Page 24 - Issue 24

But this feeling of living in a miracle is also rooted in
deep tragedy: the fact that we weren't all sent to
Auschwitz is only because the Allies managed to turn
things around. The fact that this country hasn't yet
been wiped off the map is only because our people
has been willing to risk their lives – and the lives of
their friends, siblings, children, husbands – for
several generations on end, without a break.

Because violence is never far off, because our lucky
ancestors were refugees and our unlucky ones were
killed, we experience life itself as a triumph. Our
existence is an act of resistance against a cruel fate
and crueler hate. The chutzpah necessary to resist
our fate is our greatest strength; at times it is our
greatest weakness.

In spite of our joy, the pain here is raw and real and
ever present. Memorials for the fallen are
everywhere. Stories about Soviet antisemitism, about
property confiscated in Morocco or about Sudanese
brutality towards Ethiopian Jews, come up on train
rides with strangers and at holiday meals with
friends. A radio program last week had an argument
about which shtetl was the first to uprise against the
Nazis.

A friend told me recently that at his sister's wedding,
he saw an old man sitting alone while the food was
being served. He asked why he wasn't getting food
like everybody else, and the man responded, "I didn't
wait in line for food in the concentration camp, so
why start now?" For everyone outside of Israel, even
for the Jews – it's hard to imagine statements like