Yesterday Phil posted a piece I had published in the Philadelphia Daily News. Below is the full unedited version. As Passover begins tonight and the massacre of Deir Yassin is remembered tomorrow, let us all rededicate ourselves to working for liberation and freedom for all.
Through the ritual of the Seder, Passover tells the story of the Pharaoh's oppression of the Jews in ancient Egypt and their eventual emancipation from slavery. It is a time of reflection, and after the recent war in Gaza many Jews are asking – who are the slaves and who is the Pharaoh?
The war saw over 1,417 Palestinians killed, over 900 of whom were civilians. This is opposed to 13 Israelis. In addition, the Israeli attack laid waste to Gaza destroying schools, United Nations facilities and homes. The facts of the invasion are still coming to light including Israeli soldiers own stories of defiling Palestinians homes with racist graffiti and following orders to intentionally kill unarmed civilians. The war in Gaza is not only a devastating event for Palestinians but also the moral challenge of our time to the American Jewish community whose communal leadership supported the onslaught publicly and loudly. This year, Passover gives us a chance to reflect on this war, our history and our responsibility.
Gaza has led to a growing acknowledgment of Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians throughout its history. This year by coincidence the beginning of Passover also falls near an important anniversary – Deir Yassin Day. Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village destroyed by Zionist militias on April 9, 1948. During this massacre more than 100 men, women and children were killed. As word of the Deir Yassin massacre, and others like it, spread through Palestine many residents fled their homes out of fear, expecting they would be able to return after the fighting subsided. Within a year of the massacre, Deir Yassin, which had been emptied of Palestinians, was re-populated with Jewish immigrants and its name was erased from the map. During the war of 1948 that ended in the establishment of the state of Israel, over 530 Palestinian villages were similarly destroyed and all Palestinian refugees, whether their homes were destroyed or not, have been prevented from returning. For Palestinians this history is known as Al Nakba, Arabic for “The Catastrophe.”
Passover is a story of freedom that has resonated through the ages for many people as a story of redemption and liberation. It also helps form the core of the Jewish ethical tradition which exhorts us to stand for justice and in solidarity with the oppressed – "You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). And yet, to tell the story of Passover in the same way after Deir Yassin and after Gaza is to be willfully blind. Jews are not only the slave – but also the Pharaoh. We need to be able to tell this story.
After Gaza it is irresponsible for us to only view ourselves through the lens of victimhood; we must also take responsibility and grapple with our reality as oppressors.
The Passover Seder is about learning and teaching – using the stories of the past to understand our place in the world today. The story of Egypt is told and remembered through ritual, questioning and story telling. This year a group of Jewish activists in Philadelphia are using the Seder ritual to wrestle with the Jewish history of being both slave and Pharaoh. On April 7 and 8 the organization Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace are holding “From Deir Yassin to Gaza: an 18 hour Passover Vigil” outside the Israeli Consulate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This event will combine a memorial to Deir Yassin, a Passover ritual remembering the past as well as a teach-in, and discussion. Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace is holding this event to understand the past and take responsibility for its legacies in the present.
This vigil will not elide the complexities of our history, but engage with them. Not stuck in the role of perpetual victim or heartless oppressor this event offers a model of the discussion the Jewish community needs to be having right now – what is our response when we are the ones being told “Let my people go?” Asking this question, and taking responsibility to act, are the first steps on the path of compassion, accountability and justice.
Related posts:
{ 35 comments }
Passover is simultaneously the THANKING for our status as free, and the urging that all others be similarly freed.
Participating in the ritual itself includes the "tribal" attitude of thanking for OUR liberation.
Please celebrate that, so that your well-meaning political efforts can be for the purpose of evoking a good neighbor to good neighbor approach.
I assume that when you pray for the improvement of the status of Palestinian lives that you are not speaking of supporting their current very angry approach (to the point willingly murderous in MANY cases), but include the urging of peace.
If you don't, please don't use the Seder ritual to argue for strictly political agenda. It has that well-meaning purpose of urging peace, but it is definitely NOT limited to that. It would distort the ritual to mold it to fit a primarily political agenda.
Witty, if the ritual means anything for the non-Jewish world, it means what Phil says, and, as he also says, that's why it is symbolic beyond the Jews. Otherwise, it's as you say, merely the evoking of "tribal" attitude. We all, somewhere in the past, came from tribes. All tribes feel justified in their past–always conflicts against other tribes and usually with religion mixed in-religion. The USA is the most successful anti-tribe & religion-neutral state in world history. We assume that when you thank God for your tribe's liberation from Egypt you will notice who is the Pharaoh now in terms of power as between the Israelis and their diaspora arms, and the Palestinians. Otherwise, you are just one more MOT celebrating your tribe's particular historical
liberations. Many of us see what happened in GAZA and what's been happening for forty plus years
of occupation as anger come to life in the most deadly form possible–paid for by all Americans–F-16s & Apache Helicopters are way beyond any Palestinian's "very angry approach."
The angry creed is in the angry deed.
Your Torah G-D reveals that, no?
Its important to work to improve the lives of Palestinians. Who ever said differently?
Do it well.
Many of the expulsions of Palestinians in 1948 also took place during Passover. More than one such operations were called "Chametz" — the ritual cleaning out and destruction of foodstuffs considered unclean for Passover — most notably the clearing of Yaffa and surrounding villages. Nothing could more clearly indicate intent to ethnically cleanse (possibly an Israeli/Hebrew coinage) the indigenous people.
Read about THAT at your Passover Seder — as also the slaughters that were celebrated in the Hebrew Bible on entering the "Promised Land" the first time. . .
And now, as tradition would have it, we have had Operation Cast Lead, taken from Jewish childhood song. Dreadful Dreidel. As Jaffr suggests by pointing toward the rape of Canaan authorized by their G-D, the problem with long memory sanctified is that it's a sword that cuts both ways. Ever listen to an Egyptian tell the story of the Exodus? The jews were not slaves, but
construction workers with Egyptian insurance policies and other fringe benefits; they didn't like being demoted to that status (as had been other conquered tribes) from their former status as
Egyptian military allies, so they raped and pillaged some Egyptian towns and hatted out; the Egyptian army (police force) were simply engaged in hot pursuit of criminals according to the law of the land.
Where is the Palestinian Moses?
Is Hassan Nasrallah the Lebanese Shiites' Moses?
Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is full of references to the use of language about ritual cleaning in connection with Passover. I learn from Wikipedia that "Operation Bi'ur Hametz [Passover Cleaning]" was the name for the Haganah operation on Apr. 21-22, 1948 that cleared the Palestinian population out of Haifa (with many of them ending up being drowned in the sea). This occurred right at the Passover season.
One thing in Pappe's book that strikes me as really weird is his quoting a passage in Ben Gurion's diary (dated Mauy 24, 1948) where he expresses approval of plans to consider occupying the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon and making even more ambitious military strikes all over the Middle East, because this would be revenge "for what they (the Egyptians, the Aramis and Assyrians) did to our forefathers during Biblical times." (Pappe p. 144).
For passover we should remember:
December 30, 1947 – 39 Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa’s oil refinery
January 16, 1948 – 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion
February 22, 1948 – 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem’s Rehov Ben-Yehuda
February 29, 1948 – 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.
January and February 1948 – Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma’anit were all subjected to attacks. Arab attackers also bombedThe Palestine Post
April 13, 1948 – 35 Jew were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre
March and April – Assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were bombed.
May 15, 1948 – 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.
During this timespan(November 29, 1947 to May 15, 1948), a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine. During this time, all Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa’s Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem’s Old City.
The above list does not include Jews killed and synagogues burned in Arab countries during the timespan in question. However, it is known thatmore than 100 Jews were massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.
http://middleeastfacts.com/weblog/israel/arab-massacres-of-jews-before-1948/
Just a few slaughters of Jews by Arabs before 1948.
Remember the USS Liberty.
What is the most famous saying non-Jews ever heard from the Jews? Eye for an eye. Revenge is
eternal sayeth their G-D. Now, its an eye for an eye lash, as some people on this blog have observed. Well, gotta admit, collective memory repeated each day upon awaking has been
the source of single-minded focus that has kept our subject tribe intact–not even land has
been necessary, but now, thousands of years later, non-Jews have to contend with an Israeli
land state–as well as the Jewish head start in finance networking, which as we all know, was due
to choice as much as land-ownership and guild restrictions.
Certainly, the test of virtue is power, another fact often noted on this blog.
So, between Hebrew biblical history, the jewish diaspora, the Shoah, and Israeli history right up to today, what over-riding lesson from the longest surviving intact world group is there for all people who would like to die, knowing their particular children & grandchildren will be equipped to carry on the extended family, rather than perish as so many peoples and civilizations have
over the life of Man on this planet?
Hitler felt he knew; he left the world his political testament. The Germans have rejected it. They are committing slow suicide. The USA's proposition nation, seems to be struggling mightily, though the Europeans, including the Germans, have not yet given up. The rest of the world looks
like it is perfectly content with reliving old pre-modern cultural ways–only technology and
capitalism seem progressive in any broad way, just tools to foister old ways.
This is a Jewish American's blog. It's an important question, no?
Sure, Julian, it's only 'murder' when they do it. When you do it, it's 'pre-emptive self-defense.'
"I assume that when you pray for the improvement of the status of Palestinian lives that you are not speaking of supporting their current very angry approach…"
OMFG! This would be funny as hell if it weren't obviously intended to be taken seriously.
Well, excuse the Palestinians for taking a very angry approach to being dispossessed, ethnically cleansed, declared non-existent, deprived of the most basic human rights and needs, having their lives bombed and bulldozed to rubble over their heads and under their feet, and even having their pathetic attempts at normalcy destroyed – e.g. Israeli Occupation Forces flattening two children's zoos, slaughtering the animals by shooting them in their cages at close range.
Oh, no, the Palestinians should just – what? Offer the other cheek?
@ Julian
You're wasting our time with your one-sided shit list.
Read Karsh;he shows the total of Pals killed were way more than the Jews, not to mention the 700 million Pals who were expelled during 48-49. For an overview, read this on the ignored Nakba: http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/021020_pappe.html
Citizen: "700 million Pals who were expelled during 48-49."
Surely you don't mean 700 million. Did you mean to say 700,000?
The israelis would love to "LET MY PEOPLE GO".I'd say,Bibi,let my people stay.
The number of Palestinians expelled or otherwise forced out of Palestine in 1947-49 (yes, it actually began in 1947, and did not really end in 1949) is 750-800,000. Some 725,000 were officially registered as refugees, but there were 25-50,000 or so others who for one reason or another were not registered, and so were not part of the official UN count.
Funny way to mark Passover: Armed settlers attack, injure 38 Palestinians – Teenager in critical condition
Gene
Bernard Avishai posted a piece in his blog on the lesson of the Pesach for him.
It is the universal importance of political freedom.
He writes "how can we possibly celebrate this festival without at least preoccupying ourselves with, well, occupation."
Indeed he noted "the military announced a couple of days ago that the West Bank would be under a 12 day lock down so that Israelis could celebrate their holiday in peace.'
Put yourself in the shoes of the Palestinian in this situation Richard Witty and then you possibly can understand why anger is a widespread emotion.
You can't do that because you are from the manor and they are serfs.
good god – it's holy Thursday
@ Duscany
Yes, My error–thanks for the correction.
Lots of obscure Obama Staff nurse maids have been invited to the White House seder today; in this context, note that two of the administration's highest profile members of Jewish faith plan to miss the dinner. Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel doesn't plan to attend; adviser Axelrod plans to be in Chicago with his family. This scheme signals to the AIPAC legions Obama is on their side while simultaneously avoiding high end MSM exposure to the public of Jews placed in high security and foreign policy slots.
Obama actually bowed to a muslim king and he totally ignored the Queen of England except to hand her an ipod made in China. (good job) Now he is a pretend Jew. What next? Perhaps he'll put a May pole in the middle of the oval office and dance around it on May 1. I notice he is not going to have a Catholic Mass when he attends Notre Dame. This does not mean I don't celebrate his
"Next Year At The White" gambit. But it never hurts to track who he publicly acknowledges enough to celebrate so, and who is comparatively ignored, both in the past and in the present, e.g., as to the former, his long attendance at his former black church in Chicago. His patterns show at any given time who he thinks he has to court the most to gain power. Very telling, I'd say. He is charting by both his commissions and omissions where real power lies in our land. I think his agenda is to maintain the unity of his party at all costs, his thinking already on assuring a second term of office–when we will then see the real Obama. He may or may not get there to show us his real stuff, depending if he overlooks some deep grass roots constituencies his staff have so far consider not wide enough or united enough to worry about.
I find this quite ironic. Palestinians may be under occupation now…but less than 70 years ago, they were the ones enslaving black africans. Are you capable of acknowledging the crimes that your beloved arabs commit as well as those that they endure. Will you publicly recognize the arab slave trade as well as the naqba. Lets test your hypocrisy.
It is interesting, April 9th is also the that Robert E Lee surrendered to Ulysseys S. Grant at Appomattox court house effectively ending the civil war. Actually it would amazing if pesach fell on the aniversary of the emancipation proclamation.
History is full of ironies only for those who see the thin film of reality, a black and white world never delving deep, for example Janey's mention of the Palestinian involvement in the black slave trade–fair enough, let's also consider the Jews who owned so many slave ships, and those who
traveled to South America with the Conquistadors, those who actually financed that operation. How about Israel's continual trafficking in the white slave trade from Eastern Europe and former USSR lands. The list goes on. Yes, let's recognize the arab slave trade, including the practice of
slavery as between African tribes, as to who sold the blacks to the whites or is slavery only evil
when the propelling parties differ in race? Recognize the Shoah, recognize the larger Holocaust
in terms of all people at the time, and yes, recognize the Naqba, and the occupation. Jews were involved to the hilt on both sides of the American Civil War; most of the dead on both sides never owned slaves or even worked as small cogs for that institution–how many newly arrived
Irish were drafted into the Union Army, how many Johnny Rebs even had shoes?
The Palestinians were directly involved in the slave trade less than 70 years ago?
I've never heard that before. Do you have a link, Janey? Or anyone else for that matter?
steveleib,
Forgive Janey; she's Suzanne's toddler sister who like her older sister, has to have a say, no matter
how ignorant or replete with personal slurs.
I recall, Phil's article initiating this thread is "This Year At Passover IT IS Palestinians Who Are Demanding 'Let My People Go'"
What could be more demanding in terms of principle, as contrasted with mere tribal angst?
Either the world learned from Nuremberg, or it did not.
Either the world learned from the Shoah, or it did not–the point of Armenian pleading.
The essential question: Are you, every reader of this blog, a human first, or not? On the next level,
since this is a blog set up in the USA, by USA citizens, are you a USA citizen ("American") first, or not? The USA Declaration of Independence roots its authority in natural rights. It's Constitution does its best to declare and balance who is the ultimate authority, democracy itself
curtailed by its Amendments.
There is no way, given that, that the current Likud rubber-stamp will last on the desk of Uncle Sam. Your children, or at least, your children's children, will know this stamp was tossed in the
garbage–they may ask, where were you?
Citizen
I suggest you read The Africans of Palestine by Susan. The families of Khaled Meshaal and Marwan Barghouti both owned. A certain segment of the Gazan population is of African descent. They are descended from slaves and are treated like second class citizens by the light skinned arabs even thought they are also muslims.
No I am not Suzanne's baby sister. I am equally critical of Israel, Israeli lobby groups, the Holocaust industry etc. But I have also noticed a new trend, "Palestinian worship" which all of you practice is identical to holocaust worship that super jews practice. You seek to paint Palestinians as eternal victims just as super jews seek to paint jews as eternal victims. The Arab league and Western Arab organizations are the same. They seek to paint Arabs as victims of European colonialism and Western Islamophobia but they do not acknowledge the crimes that arabs have committed. I am aware that there was a jewish participation in both the european slave trade and the arab slave trade but there was not a separate 'jewish slave trade' as there was an arab slave trade.
I tell super jews the same thing. Stop painting jews as eternal victims. So are you capable of going outside your comfort zone and learning about the crimes that Palestinians have committed as well as theyve endured and stop . I think that is a very important part of the peace process and for the arab world. The arab world has been hung up on the European colonialism the same way jews have been hung up on the Holocaust. Neither group has acknowledged the crimes that they have committed. Jews have not acknwledged the crimes committed by jewish Bolsheviks, ashkenazi exploitation of Slavs, Sephardic involvment in the transatlantic slave trade, or the Palestinian Naqba. Similarly arabs have never apologized for the Arab slave trade nor have they dealt with racism in the Arab world towards racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
I feel like many people on this board have adopted a quasi worship of Palestinians but I was wondering if you could dig deeper and leave your comfort zone and learn about the crimes Palestinians have committed as well as those they have endured.
Maybe the Arab world, who seem so preoccupied with the Palestinian issue, could do some self reflection on themselves, they should acknowledge the crimes they have committed and deal with their own racism (towards Africans, Kurds, and South Asians.)
By the way Irish do not have a monopoly on victimization either but they have exploited it as well. Unfortunately Ireland has lived in that Opressor/Victim mentality for decades and many have not moved on.
No problem, Janey, as I have already expressed on this blog, in recognizing arab complicity in the black slave trade. Nor have I ever suggested the Irish have a monopoly on victimization. Where on earth did you get such ideas from? The point of this blog derives from the tremendous sum of
blood, treasure, and good reputation the USA has expended in behalf Israel, under our policy of
rubber-stamping each successive Israel regime's activity, as distinguished from its de jure policy, while the world looks on, as if they have not an IQ
marble in their head.
Please drop the Jewish Barbie Doll, and grow up.
I attended my second seder this evening.
The first was a Chabad seder and very traditional. The wife of the leader expressed her pain at noting the experiences of the Egyptians in suffering the plagues. At the end of the seder there is a section asking for "our enemies to be vanquished, removed from the earth".
"What about Abraham and Sodom and Gomorroh?"
"Only those that unconditionally desire to harm Jews, that hate and permanently. People like the murderers of the Mumbai family."
The second seder was a new-age one, liberals, hippies, dreadlocks, organic farmers. Mideast politics came up only once. Gaza wasn't mentioned once. A lot of talk about Obama and the breath of fresh air that he represents, the potential in the current economic downturn of real cooperation and shifting to sustainability.
So Gaza wasn't mentioned once in either seder?
No, not once that I heard.
It was a multi-cultural seder (20% spouses of Jews), with MANY political topics being discussed, mostly environmental.
The only time Israel/Palestine was brought up at all was by a non-Jewish former housemate (husband of a Jewish new-age woman).
This was among the progressive community, NOT the orthodox or conservative, not AIPAC supportive to a drop.
They probably were all already firmly post-Zionist, not agonizing about it, not politicizing it.
I also did not hear a single pro-Israel comment stated all night.
Please reread Phil's article for this thread, and ask yourself, Why is that?
If Phil had been to either seder, he sure would have wondered. Don't you?
Comments on this entry are closed.