Should such books be permitted to exist?

RUACH HADASHA
The Bet Israel Jewish Community of Croatia takes this opportunity
to express its deep gratitude and appreciation to those helping
to support our community and its institutions:
Mr. Ronald S. Lauder, Rabbi Robert & Virginia Bayer Hirt,
Mr. Albert Reichmann, Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser and Rabbi Chesky &
Fayge Holtzberg, Mr. Aharon Nathan, Mr. Shaul Nakash, Mr. Joseph Chehebar,
Mr. Jackie Ashkenazie, Mr. Ralph Tawil, Mr. Leon Azar Cohen,
Mr. Jack Hidary, Mr. Sammy Saka, Mr. Nathan Zalta, Mr. Jeffrey Ashear,
Mr. Albert Cohen, Mr. Alan Malah, Mr. Albert Sutton, Mr. Steve Shalom,
Mr. Marc Dweck, Mr. Sammy Sitt, Dr. Ilya Zavelev, Mr. Alexander Minkin,
and the Congregation Magen David of West Deal, NJ.
May the Almighty bless them and their families with all the blessings
enumerated in our Holy Torah.
2
RUACH HADASHA
CONTENT
TRADITION
EDITORIAL
4 "FOR THE COMMANDMENT IS A LAMP
AND THE TORAH IS A LIGHT"
Sonja Samokovlija
COLUMN
4 SOUL TO SOUL
Menorah
Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser
COMMENTARY
5 PASSOVER AND THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN JEWS AND CHRISTIANS,
PAST AND PRESENT
Rabbi Kotel Da-Don
POINT OF VIEW
8 MARK TWAIN'S INFAMOUS
TRAVELOGUES (SHOULD SUCH
BOOKS BE PERMITTED TO
EXIST?)
Boris Havel
READERS WRITE
10 THESE ARE MY STORIES
Mira Spitzer Adir
COLUMNS
11 EMPTY SPACE (BESAMIM)
Jasminka Doma{
12 TISHREI
Maya Cime{a Samokovlija
REVIEW
13 MY ISRAEL
Shmuel Meirom
REMEMBRANCE
14 INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST
REMEMBRANCE DAY
Naida Mihal Brandl
ISRAEL
17 LUNCH WITH YITZHAK NAVON
Marija Salom
PEOPLE
19 RUBEN AND REUVEN
Ljubica Buba Albahari
CULTURE
20 SIGMUND FREUD (1856 – 1939)
AND JUDAISM
Eduard Klain
25 JEWS IN RIJEKA
Summary
By Rina Bruminni
11 BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON
Is there anything new under the sun?
Dolores Bettini
IMPRESSUM
RUACH HADASHA, A PUBLICATION OF THE BET ISRAEL JEWISH COMMUNITY OF CROATIA
YEAR IV • ISSUE 10/1 9 • ENGLISH EDITION • MARCH 2009/NISAN 5769
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Sonja Samokovlija
EDITORIAL BOARD: Dolores Bettini, Jasminka Doma{ and
Morana Palikovi} Gruden (guest editor)
PUBLISHER: The Bet Israel Jewish Community of Croatia
10000 Zagreb, Ma`urani}ev trg 6/II., p.p. 880.
TEL: +385 1 4851 008 • FAX: +385 1 4851 376
www.bet-israel.com
EDITORIAL OFFICE: [email protected]
FOR THE PUBLISHER: Ivo Goldstein
ENGLISH TRANSLATION: Margaret Casman-Vuko and Miroslav Vuko
DESIGN AND LAYOUT: @arko Jovanovski
PRINTING: Skaner studio d.o.o. Zagreb
TEXTS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE CROATIAN LANGUAGE
EDITION OF RUAH HADA[A DURING THE YEAR 5768
RABBIS: Kotel Da-Don and Dovid Goldwasser
CONTRIBUTORS: Ljubica Buba Albahari, Dolores Bettini,
Rina Brumini, Maya Cime{a Samokovlija, Jasminka Doma{,
Boris Havel, Emil Klein, Naida Mihal Brandl, Marija Salom,
Meirom Shmuel and Mira Spitzer Adir
Publication of Ruach Hadasha is made possible in part by
the Council for National Minorities of the Republic of
Croatia.
RUACH HADASHA
EDITORIAL
"For the commandment is a lamp
and the Torah is a light"
(Proverbs 6.23)
Sonja Samokovlija
Sonja Samokovlija
Dear Readers of the English edition of Ruach
I am very pleased to be able to acquaint you with some of the texts
we have published in our magazine Ruach Hadasha during the
year 5768.
The editorial board has decided to publish one issue of Ruach in
English each year. We thank the Council for National Minorities of
the Republic of Croatia for the funding that helped make this issue
possible.
friends. We hope that our magazine will interest you and that you
will join the ranks of our faithful readers in the countries of the
former Yugoslavia. This will encourage us to persevere and
expand.
Your articles and suggestions are most welcome.
Sincerely yours,
This is the first issue of Ruach Hadasha in the English language,
with which we hope to present ourselves to the international
Jewish community and thereby enlarge our circle of readers and
Sonja Samokovlija, Editor-in-Chief COLUMN
Soul to Soul
Menorah
Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser
Rabin Dovid Goldwasser
Our
sages have asked why the miracle of Chanukah was
expressed through the Menorah? Surely there were many services
that had to be performed in rededicating the Bais HaMikdosh.
Why, specifically, was the Menorah chosen?
The Chofetz Chaim explains that Moshe Rabbeinu was instructed
by Hashem how to construct the Bais HaMikdosh and the various
utensils that were used in its service. However, when it came to
fashioning the Menorah, Moshe Rabbeinu had difficulty in
understanding how to do it. Three times he was told exactly what
to do, and somehow each time he could not comprehend the command.
The Menorah, too, had a message. It represented the eternal
existence of the Nation of Israel. When Hashem instructed Moshe
Rabbeinu on how to fashion the Menorah, He also transmitted to
Moshe the allusion and the symbol that the Bnai Yisroel would
always be able to sustain itself against all odds.
The Chofetz Chaim answers that our sefarim tell us that each
utensil in the Bais HaMikdash alluded to a higher aspect of being,
aside from its specific purpose and use in the avodah in the Bais
HaMikdash.
However, Moshe Rabbeinu was puzzled when he heard these
instructions. He had already seen through nevu'ah the great
suffering that the Bnai Yisroel would have to experience throughout
the generations. Thus, he could not understand how one could
make a Menorah for this nation as a symbol of light and hope and
belief in the nitzchiyus, the eternity, of Am Yisroel. Moshe
Rabbeinu saw all the tzorros the Bnai Yisroel would have to
endure and he couldn't understand Hashem's instructions.
For example, the Aron HaKodesh was used to store the Luchos. It
also alluded to the fact that there is a higher form of wisdom that
can only be attained through ru'ach hakodesh.
What Hashem was telling Moshe Rabbeinu is that the world and
its existence cannot be understood by human logic; rather, it is
beyond our comprehension. There is a higher intelligence, a master
Why did he have difficulty understanding this mitzvah?
4
Similarly, the Shulchan held the Lechem HaPanim and alluded to
the blessing of bread, the physical needs of man that can only be
attained through the blessing of Hashem.
COLUMN
plan, which ensures the eternity of Klal Yisroel, despite all their
trials and tribulations. Hashem taught Moshe Rabbeinu that
through throwing the gold in the fire, through adversity and
tragedy, the eternal Jew would be tested and the nation would
eventually rise from the ashes and be rebuilt.
The Chofetz Chaim offers this explanation with reference to the
geulah shleimoh, the Final Redemption. In the future, at the time
of the geulah shleimoh, the world will be compelled to
acknowledge the greatness of our nation.
RUACH HADASHA
For this reason, the Menorah was chosen to reveal the miracle of
Chanukah. At the time when the Chashmona'im and Klal Yisroel
faced their darkest hour, and the nation was in need of great
Siyata D'Shmaya, it was then that Hashem gave us this assurance,
through the miracle of the small jug of oil which kept the Menorah
lit, that the Nation of Israel will exist for eternity. COMMENTARY
Passover and the Relationship between
Jews and Christians, Past and Present
Rabbi dr. Kotel Da-Don, Ph.D.
Rabin Kotel Da-Don
On January 24 of this year, Pope Benedict XVI outraged Jewish
leaders and many others by rehabilitating Richard Williamson, a
traditionalist Catholic bishop who denies the full extent of the
Holocaust. In an interview broadcast on January 21, Williamson
told Swedish television the following: "I believe there were no gas
chambers." He also said that no more than 300,000 Jews perished
in Nazi concentration camps. When Williamson was asked why he
had not apologized for his comments, he replied, "It is about
historical evidence, not about emotions," adding, "And if I find this
evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time." It is
amazing that all this is happening while some of the witnesses-survivors
of the Holocaust are still alive. Therefore, as Passover approaches, I
dedicate this article to the holy souls cruelly murdered in the horrors
of the Holocaust, men and women, old persons and children, who left
us and are no more. May their memories be blessed!
Passover, unfortunately, has been an occasion for Christian
anti-Semitism. During the long Diaspora, blood libels, i.e. false
accusations that Jews committed ritual murders of Christian
children to obtain blood for the matzot and wine consumed at the
Passover Seder, have resulted in the shedding of much Jewish
blood. The roots of anti-Semitism came from two main sources:
– Anti-Semitic preaching – Christian religious leaders
preached against Jews and Judaism during the Passover
season, coinciding with the Easter season, when passages
about the death of Jesus are read from the New Testament.
Jews were blamed for the Crucifixion, emotions were
inflamed and the Christian populace unleashed waves of
violence against Jews, under the pretext of retaliation for
the death of Jesus.
– Anti-Semitic accusations – The revolting blood libel is a
classical example of how anti-Semitic prejudice has no
connection with reason or reality, because the Torah explicitly
forbids human sacrifice and even the use of animal blood
for any purpose! However, facts are one thing and blind
hatred is something else. Anti-Semitism does not require a
logical reason; it requires a victim. Another
accusation against Jews was that they stole and stabbed
consecrated hosts, because the belief was widespread
among Christians that the host releases blood when
pierced, like a living body.
The accusations of ritual murder began to occur in the Christian
world in the 12th century. According to numerous historians,
there were 154 cases of blood libel against the Jews: 45 in
Germany, 20 in Poland, 16 in Austria, 14 in Rumania, 12 in Italy, 9
in Russia and 7 in France. Often Jews were cruelly tortured in
order to extract confessions to be used during sham trials, which
were followed by mass violence against the Jews because the people
believed that the court and its decisions were true and just.
There were also blood libels that attracted world attention, such
as the 1882 case in Tiszla-Eszlar, Hungary, when the same story
repeated itself: a dead Christian girl was found before Passover
and Jews were accused of murdering her in order to extract her
blood. In 1913, the trial against Mendel Beilis of Kiev in the
Ukraine attracted international criticism. It must be emphasized
that Christian religious leaders participated in accusations against
the Jews.
The Nazis also conducted sham trials with "evidence" and
"scientific" publications against Jews, appropriating everything
that suited their purposes from the tragic history of European
anti-Semitism. As a recent example of blood libel, in 1962 the
Egyptian Department of Education published a text entitled
Human Sacrifice in the Talmud, which "explains" and "confirms"
that Jews use blood in worship. Sadly, the long history of the
Jewish people has known many such cases, several of which have
5
RUACH HADASHA
COMMENTARY
Richard_Williamson
been recorded on Croatian territory. Despite proclamations by
numerous Christian religious leaders at the highest levels that the
accusations of ritual murders committed by Jews are nonsense,
this prejudice always resurfaces in times of hatred, serving as a
pretext for violence against the Jews.
Nonetheless, during the 20th century we witnessed historical and
revolutionary theological changes in the official positions of
Western Churches toward Judaism and Jews, although they are
still not well understood by ordinary Christians or Jews. There are
two basic reasons for these changes. From the one side, the
Church was affected by the general environment of modernism,
humanism and ecumenicism, which led to profound changes in
attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. The Shoah (Holocaust) forced
the world to recognize that the historically negative perception of
the Jews and Judaism in the eyes of Christianity had contributed
to the circumstances which made the Holocaust possible. The
traditional stereotype of Jews as "lessons in scorn" led to the
persecution of Jews throughout history. A document issued in
1994 by the German and Polish bishops' conferences speaks of the
"co-responsibility" of the Church for the Shoah.
It is necessary to note the differences among churches and not
view Christianity as a monolithic body. Protestantism includes
over thirty thousand denominations, including the mainline
denominations such as Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran etc. Since
1948, Protestant Churches have been members of the World
Congress of Churches, which issues statements on progressive
positions and attitudes toward the Jews and Judaism. On the
conservative Protestant side are small English Churches, among
which there are great differences regarding many questions,
including attitudes toward the Jews. However, the majority favor
Jewish return to Zion as a step toward the return of their Messiah.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches have not passed through a
similar process of theological modernization in their attitudes
toward the Jews. Their theology has remained as it was and they
have published no official document on this matter. (It should be
mentioned that an unofficial Orthodox document was prepared in
6
Pope Benedict XVI
1972 by the participants in a dialogue between Jews and
Orthodox Christians.)
The most marked changes have occurred in the Roman Catholic
Church, with over a billion members. From the early centuries of
our era until recently, the Catholic Church maintained an
anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist position. In the year 1965, a
revolutionary document, Nostra aetate (In Our Time – Declaration
on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions), was
published. This document was adopted in 1965 by the participants in
the Second Vatican Council, which was convened in 1962 by Pope
John XXIII. At the Council, the Catholic Church began the
comprehensive and weighty process of contemplating its internal
state and position toward the contemporary world. The Council
ended during the reign of Pope Paul VI, who promulgated various
documents, including Nostra aetate. In the fourth section of this
document, the Council clarifies the Catholic Church's attitude
toward Judaism and the Jewish people. The Council signifies the
beginning of a learning and understanding process between the
Catholic community and the Jewish people. The path was opened
for essential changes in Christian awareness. The significance of
the Church's issuing statements on its position was greater than
the significance of the texts themselves, leading to changes in the
traditional Christian understanding of Jews and Judaism. The
Church explains that its roots are in Judaism and in the history of
the Jewish people. From this nation came Jesus, the apostles and
their followers: "The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she
received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people
with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient
Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the
root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted
the wild shoots, the Gentiles."1 This statement testifies to the
profound reexamination of the history of the Church in connection
with Judaism and the Jewish people, recognition of the need for
fundamental change in the Christian understanding of
everything in connection with Jews and Judaism. "Furthermore, ...
the Church ... decries hatred, persecutions, displays of
anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone."2
COMMENTARY
The Catholic Church is turning a new page and recognizes
Judaism and the Jewish people. This document refutes the
doctrine according to which all the Jews who lived throughout
history should bear the responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus.
Such earlier magisterium was the foundation of Christian
anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was condemned. Twenty years after
the Council, Pope John Paul II denounced it as "a sin against G-d
and humanity." Since the 1980s, the Catholic Church has assumed
an active role in the general struggle against anti-Semitism in the
world. Until this document, the Jews were considered to be a
"rejected" nation. Since they had refused to accept Jesus as divine
or as the Messiah, they were persecuted and scorned. Judaism was
viewed as an obsolete religion and Christianity as the new true
Israel. Theological expression spoke of discontinuity, that G-d's
chosen were no longer the Jews but Christians. This position has
changed: G-d's covenant with the Jews continues to be valid and
was never broken.3 This signifies continuity: the Jewish faith is
alive and breathing, G-d's promise that the Land of Israel belongs
to the Jews remains in force and Jewish history during the past
two thousand years has religious significance. The Bible is now
open to Catholics in its entirety, not only those parts which are
considered precursors to the New Testament. In Christianity there
is a general trend today to emphasize its sources: the Jewishness
of Jesus, his family and his disciples. Jesus' considerable
agreement with the teachings of the Pharisees is surprising news
due to the unfavorable depiction of Pharisees in the New
Testament and later, in Christian magisterium. As a consequence
of the Second Vatican Council, Catholic missionary activity among
Jews has ceased. The majority of mainstream Protestant Churches
have also suspended missionary activity among the Jews, although
there are still some exceptions.
The description of Jesus' last days in the New Testament, which is
read during the Easter season, casts an unfavorable light on Jews
and was at the root of Christian anti-Semitism. Several new
translations have recently changed this negative picture. A Vatican
document4 accepts the facts that the Gospels were written many
years after the events they describe and "the conflicts between the
nascent Church and Jewish community" undoubtedly had an
effect on them. This document invites Christians "to understand
this religious attachment which finds its roots in Biblical
tradition." On March 6, 1982 in Rome at a meeting of bishops and
experts who had gathered in order to re-examine the relationship
between the Church and Jews, Pope John Paul II said the
following about Jews and Judaism: "We should aim, in this field,
that Catholic teaching at its different levels, in catechesis to
children and young people, presents Jews and Judaism, not only
in an honest and objective manner, free from prejudices and
without any offences, but also with full awareness of the heritage
common to Jews and Christians."5
RUACH HADASHA
One other significant change is in the attitude toward the State of
Israel. According to the previous Christian understanding, the
Diaspora was part of the chastisement of the Jews for refusing to
accept Jesus as the Messiah. With the establishment of the State of
Israel, a new reality was created,6 although in 1948 the word
"Israel" was not in the Vatican "dictionary." Israel was not
mentioned at the Second Vatican Council or in the first two
documents7 referring to Jews and Judaism. Change occurred
during the reign of Pope John Paul II, so that the third document8
contains a paragraph about the State of Israel. A Vatican statement
on religious relations with Jews dated 1987 asserts that the failure
to establish relations with the State of Israel was not due to
theological difficulties (the reasons, it seems, were political). This
situation ended in the year 1993 with the signing an agreement of
mutual recognition between the Holy See and the State of Israel.9
The visit by Pope John Paul II to Israel in March 2000 greatly
contributed to this important change.
In conclusion, the recent rehabilitation of Williamson, a Holocaust
denier, and his friends from the ultra-conservative sect known as
the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), an organization of
"traditionalist Catholics" who disagree with the decisions of the
Second Vatican Council to "modernize" the Church (including the
recognition of Jews and Judaism), is placing all the progress that
has been achieved by the Catholic Church after the long history of
anti-Semitism in jeopardy and is sending the wrong message to
the members of the Catholic Church and others. 1. Paragraph 4, Nostra aetate, cf. Romans 11, 17-24
2. Ibid.
3. This was expressed by Pope John Paul II.
4. June 24, 1985: Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in
preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican Commission for
Religious Relations with the Jews
5. Ibid.
6. Cf. Kenna, A., Catholics, Jews and the State of Israel. New York, A Stimulus
Book, Paulist Press 1993; Prager, M. J, Faith and Fulfillment: Christians and the
return to the Promised Land, London, Vallentine & Mitchell, 1985
7. October 28, 1968: Nostra aetate, Declaration of the Relation of the Church to
Non-Christian Religions, Second Vatican Council; December 1, 1974: Guidelines
and Suggestions for Implementing Conciliar Declaration Nostra aetate, the
Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews
8. June 1985: The Common Bond: Christians and Jews, Notes for Preaching and
Teaching, Vatican
9. Rosen, D., The negotiations of the permanent bilateral Commission between
the Holy See and the State of Israel, and their fundamental agreement signed on
December 30. 1993: A challenge long delayed. ADL, New York, 1996
7
RUACH HADASHA
POINT OF VIEW
Mark Twain's Infamous Travelogues
(Should such books be permitted to exist?)
Boris Havel
Boris Havel
These days, I cannot get \or|e Bala{evi}'s humorous song out of
my mind:
It's all Tom Sawyer's fault. Such books should not be
permitted to exist. It was a test. He did it his way.
The situation reminds me of summers during the 1980s, when I would
be squeezed for hours in a smelly Centrotrans bus on the route
between Sarajevo and Plo~e, condemned to the unbearable heat and
the even more unbearable musical taste of the driver, and learned half
the albums by Marinko Rokvi} or [erif Konjevi} by heart. Afterwards,
as now with Bala{evi}'s Sawyer, for days I would catch myself singing
their "hits." Since at the time I preferred to listen to Pink Floyd,
Clapton, the Allman Brothers, R.M. To~ak, Divlje Jagode and Parni
Valjak, it is easy to conclude that Rokvi} and Konjevi}'s songs were not
etched in my brain because I was in love with them.
However, with Bala{evi}'s song it is a little different. It did not
intrude upon my thoughts and I have not heard it for over fifteen
years. It does not come into my thoughts when they are wandering
or at moments of idleness or semiconsciousness. It comes to me, as
Rokvi}'s songs never did, at moments of intellectual engagement.
More precisely, while I was immersed in reading a very unusual
book: Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad.
According to Bala{evi}, the American writer Mark Twain had a negative
impact upon the youth of Vojvodina in his book The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer, causing them to abandon school, homework, scouts and
highway-construction projects to embark upon the conquest of the
Mississippi. The balladeer's thesis that this book, which corrupts
model youth, should not be permitted "to exist" is logical. Therefore,
how much less should the book The Innocents Abroad be permitted
"to exist," which corrupts much more than the youth of Vojvodina? It
actually corrupts the attempts of a significant part of the European
political, educational and media establishment to counterfeit and
overturn facts connected with the Arab-Israeli conflict – for many one
of the most pressing and controversial foreign political issues of today
A Journalist on a Pilgrimage
In the year 1867, Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemens) visited the Holy
Land, or Palestine as it was then called, with a group of American
pilgrims. Skilled with a pen, curious, discerning and paid to write a
travelogue, he recorded all sorts of things. He recorded things that he
saw and heard, sometimes, indeed, brutally, with a dose of Western
sarcasm and scorn but, nonetheless, very, very realistically. Politically
correct journalism from the Near East during those years was an
unheard of concept. Just look! He wrote not a single letter about the
prosperity of the Arab-Palestinian community that was enjoyed in the
8
last decades prior to the Zionist invasion! Twain says nothing about
the peace and security enjoyed by the domestic Arab population, who
were to be driven from their homeland of thousands of years several
generations later. He wrote nothing about the ancient Palestinian
civilization, the millions of worthy Palestinians who had lived there
from time immemorial, working and creating. Nothing about the
tolerant Islamic-Turkish administration that looked after its subjects
with maternal care but, instead, much that was quite the opposite.
Twain's Discovery of Palestine
Twain and the pilgrims rode to the north in the Holy Land, on the
route from Mt. Hermon, after which they toured Damascus
(Chapter 45). The first New Testament city they reached was Banias,
i.e. Caesarea Philippi. In addition to the ruins of the old city, they
saw olive groves, fig trees, pomegranates and oleanders, and bathed
in the chilly source of the Jordan River. Twain was elated because
Christ had once walked there. At the same time, he was angry at the
"incorrigible pilgrims" who took pieces of rock or wood from every
holy place for relatives in America. In addition to these initial pilgrim
impressions, he provided two pages of a brief historical review of
the place, a suitable quotation from the New Testament and his own
reflections on divinity, which is suddenly not so abstract in the Holy
Land. This is probably the longest passage in the entire
travelogue that refers to the excursion to Palestine, and which the
educated bodies of the European Union would permit "to exist" in
textbooks on the history of the Holy Land.
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Twain shifted his attention from
the idyll of the first contact with the sacred soil to the
appearance and living conditions of the local population. With this
change in focus the idyll also ends, irreversibly. Twain is as shocked
by the scene as his reader. He sees people who are exhausted and
sad, suffering from hunger, particularly women and children. He is
astonished at the sight of a mother holding a child in her arms
without reacting to the hundreds of flies clustered around the
child's eyes and nose. The next scene: in a village general chaos
ensued when the villagers heard that one of the pilgrims was a
physician. Everyone who was sick came or was brought in awe
before him. Twain describes the tumult that prevailed during the
brief existence of an improvised field clinic, from which it can be
concluded that every form of professional medical assistance in
this pre-Zionist period was a rare luxury in Palestine.
From the slopes of Mt. Hermon, the pilgrims went southward. At the
beginning of Chapter 46, Twain describes reaching the "Waters of
Merom" and cites biblical stories connected with that region (Joshua
11:5). The narrative then shifts from biblical times to the present and
POINT OF VIEW
RUACH HADASHA
mentions that stirring scenes like these occur in this valley no more
and that there is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent –
not for thirty miles in either direction. They saw two or three clusters
of Bedouin tents but not a single permanent habitation. "One may
ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings," wrote
Twain. Chapter 46 ends with a depressing description of a landscape
in which "there is no dew here, nor flowers, nor birds, nor trees."
They continued their journey through "desolate country whose soil is
rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds." Twain describes the
habitat of lizards they passed and laments over the land "where
prosperity has reigned, and fallen; where glory has flamed, and gone
out; where beauty has dwelt, and passed away; where gladness was,
and sorrow is; where the pomp of life has been, and silence and death
brood in its high places, there this reptile makes his home, and mocks
at human vanity." They soon saw Capernaum, a bland, melancholy
ruin, desolate and unpeopled; Magdala, thoroughly ugly, cramped,
squalid, uncomfortable, and filthy; Tiberias, a city full of filth and
poverty, all of this around the dismal and repellant See of Galilee.
Traveling further south, from the elevation above the See of Galilee, a
"bald and unthrilling" panorama spread before them.
On the journey to Tabor, Twain and the pilgrims never saw a
single human being (Chapter 49). As they approached Shunem and
Gilboa, Twain definitively concluded that "Oriental scenes look best
in steel engravings" (51).
Samaria and Jerusalem
However, true desolation was still ahead of them. Samaria and
Judea, through which the pilgrims continued their journey toward
their final destination, Jerusalem, unlike the bald and mournful
Galilee, were arid regions. Twain must have been shocked by the
new and unexpected levels of desolation in the territory they
traveled. Walking through Samaria and approaching Judea, he
understood the dreariness, barrenness and meagerness of the land
and the monotonous grayness, which for a moment he thought
could not be worse, saying that the further they went "the hotter the
sun got and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and
dreary the landscape became ... There was hardly a tree or a shrub
anywhere." The misery of the travelers was contributed to by the
poor quality of the road to Jerusalem – which scarcely differed from
the surrounding country except that there were more rocks on the
road. Even more unsightly and repulsive landscapes followed after
each Samarian hill that they crossed.
The shocking sights were finally crowned by the ultimate surprise –
the appearance of the ancient holy city of Jerusalem. "So small!"
exclaimed Twain. "Why, it was no larger than an American village ...
Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand people" (Chapter 52).
Views of desolation followed when they went to see the
surrounding Judean localities, from Bethany and the Dead Sea to
Bethlehem. Several days later, the exhausted pilgrims went to the
Mediterranean harbor in Jaffa, where a boat was waiting to take them
to the West and civilization, for which they were already ardently
yearning. Twain wrote of the country he was leaving and the
unexpected immense desolation he encountered as follows: "Of all
the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the
prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are
Mark Twain
unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with
a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful
and despondent. ... It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land ...
inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes." In summary,
Twain writes of Palestine that it is "desolate and unlovely," which "sits
in sackcloth and ashes" (Chapter 56). Thus ends his description of a
land which fifteen or so years later received the first Jewish settlers,
the pioneers of the first aliyah.
Palestine without Palestinians
A reader acquainted with the ingrained opinions regarding the
epicrisis of the Near Eastern conflict would be confused at this point.
One would ask where are those hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians whom the Zionist imperialists later expelled. Where are
their cities, planted fields and prosperous communities which the
Zionists destroyed, scattering the inhabitants among refugee camps
throughout the Near East? Where are the Palestinian
cultural centers, artistic societies, hospitals, schools, libraries, parks
etc? Where are the happy Palestinian children, ruddy from good food
and unburdened by occupation? Where is the majestic Al-Quds (the
Arabic name for Jerusalem), to which tens of thousands of Muslim
pilgrims poured in order to pray at the third most holy place of
Islam? Where are they? Did they roll up and hide themselves before
Twain and his group, the way that a smuggler on the street rolls up
his wares and escapes before a patrolman can approach? Was Twain
blind? Was his guide some kind of avant garde Zionist who cleverly
avoided the Palestinian centers of prosperity? Or is it heretical to
think that all of this never existed?
Unpleasant, Provocative Questions
This logical thought must occur to the reader. A person could think
this way. We all know how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad incites the world
against Israel and threatens to wipe that country off the map. We all
know that Europe, naturally, does not agree with such a drastic
measure. However, it agrees with Herr Mahmoud's basic premise,
9
RUACH HADASHA
POINT OF VIEW
which is that the Zionists occupied Palestinian land. The disagreement
between Barros and Ahmadinejad is reduced, in principle, to the
manner of solving the problem, and not the diagnosis. However
now, with insight into Twain's travelogue, the same reader can think
what if the ingrained diagnosis is not congruent with the historical
facts? (The primary source from 1867 is a historical document of
terrifying and indisputable authenticity.) What if the Jews actually
inhabited the Palestinian desert and wilderness merely because they
wanted to return to the homeland of their ancestors? What if they
had actually created the fertile soil themselves with their own hands?
What if the multitudes of Palestinians (those whom Twain did not see
anywhere on his journey because, perhaps, they did not exist) came
after the fruits of Jewish industriousness were evident in the region?
When word spread that there were physicians among Jews and that
medical treatment for them was not a luxury item but a necessity?
That hunger, filth and disease did not prevail in the kibbutzim? That
there was work?
No, these are not the questions that Europeans, those who are ignorant
and uninterested in history or always ready for political conformism,
want to ask. Such questions are followed by a series of others, which
are very unpleasant. For example, if it is true that Arab Palestinians
inhabited the region of Palestine from time immemorial, why did the
UN recognize the status of refugee for every Arab who was there only
two years prior to the establishment of the Israeli state? (When a
person thinks about it a little, it would be logical that the number of
those to whom this decision was of significance must have been
considerable for the UN to have made such a ruling.) Then, why are
Jewish refugees from Arab countries never mentioned, who according
to all statistics were more numerous than Arab refugees from Israel?
Why were Arab refugees not absorbed into Arab society as Jewish
refugees were absorbed into Israeli society? Was not the entire saga of
the Palestinian refugees thought out ad hoc in order to undermine the
legitimacy of the Israeli state, after it could not be defeated militarily? If
a large percentage of Arabs came to Palestine after the Zionists began to
create a place that was pleasant to live in, according to what international
law do these immigrants have the right to their own state? How is it
possible for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the center of
Samaria and Judea to be called the correction of a historical injustice?
These are disturbing questions. They weigh heavily upon the
conscience, reveal attitudes, defeat intrigues and thwart plans. And the
books that promote such attitudes in spineless, politically correct
Europe – as Bala{evi}'s song says, should not be permitted to exist. Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. Innocents Abroad
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
An exhaustive study of the statistics connected with the population of the Holy
Land prior to 1948 was published by the historian Joan Peters in From Time
Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (Harper &
Row Publishers, New York, 1984).
READERS WRITE
These are My Stories
Mira Spitzer Adir
In the last issue of Ruach, we wrote about the 60th anniversary of
our Eretz, which could leave none of us indifferent. The
generation that made it possible for us is slowly departing, leaving
us and our children and our grandchildren with the obligation to
safeguard what we have received.
Naomi Shemer was wonderful woman who accepted this task in a
special way. She rightfully bore the title of the First Lady of Israeli
Song because she wrote so many songs, both for children and
adults, that it is difficult to list them. Each of her songs was a
source of strength to the many who participated, were wounded
or imprisoned in the frequent wars that Israel fought in order to
preserve its independence. One of these songs, nonetheless, stands
out because it almost became the Israeli national anthem.
When Naomi Shemer wrote Jerusalem of Gold for the Israeli
Music Festival in 1967, she was probably not aware of the tempest
it would create. This was the year of the Six Days' War. Soon after
the festival, the song began to be sung by the whole country and
was on the radio twenty-four hours a day.
After many years when Jerusalem was united, Naomi added
another verse, which is of crucial importance:
10
Back to the wells and to the fountains
Within the ancient walls
The sound of horn from Temple's mountain
Again so loudly calls,
From rocky caves, this very morning
A thousand suns will glow
And we shall go down to the Jordan
By way of Jericho.
That it how it was. This was made possible for us by our young
soldiers, many of whom, unfortunately, did not survive.
In the year 1968, Uri Avnery, a member of Parliament, proposed
Jerusalem of Gold as the new Israeli anthem.
We, however, the chosen people, chose Hatikvah, which means
“hope.”
How could we have survived for so many millennia and how could
we survive the many more before us if we did not have hope in the
One who will come to raise and gather us to the strains of
Hatikvah? COLUMN
RUACH HADASHA
Empty Space (Besamim)
Jasminka Doma{
Jasminka Doma{
I can't stop thinking about the new premises we recently received
from the city of Zagreb for the Bet Israel Jewish Community. They
are attractive, in a wonderful location and elegant but this is not a
space like every other. It should be filled with Jewish content and
life, prayer, study and spirituality. It should be transformed into a
Shalom Bayit, a House of Peace and Meeting.
A space is always a challenge. If we do not like it and if we do not
feel comfortable there, we can always find an excuse not to work.
However, an attractive space is far more dangerous because it
requires everything from us. It is necessary to know how to make
that which is beautiful even more so. It is demanding. A new space
is always a new test. Effort. Asking and searching for an answer.
An empty space is full of beauty, which imposes responsibility and
suffering. What should be done with the emptiness? Now it
reflects us, the way we are. We are looking at a space where there
is Nothing and in which everything can be. It is full of silence, like
a vessel containing a blue lake reflecting us – in truth. In any case,
our biblical prophets do not teach us in vain that the most difficult
Jewish meditation is the one called Nothing.
It is December. Darkness covers the city early. One Hand appears
in the Emptiness and places a menorah on the table next to the
window, waiting for us to come and light the candles with the
blessings. Ayin is before us and over us. It is waiting for us to
come tomorrow and the next day and after the eighth day we ask
ourselves: "What is the light that we have kindled, this miracle that
we have seen with our own eyes, here. Where is it now? This is a
sign in time that we must recognize or we will no longer exist."
Emptiness can also be an oasis. We are the ones who will speak of
forms, shift walls, plant a garden, bring books, stand before the
source of Light and the Aron Hakodesh, and each will know if he
or she is standing in an empty form or one with a soul and a heart.
Its heartbeats weave the time of the King of Kings over all kings.
The path and knowledge open to each one in silence and light. COLUMN
By the Waters of Babylon
Is there anything new
under the sun?
Dolores Bettini
Dolores Bettini
Humankind was born in the perfection of the Garden of Eden 5769
years ago. This was soon followed by the well-known events with
Adam, Eve, the snake and the forbidden tree. Consequences? The first
married couple was expelled from Paradise, with cherubim and a flaming
sword placed to guard it ... a type of police and customs control. On
that border, nothing to declare does not apply, so that those who want
to return (and who wouldn't?), if by some miracle they found the right
way, would have to pass through very rigorous control of the baggage they
were bringing with them. The problem was that this marvelous path,
when the gates of Paradise slammed closed, branched into two, so that
every member of the human race had two "driver's licenses" – one for
the path of evil and the other for the path of good. It was up to each
individual whether he or she would take one or the other, jump from
one to the other, run breathlessly on this one or that one or lazily plod
along their edges, a little on this one and a little on that one. Would it
be possible to recognize which is which? As in a labyrinth full of
distorted mirrors, everything is not always as it seems.
Rabbis say that everyone is in his proper place, which he chose
himself.
And we are still on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, while one more
yearly cycle closes and another begins. Is it truly new? Some say that the
history of humankind is a series of cycles that repeat. "What has been is
what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there
is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Is a person enslaved by
some endless spiral from which there is no exit, whatever he does?
Then, where is hope? Or is it perhaps at least a little different,
regardless of how much everything under the sun seems to be the same?
Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is the future. The Torah is, they
say, a guide to today and tomorrow. It is a guidepost toward the
11
RUACH HADASHA
COLUMN
path of good and the abundance for which everyone yearns. A
problem may arise when a person decides what is the measure of
progress and then, as in A Novella on Dying by Filip David, one of
the characters, Dr. Franc (the builder of an outpost of the Third
Reich in the Balkan.) asserts that "morality is a product of
evolution," that "moral laws change as does everything else," that
"only two things are essential, reproduction and the struggle for
survival, the struggle for living space. ... And what is morality?
Useful adaptation in the struggle for survival ..."
A ghost of the past? Sometimes it seems that there really is nothing
new under the sun and we are only poor students repeating our
lessons, in the ardent desire to push forward into the future as soon
as possible, without having first mastered the material.
The person of the Garden of Eden was perfect. He could have created
the perfect human community but violated the only commandment
that he received: he ate from the Tree of Knowledge, on which good
and evil were so combined that it was impossible to separate them. At
the moment when he ate the fruit, good and evil combined together
in the same manner in the person and evil became an
integral part of his being. A person's life became a ceaseless battle for
the separation of good and evil. "I created the impulse for evil but I
also created the Torah as a cure for it," said G-d. Besides teaching the
person how to master the evil in oneself, the Torah teachers how to
transform it into good and return to the source. It is a guide in the
future, and the future is in return, the return to Paradise – to Eden. TRADITION
Tishrei
Maya Cime{a Samokovlija
The month of Tishrei is the seventh month of the year according
to the Jewish calendar. To many people, this may seem odd
because Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, is celebrated on the first
and second days of Tishrei. The reason is that according to the
Torah, the month of Nissan is the first month in the year,
underscoring the historical importance of the liberation from
slavery in Egypt, which occurred on the fifteenth day of the month
of Nissan and signifies the birth of our nation.
Nonetheless, according to tradition, the world was created in the
month of Tishrei or, more precisely, Adam and Eve were created
on the first day of the month of Tishrei which was the sixth day of
the creation of the world and, therefore, the yearly cycle is
calculated from Tishrei.
The year has twelve months and there are twelve tribes of Israel.
Each month of the Jewish year represents a tribe. The month of
Tishrei represents the tribe of Dan. This is of symbolic significance
because before Dan was born to Bilhah, Rachel's maid, Rachel
said: "Daneni – G-d has judged me, and has also heard my voice
and given me a son."
Dan and din¸ which have the same Hebrew root, symbolize that
the month of Tishrei is the month of judgment and forgiveness.
Tishrei is symbolized in the zodiac by scales, a symbol showing us
that the Almighty weighs our good and bad works during this
month.
It is known that the beginning of every month is heralded by a
blessing in the synagogue on the Sabbath preceding it, but not
Tishrei. We do not bless it because the Almighty himself has
blessed it. According to the oral tradition, Satan, who is always
lurking, should not notice the arrival of Rosh Hashanah, the Day
of Judgment, which is one of the reasons why the new moon is not
mentioned in the Rosh Hashanah prayers. This is also the reason
12
why the first reading from Genesis is not read on Rosh Hashanah,
as would otherwise be necessary, because Rosh Hashanah is the
birthday of the first man.
The first day of Rosh Hashanah is never permitted to be on
Sunday, Wednesday or Friday.
Historically, the first day of the first Rosh Hashanah was Friday, the
sixth day of Creation. On that day was first created "living
creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild
animals of the earth of every kind," and finally man. On the very
first day, man disobeyed G-d's commandment, eating from the
forbidden tree, and was condemned immediately. The lesson for
all of us is that "to err is human and to forgive is Divine."
On the tenth day of Tishrei is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Yom Kippur is not permitted to be on Sunday, Tuesday or Friday.
According to one explanation, on that day our ancestor Abraham
was circumcised at 99 years of age in the year 2047 from the
creation of the world. (There are two other opinions regarding the
date of his circumcision.)
On Yom Kippur in the year 2449, Moses descended from Mt. Sinai
bearing the second tablets with the Ten Commandments, Aseret
ha Dibrot, happy that he had received forgiveness for the people
from the Almighty for the sin with the golden calf.
The New Year on the first day of Tishrei is not a day of rejoicing
but a day of solemnity. This is the day when G-d remembers all
living beings and judges them according to their merits. We must
be prepared for this day. The entire preceding month of Elul is
filled with reminders about the arrival of Rosh Hashanah. During
the month of Elul, Jews are supposed to be particularly attentive
in prayers and devotions. Through sincere repentance, everyone
should be released from his or her misdeeds during the past year
and feel like a newborn baby, ready to begin a whole new life. REVIEW
RUACH HADASHA
My Israel
Shmuel Meirom
Shmuel Meirom
Israel was born at 4 p.m. May 14, 1948, in the Tel Aviv Museum,
after which David ben Gurion proclaimed the Declaration of
Independence.
I was born not long afterwards. The Israel of my childhood is an
Israel of virgin beaches where we ran barefoot on golden
yellow sand. The Israel of my childhood is full of oranges, figs and
camel caravans led by Sabra merchants. This was the time of the
greatest emigration of hundreds of thousands of European Jews
who survived the Holocaust and Jews from North Africa. The
whole time, murderers coming from Arab countries were cruelly
killing innocent citizens. This nearly stopped completely after the
Sinai Campaign of 1956. From day to day, Israel has struggled for
its survival.
Today, 60 years later, Israel is completely different. Oranges have
become high-tech and the golden beaches have been transformed
into hotel complexes. Israel no longer has to fear for its survival
and has become a major regional power. The achievements
during this period are enormous and touch all aspects of life.
The Israeli economy, which used to be based on the export of
fresh agricultural products, later seeds and chemicals, is based
today upon high technology and sophisticated products.
Research and development centers of the world's largest high-tech
companies are located in Israel. Microsoft and Intel opened their
first research center outside the United States in Israel. The only
research and development plant outside the U.S., CISCO, opened
in Israel, as did Motorola.
Few people know that many products were invented in Israel that
are used throughout the world. The pericardium covered stent
used to dilate arteries around the heart is one of these inventions.
The same goes for the USB flash drive and drip irrigation. The
Arrow rocket, the only one in the world that can intercept ballistic
projectiles outside the atmosphere, was invented in Israel. So
were cherry tomatoes and nectarines. There are many others but
not enough space to mention them all.
In proportion to its size, Israel is the largest immigrant country in
the world. Moreover, it is the only country in which more trees are
planted than are cut down.
In the year 2007, Israel exported goods and services worth
71 billion dollars, an enormous sum considering the size of the
country and the number of inhabitants.
Naturally, very serious and problematic political questions remain.
Last year, we began a new peace process in Annapolis and all of us
want it to succeed. This success also depends upon understanding
the broad context of this conflict, which means that it is no longer
a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians but a more
problematic conflict between extremists and moderates.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the cause of extremism but
we are paying the price because we find ourselves on the first line
of attack. Seen from the broader aspect, this is a conflict with an
extreme religious ideology that is insoluble, and extremists, in a
way, are attempting to subvert other regimes in neighboring
countries. This conflict is not particularly connected to territory
but crosses borders.
We must understand that the conflict between the two nations,
Israeli and Palestinian, can be resolved and the answer lies in the
establishment of two countries for two nations.
Thus, despite Israel's huge successes, Israel will be a country that
will not be able to achieve its full potential until this conflict is
resolved. Israel is still not the best it can be.
Nearly 60 years later, I no longer run barefoot over the golden
sand on the beach and Israel is 60 years old. It really looks good
for its age but it is still barefoot. 13
RUACH HADASHA
REMEMBRANCE
International Holocaust
Remembrance Day
Naida Mihal Brandl
confiscation of property, after the Nuremberg laws defined Jews in
1935 as mongrels of the first and second degrees.2 Physicians,
lawyers and even housekeepers could no longer work for
Germans, while Jews were also forbidden to employ Germans.
Jews were no longer permitted to serve on the boards of
companies or to possess shares in them. Their property was
Aryanized (sold to Aryan Germans).
Warschaw Ghetto
Holocaust is a Greek word that means completely burnt. In
ancient Greek and Rome, it meant -a burnt offering to the gods or
the souls of the deceased. In modern times, it refers to the 12-year
period from 1933 to 1945 of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. It
is characterized by the constant escalation of increasingly brutal
measures by the Nazi authorities and their helpers and the
increasingly large territory in which these measures were applied.
The culmination was the final solution (Endlösung), which in
Nazi terminology was a euphemism for mass murder and the
destruction of all European Jewry. Among the Israeli and
international Jewish public, the term Shoah has come into use
since the 1980s. This is an uncommon ancient word used in the
apocalyptic visions of the books of the Bible to designate total
calamity among nations, unprecedented devastation that can
occur only once and never again.1
The final phase, the destruction of the European Jews
(1941 – 45), began after the occupation of parts of the USSR, starting
in June 1941 when the Nazis conducted mass murders of Jews,
mostly by firing squad. From 1941 or 1942, Jews were deported
into the then empty ghettos (e.g. Riga) in order to be killed later
or to the death camps of Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibór. Polish
Jews who lived on the territories integrated into Germany were
killed in Chelmno (Kulmhof) in portable gas chambers. Starting in
1943, there were mass deportations of Jews to the concentration
or death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Context
In the early phases, Nazi policy defined Jews as sub-humans but
with the right to live under specific circumstances. In the later
phases, Nazi policy defined Jews as an anti-human element and
emphasized the necessity for their extermination. At the beginning
of the process of the destruction of the Jews, those who were
incapable of working were killed. Later, increasing numbers were
killed including those who were capable of working. Only those
were left alive who were essential in the killing process itself.
The idea of the Final Solution was born in Germany, the country
in which the Jews had experienced the highest level of acculturation,
some of whom were completely assimilated, in a country that had
not emancipated Jews by a decree (as, for example in France) but
the Jews, in order to become worthy members of the society had
initiated Haskala (Enlightenment), a Jewish movement for
modernization or Jewish enlightenment, in the country in which
the Reform Judaism movement was born that was supposed to
cleanse Judaism in order to make it more acceptable to Christian
neighbors.
According to a classical historian of the Shoah, Raul Hilberg, there
were three phases that led to genocide. The first was the
identification and definition of Jews together with economic
discrimination and segregation, which lasted from the arrival of
the Nazis to power in Germany, 1933, to the year 1939. This was
implemented through political-legal discrimination and the
Naturally, the Shoah did not originate outside the context of
European (and wider) historical development, especially from the
1920s and 1930s, which were marked by drastic growth in
anti-Semitism in Europe, the Near East but also in the New World.
The quota system (numerus clausus) was implemented in Canada
and the United States, even after the end of the Second World War
1 Ivo Goldstein, Holokaust u Zagrebu, p. 3, Zagreb, 2001.
14
Legal and economic segregation from the rest of the population
was followed by physical segregation, in concentration or
ghettoization (1939 – 1941). Jews were forced to move into
separate buildings, districts (ghettos), concentration camps or
work camps. In this manner, they were completely separated from
the rest of the population and found themselves under the total
control of the Nazis. The Nazis controlled the quantity of the food
that entered ghettos and used their inhabitants for slave labor.
Isolated from the society, without money and under the control of
the Nazis, the Jews were helpless.
2 Women had to add the name Sarah to their own names and men had to add
Israel to theirs. Passports belonging to Jews were marked with the letter J.
REMEMBRANCE
when no one could use the excuse that he did not know. The Nazis
began the implementation of the Final Solution at the beginning of
1942. At the end of the same year, the Allies were already informed of
the horrors of the ghettos, their liquidation and transports to
concentration camps and death camps. They reacted with a sharp
declaration. By the time of the mass transports of Hungarian Jews to
Auschwitz-Birkenau (1944), the Allies already controlled the air space
over occupied Poland and on several occasions had bombed various
targets in the immediate vicinity of the largest death camp. They never
tried to disable the railway tracks, which several months later conveyed
the majority of the remaining Hungarian Jews to Birkenau.3 At the
same time, neither the United States nor Great Britain wanted to
increase the quota of refugee visas. Moreover, during the time of the
Final Solution, approximately 90% of the slots for American visas were
not filled. The British Mandate for Palestine firmly closed its doors to
Jewish refugees, even though this mandate had been obtained from
the League of Nations in order to create a Jewish national home.
In the East, after the Hitler-Stalin Nonaggression Pact and the
Soviet occupation of Polish territories (western Belarus and the
Ukraine) in 1939, from 1939 to 1941 the Soviets deported
approximately 800,000 people to Siberia, of whom approximately
270,000 (or 30%) were Jews, although they only made up
approximately 10% of the population. In the Baltic states, the
Soviets deported approximately 15,400 people, of whom 11.7%
were Jews, although they only made up approximately 5% of the
population.4 The sole language that the Soviets banned after the
occupation was Hebrew.
During the Shoah, American and British officials warned leaders of
Jewish organizations to refrain from pointing out that Jews were
victims. The Allies were afraid that they would be accused of
participating in the war because of the Jews. A statement
following a meeting of American, British and Soviet ministers of
foreign affairs held in Moscow in 1943 threatened punishment for
war crimes committed after the war, and for war crimes
committed against occupied nations. The statement mentions the
French, Germans, Belgians, Norwegians ... peasants on the island
of Crete ... the nation of Poland but not the European Jews.
The Shoah – from a living memory to history
We are coming closer to the moment when the Shoah will no
longer be a living memory and become a part of history. The next
generation will no longer be able to hear the truth from those who
survived it. Therefore, it is our obligation to listen to and record
their stories and preserve them for our children, grandchildren
and the rest of humankind.
3 There are data on the Soviet attitude to this problem. In the summer of 1944,
David Ben-Gurion's deputy, Eliahu Epstein, met with a senior official of the Soviet
Embassy in Cairo, and raised the issue of bombing the centers of Jewish
extermination in Poland. Epstein reported back to Ben-Gurion that the Soviet
official responded that such an idea was out of the question politically, since the
government of Russia would not adopt measures which were based on national
grounds (source: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies,
http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2007-4-russia.php).
4 Yehuda Bauer, The Holocaust in its European Context; lecture at the
international conference entitled "The Holocaust: Remembrance and Lessons,"
4 – 5 July 2006, Riga, Latvia.
RUACH HADASHA
Sixty-two years ago, the Soviets arrived at the gates of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp. Nothing
could have prepared them for what they saw: piles of skeletons,
clothing and walking human skeletons.
Thousands of years earlier, the prophet Ezekiel recorded the
following vision, when he spoke of the dry bones that represented
the nation of Israel: The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he
led me out in the spirit of the LORD and set me in the center of the
plain, which was now filled with bones. He made me walk among
them in every direction so that I saw how many they were on the
surface of the plain. How dry they were!
He asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? "Lord
G-D," I answered, "you alone know that."
Then he said to me: Prophesy over these bones, and say to them:
Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!
Thus says the Lord G-D to these bones: See! I will bring spirit into
you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews upon you, make
flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so
that you may come to life and know that I am the LORD. I prophesied
as I had been told, and even as I was prophesying I heard a noise; it
was a rattling as the bones came together, bone joining bone .I saw
the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them,
but there was no spirit in them. Then he said to me: Prophesy to the
spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord
G-D: From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain
that they may come to life. I prophesied as he told me, and the spirit
came into them; they came alive and stood upright, a vast army. Then
he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
They have been saying, "Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and
we are cut off." Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the
Lord G-D: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from
them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know
that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from
them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and
I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the
LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD. (Ezekiel 37:
1.14). Truly, the living bones do not live only through the
survivors but also through the existence of the State of Israel.
It is essential to mention here that after the end of the Second World
War, pogroms were recorded, chiefly against Jews in Poland,5 and
the survivors were not permitted to enter the Land of Israel – at the
time known as the Palestine Mandate. For years after the war,
5 In January 2008, the first Polish translation of Fear – Anti-Semitism in Poland
after Auschwitz, 2006, which discussed anti-Semitism and violence in postwar
Poland, was published in Poland. The translation provoked debates among the
Polish public in which Polish historians accused the author of agitation and
condemning the entire Polish society for anti-Semitism. The Polish prosecutor
considered indicting Jan Gross for "slander against the Polish nation." The law
under which Gross could find himself in the defendant's chair is a law passed in
2006 making it illegal to accuse "the Polish nation" of collaborating with the
German occupiers and/or the communist government to commit crimes. The
maximum sentence for this crime is three years. Jan Gross is also the author of
Neighbors, 2001, in which he presented the fact that the Jedwabne pogrom in July
1941 was carried out by the Poles and not the Germans. Although Polish critics
vehemently denied this initially, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
subsequently issued findings in support of Prof. Gross' claims.
15
RUACH HADASHA
REMEMBRANCE
hundreds of thousands of Jews (
)6 wandered in
refugee camps throughout Europe, without a place to return to
(their property had been confiscated, destroyed or occupied;
pogroms had occurred etc.), or they were interned on Cyprus, after
which they tried to enter the Palestine Mandate.
Yom Ha-Shoah, International Holocaust
Remembrance Day and the prevention of
crimes against humanity
Today we commemorate the Shoah on two different dates during
the year. One is Yom Ha-Shoah (
),
which the Jewish people have marked for 56 years. Yom Ha-Shoah
commemorates both the victims of the Shoah and its heroes on
the date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.7
The second day has only recently begun to be commemorated, at
the proposal of the United Nations in 2005 on the sixtieth anniversary of the entry of the Allied forced into the Auschwitz-Birkenau
camp, as the International Day in Memory of the Victims of
the Holocaust.8 In the month that preceded this decision, the UN
adopted 22 resolutions that condemned Israel and four
resolutions on the violation of human rights in the remaining 190
member countries.
The Shoah is by definition genocide, with its specific and universal
aspects. The experience of the Shoah should have prevented all
future genocides and crimes against humanity. However, not only
did this experience not prevent other genocides (Cambodia,
Sudan, Rwanda etc.) but it did not uproot anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism survived the postwar years and, accompanied by a
negation of the Shoah, is growing today. Unfortunately, besides
anti-Semitism from the radical right (which is publicly perceived
as something bad, shameful and dangerous), anti-Semitism is
increasingly present not only on the extreme left, whether it is
anti-Semitism per se or politically correct anti-Semitism known as
anti-Zionism. Anti-Semitism is also growing in Arab and Islamic
countries of the world. Mein Kampf is constantly on the Arab list
of bestsellers and the Protocol of the Elders of Zion is a bestseller
in Arab countries in more editions than it had in Germany, and is
printed with forewords written by the local authorities (Syria) and
parts are cited as facts in school textbooks (Saudi Arabia). On
January 25, 2008, the secretary general of the International
Institute for Holocaust Research, Mohammad-Ali Ramin, urged
Jewish communities in the world "to stop providing support to the
Zionist regime. If Jews of the world continue to remain silent
about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, all of humanity
6 The faithful remnant (sh'erit ha-pleta) refers to 1 Chronicles (Divrei Hayamim
Alef) 4:43.
7 Since Nissan 14 (April 19 according to the Gregorian calendar) is the day that
precedes Passover, the memorial day was moved to Nissan 27, a week after the
seventh day of Passover and seven days before Israeli Fallen Soldiers and Victims
of Terrorism Remembrance Day (Yom Hazikaron) and eight days before Israeli
Independence Day (Yom Haacmaut).
8 The Day of Remembrance for Victims of National Socialism has been
commemorated in Germany since 2006 and Holocaust Memorial Day has been
commemorated in in the United Kingdom since 2001. On the same day, Poland
had previously had a Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nazism, and Italy had
a Day of Remembrance.
16
Auschwitz
will hold them responsible for the crimes," said Ali Ramin among
his remarks about Israel, which he described as "a bloodthirsty
enemy entity in the heart of the Islamic world."9 Fortunately,
Croatia is not following European trends regarding anti-Semitism.
Nonetheless, it is necessary to mention a statement made in 2006
by a parliamentary representative from the ranks of the Party of
Democratic Action (SDA), [emso Tankovi} that American Jews
were the creators of the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center in New York.
I shall conclude by referring to a speech by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau,
a Buchenwald survivor, at the 2005 March of the Living in
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Recalling the first return trip he made to
Buchenwald in 1991, he said that he went into a room once used
as a torture chamber and found etched into the wall five Hebrew
letters spelling the Yiddish word for revenge, nekuma. "What is
that nekuma?" Lau asked. "Is nekuma to throw a rock? I can't; is it
to shoot at a living person? I can't. But he wrote 'nekuma,' and he
wrote what many people – millions – thought.
The nekuma is that we are here; the nekuma is that we are home;
the nekuma is that we have a homeland; the nekuma is that we
have a Guardian of Israel; the nekuma is that we are a living
people; the nekuma is that we came here with a blue and white
flag with a Magen David to say that in every generation there are
those who seek our destruction, but the Holy One Blessed be He
saves us from their hands, and that our faith will not flicker out,
and that our light will not be extinguished." 9 "The presence of a blood-thirsty enemy at the heart of the Islamic world like the
Zionist regime, which poses a threat to all Islamic countries, provides the best
opportunity for the Islamic Ummah to preserve unity and return to its religious
identity."
Source: http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=626981
ISRAEL
RUACH HADASHA
Lunch with Yitzhak Navon
Marija Salom
The last day of the Gregorian year 2007
After a long time, Davor and I are in Tel Avivi again, to spend as
much time as possible with our Hanah and everyone we love so
much.
"Shalom, Marija Salom on the line, may I speak with Mr. Yitzhak
Navon?"
"Mr. President is at a meeting. Let me see when you can call him."
Yes, the President, the fifth president of the state of Israel, the
president from 1978 to 1983. How could I have said "Mr."? He is
active today and presides over many organizations that express his
personality and interests, such as the National Authority for
Ladino, Neot Kedumim (the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel,
an organization that cultivates plants mentioned in the Bible and
Talmud), the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance,
honorary president of the Abraham Fund (a fund for furthering
understanding and cooperation between Jews and Arabs in Israel)
as well as many smaller organizations. I had not finished listing all
of this to myself when I heard a deep, youthful man's voice on the
other end of the line:
"Maria, beautiful Maria..." These words already coaxed a smile
from me and memories of the President's generosity and
impeccable manners.
"... When did you arrive? Did Davor come, too? How long are you
staying?... Miri and I arrived from Paris yesterday ..."
A series of questions and answers followed. The conclusion was
that we would spend Sabbath lunch together. Miri calls and asks
which restaurant we'd like to go to. She says that Yitzhak wants to
take us to the one connected with fond memories of our Ole
Hadash immigrant life in Israel. I smile again and ask myself if
such dear people exist anywhere else?! I say that time is passing,
Israel is changing every day, there are more and more nice places,
so I leave the choice to them.
Shabbat
Above us the sun and the crystal blue sky. Before us the blue of the
Mediterranean Sea, the horizon and a long sandy beach with a
boardwalk that leads to lovely old Jaffa. Tall hotels to the left and
right. Behind us the famous Bauhaus apartment buildings
surrounding by gardens.
We drink in the Shabbat atmosphere of this large city.
Young parents with their sweet children pass us, as well as
well-groomed older persons walking leisurely and conversing. It is
lively on the beach. Some are jogging, some are throwing frisbees.
Some are sitting in lounge chairs, sunning themselves and sipping
beverages from nearby cafés, and the bravest are swimming in the
December sea.
An occasional private vehicle passes down the street. We look
impatiently at each of them, in anticipation of seeing the dear
faces of Yitzhak Navaron and Miri Shafir.
Our friendship began in 2004 at the Esperanza, a festival of
Sephardic culture of the Balkans in Belgrade. We have fond
memories of leisurely walks on Knez Mihajl Street, cappuccinos,
lunches at the Kaprica in Belgrade and the Tel Aviv marina,
suppers at the Jerusalem Hilton, visits to Miri's apartment and
office in Tel Aviv, cups of tea accompanying long conversations at
Yitzhak's house in Jerusalem, his driver and car which he lent us,
his warm voice during every conversation ... So many memories
for these three and a half years, all filled with mutual respect,
affection and love.
They arrive smiling. Miri is driving.
With a smile, I think about Shabbat and their ancestry. Miri comes
from a family of Ashkenazi immigrants from Poland. Yitzhak is the
scion of a long line of famous Sephardic rabbis. His family has
lived in Jerusalem for over 300 years and can trace its ancestry to
1492, the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
They park in front of our hotel only to greet us and kiss us.
They have not changed at all since the last time we saw them. Miri
is indisputably a beauty, despite the passage of time, and Yitzhak
is a man with a rarely encountered charisma. Both are warm and
sweet.
We drive together to the Dan Hotel.
While Davor helps Miri park in the overcrowded parking lot,
Yitzhak and I are talking and walking slowly toward the Italian
restaurant. Around us people are stopping, nudging each other,
showing Yitzhak to their children, smiling, waving, blowing kisses
and stopping their automobiles ... expressing respect and love.
For a moment, the words of Varda, our Tel Aviv neighbor and
friend, pass through my mind: "That was a PRESIDENT ..."
A president who in the most direct manner participated in the
creation and development of this country.
He earned degrees in education, Islamic culture, Arabic and
literature from Hebrew University, and worked for several years as
a professor. During the Independence War, as a twenty-five-yearold he was at the head of the entire Arab section of Haganah
(Israeli defense organization) in Jerusalem.
Following the war, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In
1952, he began a decade-long career in senior administrative
posts in the offices of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Following
Ben-Gurion's retirement in 1963, he was appointed as the head of
the Cultural Division of the Ministry of Education and Culture. In
this position, he was remembered for a project to battle illiteracy
that mobilized hundreds of female soldiers to become Hebrew
teachers and combat illiteracy among the immigrants on the
geographical and socioeconomic periphery of society. From 1965
17
RUACH HADASHA
ISRAEL
to 1978 he was a member of the Knesset, serving as the deputy
speaker of the house and chairman of the Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee. Concurrently, he was active in
Israeli-Diaspora affairs, serving as the chairman of the executive
committee of the World Zionist Movement and chairman of the
America-Israel Cultural Fund.
He was elected president on Nissan 12, 5738, i.e., April 19, 1978.
He was noticeably younger than his predecessors and significantly
changed the atmosphere of the President's residence. He decided
upon an informal manner in the performance of his duties. The
residence was always open to writers, actors and artists in all
fields.
Yitzhak Navon traveled extensively throughout the country,
studying everything that happened in the hinterland, developing
cities and communities of minorities. He was a bridge among the
various Israeli ethnic groups, religious and secular, Sephardim
and Ashkenazim, left and right, Jews and Arabs.
He encouraged the young to participate actively in the work of
their communities, to believe in their possibilities and
achievements in all fields.
He accepted an invitation from President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
During his state visit, he "conquered the hearts of the Egyptians"
with his perfect knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with their
culture.
The conversation inevitably turned to the situation in the
Sephardic world today, his activities in the National Authority for
Ladino and the coming spring conference at the Center for
Sephardic Studies at the University of Murcia in Spain.
The order comes. All of us agree that the food is excellent.
Miri and Yitzhak want to know everything that had occurred in our
professional and personal lives since our last visit.
They are interested in the situation regarding our Jewish
community. This conversation inevitably expanded to the
situation in the communities in our region and the problem of
education.
We speak about the publishing activities of our Rabbi Icak Asiel,
the book by Rabbi Kotel Da-Don, books by Sonja Samokovlija,
Jasminka Doma{, Milica Mihajlovi}, Dijamanta Kova~evi}, @eni
Lebl, Eli Tauber, Slavko and Ivo Goldstein, the anthologies Mi smo
pre`iveli (We Survived), ... books we do not have.
"You need more dances and songs. That's what sustains life..." says
Yitzhak, and I once again smile to myself. He is right but our
situation and our communities...
I recall his work on the concert Romancero Sephardi way back in
1968 and the drama Bustan Sephardi, which has been performed
hundreds of times up to the present.
We enter an elegant restaurant. They show us a reserved private
dining room. Yitzhak says: "This is so separate that I would not
feel comfortable..." It is decided that we shall change our place
and we sit with the other guests. A young waiter approaches,
welcomes us in what sounded to me like perfect Hebrew and
offers us menus and the wine list. Yitzhak asks him where he is
from, because with his excellent ear he recognizes a nuance in his
Hebrew accent.
Dessert arrives. We share and each try a little of everything.
"From here," answers the confused young man.
We continue the conversation and I am constantly amazed anew
at his charm, knowledge, wisdom and the ease with which he
presents each topic.
"And your parents?"
"From Uruguay..."
At the mention of the country where Yitzhak had served just after
the War of Independence, he began to sing. The young man
watched him, surprised and happy. He recognized the national
anthem of Uruguay.
This scene reminded me that Yitzhak sang the song Tamo daleko
perfectly before an overflowing salon at the opening of the festival Esperanza, and the ovation he received from the public.
He always surprises me anew with his knowledge and charm.
We choose our food and drink. Then we exchange presents. Davor
and I received a DVD of a television series, Out of Spain, with the
subtitle Jerusalem that was in Spain. This series tells the history
of the Jews in Spain, their glory and suffering, and was prepared
on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Inquisition.
Yitzhak had played the main role in its inception. We are delighted
and can hardly wait to view it. This present reminded me of the
fact that Yitzhak had signed the first contract regarding cultural
18
cooperation between Israel and Spain, after so many centuries.
We continue about books. I see this dear, erudite man across the
table from me and cannot resist mentioning a book that recreates
the process of the creation of Israel in an exceptional way, My
Israel by Golda Meir. I ask him whether, considering today's Israel,
Golda would have changed her opinions and acts. Yitzhak smiled
and said: "Golda never changed her opinions, and would not do
so today..."
I'll have to find and read his book on legends and stories
connected with the spirit of Jerusalem, as well as an anthology of
articles by Ben-Gurion.
I recall his numerous activities that he continued at the Ministry of
Education after serving as president. He initiated a "cultural
package," which guarantees artistic and cultural experiences to
each schoolchild, underscored the significance of scientifictechnological education, democratic values and co-existence with
all ethnic communities and religions, and initiated a secondary
school trip to Poland and study of the Holocaust.
More than three hours passed like an instant. The time to part had
come.
Yitzhak paid the bill and left the young "Uruguayan" a generous
tip.
We leave the restaurant. The sun is slowly descending toward the
horizon.
ISRAEL
Miri and Yitzhak again provoke excitement among passersby. They
greet, stop, and wave at their PRESIDENT. Yitzhak returns their
greetings in an easy and unforced manner. This is a trait of the
best.
Again I smile to myself and think how lucky I am to have received
this gift, the time we spent together.
RUACH HADASHA
Greetings, hugs, kisses and the desire to see each other as soon as
possible.
I watch the blue Toyota sadly as it drives away, knowing that
several months will pass until our next meeting but our hearts will
always be full when we think of each other.
Belgrade, February 10, 2008 We reach the car and soon arrive at our hotel.
PEOPLE
Ruben and Reuven
Ljubica Buba Albahari
When long, long ago Reuven and Tirca returned after learning
Week of Israeli Cuisine, which was held at the Antunovi} Hotel.
cooking skills in Switzerland, they decided to visit their uncle,
Mordo Albahari.
Reunion with relatives did not occur without emotion. When they
calmed down a little, it was time for cooking. However, now our
Ruben is an "expert" in the kitchen. Who has not tried Ruben's
pastelle does not know what a good pastelle is, not to mention his
vegetable lasagna.
Relating their extensive experiences, they opened a box
containing a neatly arranged set of special knives, from which
young Ruben could not take his widely spaced black eyes.
His admiration was boundless after Reuven pulled one of them
out and with several strokes fashioned a rose from an ordinary
radish. Reuven continued to transform ordinary vegetables and
fruits into miraculous objects with which he decorated the
delicacies he prepared in the house of his cousin.
Time passed. Reuven and Tirca embarked upon their journeys in
life, and Ruben on his.
We know Ruben's journey, and here is the less well-known journey
of Reuven Harel. After completing culinary school in Netanya, he
continued his schooling in Switzerland and then returned to Israel,
where for several years he was the head chef at the HaHofHaYarok
Hotel in Natanya and the owner of a successful catering company.
Starting in 1990, he was a senior lecturer at a cooking school in
Natanya. At this school, he trained cooks for the leading Israeli
hotels. For several years, he has been the co-owner of a chain of
restaurants known as Safari. He is also the president of the Israeli
Chefs' Association and a member of the World Chefs' Association. At
international competitions, he is the leader of the Israeli chefs' team
and a state judge at cooking examinations.
He has passed on his love and knowledge to his son Eran, who
works at the Hilton Hotel in Jerusalem. Thirty or so years later, in
November 2007, under the auspices of the Embassy of Israel in
Croatia and the Podravka Company, Reuven found himself in
Zagreb. This time he had been invited within the framework of the
The conversation took place in Hebrew-English and lively
gesticulation. How and in what language can we explain why a
filet mignon is the best if the calf has stopped nursing in a
particular month, if Ruben does not know how to say udder in
Hebrew and Reuven does not know how to say it in English. That
is why we have hands and fingers.
Reuven sampled many Croatian specialties. Ruben was an
excellent host. We took Reuven to Plitvice Lakes. This is a place
which Israelis visit with great respect and admiration, as water
signifies genuine wealth for them.
Like a true Israeli, Reuven looked at the lakes and waterfalls with
amazement. Taking some water from a lake with his hand and
drinking it, he said: "Your best specialty is water, precisely this
from Plitvice."
In conclusion, what kind of a story about a cook would this be
without giving us at least one recipe!
Malabi
Ingredients: 1 l milk, 200 grams sugar, 85 grams cornstarch and
half a cup of rosewater.
Instructions: Cook the milk with the sugar, add the cornstarch and
mix with a little cold water. Add the rosewater and stir. Pour into
a glass. L'Chaim! 19
RUACH HADASHA
CULTURE
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
and Judaism
Eduard Klain
In order for us to understand Freud's attitude toward Judaism, religion in general
and anti-Semitism, we must first examine his life and work.
by Goethe ... that pushed me into the study of natural science
when I was irresolute as I faced graduation."
From Neurophysiology via Hypnosis to Psychoanalysis
Freud began his career as a scientist at the University of Vienna in the
laboratory of the neurophysiologist Ernst Brücke. Although he made
several significant discoveries, he could not remain there permanently
because he wanted to establish a family. Scientific work, then as now,
was poorly paid. Therefore, Freud devoted himself to clinical medicine and private practice. He treated "nervous" patients with physical
therapy and began employing hypnosis, which he had
studied in Paris under the celebrated Jean-Martin Charcot. Always
critical, he observed that hypnosis frequently does not succeed and
became increasingly aware of the significance of the unconscious
during hypnotic trances. Psychoanalysis was actually discovered by a
patient. Since Freud had noted that hypnosis does not yield results
for all patients, he attempted to force them to remember events from
life, particularly childhood, by pressing his fingers on their foreheads.
On one occasion, when Freud asked a patient something while she
was speaking, she turned around and said to him: "Doctor, do not
interrupt me." Thus was born the psychoanalytic method of free
associations, where the patient freely expresses everything that occurs
to him. Since Sigmund Freud was a scientist by profession, everything
he did had to have a scientific foundation. This is especially significant
regarding his attitude toward religion in general and Judaism
specifically.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia
(now the Czech Republic), from which his family emigrated to
Cologne due to anti-Semitism. For the same reason and due to the
bankruptcy of his father (a textile merchant), they moved to
Leipzig and after a year to Vienna, where Sigmund Freud spent
most of his life. Today, Freud's birthplace in Freiberg is located on
a street that was named for him. Unfortunately, there is no Freud
Street in Vienna. In secondary school, he was the best student and
graduated summa cum laude. It was difficult for him to decide
what to study. He was interested in the Bible, wanted to study law,
and was also enthusiastic about Darwin and his theory.
Nonetheless, Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams that his
choice of medicine was owing to "an incomparably beautiful essay
20
The basic hypotheses of psychoanalysis can be summarized as the
study of unconscious, infantile sexuality. From the very beginning,
psychoanalysis was attacked and disparaged. This had a great
impact upon the highly sensitive Freud, who endured everything
with courage and stoicism. Aware that he was one of those who
shook the conscience of mankind, he was prepared to bear the
consequences of his discoveries. His contemporaries described
him as a serious and no longer cheerful person. This is easily
understandable because besides great problems regarding the
acceptance of psychoanalysis, he suffered from oral cancer from
1923 until his death, which caused him severe pain and eventually
impaired his speech.
Today, psychoanalysis is accepted in the civilized world and the
International Psychoanalytical Association has approximately
11,000 members. We in Croatia have a small group of
psychoanalysts (7 members of the International Association and
10 candidates).
Psychoanalysis is a long and demanding process for the therapist
and the patient. It uses the free association technique, i.e. analyzes
CULTURE
RUACH HADASHA
Freud's couch used during psychoanalytic sessions
everything that the patient says regarding his memories,
experiences, dreams, slips of the tongue etc. During analysis,
highly significant feelings known as transference develop in the
patient's relationship toward the analyst, to which the analyst
responds with countertransference toward the patient. The
analyst uses interpretations, primarily of transference, as well as
confrontations and clarifications. All of this takes place in a
process in which transference occurs, particularly in the relation
of the patient toward the analyst, the resolution of which leads to
improvements in the behavior and personality of the patient.
Freud and Religion
It is known that Freud was not religious. He considered religion
to be like every other humanistic discipline, no more and no less.
Speaking about gods, he noted that gods and faith have the task
and illusion of fulfilling desires. He compared this to dreams,
which in their latent part also have an important role in the
fulfillment of desires. Freud says: "The gods retain the threefold
task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile
men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and
they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations
which a civilized life in common has imposed on them." He
further states that religion relieves feelings of helplessness when
confronting natural forces such as typhoons, earthquakes and
diseases. Immortality is a reward for suffering. Religion also helps
people in their helplessness before instinctive desires and
aspirations. Freud asserts that religion is similar to obsessive
rituals, neurosis is the personal religion of each person and
religion is a universally obsessive or forced neurosis. It affects the
21
RUACH HADASHA
CULTURE
person in the suppression and relinquishment of sexual and
destructive influences. However, continues Freud, religion is an
illusion that is not necessarily worthless. However, its sources, i.e.
uncritical human desires, are in error.
Freud and Judaism
Freud's father had been raised in the Orthodox Jewish tradition,
which his family had observed until they came to Vienna. It is not
known why his father suspended his observance of Jewish
tradition upon arriving in Vienna. The first of Freud's two names,
Shlomo Sigismund, has a religious character, while the second is
secular. When he was seven years old, his father gave him a Bible
with an inscription written in Hebrew, urging him to study the
ancient texts. However, Freud did not do so. The family of his
wife, Martha Bernays, was very religious. Her grandfather had
been the chief rabbi of Hamburg. There were problems regarding
their wedding. Martha's family insisted upon a religious ceremony
and Freud was of the opinion that a civil ceremony was sufficient.
However, Martha was able to convince him that a civil wedding
would not be recognized in Austria. Therefore, they had both
religious and civil ceremonies. Freud was acquainted with the
Bible and Jewish traditions but he was of the opinion that the
Bible was written by man and not G-d. According to him, it
represented the external manifestation of the inner trauma of the
Jewish people. Speaking about the Jewish G-d, Freud said that this
G-d was the most severe, whose image could not be depicted and
whose name could not be mentioned. The Jewish G-d forbids all
sexuality except relations within marriage, as well as aggressive
satisfaction. Freud compares him to a strict super ego that only
permits sublimation into the intellectual. In the year 1937, Freud
wrote a significant work entitled Moses and Monotheism, in which
he asserts that the Jews are guilty of the murder of the father, i.e.
Moses, and his transformation into a divinity.
In 1922, the biblical scholar Ernst Sellin had found statements in
prophetic books that Moses was killed during a rebellion of
stubborn Jews and his religion was rejected. He considered this to
be significant in the yearning for the Messiah. Freud stated that the
killing of Moses, i.e. the father, was the original sin and the
beginning of Christianity. Therefore, Jews continue to wait for the
Messiah today. Christians, however, replaced the father with the
son, who eliminated the father and saved Christians, redeeming
them from their sins without guilt. Freud emphasizes: "It would be
worthwhile to understand how it was that the monotheist idea
made such a deep impression precisely on the Jewish people and
that they were able to maintain it so tenaciously. It is possible, I
think, to find an answer. Fate had brought the great deed and
misdeed of primeval days, the killing of the father, closer to the
Jewish people by causing them to repeat it on the person of
Moses, an outstanding father-figure. It was a case of 'acting out'
instead of remembering, as happens so often with neurotics
during the work of analysis." (Acting out is a process when we
actively do something verbally or physically aggressive instead of
thinking about it and analyzing it.) Freud spoke about one more
highly significant phenomenon in the Jewish religion, which is
that there is no life after death. He says: "The early Jewish religion,
22
on the other hand, had entirely relinquished immortality; the
possibility of an existence after death was never mentioned in any
place."
In Moses and Monotheism, Freud expresses an idea that shook the
Jewish world and earned him many enemies. He points out that
he is already old, facing death, and could therefore speak about
what he had not dared earlier, i.e. his thesis that Moses was an
Egyptian. We may summarize this thesis as follows:
1. In 1358 B.C.E., the first monotheistic religion was
proclaimed in Egypt. It was represented by Pharaoh Aknaton,
who called his god Aton (Atum). Upon the death of Aknaton,
this religion was banned and its followers were imprisoned.
Moses was one of the followers of this religion during the
reign of Aknaton.
2. Moses introduced the practice of circumcision, which at the
time was only practiced in Egypt, among the Jews he led out
of Egypt together with other tribes.
3. Freud points out that sources state that Moses spoke
slowly, which could indicate that he did not know the
language of the tribes well. Freud further states that Moses
seems to have been a prince, priest or military leader. He was
stubborn and temperamental, with the need to lead the tribes
from Egypt.
I think that Freud expressed his attitude toward Judaism most
completely in his letter to a meeting of B'nai B'rith, held in his
honor on the occasion of his 70th birthday, May 6, 1926. Freud
wrote this letter because he was no longer able to speak clearly
and, therefore, could not personally address the gathering. Prior
to the reading of Freud's letter, his physician, Prof. Ludvig Braun,
spoke about him. Among other things, Freud wrote the following:
"In my loneliness, I was seized with a longing to find a circle of
picked men of high character who would receive me in a friendly
spirit in spite of my temerity. Your society was pointed out to me
as the place where such men were to be found. That you were
Jews could only be agreeable to me, for I was myself a Jew, and it
had always seemed to me not only unworthy but positively
senseless to deny the fact. What bound me to Jewry was (I am
ashamed to admit) neither faith nor national pride, for I have
always been an unbeliever and was brought up without any
religion, though not without a respect for what are called the
'ethical' standards of human civilization. ... And beyond this there
was a perception that it was to my Jewish nature alone that I owed
two characteristics that had become indispensable to me in the
difficult course of my life. Because I was a Jew, I found myself free
from many prejudices which restricted others in the use of their
intellect; and as a Jew I was prepared to join the opposition and
to do without agreement with the 'compact majority.'"
In this context, I should also add Freud's letter of 1925 on the
occasion of the opening of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Freud writes: "Historians have told us that our small nation
withstood the destruction of its independence as a State only
because it began to transfer in its estimation of values the highest
rank to its spiritual possessions, to its religion and its literature. ...
A university is a place in which knowledge is taught above all
CULTURE
RUACH HADASHA
Berggasse 19 Vienna Freud’s office
differences of religions and of nations, where investigation is
carried on, which is to show mankind how far they understand the
world around them and how far they can control it. Such an
undertaking is a noble witness to the development to which our
people has forced its way in two thousand years of unhappy
fortune."
Freud did not believe in the survival of the Jewish state in
Palestine. This assertion is supported by his letter to Dr. Chaim
Koffler of 1930, who had sought Freud's support after the
Palestinian massacres of Jewish settlers in 1929. Freud answered
him as follows: "I cannot do what you ask. My unwillingness to
involve the public with my name is insurmountable and not even
this present critical occasion seems to warrant it. Whoever wishes
to influence the crowd must express something that resonates and
creates enthusiasm but my sober estimation of Zionism does not
allow me to do so. I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for
their endeavors; I am proud of our university in Jerusalem and am
pleased that our settlements are flourishing. But, on the other
hand, I do not believe that Palestine can ever become a Jewish
State or that both the Christian and Islamic world will ever be
prepared to entrust their holy places to Jewish care ..." Freud was
obviously mistaken here.
Freud and Anti-Semitism
Freud was aware of anti-Semitism early in life. In The
Interpretation of Dreams, he related a story told to him by his
father about when he was a young man. He was wearing a new fur
hat when a Christian came up and knocked it into the mud. His
father picked up his hat and placed it on his head. Freud said that
this was a great disappointment for him, because he could not
believe that his father would behave with such cowardice. His own
experience with anti-Semitism first occurred during his
studies. He was greatly surprised to be considered less worthy in
the eyes of his colleagues because he was a Jew. Unfortunately,
during his life he encountered anti-Semitism frequently. For
example, it was owing to anti-Semitism that he did not receive a
professorship, which he greatly desired, until he was almost fifty,
because this appointment required the approval of the Austrian
emperor. Anti-Semitism may also be considered to be among the
reasons why Freud, despite his considerable achievements, never
received the Nobel Prize.
Freud believed that there were numerous reasons for
anti-Semitism, some conscious and many unconscious. "Jews are
hated because they killed God and did not admit it and repent."
23
RUACH HADASHA
CULTURE
Naturally, this castration anxiety is unconscious. It is interesting
that they are the most hated by those who became Christians the
latest, i.e. those who were forced to convert to Christianity and
became Christians in this manner. Freud explains this by the
projection of their hatred toward the persons who forced them to
convert to Christianity upon the Jews. He mentions that the Nazis
hated both Jews and Catholics. He also states that Jews frequently
demonstrate a sense of superiority, narcissism and self-confidence.
Psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism – Freud asks himself whether the
fact that he is a Jew provoked antipathy toward psychoanalysis or
whether anti-Semitism is one of the elements of the animosity
toward psychoanalysis. He further asks whether it was by chance
that a Jew discovered psychoanalysis and concludes that Jews have
"a certain degree of readiness to accept a position of solitary
opposition," as Freud wrote to a colleague. In another letter,
Freud remarked: "In my opinion, we as Jews, if we want to
cooperate with other people must develop a little masochism and
be prepared to endure a certain amount of injustice. There is no
other way. You may be sure that if I were called Oberhuber my
new ideas would, despite all the other factors, have met with far
less resistance."
It should be emphasized here that all the first psychoanalysts were
Jews. Therefore, Freud was very pleased about Jung and Bleuler,
who were non-Jews. Unfortunately, they eventually abandoned
both him and psychoanalysis.
Freud, like many Jews, was naive about Nazism. Although his
books had been burned in Berlin in 1933, in 1938 he still did not
believe that the Nazis would do anything to him. It is also interesting
to mention how Freud experienced the roots of anti-Semitism. He
writes: "The castration complex is the most profound unconscious
root of anti-Semitism. Even in nurseries little boys hear that Jews
remove something from the penis, a piece of the penis, and this
gives them the right to scorn them."
Sigmund Freud memorial in Hampstead, North London
We know that the Catholic Church only recently repudiated the
"Christ-killer" libel. Freud continues to state that Jews were always
and everywhere in the minority but a highly significant and
successful minority. They did not differ much from the people in
their surroundings but it was precisely for this reason that they
provoked their hatred and scorn. Thus, Freud proposed the
theory of the narcissism of small differences. Unfortunately, we
have had the opportunity to confirm this theory during the recent
wars in the former Yugoslavia, when hatred prevailed among the
Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. Freud continues that Jews are proud
and resist oppression. They are capable and have marked ability,
which is manifested in commerce and provides an important
contribution to every type of culture. They are called the firstborn
and dearest children of God, which stirs the hatred and jealousy
of other nations. They are subjected to circumcision, which arouses
archaic castration anxiety among the people around them.
24
It is known that Freud did not want to leave Vienna, although the
Nazi threat was very real. Everyone urged and beseeched him but
he was stubborn until the day when the Gestapo took his favorite
daughter, Anna, into custody. When she returned home, he finally
agreed to travel to England. His friends paid a large sum of money
for Freud and his family to be able to leave. We must admit that
Mussolini played a certain role here, interceding on Freud's behalf
with Hitler. Thus, Freud and his family arrived in London in 1938.
Although very old, tired and ill, he was always enthusiastic when
he read something against anti-Semitism. Thus, he felt "deeply
affected" by an article written by a non-Jew, who had written that
there were Church protests against anti-Semitism, but they had
been feeble and too late, as well as intellectual protests in the
name of humanism. There had been no protests in the name of
the truth about the Jews, who were different but who had made a
great contribution to humanity, concludes the article. The same
year, Freud wrote an article on anti-Semitism for an English
newspaper. He died at his home in London on September 23,
1939. CULTURE
RUACH HADASHA
Jews in Rijeka
Summary
Rina Brumini
Rijeka
INTRODUCTION
No extant documents definitively confirm the presence of Jews in
Rijeka prior to the 18th century. However, there were written
references to Jews in a variety of contexts.
The 19th century historian Giovanni Kobler mentioned a Jewish
settlement in the small port of Bakar near Rijeka, first referred to
by a local clergyman, Bartolomeo Vincenzo Barchich, who wrote a
chronicle of the city of Bakar in 1740. In a chapter on local
traditions, Barchich asserts that Jews were living there in the year
74 C.E.
On August 6, 1441, a notary of Rijeka, Antonio de Renna, in the
first of many such entries, recorded that Abramo, figlio di
Angelello, and Bonaventura, figlio di Simone ambo judei et
habitatores Pesauri borrowed 30 gold ducts from Piermarino da
Fermo in Rijeka and pledged to return this sum on their way back
to Fermo. Other bonds of this nature were signed between Italian
Jews and citizens. Such information indicates that Jews were
present in the area but still does not provide solid evidence of a
Jewish settlement within the city walls.
In the heart of the city, there is a place called Zudecca or Zuecha,
mentioned on at least four different occasions in the city
chronicles between 1534 and 1710. This toponym is similar to that
of the Venetian quarter, Giudecca, where Jews resided and the
Italian dialect used in Rijeka is closely related to the Venetian
dialect. To date, no one has been able to determine whether the
25
RUACH HADASHA
CULTURE
Zudecca in Rijeka was a single house, a complex of houses with a
yard or a whole neighborhood. In 1534, the register of Rijeka,
Ravizza, mentions the Zudecca first as a piazza and then as a
building (magazinum sive Zudaicam, unum, mirishe prope
Judaicam). Later, in the 16th century, shops leased by the
municipality within Zudecca are mentioned. The municipal
authority built new zudecche for tanners in 1594, for which it
ordered cleaning in 1696, had the roof repaired in 1700, had the
water purified in 1700, and had the channel leading there
repaired in 1710. According to descriptions in the year 1696 and
later, the Zudecca was located in the area where the Jesuit
monastery was built in the first half of the 17th century. We can
assume that Rijeka had its own ghetto, as did other cities on the
Croatian coast, and that the name was retained to designate a
group of old buildings at the former site of the Zudecca. It is
plausible to assume that the Zudecca was abandoned and
neglected. Again, we have a location but no personae. We actually
do not encounter the first Jews until June 1779.
HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES: 17th – 18th CENTURIES
It is common knowledge that Jewish migration and life in our
territories was subjected to a thick web of limitations, inhibitions
and prohibitions, together with permits sporadically issued by the
Habsburg emperor, the Hungarian Diets, regional and local laws.
Rijeka was in a fortunate position because the Habsburgs had no
maritime centers. Desirous of such centers, Charles VI first invited
investors in Rijeka and Trieste to move their businesses there
(1717) and then proclaimed the two cities as free ports (porti
franchi). The city bylaws guaranteed imperial protection to
whomever contributed to the economic well-being of the new seaport, regardless of religion. The situation improved with the reign
of Charles VI's daughter, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.
Although she banned Jews from the inherited Habsburg territories
as a measure of protectionism to safeguard the national market,
she permitted Jewish immigration in certain parts of the acquired
Habsburg territories. At times, she even readmitted banned Jews
to their countries of origin. Subject to the Hungarian crown,
Rijeka successfully claimed its autonomy and in 1779 became a
Corpus separatum within the monarchy, subject to Budapest but
answering directly to Vienna. The greatest breakthrough for
European Jewry came with the reign of Maria Theresa's son,
Joseph II, a proponent of enlightened absolutism. By the time
Joseph II died in 1790, the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) was
about to change European Judaism forever. This was the time of
the first extant reference to Jewish families living in the city of
Rijeka.
THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT
The first Jewish families to settle in Rijeka in the 1770s were
shepherds from the Dalmatian city of Split. The main reason for
their emigration from Split could be traced in the harsh
economic conditions throughout Dalmatia under Venetian rule.
Venice, once a great empire, was rapidly losing its supremacy and
prosperity. The Republic believed that the ongoing crisis could be
successfully remedied by expelling Jewish merchants and bankers
26
from the financial life of the Serenissima. Pope Paul VI issued an
edict that underscored this position. Jews were banned from any
town lacking a ghetto, could not hire Christian employees or
engage in any type of gainful employment. Split established a
ghetto at the end of October 1778. Wealthy Jews departed, while
hunger prevailed among the poor.
In June 1779, two shepherds from Split, Isac Michele Penso and
Prospero Jona, applied to the municipality of Rijeka for a
settlement permit, which was granted. In July of that year, Isac
Piazza and Isac Raffaello Panso, also from Split, submitted a
similar request to the municipality. Their example was followed by
Abramo Penso and three brothers, Giuseppe, Leone and Sabato
Ventura, all merchants from Split.
At the end of September, Isac Michael Penso along with the
brothers Giuseppe and Leone Ventura submitted a written
application to the Rijeka municipality, as official delegates of their
little colony, for formal authorization to erect a house of prayer
and a Jewish cemetery outside the city walls. In this request, they
stated that, according to the Jewish law, a synagogue should be
established in any place where at least ten adult men convened in
prayer (minyan). They also stressed that with municipal
guarantees of permits, benefits, (imperial) protection, porto
franco and protection from violent outbursts by other citizens, many
other Jewish merchants from Split and other Italian cities would
migrate to Rijeka, undoubtedly contributing to the city's prosperity.
THE FIRST SYNAGOGUE
Authorization was issued. The house of prayer was initially
situated in the private home of the Penso family. However, violent
dissent soon broke out among the members and the Ventura
family retreated to their own home. The first president of the
community, Isacco Levi, established a compromise: communal
prayer would no longer be held in the private homes of members
but in premises specifically leased for this purpose, under the
direction of members elected by the community.
In the 1820s, four decades after the Jewish community was
established in Rijeka, there were 64 Jews. They had their own
house of prayer but, unfortunately, its location is unknown. What
we do know is that an Italian merchant, Moses Saul Halevi,
donated his family mansion in the city center to the community in
1837. This apparently had a major impact, as evident from the
renaming of the street as Calle del Tempio. Worship was organized
according to Sephardic rituals. There is no extant documentation
regarding the building and the community it served because the
archives were destroyed during a fire on the ground floor where
its president, Nathan Cohen, had been living. We know, however,
that the first Torah was donated by a merchant from Dubrovnik,
Yizchak Pardo, who moved to Rijeka in 1789. The official language
was Italian but services were also conducted in Hungarian on
major holidays.
THE CEMETERY
Prior to 1733, there were no cemeteries in Rijeka outside the city
walls but only in and around churches. The municipality acquired
CULTURE
RUACH HADASHA
Rijeka's only Synagogue
a vineyard, which it converted into a graveyard that was ready for
use by 1773. On more than one occasion, the Ventura brothers
and I. M. Penso unsuccessfully attempted to buy land for a Jewish
cemetery, until they finally managed to purchase a vineyard in the
Belvedere district, which was used as cemetery until a decree was
adopted that prohibited burial within the city walls (1839). After
considerable negotiation, the community was permitted to bury
its dead within the 6,033 square meters of land designated by the
municipality for the Jewish cemetery and mortuary, which was
purchased by the charitable brotherhood Chevra Kadisha. The
former cemetery was no longer in use but remained intact until
1940. Its tombstones, with clearly legible inscriptions, were
incorporated into the southern wall of the new lot. The "new"
cemetery was expropriated in January 1976. Nonetheless, by the
following year the community managed to reach an agreement
with the municipality, according to which the city would grant a
thirty-year renewable lease. In 1993, the Jewish cemetery was
designated as a protected landmark of the cultural heritage.
THE TEMPIO GRANDE AND THE ORTHODOX COMMUNITY
The number of Jewish families in Rijeka increased. The synagogue
on Calle del Tempio became too crowded. Therefore, the head of
the community, together with patrons of the Chevra Kadisha
brotherhood, started to raise funds to build a larger temple. The
building was designed by the famous Budapest architect Lipot
Baumhorn in 1901. After a couple of years of wrangling with the
city and the neighbors, the lot was acquired and construction
began. The new synagogue, with 2,500 registered members, was
inaugurated on Rosh Hashanah in 1903. In 1944, the Tempio
grande was demolished and burned to the ground by the
Germans. As they prepared to destroy one of Rijeka's highest
achievements in architecture as well as civil life, the Germans had
to surround the synagogue with barricades in order to obstruct
the intervention of fire brigades.
By the 1930s, the number of eastern immigrants in Rijeka had
become substantial. These Jewish families were generally very
poor and extremely pious, unable to adjust their lifestyle to the
level of assimilation which the resident community enjoyed.
Therefore, they grew apart and funded their own community,
synagogue and mikveh. In 1911, the new community was
recognized by the municipality as an institution per se (Unione
degli Israeliti Fiumani), and bought a lot for the construction of
a synagogue and ritual bath in 1928. The Italian Unione delle
Comunità Israelitiche (Rijeka was under Italian jurisdiction at the
time) was baffled: all Italian Jewish communities, including Rijeka,
were Reformed. Nonetheless, the Orthodox were treated as a
welcomed exception. In 1932, after Italy implemented the law on
professed confessions (Legge sui culti ammessi), the Orthodox
community, regarded as "eccentric," moved with all of its assets
into the Reformed community, which permitted the Orthodox
Jews to have their own section.
The small Orthodox synagogue survived the war intact. Today, it is
one of the best preserved examples of modern architecture in
Rijeka. It is also one of the three synagogues in Croatia that
maintained their original purpose after the war ended.
Nationalized in 1956, the former Orthodox synagogue became a
protected landmark of the cultural heritage in 1996 and was
completely renovated in 2006. 27