in to land on the same branch.

My garden is already feeling the effects of the first couple of spring heatwaves. The pineapple sage and basil need extra water, the citrus trees could use some TLC and the cyclamen which have flowered all winter long have definitely seen better days.

The pomegranate though is glorious, covered in dramatic flame red buds and blossoms, heralding the impending dry season in style. The mango and olive are decked out in profuse but delicate blooms while the almond is adorned with huge pouches of green velvet. Purple-blue sage  and rosemary alongside white roses offer a festive patriotic note in honour of Israel's Independence Day later this week.

So much promise of goodness to come over the summer but I am left wondering whether we will be able to enjoy it or whether in another few days, weeks, a month, we will be back to rockets and sirens, ninety stomach churning seconds to dash for the shelter and the shadow of war once more hanging over this blessed, challenging land.

Sowing a little kindness

Shabbat morning I was home with the kids when someone banged loudly on the door. I asked who was there and the answer came "A neighbour".

I opened the door to find an elderly bearded man I vaguely recognised from my street, but I couldn't tell you his name. "I heard that someone in the family is unwell, they made an announcement in shul this morning, I want to help. I live a few doors down. What can I do?" He asked in heavily Russian accented Hebrew. "My kitchen or yours?"

I was at a loss for words He scrunched up his brow, thinking.

"Borscht? Borscht could be good. I will bring some tomorrow."

My husband emerged from changing a nappy and tried to thank him, but he sort of pooh poohed him, made some comment about him being from Ukraine and knowing how to make a good borscht, so that is what he would do.

And with that he wished us Shabbat Shalom, refuah sheleimah and took his leave. This morning there was again a rapping at the door.

Our Ukrainian neighbour was on our doorstep again, this time holding a tray and on it a piping hot pan of potato-vegetable kugel.

"I thought about borscht but then I wondered if maybe children don't like that so much, they don't know what it is, they don't have the same associations. But kigel, I know everyone loves kigel"

As he went to stash it in my fridge he again turned to practical matters. "So what else? Do you have any chicken or meat in the freezer? Some fresh or frozen veg? Onions, carrots, peppers? Make sure the meat or poultry is defrosted overnight in your fridge, I'll come in the morning after davening and make sure your family has something good for lunch. I used to work as a cook, this is what I know how to do, how I know to help."

As I heard his footfalls leaving the building I realised that I still didn't know his name.

Free to hate

Later this week we will commemorate Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day for the millions of Jews tortured and murdered by Hitler and his many willing European accomplices.

Is it coincidence that a Der Sturmer style cartoon like this runs in a mainstream respected publication like the New York Times and not long afterward yet another Jewish synagogue is attacked by a shooter driven by anti-Semitism?

The point is not whether a West Coast teen would have been reading the high brow NYT, the point is that when the NYT deems it acceptable to publish a deeply anti-Semitic cartoon like this which supports the age old anti-Semitic canard that Jews are bent on world domination and are behind the scenes pulling the strings of world leaders, then the NYT is sending a message that this type of anti-Semitism is legitimate.

If the NYT believes that this Protocols of the Elders of Zion anti-Semitism is legitimate than it is also legitimate for US politicians like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to stand up give voice to similar anti-Semitic tropes and if it's fine for respectable members of the US Congress to give voice to such theories than it becomes fine for these ideas to be spoken of in public forums everywhere, including educational frameworks like colleges.

And if these ideas are being granted such widespread legitimacy then why shouldn't a 19 year-old in California and a middle aged malcontent in Pittsburgh decide that clearly these anti-Semitic lies are in fact true and the only way to solve the problems of the United States is to take up arms and and start killing Jews, starting with their places of worship?

And if you start saying, well, it's OK for the NYT and Congresswoman Omar to say such things because they are progressive, and we know that all progressives mean well even when they are inciting hatred against Jews, but it's only dangerous when white supremacists say the same thing in slightly different language because people on the right are always evil then you are missing the point. Anti-Semitism in both Europe and the US has become accepted in polite company again, whether that polite company is old school reactionary or left-wing progressive today they can unite around at least one issue - Jew hatred, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and scapegoating the world's ill on the Jewish people.

Since early childhood I remember the dark humour of the bittersweet running joke between my uncle and one of his closest friends, a joke that stretches back to my grandmother and the mother of this friend who were also best mates. The two friends had very different political views, the friend and his mother were devoted Communists, active members of the British Communist party and in the trades union movements, to this day the son is a a card carrying Communist. My grandmother and uncle, devoutly religious Jews, always leaned Conservative, and had deep respect for figures such as Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and the British royal family,believers in free markets and classic liberalism, active in the campaign for Soviet Jewry and for the rights and freedom of anti-Communist dissidents behind the Iron Curtain.

Many a Shabbat or Sunday afternoon political discussion over tea and biscuits would get heated and intense but always at the end they would shake hands and say to one another "At the end of the day our world views make no difference, when the anti-Semites take power they will line us up against the wall side by side to be shot because it doesn't matter if we are Communist or Conservative, internationalist or patriotic Brits, when the anti-Semites come to get the Jews we will be lined up and shot side by side simply because we are Jews."

As a child and young adult I would hear this and view it as a product of a generation who had lived through the dark days of European fascism, who had seen Mosley's Brown Shirts march through Jewish neighbourhoods of London, both before and after the Second World War, who had seen their relatives in central and eastern Europe murdered in the Holocaust. The dark humour of firing squads and anti-Semitic executioners seemed an anachronism leftover from those horrific times, far away from the new democracies rising from the dust of the fall of the Berlin Wall and an end to authoritarian governments the world over. At least that is how it seemed.

Now? I am not going to stand here and forecast the rise of a new Hitlerian world order bent on genocide against the Jewish people. As a Jew that possibility is not one that can ever be ruled out because we have seen it too many times in our history and our families have too many gaping holes in them to say it could never happen again.

In the week in which we commemorate Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, what I am saying is that if among progressives in the US, like the NYT, this type of anti-Semitism is considered fine and dandy then we are in trouble. A trouble that even if it doesn't yield another full blown Holocaust, is nevertheless a portent of dangerous times for Jews in yet another free and democratic country in which they believed themselves to be safe from such historic woes.

This trouble, this danger, it isn't a big bam that has happened overnight. It's a slow, incremental chipping away at what was acceptable in public, in polite society, in respected publications, on college campuses. Like the lobster in the pot the water has slowly been getting hotter and we were happy to make excuse after excuse to dismiss the change in temperature as anything to merit concern. The Jewish community, so assimilated, so educated, so comfortable could not see that in France and in the UK and Canada and the US the threat wasn't the stereotypical radical right, ethno-supremacist crowd, but the toxic anti-Semitism was spewing forth from precisely the progressive groups with which so many Jews identified.

The Jew hatred we are experiencing is a pincer movement coming equally from the far left and the far right, catching Jews in its grasp. We need to wake up and see it for what it is. Once again we are the scapegoat of choice, pro-immigration activists to be blamed by anti-immigrant America firsters, but capitalist bankers and businessmen the socialist left can blame for every social and economic ill under the sun. We are at once the internationalists who are contaminating a "pure white" America, and the financial wizards willfully twisting the global economy in our favour.

We are damned if we do and damned if we don't, we are the wicked religious Jews who clearly caused Trump to be elected and we are the wicked progressive Jews who want to make America Communist and flood the country with refugees and migrants of the wrong skin colour. And in the end what you have is an anti-Semitic miasma polluting the discourse, and it doesn't even matter anymore from which side because even in this polarised society there is a consensus echoed from both extremes and merging back together. Blame the Jews.