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Danny Raskin

Danny Raskin

essay Israeli Arabs, Jews Refuse to Be Enemies

Walking under the silver-laced sky late at night on May 20, with our beloved dog Lucy, I look up at the moon, which is not new, in fact, it’s very old, much older and wiser than we all are, and I pray: Help me to help people understand. It’s a simple prayer, on the surface, for a writer who always uses words to explain life. But its complexity confounds me, and I feel despair, against the background booms in the distance.

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For this is Israel, and a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has just been announced to begin at 2 a.m. tomorrow morning, so of course, there are booms in the background. There have been for 11 days.

Only these are actually the fireworks of our nearest Arab village, and our Arab neighbors celebrating a wedding.

For we are in the North of Israel, and things here are very different. Ever since the violence began, Arabs and Jews have been tirelessly working together, organizing peaceful protests, visiting each other, planning peace-work activities and talking together.

“My family has been here for 500 years,” says the father of our Bedouin friend, a restaurant owner in Zarzir, one of the Arab villages closest to us. “We are not moving. We will always be here, and we will always be friends with our Jewish neighbors. You are always welcome here.”

His son adds, “Treat this as your second home. You are like family to us.” (Next week, it will be our turn to host him and his family, in our kibbutz.)

This is just after he has taken us into the back of the restaurant to show us the hun-

Shoshana Lavan

dreds of T-shirts he has had printed to give out at peaceful demonstrations, with the words: ARABS AND JEWS REFUSE TO BE ENEMIES, in Hebrew, Arabic and English. His co-partner of the idea, our Jewish friend and neigh-

The T-shirt made by our Arab neighbors and friends:

continued on page 8

SHOSHANA LAVAN

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JEWISH AND SCARED continued from page 4

when the United Nations was voting on its resolution equating Zionism with racism, and when anti-Israel and anti-Jewish slogans began to show up on buildings in some sections of Paris. And I wasn’t afraid when the Latin Quarter’s only Jewish student restaurant was bombed in 1979 — injuring 26 people — or in 1982 when attackers fired submachine guns and hurled grenades into Jo Goldenberg’s, a restaurant in the historic Jewish quarter of the Marais. I believed that because these weren’t state-sponsored crimes that France could still be trusted.

Fear had still not gotten the better of me in 2002 when synagogues in Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg and KremlinBicetre were attacked in rapid succession. Nor had it after the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006, nor in 2012 after a Jewish teacher and three children were murdered in Toulouse. Instead, I wrote about France’s abject failure to assimilate immigrants from its former colonies in North Africa and reasoned that this was less about terrorism than the failure of the French state.

I wasn’t afraid in 2015 after a siege at a kosher supermarket in Paris, following the Charlie Hebdo massacre, left four Jews dead, or after soldiers guarding a Jewish center in Nice were stabbed, or the next year when there were anti-Jewish attacks in Strasbourg and Marseille.

But in 2017, Sarah Halimi was murdered in her apartment; Mireille Knoll the following year. In 2019, the philosopher and public intellectual Alain Finkielkraut was subject to anti-Jewish abuse on the streets of Paris. The same year, a painting of the late Simone Veil was defaced; the word Juden was scrawled on the window of a Paris bakery; a memorial to Ilan Halimi was destroyed and a Jewish cemetery in eastern France was vandalized.

I’m nothing if not stubborn, so despite all of this I remained unafraid.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve always taken the existence of anti-Judaism everywhere as a given. With that as an emotional shield, I could go anywhere and see any anti-Jewish act — even murder — as business as usual because, well, history. Others might express worry and fear at the news of Jews getting stabbed, or shot, or spat upon, but I could shrug my shoulders and say, “So what else is new?”

In those situations, I’d often respond to anxious friends by asking why they thought the Shoah would have changed the way many people and many countries treated Jews. After all, didn’t the pre-Shoah world create the environment that resulted in the Shoah in the first place? Maybe it should have put an end to anti-Judaism, but it was wishful thinking to believe it actually would.

MARTIN BUREAU/GETTY IMAGES/JTA

Paris at night.

CHANGES FOR WORSE

Still, when I moved to Paris in January, something had changed.

As family and friends worried about my physical safety as a Jew in France, I threw myself into setting up my Paris apartment. But by that time, countries and international organizations had started adopting an official definition of antisemitism, as though that’s something anybody actually needs. I would have thought killing a Jew, shooting up a synagogue or beating up a guy in a kippah is self-evident.

And just last month, the violence and killing in Israel and Gaza shook the world yet again. With that came pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Paris and elsewhere. That in itself isn’t new, but this time it was evident that one of the things that had changed was French people, along with others around the world, felt at ease voicing anti-Jewish sentiments in public. What’s more, many have become vocal about their desire to see Jews killed for imagined collective crimes … again.

Whether or not you think anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism are the same is irrelevant. In practice, when mobs demonstrate against Israel, when Israel is vilified, when Israel becomes a proxy for every bit of vitriol the people of the world can spew against every societal or governmental misdeed, Jews regardless of where they’re from get attacked.

Now that the COVID confinement has been lifted and life in Paris is returning to a semblance of normal, I’m resigned to the idea that I should keep my head down and be less open about being a Jew. I will no longer wear Jewish jewelry in public. I’ll think twice before I go to a Jewish event or attend synagogue.

And what of my native city, New York? Anti-Jewish attacks have become routine there, too. New York!

I don’t know what to believe, whom to trust or where I will be (relatively) safe. But now I know emotionally what I’d always known intellectually: the post-World War II era in which I grew up really was an anomaly in the continuum of Jewish history.

And for the first time in my life, I’m afraid.

This article originally appeared on Kveller.

Toni L. Kamins is a freelance journalist and former editor. She is the author of The Complete Jewish Guide to France and The Complete Jewish Guide to Britain and Ireland.

PURELY COMMENTARY

ARABS AND JEWS continued from page 6

“IN ISRAEL, THE MAJORITY OF ALL PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE PEACEFULLY, SIDE BY SIDE. WE ARE HAPPY TOGETHER.”

— SHOSHANA LAVAN

Yiddish Limerick

bor, has already advertised the T-shirts to our Kibbutz and everyone is asking for one.

War or no war, we will be wearing these T-shirts on many occasions. No matter what government is in power, and what terrorist organization it seems to be playing into the hands of, there are thousands and thousands of Jews and Arabs in Israel who are and will be working together for peace in the Middle East.

PROTESTS MISDIRECTED

This is something the British media has not been reporting. The hundreds of thousands of protestors marching for Palestine are marching against Israel, when in fact they should be marching against Hamas. It is Hamas who is oppressing Palestine. If we could get rid of them, we could start working toward peace in Palestine and a two-state solution, where equality is paramount, terrorism is totally stopped and the two states live peacefully side by side.

I find myself wondering how many of the protestors in England have been to Israel or been to Palestine. I find myself wondering if they know the difference between Gaza and the West Bank, between the South and North of Israel.

I find myself wondering if they know how Jew, Muslim and Christian work together with mutual respect and equal rights in so many areas of Israel. I find myself wondering whether they know that many Israeli Arabs do not even want to live in Palestine; they are proud of being Israeli.

Please do not misunderstand me. I know Israel has a long way to go in order to give every Arab citizen of Israel and Palestine equal rights, but I also know how many thousands of us are working in peace movements every hour of every day to make the situation better here.

A SAD IRONY

I find it sad and ironic how the British people who believe they are siding with Palestine, by opposing Israel, are actually doing no such thing. They are only siding with the extremists.

In this country, the majority of all people want to live peacefully, side by side. We are happy together. There are Arab doctors, lawyers, teachers, judges, nurses, ambassadors … you name it. There is no apartheid here.

There is just a beautiful country living in a very fragile state, under an old moon with silver- laced clouds … waiting for the terrorists to stop launching their rockets, giving the rest of the world something to misunderstand.

Shoshana Lavan is a published author, high school teacher of English literature and language, teacher of English as a foreign language and most importantly, a very proud mother of her gorgeous toddler. She has recently made Aliyah and is an aspiring peace activist.

Shtikale Pie!

Mir gayen nisht in shul, I’ll soon tell you why. It’s a yontef for alle, it’s the Fourth of July. Franks and the rest, they all taste azay got Ich hob azay lib all the barbecue food. In farges nishttzu essn a shtikale pie.

Mir gayen nisht — We do not go in shul — to synagogue a yontef for alle — a holiday for all azay got — so good Ich hob azay lib — I love so In farges nisht — And don’t forget tzu essn — to eat a shtikale — a little piece of

— By Rachel Kapen

CORRECTION

In the book review of The Fight for Free Speech (June 17, page 30) the author of the book should have been identified as Ian Rosenberg.

FROM THE SHOPS AT

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Lincoln Shopping Center

Greenfield and 10½ Mile

STORY Our STORY Our

Julie Hack-Hubbard and David Hubbard met while working in fine dining restaurants. They each had a drive and entrepreneurial spirit that they recognized in one another, along with a similar dream of opening a business that specialized in elevating food.

The Hubbards created their concept for The Butchery and opened in 2017,but their journey took some time. “We have a lot of family entrpreneurs who offered advice and encouragement, but banks don’t just hand out cash,” Julie said. “It’s daunting to go to in and sell a stranger on your dream. My uncle Paul is a former president of Hebrew Free Loan, and he told us their Marvin I. Danto Small Business Loan Program was a good resource. He was right, it was amazing. HFL saw us as people, and the passion we brought to our idea. They listened, questioned, and their care for us didn’t end with the loan. They connected us with a mentor, they check in on us, they shop here, and treat us like family. We feel the community cares about how we’re doing.”

The Butchery offers high-end meats and meal preparation items unavailable in grocery stores.

“I’ve worked in a lot of kitchens, and fine dining is a completely separate style,” said David. “It isn’t just a change in preparing and serving, you pay attention to the quality of the food, its origins, and how it’s ordered. We had an uptick in foot traffic during the pandemic, because our supply is restaurant-quality, and we carried what the shops didn’t.”

“Our customers are offered a new-school approach with an old-school butcher shop feel –personaland friendly,” Julie said. “Hebrew Free Loan helped us get here, enjoy what we do, and even think about what the next chapter in our business could be.”

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Community donations help Hebrew Free Loan give interest-free loans to local Jews for a variety of personal, health, educational and small business needs.

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Hebrew Free Loan Detroit @HFLDetroit

FLORIDA DISASTER

PHOTO BY GIORGIO VIERA / AFP/TIMES OF ISRAEL

Mom’s Instinct Saved Family

Up to 159 victims feared in Florida building collapse.

STUART WINER TIMES OF ISRAEL

Asurvivor of the Miami-area building collapse has described how the condo came down in three stages, giving him and his family time to escape the deadly disaster after their mother told them to run for their lives.

Gavriel Nir said that the condo complex in the town of Surfside near Miami, fell to pieces over a period of a few minutes on June 24. The 12-story oceanfront Champlain Towers South pancaked in the middle of the night as residents slept.

“If it wasn’t for my mom, it would have been very bad,” Nir told Channel 13 News in an interview June 27.

“My mom is very special,” said Nir, who offered a special prayer in a synagogue to give thanks for his escape. “Any time she senses something suspicious she automatically is always cautious. She always figures out that something is not right.”

Nir, the son of an Israeli father, described how his mother went to check what had happened when the first part of the building collapsed, apparently a parking area, and then raised the alert for him and his sister. All three survived the disaster.

“We heard a lot of noise going on in the ceiling,” he said. “Minute by minute, it got worse, it got more intense.”

Moments later a rumble shook the building and “we all panicked a bit.”

The family at first thought it was an earthquake and left their home to exit the building. Outside, Nir said, dust was billowing about from the parts of the building that had already collapsed.

Wasting no more time, the family ran for their lives, escaping with just moments to spare as the main part of the building collapsed, throwing up clouds of dust that chased them down the street.

“We couldn’t breathe,” he said.

Nir estimated that the whole process was no more than a few minutes. He said the first sounds of the collapse were heard at around 1:15 a.m. Thursday and that the entire building came down by 1:19.

Other families were left waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones who were inside and have not been heard from since.

Kevin Spigel told Channel 13 that his wife, Judy, was still missing.

Spigel said that Judy “loves Israel and supports it any way shape or form” and that the family would often visit the Jewish state.

SCREEN CAPTURE: CHANNEL 13/TIMES OF ISRAEL

Gavriel Nir

Search and Rescue teams look for possible survivors in the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Fla.

WAITING AND HOPING

The family, along with many others waiting as the rescue continues, were determined to not give up hope.

According to the report, there are 34 Jewish people missing in the rubble.

Odelia Weiss, who is active in a local synagogue, told the station that among those who are missing were the family and friends of a woman from the community who had died before the collapse. The visitors had arrived to stay in an unit in the building.

“They have not yet been found,” she said.

By Monday morning, the death toll rose to nine people with more than 150 additional people still missing.

Magen David Adom’s international unit and paramedics and EMTs with the South Florida Hatzalah have been working around the clock at the disaster site.

Surfside is one of four small cities that together make up North Beach, the north end of Miami Beach, just east of the city of Miami. The area covers the top of a narrow stretch of land on the Atlantic Ocean.

The area is more than a third Jewish. In total, North Beach has more than 14,000 residents and more than 5,000 Jews, according to Ira Sheskin, who authored a 2014 Jewish population study on the greater Miami area.

JTA contributed to this report.

For more news on the Florida Disaster, see pages 30-31.

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