Holocaust & Jewish-Israeli Identity
February 15, 2006
Dr. Daniel Rossing is on the faculty of the Middle East Centre of the Friends World Program of Long Island University, formerly the director of the Department for Christian Communities in the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Dr. Rossing describes Jerusalem is a city "between." It is a city suspended "between heaven and earth" and contains all the complexity and confusion that that designation entails. Many people find that they are close to heaven and close to God when in Jerusalem. Some pilgrims have experienced the Jerusalem "Syndrom," a phenomenon whereby a visitor / pilgrim comes to believe i.e. that (s)he is the new messiah and stabs two nuns so they way can be cleared for the arrival of the new messiah. Some people would say Jerusalem is also the closest place to "hell." Indeed, the Mount of Olives is not a geographically high mountain, yet with all its religious and spiritual significance for Jews, Christians and Muslims it soars heavenward in religious and spiritual language. Just around the bend in the Kidron Valley is the valley of Gehenna where the ancient refuse heaps burned incessantly, which has been used for 3,500 years of biblical writing as an image of "hell."
The understandings people have indicates that Jerusalem is a city of peoples who live somewhere between minorities and majorities. There is massive confusion about who is powerful and who is powerless, who is the majority and minority. In every other country around the world one finds a clearly identified dominant majority i.e. In the USA and in Canada, Christians are majority. In Turkey Egypt and Syria - Muslims are majority.
Demographics indicate that in Israel you find that 80% of the population is Jewish, 14% is Muslim, 2% is Christian, 2+% Druze, with the remainder a mix of several backgrounds. So why is there confusion about who is majority? Is it not obvious that the Jewish people are a majority? No. Because of historical memory! In the thinking of peoples who live here, the Christian Crusades were just held yesterday, and not in the 11th and 12th centuries. What we recognize is that perception is far more informative about how people think and view themselves than is the reality of raw data. Jews view themselves as a minority.
There is a spacial factor which contributes to the perception by Jews that they are a minority. One cannot live in Jerusalem as though one were on an isolated island. The whole world seems to be watching and therefore the world revolves around Israel which is good for publicity. In the global experience and reinforced by the media daily is the reminder that Jews are a tiny world minority. Jews know how to be a minority very well and they have no idea how to be and behave like a majority. Much Israeli energy goes into talking to the world or making a showing for the world while no energy goes into talking to each other and discovering the realities in their own country.
Muslims on the other hand have come from regions where they are the majority and they act and talk as though they are a majority in Israel today. They do not know how to be a minority in a Jewish state. Their rhetoric is reflective of this. Jews see the Muslims as running roughshod over them. Christians, while a tiny segment of Israeli life are viewed as the tip of the iceberg of an organization (church) that is over 1 billion strong and to be considered with great suspicion, given a history of condemnation, proselytizing and missionary activity.
The truth is.... everyone is BOTH a minority AND a majority in terms of perception. Dr. Rossing suggests that until people recognize this to be true, there will be no living together in peace and security. One will conclude, "I am oppressed and I see no future of change therefore I have the right to blow myself up and other with me." The other will conclude, "I and my peoples have been persecuted around the world and now I have the right to decide everything and do whatever I want."
Nationalistic revolutions (such as the French Revolution) encouraged freedom and liberty for all. Jews were encouraged to escape their ghettos in Europe and live in diverse communities and for the first time the Jews had to ask themselves "Who I am? What is a Jew? How will I fit in?"
Some Jews found the answer to those questions in assimilation. They tried to blend in with the society around. Many converted to Christianity, changed their language from Yiddish to German and immersed themselves in the German arts. They dressed like others. They built house and synagogues with architecture that blended in with the surroundings. Assimilation results in ones neighbour dictating "Who I am."
There was a strong reaction by other Jews who stressed uniqueness. "We must more unique.... that is who we are called to be." Some separated themselves from assimilated Jews. Some retreated even deeper into the ghetto to keep from being assimilated. (Even today secular Jewish groups are much more despised by orthodox Jews than are Christians.)
Still other Jews determined that the only way forward and to keep from being assimilated was to become normal. Do what everyone else around is doing and get busy building and being a state. "We Jews must be like the rest of the world and build our own state and be our own people."
In the early Israeli state in Palestine there developed the image of the proud, strong, muscular, Jew who represented everything the diaspora Jews, Jews scattered around the world (who many thought acted like sheep led to the slaughter) were not. In post WW2 many Jews did not know what to do with nor how to react to the holocaust. It was not taught in schools. Many Jews who had not experienced the holocaust said to fellow Jews "deal with it and get over it and move on." These early Zionist Jews were busy developing their own stories of being invincible and credible to the world and credible to themselves. In 1938 American newspapers carried holocaust headlines, yet this got no attention in the Hebrew media in Israel. No sensible understanding could be made of the events.
Post holocaust Jews asked of Palestine Jews "What did you do to help the Jews in Europe?" Myths were developed to respond to such questions by holocaust survivors that were put to Jews living in Palestine. Myths of specialized and highly dedicated Jews who were parachuted into Europe to save European Jews were told. Israeli newspapers in 1967 were talking about a 2nd holocaust, mass graves were even dug in preparation. But then an Israeli victory took place, and some said maybe the fear of annihilation was military propaganda? Others said "it was God intervening" therefore "what we are doing is God’s work."
Second World War criminal trials in the 1960's brought to light information about the holocaust that had never been heard before, and the portrait of the strong, invincible Israeli broke down. The pendulum began to swing from no teaching of the holocaust to one third of all history teaching today is about the holocaust. When the eastern European walls came down, Israelis sent school children to view the death camps without preparation. They sent holocaust survivors with schools. These survivors have become the national heros.
Today Israel is in the second intifada. What Israelis understand is that despite all its past stories of survival, past and present myths of the strong, invincible new Israel, and the massive support from the world’s super power the USA, Jews are a fragile minority living in a world that despises them and would see them extinguished (remember the Christian Crusades!.... remember the intifadas!)
Today, every perception has come down to survival. Either one says, "NEVER AGAIN..... no one will hurt me or my family again!" or "NEVER AGAIN..... no one else will be hurt through such actions by me or by any other person!" These are two extreme positions taken as a result of the victim-victimizer dichotomy. Dr. Rossing suggests that in his experience Israelis must find a way to hold both of these conclusions together and find the magical miracle in the tension of these views/conclusions/positions for tomorrow.
Dr. Daniel Rossing is on the faculty of the Middle East Centre of the Friends World Program of Long Island University, formerly the director of the Department for Christian Communities in the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Dr. Rossing describes Jerusalem is a city "between." It is a city suspended "between heaven and earth" and contains all the complexity and confusion that that designation entails. Many people find that they are close to heaven and close to God when in Jerusalem. Some pilgrims have experienced the Jerusalem "Syndrom," a phenomenon whereby a visitor / pilgrim comes to believe i.e. that (s)he is the new messiah and stabs two nuns so they way can be cleared for the arrival of the new messiah. Some people would say Jerusalem is also the closest place to "hell." Indeed, the Mount of Olives is not a geographically high mountain, yet with all its religious and spiritual significance for Jews, Christians and Muslims it soars heavenward in religious and spiritual language. Just around the bend in the Kidron Valley is the valley of Gehenna where the ancient refuse heaps burned incessantly, which has been used for 3,500 years of biblical writing as an image of "hell."
The understandings people have indicates that Jerusalem is a city of peoples who live somewhere between minorities and majorities. There is massive confusion about who is powerful and who is powerless, who is the majority and minority. In every other country around the world one finds a clearly identified dominant majority i.e. In the USA and in Canada, Christians are majority. In Turkey Egypt and Syria - Muslims are majority.
Demographics indicate that in Israel you find that 80% of the population is Jewish, 14% is Muslim, 2% is Christian, 2+% Druze, with the remainder a mix of several backgrounds. So why is there confusion about who is majority? Is it not obvious that the Jewish people are a majority? No. Because of historical memory! In the thinking of peoples who live here, the Christian Crusades were just held yesterday, and not in the 11th and 12th centuries. What we recognize is that perception is far more informative about how people think and view themselves than is the reality of raw data. Jews view themselves as a minority.
There is a spacial factor which contributes to the perception by Jews that they are a minority. One cannot live in Jerusalem as though one were on an isolated island. The whole world seems to be watching and therefore the world revolves around Israel which is good for publicity. In the global experience and reinforced by the media daily is the reminder that Jews are a tiny world minority. Jews know how to be a minority very well and they have no idea how to be and behave like a majority. Much Israeli energy goes into talking to the world or making a showing for the world while no energy goes into talking to each other and discovering the realities in their own country.
Muslims on the other hand have come from regions where they are the majority and they act and talk as though they are a majority in Israel today. They do not know how to be a minority in a Jewish state. Their rhetoric is reflective of this. Jews see the Muslims as running roughshod over them. Christians, while a tiny segment of Israeli life are viewed as the tip of the iceberg of an organization (church) that is over 1 billion strong and to be considered with great suspicion, given a history of condemnation, proselytizing and missionary activity.
The truth is.... everyone is BOTH a minority AND a majority in terms of perception. Dr. Rossing suggests that until people recognize this to be true, there will be no living together in peace and security. One will conclude, "I am oppressed and I see no future of change therefore I have the right to blow myself up and other with me." The other will conclude, "I and my peoples have been persecuted around the world and now I have the right to decide everything and do whatever I want."
Nationalistic revolutions (such as the French Revolution) encouraged freedom and liberty for all. Jews were encouraged to escape their ghettos in Europe and live in diverse communities and for the first time the Jews had to ask themselves "Who I am? What is a Jew? How will I fit in?"
Some Jews found the answer to those questions in assimilation. They tried to blend in with the society around. Many converted to Christianity, changed their language from Yiddish to German and immersed themselves in the German arts. They dressed like others. They built house and synagogues with architecture that blended in with the surroundings. Assimilation results in ones neighbour dictating "Who I am."
There was a strong reaction by other Jews who stressed uniqueness. "We must more unique.... that is who we are called to be." Some separated themselves from assimilated Jews. Some retreated even deeper into the ghetto to keep from being assimilated. (Even today secular Jewish groups are much more despised by orthodox Jews than are Christians.)
Still other Jews determined that the only way forward and to keep from being assimilated was to become normal. Do what everyone else around is doing and get busy building and being a state. "We Jews must be like the rest of the world and build our own state and be our own people."
In the early Israeli state in Palestine there developed the image of the proud, strong, muscular, Jew who represented everything the diaspora Jews, Jews scattered around the world (who many thought acted like sheep led to the slaughter) were not. In post WW2 many Jews did not know what to do with nor how to react to the holocaust. It was not taught in schools. Many Jews who had not experienced the holocaust said to fellow Jews "deal with it and get over it and move on." These early Zionist Jews were busy developing their own stories of being invincible and credible to the world and credible to themselves. In 1938 American newspapers carried holocaust headlines, yet this got no attention in the Hebrew media in Israel. No sensible understanding could be made of the events.
Post holocaust Jews asked of Palestine Jews "What did you do to help the Jews in Europe?" Myths were developed to respond to such questions by holocaust survivors that were put to Jews living in Palestine. Myths of specialized and highly dedicated Jews who were parachuted into Europe to save European Jews were told. Israeli newspapers in 1967 were talking about a 2nd holocaust, mass graves were even dug in preparation. But then an Israeli victory took place, and some said maybe the fear of annihilation was military propaganda? Others said "it was God intervening" therefore "what we are doing is God’s work."
Second World War criminal trials in the 1960's brought to light information about the holocaust that had never been heard before, and the portrait of the strong, invincible Israeli broke down. The pendulum began to swing from no teaching of the holocaust to one third of all history teaching today is about the holocaust. When the eastern European walls came down, Israelis sent school children to view the death camps without preparation. They sent holocaust survivors with schools. These survivors have become the national heros.
Today Israel is in the second intifada. What Israelis understand is that despite all its past stories of survival, past and present myths of the strong, invincible new Israel, and the massive support from the world’s super power the USA, Jews are a fragile minority living in a world that despises them and would see them extinguished (remember the Christian Crusades!.... remember the intifadas!)
Today, every perception has come down to survival. Either one says, "NEVER AGAIN..... no one will hurt me or my family again!" or "NEVER AGAIN..... no one else will be hurt through such actions by me or by any other person!" These are two extreme positions taken as a result of the victim-victimizer dichotomy. Dr. Rossing suggests that in his experience Israelis must find a way to hold both of these conclusions together and find the magical miracle in the tension of these views/conclusions/positions for tomorrow.
posted by Philip | 9:48 a.m.
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