Burg's Past and Future
Reading Avrum Burg's first post, and the comments following, it is difficult to know how to enter the conversation in a way that does not just excite over-exercised passions, or become an occasion to repeat all the things I (and others) have argued for during past months. So let me suggest a few questions:
1. Spinoza once wrote that peace is not the absence of violence but the presence of justice. Does experience of the holocaust, the trauma, not teach, among other things (more than other things), Spinoza's principle? And whose trauma, by the way? My dear friend, Ilona Karmel--a survivor of the Plashow death camp, who died eight years ago this week--used to scoff at young Israelis and American Jews who wanted to use her as a prop to preach Jewish exceptionalism. She was no easier on defenders of American military intervention abroad who saw Munich everywhere. "They have scars but no wounds," she said. By the way, Ilona also said, unforgettably, that there were times she "missed the camp": "Things were simple," she said, you could easily know good from evil, something she never experienced again.
2, If Spinoza was right, should we not be talking about what justice looks like, as we have, rather than implying that we cannot because we have been too traumatized?
3. The holocaust is inarguably in the background when Israelis and Western Jews engage about Israel. But does it really determine what's in the foreground more than, say, a sentimental attachment to the world of parents, or the Biblical nuances of Hebrew, or rage about the last atrocity, or any other rivulet that joins the current of thought? In other words, would consciousness of the holocaust be so easily yanked in if Israelis and Palestinians were not each mired in a vendetta culture? Does holocaust consciousness really prevent the pursuit of a just peace, or is it an emotional ornament of a stalemate?
A few thoughts from someone who isn't Jewish:
I'm in my 40s and I guess I can't quite see how my Jewish friends of the same age could completely free themselves from the awareness, at least, of the trauma of the Holocaust. Too many have no grandparents, great aunts, or great uncles surviving because of Hitler's atrocities. Too many have parents who, while quite young in the 1930s, still remember the pain and suffering vividly. It seems hard to completely free oneself of something that is still quite close in time and so excessively brutal.
At the same time, I wonder if awareness of the Holocaust--or maybe awareness, more broadly, of antisemitism heightened by the recent horrors of the Holocaust--creates a certain barrier between Jews and other groups. I'm not quite sure how to explain this. But as a non-Jew I sometimes feel like there is a subtle barrier between me and my Jewish friends that doesn't exist between me and my friends of any other ethnicity or race or religion. It's as if the ghost of antisemitism is always in the room. This ghost seems to bond Jewish friends together and divide non-Jews from Jews. (Wierdly, the one Jewish friend with whom I feel the least sense of division--in fact none at all--is my most religious Jewish friend, the one who takes me to Kosher restaurants so we can eat together--maybe it's just because he's so willing to share his Judaism and its culture that makes me feel so welcome and so unseparate). This subtle, unspoken barrier between Jews and non-Jews now has it's physical manifestation in the very real "separation barrier" that divides Israelis from Palestinians.
To me, the discussion this week maybe should be about the Holocaust. But I think it also must be about this older and deeper and apparently more enduring separation barrier--this ghost of antisemitism--that seems always to exist between Jews and non-Jews. What causes it? And how do we smash it permanently?
December 9, 2008 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it has to do with minority consciousness.
Is there not a subtle, or even a large, barrier between whites and blacks in this country?
Or is it that we don't EXPECT to feel at one with someone of a different color who has experienced obvious barriers in this country? Whereas with Jews...
But I do think you are "on" to something with your friend. Secular Jews know they are Jews, but are not sure how to BE Jewish. They are "just like" other Americans "except" somehow not quite.
Religious Jews don't have that challenge.
As to anti-Semitism and how to smash it...that's a big topic. One of the hard things about dealing with it is defining it. We've come a long way (some of us) in not equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. But the obvious definition--"not liking Jews"--is a bit too simplistic.
(Just as an aside, I'm not sure I see anything wrong with anyone not liking Jews. He can like or dislike anyone He wants to. It's none of my business. But when he wields power on that basis, I have some problems with that.)
But actually, one seldom encounters people who simply say, "I don't like Jews." They are more likely to say things like, "Jews/Zionists control the world." Or Hollywood. Or Wall Street. Or the world economy. IOW, anti-Semitism is often expressed using "statements of fact."
And these statements are frequently accompanied by the speaker's "concern" for the "average Jew" who is a "fine human being" and is being "led astray" by his "leaders" who are a nasty piece of work.
The other piece of the anti-Semitism puzzle that makes it hard to grapple with is Jews have often excelled in societies that later turned against them and either threw them out or killed them. So how and why does THAT work. That puts some Jews in the position of enjoying tremendous success, but feeling they should be half-looking over their shoulder at what's coming down the pike.
There's a wonderful scene at the end of Claude Lelouche's film version of Les Miserables in which everyone's happy except the Jew who says (something like) Jews need to "plan ahead" for the miseries that sure to come.
Any way, I hope that's helpful.
December 9, 2008 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Professor Avishai:
I have become so pleased with TPM Cafe's decision to make you a regular contributor (even, in deference to my good friend and poster DanK, you are not Palestinian)! You ask:
"Does holocaust consciousness really prevent the pursuit of a just peace, or is it an emotional ornament of a stalemate"?
I do not believe that holocaust consciousness prevents the pursuit of peace, or even a just peace, but of course it helps to contribute to the stalemate the I-P peace process is ordinarily and currently mired in. I speak principally of American Jews although I have come to know more and more Israelis. There are some good and decent Jews, I know many, who, when looking at the peace process, cannot see past the tragedy that befell them or their loved ones or family members who they never met. That presents a challenge and a formidable one, but I have no reason to believe that it is an impediment to productive participation by this country in facilitating a just peace, and bringing these people into the fold. It just makes things that much more difficult, but in no way insurmountable.
Bruce
December 9, 2008 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
First sentence should read ("even though", . . .
December 9, 2008 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I second Bruce's sentiments about your presence at TPM.
I agree with Lally that Muslim/Arab/Palestinian voices here would be a great thing.
And, like Bruce, I don't hold it against you that you're not that -:)
December 9, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard writes: "...it is difficult to know how to enter the conversation in a way that does not just excite over-exercised passions..."
I appreciate your somewhat understated sentiments here. After reading the comments following Mr. Burg's first post, I was ready to avoid the whole thread.
December 9, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Santayana was wrong; it isn't they who forget the past who are condemned to repeat it, it is they who can't forgive the past who are condemned.
December 9, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
it's worth noting that Spinoza was separated from the Amsterdam Jewish community in part because his views on theology extended to universals beyond the immediate practice and preservation of the community.
pursuit of justice isn't an easy thing.
December 9, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am thoroughly confused. The holocaust was the presence of violence and the absence of justice. How does that illustrate Spinoza's principle?
December 9, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink