KK-Forum,
videresender denne fra MER og Marc H. Ellis. Påskebudskap.
"... What do I answer my children when they ask the simple and difficult
questions
they are commanded to ask as we gather to tell the story of our origins
thousands
of years ago? That helicopter gunships are like the parting of the sea?
That
Ariel Sharon is like Moses leading us through the difficult times of desert
and
rebellion?
I no longer have the answers to their questions. But I will respond as a Jew
in the only way possible today. That the Palestinians are part of our story
of liberation and until they are free, we are not."
Knut Rognes
*************
X-Sent: 7 Apr 2001 15:15:17 GMT
X-Sender: MERL@MiddleEast.Org
From: MER <MERL@MiddleEast.Org>
To: "MER" <MERL@MiddleEast.Org>
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 11:15:02 +0000
Subject: Jews - The Last Passover?
Reply-To: MER@MiddleEast.Org
Organization: MiD-EasT RealitieS
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JEWISH VOICES OF OPPOSITION TO ISRAELI POLICIES
http://www.MiddleEast.Org/video.htm
"Is this the last Passover that I will celebrate?
My heart is not in the celebration this year.
And it can never be again until freedom for Jews
is also freedom for Palestinians."
MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 4/07:
For many Israel has usurpsed and sullied the very word "Jewish", calling
itself as it does a "Jewish State". And in the US, still the largest
community
of Jews in the world, the "Israeli/Jewish lobby" and the big national Jewish
organizations have done much the same, alienating many Jews from their own
and
causing many non-Jews, especially Arabs and Muslims, to shun and distrust
nearly
all persons who are "Jewish", even though many of the most outspoken voices
of
serious and principled dissent against Israeli policies have been and are
Jewish
-- Rodinson, Chomsky, Falk, Ben-Veniste, Shahak, Flapan, Morris, Schlaim, and
so many others.
Passover, which begins today, is a Jewish celebration of "liberation" and
"freedom". And yet most Jews around the world will attend their sedars
without
a serious appreciation of how at this time in history it is they themselves
who
have created a neo-Apartheid situation in the once Holy Land, complete with
ghettos,
pogroms, racism, and militarism -- a situation which indeed can be sadly and
tragically compared to those who oppressed the Jewish people at other times
in
history.
This article by Professor Marc Ellis is very timely, even if actually
considerably
restrained in view of what is quite literally happening at the moment. And
the
unique video documentaries WE DARE TO SPEAK and PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD - made
by Americans Jews in support of the Palestinian Intifada to support their own
struggle for liberation and freedom -- can be viewed at
http://www.MiddleEast.Org/video.htm
THE LAST PASSOVER
Marc H. Ellis
This weeks Jews all over the world Jews celebrate Passover, the ancient
festival
commemorating the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The narrative of
liberation
is read within the context of food and fellowship. As Jews we are commanded
to place ourselves in the original struggle to be free, to experience the
suffering
and hope of the ancient Israelites as they did, to see this ancient
liberation
as our own. Despite the plagues and death, the wanderings in the desert and
admonishments of God, Passover is a festive holiday. Food and wine is
plentiful.
Family and friends come together.
How we celebrate our freedom in the past with the complexities of the present
is always a challenge. Over time as Jews became free, struggles of other
peoples
were mentioned in the Seder meal. As a child being raised in the 1950's and
60's, at Passover we incorporated the civil rights struggle into our
narrative.
In the 1980's and 90's there were specific Passover narratives featuring the
struggle of women, freedom movements in Central America and elsewhere. And
in
some Jewish homes and synagogues,
Palestinians were featured as a people struggling for liberation. There is
hope in remembrance applied to the present. If we are there in Egypt
demanding
our freedom, the Passover story accompanies us as we demand freedom now.
Freedom
is interdependent, across time and community boundaries. No one is truly
free
if others are not also free.
Today with Israeli gunships daily firing rockets into defenseless Palestinian
towns, cities and refugee camps, it is difficult to accept the Passover
narrative
in its deepest implications. We as Jews are free, are "in Jerusalem, "but is
that freedom at the expense of others? If Palestinians are being taught the
"lesson" of opposing Israeli power and standing up for their rights and
dignity,
if the message from the Israeli government to the Palestinian people is
surrender
or die - a message not unfamiliar to Jews - do we repeat this story at the
Passover
table?
Most Jews will be silent about the helicopter gunships at Passover. Since
the
beginning of the most recent Palestinian uprising in November, Jewish
organizations
have placed full-page paid statements in newspapers around the country. They
trumpet Israel's desire for peace, call for Jewish unity and castigate
Palestinian
terrorism and the deficiencies of Palestinian leadership. These statements
will
continue to be published during the Passover season.
The call for Jewish unity is a caution against Jewish dissent and the dissent
of others who see the Passover story as embodying their own struggle today.
Should we as Jews celebrate our own liberation while being silent about or
even
denigrating the Palestinian struggle? Are the helicopter gunships guarding
Jews
in Israel and Jews around the world on these Passover
nights? Or are these gunships a symbol of our own need to reconsider the
road
we as Jews are traveling?
War is war, and in the midst of war few rules of civility are left unbroken.
But is the expansion of Israel through settlements, land confiscations,
assassination
squads and the terror of exploding rockets, a war Jews want to fight, should
fight or can be silent about under the guise of unity?
Can we recall the ancient struggle for freedom as our own and praise the
violence
of Israel as justified? As our own? Or are we, while speaking of our
liberation
struggle, undermining its essential meaning, that we and all peoples should
be
free?
During these days of celebration I will remember my first Palestinian friend,
Nyaela Ayed, who was murdered in Jerusalem in 1999. A health advocate and
planner
who studied in the United States and was known by all as a gentle and
principled
person, I last saw Nyaela in Jerusalem in 1998 and spent many hours speaking
to her about her life and the future of her people. I also visited the land
her family owned in Jerusalem that Jewish settlers coveted. These settlers
were
willing to pay large sums of money
for a small piece of land that would then forever be removed from Nyaela's
family
and from her people. The Ayed's refused to sell the land. A short time
later,
Nyaela was murdered, a single stab wound to the heart, a professional
execution.
It was during Passover last year that I learned of her death and visited her
mother and sisters one morning in the same home where I had previously
visited
with Nyaela. In the afternoon, I went to Nyaela's grave just outside of the
walls of the old city. In ancient understandings of Islam, those buried
there
are to be among the first resurrected in the last days, in contemporary
Palestinian
life Nyaela was designated a martyr, her grave sealed with the love of a
grateful
people.
This Passover I remember Nyaela and all those Palestinians known and unknown
to me. As helicopter gunships reign terror on a defenseless people, I
remember
the faces and cries of a people whose freedom is integral to my own and to
that
of my people.
Is this the last Passover that I will celebrate? My heart is not in the
celebration
this year. And it can never be again until freedom for Jews is also freedom
for Palestinians.
What do I answer my children when they ask the simple and difficult questions
they are commanded to ask as we gather to tell the story of our origins
thousands
of years ago? That helicopter gunships are like the parting of the sea?
That
Ariel Sharon is like Moses leading us through the difficult times of desert
and
rebellion?
I no longer have the answers to their questions. But I will respond as a Jew
in the only way possible today. That the Palestinians are part of our story
of liberation and until they are free, we are not.
* Marc H. Ellis is University Professor of American and Jewish Studies and
Director
of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Waco,
Texas.
The author can be reached at Marc@MiddleEast.Org
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