Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

For more documentary photographs of Berga, visit Jewish Virtual Library.

In the course of a mere ten weeks, these men went from being the pride of America’s fighting effort to concentration camp inmates. Those who survived, though almost none of them understood this at the time or even later, had become Holocaust survivors. But the terrible schande about this event is that the U.S. military and government told the survivors to forget what happened to them. It even forced some to sign confidentiality agreements saying they would not reveal what they suffered as it might compromise the nation.

Two of the most sadistic German guards were imprisoned, but the longest sentence was a mere seven years. The SS commandant of the camp escaped punishment entirely. All this, because by 1947 the U.S. had decided that its next major enemy would become Soviet Russia. The crimes of Nazis, even when perpetrated on our own troops were no longer important. There were U.S. commanding officers among the POWs who counseled the Jewish GIs to reveal their ethnic identity to their German captors. They in effect became unwitting collaborators with their Nazi guards. None of them were ever disciplined for their arrant stupidity.

The Abayudaya are a small (600 member) community of Ugandan Jews who embraced Judaism nearly 100 years ago during the period of English colonial rule. They live in a series of small villages near the eastern Ugandan town of Mbale (see accompanying map). I am indebted for the historical background that follows to Rabbi Jeffrey Summit’s comprehensive liner notes for his CD, Abayudaya. Summit, Hillel director and professor of music at Tufts, has performed a labor of love in traveling to Uganda, taping the music and oral histories of this community, and compiling it in a wonderful book and CD (see graphic links here to both).

What is remarkable about the Abayudaya is that they do not claim direct Jewish ancestry like Beta Israel of Ethiopia or the Lemba of southern Africa (another amazing story). Instead, they tell the story of Semei Kakungulu, a military leader who allied himself with the British during the 1890s in their fight to assume colonial control of the country. He also converted to the Anglican Church in the hope of currying favor with his British overlords. Kakungulu expected that the British would honor their end of the bargain by making him king of eastern Uganda. He turned against the British in 1913 when they did not name him king. He also turned against the Anglican Church and joined a dissident Protestant church who regarded Saturday as Sabbath, ate no pork and followed Biblical practice allowing polygamy.

As he read from the Lugandan (the local language) translation of the Hebrew Bible, he embraced the Biblical precept that male babies should be circumcised on the eighth day of life. When he was told that such practice broke not only with Baganda (the local ethnic group) heritage but with Christianity, he reportedly replied: “If this is so then from this day on I am a Jew”. Kakungulu, as the elders tell the story circumcised himself and his sons (as did Abraham). Many of his followers followed suit. He practiced a forum of “proto-Judaism” and “developed the community’s Sabbath liturgy, which included preaching, reading selections from the Hebrew Bible in Luganda and singing selections from the Song of Moses (Deut. 32:1-43).”

The story of the Abayudaya embrace of Judaism involves the nexus between religion, politics and power that has left an indelible impact throughout greater Jewish history as well. And what is equally remarkable is that the Abayudaya brand of Judaism developed mostly in isolation from the broader Jewish world. Certainly there were several formative encounters with other Jews over the decades of the 20th century, but not until the 1990s was there regular ongoing contact with the world Jewish community. And though its religion may have developed in isolation from world Jewry, the Abayudaya have known persecution, destitution and forced conversion not far removed from what happened to Spanish Jews in the 15th-16th centuries. When the brutal dictator, Idi Amin came to power, he cracked down hard on Abayudaya religious practices. They observed rituals in secret for if they were caught they faced prison. Thousands of them, faced with abject poverty and even starvation if they remained in the faith, preferred to convert. Even now, with such persecution a thing of the past only 20% of the original population remains Jewish.

The Abayudaya have a keen sense of the importance of maintaining their religious observances and musical tradition. In this passage, Rabbi Summit quotes two communal leaders on the subject interspersed with some thoughts of his own:

Israel Siriri told me: “We should continue to sing and teach our own melodies and traditions that have strengthened us over the years.” So too Keki expressed admiration for North American Jewish melodies, but that doesn’t mean that the Abayudaya should forget their own traditions. Uri Katula continued: “We need to sing our own traditional music. If not, there would be no need for you to come and see the Abayudaya. What would be the purpose? Would you be coming to learn? No. Because we would be doing what you do. And I doubt whether God likes that. Why did He place some Jews in Uganda and some in America? I think the purpose was to make it a colorful world.” Sizomu concluded, “We are one people, but like Jacob’s coat, we are a coat of many colors.”

In the last 85 years, this people developed a liturgy with music that borrowed from local folk tradition, Protestant hymn-singing and contemporary Ugandan music. Liturgical texts also are an amalgam of Hebrew, Lugandan and Protestant customs. You can clearly hear the Hebrew words when they sing. As a Jew who grew up within a strong religious tradition (though I was not deeply observant), it is moving to hear prayers and songs you clearly recognize but which are somehow transformed into something very different as if they had passed through a cultural looking glass into a new dimension. Listen to the Abayudaya version of the popular Shabbat song, Adon Olam.

Abayudaya liturgical music is utterly charming. The a capella choral settings of some prayers may owe a great deal to the hymn singing in African Protestant churches, but as far as I’m concerned, when I hear the Hebrew words sung that makes it an authentic Jewish musical experience. Other liturgical music which has simple instrumental accompaniment may owe a debt to Ugandan popular music, nevertheless I find it truly winning. I dare you not to smile when you listen to the music on Abayudaya. It is pure loveliness. I was heartsick that this recording did not win the world music Grammy (instead Ladysmith Black Mambazo won). How many Grammys has Ladysmith already won? How many more will they win? And how many chances do you think this struggling community will have to witness its music and traditions honored on a world stage in the person of the Grammys? It was a shame.

Summit enlisted the help of photographer Richard Sobol, who created a remarkable photographic record of life in Abayudaya villages and collected them in Abayudaya, a book he co-wrote with Summit. Sobol maintains a website which features these luminous documentary photographs. You can also hear a radio interview he did for this project on the BBC/PRI show, The World. Summit was also interviewed on NPR’s Tavis Smiley Show. There is a documentary film, Moving Heaven & Earth, about Ugandan Jews which is currently making the rounds of the Jewish film festival circuit.

Yes, this is a provocative and even polemical title and it certainly runs counter to the notion that the purpose of Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel was to save Jewish lives and ensure the survival of the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust. But Baruch Kimmerling’s Nation Magazine article, Israel’s Culture of Martyrdom, presents a profoundly illuminating thesis which argues that martyrdom plays a critical role in the Zionist credo. His first paragraph gives you a good sense of his argument:

Nations like to imagine themselves as unique, but one belief they have in common is that it is noble to die in their name. Death and redemption are the themes of almost every form of patriotism. In the case of Israel, however, the connection between nationalism and death is especially visceral. For the Jewish state is a nation that emerged from the ashes of a project of extermination, and that sees itself as the best defense against the renewal of violent persecution. Zionism, the state’s ruling ideology, is a triumphal creed shadowed by death.

One must add that Israel is not alone in observing this “visceral” connection between nationalism and death. One must look no farther than Serbia and the nationalist fantasy inculcated by Slobodan Milosevic into his countrymen which helped feed Serbian genocide against the Kosovars. For Serbians, the defeat and martyrdom of their hero, Prince Lazar in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo to stop the Ottoman advance into Europe marks a pivotal moment in Serbian history. To this day, Lazar’s martyrdom is worshipped and exalted by all Serbians, but especially by ultra-nationalists like Milosevic and his ilk.

One might well argue that the martyrdom ethos has had an equally corrosive effect in Jewish and Zionist tradition. In fact, Kimmerling quotes historian Idit Zertal as saying (in terms of Jewish history): “ancient graves produce fresh graves.” There are so many examples: Masada, the Bar Kochba rebellion, the Holocaust. And then there are the series of martyrdoms that helped produce modern day Israel–the very first one being Trumpeldor’s death at Tel Hai (very similar to Prince Lazar’s death at Kosovo Polje) during which battle he is reported to have said: “”It is good to die for our country” (reminding me of Nathan Hale’s “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country”). Kimmerling again paraphrases Zertal on the significance of Trumpeldor’s martyrdom within the context of modern Zionism:

[His death] marked the beginning of a cult of death among Israeli Jews. The “new Jewish man,” in this ideology, was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice, to die defending his land and people, in stark contrast with Diaspora Jews, who would later be depicted as weaker souls who went “like lambs to the slaughter” in the Holocaust. The voices arguing that it is better to live for one’s country than to die for it were accordingly stifled and silenced. It is deeply ironic that the very same society now claims to be shocked by the “martyrdom culture” in the occupied territories.

There are a number of arguments advanced by unquestioning supporters of Israel which seek to disparage Palestinian claims to humanity and nationhood. These arguments invariably drive me to drink because they are repeated and rehashed ad nauseum as if by repeating them often enough they will somehow magically be proven true. One of these is the argument Kimmerling alludes to–that Palestinians do not value life, either those of Israelis or their own. Otherwise, why would they keep sending suicide bombers to blow themselves up? Kimmerling reminds us that often when we are disgusted by a supposed moral “defect” in an enemy we have no farther to look than ourselves to see similar defects reflected in our own behavior.

Kimmerling discusses the enormously complicated role played by the Holocaust in the establishment of the State. While this event permeates the consciousness of all Jews, Zionist leaders like Ben Gurion were not above manipulating world opinion and the survivors themselves in order to advance his own Zionist agenda. Kimmerling reminds us of this chilling statement by Israel’s first prime minister:

“if I knew it was possible to save all children of Germany by their transfer to England and only half of them by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, because we are faced not only with the accounting of these children but also with the historical accounting of the Jewish people.”

Here is a perfect example of nationalist ideology standing in the way of life and common sense. Lest you think that Ben Gurion’s comments were mere rhetoric, there are numerous examples in which he prevented rescue of Holocaust survivors because they would be sent to nations other than Israel. In another self-serving gesture, Ben Gurion also suggested granting symbolic citizenship to the six million “in effect, turning them into martyrs for the Jewish state.”

In the buildup to the War of Independence, the Jews of mandatory Palestine desperately needed manpower for the future fights against the Arab nations. They began recruiting from the DP camps. But when voluntary recruitment fared poorly, Zionist leaders persuaded the camp leadership to compel able-bodied men and women to enlist in the Haganah “through a variety of means, among them firing employees from their jobs; evicting tenants from their houses; denying food supplies; arrests and beatings; and the threat of ostracism from the community.” Ben Gurion was not above brutalizing the victims once more if it meant they would help ensure the survival of the Jewish state.

Then there is perhaps the most crucial use to which Ben Gurion put the Holocaust in the first decade or so of the State: the Eichmann affair. When most people think about Israel’s kidnapping, trial and execution of Eichmann, the entire series of events seems eminently reasonable and fair: a notorious Nazi killer gets his just desserts. Yet the issues are much more complicated than they appear on the surface.

Despite his ambivalence about the Holocaust and its victims, “Ben-Gurion sought to turn the Holocaust into the central pillar of Israeli identity and to use it as the main basis upon which to legitimize the Zionist project. The Eichmann case [w]ould be used as a tool to equate Israel’s Arab enemies with the Nazis. The trial helped cast Israel as the representative and savior of world Jewry.” Kimmerling calls the case “a show trial” which at first seems an unduly harsh judgment. But not in the context of Ben Gurion’s Machiavellian manipulation of any and all events for the benefit of the Zionist idea: “The trial was [first and foremost] a grand attempt to shape Jewish and Holocaust history and memory by a single man, Ben-Gurion, and it had far less to do with the task of proving Eichmann’s guilt.”

The Israeli prosecution outlined the events of the Holocaust for the trial’s world audience emphasizing that Jewish resistance consisted solely of Zionists. There was no mention of Bundist, Communists or even Betarniks. For Ben Gurion, they did not exist. Never mentioned by the prosecution were the heroic exploits of Marek Edelman, Bundist leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Edelman rejected the calls for mass suicide on the part of the remaining Jewish fighters and instead escaped through the Warsaw sewers to freedom. Afterward, “he rejected the very idea that one could draw “lessons” from the Holocaust, as well as the notion that Zionism provided the “answer” to the Jewish question.”

Kimmerling notes that the Eichmann trial provided a historical template by which Israelis would see the events of the 1967 War (coming only five years later) as an “‘existential threat’ of Holocaust proportions [instead of] a secular war over disputed land.” This in turn rallied world Jewry around the cause of saving Israel at all cost. Certainly, if Israel’s existence is imperiled, then there can be no questioning of Israel’s policies or motives in its conflict with the Arabs. Yet another corrosive effect of the cult of martyrdom.

Kimmerling places recent events in Israeli politics (the struggle leading up to Gaza withdrawal) within this context by analyzing right-wing Israeli abuse of the Holocaust:

Almost every Israeli politician who has tried to make peace with the Arabs has been likened to Neville Chamberlain, or as a “Nazi” whose secret desire is nothing less than the annihilation of the Jewish people. Any “concession” to the Arabs signals the destruction of Israel, the end of Zionism and the end of the Jewish people. Another symbol often seen at right-wing demonstrations is the yellow Star of David, the single most emotive symbol of Jewish victimization. If Ariel Sharon is Israel’s prime minister today, it is in large part because of this right-wing campaign of vilification against supporters of a negotiated peace with the Palestinian people. Now, it seems, it is his turn to be demonized as his proposed evacuation from the Gaza Strip settlements comes to be labeled as a process aimed at making the Land of Israel judenrein–i.e., cleansed of Jews.

One of the primary rallying cries for modern Zionism in the wake of the Holocaust has been according to Kimmerling: “Never forget.” But he adds (quoting Zertal) one can “remember too much.” Kimmerling masterfully sums up his argument thus:

The obsessive commemoration of the Holocaust and of Jewish victimhood has blinded much of the Jewish community to Israel’s real position in the world and to the humanity of the Palestinian people. The result makes ever more distant a reasonable political solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is the victory of death over life, of the past over the future. To be sure, there are periods in the history of a nation when ultimate sacrifices are necessary. [But] the question in Israel today is whether this heroic period has come to an end or whether the prevailing ideology of the 1948 war will last another hundred years until the entire “Land of Israel” is “liberated.” To choose the former option is to grant priority to the lives of Israel’s citizens, Jewish and Arab. To choose the latter is to remain a community of victims, joined in a mythical communion of Jewish sacrifice in an eternally hostile gentile world. Tragically, most of the organized American Jewish community seems to prefer the mythic option, a course that can only lead to disaster.

Amen to that.

The Israel Policy Forum is one of the best of the Jewish groups working towards a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I consider myself a longstanding friend of IPF. I’ve attended several events here in Seattle & contributed modestly to the cause. I’ve written often about IPF in my blog.

But today, I received a postcard from IPF that unnerved me. The upcoming June 9th gala Tribute Dinner features Ehud Olmert as keynote speaker. Those who can remember back a year or so ago will remember that Olmert announced that the government was seriously considering assassinating Yaser Arafat (see my post on the subject). Since when does a politician who proposes a government policy that might arguably be considered a war crime if not a breach of international law get rewarded with an invitation to address an organization devoted to Israeli-Palestinian peace? I can imagine that IPF might’ve reasoned that Olmert is one of the more moderate ministers of Sharon’s hotheaded cabinet. Olmert seems to be the designated Israeli official for release of “dovish” or moderate pronouncements regarding the conflict. So IPF’s thinking must be that it wants to signify a receptiveness to the views of Israeli political opponents who might share some of IPF’s tactical, if not strategic vision.

I can understand the thinking in a sense. But I simply don’t buy it. To me, this is akin to the ACLU inviting Alberto Gonzales to address their annual dinner. It just doesn’t make much sense. This seems to me one of the odder programming ideas I’ve heard for a progressive Jewish organization. Ehud Olmert is marginally more receptive to the concept of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians than Sharon is (which is not at all). Olmert has not made clear that in his vision Israel would accept the creation of a viable, territorially contiguous Palestinian state. While Olmert publicly supports a limited settlement withdrawal from the Territories, he has never defined his prescriptions for withdrawal: how many settlements? which ones? where? And finally, Olmert as I’ve watched him on NIghtline and read his statements in the press over the years strikes me as an efficient Likud street fighter, a tough and ruffian of the first order. I’d hate to meet him in a political dark alley. Keep in mind, he was the most senior government official to suggest publicly that Israel was considering To me, this makes Olmert pasul and treif. Inviting him to be the keynote speaker at your major annual fundraising dinner is like breaking bread with the devil.

I called IPF to ask them to explain their thinking in inviting Olmert to speak. The director’s assistant said he would convey the message to him, but thus far I have heard nothing. I will be happy to add their reponse to this post once I receive it.