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

EDITORIAL TRADITION

4 "FOR THE COMMANDMENT IS A LAMP 12 TISHREI AND THE TORAH IS A LIGHT" Maya Cime{a Samokovlija Sonja Samokovlija REVIEW COLUMN 13 MY ISRAEL 4 SOUL TO SOUL Shmuel Meirom Menorah REMEMBRANCE Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser 14 INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST COMMENTARY REMEMBRANCE DAY 5 PASSOVER AND THE RELATIONSHIP Naida Mihal Brandl BETWEEN JEWS AND CHRISTIANS, ISRAEL PAST AND PRESENT Rabbi Kotel Da-Don 17 LUNCH WITH YITZHAK NAVON Marija Salom POINT OF VIEW PEOPLE 8 MARK TWAIN'S INFAMOUS TRAVELOGUES (SHOULD SUCH 19 RUBEN AND REUVEN BOOKS BE PERMITTED TO Ljubica Buba Albahari EXIST?) Boris Havel CULTURE

READERS WRITE 20 SIGMUND FREUD (1856 – 1939) AND JUDAISM 10 THESE ARE MY STORIES Eduard Klain Mira Spitzer Adir 25 JEWS IN RIJEKA COLUMNS Summary By Rina Bruminni 11 EMPTY SPACE (BESAMIM) Jasminka Doma{

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 FOR THE PUBLISHER: Ivo Goldstein CONTRIBUTORS: Ljubica Buba Albahari, Dolores Bettini, EDITORIAL BOARD: Dolores Bettini, Jasminka Doma{ and ENGLISH TRANSLATION: Margaret Casman-Vuko and Miroslav Vuko Rina Brumini, Maya Cime{a Samokovlija, Jasminka Doma{, Morana Palikovi} Gruden (guest editor) DESIGN AND LAYOUT: @arko Jovanovski Boris Havel, Emil Klein, Naida Mihal Brandl, Marija Salom, PUBLISHER: The Bet Israel Jewish Community of Croatia PRINTING: Skaner studio d.o.o. Zagreb Meirom Shmuel and Mira Spitzer Adir 10000 Zagreb, Ma`urani}ev trg 6/II., p.p. 880. TEL: +385 1 4851 008 • FAX: +385 1 4851 376 TEXTS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE CROATIAN LANGUAGE Publication of Ruach Hadasha is made possible in part by www.bet-israel.com EDITION OF RUAH HADA[A DURING THE YEAR 5768 the Council for National Minorities of the Republic of EDITORIAL OFFICE: [email protected] RABBIS: Kotel Da-Don and Dovid Goldwasser 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 friends. We hope that our magazine will interest you and that you we have published in our magazine Ruach Hadasha during the will join the ranks of our faithful readers in the countries of the year 5768. former Yugoslavia. This will encourage us to persevere and expand. The editorial board has decided to publish one issue of Ruach in English each year. We thank the Council for National Minorities of Your articles and suggestions are most welcome. the Republic of Croatia for the funding that helped make this issue Sincerely yours, possible. 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 Similarly, the Shulchan held the Lechem HaPanim and alluded to expressed through the Menorah? Surely there were many services the blessing of bread, the physical needs of man that can only be that had to be performed in rededicating the Bais HaMikdosh. attained through the blessing of Hashem. Why, specifically, was the Menorah chosen? The Menorah, too, had a message. It represented the eternal The Chofetz Chaim explains that Moshe Rabbeinu was instructed existence of the Nation of Israel. When Hashem instructed Moshe by Hashem how to construct the Bais HaMikdosh and the various Rabbeinu on how to fashion the Menorah, He also transmitted to utensils that were used in its service. However, when it came to Moshe the allusion and the symbol that the Bnai Yisroel would fashioning the Menorah, Moshe Rabbeinu had difficulty in always be able to sustain itself against all odds. understanding how to do it. Three times he was told exactly what However, Moshe Rabbeinu was puzzled when he heard these to do, and somehow each time he could not comprehend the command. instructions. He had already seen through nevu'ah the great Why did he have difficulty understanding this mitzvah? suffering that the Bnai Yisroel would have to experience throughout the generations. Thus, he could not understand how one could The Chofetz Chaim answers that our sefarim tell us that each make a Menorah for this nation as a symbol of light and hope and utensil in the Bais HaMikdash alluded to a higher aspect of being, belief in the nitzchiyus, the eternity, of Am Yisroel. Moshe aside from its specific purpose and use in the avodah in the Bais Rabbeinu saw all the tzorros the Bnai Yisroel would have to HaMikdash. endure and he couldn't understand Hashem's instructions. For example, the Aron HaKodesh was used to store the Luchos. It What Hashem was telling Moshe Rabbeinu is that the world and also alluded to the fact that there is a higher form of wisdom that its existence cannot be understood by human logic; rather, it is can only be attained through ru'ach hakodesh. beyond our comprehension. There is a higher intelligence, a master

4 COLUMN RUACH HADASHA plan, which ensures the eternity of Klal Yisroel, despite all their For this reason, the Menorah was chosen to reveal the miracle of trials and tribulations. Hashem taught Moshe Rabbeinu that Chanukah. At the time when the Chashmona'im and Klal Yisroel through throwing the gold in the fire, through adversity and faced their darkest hour, and the nation was in need of great tragedy, the eternal Jew would be tested and the nation would Siyata D'Shmaya, it was then that Hashem gave us this assurance, eventually rise from the ashes and be rebuilt. through the miracle of the small jug of oil which kept the Menorah The Chofetz Chaim offers this explanation with reference to the lit, that the Nation of Israel will exist for eternity.  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.

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 forbids human sacrifice and even the use of animal blood leaders and many others by rehabilitating Richard Williamson, a for any purpose! However, facts are one thing and blind traditionalist Catholic bishop who denies the full extent of the hatred is something else. Anti-Semitism does not require a Holocaust. In an interview broadcast on January 21, Williamson logical reason; it requires a victim. Another told Swedish television the following: "I believe there were no gas accusation against Jews was that they stole and stabbed chambers." He also said that no more than 300,000 Jews perished consecrated hosts, because the belief was widespread in Nazi concentration camps. When Williamson was asked why he among Christians that the host releases blood when had not apologized for his comments, he replied, "It is about pierced, like a living body. historical evidence, not about emotions," adding, "And if I find this The accusations of ritual murder began to occur in the Christian evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time." It is world in the 12th century. According to numerous historians, amazing that all this is happening while some of the witnesses-survivors there were 154 cases of blood libel against the Jews: 45 in of the Holocaust are still alive. Therefore, as Passover approaches, I Germany, 20 in Poland, 16 in Austria, 14 in Rumania, 12 in Italy, 9 dedicate this article to the holy souls cruelly murdered in the horrors in Russia and 7 in France. Often Jews were cruelly tortured in of the Holocaust, men and women, old persons and children, who left order to extract confessions to be used during sham trials, which us and are no more. May their memories be blessed! were followed by mass violence against the Jews because the people Passover, unfortunately, has been an occasion for Christian believed that the court and its decisions were true and just. anti-Semitism. During the long Diaspora, blood libels, i.e. false There were also blood libels that attracted world attention, such accusations that Jews committed ritual murders of Christian as the 1882 case in Tiszla-Eszlar, Hungary, when the same story children to obtain blood for the matzot and wine consumed at the repeated itself: a dead Christian girl was found before Passover Passover Seder, have resulted in the shedding of much Jewish and Jews were accused of murdering her in order to extract her blood. The roots of anti-Semitism came from two main sources: blood. In 1913, the trial against Mendel Beilis of Kiev in the – Anti-Semitic preaching – Christian religious leaders Ukraine attracted international criticism. It must be emphasized preached against Jews and Judaism during the Passover that Christian religious leaders participated in accusations against season, coinciding with the Easter season, when passages the Jews. about the death of Jesus are read from the New Testament. The Nazis also conducted sham trials with "evidence" and Jews were blamed for the Crucifixion, emotions were "scientific" publications against Jews, appropriating everything inflamed and the Christian populace unleashed waves of that suited their purposes from the tragic history of European violence against Jews, under the pretext of retaliation for anti-Semitism. As a recent example of blood libel, in 1962 the the death of Jesus. Egyptian Department of Education published a text entitled – Anti-Semitic accusations – The revolting blood libel is a Human Sacrifice in the Talmud, which "explains" and "confirms" classical example of how anti-Semitic prejudice has no that Jews use blood in worship. Sadly, the long history of the connection with reason or reality, because the Torah explicitly Jewish people has known many such cases, several of which have

5 RUACH HADASHA COMMENTARY

Richard_Williamson Pope Benedict XVI

been recorded on Croatian territory. Despite proclamations by 1972 by the participants in a dialogue between Jews and numerous Christian religious leaders at the highest levels that the Orthodox Christians.) accusations of ritual murders committed by Jews are nonsense, The most marked changes have occurred in the Roman Catholic this prejudice always resurfaces in times of hatred, serving as a Church, with over a billion members. From the early centuries of pretext for violence against the Jews. our era until recently, the Catholic Church maintained an Nonetheless, during the 20th century we witnessed historical and anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist position. In the year 1965, a revolutionary theological changes in the official positions of revolutionary document, Nostra aetate (In Our Time – Declaration Western Churches toward Judaism and Jews, although they are on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions), was still not well understood by ordinary Christians or Jews. There are published. This document was adopted in 1965 by the participants in two basic reasons for these changes. From the one side, the the Second Vatican Council, which was convened in 1962 by Pope Church was affected by the general environment of modernism, John XXIII. At the Council, the Catholic Church began the humanism and ecumenicism, which led to profound changes in comprehensive and weighty process of contemplating its internal attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. The Shoah (Holocaust) forced state and position toward the contemporary world. The Council the world to recognize that the historically negative perception of ended during the reign of Pope Paul VI, who promulgated various the Jews and Judaism in the eyes of Christianity had contributed documents, including Nostra aetate. In the fourth section of this to the circumstances which made the Holocaust possible. The document, the Council clarifies the Catholic Church's attitude traditional stereotype of Jews as "lessons in scorn" led to the toward Judaism and the Jewish people. The Council signifies the persecution of Jews throughout history. A document issued in beginning of a learning and understanding process between the 1994 by the German and Polish bishops' conferences speaks of the Catholic community and the Jewish people. The path was opened "co-responsibility" of the Church for the Shoah. for essential changes in Christian awareness. The significance of the Church's issuing statements on its position was greater than It is necessary to note the differences among churches and not the significance of the texts themselves, leading to changes in the view Christianity as a monolithic body. Protestantism includes traditional Christian understanding of Jews and Judaism. The over thirty thousand denominations, including the mainline Church explains that its roots are in Judaism and in the history of denominations such as Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran etc. Since the Jewish people. From this nation came Jesus, the apostles and 1948, Protestant Churches have been members of the World their followers: "The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she Congress of Churches, which issues statements on progressive received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people positions and attitudes toward the Jews and Judaism. On the with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient conservative Protestant side are small English Churches, among Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the which there are great differences regarding many questions, root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted including attitudes toward the Jews. However, the majority favor the wild shoots, the Gentiles."1 This statement testifies to the Jewish return to Zion as a step toward the return of their Messiah. profound reexamination of the history of the Church in connection The Eastern Orthodox Churches have not passed through a with Judaism and the Jewish people, recognition of the need for similar process of theological modernization in their attitudes fundamental change in the Christian understanding of toward the Jews. Their theology has remained as it was and they everything in connection with Jews and Judaism. "Furthermore, ... have published no official document on this matter. (It should be the Church ... decries hatred, persecutions, displays of mentioned that an unofficial Orthodox document was prepared in anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone."2

6 COMMENTARY RUACH HADASHA

The Catholic Church is turning a new page and recognizes One other significant change is in the attitude toward the State of Judaism and the Jewish people. This document refutes the Israel. According to the previous Christian understanding, the doctrine according to which all the Jews who lived throughout Diaspora was part of the chastisement of the Jews for refusing to history should bear the responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus. accept Jesus as the Messiah. With the establishment of the State of Such earlier magisterium was the foundation of Christian Israel, a new reality was created,6 although in 1948 the word anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was condemned. Twenty years after "Israel" was not in the Vatican "dictionary." Israel was not the Council, Pope John Paul II denounced it as "a sin against G-d mentioned at the Second Vatican Council or in the first two and humanity." Since the 1980s, the Catholic Church has assumed documents7 referring to Jews and Judaism. Change occurred an active role in the general struggle against anti-Semitism in the during the reign of Pope John Paul II, so that the third document8 world. Until this document, the Jews were considered to be a contains a paragraph about the State of Israel. A Vatican statement "rejected" nation. Since they had refused to accept Jesus as divine on religious relations with Jews dated 1987 asserts that the failure or as the Messiah, they were persecuted and scorned. Judaism was to establish relations with the State of Israel was not due to viewed as an obsolete religion and Christianity as the new true theological difficulties (the reasons, it seems, were political). This Israel. Theological expression spoke of discontinuity, that G-d's situation ended in the year 1993 with the signing an agreement of chosen were no longer the Jews but Christians. This position has mutual recognition between the Holy See and the State of Israel.9 changed: G-d's covenant with the Jews continues to be valid and The visit by Pope John Paul II to Israel in March 2000 greatly was never broken.3 This signifies continuity: the Jewish faith is contributed to this important change. alive and breathing, G-d's promise that the Land of Israel belongs In conclusion, the recent rehabilitation of Williamson, a Holocaust to the Jews remains in force and Jewish history during the past denier, and his friends from the ultra-conservative sect known as two thousand years has religious significance. The Bible is now the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), an organization of open to Catholics in its entirety, not only those parts which are "traditionalist Catholics" who disagree with the decisions of the considered precursors to the New Testament. In Christianity there Second Vatican Council to "modernize" the Church (including the is a general trend today to emphasize its sources: the Jewishness recognition of Jews and Judaism), is placing all the progress that of Jesus, his family and his disciples. Jesus' considerable has been achieved by the Catholic Church after the long history of agreement with the teachings of the Pharisees is surprising news anti-Semitism in jeopardy and is sending the wrong message to due to the unfavorable depiction of Pharisees in the New the members of the Catholic Church and others.  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 1. Paragraph 4, Nostra aetate, cf. Romans 11, 17-24 and was at the root of Christian anti-Semitism. Several new 2. Ibid. 3. This was expressed by Pope John Paul II. translations have recently changed this negative picture. A Vatican 4. June 24, 1985: Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in 4 document accepts the facts that the Gospels were written many preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican Commission for years after the events they describe and "the conflicts between the Religious Relations with the Jews nascent Church and Jewish community" undoubtedly had an 5. Ibid. effect on them. This document invites Christians "to understand 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 this religious attachment which finds its roots in Biblical return to the Promised Land, London, Vallentine & Mitchell, 1985 tradition." On March 6, 1982 in Rome at a meeting of bishops and 7. October 28, 1968: Nostra aetate, Declaration of the Relation of the Church to experts who had gathered in order to re-examine the relationship Non-Christian Religions, Second Vatican Council; December 1, 1974: Guidelines between the Church and Jews, Pope John Paul II said the and Suggestions for Implementing Conciliar Declaration Nostra aetate, the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews following about Jews and Judaism: "We should aim, in this field, 8. June 1985: The Common Bond: Christians and Jews, Notes for Preaching and that Catholic teaching at its different levels, in catechesis to Teaching, Vatican children and young people, presents Jews and Judaism, not only 9. Rosen, D., The negotiations of the permanent bilateral Commission between in an honest and objective manner, free from prejudices and the Holy See and the State of Israel, and their fundamental agreement signed on without any offences, but also with full awareness of the heritage December 30. 1993: A challenge long delayed. ADL, New York, 1996 common to Jews and Christians."5

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 last decades prior to the Zionist invasion! Twain says nothing about my mind: the peace and security enjoyed by the domestic Arab population, who were to be driven from their homeland of thousands of years several It's all Tom Sawyer's fault. Such books should not be generations later. He wrote nothing about the ancient Palestinian permitted to exist. It was a test. He did it his way. civilization, the millions of worthy Palestinians who had lived there The situation reminds me of summers during the 1980s, when I would from time immemorial, working and creating. Nothing about the be squeezed for hours in a smelly Centrotrans bus on the route tolerant Islamic-Turkish administration that looked after its subjects between Sarajevo and Plo~e, condemned to the unbearable heat and with maternal care but, instead, much that was quite the opposite. the even more unbearable musical taste of the driver, and learned half the albums by Marinko Rokvi} or [erif Konjevi} by heart. Afterwards, Twain's Discovery of Palestine 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, Twain and the pilgrims rode to the north in the Holy Land, on the Clapton, the Allman Brothers, R.M. To~ak, Divlje Jagode and Parni route from Mt. Hermon, after which they toured Damascus Valjak, it is easy to conclude that Rokvi} and Konjevi}'s songs were not (Chapter 45). The first New Testament city they reached was Banias, etched in my brain because I was in love with them. i.e. Caesarea Philippi. In addition to the ruins of the old city, they saw olive groves, fig trees, pomegranates and oleanders, and bathed However, with Bala{evi}'s song it is a little different. It did not in the chilly source of the Jordan River. Twain was elated because intrude upon my thoughts and I have not heard it for over fifteen Christ had once walked there. At the same time, he was angry at the years. It does not come into my thoughts when they are wandering "incorrigible pilgrims" who took pieces of rock or wood from every or at moments of idleness or semiconsciousness. It comes to me, as holy place for relatives in America. In addition to these initial pilgrim Rokvi}'s songs never did, at moments of intellectual engagement. impressions, he provided two pages of a brief historical review of More precisely, while I was immersed in reading a very unusual the place, a suitable quotation from the New Testament and his own book: Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad. reflections on divinity, which is suddenly not so abstract in the Holy According to Bala{evi}, the American writer Mark Twain had a negative Land. This is probably the longest passage in the entire impact upon the youth of Vojvodina in his book The Adventures of travelogue that refers to the excursion to Palestine, and which the Tom Sawyer, causing them to abandon school, homework, scouts and educated bodies of the European Union would permit "to exist" in highway-construction projects to embark upon the conquest of the textbooks on the history of the Holy Land. Mississippi. The balladeer's thesis that this book, which corrupts Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Twain shifted his attention from model youth, should not be permitted "to exist" is logical. Therefore, the idyll of the first contact with the sacred soil to the how much less should the book The Innocents Abroad be permitted appearance and living conditions of the local population. With this "to exist," which corrupts much more than the youth of Vojvodina? It change in focus the idyll also ends, irreversibly. Twain is as shocked actually corrupts the attempts of a significant part of the European by the scene as his reader. He sees people who are exhausted and political, educational and media establishment to counterfeit and sad, suffering from hunger, particularly women and children. He is overturn facts connected with the Arab-Israeli conflict – for many one astonished at the sight of a mother holding a child in her arms of the most pressing and controversial foreign political issues of today without reacting to the hundreds of flies clustered around the child's eyes and nose. The next scene: in a village general chaos A Journalist on a Pilgrimage ensued when the villagers heard that one of the pilgrims was a In the year 1867, Mark Twain (a.k.a. Samuel Clemens) visited the Holy physician. Everyone who was sick came or was brought in awe Land, or Palestine as it was then called, with a group of American before him. Twain describes the tumult that prevailed during the pilgrims. Skilled with a pen, curious, discerning and paid to write a brief existence of an improvised field clinic, from which it can be travelogue, he recorded all sorts of things. He recorded things that he concluded that every form of professional medical assistance in saw and heard, sometimes, indeed, brutally, with a dose of Western this pre-Zionist period was a rare luxury in Palestine. sarcasm and scorn but, nonetheless, very, very realistically. Politically From the slopes of Mt. Hermon, the pilgrims went southward. At the correct journalism from the Near East during those years was an beginning of Chapter 46, Twain describes reaching the "Waters of unheard of concept. Just look! He wrote not a single letter about the Merom" and cites biblical stories connected with that region (Joshua prosperity of the Arab-Palestinian community that was enjoyed in the 11:5). The narrative then shifts from biblical times to the present and

8 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 Mark Twain "bald and unthrilling" panorama spread before them. On the journey to Tabor, Twain and the pilgrims never saw a unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with single human being (Chapter 49). As they approached Shunem and a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful Gilboa, Twain definitively concluded that "Oriental scenes look best and despondent. ... It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land ... in steel engravings" (51). 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 Samaria and Jerusalem land which fifteen or so years later received the first Jewish settlers, However, true desolation was still ahead of them. Samaria and the pioneers of the first aliyah. Judea, through which the pilgrims continued their journey toward their final destination, Jerusalem, unlike the bald and mournful Palestine without Palestinians Galilee, were arid regions. Twain must have been shocked by the new and unexpected levels of desolation in the territory they A reader acquainted with the ingrained opinions regarding the traveled. Walking through Samaria and approaching Judea, he epicrisis of the Near Eastern conflict would be confused at this point. understood the dreariness, barrenness and meagerness of the land One would ask where are those hundreds of thousands of and the monotonous grayness, which for a moment he thought Palestinians whom the Zionist imperialists later expelled. Where are could not be worse, saying that the further they went "the hotter the their cities, planted fields and prosperous communities which the sun got and the more rocky and bare, repulsive and Zionists destroyed, scattering the inhabitants among refugee camps dreary the landscape became ... There was hardly a tree or a shrub throughout the Near East? Where are the Palestinian anywhere." The misery of the travelers was contributed to by the cultural centers, artistic societies, hospitals, schools, libraries, parks poor quality of the road to Jerusalem – which scarcely differed from etc? Where are the happy Palestinian children, ruddy from good food the surrounding country except that there were more rocks on the and unburdened by occupation? Where is the majestic Al-Quds (the road. Even more unsightly and repulsive landscapes followed after Arabic name for Jerusalem), to which tens of thousands of Muslim each Samarian hill that they crossed. 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 The shocking sights were finally crowned by the ultimate surprise – Twain and his group, the way that a smuggler on the street rolls up the appearance of the ancient holy city of Jerusalem. "So small!" his wares and escapes before a patrolman can approach? Was Twain exclaimed Twain. "Why, it was no larger than an American village ... blind? Was his guide some kind of avant garde Zionist who cleverly Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand people" (Chapter 52). avoided the Palestinian centers of prosperity? Or is it heretical to Views of desolation followed when they went to see the think that all of this never existed? surrounding Judean localities, from Bethany and the Dead Sea to Bethlehem. Several days later, the exhausted pilgrims went to the Unpleasant, Provocative Questions Mediterranean harbor in Jaffa, where a boat was waiting to take them to the West and civilization, for which they were already ardently This logical thought must occur to the reader. A person could think yearning. Twain wrote of the country he was leaving and the this way. We all know how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad incites the world unexpected immense desolation he encountered as follows: "Of all against Israel and threatens to wipe that country off the map. We all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the know that Europe, naturally, does not agree with such a drastic prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are 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 person thinks about it a little, it would be logical that the number of between Barros and Ahmadinejad is reduced, in principle, to the those to whom this decision was of significance must have been manner of solving the problem, and not the diagnosis. However considerable for the UN to have made such a ruling.) Then, why are now, with insight into Twain's travelogue, the same reader can think Jewish refugees from Arab countries never mentioned, who according what if the ingrained diagnosis is not congruent with the historical to all statistics were more numerous than Arab refugees from Israel? facts? (The primary source from 1867 is a historical document of Why were Arab refugees not absorbed into Arab society as Jewish terrifying and indisputable authenticity.) What if the Jews actually refugees were absorbed into Israeli society? Was not the entire saga of inhabited the Palestinian desert and wilderness merely because they the Palestinian refugees thought out ad hoc in order to undermine the wanted to return to the homeland of their ancestors? What if they legitimacy of the Israeli state, after it could not be defeated militarily? If had actually created the fertile soil themselves with their own hands? a large percentage of Arabs came to Palestine after the Zionists began to What if the multitudes of Palestinians (those whom Twain did not see create a place that was pleasant to live in, according to what international anywhere on his journey because, perhaps, they did not exist) came law do these immigrants have the right to their own state? How is it after the fruits of Jewish industriousness were evident in the region? possible for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the center of When word spread that there were physicians among Jews and that Samaria and Judea to be called the correction of a historical injustice? medical treatment for them was not a luxury item but a necessity? These are disturbing questions. They weigh heavily upon the That hunger, filth and disease did not prevail in the kibbutzim? That conscience, reveal attitudes, defeat intrigues and thwart plans. And the there was work? books that promote such attitudes in spineless, politically correct No, these are not the questions that Europeans, those who are ignorant Europe – as Bala{evi}'s song says, should not be permitted to exist.  and uninterested in history or always ready for political conformism, want to ask. Such questions are followed by a series of others, which Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. Innocents Abroad Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library are very unpleasant. For example, if it is true that Arab Palestinians An exhaustive study of the statistics connected with the population of the Holy inhabited the region of Palestine from time immemorial, why did the Land prior to 1948 was published by the historian Joan Peters in From Time UN recognize the status of refugee for every Arab who was there only Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (Harper & two years prior to the establishment of the Israeli state? (When a 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 Back to the wells and to the fountains our Eretz, which could leave none of us indifferent. The Within the ancient walls generation that made it possible for us is slowly departing, leaving The sound of horn from Temple's mountain us and our children and our grandchildren with the obligation to Again so loudly calls, safeguard what we have received. From rocky caves, this very morning A thousand suns will glow Naomi Shemer was wonderful woman who accepted this task in a And we shall go down to the Jordan special way. She rightfully bore the title of the First Lady of Israeli By way of Jericho. 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 That it how it was. This was made possible for us by our young source of strength to the many who participated, were wounded soldiers, many of whom, unfortunately, did not survive. or imprisoned in the frequent wars that Israel fought in order to In the year 1968, Uri Avnery, a member of Parliament, proposed preserve its independence. One of these songs, nonetheless, stands Jerusalem of Gold as the new Israeli anthem. out because it almost became the Israeli national anthem. We, however, the chosen people, chose Hatikvah, which means When Naomi Shemer wrote Jerusalem of Gold for the Israeli “hope.” 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 How could we have survived for so many millennia and how could the festival, the song began to be sung by the whole country and we survive the many more before us if we did not have hope in the was on the radio twenty-four hours a day. One who will come to raise and gather us to the strains of Hatikvah?  After many years when Jerusalem was united, Naomi added another verse, which is of crucial importance:

10 COLUMN RUACH HADASHA

Empty Space (Besamim) Jasminka Doma{

Jasminka Doma{

I can't stop thinking about the new premises we recently received our biblical prophets do not teach us in vain that the most difficult from the city of Zagreb for the Bet Israel Jewish Community. They Jewish meditation is the one called Nothing. are attractive, in a wonderful location and elegant but this is not a It is December. Darkness covers the city early. One Hand appears space like every other. It should be filled with Jewish content and in the Emptiness and places a menorah on the table next to the life, prayer, study and spirituality. It should be transformed into a window, waiting for us to come and light the candles with the Shalom Bayit, a House of Peace and Meeting. blessings. Ayin is before us and over us. It is waiting for us to A space is always a challenge. If we do not like it and if we do not come tomorrow and the next day and after the eighth day we ask feel comfortable there, we can always find an excuse not to work. ourselves: "What is the light that we have kindled, this miracle that However, an attractive space is far more dangerous because it we have seen with our own eyes, here. Where is it now? This is a requires everything from us. It is necessary to know how to make sign in time that we must recognize or we will no longer exist." that which is beautiful even more so. It is demanding. A new space Emptiness can also be an oasis. We are the ones who will speak of is always a new test. Effort. Asking and searching for an answer. forms, shift walls, plant a garden, bring books, stand before the An empty space is full of beauty, which imposes responsibility and source of Light and the Aron Hakodesh, and each will know if he suffering. What should be done with the emptiness? Now it or she is standing in an empty form or one with a soul and a heart. reflects us, the way we are. We are looking at a space where there Its heartbeats weave the time of the King of Kings over all kings. is Nothing and in which everything can be. It is full of silence, like The path and knowledge open to each one in silence and light.  a vessel containing a blue lake reflecting us – in truth. In any case,

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 be possible to recognize which is which? As in a labyrinth full of years ago. This was soon followed by the well-known events with distorted mirrors, everything is not always as it seems. Adam, Eve, the snake and the forbidden tree. Consequences? The first Rabbis say that everyone is in his proper place, which he chose married couple was expelled from Paradise, with cherubim and a flaming himself. 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 And we are still on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, while one more to return (and who wouldn't?), if by some miracle they found the right yearly cycle closes and another begins. Is it truly new? Some say that the way, would have to pass through very rigorous control of the baggage they history of humankind is a series of cycles that repeat. "What has been is were bringing with them. The problem was that this marvelous path, what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there when the gates of Paradise slammed closed, branched into two, so that is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Is a person enslaved by every member of the human race had two "driver's licenses" – one for some endless spiral from which there is no exit, whatever he does? the path of evil and the other for the path of good. It was up to each Then, where is hope? Or is it perhaps at least a little different, individual whether he or she would take one or the other, jump from regardless of how much everything under the sun seems to be the same? one to the other, run breathlessly on this one or that one or lazily plod Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is the future. The Torah is, they along their edges, a little on this one and a little on that one. Would it 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 The person of the Garden of Eden was perfect. He could have created problem may arise when a person decides what is the measure of the perfect human community but violated the only commandment progress and then, as in A Novella on Dying by Filip David, one of that he received: he ate from the Tree of Knowledge, on which good the characters, Dr. Franc (the builder of an outpost of the Third and evil were so combined that it was impossible to separate them. At Reich in the Balkan.) asserts that "morality is a product of the moment when he ate the fruit, good and evil combined together evolution," that "moral laws change as does everything else," that in the same manner in the person and evil became an "only two things are essential, reproduction and the struggle for integral part of his being. A person's life became a ceaseless battle for survival, the struggle for living space. ... And what is morality? the separation of good and evil. "I created the impulse for evil but I Useful adaptation in the struggle for survival ..." also created the Torah as a cure for it," said G-d. Besides teaching the A ghost of the past? Sometimes it seems that there really is nothing person how to master the evil in oneself, the Torah teachers how to new under the sun and we are only poor students repeating our transform it into good and return to the source. It is a guide in the lessons, in the ardent desire to push forward into the future as soon future, and the future is in return, the return to Paradise – to Eden.  as possible, without having first mastered the material.

TRADITION

Tishrei Maya Cime{a Samokovlija

The month of Tishrei is the seventh month of the year according why the first reading from Genesis is not read on Rosh Hashanah, to the Jewish calendar. To many people, this may seem odd as would otherwise be necessary, because Rosh Hashanah is the because Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, is celebrated on the first birthday of the first man. and second days of Tishrei. The reason is that according to the The first day of Rosh Hashanah is never permitted to be on Torah, the month of Nissan is the first month in the year, Sunday, Wednesday or Friday. underscoring the historical importance of the liberation from slavery in Egypt, which occurred on the fifteenth day of the month Historically, the first day of the first Rosh Hashanah was Friday, the of Nissan and signifies the birth of our nation. sixth day of Creation. On that day was first created "living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild Nonetheless, according to tradition, the world was created in the animals of the earth of every kind," and finally man. On the very month of Tishrei or, more precisely, Adam and Eve were created first day, man disobeyed G-d's commandment, eating from the on the first day of the month of Tishrei which was the sixth day of forbidden tree, and was condemned immediately. The lesson for the creation of the world and, therefore, the yearly cycle is all of us is that "to err is human and to forgive is Divine." calculated from Tishrei. On the tenth day of Tishrei is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The year has twelve months and there are twelve tribes of Israel. Yom Kippur is not permitted to be on Sunday, Tuesday or Friday. Each month of the Jewish year represents a tribe. The month of According to one explanation, on that day our ancestor Abraham Tishrei represents the tribe of Dan. This is of symbolic significance was circumcised at 99 years of age in the year 2047 from the because before Dan was born to Bilhah, Rachel's maid, Rachel creation of the world. (There are two other opinions regarding the said: "Daneni – G-d has judged me, and has also heard my voice date of his circumcision.) and given me a son." On Yom Kippur in the year 2449, Moses descended from Mt. Sinai Dan and din¸ which have the same Hebrew root, symbolize that bearing the second tablets with the Ten Commandments, Aseret the month of Tishrei is the month of judgment and forgiveness. ha Dibrot, happy that he had received forgiveness for the people Tishrei is symbolized in the zodiac by scales, a symbol showing us from the Almighty for the sin with the golden calf. that the Almighty weighs our good and bad works during this The New Year on the first day of Tishrei is not a day of rejoicing month. but a day of solemnity. This is the day when G-d remembers all It is known that the beginning of every month is heralded by a living beings and judges them according to their merits. We must blessing in the synagogue on the Sabbath preceding it, but not be prepared for this day. The entire preceding month of Elul is Tishrei. We do not bless it because the Almighty himself has filled with reminders about the arrival of Rosh Hashanah. During blessed it. According to the oral tradition, Satan, who is always the month of Elul, Jews are supposed to be particularly attentive lurking, should not notice the arrival of Rosh Hashanah, the Day in prayers and devotions. Through sincere repentance, everyone of Judgment, which is one of the reasons why the new moon is not should be released from his or her misdeeds during the past year mentioned in the Rosh Hashanah prayers. This is also the reason and feel like a newborn baby, ready to begin a whole new life. 

12 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. a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians but a more Few people know that many products were invented in Israel that problematic conflict between extremists and moderates. are used throughout the world. The pericardium covered stent used to dilate arteries around the heart is one of these inventions. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the cause of extremism but The same goes for the USB flash drive and drip irrigation. The we are paying the price because we find ourselves on the first line Arrow rocket, the only one in the world that can intercept ballistic of attack. Seen from the broader aspect, this is a conflict with an projectiles outside the atmosphere, was invented in Israel. So extreme religious ideology that is insoluble, and extremists, in a were cherry tomatoes and nectarines. There are many others but way, are attempting to subvert other regimes in neighboring not enough space to mention them all. countries. This conflict is not particularly connected to territory but crosses borders. 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 We must understand that the conflict between the two nations, planted than are cut down. Israeli and Palestinian, can be resolved and the answer lies in the establishment of two countries for two nations. In the year 2007, Israel exported goods and services worth 71 billion dollars, an enormous sum considering the size of the Thus, despite Israel's huge successes, Israel will be a country that country and the number of inhabitants. will not be able to achieve its full potential until this conflict is resolved. Israel is still not the best it can be. Naturally, very serious and problematic political questions remain. Last year, we began a new peace process in Annapolis and all of us Nearly 60 years later, I no longer run barefoot over the golden want it to succeed. This success also depends upon understanding sand on the beach and Israel is 60 years old. It really looks good  the broad context of this conflict, which means that it is no longer 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). 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

Warschaw Ghetto 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. Holocaust is a Greek word that means completely burnt. In The final phase, the destruction of the European Jews ancient Greek and Rome, it meant -a burnt offering to the gods or (1941 – 45), began after the occupation of parts of the USSR, starting the souls of the deceased. In modern times, it refers to the 12-year in June 1941 when the Nazis conducted mass murders of Jews, period from 1933 to 1945 of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. It mostly by firing squad. From 1941 or 1942, Jews were deported is characterized by the constant escalation of increasingly brutal into the then empty ghettos (e.g. Riga) in order to be killed later measures by the Nazi authorities and their helpers and the or to the death camps of Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibór. Polish increasingly large territory in which these measures were applied. Jews who lived on the territories integrated into Germany were The culmination was the final solution (Endlösung), which in killed in Chelmno (Kulmhof) in portable gas chambers. Starting in Nazi terminology was a euphemism for mass murder and the 1943, there were mass deportations of Jews to the concentration destruction of all European Jewry. Among the Israeli and or death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 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 Context calamity among nations, unprecedented devastation that can The idea of the Final Solution was born in Germany, the country occur only once and never again.1 in which the Jews had experienced the highest level of acculturation, In the early phases, Nazi policy defined Jews as sub-humans but some of whom were completely assimilated, in a country that had with the right to live under specific circumstances. In the later not emancipated Jews by a decree (as, for example in France) but phases, Nazi policy defined Jews as an anti-human element and the Jews, in order to become worthy members of the society had emphasized the necessity for their extermination. At the beginning initiated Haskala (Enlightenment), a Jewish movement for of the process of the destruction of the Jews, those who were modernization or Jewish enlightenment, in the country in which incapable of working were killed. Later, increasing numbers were the Reform Judaism movement was born that was supposed to killed including those who were capable of working. Only those cleanse Judaism in order to make it more acceptable to Christian were left alive who were essential in the killing process itself. neighbors. According to a classical historian of the Shoah, Raul Hilberg, there Naturally, the Shoah did not originate outside the context of were three phases that led to genocide. The first was the European (and wider) historical development, especially from the identification and definition of Jews together with economic 1920s and 1930s, which were marked by drastic growth in discrimination and segregation, which lasted from the arrival of anti-Semitism in Europe, the Near East but also in the New World. the Nazis to power in Germany, 1933, to the year 1939. This was The quota system (numerus clausus) was implemented in Canada implemented through political-legal discrimination and the and the United States, even after the end of the Second World War

2 Women had to add the name Sarah to their own names and men had to add 1 Ivo Goldstein, Holokaust u Zagrebu, p. 3, Zagreb, 2001. Israel to theirs. Passports belonging to Jews were marked with the letter J.

14 REMEMBRANCE RUACH HADASHA when no one could use the excuse that he did not know. The Nazis Sixty-two years ago, the Soviets arrived at the gates of the began the implementation of the Final Solution at the beginning of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp. Nothing 1942. At the end of the same year, the Allies were already informed of could have prepared them for what they saw: piles of skeletons, the horrors of the ghettos, their liquidation and transports to clothing and walking human skeletons. concentration camps and death camps. They reacted with a sharp Thousands of years earlier, the prophet Ezekiel recorded the declaration. By the time of the mass transports of Hungarian Jews to following vision, when he spoke of the dry bones that represented Auschwitz-Birkenau (1944), the Allies already controlled the air space the nation of Israel: The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he over occupied Poland and on several occasions had bombed various led me out in the spirit of the LORD and set me in the center of the targets in the immediate vicinity of the largest death camp. They never plain, which was now filled with bones. He made me walk among tried to disable the railway tracks, which several months later conveyed them in every direction so that I saw how many they were on the the majority of the remaining Hungarian Jews to Birkenau.3 At the surface of the plain. How dry they were! same time, neither the United States nor Great Britain wanted to increase the quota of refugee visas. Moreover, during the time of the He asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? "Lord Final Solution, approximately 90% of the slots for American visas were G-D," I answered, "you alone know that." not filled. The British Mandate for Palestine firmly closed its doors to Then he said to me: Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: Jewish refugees, even though this mandate had been obtained from Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! the League of Nations in order to create a Jewish national home. Thus says the Lord G-D to these bones: See! I will bring spirit into In the East, after the Hitler-Stalin Nonaggression Pact and the you, that you may come to life. I will put sinews upon you, make Soviet occupation of Polish territories (western Belarus and the flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so Ukraine) in 1939, from 1939 to 1941 the Soviets deported that you may come to life and know that I am the LORD. I prophesied approximately 800,000 people to Siberia, of whom approximately as I had been told, and even as I was prophesying I heard a noise; it 270,000 (or 30%) were Jews, although they only made up was a rattling as the bones came together, bone joining bone .I saw approximately 10% of the population. In the Baltic states, the the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them, Soviets deported approximately 15,400 people, of whom 11.7% but there was no spirit in them. Then he said to me: Prophesy to the were Jews, although they only made up approximately 5% of the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord 4 population. The sole language that the Soviets banned after the G-D: From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain occupation was Hebrew. that they may come to life. I prophesied as he told me, and the spirit During the Shoah, American and British officials warned leaders of came into them; they came alive and stood upright, a vast army. Then Jewish organizations to refrain from pointing out that Jews were he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. victims. The Allies were afraid that they would be accused of They have been saying, "Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and participating in the war because of the Jews. A statement we are cut off." Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the following a meeting of American, British and Soviet ministers of Lord G-D: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from foreign affairs held in Moscow in 1943 threatened punishment for them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know war crimes committed after the war, and for war crimes that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from committed against occupied nations. The statement mentions the them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and French, Germans, Belgians, Norwegians ... peasants on the island I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the of Crete ... the nation of Poland but not the European Jews. 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 The Shoah – from a living memory to history survivors but also through the existence of the State of Israel. We are coming closer to the moment when the Shoah will no It is essential to mention here that after the end of the Second World 5 longer be a living memory and become a part of history. The next War, pogroms were recorded, chiefly against Jews in Poland, and generation will no longer be able to hear the truth from those who the survivors were not permitted to enter the Land of Israel – at the survived it. Therefore, it is our obligation to listen to and record time known as the Palestine Mandate. For years after the war, their stories and preserve them for our children, grandchildren and the rest of humankind. 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 3 There are data on the Soviet attitude to this problem. In the summer of 1944, Polish public in which Polish historians accused the author of agitation and David Ben-Gurion's deputy, Eliahu Epstein, met with a senior official of the Soviet condemning the entire Polish society for anti-Semitism. The Polish prosecutor Embassy in Cairo, and raised the issue of bombing the centers of Jewish considered indicting Jan Gross for "slander against the Polish nation." The law extermination in Poland. Epstein reported back to Ben-Gurion that the Soviet under which Gross could find himself in the defendant's chair is a law passed in official responded that such an idea was out of the question politically, since the 2006 making it illegal to accuse "the Polish nation" of collaborating with the government of Russia would not adopt measures which were based on national German occupiers and/or the communist government to commit crimes. The grounds (source: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, maximum sentence for this crime is three years. Jan Gross is also the author of http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2007-4-russia.php). Neighbors, 2001, in which he presented the fact that the Jedwabne pogrom in July 4 Yehuda Bauer, The Holocaust in its European Context; lecture at the 1941 was carried out by the Poles and not the Germans. Although Polish critics international conference entitled "The Holocaust: Remembrance and Lessons," vehemently denied this initially, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance 4 – 5 July 2006, Riga, Latvia. subsequently issued findings in support of Prof. Gross' claims.

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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 anniver- sary 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 Auschwitz member countries.

The Shoah is by definition genocide, with its specific and universal will hold them responsible for the crimes," said Ali Ramin among aspects. The experience of the Shoah should have prevented all his remarks about Israel, which he described as "a bloodthirsty future genocides and crimes against humanity. However, not only enemy entity in the heart of the Islamic world."9 Fortunately, did this experience not prevent other genocides (Cambodia, Croatia is not following European trends regarding anti-Semitism. Sudan, Rwanda etc.) but it did not uproot anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, it is necessary to mention a statement made in 2006 Anti-Semitism survived the postwar years and, accompanied by a by a parliamentary representative from the ranks of the Party of negation of the Shoah, is growing today. Unfortunately, besides Democratic Action (SDA), [emso Tankovi} that American Jews anti-Semitism from the radical right (which is publicly perceived were the creators of the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade as something bad, shameful and dangerous), anti-Semitism is Center in New York. increasingly present not only on the extreme left, whether it is anti-Semitism per se or politically correct anti-Semitism known as I shall conclude by referring to a speech by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, anti-Zionism. Anti-Semitism is also growing in Arab and Islamic a Buchenwald survivor, at the 2005 March of the Living in countries of the world. Mein Kampf is constantly on the Arab list Auschwitz-Birkenau. Recalling the first return trip he made to of bestsellers and the Protocol of the Elders of Zion is a bestseller Buchenwald in 1991, he said that he went into a room once used in Arab countries in more editions than it had in Germany, and is as a torture chamber and found etched into the wall five Hebrew printed with forewords written by the local authorities (Syria) and letters spelling the Yiddish word for revenge, nekuma. "What is parts are cited as facts in school textbooks (Saudi Arabia). On that nekuma?" Lau asked. "Is nekuma to throw a rock? I can't; is it January 25, 2008, the secretary general of the International to shoot at a living person? I can't. But he wrote 'nekuma,' and he Institute for Holocaust Research, Mohammad-Ali Ramin, urged wrote what many people – millions – thought. Jewish communities in the world "to stop providing support to the The nekuma is that we are here; the nekuma is that we are home; Zionist regime. If Jews of the world continue to remain silent the nekuma is that we have a homeland; the nekuma is that we about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, all of humanity 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 6 The faithful remnant (sh'erit ha-pleta) refers to 1 Chronicles (Divrei Hayamim flag with a Magen David to say that in every generation there are Alef) 4:43. those who seek our destruction, but the Holy One Blessed be He 7 Since Nissan 14 (April 19 according to the Gregorian calendar) is the day that saves us from their hands, and that our faith will not flicker out, 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 and that our light will not be extinguished." 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 9 "The presence of a blood-thirsty enemy at the heart of the Islamic world like the commemorated in Germany since 2006 and Holocaust Memorial Day has been Zionist regime, which poses a threat to all Islamic countries, provides the best commemorated in in the United Kingdom since 2001. On the same day, Poland opportunity for the Islamic Ummah to preserve unity and return to its religious had previously had a Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nazism, and Italy had identity." a Day of Remembrance. Source: http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=626981

16 ISRAEL RUACH HADASHA

Lunch with Yitzhak Navon Marija Salom

The last day of the Gregorian year 2007 impatiently at each of them, in anticipation of seeing the dear faces of Yitzhak Navaron and Miri Shafir. 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 Our friendship began in 2004 at the Esperanza, a festival of much. Sephardic culture of the Balkans in Belgrade. We have fond memories of leisurely walks on Knez Mihajl Street, cappuccinos, "Shalom, Marija Salom on the line, may I speak with Mr. Yitzhak lunches at the Kaprica in Belgrade and the Tel Aviv marina, Navon?" suppers at the Jerusalem Hilton, visits to Miri's apartment and "Mr. President is at a meeting. Let me see when you can call him." office in Tel Aviv, cups of tea accompanying long conversations at Yes, the President, the fifth president of the state of Israel, the Yitzhak's house in Jerusalem, his driver and car which he lent us, president from 1978 to 1983. How could I have said "Mr."? He is his warm voice during every conversation ... So many memories active today and presides over many organizations that express his for these three and a half years, all filled with mutual respect, personality and interests, such as the National Authority for affection and love. Ladino, Neot Kedumim (the Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel, They arrive smiling. Miri is driving. an organization that cultivates plants mentioned in the Bible and With a smile, I think about Shabbat and their ancestry. Miri comes Talmud), the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, from a family of Ashkenazi immigrants from Poland. Yitzhak is the honorary president of the Abraham Fund (a fund for furthering scion of a long line of famous Sephardic rabbis. His family has understanding and cooperation between Jews and Arabs in Israel) lived in Jerusalem for over 300 years and can trace its ancestry to as well as many smaller organizations. I had not finished listing all 1492, the time of the Spanish Inquisition. of this to myself when I heard a deep, youthful man's voice on the other end of the line: They park in front of our hotel only to greet us and kiss us. "Maria, beautiful Maria..." These words already coaxed a smile They have not changed at all since the last time we saw them. Miri from me and memories of the President's generosity and is indisputably a beauty, despite the passage of time, and Yitzhak impeccable manners. is a man with a rarely encountered charisma. Both are warm and sweet. "... When did you arrive? Did Davor come, too? How long are you staying?... Miri and I arrived from Paris yesterday ..." We drive together to the Dan Hotel. A series of questions and answers followed. The conclusion was While Davor helps Miri park in the overcrowded parking lot, that we would spend Sabbath lunch together. Miri calls and asks Yitzhak and I are talking and walking slowly toward the Italian which restaurant we'd like to go to. She says that Yitzhak wants to restaurant. Around us people are stopping, nudging each other, take us to the one connected with fond memories of our Ole showing Yitzhak to their children, smiling, waving, blowing kisses Hadash immigrant life in Israel. I smile again and ask myself if and stopping their automobiles ... expressing respect and love. such dear people exist anywhere else?! I say that time is passing, For a moment, the words of Varda, our Tel Aviv neighbor and Israel is changing every day, there are more and more nice places, friend, pass through my mind: "That was a PRESIDENT ..." so I leave the choice to them. A president who in the most direct manner participated in the creation and development of this country. Shabbat He earned degrees in education, Islamic culture, Arabic and Above us the sun and the crystal blue sky. Before us the blue of the literature from Hebrew University, and worked for several years as Mediterranean Sea, the horizon and a long sandy beach with a a professor. During the Independence War, as a twenty-five-year- boardwalk that leads to lovely old Jaffa. Tall hotels to the left and old he was at the head of the entire Arab section of Haganah right. Behind us the famous Bauhaus apartment buildings (Israeli defense organization) in Jerusalem. surrounding by gardens. Following the war, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In We drink in the Shabbat atmosphere of this large city. 1952, he began a decade-long career in senior administrative Young parents with their sweet children pass us, as well as posts in the offices of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Following well-groomed older persons walking leisurely and conversing. It is Ben-Gurion's retirement in 1963, he was appointed as the head of lively on the beach. Some are jogging, some are throwing frisbees. the Cultural Division of the Ministry of Education and Culture. In Some are sitting in lounge chairs, sunning themselves and sipping this position, he was remembered for a project to battle illiteracy beverages from nearby cafés, and the bravest are swimming in the that mobilized hundreds of female soldiers to become Hebrew December sea. teachers and combat illiteracy among the immigrants on the geographical and socioeconomic periphery of society. From 1965 An occasional private vehicle passes down the street. We look

17 RUACH HADASHA ISRAEL

to 1978 he was a member of the Knesset, serving as the deputy cooperation between Israel and Spain, after so many centuries. speaker of the house and chairman of the Foreign Affairs and The conversation inevitably turned to the situation in the Defense Committee. Concurrently, he was active in Sephardic world today, his activities in the National Authority for Israeli-Diaspora affairs, serving as the chairman of the executive Ladino and the coming spring conference at the Center for committee of the World Zionist Movement and chairman of the Sephardic Studies at the University of Murcia in Spain. America-Israel Cultural Fund. The order comes. All of us agree that the food is excellent. He was elected president on Nissan 12, 5738, i.e., April 19, 1978. Miri and Yitzhak want to know everything that had occurred in our He was noticeably younger than his predecessors and significantly professional and personal lives since our last visit. changed the atmosphere of the President's residence. He decided upon an informal manner in the performance of his duties. The They are interested in the situation regarding our Jewish residence was always open to writers, actors and artists in all community. This conversation inevitably expanded to the fields. situation in the communities in our region and the problem of education. Yitzhak Navon traveled extensively throughout the country, studying everything that happened in the hinterland, developing We speak about the publishing activities of our Rabbi Icak Asiel, cities and communities of minorities. He was a bridge among the the book by Rabbi Kotel Da-Don, books by Sonja Samokovlija, various Israeli ethnic groups, religious and secular, Sephardim Jasminka Doma{, Milica Mihajlovi}, Dijamanta Kova~evi}, @eni and Ashkenazim, left and right, Jews and Arabs. Lebl, Eli Tauber, Slavko and Ivo Goldstein, the anthologies Mi smo pre`iveli (We Survived), ... books we do not have. He encouraged the young to participate actively in the work of their communities, to believe in their possibilities and "You need more dances and songs. That's what sustains life..." says achievements in all fields. Yitzhak, and I once again smile to myself. He is right but our situation and our communities... He accepted an invitation from President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. During his state visit, he "conquered the hearts of the Egyptians" I recall his work on the concert Romancero Sephardi way back in with his perfect knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with their 1968 and the drama Bustan Sephardi, which has been performed culture. hundreds of times up to the present. We enter an elegant restaurant. They show us a reserved private Dessert arrives. We share and each try a little of everything. dining room. Yitzhak says: "This is so separate that I would not We continue about books. I see this dear, erudite man across the feel comfortable..." It is decided that we shall change our place table from me and cannot resist mentioning a book that recreates and we sit with the other guests. A young waiter approaches, the process of the creation of Israel in an exceptional way, My welcomes us in what sounded to me like perfect Hebrew and Israel by Golda Meir. I ask him whether, considering today's Israel, offers us menus and the wine list. Yitzhak asks him where he is Golda would have changed her opinions and acts. Yitzhak smiled from, because with his excellent ear he recognizes a nuance in his and said: "Golda never changed her opinions, and would not do Hebrew accent. so today..." "From here," answers the confused young man. We continue the conversation and I am constantly amazed anew "And your parents?" at his charm, knowledge, wisdom and the ease with which he presents each topic. "From Uruguay..." I'll have to find and read his book on legends and stories At the mention of the country where Yitzhak had served just after connected with the spirit of Jerusalem, as well as an anthology of the War of Independence, he began to sing. The young man articles by Ben-Gurion. watched him, surprised and happy. He recognized the national anthem of Uruguay. I recall his numerous activities that he continued at the Ministry of Education after serving as president. He initiated a "cultural This scene reminded me that Yitzhak sang the song Tamo daleko package," which guarantees artistic and cultural experiences to perfectly before an overflowing salon at the opening of the festi- each schoolchild, underscored the significance of scientific- val Esperanza, and the ovation he received from the public. technological education, democratic values and co-existence with He always surprises me anew with his knowledge and charm. all ethnic communities and religions, and initiated a secondary school trip to Poland and study of the Holocaust. 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 More than three hours passed like an instant. The time to part had subtitle Jerusalem that was in Spain. This series tells the history come. of the Jews in Spain, their glory and suffering, and was prepared Yitzhak paid the bill and left the young "Uruguayan" a generous on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Inquisition. tip. 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 We leave the restaurant. The sun is slowly descending toward the fact that Yitzhak had signed the first contract regarding cultural horizon.

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Miri and Yitzhak again provoke excitement among passersby. They Greetings, hugs, kisses and the desire to see each other as soon as greet, stop, and wave at their PRESIDENT. Yitzhak returns their possible. greetings in an easy and unforced manner. This is a trait of the I watch the blue Toyota sadly as it drives away, knowing that best. several months will pass until our next meeting but our hearts will Again I smile to myself and think how lucky I am to have received always be full when we think of each other. this gift, the time we spent together. 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, Reunion with relatives did not occur without emotion. When they Mordo Albahari. calmed down a little, it was time for cooking. However, now our Relating their extensive experiences, they opened a box Ruben is an "expert" in the kitchen. Who has not tried Ruben's containing a neatly arranged set of special knives, from which pastelle does not know what a good pastelle is, not to mention his young Ruben could not take his widely spaced black eyes. vegetable lasagna. His admiration was boundless after Reuven pulled one of them The conversation took place in Hebrew-English and lively out and with several strokes fashioned a rose from an ordinary gesticulation. How and in what language can we explain why a radish. Reuven continued to transform ordinary vegetables and filet mignon is the best if the calf has stopped nursing in a fruits into miraculous objects with which he decorated the particular month, if Ruben does not know how to say udder in delicacies he prepared in the house of his cousin. Hebrew and Reuven does not know how to say it in English. That is why we have hands and fingers. Time passed. Reuven and Tirca embarked upon their journeys in life, and Ruben on his. Reuven sampled many Croatian specialties. Ruben was an excellent host. We took Reuven to Plitvice Lakes. This is a place We know Ruben's journey, and here is the less well-known journey which Israelis visit with great respect and admiration, as water of Reuven Harel. After completing culinary school in Netanya, he signifies genuine wealth for them. continued his schooling in Switzerland and then returned to Israel, where for several years he was the head chef at the HaHofHaYarok Like a true Israeli, Reuven looked at the lakes and waterfalls with Hotel in Natanya and the owner of a successful catering company. amazement. Taking some water from a lake with his hand and Starting in 1990, he was a senior lecturer at a cooking school in drinking it, he said: "Your best specialty is water, precisely this Natanya. At this school, he trained cooks for the leading Israeli from Plitvice." hotels. For several years, he has been the co-owner of a chain of In conclusion, what kind of a story about a cook would this be restaurants known as Safari. He is also the president of the Israeli without giving us at least one recipe! Chefs' Association and a member of the World Chefs' Association. At international competitions, he is the leader of the Israeli chefs' team Malabi and a state judge at cooking examinations. Ingredients: 1 l milk, 200 grams sugar, 85 grams cornstarch and He has passed on his love and knowledge to his son Eran, who half a cup of rosewater. works at the Hilton Hotel in Jerusalem. Thirty or so years later, in November 2007, under the auspices of the Embassy of Israel in Instructions: Cook the milk with the sugar, add the cornstarch and Croatia and the Podravka Company, Reuven found himself in mix with a little cold water. Add the rosewater and stir. Pour into Zagreb. This time he had been invited within the framework of the 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 medi- cine 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. 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

Sigmund Freud 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 Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia him as a serious and no longer cheerful person. This is easily (now the Czech Republic), from which his family emigrated to understandable because besides great problems regarding the Cologne due to anti-Semitism. For the same reason and due to the acceptance of psychoanalysis, he suffered from oral cancer from bankruptcy of his father (a textile merchant), they moved to 1923 until his death, which caused him severe pain and eventually Leipzig and after a year to Vienna, where Sigmund Freud spent impaired his speech. most of his life. Today, Freud's birthplace in Freiberg is located on Today, psychoanalysis is accepted in the civilized world and the a street that was named for him. Unfortunately, there is no Freud International Psychoanalytical Association has approximately Street in Vienna. In secondary school, he was the best student and 11,000 members. We in Croatia have a small group of graduated summa cum laude. It was difficult for him to decide psychoanalysts (7 members of the International Association and what to study. He was interested in the Bible, wanted to study law, 10 candidates). and was also enthusiastic about Darwin and his theory. Nonetheless, Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams that his Psychoanalysis is a long and demanding process for the therapist choice of medicine was owing to "an incomparably beautiful essay and the patient. It uses the free association technique, i.e. analyzes

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Freud's couch used during psychoanalytic sessions everything that the patient says regarding his memories, Speaking about gods, he noted that gods and faith have the task experiences, dreams, slips of the tongue etc. During analysis, and illusion of fulfilling desires. He compared this to dreams, highly significant feelings known as transference develop in the which in their latent part also have an important role in the patient's relationship toward the analyst, to which the analyst fulfillment of desires. Freud says: "The gods retain the threefold responds with countertransference toward the patient. The task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile analyst uses interpretations, primarily of transference, as well as men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and confrontations and clarifications. All of this takes place in a they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations process in which transference occurs, particularly in the relation which a civilized life in common has imposed on them." He of the patient toward the analyst, the resolution of which leads to further states that religion relieves feelings of helplessness when improvements in the behavior and personality of the patient. confronting natural forces such as typhoons, earthquakes and diseases. Immortality is a reward for suffering. Religion also helps Freud and Religion people in their helplessness before instinctive desires and aspirations. Freud asserts that religion is similar to obsessive It is known that Freud was not religious. He considered religion rituals, neurosis is the personal religion of each person and to be like every other humanistic discipline, no more and no less. religion is a universally obsessive or forced neurosis. It affects the

21 RUACH HADASHA CULTURE

person in the suppression and relinquishment of sexual and on the other hand, had entirely relinquished immortality; the destructive influences. However, continues Freud, religion is an possibility of an existence after death was never mentioned in any illusion that is not necessarily worthless. However, its sources, i.e. place." uncritical human desires, are in error. In Moses and Monotheism, Freud expresses an idea that shook the Jewish world and earned him many enemies. He points out that Freud and Judaism he is already old, facing death, and could therefore speak about Freud's father had been raised in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, what he had not dared earlier, i.e. his thesis that Moses was an which his family had observed until they came to Vienna. It is not Egyptian. We may summarize this thesis as follows: known why his father suspended his observance of Jewish 1. In 1358 B.C.E., the first monotheistic religion was tradition upon arriving in Vienna. The first of Freud's two names, proclaimed in Egypt. It was represented by Pharaoh Aknaton, Shlomo Sigismund, has a religious character, while the second is who called his god Aton (Atum). Upon the death of Aknaton, secular. When he was seven years old, his father gave him a Bible this religion was banned and its followers were imprisoned. with an inscription written in Hebrew, urging him to study the Moses was one of the followers of this religion during the ancient texts. However, Freud did not do so. The family of his reign of Aknaton. wife, Martha Bernays, was very religious. Her grandfather had been the chief rabbi of Hamburg. There were problems regarding 2. Moses introduced the practice of circumcision, which at the their wedding. Martha's family insisted upon a religious ceremony time was only practiced in Egypt, among the Jews he led out and Freud was of the opinion that a civil ceremony was sufficient. of Egypt together with other tribes. However, Martha was able to convince him that a civil wedding 3. Freud points out that sources state that Moses spoke would not be recognized in Austria. Therefore, they had both slowly, which could indicate that he did not know the religious and civil ceremonies. Freud was acquainted with the language of the tribes well. Freud further states that Moses Bible and Jewish traditions but he was of the opinion that the seems to have been a prince, priest or military leader. He was Bible was written by man and not G-d. According to him, it stubborn and temperamental, with the need to lead the tribes represented the external manifestation of the inner trauma of the from Egypt. Jewish people. Speaking about the Jewish G-d, Freud said that this I think that Freud expressed his attitude toward Judaism most G-d was the most severe, whose image could not be depicted and completely in his letter to a meeting of B'nai B'rith, held in his whose name could not be mentioned. The Jewish G-d forbids all honor on the occasion of his 70th birthday, May 6, 1926. Freud sexuality except relations within marriage, as well as aggressive wrote this letter because he was no longer able to speak clearly satisfaction. Freud compares him to a strict super ego that only and, therefore, could not personally address the gathering. Prior permits sublimation into the intellectual. In the year 1937, Freud to the reading of Freud's letter, his physician, Prof. Ludvig Braun, wrote a significant work entitled Moses and Monotheism, in which spoke about him. Among other things, Freud wrote the following: he asserts that the Jews are guilty of the murder of the father, i.e. "In my loneliness, I was seized with a longing to find a circle of Moses, and his transformation into a divinity. picked men of high character who would receive me in a friendly In 1922, the biblical scholar Ernst Sellin had found statements in spirit in spite of my temerity. Your society was pointed out to me prophetic books that Moses was killed during a rebellion of as the place where such men were to be found. That you were stubborn Jews and his religion was rejected. He considered this to Jews could only be agreeable to me, for I was myself a Jew, and it be significant in the yearning for the Messiah. Freud stated that the had always seemed to me not only unworthy but positively killing of Moses, i.e. the father, was the original sin and the senseless to deny the fact. What bound me to Jewry was (I am beginning of Christianity. Therefore, Jews continue to wait for the ashamed to admit) neither faith nor national pride, for I have Messiah today. Christians, however, replaced the father with the always been an unbeliever and was brought up without any son, who eliminated the father and saved Christians, redeeming religion, though not without a respect for what are called the them from their sins without guilt. Freud emphasizes: "It would be 'ethical' standards of human civilization. ... And beyond this there worthwhile to understand how it was that the monotheist idea was a perception that it was to my Jewish nature alone that I owed made such a deep impression precisely on the Jewish people and two characteristics that had become indispensable to me in the that they were able to maintain it so tenaciously. It is possible, I difficult course of my life. Because I was a Jew, I found myself free think, to find an answer. Fate had brought the great deed and from many prejudices which restricted others in the use of their misdeed of primeval days, the killing of the father, closer to the intellect; and as a Jew I was prepared to join the opposition and Jewish people by causing them to repeat it on the person of to do without agreement with the 'compact majority.'" Moses, an outstanding father-figure. It was a case of 'acting out' In this context, I should also add Freud's letter of 1925 on the instead of remembering, as happens so often with neurotics occasion of the opening of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. during the work of analysis." (Acting out is a process when we Freud writes: "Historians have told us that our small nation actively do something verbally or physically aggressive instead of withstood the destruction of its independence as a State only thinking about it and analyzing it.) Freud spoke about one more because it began to transfer in its estimation of values the highest highly significant phenomenon in the Jewish religion, which is rank to its spiritual possessions, to its religion and its literature. ... that there is no life after death. He says: "The early Jewish religion, A university is a place in which knowledge is taught above all

22 CULTURE RUACH HADASHA

Berggasse 19 Vienna Freud’s office differences of religions and of nations, where investigation is Freud and Anti-Semitism carried on, which is to show mankind how far they understand the Freud was aware of anti-Semitism early in life. In The world around them and how far they can control it. Such an Interpretation of Dreams, he related a story told to him by his undertaking is a noble witness to the development to which our father about when he was a young man. He was wearing a new fur people has forced its way in two thousand years of unhappy hat when a Christian came up and knocked it into the mud. His fortune." father picked up his hat and placed it on his head. Freud said that Freud did not believe in the survival of the Jewish state in this was a great disappointment for him, because he could not Palestine. This assertion is supported by his letter to Dr. Chaim believe that his father would behave with such cowardice. His own Koffler of 1930, who had sought Freud's support after the experience with anti-Semitism first occurred during his Palestinian massacres of Jewish settlers in 1929. Freud answered studies. He was greatly surprised to be considered less worthy in him as follows: "I cannot do what you ask. My unwillingness to the eyes of his colleagues because he was a Jew. Unfortunately, involve the public with my name is insurmountable and not even during his life he encountered anti-Semitism frequently. For this present critical occasion seems to warrant it. Whoever wishes example, it was owing to anti-Semitism that he did not receive a to influence the crowd must express something that resonates and professorship, which he greatly desired, until he was almost fifty, creates enthusiasm but my sober estimation of Zionism does not because this appointment required the approval of the Austrian allow me to do so. I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for emperor. Anti-Semitism may also be considered to be among the their endeavors; I am proud of our university in Jerusalem and am reasons why Freud, despite his considerable achievements, never pleased that our settlements are flourishing. But, on the other received the Nobel Prize. hand, I do not believe that Palestine can ever become a Jewish Freud believed that there were numerous reasons for State or that both the Christian and Islamic world will ever be anti-Semitism, some conscious and many unconscious. "Jews are prepared to entrust their holy places to Jewish care ..." Freud was hated because they killed God and did not admit it and repent." obviously mistaken here.

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." It is known that Freud did not want to leave Vienna, although the Sigmund Freud memorial in Hampstead, North London Nazi threat was very real. Everyone urged and beseeched him but he was stubborn until the day when the Gestapo took his favorite We know that the Catholic Church only recently repudiated the daughter, Anna, into custody. When she returned home, he finally "Christ-killer" libel. Freud continues to state that Jews were always agreed to travel to England. His friends paid a large sum of money and everywhere in the minority but a highly significant and for Freud and his family to be able to leave. We must admit that successful minority. They did not differ much from the people in Mussolini played a certain role here, interceding on Freud's behalf their surroundings but it was precisely for this reason that they with Hitler. Thus, Freud and his family arrived in London in 1938. provoked their hatred and scorn. Thus, Freud proposed the Although very old, tired and ill, he was always enthusiastic when theory of the narcissism of small differences. Unfortunately, we he read something against anti-Semitism. Thus, he felt "deeply have had the opportunity to confirm this theory during the recent affected" by an article written by a non-Jew, who had written that wars in the former Yugoslavia, when hatred prevailed among the there were Church protests against anti-Semitism, but they had Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. Freud continues that Jews are proud been feeble and too late, as well as intellectual protests in the and resist oppression. They are capable and have marked ability, name of humanism. There had been no protests in the name of which is manifested in commerce and provides an important the truth about the Jews, who were different but who had made a contribution to every type of culture. They are called the firstborn great contribution to humanity, concludes the article. The same and dearest children of God, which stirs the hatred and jealousy year, Freud wrote an article on anti-Semitism for an English of other nations. They are subjected to circumcision, which arouses newspaper. He died at his home in London on September 23, archaic castration anxiety among the people around them. 1939. 

24 CULTURE RUACH HADASHA

Jews in Rijeka Summary Rina Brumini

Rijeka

INTRODUCTION Angelello, and Bonaventura, figlio di Simone ambo judei et habitatores Pesauri borrowed 30 gold ducts from Piermarino da No extant documents definitively confirm the presence of Jews in Fermo in Rijeka and pledged to return this sum on their way back Rijeka prior to the 18th century. However, there were written to Fermo. Other bonds of this nature were signed between Italian references to Jews in a variety of contexts. Jews and citizens. Such information indicates that Jews were The 19th century historian Giovanni Kobler mentioned a Jewish present in the area but still does not provide solid evidence of a settlement in the small port of Bakar near Rijeka, first referred to Jewish settlement within the city walls. by a local clergyman, Bartolomeo Vincenzo Barchich, who wrote a In the heart of the city, there is a place called Zudecca or Zuecha, chronicle of the city of Bakar in 1740. In a chapter on local mentioned on at least four different occasions in the city traditions, Barchich asserts that Jews were living there in the year chronicles between 1534 and 1710. This toponym is similar to that 74 C.E. of the Venetian quarter, Giudecca, where Jews resided and the On August 6, 1441, a notary of Rijeka, Antonio de Renna, in the Italian dialect used in Rijeka is closely related to the Venetian first of many such entries, recorded that Abramo, figlio di 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 from the financial life of the Serenissima. Pope Paul VI issued an yard or a whole neighborhood. In 1534, the register of Rijeka, edict that underscored this position. Jews were banned from any Ravizza, mentions the Zudecca first as a piazza and then as a town lacking a ghetto, could not hire Christian employees or building (magazinum sive Zudaicam, unum, mirishe prope engage in any type of gainful employment. Split established a Judaicam). Later, in the 16th century, shops leased by the ghetto at the end of October 1778. Wealthy Jews departed, while municipality within Zudecca are mentioned. The municipal hunger prevailed among the poor. authority built new zudecche for tanners in 1594, for which it In June 1779, two shepherds from Split, Isac Michele Penso and ordered cleaning in 1696, had the roof repaired in 1700, had the Prospero Jona, applied to the municipality of Rijeka for a water purified in 1700, and had the channel leading there settlement permit, which was granted. In July of that year, Isac repaired in 1710. According to descriptions in the year 1696 and Piazza and Isac Raffaello Panso, also from Split, submitted a later, the Zudecca was located in the area where the Jesuit similar request to the municipality. Their example was followed by monastery was built in the first half of the 17th century. We can Abramo Penso and three brothers, Giuseppe, Leone and Sabato assume that Rijeka had its own ghetto, as did other cities on the Ventura, all merchants from Split. Croatian coast, and that the name was retained to designate a group of old buildings at the former site of the Zudecca. It is At the end of September, Isac Michael Penso along with the plausible to assume that the Zudecca was abandoned and brothers Giuseppe and Leone Ventura submitted a written neglected. Again, we have a location but no personae. We actually application to the Rijeka municipality, as official delegates of their do not encounter the first Jews until June 1779. little colony, for formal authorization to erect a house of prayer and a Jewish cemetery outside the city walls. In this request, they HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES: 17th – 18th CENTURIES stated that, according to the Jewish law, a synagogue should be established in any place where at least ten adult men convened in It is common knowledge that Jewish migration and life in our prayer (minyan). They also stressed that with municipal territories was subjected to a thick web of limitations, inhibitions guarantees of permits, benefits, (imperial) protection, porto and prohibitions, together with permits sporadically issued by the franco and protection from violent outbursts by other citizens, many Habsburg emperor, the Hungarian Diets, regional and local laws. other Jewish merchants from Split and other Italian cities would Rijeka was in a fortunate position because the Habsburgs had no migrate to Rijeka, undoubtedly contributing to the city's prosperity. maritime centers. Desirous of such centers, Charles VI first invited investors in Rijeka and Trieste to move their businesses there THE FIRST SYNAGOGUE (1717) and then proclaimed the two cities as free ports (porti franchi). The city bylaws guaranteed imperial protection to Authorization was issued. The house of prayer was initially whomever contributed to the economic well-being of the new sea- situated in the private home of the Penso family. However, violent port, regardless of religion. The situation improved with the reign dissent soon broke out among the members and the Ventura of Charles VI's daughter, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. family retreated to their own home. The first president of the Although she banned Jews from the inherited Habsburg territories community, Isacco Levi, established a compromise: communal as a measure of protectionism to safeguard the national market, prayer would no longer be held in the private homes of members she permitted Jewish immigration in certain parts of the acquired but in premises specifically leased for this purpose, under the Habsburg territories. At times, she even readmitted banned Jews direction of members elected by the community. to their countries of origin. Subject to the Hungarian crown, In the 1820s, four decades after the Jewish community was Rijeka successfully claimed its autonomy and in 1779 became a established in Rijeka, there were 64 Jews. They had their own Corpus separatum within the monarchy, subject to Budapest but house of prayer but, unfortunately, its location is unknown. What answering directly to Vienna. The greatest breakthrough for we do know is that an Italian merchant, Moses Saul Halevi, European Jewry came with the reign of Maria Theresa's son, donated his family mansion in the city center to the community in Joseph II, a proponent of enlightened absolutism. By the time 1837. This apparently had a major impact, as evident from the Joseph II died in 1790, the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) was renaming of the street as Calle del Tempio. Worship was organized about to change European Judaism forever. This was the time of according to Sephardic rituals. There is no extant documentation the first extant reference to Jewish families living in the city of regarding the building and the community it served because the Rijeka. archives were destroyed during a fire on the ground floor where its president, Nathan Cohen, had been living. We know, however, THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT that the first Torah was donated by a merchant from Dubrovnik, The first Jewish families to settle in Rijeka in the 1770s were Yizchak Pardo, who moved to Rijeka in 1789. The official language shepherds from the Dalmatian city of Split. The main reason for was Italian but services were also conducted in Hungarian on their emigration from Split could be traced in the harsh major holidays. economic conditions throughout Dalmatia under Venetian rule. Venice, once a great empire, was rapidly losing its supremacy and THE CEMETERY prosperity. The Republic believed that the ongoing crisis could be Prior to 1733, there were no cemeteries in Rijeka outside the city successfully remedied by expelling Jewish merchants and bankers walls but only in and around churches. The municipality acquired

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Rijeka's only Synagogue a vineyard, which it converted into a graveyard that was ready for Germans. As they prepared to destroy one of Rijeka's highest use by 1773. On more than one occasion, the Ventura brothers achievements in architecture as well as civil life, the Germans had and I. M. Penso unsuccessfully attempted to buy land for a Jewish to surround the synagogue with barricades in order to obstruct cemetery, until they finally managed to purchase a vineyard in the the intervention of fire brigades. Belvedere district, which was used as cemetery until a decree was By the 1930s, the number of eastern immigrants in Rijeka had adopted that prohibited burial within the city walls (1839). After become substantial. These Jewish families were generally very considerable negotiation, the community was permitted to bury poor and extremely pious, unable to adjust their lifestyle to the its dead within the 6,033 square meters of land designated by the level of assimilation which the resident community enjoyed. municipality for the Jewish cemetery and mortuary, which was Therefore, they grew apart and funded their own community, purchased by the charitable brotherhood Chevra Kadisha. The synagogue and mikveh. In 1911, the new community was former cemetery was no longer in use but remained intact until recognized by the municipality as an institution per se (Unione 1940. Its tombstones, with clearly legible inscriptions, were degli Israeliti Fiumani), and bought a lot for the construction of incorporated into the southern wall of the new lot. The "new" a synagogue and ritual bath in 1928. The Italian Unione delle cemetery was expropriated in January 1976. Nonetheless, by the Comunità Israelitiche (Rijeka was under Italian jurisdiction at the following year the community managed to reach an agreement time) was baffled: all Italian Jewish communities, including Rijeka, with the municipality, according to which the city would grant a were Reformed. Nonetheless, the Orthodox were treated as a thirty-year renewable lease. In 1993, the Jewish cemetery was welcomed exception. In 1932, after Italy implemented the law on designated as a protected landmark of the cultural heritage. professed confessions (Legge sui culti ammessi), the Orthodox community, regarded as "eccentric," moved with all of its assets THE TEMPIO GRANDE AND THE ORTHODOX COMMUNITY into the Reformed community, which permitted the Orthodox The number of Jewish families in Rijeka increased. The synagogue Jews to have their own section. on Calle del Tempio became too crowded. Therefore, the head of The small Orthodox synagogue survived the war intact. Today, it is the community, together with patrons of the Chevra Kadisha one of the best preserved examples of modern architecture in brotherhood, started to raise funds to build a larger temple. The Rijeka. It is also one of the three synagogues in Croatia that building was designed by the famous Budapest architect Lipot maintained their original purpose after the war ended. Baumhorn in 1901. After a couple of years of wrangling with the Nationalized in 1956, the former Orthodox synagogue became a city and the neighbors, the lot was acquired and construction protected landmark of the cultural heritage in 1996 and was began. The new synagogue, with 2,500 registered members, was completely renovated in 2006.  inaugurated on Rosh Hashanah in 1903. In 1944, the Tempio grande was demolished and burned to the ground by the

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