Not that a stopover at Newark airport is any great shakes (no insults to Newarkites intended), but it is a nice reflection point to comment on the great folks I'm with. We certainly will have no shortage of laughs and smiles during our trip. I'm sure most of them will come at my expense!
This morning the NY Times ran a story about how the Vatican is now insisting that the reinstated Bishop Williamson recant his patently offensive comments in which he claimed there was no gassing of Jews during the Holocaust. It's gratifying that the Pope and Church have paid heed to international animus about the reinstatement. Yet this whole story line is particularly galling as the world is in the throes of a potential Great Depression II. The potential perils of Jews in this period are particularly noteworthy, as chapter upon chapter provide the opportunity for rabid anti-Semitism to pronounce itself:
- Financial firms with Jewish surnames such as Lehmann, Goldman et al in the news;
- The disastrous Madoff scandal;
- The battle in Gaza and the absurdly biased media coverage that often barely points out the 6,000 plus rockets that have shelled Israel over the past several years;
- The Holocaust denials of Williamson
Etc etc etc and on and on.
I'm particularly wondering about how folks I meet in Israel react to these items in these times. To us in America, we tend to perceive anti-Semitism as rearing its head through incidents--Nazi marches, hate crimes, whispered vulgarities. But in Israel, the citizens--the Jewish ones, anyway--feel the weight of a macro-anti-Semitism, the weight of the collective world offenses toward Jews. Is this a true distinction and if so, does it shape one's reaction to hatred differently? I'm such a babe on so many of these issues I'm trying to wrestle through them in a personal, meaningful way.
And more to write as we go.......
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