Am I the only one who saw this on Facebook?
I am still reeling from the blow of seeing this seemingly banal graffiti, ridiculously insignificant-looking string of words, which were found recently on a wall in the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. Wellington – or “Windy Wellington” as the locals like to call it in a very jocular, familiar sort of way – is around 11 768 kms (7 310 miles) away from Jerusalem. The number of local Jews for this local Jew-hater to hate numbers some 1 500 people. (The total population of greater metropolitan Wellington is around 430 000 people, making our people about 0.3% of the population.)
I ask myself a question as I sit here in Porto, in Portugal, after a very moving morning yesterday – more about that in a moment – why does this disturb me more than those signs that we see regularly saying things like “Destroy Israel,” or “Death to the Jews,” or “Israel is an Apartheid State,”or “Stop the Palestinian Genocide,”or “From the River to the Sea”? Think about this question for a moment as I share a few vignettes from yesterday.
Yesterday I took my tour group to two Jewish sites in Porto. Modern sites of course, as the ancient community was destroyed by 1496 with the Inquisition, Expulsion and Forced Conversions. We visited the lovely little Jewish Museum before crossing the street to visit the Kadoorie Synagogue. (I recommend both to you.) Very moving in the main room of the museum were excerpts from movies which told both ancient and more recent stories of the Jews of Portugal. Especially moving was “The Nun’s Kaddish”.
Outside was a memorial with names of Jews whose lives were destroyed by the Inquisition. I suggested to the group that they read the poem by Zelda, “Each Person has a Name”. We entered a room on Modern Anti-Semitism and were overwhelmed by the life-size figures, the types you see in shop windows, dressed in the garb of modern anti-Semites. The incredibly life-like replica of a Hamas terrorist was particularly alarming, especially with the awful visual memories after October 7th.
A surprise awaited us in the Synagogue. I told the story of the synagogue and reflected on how each of us has baggage when entering synagogues, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a young man who seemed to be working in the synagogue. What an opportunity I thought, and I signaled to him to come over and join us. “May I ask you a very personal question?” I asked. “Who are you?” I was sure that we were about to hear the story of a Converso Jew, or perhaps an Argentinian Jew who was claiming Portuguese citizenship under the Sephardi Jew of Portuguese origin law.
“I am an Austrian Catholic, doing my national service. All Austrians have to serve either in the Austrian military or, sometimes exceptions are made which enable us to serve in other ways. I was born five minutes from the Concentration Camp Mauthausen, and I wanted to serve in a Jewish Community abroad so I could in some way make amends for what the Jewish People suffered through in my country.”
We were stunned. Totally stunned and moved to tears by this young man.
Perhaps, just perhaps, I thought, he could help us in Wellington, New Zealand.
After all, he was born in the shadow of what happened not so long ago in a part of the world at least as civilized as Wellington, New Zealand. And see what happened there even before it was cool to hate us, the Jews?
Wake up, world! Wake up. Hatred of the other is becoming the name of the game. It is becoming cool.
Or, has become cool. ●
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