Often, friends from outside Israel ask me during these times, “What is it like in the bomb shelter?”
I want to answer this question in the only way I know how. The crucial part of the answer for me is the following sentence, “I take who I am into the shelter. My history; what has formed me; who I am; what I care about; why I believe in what I believe; why I care so desperately about living in a decent, value-based society which counts people in and does not use much of its energy on othering people, but rather invests its energy and budgets on helping the weak in society, supporting creative expression, allows for – no, encourages – different narratives, and, at the same time, understands that those who would destroy us have to be dealt with (so that I am totally clear here, mean dealt with by aggressive means).
Now, that might be my personal record for a very long sentence, and I want to unpack it with you for a moment. Before you read on, please go to a device (phone, laptop etc.) and listen to this song I have used in my title – here is a link to the version you should listen to.
I take into the bomb shelter my years of growing up in Somerset West. My coming of intellectual age in Habonim, and my developing understanding that I was living in an evil society, Apartheid South Africa. My years as a pupil at Somerset West Primary, Hottentots Holland High School, Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch, Cape Town High School.
And, crucially, my decision in 1976 that my home, my commitment was going to be for the rest of my life, the home of the Jewish People, Israel. And Israel has remained my longest love affair.
And I want to colour this with a few moments in my life which have helped me take who I am into the bomb shelter on the kibbutz.
The first happened long before I was born but comes up so often for me whenever I guide in Yad Vashem or in Poland. In October 1942 a decision was made by the Polish Government in Exile sitting in London to send Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground, into the Warsaw Ghetto, and then smuggled him out of the country to tell the story of the murder of the Jews of Poland to the world… and his reports fell largely on deaf ears. Whenever I see the sculptures of Jan Karski in Warsaw near the Polin Museum and in Lodz, his birthplace near the Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue, I shed a tear.
In 2002 I began my Jewish Journeys project together with the wonderful Jeremy Leigh and began traveling with groups to tell the story, initially, of the Jews of Europe. Most of my Journeyers were and continue to be Jewish, but I never have, and never will, exclude anyone, no matter their faith commitment. On two of my Journeys, one in Eastern Europe and one in Greece, there were moments which have always stayed with me. The first when a Gentile member of the group described hiding in a bomb shelter as a six-year-old in her hometown of Hamburg, Germany, as the Allied bombers rained bombs down on her hometown. The question? The limits of Empathy, what are they? The second moment in Larissa, a small town in Greece. My group is walking through the town when an elderly Greek man sees us and begins shouting, “Hebreo! Hebreo!” and then begins sobbing uncontrollably. None of us speak Greek, but his daughter speaks French, as does one of our number, and she tells the story of his beloved brother who was executed by the Nazis for hiding his Jewish girlfriend.
The third memory I carry with me is from 2011 in NYC. I am on Shlichut for the Jewish Agency, and I am privileged to be able to attend an evening with Eli Wiesel. An extraordinary evening in which Eli Wiesel tells stories and then a male choir sings an appropriate song to complete the story-telling. He tells a wonderful, painful story from 1944, when a Polish Chasid who had escaped Poland is hosted by his Chasidic Community in Hungary. “Nu”, they ask, “What is happening? Tell us more. We hear these rumours.” Eli Wiesel shares with us that the Chasid is unable to speak, to tell of the horrors he has seen, and after a while says Wiesel, the Chasid began to sing.
And the male choir steps in and begins singing in gorgeous harmony, “Ani Ma’amin”.
B’Sorot Tovot. May we meet soon, but not in a bomb shelter.
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