Monday 23 April 2012

YOM HAZIKARON

So last week was Yom HaShoah, and this week is Yom HaZikaron, and then we have the fun part- Yom HaAtzmaut.
I don’t know if it is by design or not, but Yom HaZikaron often coincides with ANZAC Day, this year is no exception. Same thing, Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, commemorating those who died so we may live in freedom. Or, in the case of Israel, so that we may live at all.

Yom HaZikaron, however, has special meaning to me because I lost a brother in the Yom Kippur War. My brother was Julian Pakula, or Yehuda as was his Hebrew name.

Julian was 4 ½ years older than me. He was a bit of a character, a funny guy, but my memories are a bit vague because I was only 12 when I saw him last, when he flew to Israel on a one-way ticket in order to ‘find his roots’ as we would say in modern parlance. He didn’t do too well in his matric and, to ice the cake, he had been beaten up a few too many times by anti-Semites, being that he was a bit short and plump and wore glasses and rode a bike to school. After this last pummeling, in 1968, he made his fateful decision and vowed never to return to ‘this bloody country’  (his words) again. Well, he didn’t. You have to be careful what you wish for.

Also, after the Six Day War in 1967, Israel was such a source of Jewish pride that many made Aliyah around this time. On top of everything, we have family in Israel, as my mother’s parents originally emigrated here from Tzefat. So there was a certain logic to his enormous decision to leave Australia at the age of 17.
After visiting family in Tel Aviv and Tzefat, he decided to go to Ulpan in Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in the Bet Shean valley in the north. This is a large, well-established kibbutz which still has a large Ulpan. It was originally established in 1938 by founders from Germany and Alsace-Lorraine, and thus was not really an English-speaking environment. He was billeted with Sami and Miriam Troper, Francophones, so his Ivrit developed pretty rapidly.
Anyway, he had found his niche. He stayed on, made Aliyah, grew to a muscular 6 feet high, did his basic training with the IDF and became a Chaver Kibbutz. At 22, he was engaged, to be married November 1973. And then he was sent on Miluim (reserve duty) to the Suez.

Now we know what a ballsup the Yom Kippur War was and how it was mismanaged and poorly planned and fought, and how it was a miracle that Israel was not defeated. Golda Meir, they say, was suicidal once the enormity of the losses were clear. 2,688 dead and 7,250 wounded, out of a population of 3,338,000. Well, I’m not a military strategist, but it seems that there was clear evidence of troop build up in the south at the Suez and in the north, at the Golan. Yet it was decided to forego a pre-emptive strike because some people were still smarting from accusations of aggression in the 67 war, when brilliant pre-emption took out the Egyptian air force while it was sitting on the tarmac. And this was after Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (an act of war) and kicked out the UN forces from the Sinai (an act of war) and was trumpeting for all to hear how the Jews were going to be pushed into the sea (Eh, they always said that so I guess that’s not any act of war) plus troop buildup on 3 fronts- well, Israel had to act and she did and the rest is history. But our enemies honked ‘Aggressor!’ so the military leaders of the time, 72-73, thought that it was best to not pre-empt. And that they could absorb a first strike. There was confusion in the intelligence but really, it was clear enough that there would be war on both Egyptian and Syrian fronts. Had Kissinger not warned the Israelis to not start up, things might have been different; but Israel then was completely dependent on the US for all military materiel. According to Kissinger, had Israel launched a pre-emptive attack, the US would have supplied ‘not a nail’. So thanks, good buddies.
Anyway, the Egyptians broke through the ‘impregnable’ Bar-Lev line on Yom Kippur, and my brother was one of the first casualties, if not the first casualty, of the Yom Kippur War.
It actually gets worse, if that were possible. His platoon surrendered to the Egyptians and were taken prisoner. 4 had been killed but we had no firm news, only Missing In Action. After hostilities ceased, Oct 25, and after the prisoner exchanges were over, some weeks later, we then had the news of Yehuda’s death confirmed.
It gets even worse. The 4 soldiers who fell were supposed to have been sent back to Israel, as part of the conditions of surrender. The Red Cross was supposed to have come in and retrieved the bodies. They didn’t, or the Egyptians didn’t let them, but in the end the corpses were left until after the Camp David Accords of 1978. This is where Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, and my personal favourite (not) US President Jimmy Carter, all shook hands, and Israel gave back the Sinai in exchange for a cold peace with Egypt, for which Sadat won, first a Nobel Peace prize, and then a jihadi assassin’s bullet, in 1981, at a parade on the anniversary of the great Egyptian ‘victory’ of the Yom Kippur War.
Meanwhile, back in 1978, my brother’s remains and those of his fallen comrades were finally found by specially trained dogs, collected, identified by dental records and interred at Har Herzl Military Cemetery with some ceremony. So at least we know where he is now.
I won’t go into details about how all of this affected my parents. People tried to comfort them by saying that at least he died fighting for Israel, and therefore his death had more meaning than if he had been, say, run over by a bus. Well, maybe. But gone is gone. They were devastated, and the horror was prolonged by the knowledge that his remains were just left in the desert for 5 years before coming to rest in Kever Yisrael.
To this day, whenever I visit Israel or meet Israelis of my brother’s generation, sooner or later, someone remembers Yehuda Fakula (the dot in the letter Peh got lost somewhere and Pakula became Fakula to his friends.) It’s freaky how many people knew him. They sure remember the Yom Kippur War; everyone in the land was bereaved. It was a horrific time. The Israel of today is a different place for many reasons. But the threat to her existence continues.
May the memories of my brother, his comrades, all the fallen in all the wars, and all those who have perished at the hands of terrorists, be remembered as a blessing.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Thursday 19 April 2012

YOM HASHOAH



Last night I attended the annual Yom HaShoah commemoration, as I have been doing for most of my life. When I was 9 I first went to what was then called the Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration evening at the Melbourne Town Hall with my Dad, who was a Holocaust survivor. I confess that, since most of the speeches were in Yiddish, I didn’t really get much of what was going on, but I got the gist of it.

I had stumbled on the Holocaust a year before while searching our bookshelves for something to read- I was a pretty avid reader- and I found The Scourge of the Swastika by Lord Russell of Liverpool. 8 is pretty young to discover that such evil existed. There were some pretty awful pictures in it, which have haunted me until the present day, although I have since read many books and seen many films on the topic.

The annual Yom HaShoah commemoration evening has developed over the years into a kind of formula. There are songs sung in Yiddish and Hebrew by the children’s choirs of the Jewish day schools; there are the speeches from Jewish community leaders; there is the lighting of 6 memorial candles by survivors accompanied by children and grandchildren; and most important, there is testimony from a survivor. Kaddish is sung. The Partisan’s Hymn. HaTikvah.

Some years have included poetic and artistic musings from the 3rd generation, ie grandchildren of survivors, about how the Holocaust affects them (snorts of derision from my father-in-law who is a survivor of Auschwitz, a Death March, and who was liberated from Buchenwald probably hours from death), but this year was mercifully free from these semi-masturbatory offerings. (I know, harsh.)
Every year there is something that doesn’t work. Some years the speeches are ludicrous, sometimes the candles won’t light, one year some kids fainted because they were kept standing too long waiting to come on to sing. One year a rather bluff fellow, a returned soldier- that was the year they were honoring Jews who fought- made a joke about meeting the Pope, showed some slides of the meeting, and said that the Pope was the one wearing the yarmulke. This went down like the proverbial lead balloon. (Take note: do not make any jokes if asked to speak at Yom HaShoah.)

This year, apart from some candles which refused to stay alight, the one thing that jarred was the fellow who talked about the lessons learned from the Holocaust and how we must not be bystanders to genocide. His organization, Jewish Aid, has raised a lot of money and this money is used to help Sudanese refugees integrate into Australian society. Jewish kids and parents help the Sudanese adults and kids with reading and crafts and whatnot, and there were some pictures of smiling black be-hijabbed women and children with Jewish kids and mums all being tolerant and tolerated and Family of Man; all very kumbaya. So I have just reread what I have written and I can see that this is a very nice thing to do. What it has to do with not being a bystander to genocide, I don’t know. What it has to do with Jews, apart from the fact that the Jew has an innate desire to make the world a better place- I don’t know. Surely there are also non-Jews who are doing this? Are fellow Muslims helping them? If not,why not?

I guess my point is that Yom HaShoah is not about Sudanese refugees who have found safe harbour here. It is about remembering the 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, who were murdered by the Nazis and their willing accomplices, and –yes- by the indifference of the world. There has been a lot of shit which has gone down since WW2, including the Rwandan genocide, but really, nothing touches what the Nazis perpetrated on the Jews in terms of planning, intent and sheer scale. This is the 70thyear since the Wannsee Conference, where 15 Nazi bureaucrats sat around a table in a nice house near Berlin, and in a meeting which took less than 90 minutes out of their busy schedules, discussed ‘Die Endlösung der Judenfrage-‘The Final Solution to theJewish Question’. Of course, by 1942, many Jews (and other unfortunates, starting with the mentally ill, the crippled, as well as dissidents, Gypsies, gays and others- I haven’t forgotten them) had already been starved, shot, gassed, worked to death in slave labour camps etc. But the ever-efficient and educated Germans had to have more Ordnung going; a time frame, a method, a goal, facts and figures. And what is the definition of a Jew? 2 Jewish grandparents? One? Married to a non-Jew, but culturally Jewish? Or assimilated? Or having fought for Germany in WW1? Hmm, so many nuances which must be defined and dealt with. After this meeting they all enjoyed a nice glass of cognac and went on their way. One of these hearties was Adolf Eichmann, and we all know about him, what he did and how he ended up. But three of these 15 lived well into old age because nobody could get the accusation of war crime to stick, so they went free.

In Rwanda, 800,000 people were murdered by their neighbours, mainly by machete. That is horrific and unimaginable, but it doesn’t come near to the Holocaust for many reasons. In all the appalling history of Man’s Inhumanity to Man, the Holocaust stands out like a rocky peak in a bleak desert.

So on Yom HaShoah, let us remember the 6 million Jews who were murdered only because they were Jewish. Let us pledge ‘Never Again’. Let there be many more beautiful Jewish children born, children who will grow up and become responsible human beings who will continue to strive to make the world a better place. And let us think of ways to strengthen Israel, because, if push comes to shove, that’s what we have, that’s where we go, that’s what would have saved a lot of Jews had the State of Israel been around in 1936. And Allah bless the Sudanese, and hats off to the Jews who help them, but let’s not lose our priorities either.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Sunday 15 April 2012

Leaving Whistler

Well, Pesach is over, most of the family is making its way back to NY and Israel, and the rest of us leave for Oz in a few hours. I always see out Pesach with mixed feelings of relief and nostalgia. Just when you start to get used to it, it's over. But man, the pizza and beer after Shabbos were good!
So I did a little whine about feral kids in my last post, but things didn't really get out of hand after all. Either that or I got used to it. Also my own grandchildren, under the influence of too much candy and nosh (which was freely available 24/7, no exaggeration) and late nights and jet lag, were misbehaving a tad. (But they do know how to say please and thank you etc and that's what I'm talking about.)
Was Pesach on the Mountain the fressathon-dressathon that I feared? No. I mean, yes, there was too much food on offer, but it wasn't obscene. And yes, one dresses up for Yom Tov in Whistler as one would anyway.
In fact, I am not going to complain about anything because it was great. The skiers had a fantastic time Chol HaMoed, the kids enjoyed ski school too, the environs are just beautiful, the weather was great. I rode the Peak to Peak gondola from Whistler to Blackcomb and back and the whole time switched back and forth between marveling at the natural beauty of the route and at the incredible feat of engineering that this is.
But the really big pleasant surprise was the quality of the speakers. The star was Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth. What an impressive guy. Apart from all the great stories of rubbing shoulders with kings and queens and princes and prime ministers and archbishops and the Dalai Lama and just about every religious leader in the world; apart from the 24 books and countless essays and commentaries, he is such a riveting speaker with a clear and powerful message to Jews and nonJews alike, and he is just a good guy. It was such a privilege to chat with him about things great and small and he always seemed interested and listened as well as he spoke. He is retiring soon to teach at Jews' College, and he will be a hard act to follow. Rabbi Dovber Pinson, Chabad rabbi and Kabala scholar- excellent. Really deep scholarship, given over in accessible form. And in case that was all a bit too frum, Dennis Prager weighed in with his homey American brand of Jewish. I find Prager something of an anomaly or enigma. He is the product of a misnagdish religious education which he rejected. He is not Orthodox, Conservative or Reform. He is what he feels like being. He was also quite entranced by Rabbi Sacks; it was a bit of a mutual admiration thing. His life has been quite colorful to date. He is a great advocate for Israel, his radio show and Internet 'university' are educational and entertaining and I want to give him a big hug. But there's just this bit of him that I think is an apikoros, deep down. Enough about Mr Prager.
What else? Entertainment was also good, with a stand up comic one night and a mentalist another. Sorry guys, I never caught your names, but you were first class.
Some doctors also gave informal chats about various medical topics. Including yours truly, but nobody turned up. Well, 2 people came; one was my daughter-in-law (thanks for that, D) and the other was a woman expecting her second child who had had difficulty nursing her first child and wanted some tips on how to avoid problems next time. That's how it always is with breastfeeding; nobody cares about it unless they have trouble doing it. Oh well.
I finish my report here, because I do not wish to bore any readers further. Just credit where it is due, to Rabbi and Rebbitzen Wineberg and family of Vancouver. Job well done.
(If I come again in the future, I'll bring all my boobie slides on a flash drive and I'm sure a much bigger audience will come... Like 6 people maybe?)

Monday 9 April 2012

I dislike your kids, sometimes quite a lot.

Well, I think most people can't stand other peoples' kids. I like my own well enough, and I am enchanted by my own grandchildren, but most other children are awful. Especially Americans. Sorry folks.
So I am at this wonderful Pesach getaway in Whistler, BC, with about 30 families. There is one large contingent, about 50 people, from Mexico. There are about 20 children in this group, and about 6 nannies, they all more or less keep to themselves and thus they don't annoy me at all. I'm intrigued by how little time the mamas actually spend with the children, could be this is just because it's a vacation, but it seems the kids are respectful of their nannies, one of whom, a grandmotherly type, seems to weave a spell over them as they sit around her enthralled by her storytelling or gossip or whatever it is she is telling them in Spanish.
No. I refer to the kids of American families who just haven't been taught manners and thus, nobody expects any from them.
Day 1: Screaming and Skyping.
Picture 3 kids, say 9, 7 and 5, in the breakfast area, gathered around Mom's iPad, jostling and fighting to talk to Uncle Tony back in Long Island. Me, sitting with a coffee 2 tables away. Parents, well, who knows. Popping in on occasion to join the chat. And this went on for over half an hour. I'm not comfortable actually going up to Mom and asking her to have some consideration, because if she were a considerate person, she would have either set it up elsewhere, or cut it short, or told the kids to keep down the racket. The kids weren't being naughty, they were simply the product of a rude upbringing. The hotel staff are young and easy-going and I guess there are no rules whereby they could politely point out that this behavior is disruptive and annoying and please move to the lobby. I mean, this isn't Claridges or the Savoy. But still. So I'm an old curmudgeon, but I still have a right to a bit of peace over breakfast, surely.
I'm not talking about stressed kids having tantrums because they are tired or jet lagged or unwell. I'm not talking about the one or two kids who are clearly, to me at least, diagnosable with some sort of behavioral disorder. It's the majority of these normal kids who are just rude and pushy and uncaring of their surroundings, who fight and jostle and make messes for others to clean up, who haven't been drilled in how to say please and thank you and excuse me and how to chew with their mouths closed. And hassled, doting moms and dads just don't seem to understand that it is their responsibility to instill good manners into their children. And these under-parented kids with an overblown sense of their own worth sometimes also have nannies who seem too intimidated by their employers or too soft and gentle or of different cultural background to just put these kids in their place. Just stop with the approval for everything and stop this nonsense of boosting self esteem and avoiding all negative talk and give them boundaries. 'Please do not run in corridors and bowl other people over.' 'Please clean up this mess you just made.' 'Say thank you to the waitress. Apologise for smashing matzoh into the carpet for a meter radius around your chair.' Etcetera. Instilling manners and respect for other people is hard hard work, but you've got to do it, parents! Otherwise you are raising savages, and narcissistic ones at that.
There was a magician here entertaining the kids and he wasn't bad. But these kids were just feral! Oh, he coped, he was good at his job, but not a parent present opened his or her mouth to the children to help get them in line. Sit down, please. Don't rifle through the man's box of tricks. Please don't touch what isn't yours. Please be quiet so we can start. Parents! Where are you? Why are you so accepting of this rudeness? Why? Don't you notice It? How could you not? Do we live in a jungle? You're not doing yourself or your kids any favors!
A million books on parenting, a well-to-do set of educated parents, but something just isn't getting through. I just keep my mouth shut and look after my own. I insist on please and thank you from my grandchildren. I don't accept whining about how 'I didn't make the mess, she did' so therefore the kid thinks he doesn't have to clean it up. Uh-uh. If I ask, you will do it. I will help you, but you will clean up. You will take responsibility for your messes. You will help others when you see they need help. Sure, I don't feel like picking up a thousand pieces of Lego either, but I will help you and you will help me and we will get the job done. High five.
Parents, do your damn job. It's not a democracy; you are the boss and you are a benevolent ruler. You love your subjects and you work hard to rule them well. Comprendre? That's how you make good citizens. What you are making looks a lot to me like little tyrannical bullying self-obsessed monsters. Sorry. Just calling it as I see it. Maybe they'll grow out if it. Maybe it's a passing phase. Maybe you can make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. Ooh, here's an idea, maybe you can send them to school and let the teacher do your job for you! That works, hey, teachers?
Peace, out.

Thursday 5 April 2012

Dreaming of a White... Pesach?

I am looking out of my window in the Nita Lodge in Whistler BC, and it's snowing over an expanse of frozen lake. Tall conifers stand ringing the lake and, in the distance, there are snow-capped peaks. Well, I'm sure not in Melbourne any more!.
I have mixed feeling about snow. Wait, no I don't, I have very clear feelings: I hate it. But I am NOT complaining. I would be a fool to complain about Pesach away! And the family is gathering, my daughters are cooing over the new baby and I'm enjoying the grandchildren whom I see on Skype (not nearly as often as I should, the time difference us a killer).
We are all a bit wrecked from the traveling, but it'll be fine for Seder night I'm sure.
So no rants this week, just good wishes to all for a joyful, happy Pesach. The gathering of the families for this festival is one source of our strength as a people.
Sure, on an individual level we might not stand one another but as a whole, we must realize that what holds us together is much stronger than what drives us apart. Call it love, call it filial duty, it is a powerful thing. It joins our past and our future through the mingling of the generations in the observation of customs and rituals that date back 2 thousand years. 2 millennia of chowing down on matzos and blowing up our sinuses with maror. What does not kill us makes us stronger!
On that note, I'm pulling on my snowboots and going out for a walk after bedikas chametz. (something funny: the surname of the mashgiach here is Hametz. Really!)
A kosher un freilichen Pesach!

Sunday 1 April 2012

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!


I need to do some research on this, but maybe just asking around is enough: is the desire to perform in front of an audience innate? Do all children do this? Or is it just my bloodline?

My experience from my own children and grandchildren, as well as from observing the children and grandchildren of others, is that it is indeed universal. Maybe not so much in front of a real horde of perfect strangers, but certainly I have been subjected to many an impromptu pre-dinner entertainment.  I’m not saying that they are engrossing or that anyone but an indulgent parent or Booba would applaud with enthusiasm, that’s not the point; it’s that the kids always want to stage plays, talent quests, puppet shows etc etc. And there is an emcee/ringmaster/announcer. And they expect applause. How do they know to do this? These kids haven’t seen so many shows or even TV, yet they know the process. Of course, when called upon to perform, whether at a kinder concert, to entertain one’s friends or even to say Ma Nishtana at the rapidly approaching Seder, they freeze and burst into tears. But given time to just muck around amongst themselves, they will be, sooner or later, proudly calling any nearby adult to the sitting room to watch them perform something.

I am the child and grandchild of performers. My maternal grandparents were active in Yiddish theatre both in Perth and in Melbourne, in the Kadimah, pre and post war. My mother was a dramatic soprano whose career was nipped in the bud by WW2; story has it, she had won a scholarship in 1938 to study at La Scala, Milan, but Italy was then fascist, so bad luck. Well, that’s all I know.

But my mother, feisty woman that she was, joined the fight in WW2 and was in the Armed Forces Entertainment Corps. This was a woman who defied her father by cutting her waist-length hair when she was 19, for which act of defiance she was punished. This was at a time when words such as ‘pregnant’ were not spoken in front of innocent young ladies. And she ran away and enlisted. If I didn’t have the programmes and playbills to prove it, I wouldn’t have believed it either.  Apparently Miss Freda Berinson, ‘a chic soubrette’ [?] did a very good Carmen Miranda. She even sang Ave Maria, bringing the Catholic soldier boys to tears, according to her report. She didn’t talk much about it, but enough to give me the impression that WW2, for those who were not actually being murdered, was quite an exciting, if not fun, time.

Her parents before her were also of a theatrical bent. Here I have more than crumbling playbills to prove this:

Yiddish theatre in Perth may be said to have begun in 1913 following the arrival of Mr. M. Berenson from Palestine. From that year until 1928, he worked together with a number of amateur actors to produce a series of plays. In all, they numbered over 40 and among them were `The Jewish Priest', 'Kuni Leml', `Don Judah Abrabanel', `The Power of Love', 'Mirele Efros', `King Lear', 'The Millionaire as Pauper' and 'Where are my Children?'
(Serge Liberman, Jewish Australia)

Yep, that ‘Mr M Berenson’ is actually my grandfather, Moshe Berinson, who came to Australia along with 3 brothers from Ottoman Palestine. (My grandfather was a Palestinian, a real one!) They were fleeing the Turks who were forcibly conscripting boys into the army for 20 years’ service. They left Tzefat and went as far as it was possible to go, ending up in Fremantle, Western Australia.  He and his brothers started a bakery. And then he- and I’m pretty sure NOT the bros- started up Yiddish theatre, as you do. His wife, my grandmother Sadie, whom he married in 1918, was also part of the cast of characters. And later, my mum played the piano for musical accompaniment. After the war, in Melbourne, my dad also played smaller parts in the Kadimah Yiddish theatre group. My dad also had a sweet tenor and was a Chazzan at the Brunswick Talmud Torah. They were all amateurs of course; it’s not as if you could actually make a living from any of this!

(I must note that my husband’s side of the family isn’t too shabby either, what with cousin Cantor Dovid Werdyger and his son, erstwhile Jewish popular singer Mordechai ben David. They DID make a living from it.)

I’ve done a Purim Shpiel or 2 in my time, as well as some MC gigs and some standup (OK, OK, all for Jewish fundraising evenings). My kids often used to put together entertainments which equally often ended in fisticuffs, but were great fun, until the crying. Even today, the highlight of our Seder is the Ma Nishtana, which we all do from youngest to oldest, in whatever language or manner desired. (One year, 2 daughters did a version in interpretive dance. You had to have been there.) And my youngest son has A Voice. But really, he has the makings of a great Chazzan. I wish my folks were around to hear him.

So when I was chilling with the grandchildren last Friday night, waiting for the menfolk to come home from Shul, my 6-year-old granddaughter (fittingly named after my late mother, the tearaway performer), suddenly announced in her Master of Ceremonies voice, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight we are having a contest! And everyone will do something! Like sing or dance or something!’ ‘You mean a talent quest?’ She thought for a second and nodded, not really understanding the words but getting the concept very clearly. ‘You too, Booba!’
So the 3 kids and I entertained each other with various renditions of Seder-oriented songs, about kadesh-urchatz and dam-tzefardaya and Ma Nishtana and Little Cottage in the Woods (that was me) and then a rousing chorus of Dayenu. And the 2-year-old declared that she was going to be ‘a pwincess ballewina’ for Pesach, possibly confusing it with Purim; but then she decided to be ‘a piwate’ and stood on a chair wearing her pirate hat, growling ’Ahawh, me hawties!’ and we fell about laughing.

And I know, I just know, that on Seder night next Friday it will be tears and stage-fright and bribes and cajoling and fights, and not a lot of fun for them. But last Friday night, it was magic.