JEWISH AFFFAIRSFAIRS - sajbd.org · 4 JEWISH AFFAIRS N ROSH HASHANAH 2012 Africa and the first in...

Price R50,00

incl. VAT

Registered at the GPO

as a Newspaper

J E W I S H

F F A I R SA F F A I R S

J E W I S H

A F F A I R S

J E W I S H

A

Rosh Hashanah

2012

Rosh Hashanah

2012

Australia Botswana Canada Hong Kong India Ireland Mauritius Namibia South Africa Switzerland Taiwan United Kingdom & Channel Islands United States

Investec Limited and its subsidiaries, including Investec Bank Limited - 1969/004763/06, registered credit providers and authorised financial service providers. Cape Town 021 416 1000 Durban 031 575 4000 Johannesburg 011 286 7000 Pretoria 012 427 8300

Wealth & InvestmentAsset ManagementSpecialist Banking

To a fruitful New Year Shana tova umetukah

70528 Jewish Affairs 270x180.indd 1 2012/07/25 12:46 PM

EDITORIAL BOARDMISSION

In publishing JEWISH AFFAIRS, the SAJewish Board of Deputies aims to produce acultural forum which caters for a wide varietyof interests in the community. The journal willbe a vehicle for the publication of articles ofsignificant thought and opinion oncontemporary Jewish issues, and will aim toencourage constructive debate, in the form ofreasoned and researched essays, on all mattersof Jewish and general interest.

JEWISH AFFAIRS aims also to publish essaysof scholarly research on all subjects of Jewishinterest, with special emphasis on aspects ofSouth African Jewish life and thought.Scholarly research papers that make an originalcontribution to their chosen field of enquirywill be submitted to the normal processes ofacademic refereeing before being accepted forpublication.

JEWISH AFFAIRS will promote Jewishcultural and creative achievement in SouthAfrica, and consider Jewish traditions andheritage within the modern context. It aims toprovide future researchers with a window onthe community’s reaction to societalchallenges. In this way the journal hopescritically to explore, and honestly to confront,problems facing the Jewish community bothin South Africa and abroad, by examiningnational and international affairs and theirimpact on South Africa.

The SA Jewish Board of Deputies is committedto dialogue and free enquiry. It aims to protecthuman rights and to strive for better relationsamong peoples of diverse cultural backgroundsin South Africa.

The columns of JEWISH AFFAIRS willtherefore be open to all shades of opinion. Theviews expressed by the contributors will betheir own, and do not necessarily reflect theviews of the Editor, the Editorial Board or thePublishers.

However, in keeping with the provisions ofthe National Constitution, the freedom ofspeech exercised in this journal will excludethe dissemination of hate propaganda, personalattacks or invective, or any material whichmay be regarded as defamatory or malicious.In all such matters, the Editor’s decision isfinal.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

David Saks SA Jewish Board of Deputies

ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARDProfessor Marcus Arkin South African Zionist Federation

Suzanne Belling Journalist and editor

Dr Louise Bethlehem Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Marlene Bethlehem SA Jewish Board of Deputies

Cedric Ginsberg University of South Africa

Dr Elaine Katz University of the Witwatersrand

Professor Marcia Leveson University of the Witwatersrand

Naomi Musiker Archivist and Bibliographer

Professor Reuben Musiker University of the Witwatersrand

Gwynne Schrire SA Jewish Board of Deputies

Dr Gabriel A Sivan World Jewish Bible Centre

Professor Gideon Shimoni Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Professor Milton Shain University of Cape Town

John Simon University of Cape Town

The Hon. Mr Justice Ralph Zulman Appeal Court of South Africa

SECRETARY – Golde Goldsmith

TYPESETTING/PRINTING – Bookpress, Johannesburg

FRONT COVER IMAGE:

110th Anniversary of the Kimberley Synagogue, August 2012

© South African Jewish Board of Deputies 2011Permission to reprint material from JEWISH AFFAIRS should be

applied for fromThe South African Jewish Board of Deputies

JEWISH AFFAIRS is published 3 times annually

Annual subscription R180 including VAT and postageOverseas: Surface Mail US$30 or BPS25

Air Mail US$70 or BPS50Postal Address: PO Box 87557, Houghton 2041

Original, unpublished essays of between 1 000 and 6 000 words onall subjects are invited, and should be sent to:

The Editor, JEWISH AFFAIRS, PO Box 87557, Houghton 2041,

[email protected]

The Editorial Board reserves the right to cut the length of articles

accepted for publication, and to make any stylistic changes which itmay deem necessary.

J E W I S H

A F FA I R S

VOL. 67 NO. 2 ROSH HASHANAH 2012

Editor: David Saks

JEWISH ARTS FOCUS: A TALE OF THREE GOLDBLATTS

A South African Jewish Sculptor Looks BackNaomi Jacobson ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

David Goldblatt – Photographer ExtraordinaireFrank Startz ............................................................................................................................................................ 8

Sidney Goldblatt – Select Works ...................................................................................................................... 14

ISSUES AND ANGLES

Remembering Phillip TobiasReuben Musiker .................................................................................................................................................... 17

A Brief Journey through Turkish Jewish HistoryBernard Katz ........................................................................................................................................................ 19

Observations on Serbs, Jews and Israelis: A Plea for UnderstandingRichard Burns ....................................................................................................................................................... 26

Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII): Was He Complicit in the Holocaust?Leon Reich ............................................................................................................................................................ 31

Some Holocaust and Judaica artefacts and the stories behind themJeff Fine ................................................................................................................................................................ 40

FICTION

RifkaBernard Levinson ................................................................................................................................................. 45

BOOK REVIEWS

My Right Hand’s Cunning: A Jerusalem StoryTamar Saks ........................................................................................................................................................... 46

Drastic DislocationsRoy Robins ............................................................................................................................................................ 47

The Arab LobbyGary Selikow ........................................................................................................................................................ 48

The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli LeadershipRalph Zulman ....................................................................................................................................................... 49

NEW POETRYCharlotte Cohen, Jeff Fine, Israel Silberhaft ....................................................................................................... 51

READER’S LETTER.............................................................................................................................................................................. 52

J E W I S H

A F FA I R S

3

JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012

My grandfather was the famed Yiddish writerand scholar David Goldblatt, who is bestremembered today for his two-volume YiddishEncyclopaedia , written (amongst otherpublications) after his relocation to New York in1915. He remained in South Africa long enough,however, to make his mark on the Jewish culturaland intellectual scene. With the help of his wife,Fanny Esther, he founded and ran Der YiddisherAdvokaat, a Cape Town-based Yiddish weeklythat lasted from 1904 to 1914. He was amongstthose centrally involved in the delegation to theCape Parliament that was successful in gettingYiddish recognised as a European language.

David’s oldest child, Sarah (‘Saartjie’),likewise helped in getting a new languageestablished in South Africa. At a very young age,she became the secretary of the famed C.J.Langenhoven, the poet, writer and advocate whoauthored Die Stem van Suid Afrika and is regardedas one of the fathers of the Afrikaans language.After his death, she became his literary executrix,a role she carried out with the utmost dedication.She was also renowned as a teacher of Afrikaans,teaching foreign diplomats amongst others andrelentlessly putting them through their paces.

David and Fanny Goldblatt, originally fromPoland, arrived in Cape Town in 1896. They hadthree other children, Rebecca, Reuben and myfather, Israel. All their children were educated atthe German school in Cape Town, as their fatherwanted them to learn the language which hehimself had learnt and through which he hadgained so much knowledge of great writers likeGoethe.

Rebecca, my “second mother”, was bright as abutton, sang beautifully and had a brilliant senseof humour. Because of her knowledge of German,she worked for the Censor’s Board during theGreat War. I never knew Reuben, who died young

A SOUTH AFRICAN SCULPTORLOOKS BACK

*

Naomi Jacobson

in a car crash, and very little was told to us abouthim. Sarah, a die-hard Afrikaner nationalist, feltalienated from her more liberally-inclined familymembers and, being a rather hard, sometimesaggressive personality, was difficult to get closeto.

My father arrived in Windhoek, South WestAfrica, in 1918, starting out as a public prosecutor.Later, he was admitted to the bar, where he had along and distinguished career. My maternalgrandparents, Reverend Mordecai Leib Cohenand his wife Sarah, arrived in Windhoek in 1924.Reverend Cohen was the first rabbi and openedthe shul there shortly after his arrival. They hadnine children, including my mother, Janet Ida.She met and married Israel that same year andthey became an influential, dynamic couple,cultured, intellectual, sporty and fun. Israel was abrilliant lawyer, philosopher and writer. He startedWindhoek’s first chess club and, with Janet, playedtennis and golf. Later, he did much to help theAfrican community in dealing with the legalstrictures that so bedevilled their everyday lives,and he was regarded as a thorn in the side of thegovernments of the day. My mother was a leadingmember of most societies and started the city’sfirst old age home – the Werth te Huis, namedafter the administrator.

Israel and Janet had four children – myself(born in 1925), Michal, Karen and Lucian. Theyencouraged us to explore all kinds of avenues -music, art, sport and literature. I am what I amtoday because of them.

We all attended St. Georges, a very EnglishAnglican church school, thereafter attending agovernment school. There were all sorts ofactivities, from sports to a percussion band andelocution and dancing classes. As young childrenwe had a private German nanny, and later anAfrikaans one, so we became thoroughlytrilingual. At an early age, I became very interestedin painting and other art subjects. I also lovedsinging and took part in all music and dancingevents. Besides those activities, I played tennisand golf. I was a very precocious child – I still am.

Michal married Hymie Goldblatt (no relation).In 1968, they immigrated to Israel, where Hymieworked as a doctor in Haifa. What a caring,sharing, grand couple they were! They, too, hadfour children. My younger sister, Karen, theyoungest, married Werner Blum, with whom shehad two children. She studied law and in duecourse became the second lady judge in South

Naomi Jacobson (neé Goldblatt) is a well-knownSouth African portrait sculptor, specialising inportraiture mainly from live settings. Hercommissioned works include busts of NelsonMandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and KingShaka. She has also studied and sculpted the SanBushmen in Namibia, where she was born andwhere she lived and worked for many years. Manyof her works today reside in local, internationaland private collections, and in addition she hascreated a number of sculptures of birds and buckfor public fountains.

4


Africa and the first in Namibia. Lucian alsobecame a lawyer, practicing first in Windhoekand then in Swakopmund. In the early years hewas great fun, a fine sportsman and in later yearswhat a dancer! He took life too seriously as hematured.

When war broke out in 1939, quite a lot oflocal Germans were interned, and some by thenhad even returned to Germany. The flags withswastikas were very obvious in Kaiser Street, andthere was a very active Nazi party in the town. Aswe were young and had many German friends wewere not aware of certain activities, except thatmany young men and boys fought up “North”.Some did not come back. In our home we had thewireless blaring forth day and night, even gettingnews from Germany (Zeesen was the name of thestation).

After school, I studied at the Michaelis Schoolof Art in Cape Town and had singing lessons withAl Bini Bini a well-known Italian musician. Itwas a sad time in many ways as the war was onand we lost quite a few friends. But I learnt somuch – going to lectures, concerts etc. Duringthis time, I met Larry Jacobson, a medical student.We married in early January 1947 and decided togo back to Windhoek. The country had excitedLarry on two previous visits so, after three daysand three nights on the train, we arrived “Home”.

South West Africa, now Namibia, is a most

fascinating country, large but not over-populated.The ethnic groups comprised of Bushmen,

Hereros, Damaras, Namas and Ovambo peoples.I was very interested in these people, whosecustoms, dress and physiques were so diverse,and started a lot of my speciality portraituredepicting them.

We were extremely lucky to be surrounded bypeople of such diverse backgrounds, allcontributing to the excitement of a young country.As a family, we took full part in all that was goingon. After World War I, by which time SWA wasunder South African control, Windhoek and somesmaller towns built sports fields, establishedorchestras and a range of other culturalorganisations, all quite amazing for a countrywhere there were then only a few thousand whitepeople and one million blacks.

After our arrival in 1947, Larry began lookingfor a practice and we landed up in Lüderitzbucht.I hated it. As my husband said, the wind blew onlytwice during the five years we were there - oncefor two years and once for three years. There wereno trees, just Skeleton Coast desert, no freshwater and no fresh milk or vegetables. Sanitationwas the bucket system up amongst the rocks.When my mother came to see me she cried –imagine a nice Jewish girl in a place like this! Ouressentials were brought down by lorry. Our twochildren, Janine and David, were born there.

The author in Windhoek next to one of her sculptures, circa. 1970.

5


Lüderitz was a very German town, as could beseen in the local architecture, the most beautifulGerman China glass on sale in the shops, theclothing people wore and so many other touches.There were only about 1500 white people and3000 blacks. Our good friends were Wilfred andMolly Lubowski, whose son, Anton, was laterassassinated by the government because of hispolitical activities.

Luckily, I spoke German. I started the ArtsAssociation, dabbled in clay and plaster of Parisand gave lessons in English, Scandinavianembroidering and drawing. I loved the colours ofthe sand dunes, the sunsets and the semi-preciousstones along the beach, called Agate Beach. Today,Namibia is a great tourist destination. I understandthat it has a harsh climate, but there is so much tosee. There are no words to describe the desert, therocks, the mountains and the sheer openness ofthe country.

I cannot say that I was sorry to leaveLüderitzbucht. Being so high spirited and excitedabout life in general, I had been stagnating at astill young age. A short spell followed in Umtata,Eastern Cape, where Larry went for a refreshercourse. It was heaven, moving from a very Germanto a very English environment. Certainly, it is oneof the most beautiful parts of South Africa. It wasthere that my inspiration began to return. I joinedthe opera group and started sculpting and painting,sculpture being my main interest. Umtata was asmall town, but very much alive. There was awide array of different ethnic groups, whose artand craftwork were so colourful.

On my return to Windhoek, I fixed up a studioand started sculpting in earnest. As I have saidpeople, all people, interested me. One can take aphoto, but working in clay or plaster in threedimensions is really to get to the inside of theperson. It also enables the artist to spend timewith those they are portraying, conversing withand learning all about them. One becomes a kindof psychologist after a while. You would bestaggered to learn some of the things that sittershave confided to me!

Larry was a modest, humble human being,quite opposite to me in many ways. He wascompletely devoted to his patients, expending adegree of time and effort on their behalf thatcontrasts strongly with the way the medicalprofession operates today. Often, he would sendme patients who were depressed, bringing theminto my art classes where we helped them toregain some confidence in themselves. I also usedto help people who had been ill or injured get backthe use of their hands by using clay. After ourmove to Johannesburg in 1973, Larry was incharge of looking after political detainees. It wasa trying, often heart breaking time, but thankgoodness they were so well treated by him. Hewrote his own memoirs before his passing someseven years ago.

When we moved to Johannesburg, I never

dreamt that I would be accepted into the GoldenCity art scene, but with the friendship of CecilSkotnes, Larry Scully and one or two others, mycareer soon took off. I knew that it was not goingto be easy, but I really wanted to be a portraitsculptor. I was given an exhibition by NormaWolfewitz, who had opened a gallery, andexhibited with an English painter. To myastonishment, I sold all fourteen of my Namibianethnic heads. I now began getting regularcommissions and never needed another exhibition.

I had some wonderful exciting times, travellingto many parts in South Africa to do my subjects.After doing a portrait, I would always put down inwriting my feelings about the work just done andthe characters of the people depicted.

The materials with which sculptors work vary.I was introduced to clay plaster of cement fondue,a metallic cement (it has a high aluminium content)from France, by Frank McWilliam in England.One of the top sculptors of the day, he wascommissioned to do the head of the Herero ChiefHosea, to be placed in the United Nations buildingin New York. I was introduced to him by myfather, and he became my mentor and great friend.He taught me so much and I met many interestingpeople through him. When I got home, I could notstop working. One of my main subjects was theBushmen people, without whose art we wouldhave no history of our forebears of tens ofthousands of years ago. I learnt so much and hadsome glorious experiences with them.Anthropology is magical to me. I could easilyhave become an anthropologist, and also apalaeontologist. I read whatever I could lay myhands on regarding this, and as it turned out cameto do the heads of Philip Tobias and RaymondDart, two great world authorities in the field.These heads are now at the Medical School atWits University. Philip and I remained dear friendsuntil his passing earlier this year.

Portraiture is the orphan of the art world butmake no mistake, it is exciting and exhilarating.I did my work because I loved the interaction withthe subjects, not for financial gain. I honoured thepeople I felt were of historical importance, andmoney could not buy that.

I began receiving commissions from far andwide. When I was approached by MangosuthuButhelezi of the Zulu nation to do King Shaka, Iwas overjoyed. King Goodwill Zwelethini,members of the family and Buthelezi himselfwere constant visitors. The unveiling took placein 1979, the centenary of the Anglo Zulu War.There were many guests from the UK, and myheart was full being part of that historical event.

I was then commissioned to do Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Johnstone, Chief Scout of SouthAfrica. This commission lead to a friendship Iwas extremely proud of. He was the Prior of StJohns, Lt-Col of the Transvaal Scottish Regimentand head of various mining companies. His wife,Irene, became one of my very dearest friends. The

6


One day, I was contacted by Peter Haskins ofCiticom wanting to know if I would please do theheads of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu andOliver Tambo. My shock and surprise can hardlybe imagined. You cannot believe how lucky thiscountry was to have been served by men of thiscalibre. There were others as well, but these threewere true giants and they were now in my hands.The wonderful openness and memorableconversations we had as I worked are beyondwords. Walter Sisulu, in my opinion, was thegreat man behind all that happened in SouthAfrica. He was a happy, loving family man, and Iknew his wife very well – we were friends. I alsoshared a very personal hour with Adelaide Tambowhen Oliver died, and we cried together. He hadwritten such a beautiful love letter to her beforehis death.

Then came the larger-than-life statue of SteveBiko, commissioned by Donald Woods. The latter,a gregarious and genial man, was one of the mostremarkable South Africans of his time. He wasthe editor of the East London Daily Dispatch, andafter Biko’s murder, became the first privatecitizen to address the UN Security Council. Heeventually fled South Africa and settled in theUK. Donald and the Biko family helped meenormously to make a sculpture worthy of SteveBiko’s stature. The statue is now in the main‘piazza’ of East London and was unveiled byNelson Mandela.

Besides portraiture, I loved doing large birds– flamingos, cranes etc. – as well as buck. I wasbusy eight hours a day creating, listening to my

The author with her King Sobhuza head

Lord Baden-Powell

unveiling was a very rewarding experience, andas a result of that commission I went on to dobusts of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell. Lady BPdid not want to have herself sculpted, but waseventually inveigled to my home, and I did her asshe was taping her life story. I did Lord BP fromphotographs. The busts were unveiled at the CapeAnglican Cathedral in a very solemn and emotionalceremony.

A rather fun commission was of Sir RichardLuyt, Principal of the University of Cape Town.During the sitting, he related his wartimeexperiences and those from when he was Governorof Kenya. I had been told that Glenava, thePrincipal’s house, was haunted. While working, Isaw a chair move. I looked up every so often, andthe damn chair kept moving. I told Sir Richardthat I knew the story about the house being haunted,

Lady Baden-Powell and Head

whereupon he laughed, picked up the chair andreleased a turtle that had got jammed underneathit. So much for ghosts!

The Bank of England commissioned a head ofKing Sobhuza of Swaziland from me. I can writea book about that experience. He spoke goodEnglish and when it was completed he suggestedwe unveil it privately one evening. This tookplace on his sweeping lawn, with just the king andI present.

7


music and eating Mars bars when I got hungry.Everything beautiful fascinated me. I becameinterested in other arts and crafts, like beadingart, needlework, went to lectures on antiques,read histories and travelled overseas to learnabout different cultures. I had an abundance ofenergy and really drove my husband to distraction.

As you will have gathered, I have alwayslooked for ways and means to honour, teach andhelp others through ART. After a long day’swork, I would try and relax, listening to musicwhile sewing, beading, reading and learning. Icould not stop working and now, 87 years-old butstill 21 in spirit, am as eager as ever to continue.There has never been a tomorrow in my life – ithas always been today that counts.

Oliver Tambo, by Naomi Jacobson

With my husband, Larry, working on the Bikostatue

APPENDIX: Select works by NaomiJacobsonPortraitureAlan Paton – University of PietermaritzburgSir Richard Luyt – University of Cape TownPresident Sam Nujoma of NamibiaHarry Oppenheimer – De Beers, KimberleyPresident Museweni of Uganda14 heads of the Randlords – ErnestOppenheimer Recreation HallColonel A Johnstone – head of Boy Scouts1973Lord and Lady Baden Powell – Boy ScoutHeadquartersSir Percy Fitzpatrick – The Johannesburg ZooChief Hosea Kutako – Chief of the Herero,NamibiaProfessor Raymond Dart – University ofWitwatersrandProfessor Philip Tobias – University ofWitwatersrandIan Player – Wilderness and WildlifeKing Sobhuza – SwazilandSir Seretse Khama – BotswanaChief Jonathan – LesothoChief Mangosuthu Buthelezi – for the ZuluNationNelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo– Robben IslandNelson Mandela – a gift to Parliament by theGuy Martin TrustLife-Size StatuesShaka Zulu for the Zulu Nation – UlundiCetshwayo for the Zulu NationMakontwani for Lesotho – General ofMoshoeshoeSteve Biko – City of East LondonChief Phatudi for LebowaSan Bushman – Windhoek MuseumA tribute to women: ‘The Contessa’, a threemetre-high sculpture, and “Gabriella’, a life-size nude study in bronze – MichelangeloHotel, Johannesburg.

Press report on unveiling of Steve Biko statue

8


David Goldblatt has spent much of his life asa photographer recording and chronicling manyaspects of South African history as it unfolded,especially but not exclusively during the apartheidyears. His objectivity, honesty and passion as anobserver have been unswerving, his work hasattained major recognition in several countriesand, as the Appendix shows, has been recognisedvia numerous awards. Without doubt, he is one ofthis country’s accomplished and influential sons.Yet he remains humble and totally unaffected bythis mountainous public acclaim.

I met with David earlier this year in order togain some personal and biographical insightpreparatory to writing this piece. I had known himfor many years but found that my knowledge ofhim was embarrassingly scant. I came away fromour discussions refreshed by both his candour andhis humility.

DAVID GOLDBLATT:PHOTOGRAPHER EXTRAORDINAIRE

*

Frank Startz

When I remarked that his professionalbiography might be too extensive to be includedin this article, he furnished me with the following,abridged version:

I was born in Randfontein in 1930, the third sonof Eli and Olga Goldblatt who came to SouthAfrica as children with their parents to escapeconditions in Eastern Europe.

After matriculating at Krugersdorp High in 1948,I attempted to become a magazine photographer,a field then almost unknown in South Africa. Ifailed and went to work for my father, who hadestablished a men’s outfitting store inRandfontein. While working in the shop, I tooka B Comm. degree at the University of theWitwatersrand and maintained my interest inphotography.

My father died in 1962. I sold the business in1963 and decided to become a photographer.Gradually I built up a professional practice,mainly in the field of photo journalism,specialising in work outside the studiophotographing for magazines, corporations,advertising agencies and institutions.

Frank Startz is a Johannesburg-based artist,with a lengthy record in the field of Jewish civilrights activism. The interview with DavidGoldblatt featured in this article was conductedby him in May 2012.

“Zulu women salvaging bricks for a white contractor from Indians’houses demolished under the Group Areas Act,Fietas, 3 June 1982” (David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2001, p226)

9


Recognizing the need for a facility to teachvisual literacy and photographic skills,particularly to people disadvantaged byapartheid, I founded the Market Photo Workshopin 1989.

I regard myself as an unlicensed, self-appointedobserver and critic of South African societywhich I continue to explore with the camera. Ilive in Johannesburg with Lily my wife. Ourchildren are Steven, Brenda and Ron. Ourgrandchildren are Daniel and Samuel.

On 29 March 2011, David was informed thatthe government was going to award him the Orderof Ikhamanga - Silver. He responded by informingthem that he would regretfully have to decline thehonour in protest over the Protection of StateInformation Bill (passed in Parliament on ‘BlackTuesday’, 23 November). This, he said, sought tomuzzle the press and was in direct conflict withspirit of our democracy and, importantly, thespirit of the award.

David’s work has appeared in 24 bookspublished internationally – mainly solopublications but also with other participants. It isrepresented in 17 museum and institutionalcollections. A solo exhibition of his work washeld at the Museum of Modern Art in New YorkCity in 1998, to mention but one of many suchexhibitions. In all he has participated in 66 oneman exhibitions internationally as well as 35

selected group exhibitions. He has also received10 major photographic honours.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVIDGOLDBLATT

FS: How did your association with the MarketGallery come about?

DG: Barney Simon and Mannie Manim startedthe Market Theatre in 1977 and we were allinvolved with the project. My kids went there tosandpaper the woodwork. Everyone pitched in. Iwas on the periphery and then got a call fromCarol Hacker. She said that she would like to starta photographic gallery. I’d never met her, but shesounded very genuine. So I spoke to Mannie andBarney and they gave the go-ahead so long as Iwas going to be involved with it. So I officiallybecame Carol’s advisor and we ran the Galleryfor several years. We worked very hard. It wasquite effective – we had an exhibition every threeweeks. Despite this success, the usual nonsensestarted with the Market Theatre Foundation.Money and so on.

FS: Tell us about your association with theMarket Art Gallery people, namely Wolf Weinek,Paul Stopforth and Mike Goldberg and how thistied in with the Market Foundation.

DG: We had very good relations with them. Ineed to tell you a little about that. The Art Gallerycame about a short while after we started. WolfWeinek came up with the brilliant idea of a flea

“Friends in a rooming house, Abel Road, Hillbrow , March 1973” (David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001, p175)

10


market that raised funds for the two galleries.They (The Market Theatre Foundation) were goingto give us 10% from the Flea Market takings. TheFlea Market was so successful that it actuallysaved the whole Market Foundation. And then - Idon’t remember the whole sequence of events,but I think I became chairman of the whole thing.I then got hold of Graeme Lindopp and told himwe were being robbed – I reminded him that we,the galleries, were supposed to receive 10% of theflea market income. Things became quiteunpleasant. I don’t remember what the outcomewas. I don’t think we ever got the full amount dueto us. It was very sad and showed howunappreciative of Wolf they were.

FS: Wolf was a very fine man. We workedtogether for many years after we’d establishedThe Visual Arts Council of South Africa.

DG: He was indeed a very fine man and heknew a great deal about art; he really had thewelfare of the Market at heart.

FS: Can you talk about the processes of yourwork. I imagine a lot of your photographs mightbe instinctive, that you don’t really formulate toomuch about the actual photograph. Sure, elementslike composition, cropping and what will finallyappear in the frame are obviously important andhave to be reckoned and play an important part,but as to the specific subject: how much of that isinstinct and how much by design?

DG: It is hard to explain the process. I usuallystart off with an idea about the subject – I seldomphotograph things in isolation. Say I becomeinterested in, for example, Afrikaners or Boksburg.

I might make some forays to establish what it isI’m looking for and then, once I have an idea thateventually becomes something I can approachwith a sense of what it is I’m about, the processbecomes instinctive - instinctive in the sense thatI look at a scene and walk around it, look at it andlook at it again. I don’t shoot from the hip – youknow we used to have a friend, John Brett Cohen(sadly now dead) – he shot from the hip. He didsome brilliant work, but it wasn’t my way. Sodepending on what I was doing, I would shootfrom a small camera – a Leica, or a large camera,a view camera. In all cases, my approach wouldbe the same. I needed to know what I was lookingfor, and what my subject matter, broadly speaking,was about. I would then hone in on what fitted.

FS: On the broader aspect, do you discardmuch of what you shoot?

DG: Well it varies, varies a lot. I mean, mostof the work I’ve done over the last twenty yearshas been on a view camera, that is quite a biginstrument with a black cloth and ground glassand the film is big and very expensive. So I rarelyshoot more than two sheets, one for insurance.Lately, I’ve been working on a project where I’mshooting too many; I’ve become wild – shootingfour or five exposures, and it’s bad – it doesn’tmean I’m doing it better.

FS: How did you first become interested inphotography? What was your initial impetus?

DG: I was fourteen years old. I wanted torecord things for model boat building. I used tobuild model boats and also collected stamps - Iwanted to record watermarks and things like that.

“Dominee S. M. van Vuuren of the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk), Witfield, Atprayer with a family during a pastoral call, 17 June 1980” (David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001, p266)

11


Very quickly, it grew into photography itself andthen I became obsessed with the ideas that cameout of the magazines like Look, Life, etc. Theywere published every two weeks and were pushingout amazing stuff. That was the golden age ofpicture magazines. TV had not yet swept throughEurope, so millions of people bought magazinesas a sort of visual window. Once TV came in,picture magazines began to die. But during thetime they were around, they published amazingstuff. It was that period that excited and provokedme. I then began to photograph more seriously,and began to photograph at school. I photographedRonnie Friedman cribbing in a Latin class. Itgrew from that kind of thing into an interest in theworld around.

FS: The first sign of recognition: How did thiscome about?

DG: Well, it depends on what you mean byrecognition. The first pictures that I ever publishedwere in a little magazine called South African

Photography, published and owned by CecilHolmes.

FS: How old were you then?DG: We are talking about the late 1940s early

‘50s. I must have been in my late teens. Anyway,that was still amateur stuff. Then, during theANC’s Defiance Campaign of 1952, I sent somework over to Picture Post. When Apartheid wasfirst introduced at the Johannesburg railwaystation, I did a series of pictures which I sent tothe editor of Picture Post. The editor rejectedthem and sent me a polite note. But when theDefiance Campaign got into full swing, he sentme a cable to send him anything I had. There wasa big meeting on Freedom Square and Iphotographed that very badly. I sent him some ofthat stuff.

Then I went to a meeting at the Trades Hall inKerk Street. This was a mass meeting of the ANC- everybody was there. I was the only person therewith a camera, my first Leica. I photographed andphotographed for about two hours and thought itwas a very long piece of film, so I opened thecamera to find that the film hadn’t engaged in thesprockets! I then began to realise that while I wasinterested in events as a citizen, I was lessinterested as a photographer. My real concernwas with the conditions and values that lead to theevents. Editors wanted photographs of politicalevents – mostly those of violence. I had to acceptthat, as a coward, I was not able to supply the kindof photographs required. I am a coward - I abhorphysical violence. I don’t know how to deal withit. I became more interested in what lead to theevents. That gradually permeated into what I wasdoing.

In the early 1960s, I sent some work to amagazine called Town, in England. It was quite anavant-garde publication, the male equivalent of

“Freda Fleischman and her father, Highlands North, 1973” (David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001, p172)

“Saturday afternoon rugby: South African Police versusIscor (Iron and Steel Corporation) at Loftus Versfeld,Pretoria, 1967” (Some Afrikaners Revisited, Umuzi,Cape Town, 2007, p174)

12


Queen, which was publishing very strong fashionwork. Town was mostly of men’s interests andthey employed very fine writers, designers andphotographers. So I sent some work across andthen got a letter back from the assistant editorsaying that they would like me to do some workaround the Anglo-American Corporation, onwhich they were going to do a big story. I submittedmy work, which they published. Then theirassistant editor, Sally Angwin, came to SouthAfrica. By that time, I had sold my father’sbusiness in Randfontein. It was in 1963 and I wasnow a full time photographer, with no ties tospeak of. I had two Leicas and a lot of hope.

FS: How did you exist?DG: Well, I took enough out of the business to

keep us going for about a year. Anyway, SallyAngwin was a South African and she came outhere to get married. She contacted me and she wasthen commissioned by a man called DesmondNiven (the grandson of Percy Fitzpatrick). Hehad bought the South African Tatler, which wasa real social rag, and he commissioned Sally toturn it into a sort of Queen & Town. He wanted tomake an avant-garde magazine for the SouthAfrican market, and she became its editor. Shewas a very fine magazine editor, veryaccomplished. She recruited me to do a lot ofwork. So that was for me a major breakthrough,because then my work became known. I did someinteresting stuff and she was very receptive. Andso that’s more or less how I started.

FS: I recall that a few years ago the SABCTV,

“Going to work: 3:30 am, Wolwekraal-Marabastadbus, standing passengers have slumped to the floor,1983” (David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001, p283)

used or in this case abused, one of yourphotographs to misrepresent an event. Wolf(Weinek) and I got involved in an attempt to getthem to set the record straight. But I think by thenyou had already received the benefit of legalaction against them and got the matter sorted out.

DG: Yes, of course, I remember. Whathappened was that Lily and I were out for thenight. When we got home Steven, our eldest son,said that he had seen a piece on the eight o’clocktelevision news where they had used a photographof mine of an ouderling in the N.G. Kerk. It wasa mission church, the coloured church. They’dused a photograph of mine which showed theouderling and his wife and daughter walkinghome from church – I think it was in Carnarvon –anyway it was a totally innocuous photographand the SABC used it to illustrate some ANCinsurgents who had been shot on the Swazi border.I phoned them up the next day and gave them helland told them I was taking it further. I then got onto my lawyer, Raymond Tucker, who was a realtiger. Raymond got them to broadcast an apologyon the same news programme.

FS: What are some of the processes thatguide your work? How much is by design,composition, editing and so on?

DG: I don’t walk about with a camera all thetime. I only pick up a camera when I have a fairidea about what I’m interested in - a certain aspectof the country initially, black/white interaction orconfrontation or any other subject. Then I instilthe needed visual qualities. I always do a littlepreliminary research and afterwards, if thephotograph is of interest, I will research further orcommission someone else to do research. I oftengive context or information to my photographs. Idon’t regard my pictures as pristine objects butrather as part of the matrix of life here, hence theresearch and information.

FS: When you were photographing your nowfamous series “Some Afrikaners” and “SomeAfrikaners Revisited”, did you ever encounterany hostility?

DG: Very little among Afrikaners themselves.FS: What are you currently working on?DG: Post-Apartheid public sculptures in our

city, landscapes in the Karoo and ex-offenders atthe scene of a crime.

FS: What do you see as the standout momentsin your career?

DG: I don’t think in those terms, I reallydon’t. At the moment, I’m thinking about aphotograph I’m going to be doing on Mondaymorning.

FS: How do you handle all the worldwideacclaim and attention? It is, after all, more thanmost South African artists have managed to attain.

DG: Well first of all, I don’t regard myself asan artist. The word ‘art’ is not in my vocabulary.

FS: In the world that I come from, you areregarded as an artist, one of the great socialpainters.1

13


DG: I’m not an artist, but let’s not argue aboutterminology. You ask me how I handle it. I don’tknow. I just deal with people when they come tome. It could be nice to have the ego massaged, butI really don’t have an ego. It’s not of great or anyimportance to me.

APPENDIX

DAVID GOLDBLATT – SELECT AWARDS,PUBLIC COLLECTIONS, EXHIBITIONS ANDBOOKS

Prizes and AwardsCamera Austria Prize 1995; Honorary Doctorate of

Fine Arts, University of Cape Town 2001; HasselbladFoundational Award in Photography 2006; HonoraryDoctorate of Literature, University of theWitwatersrand, 2008; Henri Cartier-Bresson Award,2009; Lifetime Achievement Award, Arts and CultureTrust, 2009; Lucie Lifetime Achievement Award, 2010;Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award (with IvanVladislavic), 2011; Honorary Doctorate San FranciscoArt Institute, 2011.

Principal public collectionsSouth African National Gallery, Cape Town;

Johannesburg Art Gallery; University of theWitwatersrand; Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf;Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris; Museum of ModernArt, New York; National Gallery of Victoria,Melbourne; Victoria and Albert Museum, London;The French National Art Collection; The Art Galleryof Western Australia; Ludwig Museum, Vienna; HuisMarseille, Amsterdam; Fotomuseum, Winterthur,Switzerland; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Principal Exhibitions:Photographers’ Gallery, London, 1974, 1986; Side

Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1985; National Galleryof Victoria, Melbourne, 1975; South African NationalGallery, Cape Town, 1983; Various exhibitions since1978 at the Market Theatre Galleries, Johannesburg;Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998; NetherlandsArchitecture Institute, Rotterdam, 1998-9; SouthAfrican National Gallery, Cape Town, 1999; AxaGallery, New York, 2001;

Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2002;Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2002; Centro Cultural deBelem-Fundacao, Lisbon, 2002; Modern Art, Oxford,2003; Pala’s des Beaux Arts, Brussels, 2003;Lenbachhaus, Munich, 2003; Museum Kunst Palast,Duesseldorf, 2005;

Johannesburg Art Gallery 2005; Arles Rencontres,2006; Fotomuseuin Winterthur, Switzerland, 2007;Fluis Marseilles, Amsterdam, 2007; Berkeley ArtMuseum, 2007; Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal,2008; Konsthal, Malmo, Sweden, 2009; New Museum,New York, 2009; Jewish Museum, New York, 2010;Jewish Museum, Cape Town, 2010; Amherst ArtMuseum, Massachusetts, 2010;

Various group shows including: “South Africa: theCordoned Heart”, South Africa and the LTSA, 1986;

In/Sight, African Photographers, 1940 to the Present”,Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1996; “BlankArchitecture, apartheid and after”, Rotterdam andBerlin, 1998-99; “Home”, Art Gallery of WesternAustralia, Perth, 2000; “The Short Century”, MuseumVilla Stuck, Munich, 2001; “Documenta 11”, Kassel,Germany, 2002; “Africa Remix”, Museum KunstPalast, Duesseldorf 2003; “History, Memory, Society”,with Henri Cartier Bresson and Lee Friedlander, TateModem, London, 2004; “Faces in the Crowd”,Whitechapel, London, 2005; “Documenta 12”, Kassel.Germany, 2007; “Figure & Fictions” V&A London,2011;Venice Biennale, 2011.

BooksOn The Mines with Nadine Gordimer, Struik, Cape

Town, 1973Some Afrikaners Photographed, Murray Crawford

Johannesburg, 1975In Boksburg, Gallery Press, Cape Town, 1982Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, with Nadine Gordimer,

Knopf, New York, 1986The Transported of KwaNdebele with Brenda

Goldblatt and Phillip van Niekerk, Aperture and DukeUniversity, New York, 1989.

South Africa: The Structure of Things Then, OxfordUniversity Press. Cape Town, and Monacelli Press,New York, 1988

David Goldblatt 55 (one of a series aboutphotographers) Phaidon Press, London, 2001

David Goldblatt Fifty-One Years, Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona, 2001

Particulars, Goodman Gallery Editions, JHB, 2003[Awarded Arles Book Prize for 2004]

Intersections, Prestel, Munich, 2005David Goldblatt Photographs, Contrasto, Rome,

2006David Goldblatt HasselbladAwad 2006 Hatje

Cantz, Ostfildeni and F-Jasselblad CenterSome Afrikaners Revisited, Umuzi, Cape Town,

2007Intersections Intersected, Museum Serralves, Porto,

2008Kith, Kin and Khaya, Goodman Gallery,

Johannesburg, 2010

NOTES1 In this regard, the following independent observations are

of interest: “Goldblatt’s rigorous, almost rigorous attentionto detail - whether it be in a seemingly innocuous commaor the Coca Cola sign in the window of the corner cafe, isone of the things that makes him the artist today” (AlexDodd, Mail & Guardian, 3 July 1998) ; “Precise indescription, Goldblatt’s photographs are also acute inhistorical and political perception. They provide a sense ofthe texture of daily life and an important piece of missinginformation regarding life in Apartheid South Africa”Susan Kismaric, Associate Curator Museum of ModernArt, New York.

14


SIDNEY GOLDBLATT: SELECT WORKS*

Editor’s note: The Pesach 2012 issue of Jewish Affairs featured Frank Startz’s article‘Sidney Goldblatt: The Artist and the Man’. In this issue, we follow up with a selection ofsome noteworthy works by Goldblatt, with notes and images kindly supplied by WendyGoldblatt.

Linoleum on hessian. 1973The linoleum on this panel is carved intoso and mounted on Hessian. The wholepanel is then lightly spray-painted withsilver paint.

“King & Queen” 1972A large linoleum collage of two intertwined figureswith carved linoleum on hessian.

House in District Six, Cape Town 1968Oil on Board. Painted just before District Six wasdestroyed.

15


Pottery in Mozambique. 1975This rather primitive pottery studio was situated in Mozambique, North of Maputo. They made hugepots using local clay.

Basutho Ponies 1966Done during a trip to Lesotho. Oil on Board

16


Fishermen Resting on Beach, Marbella, Spain.Oil on Canvas. Painted during time Sidney wasliving in Spain – 1957/8.

Self Portrait 1978Sidney painted this self-portrait after designing one of the first-ever wine labels and the portrait wasexhibited alongside the various wines bearing his label.

House with Turret, Swakopmund, Namibia1979Acrylic on Board of one of the old houses inSwakopmund.

17


When the distinguished Jewish Americancomposer George Gershwin died of a brain tumourin 1937 at the unacceptably young age of 38, theeminent music critic John O’Hara remarked:“George Gershwin may be dead but I don’t haveto believe it if I don’t want to”. That sentimentsums up in a nutshell exactly how I feel about thepassing of Phillip Tobias on 7 June 2012.

Unlike Gershwin, Phillip died just four monthsshort of his 87th birthday. In fact, I drew attentionto his longevity in the last letter I penned him justprior to his passing. I asked him how it cameabout that some of the world’s most renownedanatomists and palaeo-anthropologists, includinghimself and his predecessor at the Wits MedicalSchool, Raymond Dart, and his peer, NobelLaureate Sydney Brenner (still active) hadmanaged to ‘architect’ their longevity genes.Regrettably, my letter was too late, and one canonly conjecture how, with his inimitable wit, hewould have responded.

Phillip was born on 14 October 1925 in Durban,KwaZulu-Natal, and grew up there. In hisautobiography Into the Past (2004), he describesthis period of his life in these terms:

The Durban years saw the beginning of myJewish education. Although my parents werenot deeply religious in the sense of observance,there had been a long history of involvement ofthe Vallentines with Jewish affairs. My great-great-grandfather, Isaac Vallentine, was born inBelgium in 1793. Shortly afterwards his familymoved to London, where they established abookshop which soon metamorphosed into anAnglo-Jewish publishing house. Apart frompublishing Hebrew and English prayer books,Isaac Vallentine founded the Anglo-Jewishmagazine, the Jewish Chronicle of London,which has been published continuously sinceinception to the present time. This record makesit the oldest Jewish periodical in the Vernacular.Religion and my Jewish affiliation havenevertheless remained a vital part of myconsciousness throughout my life. For over half

REMEMBERING PHILLIP TOBIAS*

Reuben Musiker

a century I have remained a member of the GreatSynagogue, formerly in Wolmarans Street andmore recently in Glenhove Road, Illovo,Johannesburg, serving for a time on the InternalManagement Committee.

I am aware of two major occurrences in his lifewhen Phillip was brought to tears. On the firstoccasion, there were tears of disappointment whenthe head of the Durban Hebrew Congregation,Rabbi Freedman, who was experiencingdisillusionment with his congregation, stronglydiscouraged the young Phillip from pursuingtraining for the Rabbinate. The other was thedeath of his sister, Valerie, at the age of twenty-one. Deeply grieved by this, Phillip decided topursue a medical career, specialising in the fieldof genetics and the study of chromosomes, thematerial basis of heredity.

When I heard the devastating news of PhillipTobias’ passing, it marked the end of a sixty-twoyear association which began in the early 1950s.Following my matriculation, I conceived the ill-advised notion of becoming a dental student atWits University. I was, after all, a man of the artsand humanities, most certainly not suitable forthis discipline and, half-way through, I abortedmy dental studies. The only course of action opento me was to ‘salvage’ my tertiary education bycompleting a BSc degree, with major subjectsHuman Anatomy and Histology (MicroscopicAnatomy). It was largely due to Phillip Tobias’

Reuben Musiker, a veteran contributor to JewishAffairs and a long-serving member of its editorialboard, is Professor Emeritus of Librarianshipand Bibliography, University of theWitwatersrand, Johannesburg and LibraryConsultant, South African Jewish Board ofDeputies. He has published widely on issues ofJewish and general interest.

SA Jewish Board of Deputies National PresidentMarlene Bethlehem presenting Phillip Tobias withthe SAJBD’s Human Rights Award, August 2001.

18


efforts on my behalf that this complex situationwas facilitated. Thereafter, Phillip was my mentor,as he of course was to some 10 000 medicalstudents. His tutelage was a turning point in mylife and also to those many students whose nameshe was able to recall due to his amazingly retentiveand photographic memory. He was able to hold anaudience of academics, students and the publicspellbound by his powerful oratory, delivered inthe most eloquent language.

Phillip’s academic career spanned sixty yearsand never really ended. He was never in denialabout this. In one of his last letters to me, hementioned that he had to give up using hiscomputer. This must have been a painful step inthe inevitable ageing process for one who was soprolific.

One of Phillip’s most distinguished studentswas Dr Robert Simmons, educated at St Vincent’sSchool for the Deaf. Despite his handicap, heachieved academic success and was appointed asa Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy.

Phillip’s interest in Makapansgat first arosewhen, as a Wits student in 1945, he participated ina third year science class initiative under thetutelage of Raymond Dart. The requirement forthird year students to participate in the Julyexpedition to the Makapan caves was continuedwhen Phillip became head of the Department ofAnatomy. For him it was the highlight of histeaching year. For many of us ‘city dwellers’, itbecame a feat of endurance as Tobias’ staminaand feats of athleticism in scaling rock faces inorder to explore the caves, left us far behind. Itwas equally difficult to accustom ourselves to thesharp reality of bitterly cold nights spent campingon the open Highveld.

Another memory of my student days is of myassignment to write an essay for the South AfricanJournal of Science on the facial features of theOvambo Bushman. Phillip was preparing for ajourney to England at that time, but very kindlyoffered to meet me on the cruise liner prior todeparture in order to edit my rough draft. Fromthis experience, I learned that Phillip was a masterof the English language. He was a stickler forgrammatical perfection and we stayed up until theearly hours of the morning as he guided methrough the intricacies of my first scientific pages.It was largely due to his editing efforts that theeditors of the Journal expressed admiration forthe final result.

After my appointment as Wits UniversityLibrarian in January 1975, I recall that during oneof my visits to his then apartment at 602 MarbleArch, Hillbrow, he showed me a small hard-covered note books giving an inventory of no lessthan thirty-six publications in progresssimultaneously. I was later to feel the effect ofthis extraordinary productivity when some yearsafter being appointed , I arranged for theUniversity Library’s fine craftsman binder andrestorer, Arthur Budd, to bind in a special binding

all of Phillip’s copies of his own publications aswell as cuttings about himself. The project had tobe abandoned, partly because of financialconstraints but mostly because it provedimpossible to keep up with his prolific output.

I was delighted to discover that Phillip sharedmy passion for bibliography and was a dedicatedbibliophile. He was a relative of the renownedJewish South African author, Sarah GertrudeMillin, and possessed a complete collection of allher works, in full edition and variants, and inperfect condition.

Phillip was a man of incredible vision andforesight. In my own half century career as auniversity librarian, I found him to be the onlydistinguished academic and researcher topersonally collate and organize everythingauthored by himself during his lifetime, foreventual deposit in the University’s Archives andnot to entrust this arduous, but hugely importanttask to the custodians of his collection.

What was to be a most significant event andcrowning achievement of his career was thediscovery, by one of his former students, ProfessorLee Berger, of the hominid fossilsAustralopitchecus sediba at the Malapa Caves.This discovery vindicated earlier research byRaymond Dart and Tobias on earlyaustralopithecines and early members of the genusHomo.

During his later years, Phillip produced for hislegion of friends and associates seventeen annualnewsletters, each averaging twenty pages andchronicling the highlights of the year. These madefascinating reading and were by no means limitedto good news e.g. an ever expanding necrologysection!

Phillip was certainly not a reclusive hermit. Aclassic example of his extroverted, outgoing natureis a party invitation of some twenty-five yearsago, which is one of my treasured possessions.

It became a thrilling experience for me and agreat honour to be the recipient of many of hispublications, personally inscribed for me. Anexample is when Stella Stricke completed herbibliography (225 items) of the Published Worksof Phillip V. Tobias, 1945-1969. Phillip warmedthe cockles of my heart in these words: “ToReuben Musiker - my former student, loyal friendand now cherished colleague. AffectionatelyPhillip Tobias.”

Phillip Tobias was a great credit to SouthAfrica, to Jewry (in general and South Africa inparticular), to the worlds of science and medicineand specifically palaeo-anthropology andanatomical genetics. He deserves to beremembered as unique a person as it is possiblefor a human being to be.

19


The Jewish connection with Turkey dates toBiblical times. Abraham settled in Haran, whereTerah died, on the way from Ur Kasdim beforecontinuing his journey to Canaan.1 Haran is almostuniversally identified with Harran, in present-day Turkey.

In June 2010, a team of archaeologists fromthe Hebrew University discovered intact bee hivesdating back to 900 BCE and concluded that thesebees were imported to Israel from Turkey wherethe bees produced more honey and were lessaggressive than the local variety.2

Jews have lived in Turkey since ancient timesas evidenced by numerous references in the NewTestament. Iconium (now Konya) and Ephesusare mentioned as having synagogues.3 EmperorConstantine (312–337) was responsible forrelocating the capital of the Roman Empire fromRome to Constantinople (now Istanbul), which henamed after himself. This eastern part of theRoman Empire became known as Byzantium.

In 1168 Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish Jewishtraveller visited Constantinople, then the largestcity on the world. He wrote a book of his travels,described by Paul Johnson as “the most sensible,objective and reliable of all travel books writtenin the Middle Ages.”4 Benjamin of Tudela wasparticularly impressed by Constantinople,commenting, “…there is none like it in the worldexcept Baghdad….Wealth like that ofConstantinople is not to be found in the wholeworld.”5 At the time, some 2000 Jews were livingin Constantinople. About their condition, he wasless impressed:

No Jew there is permitted to ride horseback. Theone exception is … the king’s physician, andthrough whom the Jews enjoy considerablealleviation of their oppression. For their conditionis very low, and there is much hatred againstthem, which is fostered by the tanners, whothrow out their dirty water in the streets beforethe doors of the Jewish houses and defile theJews’ quarters. So the Greeks hate the Jews …and subject them to great oppression, and beatthem in the streets, and in every way treat them

A BRIEF JOURNEY THROUGH TURKISHJEWISH HISTORY

*

Bernard Katz

with rigour. Yet the Jews are rich and good,kindly and charitable, and bear their lot withcheerfulness.6

The Osmanli dynasty, known to Europeans asthe Ottomans, was established by Sultan Osmanwho began the Ottoman conquest of Asia Minorin 1299. Sultan Orhan (1326-60) added the greaterpart of Asia Minor and gained a foothold inEurope at Gallipoli. Murad I (1360-89) capturedthe eastern half of the Balkan Peninsula andSultan Murad II (1421-1451) captured Salonikain 1430. The Ottomans kept making inroads intothe Byzantine Empire until it ceased to exist in1453 when Mehmet II (1451-1481) conqueredConstantinople. Selim I (1512-20) doubled thesize of the Ottoman Empire by defeating theMamelukes in 1517 and adding Egypt, Palestine(which remained under Ottoman control for 400years), Syria and the Arabian Peninsula. Duringthe reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-66),regarded as the greatest of the Ottoman sultans,the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest powerand extent with conquests of Hungary, Tripolitania(Libya), Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Belgrade, Rhodes,Cyprus and Yemen.

Jews in the Ottoman Empire were well treatedalthough subject to dhimmi (lit. ‘protected’, butdesignating discrimination against non-Muslims)regulations. Ottoman rule was tolerant andconditions for the Jews under them weresignificantly better than under the Christian GreekByzantines. As a result, as the Ottomans conqueredByzantine cities, the Jewish communitieswelcomed and supported them. Bursa, where Jewshad been living for over 500 years, and whichbecame the Ottoman Empire’s first capital, wascaptured in 1326. Its Jewish community becamethe first Jewish community to come under Ottomanrule and this marks the beginning of a commonJewish Ottoman history. According to onetradition, the Jewish community actively helpedthe Ottomans capture the city. Another assertsthat the city’s Jewish and Greek inhabitants fledas the Turks approached and that subsequent to itscapture the Jews but not the Greeks were invitedback.7

After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453the city was devastated and needed to berevitalized. The Turks were good warriors andfarmers but not administrators or businessmen.Sultan Mehmet II did not trust the native Greekpopulation so the Jews became the logical solution

Bernard Katz, a frequent contributor to JewishAffairs , is a chartered accountant inJohannesburg. His previous articles have focusedon the Jewish communities of Spain, Italy,Lithuania, Russia and Prague.

20


to generate a commercial revival.8 Soon after thecity’s capture, therefore, he ordered the Jews inthe empire to relocate there. At the time the Jewsresented this forced relocation and to pacify themMehmet II, according to tradition, issued thefollowing proclamation using phrases from thebooks of Genesis and Ezra:

Who among you of all my people that is with me,may his God be with him, let him ascend toConstantinople, the site of my royal throne. Lethim dwell in the best of the land, each beneathhis vine and beneath his fig tree, with silver andwith gold, with wealth and with cattle. Let himdwell in the land, trade in it, and take possessionof it.9

As a result of this proclamation many Jewscame to Constantinople, which became the capitalof the Ottoman Empire. Whenever the sultancaptured a town, he transferred its Jews to there.The Jews’ economic and religious situationimproved greatly by comparison with theircondition during the Byzantine era: “There cameinto being in Constantinople splendidcommunities; Torah, wealth and glory increasedin the congregation.”10

The original Jews who lived in Turkey fromByzantine times are known as Romaniot – Greek-speaking Jews. Although some had been residentsof Constantinople prior to the Ottoman conquest,most were settled there subsequently. Whilst theyplayed an important role in the Jewish communityduring the early years of Ottoman rule theirposition of influence was gradually eroded by theinflux of new Jewish communities.11

Rabbi Isaac Tzarfati moved to the OttomanEmpire from Europe and became the chief rabbi.He wrote a letter (dated by Heinrich Graetz to1456)12 to the Jews of Germany, who at the timewere subject to cruel persecution, encouragingthem to settle in Turkey:

I Isaac Tzarfati…proclaim to you that Turkey isa land wherein nothing is lacking….Is it notbetter for you to live under Muslims than underChristians? Here every man may dwell at peaceunder his own vine and fig-tree…. Arise! Andleave this accursed land for ever!13

This letter stimulated an influx of AshkenaziJews, who established communities in manyTurkish towns.14 By 1478, Constantinople’s Jewsnumbered 10 000, comprising some 10% of thecity’s population.15

In 1492, more than 160 000 Jews were expelledfrom Spain,16 and of these approximately 10000017 ultimately settled in Turkey. Sultan BayazidII (1481-1512) not only permitted these Jews tosettle in the Ottoman Empire but according toBernard Lewis they were “encouraged, assistedand sometimes compelled.”18 Bayazid II is reputedto have said about King Ferdinand of Spain “Can

you call such a king wise and intelligent? He isimpoverishing his country and enriching mykingdom.”19

The migration of Sephardi Jews did not stopafter the Spanish and subsequent Portugueseexpulsion. It continued into the 15th and 16th

Centuries as Marranos left Spain and Portugaland settled in various countries before ultimatelyestablishing themselves in Turkey, which provedto be the safest place to return to Judaism.20

Among the Sephardi Jews expelled from Portugalwere Ephraim Caro and his young son JosephCaro, who later settled in Safed and wrote theShulchan Aruch.

The arrival of Sephardi Jews significantlychanged the composition of the Jewishcommunity. According to certain calculations, 40000 Jews migrated to Constantinople and 20 000to Salonika.21 Constantinople soon became thelargest Jewish settlement in Europe. In time, itwas rivalled and then outstripped by Salonika(now part of Greece) which became apredominantly Jewish city and remained so forfour centuries.

The Jews were a heterogeneous communityand the Romaniots, Ashkenazim and Sephardimkept separate congregations. The Sephardim evenkept separate sub-communities, withcongregations from different Iberian townsfunctioning separately. The Sephardicommunities, writes Zimmels, exhibited twospecial features, viz. an inclination to domineerover others and to quarrel amongst themselves.The former characteristic led to the absorption ofmany non-Sephardi communities by theSephardim, and the latter frequently led tosecession from an existing congregation and theformation of a rival one.22

Sephardi immigrants made an importantcontribution from the mercantile perspective andinternational trade in the eastern Mediterraneanwas largely Jewish controlled. They also providedthe Turks with armaments and gunpowder, whichaccording to Graetz thereby suppliedChristendom’s arch enemy with the weapons thatenabled them to inflict on the Christians “defeatafter defeat” and “humiliation on humiliation.”23

Sephardi Jews were conversant with Europeanpolitics and had knowledge of Europeanlanguages. Turkey was the most powerful state inEurope and for the first time since Hasdai ibnShaprut in 10th Century Cordoba, Jews played aprominent role in international politics.

No case was more striking than that of DonJoseph Nasi (1524-79), who became one of themost influential individuals in the Turkish Empire.His aunt and mother-in-law Dona Gracia Nasi(1510-69) was the most benevolent and adoredJewish woman of her day. They were PortugueseMarranos whose significant business interestswere managed by Gracia Nasi after the death ofher husband with Don Joseph’s assistance.Together, they built and expanded the House of

21


Nasi into one of the richest merchant houses inEurope. After leaving Portugal, they were unableto find a secure place to practice their Judaismand eventually sought refuge in Turkey. It wouldbe three centuries before another Jewish dynasty,the Rothschild’s, would make a similar impact oninternational affairs.

Perhaps Dona Gracia and Don Joseph’s mostmemorable legacy was in relation to Palestine.Dona Gracia provided substantial funding forlearning and for the first time in centuries Palestinebecame a truly great centre of rabbinic learning.24

Don Joseph obtained a grant of the ruined city ofTiberius, which he rebuilt to be a place not only ofrefuge for persecuted Jews but as the kernel of aJewish state.25 Cecil Roth observed, however,that although not a failure, the Tiberius experimentcertainly did not live up to its enthusiastic hopes.26

The Ottoman Empire and its Jewish citizensboth reached their high point during the reign ofSuleiman (1520-1566). Although the situationfor the Jews was generally favourable even underthe relatively sympathetic sultans as Bayazid II,Suleiman, Selim I and Selim II, Jews wereperiodically reminded of their dhimmi status. ButJews were invariably grateful and thankful fortheir circumstances.27

By the close of the 16th Century, the 300 yearsof Turkish vitality began to show signs ofdeterioration and the shift in the historic traderoutes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic hada major negative consequence. The decline in theempire coincided with the decline of the goldenage of the Jews in Turkey, who no longer producedrepresentatives of outstanding quality. Thedeterioration of the Jews’ economic and politicalcircumstances ultimately reflected in theircommunal and cultural life.28

The 1648 Chmielnicki pogroms in EasternEurope unleashed messianic expectations.Gershom Scholem observed that in the mid-17th

Century, the belief that the world was on the brinkof great events was universally accepted.29 Theperiod produced a number of aspirant messiahs,of whom Shabbetai Tzvi (1626-1676) was themost significant. Shabbetai Tzvi was born inSmyrna (now Izmir) in Turkey. He came underthe influence of the kabbalah and exhibited signsof what today would probably be diagnosed asmanic depressive. Amongst other acts, heproclaimed 18 June 1666 to be the Day ofRedemption. He violated Jewish law, includingpronouncing the name of God, but his undoingwas his announcement that the Turkish sultanwas about to be deposed. The sultan had himarrested and given the choice between theconverting to Islam and death he chose conversion.The majority of rabbis were taken in by Tzvi.Later, when the charade was exposed, manyinsisted that they had been opposed to him, but asScholem points out, the documents tell a differentstory.30 Some of Tzvi’s followers also convertedto Islam but retained their Jewish identity in

secret. Their descendants have survived to thisday as a recognised group known as Donmeh andplayed a significant political and economic rolein Turkey. The Donmeh are referred to by some as“Jewish Muslims” and follow certain Jewishpractices such as lighting candles for Shabbat.31

Only in Istanbul does a remnant still survive.Estimates of their numbers vary between 20 000and 50 000, such is the veil of secrecy thatsurrounds this group.32

Rabbi Berel Wein is of the view that this failedmovement had long term tragic consequences forthe Jewish people. He considers that “ShabbetaiTzvi was a factor in setting in motion those forcesof history that introduced the onset of ReformJudaism, secularization, and assimilation ofEuropean Jewry.”33

The history of the Jews in Turkey in the 17th,18th and 19th Centuries is principally a chronicleof decline of influence and power exacerbated byincreasing competition from the Greek andArmenian communities.

Until the Damascus Blood Libel in 1840,accusations of ritual murder were very rare in theOttoman Empire, and where they did briefly appearthe sources were blood libels in Christiancountries.34 There are a number of instances wherethe sultan himself intervened to clamp down firmlyand put a stop to the baseless allegations.35 In the19th Century, Turkey introduced reforms whichextended equal rights to non-Muslims, includingto Jews. These reforms, which are known inTurkish history as Tanzimat, initiated in the late19th and early 20th Centuries a period of Jewishcultural and economic revival.36 Over time,however, Turkey had been gradually losing muchof the territories it had conquered. By thecommencement of the 20th Century, it had becomeknown as the “Sick Man of Europe.”

The diaries of Theodor Herzl contain afascinating account of Herzl’s effort to meet withSultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909) in order topromote the case for a Jewish homeland inPalestine. Herzl’s first attempt to meet the sultanin 1896, a year before the First Zionist Conference,ended in failure. He was already in Constantinoplein anticipation of the meeting when Nevlinski(his go between) “returned from Yildiz Kioskwith a long face and bad news” reporting “It’s alloff! The great lord will not hear of it! ....TheSultan told me: if Mr Herzl is your friend … thenadvise him not to go a single step further in thismatter. I cannot sell even a foot of land, for it doesnot belong to me but to my people. They have wonthis Empire and fertilized it with their blood….Ican dispose no part of it. The Jews may spare theirmillions. When my Empire is divided, perhapsthey will get Palestine for nothing. But only ourcorpse can be divided. I will never consent tovivisection.”37

Herzl recorded, “I was touched and moved bythe truly lofty words of the Sultan, although forthe time being they put an end to all my hopes.

22


There is a tragic beauty in this fatalism whichforesees death and dismemberment, yet fights tothe last breath, if only through passiveresistance.”38

In 1901, Herzl returned to Constantinople andmet with the sultan at his palace at Yildiz Kiosk.The remarkable conversation he had with him isrecorded in his diary.39

Turkey could not, however, be persuaded togrant a national home to the Jews. Herzl’s effortsto persuade the German Kaiser to use his influencewith the sultan also ended unsuccessfully, withGermany dropping this idea in the interests ofpursuing an alliance with Turkey. So Herzl turnedhis attention to Britain, efforts that ultimatelyculminated in Britain issuing the November 1917Balfour Declaration stating that the Britishgovernment “viewed with favour theestablishment of a Jewish Home” in Palestine.

In 1908, a group of army officers known as“Young Turks” overthrew Abdul Hamid II andrestored the constitution which granted Jews equalrights. The story that the revolution was a “Jewish-Masonic plot” received wide circulation, butaccording to Bernard Lewis, there would seem tobe “no evidence at all, in the voluminous Turkishliterature on the Young Turks, that Jews played apart of any significance in their councils, eitherbefore or after the Revolution…”40

Turkey entered World War I in October 1914as an ally of Germany. Now commenced a difficulttime for the Jews of Palestine, who were harshlytreated by the Turks. Max Raisin observes that“The Turkish government whose Jewish policy intimes of peace had nearly always been liberal andconciliatory, now became despotic…”41 Severalthousand Jews in Palestine were taken captiveand forced to work as labourers for the Turkishwar effort. More than 10 000 Jews fled Palestineto the security of British- controlled Egypt.42

Vladimir Jabotinsky established, under Britishcommand, a Jewish regiment comprising theserefugees known as the Zion Mule Corps. ThisCorps fought in the campaign against Turkey atGallipoli and their valour is attested to by ColonelPatterson in his book With the Zionists inGallipoli.43 At the same time, 18 000 Jews servedin the Ottoman army, of whom 1000 made theultimate sacrifice.44 British forces under thecommand of General Allenby liberated Jerusalemfrom Turkish rule in December 1917.

During the war, Arab armies rebelled againstTurkish rule. Their fight was led by Emir Feisal,son of Emir Hussein, Grand Sharif of Mecca andleader of the Arabs of Hejaz and Colonel T.E.Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia). Feisal wasexpecting to be given the throne of Syria and wassupportive of the Zionist program. In 1921, heinformed the British government that in return forthe throne of Syria, he would “abandon all claimsof his father to Palestine.”45 But the French wouldnot give up control of Syria, which they had wonfrom the defeated Ottoman Empire.46

Turkey was constituted as a republic in 1923.Its founder, Mustafa Kemal (better known asAtaturk), had been part of the Young Turk uprisingand had distinguished himself as the commanderin the successful Turkish defence of Gallipoli.Ataturk’s declared objective was to stamp out allsigns of the religious–institutional influence ofIslam and create a secular state. His assault onreligion also impacted on the Jews and included aprohibition on teaching Hebrew in schools. InAtaturk’s Turkey Jews found communalinstitutions subject to “slow culturalstrangulation”47 and there was a dramatic declinein interest in Judaism, exacerbated by the absenceof a spiritual leader.48 After Ataturk’s death in1938, many of these prohibitions were eased.49

Sachar’s view is that it is doubtful that Ataturkhimself was antisemitic, but his regime’s militantnationalism would not spare any minority.50

Turkey remained neutral during World War IIand was thus able to protect its Jews.51 Accordingto Stanford Shaw, some 15000 Turkish Jews fromFrance, and even 100 000 Jews from EasternEurope were saved because of Turkish efforts.52

But Turkey’s record in World War II is notwithout blemish. In December 1941 the S.S.Struma, which had departed from Romania enroute to Palestine, docked in Istanbul with itsengine malfunctioning and hull leaking. Britainwould not permit entry to Palestine and Turkeywould not permit the passengers to disembark.Eventually, in February 1942, Turkey ordered theboat to leave. Five miles out at sea in theBosphorus, the ship sank with its 767 passengers.

During World War II, a punitive property taxknown as Varlik Vergisi was imposed on non-Muslims. Described as a “savagely vindictive”tax, it had a particularly harsh impact on TurkishJewry, pauperizing fully a third of them.53 It waseventually abolished under pressure from theAllies in 1944.

Turkish Jewry in the Post-War Era

The population of Turkey today exceeds 70million, of whom 13 million live in Istanbul. TheJewish population (of whom Sephardim make up96%) is estimated at around 20 000, with 18 000in Istanbul and about 1500 in Izmir.54 TurkishJewry today tends to be a fractionally more affluentgroup than their predecessors and, except forperhaps a thousand professionals, arebusinessmen.55 The community is an aging oneand numbers have steadily declined from a peakof over 100 000 in the early 20th Century.56 Sacharclaims that the Varlik Vergisi was as decisive afactor as Zionist idealism for the initial massexodus of Jews to Israel after 1949.57 In 1956, anoutburst of violence provoked by the Cypruscrisis led to attacks on Greek shops and homeswhich then spilled over to the Armenian quarterand finally to the Jewish commercial andresidential neighbourhoods. This incident caused

23


a further Jewish emigration.The 1915 Armenian genocide remains a highly

emotive issue and still provokes considerabledebate. Turkey denies the notion of genocide,invoking arguments of Turkish self-defence andof extensive killings on both sides.58 Sachar addsthat these claims are “imaginatively buttressed”by a number of eminent Jewish scholars, includingBernard Lewis of Princeton and Stanford Shaw ofUCLA (who issued a statement objecting to theuse of the term ‘genocide’ and asserting that the1915 tragedy was the “inevitable consequence”of wartime conditions).59 According to Sachar,Jewish members of the Holocaust Commissionhad assured their Armenian colleague that theArmenian tragedy would be ‘substantially’integrated into the exhibits of the HolocaustMuseum in Washington, but that pledge failed tomaterialise. At an ‘educational’ briefing in 1983,the Turkish ambassador in Washington reputedlythreatened Holocaust Commission staff that “Ifthe Armenians are so much as mentioned in yourHolocaust Museum, it will go badly for the Jewsin Turkey.”60

In the early 19th Century nearly 40 activesynagogues served the more than 60,000 Jewishresidents of Istanbul.61 Today some 10 synagogueshold daily services.62 A weekly Jewish newspaper,Shalom, is published in Istanbul and one page isreserved for Ladino and every month a supplementin Ladino is also published. These days, TurkishJews speak Turkish as their native language butfor those in the over 80 year generation many aremore comfortable in Ladino or French.63

The Ahrida Synagogue in Balat is Istanbul’soldest synagogue and possibly it’s mostoutstanding. Built in the 15th Century prior to theOttoman conquest of Istanbul, it was named afterthe Macedonian city from where its initialcongregants originated. Its most noteworthyfeature is its bimah – designed in the shape of aship. Some historians say this represents Noah’sArk while others claim it is the ships bringing theSpanish Jews to Turkey.64 Still others are of theview that the possibility of the bimah being addedto the synagogue during the restorations of 1694(after it was destroyed by fire) makes both theoriesaccurate.65 Shabbetai Tzvi preached in thissynagogue.

The Neve Shalom Synagogue in Galataunfortunately became well known due to thetragedy in 1986 when Palestinian terrorists enteredthe synagogue and opened fire on the worshippers,killing 21.66 The bullet marks on the Aron Kodeshhave been retained as a memory. Under the seats,hard hats can be found in case of another incident.

The Etz Haim Synagogue in Ortakoy is in animpressive complex up the Bosphorus and next toit can be found a church and a mosque.

The Jewish Museum was opened as one of thefestivities commemorating 500 years since theSephardi immigration. One custom on displaythat is unfamiliar to Ashkenazi Jews is the

Fashadura. At a gathering the sheet on which thenew born was conceived is cut into a dress for thenew born and symbolizes the wish for its longlife.

Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum’scollection on Syria and Palestine contains atreasure trove of Jewish interest collected duringTurkey’s occupation of Palestine.

The Siloam Inscription is a passage of inscribedtext found in a tunnel cut by King Hezekiah in the8th Century BCE. Hezekiah’s preparations for asiege of Jerusalem by Assyria included cutting a533 meter long tunnel through the rock linkingthe Gihon Spring (located outside the walls ofJerusalem) to the Siloam Pool (located within thethen city walls of Jerusalem). When the twoteams, tunneling from each end met, theycelebrated their achievement by carving aninscription in the rock.

The inscription was discovered in 1880 byJacob Eliahu, a 16 year-old son of Jewish convertsto Christianity. He was fascinated with the biblicalstory of Kings II: 20.20, which motivated him toswim the length of the tunnel. A Greek traderheard about the find and roughly cut out theinscription, breaking it. He was arrested by theOttoman police, who confiscated the inscriptionand sent it to Istanbul.67

The Gezer Calendar dates to the 10th centuryBCE and is one of the oldest Hebrew inscriptions,poetically describes the names of the months andthe harvest periods.

Between1885-1910 a large number ofexcavations were carried out in Palestine,including Gezer and Megiddo and many itemsfrom those digs are on display.

Topkapi Palace contained the royal harem.Ester Kyra was a Jewish broker who sold jewels,cosmetics and clothes to the ladies of the haremand won the favour of Sultan Murad III’s motherand preferred concubine. She exercisedconsiderable influence and was involved inpolitical affairs. Her power and wealth spawnedjealousy and she was murdered. Many gems inTopkapi palace must have been cut by Jews sincethey were the gem cutters in the sultan’s day.

The Hagia Sophia is supposedly among theworld’s greatest architectural achievements andis more than 1400 years old. It was built byEmperor Justinian and inaugurated in 537 duringByzantine times as a church. After the churchbuilding was completed Justinian was reputed tohave bragged “Solomon, I have surpassed you.”Benjamin of Tudela refers to the Hagia Sophia inhis travelogue.68 After the Ottoman conquest, theHagia Sophia became a mosque and is now amuseum. The architectural design is said to haveserved as the inspiration for many mosques andeven for synagogues including that of Florence,San Francisco’s Temple Emanuel69 and the GreatPark Synagogue in Johannesburg.

24


Turkey and the State of Israel

Although Turkey voted against the 1947 UnitedNations resolution to establish a Jewish state, itbecame, in 1949, the first Muslim state to recogniseIsrael. A new era in Turkish-Israeli relationsbegan after the 1991 Madrid peace conference,which led to the upgrading of the diplomaticrelationship to a full ambassadorial status. The1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles furtherimproved the relationship. It was followed bymilitary and economic agreements between thetwo countries and a significant volume of Israelitourism to Turkey. By the end of the 1990s,Turkish public sympathy towards Israel hadreached its peak.70 For Israel, the intimacy of itsrelationship with Turkey ranked second only toits relations with America.71

In November 2002 the AKP [Justice andDevelopment Party], an Islamist party under theleadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was electedto office and Kemalist rule came to an end. One ofthe first indications of Turkey’s new foreign policywas its rejection of an American request in 2003to use Turkish territory for opening a northernfront against Iraq. Not long afterwards, Erdoganbegan describing Israeli policy towards thePalestinians as “state terrorism.”72

In September 2007, Israeli aircraft attackedSyria (rumoured to be its nuclear facility) and ontheir return were accused by Turkey of violatingits airspace. Notwithstanding all this, at the timeand continuing into 2008, Turkey was mediatingbetween Israel and Syria and progress in thesenegotiations was taking place.

The December 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza -Operation Cast Lead - was criticized by Turkey,bringing about an immediate collapse in theSyrian-Israeli initiative and resulting in a majordeterioration in the Turkish-Israeli friendship. AtDavos in January 2009, Erdogan walked off thestage he was sharing with President Shimon Peres,accusing Israel of committing infanticide in Gaza.This “one-minute incident,” as it is called inTurkey, resulted in a further downward spiral inthe deteriorating relationship.

In June 2010 the Mavi Marmara, a Turkishship sailing from a Turkish port, attempted tobreak the Gaza blockade. Israeli soldiers borderedthe ship and in the ensuing clash nine Turkishcitizens were killed. A United Nations report heldthat the Israeli blockade of Gaza was legal in viewof missile attacks launched on Israel from Gazaand the report further held that on boarding theMavi Marmara Israeli troops “faced significant,organised and violent resistance…requiring themto use force for their own protection.” The reportdid, however, urge Israel to express regret andpay compensation calling the manner of theboarding “excessive and unreasonable” and theloss of life, including some people shot at closerange, “unacceptable.” Israel refused to apologisedespite some opinion within Israel being in favour

of an apology, most notably Defence MinisterEhud Barak who advocated expressing regret“for problems that occurred during the Marmaraoperation.”73 Turkey retaliated by expellingIsrael’s ambassador and suspending military ties.

Traditionally, Turkey has pursued a low profilein the Middle East but more recently is becominga more influential participant. Soon after Erdogancame to power a marked improvement took placein Turkey’s relations with Syria and Iran (althoughthe Syrian relationship has subsequently implodedwith Turkey calling for Assad’s resignation). InAugust 2008, Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad paid a state visit to Turkey andTurkey has refused to participate in sanctionsagainst Iran aimed at preventing it from acquiringnuclear capability.74 In September 2011, Erdogantoured many of the Arab countries where uprisingshave taken place promoting the Turkishdemocratic model and enhancing his popularity,profile and influence. He has declareddemocratisation a foreign policy objective andstressed the need for Muslim countries “to puttheir houses in order.”75 It is the first time in thehistory of the Turkish republic that Turkey hasattempted to position itself as a “model” for otherMuslim countries.76

Under Kemalist government relations with itsMuslim neighbours was seen as a burden onTurkey’s quest to part of the West, both politicallyand culturally. Now the AKP views improvingrelations with its Muslim neighbours asimportant.77 Some commentators believe the AKPleadership harbours a genuine dislike of Israeland Jews. In October 2009 Erdogan, speaking atIstanbul University made some antisemiticremarks.78

Relations between Turkey and Israel havereached an all-time low and most commentatorsare pessimistic about the possibility of a short tomedium term improvement. While some Israelisare unconcerned about the deterioration otherssuch as Alon Liel, a former Israeli ambassador toSouth Africa who previously held a diplomaticpost in Turkey, argues that for Israel to loseTurkey’s friendship could have devastatingregional consequences for Israel and evenAmerica.79

Jews have lived in the area now known asTurkey since antiquity and the common Jewish-Turkish history goes back almost 700 years.Turkey welcomed and gave refuge to SephardiJews who in turn contributed significantly to thecountry. On the whole the Turks have treated theJews sympathetically, especially when comparedto their treatment in Europe and in Arab countries.Hopefully, in time the rift between Turkey andIsrael will be healed and the cordial relations ofprevious years restored.

Notes

1 Genesis 11: 31-32

25


2 Siegel-Itzkovich, Judy, Biblical Buzz, Jerusalem Post, 24June 2010

3 Acts 14:1 and 18:194 Johnson, Paul, A History of the Jews, Weidenfeld &

Nicolson, 1987, p1695 Tudela, Benjamin, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela,

Travels in the Middle Ages, Joseph Simon /Pangloss Press,Third Printing, 1993, pp70-72

6 Tudela, op cit, p727 Gilbert, Martin, In Ishmael’s House, A History of Jews in

Muslim Lands, Yale Univ. Press, 2010, p758 Encyclopaedia Judaica (hereafter ‘EJ’), 1972, 16:1532,

quoting M Lattes, Likkutim de-Vei Eliyahu.9 Ibid10 Ibid11 Karmi, Ilan, Jewish Sites of Istanbul, A Guide Book, The

Isis Press, First Edition, 1992, p2412 Graetz, Heinrich, History of the Jews, Jewish Publication

Society of America, 1946, Vol. IV, p27213 Kobler, Franz, A Treasury of Jewish Letters, Jewish

Publication Society of America, Second Edition, 1953,pp283-5

14 Zimmels, H.J., Ashkenazim and Sephardim: Their Relations,Differences and Problems as Reflected in the RabbinicalResponsa, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1976, p41

15 Gilbert, op cit, p7916 Gilbert, Martin, Letters to Auntie Fori, Weidenfeld &

Nicolson, 2002, p13217 Dubnov, Simon, History of the Jews, From the Later

Middle Ages to the Renaissance, Volume III, Translated byMoshe Spiegel, A.S. Barnes and Co. Inc., 1968, p472

18 Lewis, Bernard, The Jews of Islam, Princeton UniversityPress, 1984, p138

19 EJ 16:153320 Zimmels, op cit, p3921 Dubnov, op cit, p47222 Zimmels, op cit, p4323 Graetz, op cit, p40124 Roth, Cecil, The House of Nasi, The Duke of Naxos, The

Jewish Publication Society of America, 1948, pp 97, 10025 Ibid, p11026 Ibid, p13327 Sachar, H., Farewell Espana, The World of the Sephardim

Remembered, Vintage Books,1994, p9128 Ibid, p9429 Johnson, op cit, p26730 Ibid, p26931 Funke, P, Istanbul, The Jewish Traveller, Edited by Allan

M. Tigay, Jason Aronson Inc.,1994, p22632 Karmi. Op cit, p3033 Wein, Rabbi Berel, Triumph of Survival, The Story of the

Jews in the Modern Era 1650-1990, Shaar Press, 1997, p2734 EJ 16: 154335 Guleryuz, Naim Avigdor, The Turkish Jews, 700 Years of

Togetherness, Gozlem, 2009, p23-2436 Karmi, op cit, p737 Herzl, Theodor, The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, Edited and

translated by Marvin Lowenthal, Victor Gollancz Ltd,1958, p152

38 Ibid39 Ibid, pp338-9. After the meeting Herzl recorded his

impressions: “The Sultan impressed me as a weak, craven,but thoroughly good-natured man. I believe him to be

neither clever nor cruel, but a profoundly unhappy prisonerin whose name a thieving, infamous, scoundrelly camarillaperpetuate the vilest abominations….The indecent clutchingfor hand-outs, which begins at the palace gate and endsonly at the foot of the throne, is probably far from the worstof it. Everything is done for what there is in it, and everyofficial or functionary is a swindler.”

40 Lewis, Bernard, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, OxfordUniversity Press, Reprinted 1965, p 207

41 Raisin, Max, Popular History of the Jews, Translated byRabbi A.B. Rhine, Hebrew Publishing Company, RevisedEdition, 1949, Volume 6, p428

42 Gilbert, op cit, p14443 Raisin, op cit, p43044 Gilbert, op cit, pp145 - 14645 Ibid, p148, quoting letter of 17 January 1921, T.E. Lawrence

(Arab Affairs Adviser) to Winston S. Churchill (ColonialSecretary): Churchill papers

46 Ibid, p15547 Sachar, H, The Course of Modern Jewish History, New

Revised Edition, Vintage Books, 1990, p644 referred to as“The Course of Modern Jewish History”

48 EJ 15: 146049 EJ15 145750 Sachar, op cit, p10351 The Course of Modern Jewish History, op cit,, p64452 Shaw, Stanford, Turkey and the Jews of Europe during

World War II, http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/043/6.html

53 Sachar, op cit, pp105-10654 Guleryuz, op cit, p3355 Ibid56 Sachar, op cit, p11657 Ibid58 Ibid, p11059 Ibid, p10960 Sachar, op cit, p11061 Karmi, op cit, p762 Ibid, p1163 Guleryuz, op cit, p3364 Funke, op cit, p22565 Magriso, Sami, http://www.jewishtoursistanbul.com/

index.html66 Karmi, op cit, p7067 Montefiore, Simon Sebag, Jerusalem, The Biography,

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011, p3768 Tudela, op cit, p7069 Funke, op cit, p224; Rose Norwich, ‘Early Synagogues in

Johannesburg and the Men Who Built Them’, JewishAffairs, Pesach 2003

70 Liel, Alon, Israeli-Turkish Relations under Strain, IsraelJournal of Foreign Affairs IV: 1 (2010), p23

71 Inbar, Efraim, ‘Israel-Turkish Tensions and Beyond’, IsraelJournal of Foreign Affairs IV: 1 (2010)

72 Liel, op cit, p2473 Financial Times 3/4 September 201174 Inbar, op cit, p2975 East’, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, II: 2 (2008), p7376 Ozturk, op cit, p7677 Inbar, op cit, p3178 Ibid, p3279 Liel, op cit, p26

26


The geo-historical zone of the Balkans isnotoriously full of contradictions. Yet, a fullerunderstanding of current and recent attitudes andpolicies in each of the Balkan nations vis-à-visboth Jews and Israel is called for. In order tocreate an intelligible composite picture, it isnecessary to develop a series of studies of each ofthe Balkan nations, including and most importantthe newly independent political entities thatemerged during the 1990s on the ruins ofYugoslavia.

As if anyone needed reminding, theparadigmatic relevance of the Balkans to globalpolitics is indelibly marked by the fact that theWorld War I was triggered in 1914 by theassassination of the Austrian Archduke FranzFerdinand by the Yugoslav nationalist GavriloPrincip on a Sarajevo street corner. In whatfollows, however complex the issues, it is arguedthat the Balkans needs to remain a key region forIsrael-watchers to watch, especially bearing inmind the expansion of strict Wahabi and extremistIslam in Bosnia-Hercegovina since the 1990s.

When it comes to the Balkans, there has neverbeen much value in making sweepinggeneralisations. For example, truths that apply tothe contemporary (Former Yugoslav Republicof) Macedonia are evidently irrelevant tocontemporary Bosnia. Details, even if not exactlypossessors of proverbial devils, are vitallyimportant both historically and in thecontemporary context and should never beunderestimated or dismissed as ‘merely local’phenomena. The Balkans have always been apatchwork quilt, and therefore notoriouslydifficult to understand in terms of languages,religions, cultures and politics. And never moreso than today, for the evident reason that, sincethe collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, theBalkans have been systematically re-balkanised,both by their indigenous political leaders and bythe strenuous efforts of the determiners of NATOpolicies.

I believe that to build up such an understanding,

OBSERVATIONS ON SERBS, JEWS ANDISRAELIS: A PLEA FOR UNDERSTANDING

*

Richard Burns

state-by-state, is of crucial importance not onlybecause of the geographical proximity of theBalkan Peninsula to Israel, but because each oneof the various independent political entities andcorresponding nationalisms that have emergedsince the fall of Yugoslavia impinges in a slightlydifferent way both on Israel and on Jewsthroughout the world. The situation is made allthe more complex by the rapid and almostsynchronous collapse, in the early 1990s, of allCommunist regimes throughout the region,especially the fall of Nicolae inRomania in December 1990. Hence the need toexamine changes in attitude and policy in bothRumania and Bulgaria too.

Various current Western myths also needquestioning and exploding, and complex situationsthat have been oversimplified in a facile manner,possibly for ephemeral political convenience, needto be accurately restated with proper recognitionof their intricacies. Aside from the deliberateconstruction of myths for ideological purposes,even dialectical thinking that is honourablymotivated by the search for truth all too easilygets distorted by simplification. What followscan be no more than a set of preliminary forayswith these factors in mind.

Since the early 1990s, when several of theleading NATO powers were actively fosteringthe dissolution of Yugoslavia, notably the USAand Germany – culminating in the RambouilletAgreement in 1999 – Serbia has tended to bemisunderstood and maligned in the Westernmedia; and an antipathetic, even evil stereotypehas been fostered in the popular European andAmerican imagination, with Slobodan figuring as the prime bogey, and the Bosnian Serbmassacre of Bosnian Moslems at Srebrenica asthe main emotive trigger. Since ’s deathin 2006, this bugbear-figure has been replaced byanother, also a prisoner of the International Courtin The Hague, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan

. Atrocities committed by Serbs inKosovo and Bosnia are undeniable. However,their opponents in the various conflicts of the1990s have also been responsible for war crimesranging from rapes, murders and beheadings (inBosnia-Hercegovina), to desecration of religioussites (in Bosnia and Kosovo) and forced migrationof entire communities (in the Krajina). However,for reasons that in retrospect appear no lessirrational, prejudiced and hard to explain than the

Richard Burns is a UK-based writer, editor, poetand lecturer, who has lived and worked for asignificant period in the Balkans. His first book ofpoetry, The Easter Rising, was published in 1967.He was educated at University College – Londonand lectured at Cambridgeshire College of Artsand Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University).

27


psycho-political nexus of antisemitism itself,negative prejudice against Serbs has becomestandard in the West. Consonant with this closedcircuit of belief arousing suspicion, suspicionfeeding accusation, and accusation creating morebelief, far less attention has been paid in the Westto atrocities committed by Croats, BosnianMoslems and Albanian-speaking Kosovars againstSerbs. Moreover, Serbs have been said bynumerous influential Western political analystsand journalists to have a ‘persecution complex’,an accusation likely to be quite familiar topolitically astute Israelis, and liable to raisesceptical eyebrows among such observers.1

For these complex and circuitous reasons, inrecent years many Serbs have grown increasinglysympathetic towards Jews and Israel, to the extentthat they have tended actually to identify theirown country’s ostracisation, vilification and even‘demonisation’ – by Western politicians, mediaand political theorists – with traditionalantisemitism. Non-coincidentally, during thisentire period, to the best of my knowledge, Serbiahas striven to foster a philosemitic and pro-Israelpolicy.

By contrast, the first President of independentCroatia, Franjo Tudjman, who was never directlyopposed by Western regimes, was an explicitantisemite and Holocaust denier and ran agovernment that was no more democratic thanthat of . His supporters included previousUstaše members in exile in Canada, Australia,Argentina and other countries, and their families,some of whom returned to fight against Serbsduring the collapse of Yugoslavia and haveremained in Croatia since.

As for Bosnia-Hercegovina, an internationalMujahedin regiment was assiduously assembledto fight in the Bosnian war, which lasted from1992 to 1995. Their presence was welcomed byBosnian president Alija Izetbegoviæ and there areplentiful records of his meetings with Mujahedin,including members of al-Qaeda. Those Mujahedinwho rallied to Bosnia included radicalised Moslemstudents born and educated in various Europeancountries and bearing passports of EU memberstates, including the UK. Al-Qaeda leaders wereclear in their policy towards the Bosnian war:they treated it as a preparation ground forinternational Jihad. Ayman al-Zawahiri, OsamaBin Laden’s second-in-command, is reputed tohave co-ordinated several Mujahedin operationsin Bosnia-Hercegovina through the fronts ofcharity organisations, and to have visited Sarajevo.His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri is thought tohave worked for the CIA against the Serbs inKosovo. The most superficial browsing of theInternet indicates accumulated evidence of thiskind, even bearing in mind the necessity forcaution about the reliability of such material. Thefinancing for ’s overall war effort andin particular for Moslem extremists in Bosniaalso needs further investigation and identification.

Fairly reliable western investigations point tobanks and NGOs operating in Bosnia, with fundingsources in Islamic countries including Saudi-Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Algeria, Iran andSudan, and with links ranging from al-Qaeda,Hamas, Hezbollah, the Egyptian terrorist groupAl-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and other Moslemorganisations identified in the USA as ‘suspectedof terrorism’, to the Saudi royal family and theIranian Ministry of Intelligence & Security.2

Since the end of the Bosnian war, largeinvestments have been made in Bosnia-Hercegovina by Saudi-Arabia, for example in thebuilding of the large King Fahd Mosque inSarajevo. The previously ‘European’, easy-going,urbane Bosnian version of Islam has beenprogressively radicalised by far stricter Wahabieducational programmes and conversioncampaigns, sponsored primarily by investmentfrom Saudi-Arabia and the Gulf States.3

Because the relevance of these indicators toIsrael cannot be underestimated, especially thosethat reflect the rise of Islamic extremism, it wouldbe salient in a series of studies such as those Ipropose, to explore the histories of the treatmentsof Jewish communities in each of the Balkannations, with respect to patterns of bothantisemitism and philosemitism.

In this context, the period of the occupation ofGreece and former Yugoslavia during the SecondWorld War by the Nazis and their Fascist Italianand Bulgarian allies needs special and careful re-examination and re-analysis. This applies likewiseto the persecution of Jews, Serbs, Roma andCommunists by the Ustaša regime in wartimeCroatia, not to mention the enlistment anddeployment of Bosnian, Albanian and volunteerArab (Moslem) soldiers in Croatia in the 13thWaffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar(1943-44), and the key role in its formation byHitler’s trusted ally, the Grand Mufti of JerusalemHaj Amin el-Hussein, who visited Bosnia onHitler’s instructions in 1943. Properlycontextualised analysis of all these historical factsand their underlying patterns should inform andunderpin current Israeli policies.

Here follow some relevant notes on wartimepersecution of Jews in Croatia and Serbia.

In the immediate wake of the Nazi invasionand dismemberment of Yugoslavia in April 1941,the ‘Independent State of Croatia’ was establishedas a pro-Nazi government. Its ideology wasconcocted from a mixture of Nazism, ItalianFascism and an extremist local form of RomanCatholic fanaticism. The Ustaša dictatorshipinaugurated its racial policies as soon as it cameinto power. Between August 1941 and April 1945,the systematic annihilation of all Serbs, Jews andRoma living within the Croatian borders, as wellas of anti-Fascists of many ethnicities, took placeat the death camp known as Jasenovac, a complexof five major and three smaller ‘special’ camps,spread out over 240km² in south-central Croatia.

28


The word jasen means ‘ash tree’.Estimates of the total numbers of men, women

and children killed at Jasenovac range from 70000 to 700 000. It will never be possible toestablish accurate figures. The Jasenovac regimeso far exceeded that of the Nazi camps in itsbarbarism and savagery that even German officialsclaimed to be shocked. Whereas an almostpredictable, factory-like, organised monotonyprevailed in the camps run by Germans, theJasenovac authorities specialised in vengefulunpredictability and ‘artistic’ variation andinventiveness in the application of torture andmurder. It might even be argued that in theirconcentration camps across Europe, the Nazisperfected a perversion of Taylorism in their preciseand impersonal organization of their ‘productionlines’ – the principal ‘end-product’ being the‘commodity’: death. In contrast, the Ustašeofficers and guards who ran Jasenovac vied torefine their methods of barbaric torture andinfliction of horrendous deaths with an enthusiasmtantamount to relish. One might even go so far asto suggest that they perfected a refinement of‘cruelty for cruelty’s sake’: that is to say, a kindof extreme sadistic perversion of ‘art for art’ssake’. Thus General von Horstenau, Hitler’srepresentative in Zagreb, wrote in his personaldiary for 1942 that the Ustaša camps in Croatiawere “the epitome of horror” and Arthur Hefner,a German transport officer for work forces in theReich, wrote on November 11, 1942: “The conceptof the Jasenovac camp should actually beunderstood as several camps which are severalkilometres apart, grouped around Jasenovac.Regardless of the propaganda, this is one of themost horrible of camps, which can only becompared to Dante’s Inferno.”4

The Ustaše worked in active collaborationwith Catholic priests and deployed BosnianMoslem guards as well as Croat Catholics Thosesystematically exterminated were Jews, Roma,Communists and Orthodox Christian Serbs.5 Thefull story of the crimes committed at the Ustašaconcentration camp of Jasenovac is unlikely everto be told because of the razing of the siteimmediately after the war by Tito’s Partisans, aquestionable act whose spurious and hiddenpolitical motivation has been debated ever since.Nor has the scale of Jasenovac ever been fullyadmitted by successive government authorities,let alone systematically investigated, either duringthe post-war Tito era (1945-1980) or during thepost-Tito period when Croatia was still part ofYugoslavia (1980-1991). After the break-up ofthe Yugoslav Federation, obfuscation continuedunder the presidency of Croatian president FranjoTudjman (1991-2000), who was notorious for hisantisemitism, statements of Holocaust denial andrevisionism. Thus, deliberate and systematicattempts to shroud or whitewash truth, destroyevidence and make the site unreadable have beenmade by successive authorities and regimes.

However since 2000, thanks in large part topressure on Croatia from the European Union,under the presidency of Stipe (2000-2009),a former Communist and the final president of theSocialist Federation of Yugoslavia, some progresshas been made in the direction of admitting thatthe crimes did take place.

While, during World War II in Croatia, thepersecutors of Jews were Catholic Croats andBosnian and Albanian Moslems, in Serbia thesituation was entirely different. The persecutors,terrorisers and murderers were the Nazi occupiers,and in the south Bulgarian forces. There weremany Nazi mass executions of Serbs, Jews, Romaand Communists, for example nearly 3000 men,women and boys in and around the town ofKragujevac in central Serbia between 19-21October, 1941.66 A brilliantly informative andsympathetic monograph on the way of life of theJews of Kragujevac.

The extermination of prisoners by gassing,which was later applied in Auschwitz and otherNazi concentration camps in Eastern Europe, wasfirst tried out experimentally in Serbia. SerbianJews, many of them, women and children, weremurdered by Nazi military drivers on Serbianroads in specially designed transportation lorries.The detailed histories of the two concentrationcamps run in Serbia by the Nazis, Sajmište andBanjica, still need to be fully researched anddocumented, that is, if it is not by now too late todo so.7

The majority of Serbs, of widely varied andeven opposed political persuasions, ranging fromroyalist to Communists, detested the Nazioccupation and opposed it whether actively orpassively. Resistance by patriotic groupsbegan in July 1941, very soon after the Naziinvasion in April 1941 and before any Communistactions. The situation was extremely complicated,however and a relatively small sector of theSerbian population was involved in activecollaboration with the Nazis, including the right-wing nationalist followers of Dimitrije , theSrpski dobrovolja ki odred [‘Serbian VolunteerDetachment’].

In 1989, a major exhibition entitled Jews inYugoslavia, toured the state capitals of Zagreb,Sarajevo and Belgrade. According to its catalogue,before the 1941 Nazi invasion 75 000 Jews livedin Yugoslavia. Of these, only 15000 survived,over half of whom later immigrated to Israel. But5000 Jews either fought as partisans or weremembers of resistance organisations, that is, 6-7% of the pre-war population, a marginally higherproportion than for the country as a whole. Thesefigures help not only to explain the high regardaccorded to Yugoslavia’s Jewish community from1945 until the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation(1989-1992), but also to give the lie to the myththat Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe simply wentlike lambs to the slaughter. Some Yugoslav Jewslater rose to high positions of power under Tito,

29


for example Moše Pijade from Serbia and theSlovenian Edvard Kardelj. Conversely, I havenever come across evidence to suggest that Jewssuffered more repression or violation of humanrights under Communism than anyone else,especially in Tito’s early years before the breakwith Stalin in 1948 and Yugoslavia’s expulsionfrom the Cominform.

Facts that are not known, however, and remainto be researched, are the precise fates and numbersof non-Communists of all ethnic and religiousgroups who, though in no way collaborators orsupporters of either Fascism or Nazism, perishedat the end of the war during the period of‘liberation’ by Russians and Titoist partisans(1945). It is suspected that many thousands wereeliminated in this way. In Serbia, to my directpersonal knowledge, it has only recently becomeacceptable even to talk with any degree ofopenness about this insidious and largely invisiblepurge of all possible and potential opponents toCommunism.

I believe that a proper understanding of therelations between Jews and speakers of Slavoniclanguages is unlikely to be achieved withoutdetailed deconstruction of the etymology andconcepts underlying the complex nexus of ideasembraced in the pan-Slavic word narod.8 Thisword is interpreted as ‘people’, ‘race’ and ‘nation’.Such an analysis would need to include theenormously complex ways that Serbo-Croatian(i.e. Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian) words suchas narod and narodnost (meaning not simply‘nationality’ but also something approximatingto ‘ethnicity’, ‘ethno-religious group’ and ‘ethno-religious affiliation’) have been socialized andinstitutionalised in individual consciousnessbefore, during, and after Communism.9 In theformer Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the termsnarod and narodnost appeared in various legaldecrees, in attempts to delineate citizens’ rightsfor what we might now call ‘ethnic minorities’.Exploration of terms like these would presentinsights into the conceptual and linguisticunderpinning of attitudes about race in generaland anti- and philosemitism in particular

In post-Titoist Yugoslavia, where I lived from1987 to 1990, I never once experienced theslightest hint of antisemitism from anybody Icame in contact with. In that time, I lived mainlyin Belgrade, but visited all the Republics and thetwo autonomous provinces of Vojvodina andKosovo. At that time, Jews were fully integratedinto all aspects of civic, cultural and political life.Leading Serbian-Jewish intellectuals like the poetOskar (1909-1989), the scholar and actorEugen Verber (1923-1996), and novelists DaniloKiš (1935-1989) and Filip David (b. 1940) were(and still are) honoured and admired.10 This kindof information is of more than incidental relevance.

However, attitudes to Yugoslavia’s own Jewswere not necessarily consonant with those towardsIsrael. Along with other leaders like Sukarno

(Indonesia), Nehru (India), and Nasser (Egypt),Tito had been a founder of the Non-AlignedMovement, whose first meeting took place inBelgrade in 1961. This movement was by-and-large sympathetic to the PLO. However, in the1980s, I believe that subtle and gradual shiftsoccurred in Yugoslav foreign policy. The firsttime I visited Yugoslavia in 1981, as a lecturer ona British Council summer course for teachers ofEnglish, I witnessed a large and noisy pro-PLOdemonstration in Marx and Engels Square in thecentre of Belgrade, following Israel’s response torocket attacks on northern Israeli settlements bybombing PLO positions in southern Lebanon. Inthe following years, as a British poet, I became aregular guest at the International October Writers’Meeting in Belgrade. In 1987, for the first timesince the foundation of that event in 1964, anIsraeli writer, Jakov Orland, was on the guest-list.In the following October, I met two more Israeliwriters, Abraham Hus and Aviv Ekroni. When itcomes to international relations, culturalfriendship-visits often precede politicalrapprochements. I am not knowledgeable enoughto comment on Israel’s accords with other Balkancountries, but believe that Israel would do well tocontinue fostering cordial relations with Serbia,as with other Balkan nations.

Notes1 As a typical example, see the BBC report (consulted 26/

8/2001): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_ own_correspondent/117628.stm2010.

2 http://www.sina.ba/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:daily-reports-on-role-of-b-h-banks-in-terrorist-financing-&catid=39:archive-&Itemid=57, consulted August 26, 2010.

3 Gradual Islamisation, with funds being poured in fromthe Middle East, is not of course confined to Bosnia. Ithas been happening for years all over Europe, not leastin the UK.

4 See the website of the Jasenovac Research Institute,accessed August 2007.

5 The testament of Braco Danon (2000), a prisoner whoescaped in 1941 at the age of eighteen, and then joinedthe partisans, is among the most sickening (and moving)accounts of the Holocaust I have come across (The Smellof Human Flesh, a Witness of the Holocaust – Memoriesof Jasenovac, tr. Vidisava Jankovi , published in bothEnglish and Serbian versions, Belgrade, 2000). Danon,the last known Jewish survivor of Jasenovac in Serbia,died in 2009. I was privileged to meet him in Belgradein 2007.

6 A brilliantly informative and sympathetic monographon the way of life of the Jews of Kragujevac, which alsodeals with that community’s destruction in 1941, hasbeen written by Staniša and Millomir (Jevrejiu Kragujevacu [The Jews of Kragujevac], 2011). Seealso Richard Berengarten, The Blue Butterfly, SaltPublishing, Cambridge, 2008, especially pp. 114f

7 A book entitled The Crimes of the Fascist Occupantsand Their Collaborators against Jews in Yugoslaviawas published in 1957 by the Federation of Jewish

30


Communities of the Federative People’s Republic ofYugoslavia, Belgrade. This volume, the so-called ‘BlackBook’, documents Second World War atrocitiesthroughout former Yugoslavia, and includes manygraphic photographs. This book, which is a monumentto patient and difficult research and a great achievementfor its time, is presented from within the perspectives ofTitoism. Since the demise of the Titoist regime, with allits paraphernalia of ideology and mythology, someaspects of it clearly need to be deconstructed and re-examined.

8 While I propose the value of such an analysis primarilyvis-à-vis the development of an accurate historicalunderstanding of ‘psycho-politics’ within the territoriesof former Yugoslavia, that is to say, within the linguisticzones of Serbo-Croat, Macedonian and Slovenian,discussion of this kind would certainly be equally relevantto all other Slavonic languages, from Russian, Belarusian,Ukrainian and Bulgarian to Polish, Slovakian, and Czech.Apart from the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania andEstonia), and Hungary and Romania, the mere namingof these languages itself delineates more or less all the

zones of East Europe in which Jews lived before theShoah.

9 Since the demise of Yugoslavia, the expression ‘Serbo-Croat’ is no longer ‘politically correct’ in any sense ofthat term. I use it here non-controversially in stricthistorical context. Its usage has been systematicallysuspended and necessarily superseded by the separatelinguistic designations ‘ Serbian’, ‘Bosnian’ and‘Croatian’, each of which claims and has its own identity,despite more points in common than differences from astrictly linguistic point of view.

10 See Richard Burns, ‘Belgrade Jewish writers flourish’,Jewish Chronicle, London, 25 Nov 1988. For acomprehensive and detailed critical study of thecontribution of Jewish writers to Serbian life, see PredragPalavestra, Jewish Writers in Serbian Literature, tr.George Nikolic, Association of Serbian Writers Abroad(ASWA) & PEN, London, 2003.

31


My motivation in penning this paper was themuch-publicized debate regarding the proposedbeatification of Eugenio Pacelli, who becamePope Pius XII.

As a Jew, I have been fascinated by thedevelopment of the Christian religion as anoffshoot of Judaism. If one deducts monotheism,the Ten Commandments and what Christians callthe Old Testament, from the Christian ethos, whatreally is left of Christianity? What is left of theconcept of Jesus Christ as the Messiah withoutthe Prophesy of Isaiah? An isolated concept ofChrist as the Messiah without the Jewish contentsupporting it, cannot stand. I have been equallyfascinated by the pivotal role which the Churchplayed on the canvas of history over its twomillennia existence.

Running parallel with the teaching orders ofthe Church and the contribution to knowledgeand education are the medical services throughthe nursing orders, particularly during the DarkAges from the 4th to 11th Centuries CE. Alongsidethese achievements, however, has been thepersecution of, amongst others, the Jewish people,upon whose philosophy rests Christianity’s veryfoundations.

Throughout this process of impressivecontribution to humanity on the one hand and thehorrific persecution of non-believers on the otherthere have been immensely courageous individualdissidents standing out above the crowd.Throughout the ages, these unsung heroes riskedexclusion for themselves and their families fromtheir communities, even enduring suffering ordeath. For them the pursuit of justice, truth andtheir own integrity was more precious than lifeitself.

This fierce intellectual honesty and powerfuldedication to their own integrity is what hasdriven the hundreds of thousands of RomanCatholics and others who have saved Jews, oftenat the risk of their own lives. High upon thisladder of distinction is the scholar and writer JohnCornwell, author of the book Hitler’s Pope: TheSecret History of Pius XII (1999). It is from thisstudy of Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Pacelli, that

EUGENIO PACELLI (POPE PIUS XII): WAS HECOMPLICIT IN THE HOLOCAUST (Part I)?

*

Leon Reich

I have sourced the bulk of my information for thispaper. Other sources used include SolomonGrayzel’s A History of the Jews, The MoralReckoning (Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, 2002), TheRighteous (Martin Gilbert, 2002), Italians andthe Holocaust (Susan Zuccotti, 1987), History ofthe Holocaust (Yehuda Bauer, 2002) and TheMyth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII RescuedJews from the Nazis (Rabbi David G. Dalin,2005).

The Roman Catholic Church is comparable toSodom and Gomorrah for the Jewish people. Thecourageous Catholics, who risked their lives tosave Jews, represent the Ten Holy Men who (hadthey been found) would have saved those cities.Over the centuries, the individual Catholic heroeswho swam against the stream of the majorityredeemed the good name and the integrity of theRoman Catholic Church.

Under normal circumstances, I would neverconcern myself with whom the Vatican chose tobeatify. These however, are abnormalcircumstances. The reason, as will be argued, isthat Eugenio Pacelli personally bore a great dealof responsibility for the commencement of WorldWar I. He also bore responsibility for the demiseof the Centre Party in Germany and the crushingof its media which influenced German attitudes,resulting in Germany becoming a dictatorship.1

Pacelli figuratively moved heaven and earth tosecure Hitler’s accession, even while knowingthat once he became a dictator, he would pursuehis antisemitic policy as reflected in Mein Kampf.For that reason alone, he shared responsibility forthe Holocaust, and it is important for all who seekthe truth about his role to clearly understand this.

Pacelli is consistently accused of not tryinghard enough to save Jewish lives during WorldWar II. My belief is that this is so, but I would gofurther and assert that without Pacelli’sinterventions, in the face of advice to actdifferently, both World Wars would not havetaken place at all.

If the Catholic Church were to beatify Pacelli,it would signify its association with his nefariouscontribution to human suffering. To my mind,both he and Hitler (himself Catholic-born) werepsychopaths. Both manipulated millions of people,which led to untold suffering, in pursuance oftheir objectives. There is one difference however:Hitler was far cleverer than Pacelli - a smarterpsychopath. He waited until the back of theCatholic Church was completely broken before

Leon Reich is a Johannesburg businessman witha long record of Jewish communal service. Apopular speaker on Jewish communal platforms,he has served on the Executive of the SA ZionistFederation and was for many years President ofthe Grahamstown Hebrew Congregation.

32


he utilized the full force of his power against hisenemies. Pacelli was naïve enough to believe thatthe Reichskonkordat of 1933, a signature on asheet of paper, was enough to discipline Hitler.He was naïve enough to believe that as a Catholic,he would respect the Holy See.

Eugenio Pacelli was crowned Pope Pius XIIon 12 March, 1939. Hitler became Chancellor ofGermany on 21 March, 1933. Confusion ariseswhen studying Pacelli’s role whilst he was thePope regarding his qualification for beatification.It must be remembered that Pacelli set Hitler upfor dictatorship whilst he was Cardinal Secretaryof State, which was years before he becamePontiff. After Pacelli was crowned and Hitler wascarrying out his policy of mass murder, Pacelliwas compliant because his compliance was hiscontribution in return for the control of schools.2

This was “part of the deal”.Whilst the Church makes haste to honor those

who are protagonists of their philosophy, i.e. theChristianization of planet earth, it never seeks topunish their sons with blood on their hands. Hitlerwas never excommunicated. Contrariwise, aspecial requiem was held for him on the day of hisdeath. The antisemitic teachings of the RomanCatholic Church over the 2000 years of the Jewishdispersion, laid the foundations for the Holocaust.Pacelli was a worthy bearer of these teachings.

It is interesting to note that Hitler, Mussolini,Franco, Portugal’s António de Oliveira Salazarand the Slovakian priest Josef Tiso (who headedthe Slovak People’s Party, a Nazi satellite) wereall Fascists and all Roman Catholics. However,neither Franco nor Mussolini was antisemitic.Franco is even strongly suspected of having beena Marrano.

In Pope Benedict XVI’s closing speech beforehis departure from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport inMay 2009, he spoke of Auschwitz “where somany Jews – mothers, fathers, husbands, wives,sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and friends werebrutally exterminated under a Godless regimethat propagated an ideology of antisemitism andhatred. That appalling chapter of history mustnever be forgotten nor denied.” He goes on to say“Let it be universally recognized that the State ofIsrael has the right to exist, and to enjoy peace andsecurity within internationally agreed borders.”3

In a meeting with Menachem Begin, PresidentCarter expressed his affirmation of Israel’s rightto exist. In reply, the Israeli Prime Minister saidthat he appreciated the President’s affirmation.However, “the Hebrew Bible established our rightover our land, millennia ago. That right was neverabandoned or forfeited. I shall not negotiate myexistence with anybody and I need nobody’saffirmation of it.”4 The same may be said of PopeBenedict’s closing speech.

Pope Benedict’s statement is a huge departurefrom the position of a Church that believed thatChrist, the Messiah, will only return to earthwhen all the Jews have been either exterminated

or converted. It certainly is a positive movetowards peace on earth by a Pope that wascompelled as a youth to first join the HitlerJugend and then forced to graduate to theWehrmacht. I do believe that “the winds ofchange”, in the words of former British PrimeMinister Harold Macmillan, are blowing throughthe corridors of the Vatican.

Down the generations, all Jews of everygeneration were wrongfully held responsible forthe crucifixion. Latterly, the opinion of Jews isbeing taken into consideration during the processof beatification. If not for Jewish pressure, Pacelliwould have been beatified decades ago. Hopefully,this “wind of change” will assist in honoring thenames of those who perished in the two terribleWorld Wars, rather than disgracefully insultingtheir memory.

Factors Influencing Pacelli

Christian hatred of Jews dating from the earlyChristian Church was borne out of the belief thatthe Jews had murdered Christ. They believed thatthe Jews had murdered G-d (one can only wonderhow this might be possible). The early Fathers ofthe Church, the great Christian writers of the firstsix centuries of Christianity, showed strikingevidence of antisemitism. Examples are theopinions of Origen who wrote that “the blood ofJesus falls not only on the Jews of that time, buton all generations of Jews up to the end of theworld”.5 St John Chrysostom wrote, “Thesynagogue is a brothel, a hiding place for uncleanbeasts… Never has any Jew prayed to G-d….They are possessed by demons.”6 The Gospel ofSt Mark speaks about “the hypocrites in thesynagogues” to this very day.

The Emperor Constantine passed a series ofimperial laws such as special taxes on Jews, a banon new synagogues, outlawing intermarriagebetween Christians and Jews. During the 5th

Century, Jews were regularly attacked duringHoly Week; they were excluded from public officeand synagogues were put to the torch. The reasonthat the Jews were not exterminated wasepitomized in the early 13th Century by PopeInnocent III, which reflected the view of thePopes of the 1st millennium: “Their words – ‘mayhis blood be on us and our children’ - havebrought inherited guilt upon the entire nation,which follows them as a curse where they live andwork, when they are born and when they die.”7

It was during the Fourth Lateran Councilconvened by Pope Innocent III in 1215, that therequirements were laid down compelling Jews towear distinguishing headgear. They were deniedsocial equality, banned from owning land andexcluded from public office and most forms oftrade. As a result, they had no alternative but toengage in money-lending to earn a living, anoccupation forbidden to Christians under Churchlaw. They were licensed to lend at strictly defined

33


rates and became cursed as ‘bloodsuckers’ and‘usurers’ living off the debts of Christians.

Persecution of Jews during the Middle Ageswas unprecedented. The Holy Crusades wereunholy for the Jews. For Crusaders it was part oftheir mission to torment and kill Jews. There wereenforced baptisms and conversions, particularlyof Jewish boys. There was a dispute between theFranciscans and Dominicans over their ‘right’ toforcibly baptize Jewish children as an extensionof their lordship over slaves within their domains.

During the 12th Century, the belief took root inEngland that the Jews abducted and sacrificedChristian children, using their blood for matzo atPassover. This was the infamous “blood libel”.The execution of Jews accused of such ritualmurders was accompanied by the destruction ofentire communities.

In the 16th Century, Pope Paul IV instituted theghetto and the wearing of the yellow badge.Empress Catherine of Russia instituted the JewishPale of Settlement within the Russian Empire,locking Jews into a restricted area within whichthey were permitted to live. The Reformation sawthe reduction of repressive laws in areas not underPapal control, such as Holland and England andProtestant areas in North America. The PapalStates persisted in the ghetto system until theunification of Italy in 1848. The ghetto as aresidential area of choice survived until thebeginning of World War II.

The Spanish Inquisition

During the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella ofSpain, the Spanish Inquisition under the guidanceof a Jesuit monk Tomas de Torquemada, theGrand Inquisitor, Jews were given the choice oflosing most of their possessions and expulsion orconversion. This was a most difficult decisionsince the Jews had been in the Iberian Peninsulafor centuries. The aged and the very young haddifficulty in traveling, particularly in those days.They frequently had nowhere to go and theconditions of the Inquisition had impoverishedthem. Many were too ill to travel. The mereprospect of leaving Spain forever was anunmitigated tragedy. It was far worse for themthan mere poverty.

A delegation consisting of Abraham Seniorand Isaac Abrabanel went to see Ferdinand andIsabella to plead their case, accompanied by a bagof gold. Torquemada, eyes ablaze with anger, across in hand, placed the Crucifix near the bag ofgold pointing to the figure of Jesus on the cross hesaid “here he is, sell him”

Their quest failed. Senior and his familyconverted and Abrabanel and his family went intoexile. The last day to leave Spain was 1 August1492. The last boats leaving with the SpanishJews departed the following day, which coincidedwith Tisha B’Av.

The Portuguese were unaffected by the

Inquisition in 1492. The King of Portugal wasprepared to admit the Jews temporarily and some100 000 went there, at a very high price foradmittance. Those who had nowhere to go, andwho could not afford the admission price toPortugal had to choose between being sold intoslavery or conversion to Christianity.

In 1495, a new king of Portugal, Manoel,ascended the throne. He wished to marry thedaughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Thisheld out the possibility of his also inheriting thethrone of Spain upon the demise of the Spanishroyal couple, who had no sons. The Spanishmonarchy would agree to the match conditionalupon Manoel expelling all non-Christians fromPortugal. Manoel recognized that the Jewishsubjects were important to the country’s economicprosperity. He thus tried to forcibly retain themwhilst ridding the country of all other non-Christians.

On the first night of Passover in 1497, allPortuguese Jewish children were forcibly draggedout of their homes from the seder tables. Afterbeing kept without food or water for several days,they were forcibly converted. Now that they wereChristians, the King denied them permission toleave the country. Their parents were left with thechoice of either leaving the country without themor likewise ‘converting’.

The numbers are uncertain, but a communityof at least 250 000 Jews was destroyed in theIberian Peninsula.8 Of those who remained underforced conversion, a small percentage managedto escape to other lands in Europe and theAmericas. The name ‘Marranos’ given to thesesecret Jews means ‘swine’. The attempt todehumanize Jews is not new. Once a person is nolonger fully human and is equated to an animalsuch as a baboon then one is entitled to kill him asa “sub-human”. This was practiced in the earlydays of Berlin, where a tax was payable foranimals entering the city. The only national grouprequired to pay the same tax as an animal enteringthe city, were Jews. In Germany, even beforeHitler got into power, there were signs on parkbenches and public buildings “Juden unt hundeverboten” - No Jews or dogs allowed. “Once,however, the victim became completely devoidof humanity in the perpetrator’s eye, he could bekilled. Annihilation followed.”9 Moslemextremists today speak of Jews as pigs andmonkeys.

The series of events leading to the expulsionfrom Spain commenced in 1391, although thefinal expulsion took place in 1492, there werealready a large number of “New Christians” whowere secretly Marranos by 1480. A number ofprominent new Christians at the time were caughthaving a Seder during Passover. Thus wereestablished the torture chambers in whichthousands of Jews were beaten, tortured, terrorizedand starved to death. The fires were kindled toburn down the centuries, right until the end of the

34


18th century, for Jews who were burned alive.The name of the Public Execution was known

as the Auto-da-Fe or Act of Faith. It was theoccasion for a popular holiday, with spectatorscrowded from every roof and window of a publicsquare, decorated appropriately. Those whoconfessed to practicing Judaism secretly, but nowrecognized the error of their ways were firststrangled by the executioners. A prominentdignitary or perhaps the king himself, would setfire to the pyre. This took place in front of theother prisoners who were already bound awaitingtheir fate. The tolling of the bells mingled withthe shrieks of the dying and the cheers of thepopulace and the cries of Shema Yisrael floatedabove the tumult.

In the whole of the Inquisition’s 350 yearexistence, victims numbered 341 000.10 Of these,in excess of 32 000 were burned alive, 18 000were burned after execution and 291 000 sufferedlesser punishments such as penance, lashes,confiscation, imprisonment or a combination ofthese. Benzion Netanyahu, the late father of thecurrent Israeli Prime Minister, argues that theInquisition was instituted against the Marranos,as a result of growing economic power of theconversos (Jews forcibly converted toCatholicism), who numbered just over 7% of theSpanish population.

The historian Cecil Roth comments thatalthough the great age of Spain came about afterits establishment, the Inquisition “was pressingslowly on the vital arteries of Spanish intellectuallife and the cumulative effect was felt at last… Bythe middle of the 18th Century, it was possible tosee the result – a country drained of its inspiration,of its genius, of its wealth, in fact of everythingbut its orthodoxy and its pride”.

Anti-Judaism survived right into the reign ofPope Leo XIII (1878 -1903). The main thrust ofthis was the concept that the Jews were obstinateand failed to see the error of their ways. For thisreason they rejected Christianity.

Pacelli’s schoolmaster, Signore GiuseppeMarchi, constantly harped on this theme whilstPacelli was at school. In the very street in whichPacelli was born, Via Monte Gordiano, it was thecustom over many centuries for a newly electedPope in a procession en route to the Basilica of StJohn Lateran to perform an anti-Jewish ceremony.The Pontiff would halt the procession to receivea copy of the Pentateuch from the Chief Rabbi ofRome in the presence of the procession. The Popereturned the Pentateuch to the Chief Rabbi withthe text upside down together with 20 pieces ofgold. This was intended to indicate that despitethe fact that the Pope respected the Law of Moses,it was the stubbornness of the Jews that preventedthem from opening their hearts to see the error oftheir ways and convert. The concept was includedin Catholic rituals performed on Good Friday,when the congregants prayed that the “perfidiousJews” would acknowledge “our Lord Jesus

Christ”. This was only abolished by Pope JohnXXIII at the second Vatican Council in 1962.

This culture of antisemitism over the centuriesmade it easy for fascists like Salazar, Tiso, Francoand Hitler, to foster the belief that Jewishstubbornness made the Jews responsible for, andthus deserving of, their own misfortunes.

Eugenio Pacelli was born in 1876. In the years1881-2, Giuseppe Oreglia de San Stefano wrote aseries of articles in Civilià Cattolica, a leadingJesuit journal, claiming that the killing of childrenfor the Paschal Feast was “all too common”. Theuse of blood of a Christian child was a general law“binding on the conscience of all Hebrews”. Everyyear the Jews “crucify a child”. In order that theblood be effective, “the child must die in torment”.He further asserted that “by their cunning”, theJews had instigated the French Revolution inorder to achieve equality. This would assist themto gain key positions in most economies enablingthem to control and to establish “virulentcampaigns against Christianity”. The Jews were“the race that nauseates”, and “an idle people whoneither work nor produce anything; who live offthe sweat of others.”

The journal reflected the official stance of theRoman Catholic Church and called for theabolition of “civic equality” for Jews, whichcommenced with the Reformation and for thesegregation of Jews from the rest of the population.Small wonder indeed that Pacelli, who grew up insuch an atmosphere, found comfort in later yearsas Cardinal Secretary of State in assisting Hitlerto crush Catholic liberal opinion in the form of itsmedia, its many courageous enlightened Bishopsand Chancellor Brüning and his Centre Party.

In the autumn of 1964, Pope Paul VI announcedat a meeting of the progressive fathers of Vatican IIthat the Congregation for Saints was to commenceformal beatification processes for both Pope PiusXII and Pope John XXIII. Father Paul Molinari andFather Peter Gumpel from the Jesuit order weretasked in 1965 with the particular responsibility forthe process regarding Pope Pius XII.

A huge volume of documentation has beenassembled and scrutinized; hundreds of peoplehave been asked to give evidence. The key figure,Father Peter Gumpel, is described as a man ofgreat intelligence and very knowledgeableregarding Pacelli. However, the material that hefavors is very selective and ignores scholars likeKlaus Schulder, as well as Robert Katz, GuenterLewy and Saul Friedlander who, he assets, should“realize that they are trampling on the sensibilitiesof Catholics and in doing so they hinder efforts tobuild better relations between the Catholics andthe Jews”.Cornwell regards Gumpel as a Pacelliapologist.

Pacelli’s Personal Background

“Thou art Peter and upon this rock shall myChurch be built. Whatsoever shall be bound by

35


thee on earth shall be bound in Heaven.Whatsoever shall be loosed by thee on earth shallbe loosed in Heaven.”

This is the exhortation of Jesus of Nazareth tohis disciple, Peter. He and his successors areforever to be the successors of the Master onearth. The successors of St Peter are the Popes ofRome. By their cession of their powers to theCardinals, Bishops and Priests down the line ofcommand, “whatsoever shall be bound by themon earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoevershall be loosed by them on earth shall be loosed inheaven” inherited these rights and titles. This isthe credo of the Roman Catholic Church. ThePope and his representatives, namely the clergy,had ultimate power over the lives of their adherentsand this power was endorsed in heaven.

Eugenio Pacelli’s grandfather, MarcantonioPacelli, was a Vatican lawyer. He was a keyofficial in the service of Giovanni Maria Mastou-Ferretti who was crowned Pope Pius IX - PioNino - in 1846. In 1861, Marcantonio helped tofound the Vatican daily newspaper, L’ OsservatoreRomano. It exists to this day and is publisheddaily in seven languages.

Marcantonio, was loyal to Pio Nino when ThePapal Territories were temporarily lost during the1848 revolution in Italy. He fled with him to theseaside fortress of Gaeta in the neighboringkingdom of Naples in November of that year andreturned with him to Rome the following July.The help of French bayonets and a loan from thewell-known, Jewish Rothschild family facilitatedPope Pius IX’s return. He repaid the Jewishcommunity for their assistance by forcing themback into the ghetto; compelling them to wear theinfamous yellow badge (later taken over by Hitler,)and made them pay for having supported therevolution. He also became involved in thekidnapping by Papal Police of a six year-oldJewish child, Edgardo Mortara, in 1858. Thechild was forcibly baptized. Despite world outrage(including no less than twenty editorials in theNew York Times), the pleas of the parents and theentreaties of both Emperor Franz Josef of Austriaand Napoleon III of France, the child was neverreturned. Instead, he was forcibly cloistered in amonastery and eventually ordained as a priest.

During the period of the First Vatican Council,was convened by Pio Nino in late 1869 andlasting until 20 October 1870, the decree of PapalInfallibility was passed (18 July, 1870). Initiallyonly half the Bishops supported the decree.Eventually, it was passed in the presence of 433Bishops with two dissensions. An additionaldecree announcing the Pope’s supremejurisdiction over his Bishops, both individuallyand collectively, was also accepted. The Popewas anti-democratic as a result of the loss of hisPapal lands during the unification anddemocratization of Italy. In 1868, he had forbiddenItalian Catholics from taking part in democraticpolitics.

Pacelli’s parents were married in 1871. Hismother Virginia Graziosi, one of thirteen children,hailed from Rome and was “a pious daughter ofthe Church”. Two of her siblings became priestsand two became nuns. His father, Fillippo,performed pastoral work in the parishes of Rome.The family considered themselves a part of theBlack Nobility,11 who opposed and rejected the‘usurpation’ of King Vittorio Emanuel. Themeager remuneration earned by both Marcantonioand Fillipo, was indicative of their loyalty to thepapal cause rather than of an aristocratic lifestyle.

Eugenio Pacelli was born on 2 March, 1876,two years before the death of Pio Nino. He wasborn into a culture where the Pope was regardedas infallible and as G-d’s Vicar on earth andwhose decisions were automatically endorsed inheaven. Jews were seen as being deserving of anycruelty or punishment meted out to them due totheir stubbornness in refusing to accept Christ asthe Messiah. They were no less than slaves and itwas quite in order to kidnap their children andconvert them against their parents’ will. Therewas no clash of integrity in utilizing any financialbenefit that they were able to offer, whetherthrough loans or confiscation of assets, andimmediately thereafter betraying them.

A person raised in this type of morality, whichwas extremely anti-democratic and where Jewswere thus regarded, was indeed a candidate to bean ally of fellow Catholic Fascists such as Tiso,Franco, Salazar, Mussolini or indeed Adolf Hitler.As will be shown, there was in addition a greatcommonality of attitude in their joint hatred andfear of Communism. How much more did oneneed to bind together the Catholics and the Fascistsin an allegiance? Both hated Jews, democracyand Communism.

In 1901, Pacelli was recruited by MonsignorPietro Gaspari, the undersecretary in theDepartment of Extraordinary Affairs (theequivalent to the Foreign Office in the Secretariatof State). A few days after his recruitment, he wasappointed an ‘apprendista’ (apprentice) in theDepartment. He rose rapidly from part timelecturer in Canon Law in 1902 to a part timelecturer in the Academy for Nobles andEcclesiastes, where he taught civil and Canonlaw. In 1904, he obtained his doctorate. His thesisdealt with the nature of Concordats, the term forspecial treaties between the Vatican and nationstates, monarchies and empires, and the functionof Canon Law, when a Concordat falls intoabeyance. The importance of this qualificationwill be seen later in discussions regarding theFirst World War and the rise of Hitler.

That same year, Pacelli was promoted to thepost of minutante, which involved writing digestsof reports dispatched to the Secretariat from allover the world. He was also awarded the title ofMonsignor, with the rank of Papal Chamberlain.In 1905 he was awarded the title of DomesticPrelate and two years later he was selected to

36


accompany the Cardinal Secretary of State to aEucharistic Congress in London.

Anti-Democracy and Papal Diplomacy

Pope Leo XIII reigned from 1878-1903. Hebelieved that the Papal Diplomatic Service had acrucial role to play in the implementation ofinternal Church discipline and the conduct ofChurch/State relations, and had himself beentrained in diplomacy. The permanent mission ofthe Vatican increased from eighteen to twenty-seven diplomats, during his watch. On his death,he was succeeded by Pope Pius X. Thisinaugurated an era known as anti-Modernism,also called anti-Americanism. The moderniststried to bring the Catholic Church in line withdemocracy, and the movement was primarilydriven by a disparate modernizing group in NorthAmerica. ‘Americanism’ experienced almostimmediate demise after the Papal denunciation.

The ‘poison’ of European Modernismspreading throughout the Church was identifiedas early as 1870 by Professor Louis Duchesne atthe Institut Catholique in Paris. The man appointedto eradicate it by Pope Pius X was UmbertoBenigni. He worked in the mornings in the Vaticanin the same office of Pacelli. During the afternoons,evenings and weekends, he conducted the SecretService known as the Sodalitiums Pianum(Sodality of Pius). Experienced in running aCatholic newspaper and news service, he used themost modern and up-to-date skills in running aninternal espionage service to find ‘culprits’ whomight be suspected of being Modernist or ofhaving Modernist or democratic views.

Without recourse to the audi alterem partem(hearing the other view) rule, numerousseminarians, curates, priests, teachers, bishopsand even princes of the Church were ‘delated’ orreported. The Cardinal Archbishops of Viennaand Paris and the entire Dominican Communityof Fribourg University in Switzerland wereaffected and sentenced without an opportunity todefend themselves.

A comment made en passant in a refectory,being seen in the company of a suspectedmodernist, a sermon with unorthodox undertoneswere enough to result in destruction of a career,and banishment to a remote region. No one couldbe trusted and even students and old friendssecretly reported each other. Pope Pius X, himselfapproved, blessed and encouraged this intellectualconstriction, which spied on the hierarchy itself.In July, 1907 he published the decree Lamentabilicondemning 65 modernist Propositions (meaning‘viewpoints’). Two months later, he publishedPascendi, an encyclical on Modernism. Thisestablishes for all time that intellectual questionsare not a matter for scholarly or intellectualdiscussion but must be resolved by Papal authority.One accepted not only what the Pope proposed,but also how he interpreted it. This is contrary to

all Catholic teaching of conscience and is a formof thought control that was unrivalled even byCommunist and Fascist regimes.

Thirty years after the Lamentabili, Pius Xpublished a directive known as the “Anti-Modernist” oath. This required acquiescence toall papal teachings. All ordinands and all priestsin administrative teaching posts must to this daytake an oath in a modified form, denouncingModernism and supporting the Lamentabili. Theoath also includes Pascendi. This fear of themodern world and the fear of loss of total papalcontrol were approved of by Pacelli, even thoughhis mentor Gaspari vehemently disapproved.

It was Pacelli who canonized Pope Pius X on29 May 1954, describing him as a “glowing flameof charity and shining splendor of sanctity”.Clearly, he adopted the anti-Modernist philosophyof his predecessor. This made it easier for him toassociate himself with the principle of “Ein weld,ein volk, ein führer” (one world, one nation, oneleader) of Adolf Hitler.

In 1904, in strictest secrecy, the Codificationof Canon Law was begun. The project took fortyyears to commence from the inception by PioNino in 1864, and was to be applied universallywithout local discretion or opinion. It waseventually published in 1917 and is probably themost important event in the history of the RomanCatholic Church in modern times. It finallycemented total power control, unequal andunprecedented to the Papacy of the Church. Theprinciple architects and team leaders were Gaspariand Pacelli.

According to a distinguished Protestant canonlawyer, Ulrich Stutz, the Code gave “supremeand most complete jurisdiction” of the Church bythe Pope, unlike anything that the Church hadpossessed in its 2000-year existence.12 It was inmany ways a unilateral declaration of total power,since there were many concordats between theVatican and various governments over thecenturies. Points of dissension between the Codeand the Concordats had to be ironed out. It wasPacelli’s principle task to eradicate obstacles,starting with Germany, the most powerful Catholicpopulation in the world.

Pius X was opposed to co-operating withpolitical parties. He did not care for them since hewas unable to control their thought processes.This was the case particularly in France where, asa result of successive revolutions commencing in1789, the monarchy had been replaced by arepublican form of government, whilst the Vaticanfavored a more monarchist, anti-democraticapproach. When the Jewish officer, Captain AlfredDreyfus, was found guilty of selling nationalsecrets in 1895, the Jesuit monthly CiviliaCatholica proclaimed that “the Jew was createdby G-d to act as a traitor everywhere.” WhenDreyfus was later exonerated, the Vatican cameunder attack by the anti-clerical Socialist Party inFrance because of the article.

37


Influenced by Pope Pius X and political eventswhich occurred in both France and Italy, Pacellibelieved in the infallibility of leadership in thecase of the Church as well as in the Fascist formof Government. According to Carlo Falconi: “Firsthe believed the mixture of politics and religion tobe the most dangerous possible for the Church,secondly because at that time the Catholic Partiesfostered the participation of priests in politics,and lastly because he thought them useless, forCatholics could always seek support for theirreligious claims from lay parties favorable to theChurch or at least not hostile to it.”13

Pacelli espoused the same view when, asCardinal Secretary of State, he collaborated onbehalf of a docile, quiescent church with the NaziParty. He preferred to help to crush the CatholicCentre Party, which consisted of loyal Catholicsbut was the final obstacle on Hitler’s path todictatorship. In order to achieve control, he choseHitler as a Chancellor, rather than Brüning whowas both a Catholic and a democrat.

The Cause of World War I

Father Denis Cardon, as described byCornwell, was “a corpulent bustling, meddlesomecleric skilled in several languages including Serbo-Croatian.14 One evening in Belgrade, he met aminister of the Serbian government to whom hesuggested that a concordat between the Vaticanand Serbia would be mutually beneficial. Theminister expressed his doubts that the RomanCatholic Church would welcome the concept, dueto the expected resistance of the Austriangovernment. Cardon assured the minister that he(Cardon) could introduce him to the correctpersonality in the Church who would welcomethe concept and indeed steer it to fruition.

The minister was so impressed with thisrelatively unknown priest that he forthwithproceeded to appoint him as Serbian Special Agentto the Holy See. Thus it was that Cardon went tothe Vatican and put the proposal to Pacelli. Neverbefore had there been any question of the Vaticanhaving such discussions with Serbia.

During the Colonial era, it was a familiarfeature for a Catholic country to act as a Protectorof Catholics in a non-Catholic country. TheCatholic Austro-Hungarian Empire was thereforethe protector of Catholics in non-Catholic Serbia,which numbered only 7000 at the time of the 1st

Balkan War in 1912. As a result of Serbia’smilitary success in that war, the Serbian Empirenow encompassed 40 000 Catholics within itsnewly extended borders.

Pacelli’s proposal in essence was that controlof the Catholic Church in Serbia be moved fromVienna to Rome. In terms of the treaty, Romewould nominate Bishops and educate priests inthe Latin rite, a right previously held by Austria.The negotiations between Serbia and the Vaticanwere conducted in the greatest of secrecy for a

whole year, despite Austrian representations andseveral approaches to the Vatican. On 15 February1913 Archbishop Rafaele Scapinelli, the Vatican’snuncio in Vienna, wrote to Pacelli:“Austria….appears determined to deal harshlywith Serbia and it is widely believed that therecould be a war with that country in the spring,further complicating matters in the extreme.Would it not be better to leave the concordatnegotiations for now, rather than take risks in anuncertain and perilous set of circumstances, thatcan only lead to military humiliation for Serbia?”15

Pacelli, however, was determined to end theprotectorate status of the Austrians in the interestsof Rome. His drive for control was the overridingfactor which caused him to ignore all warningsand pleas and his initiative led to increased tensionbetween Austria and Serbian which escalatedinto World War I. On 7 June, 1914, a final meetingof cardinals was held in the Secretariat of Statewhere Gaspari re-echoed Archbishop RafaeleScapinelli’s warnings. Gaspari understood thatthe Church had been led into the trap by Pacelli’sdesire to exercise direct control over Catholics atthe local level and thus had become involved inthe complexities of local Balkan politics.

It may be argued that Pacelli could never haveforeseen the implications of the papacy becominga player on the world stage. However, the pressurecooker which was initiated and escalated by hisirresponsible and self-serving conduct wassufficient indication of the price that Europe andthe world paid for the meddling of amateurs inworld affairs.

On 24 June 1914, the concordat with theVatican and the Serbian government was signed.Only four days later, Austria’s Archduke FranzFerdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo. Theuncompromising position of Serbia and Rome,the volatile emotions, the Austrian outrage andthe assassination made war inevitable.

Pope Pius X died on 20 August, it was said ofa broken heart after realizing the role that hisbeing manipulated by Pacelli had played in thecommencement of the war. Pacelli remained alivewith his heart intact. The new pope, Benedict XV,was elected on 3 September. He immediatelydismissed the Secretary of State, Merry del Val,and replaced him with Gaspari. Pacelli waspromoted to Secretary in the Department ofExtraordinary Affairs.

Pacelli, Between the World Wars

Pacelli was tasked with dealing with the vastpopulations of prisoners of war, on both sides and“of all religions”. He is recorded as having donean outstanding job wherein, inter alia, 65 000prisoners were liberated and generous parcelscontaining food and medication were distributedamongst many of the hapless prisoners awaitingrelease. He also provided religious solace, workingtirelessly for three years without a day’s vacation.

38


He assisted in searching for news of the missingand the dead and managed funds for the reliefwork provided by the Holy See.

Pacelli’s concern for the POWs certainly atteststo his humanity and compassion. In his regularreports to Gaspari, however, he never neglectedto reflect his activities in the best possible light(in which regard he was eminently skilled andexperienced). His skill in taking care of his owninterests extended to his arrangements when heleft Rome’s Stazione Termini en route to Munichto commence his term of duty in Germany in theinterests of the POWs. He commandeered hisown railway compartment plus an additionalsealed carriage containing sixty cases of groceriespressing four ministries into service at a cost of80 000 lire to the Holy See. This contained anenormous quantity of embargoed goods and allstation masters were placed on alert from Rome tothe Swiss border to ensure the safe and unhinderedprogress of his war rations.

Following the sudden death of ArchbishopAversa of Munich in May 1917, Pacelli wasconsecrated as Archbishop of Sardi by BenedictXV in the Sistine Chapel. It was a privateceremony, attended by, amongst others, AchilleRatti, the Vatican Diplomat and librarian whowould become Pius XI five years later. DuringPacelli’s time in Germany, he vigorously setabout promoting Benedict XV’s peace plan. TheHoly Father was indeed tormented by Christianswaging war against each other and by Catholicskilling Catholics.

On 30 June 1920, Pacelli presented hiscredentials to the Reich, as ambassador of theHoly See. He was the first diplomat to do so underthe Weimar Republican Government andperformed his duties with both charm anddistinction.

Pacelli came to a Germany shamed andembarrassed by military defeat and whoseeconomy was on the brink of collapse. It wasinflation ridden and leaderless, and vulnerable torevolution and civil war. Here was an opportunityfor a cunning strategist to wring out a benefit forthe Vatican. It could appeal for moderate demands,lower compensation rates and lower interestcharges. It could encourage re-establishment ofdiplomatic links between former enemies andrecommend more agreeable borders for Germany.

Before the war, Germany had donated morefunds to the Holy See than all the other Catholiccommunities of the world put together. The soonerGermany re-established its economy, the greaterthe fiscal benefit would be to the Church. TheCatholic population in Germany had reached 23million by 1930. This was approximately 35% ofthe nation, and was despite the fact that Germanyhad lost a considerable portion of its territory asa result of the war that had been heavily populatedby Catholics. The German Catholic communitywas energetic and creative. During the 1920s, forexample, monastic foundations increased from

366 to 640, members of religious orders from7000 to 14 000 and members of women’s religiousorders from 60 000 to 77 000. There were some400 daily Catholic newspapers and 420periodicals. Two Catholic news and featureservices syndicated material nationwide and aCatholic cinema review Film-Rundschau. Ralliesof Catholic workers, scouts and other groupswere frequently held. Catholicism was by far thelargest single social group in the country. TheCatholic Centre Party had much to do with thestrength and unprecedented growth of Catholicismin Germany, and during the 1920s, provided fiveout of the country’s ten Chancellors.

Adolf Hitler recognized at an early stage thepotential for Catholic resistance to NationalSocialism. In Mein Kampf, he stated that aconfrontation with the Catholic Church would bedisastrous, and knew he could never succeedwithout the Church’s cooperation.

There was considerable antagonism towardsthe Nazis. How was it, then, that the much-fearedconfrontation between the Church and Nazismnever materialized? Hitler was cunning enough torealize that what the Catholic Church had incommon with the Nazi philosophy of dictatorshipwas its Code of Canon Law. Skillfully structuredby Gaspari and Pacelli in the years 1904-1917, iteffectively accorded the Pope total control, withthe power to make decisions over the heads ofboth clergy and laity without consultation. Thetrick was to establish common cause with thePapacy; this would create co-operation andeliminate resistance.

Pacelli’s Role in Hitler’s Rise to Power

Pacelli took up his position as CardinalSecretary of State on 7 February 1930. The powerof decision in the Church then rested with PopePius XI. However, the Pope was plagued byillness and increasingly entrusted more and moreof his major decisions to the Cardinal Secretary ofState in matters concerning international relations.This was perfectly natural as the portfolio ofCardinal Secretary of State is equivalent to that ofa Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The crux of the whole discussion was whatwould be benefit to the Church. What, in otherwords, was to be the price of the latter’s silence?The terms of Article 21 of the Reichskonkordatsigned between the Roman Catholic Church andthe National Socialist Party on 20 July 1933included the concordat’s provision on Catholiceducation. This was the most important area ofthe treaty for the Church. Hitler was to protectand underwrite the cost of educating Catholicpupils and students in every kind of institutionfrom the commencement of primary level to theend of the secondary level. The Catholic diocesanauthorities were granted the right to examinereligious instruction in schools and to appoint anddismiss teachers. The Church therefore gained

39


control of education and the taxpayers, whoconstituted two-thirds Protestants and one-thirdCatholic, picked up the tab. The concordat wassigned by Franz von Papen on behalf of the Nazisand by Pacelli representing the Church.

It should be borne in mind how Pacelli hadmaneuvered control of the Serbian Church, withthe tab being picked up by the government ofSerbia. Now he had maneuvered control ofeducation for the whole of Germany, at the expenseof the German taxpayer. In both cases the CatholicChurch gained control free of charge.

According to Article 23 - and this was evenmore important - Catholic parents could demandthe provision of Catholic schooling where it didnot exist, depending on local conditions. Thisdemand for Catholic schooling did not only applyto Catholic pupils, but to those of any religiouspersuasion.

It is for these supposed benefits that CardinalEugenio Pacelli sold the reputation of a mightyChurch, with all its dedicated pastors, thinkers,academics and fighters for justice and democracy,by acquiescing in the program of a fascistmurderer,

On 25 July 1933, five days after the signing ofthe concordat, the Law Against Overcrowding ofGerman Schools and universities aimed atreducing the number of Jews studying at theseinstitutions was passed. The law - known as theNumerus Clausus Act - laid down a strict quotafor Jews of 1½% of school and universityenrolments. Pacelli, as Cardinal Secretary of State,had negotiated favorable rights for Catholics withthe self-same government that was simultaneouslytrampling on the rights of the Jewish minority.The Holy See and the German Catholic Churchwere thus drawn into complicity with a racist,antisemitic government. Three months before thesigning of the concordat, thousands of priestsacross Germany had already begun supplyingdetails of blood purity through marriage andbaptism registries for purposes of the NumerusClausus Act. The information was later used toenforce the Nuremberg Laws and ultimately forsending Jews to the death camps.

The Protestant Churches also co-operated insupplying this information. However, in the caseof the Catholic Church, the culpability was fargreater because of the centralized application ofCanon Law, so skillfully crafted and enforced byPacelli. The excuse of not believing in activepolitics as Catholics, but using concordats withpolitical parties to advance their cause seemedthe perfect excuse. Just as Cardinal Tomas deTorquemada acted to ensure that the punishmentin the Spanish Inquisition were performed by theCivic Authority, so too did Eugenio Pacelli actduring the Holocaust. The history of the Churchenjoys a distinction for its macabre consistency.The Church is the manipulator, whilst the civicauthority, either Ferdinand and Isabella or AdolfHitler are the murderers.

There were indeed courageous priests whotried to thwart the Nazis. One had to be extremelybrave to do so and they were in the minority. Thestory of how the mighty Catholic Church wassilenced and instead helped in catapulting Hitlerto power with Pacelli’s assistance will be told inthe second part of this paper.

Notes

1 Cornwell, J, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII(Penguin, 1999), pp 131-9, 142-7

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat. Cornwell,p146.

3 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2 0 0 9 / m a y / d o c u m e n t s / h f _ b e n -xvi_spe_20010515_farewell-tel-aviv_en.html

4 www.yourish.com/2006/06/14/14335 Rosen, D, ‘The Legacy of Pope John Paul II’, American

Jewish Committee, 2 February 2004, http://www.ajc.org/s i t e / a p p s / n l n e t / c o n t e n t 3 . a s p x ? c = i j I T I 2 P H K oG&b=6390861&ct=1084013

6 http://www.nobeliefs.com/ChurchesWWII.htm7 catholicinsight.com/online/reviews/films/article_45.shtml8 Grayzel, S, A History of the Jews, p3669 Bauer, Y, A History of the Holocaust, Institute of

Contemporary Jewry Hebrew, University of Jerusalem,with the assistance of Nili Keren, New York: FranklinWatts, c1982, 2001, p92

10 Sources “Inquisition” Encyclopedia Judaica. “The SpanishInquisition Gates to Jewish Heritage”

11 The Black Nobles were a small group of self-electedaristocrats who had continued to support the Pope, followingthe loss of their extensive lands in the struggle for the stateof Italy

12 Quoted by Cornwell, p4213 Quoted in C. Falconi, Popes in the Twentieth Century,

English translation, London 1967, p76; Cornwell, p47.14 Cornwell, p5115 Ibid, p53

40


Those who saw them, commented theanonymous SA Jewish Board of Deputiesrepresentative, would “become conscious of theimmense tragedy hidden behind every single itemwhich tells of the biggest robbery ever committedin history. Visitors will see the blood drippingfrom silver candelabra. They will see eyes openedwidely with horror; they will hear the cries ofagony of death, with which the silver will beconnected for them.”

The above-mentioned representative had justcleared from Customs Jewish artefacts stolen bythe Nazis from synagogues and homes throughoutEurope. The items were distributed after the warby the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR)programme to Jewish communities round theworld.

This, too, is my response when I look at theprecious articles left behind by the namelessvictims of the Holocaust, killed solely becausethey were Jewish. As a Judaica valuator andcollector, I have a keen interest in such items.This article features the stories about those thathave come into my possession.

In November 2009, I gave a lecture on ‘Artand Artefacts of the Holocaust as a LearningTool’ to a group of educators who were going ona two-week course at Yad Vashem the followingmonth. Afterwards, I was invited to join them,and grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Itwould give me the opportunity to learn moreabout the Holocaust, information I could use infuture lectures. I would also be able to visit someof my contacts in Jerusalem from whom I purchaseHolocaust artefacts and antique Judaica.

Little did I realize how intense this two-weekcourse would be, and that it would leave little orno time for collecting expeditions. We were onlyfree on a few evenings, but after an intensiveeight-hour day of lectures, were too tired to goexploring.

On the first Wednesday, we had an amazinglecture on Theresienstadt. This was the camp thatwas housed in an 18th Century fortress and turned

SOME HOLOCAUST AND JUDAICA ARTEFACTSAND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM

*

Jeff Fine

into a model ghetto to deceive the outside worldinto believing that the rumours of European Jewsbeing deported to death camps were false. To itwere sent privileged Jews from Germany,Czechoslovakia, and Austria: prominent artists,writers, scientists, jurists, diplomats, musiciansand scholars. In this ghetto, there were four concertorchestras, chamber groups and jazz ensembles.For the children, there were daily classes andsports activities; art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis ran drawing classes for them.

Leo Haas

Among the artists was the CzechoslovakianLeo Haas, a portrait painter and lithographer whoarrived on 30 December, 1942, and was employedin the Drawing Office of the Technical Departmentunder fellow Czech artist, Bedrich Fritta. Otherwell-known artists were Karel Fleishmann, OttoUngar, and Felix Bloch. Haas drew portraits ofhis colleagues and taught painting to the children,for which he received a little food. In secret, hemade drawings documenting ghetto life – peoplesearching for food, waiting to be transported, thetransfer of internees from one place to another,the buildings, portraits of inmates, sketches of theelderly, the sick, the dying and the dead. Hisfriend Fritta drew a book as a birthday gift for hisson Thomas showing him what a normal birthdaywould be like had they not been in the ghetto, witha party, cakes, presents, and a clown, with parks,trees, flowers and birds – all things Thomas couldnot see in the ghetto. We were shown the bookTommy, which was published by Yad Vashem inHebrew in 1999, in both adult and children’sversions.

Haas, Fritta and Ungar would often meet inthe evening to work on their drawings and managedto smuggle out some of their work through an artdealer, Leo Strauss. The latter used his ‘Aryan’family and close connections with the ghetto’sCzech police in the hope that this might rousepublic opinion. It was seen by the Danish RedCross, who asked to visit the ghetto. A carefullyplanned propaganda visit was prepared - buildingswere painted, shops were filled with food andJews were deported to empty the streets. Severaldays before the visit, the artists were warned by aco-worker in the technical department (a memberof the Council of Elders), that they would becalled in for interrogation. Fritta buried his pictures

Jeff Fine is a Judaica valuator and collector ofmany years standing. In addition to lecturingwidely on aspects of Judaica and the Holocaust,he has curated exhibitions in Johannesburg andCape Town, working closely with the SA JewishBoard of Deputies in researching anddocumenting their collections.

41


in the ground inside a metal box, Ungar hid hispaintings in a depression in a wall and Haas hidhis works in an attic. Immediately after the RedCross had left, the Nazis began to search throughthe tools of the people in the technical department,searching for pictures. Ungar, Fritta, Haas andBloch were arrested in July 1944, accused ofdistributing atrocity propaganda to outsidecountries and, along with Strauss who had beenimprisoned several days earlier, interrogated byAdolf Eichmann. Their families were also arrested,including three-year old Thomas. In October theywere sent to Auschwitz, where Haas was forcedto produce portraits for the ‘Angel of Death’,Josef Mengele.

Haas was then sent to Sachsenhausen, wherehe was put to work in the forgery commando,counterfeiting English 5, 10, 20 and 50-poundnotes. I have managed to acquire one of eachvalue as well as different signatory examples.

designed movie sets for the DEFA Company andfor East German television. He exhibited hisworks in Israel, East Germany, France, Italy,Austria, China and the United States.

The Brown Envelope

Five of Haas’s sketches had been on offer at aSotheby’s auction in Tel Aviv, held 12 October1995. I knew about this because as a collector, Irely for much of my information on old auctioncatalogues, and being as pedantic as I am, hadbought all the back auction catalogues which Istudy and use for research and identificationpurposes. At that time, I had not been interested inthese because I had not yet started collectingHolocaust art, nor had my interest been particularlyroused by the above lecture.

I had arranged that evening to visit one of mydealer friends. On the way to his apartment inMea Shearim we discussed the course at YadVashem, his family and mine. When we arrived,I met his parents. His father, now very ill andwheelchair-bound, had been, as his son now was,one of the foremost Judaica dealers in Israel.

I was searching through the Judaica on offerwhen he said to himself, “Holocaust, wait”, andleft the room, reappearing with a large, grubby,tattered brown envelope. “I once had to buy thisalong with a Judaica collection in Europe. Maybeyou could use it?” He removed a piece of paperfrom this envelope and handed it to me to me toperuse, asking if it could be of use in my teachingabout the Holocaust through my Art and Artefactscollection. My hands trembled as I gazed uponthe sketch The Roll Call done by Leo Haas inMauthausen concentration camp. Could I use it?What a question!

From Sachsenhausen, Haas was sent toEbensee before being liberated at Mauthausen.Fortunately his wife, Erna, had survived as hadFrida Ungar and her daughter, but most of hisfriends and family had perished. Ungar had diedduring the Death March to Buchenwald, Blochhad been beaten to death in Theresienstadt, Frittahad died in Auschwitz and his wife inTheresienstadt. However, little Thomas Fritta hadsurvived, although was in very poor health; theHaases adopted him and settled in Prague.

Haas returned to Theresienstadt, where hefound his entire art collection. He also foundmany works produced by Fritta, including themanuscript of Tommy. These had been buried inpottery containers made by the adjoining potteryclass. After his wife’s death, Haas moved to EastBerlin, where he worked as the editor of acaricature journal called Eulenspiegel and

My friend’s mother entered at this point. Whenshe saw the sketch she said to me, “I am a survivorfrom Warsaw Ghetto.” She left to return shortlyafterwards clutching a flat manila file. “This wasfrom my friend”. Inside the file were seven pencilsketches on small scraps of paper protected bytissue paper. At my request, she proceeded to tellme the story of her friend and the sketches. As ayoung girl she had lived with her parents in a flatin Warsaw. Next door lived her best friend; they

42


attended the same school and played togetherevery day. In 1938, things began to change. Shewas no longer allowed to go to school with herfriend, nor was she allowed to play with heranymore: She was a Jew! She could not understandthis. Before, they had just been two Polishschoolgirls who were friends.

Next, the family had to move from their flatinto the Warsaw Ghetto. Her old flat overlookedthe entrance to the ghetto, their new home.Standing near the gate, she could see her old flatand sometimes catch a glimpse of her old friend.The ghetto became smaller and smaller and moreand more cramped. Soon she could no longer seeher old flat.

She did not elaborate on what happened to herduring her confinement in the Warsaw Ghetto andafterwards, only saying that when she was finallyliberated, she made her way to New York. Becausethey were Belzer Chassidim, she said, they weretaken care of. One day in the market in Brooklyn,she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned aroundand looked into the face of her old friend. Theyembraced and cried, and then they went hand inhand to find a place to sit and talk. Her friendstayed near the market, so they made their way toher home. They spoke for hours about the goodold days before the war. The time of the ghettowas not discussed at all. Then her friend got upand went to a cupboard under the steps, returningwith a flat file.

“This is for you. I drew pictures of what Icould see from my flat. I now know why I kept it.You must take it to prove what happened”.

My friend’s mother wiped away her tears andasked me, “Could you use these drawings to teachwith, so no one would ever forget what reallyhappened?”

When his mother left to take care of herhusband, her son gave me a mezuzah parchmentin a strange holder. It was made of a tin of sorts,the writing still visible, and was revealed to be thetop of a Canadian sardine can. It came from aDisplaced Persons camp, he told me. Could ithave belonged to his mother? I did not ask and hedid not enlighten me.

Further research indicated that the Allies andthe Rabbis that helped in the DP camps broughtreligious items for the survivors - books, Tefillin,Talleisim and mezuzah parchments. When thesurvivors received the latter, there were no holders,so medical tubing was used to hold the parchmentand tin lids were shaped into holders.

When I eventually arrived back at the hotel, itwas so late, I had to wake the guard to let me intothe reception, and my whole group was fast asleep.I hardly slept for the rest of those few earlymorning hours, so much was I looking forward tosharing this amazing story and show the threeprecious artefacts I had acquired.

43


The Ghetto Doll

In 2007, the Sotheby’s receptionist contactedme to say that they had been offered ‘A HolocaustDoll’ for their next auction, but had told thewould-be seller, a Mrs Müller, that they did notdeal with Holocaust items. Would I be interested?I promptly phoned Mrs Müller and then, armedwith her address, set off south to buy a ‘Doll’. Thedrive was long but distance has never been aproblem to a collector and after several wrongturns I arrived at her town house and was showninto the sitting room. There, in a framed glassbox, stood ‘The Ghetto Doll’. It had a hand-painted wooden carved head, hands and feet, witha body of stuffed coyer, used for stuffingmattresses. The doll’s clothes were handmadeand could have been made by any of our granniesor bobbas.

What was the story?

Mrs Müller and her younger brother were bornin Munich, a few years after the war. She marriedand moved to South Africa. Her brother remainedin Germany and bought the doll at a Munichauction. The story was that this doll was one ofmany found in an orphanage when alterationswere being done. They had belonged to littleJewish girls who had been sent to the orphanageduring the Shoah.

The story of Janusz Korczak and his orphans- how the children set off for their destined placeof extermination neatly dressed in their bestclothes, each carrying a blue knapsack and afavourite book or toy with Korczak at their head- is well-known. Extermination was the fate of allthe Jewish children in the orphanages in areasunder Nazi control. Most had to leave their toysbehind.

I paid what I felt this doll was worth to MrsMüller, knowing full well that I could not losethis sale, as the doll was worth so much to me, asa Jew, than it could ever be to a German who hadbought it on auction knowing full well the fate ofthe child who had played with it previously.

One day when the new JohannesburgHolocaust Centre comes to fruition, the theme isintended to focus on the one and a half millionJewish children murdered Al Kiddush Hashem. Itis hoped that this Ghetto Doll, a mute survivor ofthe martyred children, will be part of the exhibit.

The woman who lived in a car

I have worked for a number of years with myfriend Gwynne Robins [who, as Gwynne Schrire,is a frequent contributor to Jewish Affairs] in thestoreroom with items from Cape Town’s oldJewish Museum not needed by the new SouthAfrican Jewish Museum. Whatever we could hasnow been put on display in new cabinets in theCape Town Jewish Centre offices across roadfrom the new museum.

One day, Gwynne told me that a woman hadcontacted the Cape Jewish Chronicle in connectionwith selling a painting of a rabbi. She had fallenon hard times and was living with her youngdaughter in a car on the street. She was not Jewishbut owned this painting, acquired by her fathercirca. 1975 at a liquidation auction at a house inHoughton, Johannesburg. On moving to CapeTown from Johannesburg, she had brought thepainting with her as her parents no longer wantedit and hung it in her flat. Now jobless and homeless,she wanted to sell it to buy food.

The image of the work was scanned and sent tome. Yad Vashem then identified it as having beenpainted by Adolf (Ari) Adler, and gave her avalue. The auctioneer who was helping her to sellthe painting promised me that if I bought it, hewould, after deducting his handling fee, pay herrent for as many months as possible.

Adler was born in Satu-Mare, Rumania in1917 and started painting as a child. In 1942, hewas sent to a labour camp in the Ukraine, butmanaged to escape two years later. He made hisway to Israel in 1963 and lived in Rishon Le Ziontill his death in 1996. An exhibition of his workswas held at the Yad Vashem Museum in January1986.

This painting represents the Jewish artistswho survived the Shoah, and continued to paint,either what they saw during this dark period or theJewish Eastern European past they remembered,

44


of scholarship and tradition that was destroyedalong with the communities and their scholars.

The painting, which is oil on canvas, nowgraces the wall in the entrance to my house. Icontact the former owner sometimes when I am inCape Town. She is now happily settled with herdaughter in an apartment and is working.

The Galician Rabbi

On 29 October 2006, my very good friendAdam Goldsmith, one of South Africa’s expertson Russian silver, phoned me from Shangri LaHouse in Killarney. The house and its contentswere being auctioned off. In the art section, hehad seen a portrait called ‘Galician Rabbi’ andthought I needed to see and bid for it. I hastenedto the house and made my way through the throngsof people to the back garden where the auctioneerwas selling the lots. When the portrait come upfor sale, the merest glimpse was enough toconvince me that I just had to have it for mycollection. There was a lot of interest and thebidding was brisk, but eventually it was knockeddown to me.

Why had I been so possessed to buy thispainting? The portrait was life size and superblywrought; the artist had captured in the Rabbi’seyes, a look of pure saintliness. I judge how gooda portrait artist is from the way he portrays theeyes and hands of the sitter, and this artist hadbeen greatly accomplished in that regard. Thatmuch I knew. What I did not know was who hewas, nor who the rabbi he had painted had been.

The Galician Rabbi was soon hanging on thewall in my lounge where he could conductTalmudic debates with the other three rabbishanging there, two facing left and two facingright. All that was left to do was to find out whohe was so that an official introduction could bemade.

The artist’s signature looked like BenPurukawa and was dated 1935. The letters aredifferent to how we would write them today. Asyet, I have not been able to identify this artist whoI am sure is Eastern European and know is verygood.

The sitter came next. I looked through booksin my library, in the Encyclopaedia Judaica andthrough books in the Kollel Bookshop. I asked theRosh Beis Din Dayan Kurtstag. No luck! Someonesuggested my painting was of the Gere Rebbe.They were similar but he was not my man. Theyears went by, lots more art came and went, but hewas still the unknown Galician Rabbi, and itworried me.

In 2011, Shwekey fever hit Johannesburg. Ihad never heard of this entertainer, but he was dueto perform in two concerts at Monte Casino. Myfriends Stan and Ingrid Seeff invited me to lunchon the Shabbat before the concert with Shwekey,his wife and their musical director Yochi. Thelatter, a Judaica collector, had heard of my

collection and passion for Holocaust art andartefacts, so we arranged for him to visit myhouse. In the course of that visit, Yochiphotographed the Galician Rabbi and promisedto send me whatever information he could find onit after his return to New York.

He was true to his word. Soon after, theinformation arrived along with a picture of theRabbi. The Galician Rabbi now had a name:Rabbi Yeshaye (Shaya) Halberstam of Tchchoiv(Czchow), 1864-1944. He was the youngest ofseven sons of Rabbi Chaim of Sanz, the DivreiChaim. My Galician Rabbi had been murdered bythe Nazis Al Kiddush Hashem somewhere inEurope.

Yad Vashem runs a programme called UntoEvery Person There is a Name. This comes froma poem by Israeli Zelda Schneersohn-Mishkovsky,a Ukrainian-born Orthodox Poet who belonged toa lineage of illustrious rabbis. Her father was theuncle of the late Lubavitch Rabbi MenahemMendel Schneersohn.

Unto every person there is a nameBestowed upon him by HashemAnd given him by his father and motherUnto every person there is a nameAccorded him by his statureAnd the manner of his smileAnd given him by his style of dress…Unto every person there is a nameBestowed on him by the seaAnd given him by his death.

Now my Rabbi, too, had a name and aHolocaust victim has an identity and isremembered. I now understood why I had feltsuch a strong need to purchase this portrait fiveyears earlier for my Holocaust art collection.Maybe one day I will find information about theartist as well as where Rabbi Shaya perished; thenmy research on this piece of art will be complete.

45


The snow is falling. Heavy indolentsnowflakes. Rivers of snow slowly form betweenthe dark wooden houses. The village of Soligalichis covered in a blanket of snow. Berel Chaitovichis a tailor. He is a small man. He has a tight crispbeard. An elaborate skull cap. Wired rimmedglasses cling to the tip of his nose. His wifeBrocha is a large woman. An imposing mono-bosom. Solid oak thighs. Her long hair crushedinto an enormous bun. They have ten children.

Rifka is the sixth child. She lives in her ownworld. Each day she wanders between the housesin the village. In response to a command in hersecret world, Rifka takes off her clothes. Themarket square is her stage. Neighbours bringRifka home smiling. Vacant. Everyone in thevillage knows Rifka.

The silent snow is falling. The few treessurrounding the village have become whitegrotesque ghosts.

On the other side of the world the city of Leedsexerts a magnetic tug on men and their familiesfrom all over Eastern Europe. The English loomsare busy. England is the home of the new boomingtextile world. Leeds is the seething centre drawingtailors from the old world. Lithuanian tailors.Polish tailors. Russian tailors. It is snowing thenight Berel Chaitovich and his wife Brocha vanishfrom the village of Soligalich with their tenchildren. He is able to pay for their passage andthey arrive in the city of Leeds.

Count Boris Ignatievich Mironov is thelandlord of the large Vlodavky province.Soligalich is one of the villages in his serfdom. Ashe passes in his elaborate sled accompanied byhis soldiers it is imperative for everyone to lookdown. Eye contact is an aggressive act and couldprovoke a highly aggressive response. CountMironov owns everything. He has all the power.He is feared by everyone.

It is snowing when his sled overturns. Turningsharply the horses stumble. The sled lurches andfalls over. The sled is filled with men. Fur coats.

RIFKA*

Bernard Levinson

Fur hats. Enormous fur blankets. They are drunkand roar with joy as they spill into the snow. Themoon dances on the bells and glass beaded harnessof the horses freed from the sled. In minutes thesled is lifted. The horses re harnessed andcontained. The men climb into the sled singing.The falling snow muffles the singing and shoutingas the sled dissolves into the cold darkness.

The snow is falling. A frozen sun tumbles overthe snow covered roofs. And then the cold moon.A single candle burns in the small cottage. BerelChaitovich, his wife Brocha and all the childrenare asleep. There is a banging on the door. Berelwakes and goes to the door. Four soldiers enterthe dark room. Berel is a small man. He is minutenext to the soldiers. They carry long rifles. Thefamily are all awake. They are hidden in theshadows. Berel Chaitovich stands at the doorsurrounded by soldiers. The spokesman stepsforward.

“Last night,” he shouts, “the Count lost hiswallet! Someone in this village must have thiswallet! The Count had an accident in his sled.”

Berel Chaitovich nods. He is totally accepting.If the soldier had said that the Count was at thismoment standing on the roof of their home, BerelChaitovich would have nodded his head. Yes,everything is possible. And so....

“The count has lost his wallet. There was a lotof money in the wallet. It is most important to findthe wallet. Has anyone here found the wallet?”

The soldiers look menacing. They stare intothe shadows. Silence. It is so still they can hearthe candle splintering light on the dark walls.Rifka steps out of the darkness.

“I found the wallet.”All eyes are on Rifka. No one is breathing. The

soldiers grip their rifles. Rifka begins to undress.She has layer upon layer of clothing. Finally sheis naked from the waist up. Large pendulousbreasts. There is a roar of approval from thesoldiers. They nudge each other. They slap theirsides. They know Rifka. They have witnessedthis undressing many times. They throw up theirhands laughing. They slowly leave. They arelaughing in the street.

Rifka continues to undress. The wallet is inher voluminous underpants.

The snow is falling over Soligalich.

Bernard Levinson is a distinguished South Africanpoet whose work has appeared in numerousscholarly publications and anthologies.Professionally, he is a psychiatrist, based inJohannesburg.

46


The well-known South African journalist andZionist activist Michael Belling has written anovel which is, according to the blurb, “both atender love story and a story of Israel in its earlyyears”. It’s called My Right Hand’s Cunning, alovely title, derived from the biblical verse “If Iforget you, oh Jerusalem, may my right handforget its cunning”. This is most fitting, not onlyin that it is a story about Jerusalem, but in that oneof its major themes is in fact remembrance.

The story is dominated by Meir Rosen, aHolocaust survivor who protects himself from thehorror of his own memories by building andmaintaining a solid wall of silence around himself.His is an “airless, secluded, insulated soul”,taciturn, acerbic, blunt to the point of rudenessand, with good reason, altogether a miserablebeggar. Meir is the sole survivor of his family(barring his niece, Tamar, who managed to getout of Europe before the war). The only patches ofcolor in a life of rigidly enforced greyness are hisvolunteer work at the Talpiot refugee camp, Tamarand her husband Avi and the only friend whosurvived like him, Yehuda Rabinowitz. The basicstoryline of the book is how his relationship withRachel Levy breaks the wall and releases him.Just one more Holocaust story, one might think,but this book is more than anything a story ofIsrael, in the years when the idealism andcommitment that launched it was still fresh andvigorous.

The hope is tangible, but so is the fear. Thepeople struggle with the paradox of Jewishsurvival. History both buoys them up and weighsthem down. The awareness of the world’s hatredis inevitable - not only are the wounds of the

MY RIGHT HAND’S CUNNING: AJERUSALEM STORY

*

Tamar Saks

Holocaust still fresh, with the hooded, carefullyblank eyes of the survivors visible on the verystreets, but the evidence of past attempts at Jewishextermination are all around. This is the land,remember, where the bones of Jews can be foundcrushed under Roman ballistae. There are also therefugees, living proof of present hardship.

The atmosphere thrums with the magic ofIsrael, the layers and layers of history, the politicalquagmires, the heroism of the army, the curiousmixture of hope and cynicism that is so peculiarlyJewish. Hebrew catch-phrases and sayings - manyderived from the Bible – abound: Taharathaneshek - purity of arms, Mah yiheyeh? - Whatis going to happen? Ein breira - There is nochoice. The whole is punctuated by discussionsand debates that reveal the state of mind, not onlyof the main protagonists, but of the people inIsrael’s formative years. The young are steeped inhistory, because “in this country, history was allround them, Biblical names were not just part ofthe fabric of history and legend, but interwoven intheir daily lives.”

Another theme of My Right Hand’s Cunningis a kind of dialogue that takes place betweenhope and the awareness of past horrors. Hope ispersonified by the youth, by Avi and the pregnantTamar. Awareness of the past is personified byMeir and Yehuda. Yet the roles are exchangedduring the course of the story. Avi and Tamar are,by the very fact that they live in Israel, more thanaware of the past and the hatred that the nationsbear Am Yisroel. And Meir’s despair is eventuallyovercome by Rachel and their mutual love. Thereis a strong sense of history, and of place,throughout, and a fascination with politics (veryIsraeli!) that gives the book weight andauthenticity. Added to this, the story and itscompelling characters make for an absorbing read.

My Right Hand’s Cunning: A Jerusalem Story byMichael Belling, Tange: Johannesburg, 2012, 297pp.

Tamar Saks matriculated at Beth Yaakov Schoolin Johannesburg. She is currently studying atAteres Bnos Yerushalayim girls’ seminary inJerusalem.

47


Drastic Dislocations is a selection of poetryfrom Barry Wallenstein’s six previous collections– from Beast is a Wolf with Brown Fire (1977) toTony’s World (2009) – and includes more thansixty new poems. The selection is a shrewd one,exhibiting the poet’s peculiarly skewed andentirely unpredictable vision of contemporarylife.

From poem to poem, stanza to stanza,Wallenstein’s tone shifts smoothly from robust torestrained, jubilant to jaundiced. He is a master ofthe almost invisible transition, the seeminglyeffortless metamorphosis of meaning and mood.He writes as vividly about the simple splendourof a summer day as he does when evoking whatDelmore Schwartz described as ‘the famousunfathomable abyss.’

If existence is an abyss, it can best be fathomed,for Wallenstein, with family, good company,sensual experience, and, of course, the poet’sbeloved jazz. (Many of these poems have beenperformed publicly, with live jazzaccompaniment.) With its elastic inflections,Wallenstein’s verse is full of grace notes and bluestreaks and surprising sideways turns into dreamsof despair and cold-eyed self-assessment. Heportrays pain authentically – which is to say,painfully – but also writes movingly about thatmost artistically unfashionable entity: humanhappiness.

Many of the poems in this volume areaffirmative, full of an optimism that feels equal-parts European and American, simultaneouslymeasured and carefree, open to every sensation,made buoyant by the bliss of infinite possibility.Whereas in his early work, one gets a sense of apoet who does not love quite enough, in his mostrecent verse Wallenstein seems to possess withinhim inexhaustible affection.

He writes most tenderly about his family.‘Ballad,’ a conversation between the poet and hisdeceased mother, is especially accomplished:

What are you doing my darling son?I’m sitting in this boat, dear mother.And where is your boat my son, pray tell?At sea in the distance my mother.

DRASTIC DISLOCATIONS*

Roy Robins

Roy Robins was a 2010-11 Gordon Institute ofPerforming and Creative Arts fellow. He wasformerly the online editor for Granta magazine.He holds an MA degree in English Literature.

The poem, with its melancholic reverie, itsintermingling of past and present, child and adult,memory and dream, is simple and savagelystirring. The nursery-rhyme form carries the readera long way, but the underlying sense of loss andanguish takes one further still.

‘Father at 85’ is similarly poignant and probing.The poem’s final line – ‘He still wants more’ –registers like a jolt of electricity. It is as powerfula refrain as Philip Levine’s ‘You can have it’ orRobert Frost’s ‘Provide, provide!’ or the wordsthat close out Delmore Schwartz’s ‘America,America!’: ‘more: more and more: always more.’

It seems fitting to follow Wallenstein’s family,his children, their history, from inception toadulthood, through the inter-leading rooms thatform the house of this book. Here is Wallensteinin ‘Four Weeks to Birth’:

Our genes are hiding in the belly of a fishin the skin of a bellyin the belly of a fishfloating glyphsmicro-hints of dancing ghosts.

In ‘Jessie Beforehand,’ he describes hisdaughter’s foetus, which ‘swims in the famouslucidity / of mother’s love and our confusion.’

Wallenstein’s verse veers, too, betweenadmirable lucidity and not always artful confusion.There are times – most frequently in Tony’s World– where he exhibits a tendency towardsunnecessary abstraction. In these instances, hisjazz métier begins to feel less like an asset andmore like camouflage for cryptic sentiment. Butit is possible to be both jazzy and precise; bothcryptic and exacting.

The titular protagonist of Tony’s World is anelusive alter ego, reminiscent of the Henry ofJohn Berryman’s The Dream Songs. At onceurban prophet and holy fool, Tony is deliciouslydefiant and defiantly himself – he is Wallenstein’smost memorable lyrical conceit.

Perhaps surprisingly for a poet who has spentmost of his life in Manhattan, some of the finestpoems in this collection concentrate on the countryrather than the city. Wallenstein rarelyromanticizes nature, nor does he attempt todesensitize or demolish it. He is attentive in anunpretentious manner, aspiring towardsunderstated Impressionism and gentle self-expression. The marvellously meditative earlypoem, ‘A House in the Mountains,’ celebratessimple pleasure and a lovely calm, as its speaker

48


spends hours ‘watching a valley / move throughcolours and into the dark.’ The naturalism in laterpoems is poised between classical evocation anda mordant, modern wit.

Elsewhere in the collection, Wallensteinframes his verse within the Brownean dramaticmonologue, subverts fairy tales and simple rhyme,and re-makes myth. Memorable poems includethe wonderfully wild ‘Roller Coaster Kid’, and‘A Turn of Events’, which feels like Robert Frostby way of Sam Peckinpah.

Wallenstein writes deftly about ‘the gatheringgrace of – / going on.’ He excels at interrogatingthe intersection between the earthly and the

The pervasive myth of an all-powerful Israellobby controlling American foreign policy haslong dominated public discourse. In The ArabLobby: The Invisible Alliance that UnderminesAmerica’s Interests in the Middle East, MitchellBard shows how Arab governments use theirpetrodollars and control of energy supplies tocontrol American foreign policy in favour of theAnti-Israel, pro-Arab cause. In the same way,they dominate educational institutions and themedia, thereby fostering heavily one-sided pro-Palestinian public opinion.

Bard demonstrates how the discourse on theArab-Israeli conflict is distorted due to theimmense financial resources of the Arab lobby.His book highlights the latter’s manipulation ofAmerican foreign policy and public opinion,usually out of public view, and in ways that havegone unnoticed that need to be exposed. In Bard’sview, the Arab lobby exerts a malignant influenceon American foreign policy, with the result thatbasic American values and American securityneeds are disregarded in order to bolster repressiveArab regimes and terrorist organizations.

The Arab Lobby has had much success. ThePalestinians receive more capita aid than anyother group in the world, indeed more than all ofSub-Saharan Africa put together. As Bard writes:“Even as hundreds of thousands of people die inDarfur, it is the Palestinians who get the world’ssympathy and donations of billions of dollars”.

The Arab Lobby has adopted the terminologyof the Jewish people and turned it against Israel.For example, Palestinians, like Jews, now live in

outward-bound. Whereas many poets becomeweary with age, Wallenstein appears to feel bothfreed up and fired up, experimenting with formand unafraid to explore life’s pleasures and perils.Drastic Dislocations demonstrates theconsistently high standard of his work these pastthirty-five years.

Whether one is a long-time admirer or engagingwith Wallenstein’s verse for the first time, this isa vibrant and valuable volume.

Drastic Dislocations by Barry Wallenstein, NYQBooks, New York, 2012.

THE ARAB LOBBY*

Gary Selikow

Gary Selikow is a researcher and media activist.His reviews of books of Jewish and Middle Eastinterest appear regularly online and elsewhere.

the ‘Diaspora’. Israelis are compared to Nazisand their actions are characterized as ‘pogroms’,‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’. Israelis accusedof creating ‘ghettos’ and even engaging in a‘holocaust’. The disputed territories are nowtermed ‘occupied’. The pro-Islamic lobby hascreated a new term to brand all who are concernedabout radical Islam, Islamization and Islamicterror, namely ‘Islamophobia’.

The most successful of the lobby’s campaignhas been its infiltration of the educational system,including a sustained and sinister campaign toalso influence students outside the classroom.The Muslim Students Association haspropapagated the falsehood that “Zionism isracism”, and disseminated the Protocols of theElders of Zion, while the Palestine SolidarityMovement has supported Arab terror againstIsraeli civilians and vigorously supported the so-called Right of Return, something aimed atdemographically swamping Israel’s Jewishpopulation.

When pro-Israel students asked the PSM attheir conference at Duke University in 2004 tosign a benign statement calling for civil debatethat would condemn the murder of innocentcivilians, support a two state solution and“recognize the difference between disagreementand hate speech”, they were refused. By hostinga group that could not bring itself to object to themurder of children, Duke therefore lent supportto terror sympathizers, as did other universitiessuch as Berkely Wisconsin, Ohio State andGeorgetown. In one shocking incident, an Israelistudent asked Professor John Massad a questionat a public lecture and Massad responded bythundering, “How many Palestinians did you kill?”Massad had also written that Israel is a “racist

49


colonialist” state and that Zionists are Nazis. Heargues for a ‘one-state solution’ to the conflict(that is, the abolition of Israel and its replacementby an Arab ruled Palestinian State). At AmericanUniversity, an anthropology professor used acomic book in the vein of Der Sturmer as a text.Another professor crossed out the word ‘Israel’on a student’s exam and wrote in the margin“Zionist entity”. An especially perverse statementwas made at an anti-Israel rally at ColumbiaUniversity on 17 April, 2002, Israel’sIndependence Day, by Professor of Latino StudiesNicholas de Genova: “The Heritage of the victimsof the Holocaust belongs to the Palestinian people.The State of Israel has no claim to the heritage ofthe Holocaust”. Thus, according to De Genova’sgrotesque thinking, a country with thousands ofHolocaust survivors and hundreds of thousandsof descendants of Holocaust survivors has noclaim to the heritage of holocaust victims, but apeople that did not suffer from the Holocaustdoes. So much for the great minds of academia!

Syllabi in the humanities departments ofuniversity campuses contain powerful and hatefulpropaganda against Israel. One of the drivingforces behind this is the Middle East StudiesAssociation (MESA), to which the centralityaccorded the Palestine issue at the expense of allother peoples suffering in the Middle East is due.In a study of the three-year period following 9/11,Martin Kramer found that “For MESAns, thePalestinians are the chosen people now more thanever. Arab financial pressure has influenceduniversities in more ways than one. Texas A&MUniversity effectively pressured the PBS stationto cancel a screening of the movie about abuse ofwomen in Saudi Arabia called ‘Death of aPrincess’”.

The study of Israel and the Hebrew languagehas been marginalized, delegitimized and evendemonized at universities across the USA.Furthermore, there is vociferous support forHamas and Hezbollah at such institutions. AnIsraeli Arab who is the Palestinian Affairscorrespondent for the Jerusalem Post returnedfrom a 2009 speaking tour of American collegecampuses and reported, “There is more sympathyfor Hamas then there is in Ramallah. Listening tosome students and professors at these campuses,for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite aHamas spokesman or would-be suicide bomber ...the so called pro-Palestinian ‘junta’ on thecampuses has nothing to offer other than hatredand delegitimization of Israel. If these folks reallycared about the Palestinians, they would becampaigning for good government and for thevalues of democracy and freedom in the WestBank and Gaza Strip”.

There is also an insidious campaign to bar allIsrael academics from American universities. AsAlan Dershowitz points out, “many of the peoplewho want boycotts claim that Israel is inflictingcollective punishment on the Palestinians, but aboycott is effectively punishing every Israelacademic without regard to what their views maybe.”

All this and more is exposed in Bard’s book,which provides a much-needed analysis of howdeeply the US’s Arab lobby is impacting on publicpolicy and intellectual trends regarding Israel,the Middle East and the phenomenon of radicalIslam.

The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance thatUndermines America’s Interests in the Middle East byMitchell Bard, Harper, 2010, 432pp

Mr Justice Ralph Zulman is a long-servingmember of the editorial board of and regularcontributor to Jewish Affairs.

THE PRIME MINISTERS: AN INTIMATENARRATIVE OF ISRAELI LEADERSHIP

*

Ralph Zulman

Ambassador Yehuda Avner was born inManchester, England in 1928. He was a foundingmember of Kibbutz Lavi in the Galilee, and enteredthe Israel Foreign Service in the 1950s. Duringhis lengthy diplomatic career, he served as Consulin New York, Counsellor at the Israeli Embassyin Washington D.C., Ambassador to Great Britain,Non-Resident Ambassador to Ireland, and

Ambassador in Australia. Between overseaspostings, he served as a speech writer and secretaryto Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Gold Meir,and as adviser to Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin,Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres. He is afrequent guest columnist for the Jerusalem Post.

Given this background, Avner was well placedto write an insightful account into the Israelileaders whom he served. This he has done withhis 2010 book The Prime Ministers: An IntimateNarrative of Israeli Leadership. The bookcomprises an Author’s note, Acknowledgements,

Wishing all ourJewish friends aHappy New Year

and well over the fast

012 319 8811 • 011 378 3200www.cityproperty.co.za

SUPPLIERS OF: *Spices *Castings *Packagingmaterial and all Butcher Requisites

6 Vickers RoadCity DeepJohannesburg

P.O. Box 86268City Deep 2049

Tel: (011) 623-1332Fax: (011) 623-2188

Email: [email protected]

50


a list of “Principal Characters” and a foreword bySir Martin Gilbert. Its thirty chapters are dividedinto three parts, headed respectively ‘Beginitesand Anti-Beginites’, ‘Coalitions and Oppositions’and ‘The Last Patriarch, Prime MinisterMenachem Begin, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol,Prime Minister Golda Meir, Prime MinisterYitzchak Rabin’. It concludes with an Afterword,Endnotes, a Bibliography and author details.

Avner states that his book is “not aconventional biography or memoir, nor is it awork of fiction. It deals with real people…” Indeed it does so, admirably. In his foreword, Gilbertcorrectly observes: “Anyone who is interested inthe first fifty years of the history of the State ofIsrael will be both enlightened and entranced bythis book.” He concludes, “Yehuda Avner’s bookwith its cast of fascinating characters, its insights,its vigour, and its zeal, show how right Churchillwas. A State was formed, whose leaders guardedit and moved it forward. Their most recentchronicler, himself so often at the centre of theevents he describes, has done them proud.”

In her review of the book, US Secretary of

State Hilary Rodham Clinton describes it as “…asweeping tome of Israeli politics and history.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls it “…afascinating account of someone who was an eyewitness to many historic moments in the historyof the Jewish state. It provides “insight into theactions of our nation’s leaders and offers importantlessons for the future.” Brett Stephens in the WallStreet Journal regards the book as providing, “…a front-row seat to the drama of Israeli statecraftin moments of crisis and triumph, tragedy andjoy.” For Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz,it is “one of the most remarkable accounts we areever likely to get of how Israel has been governedover the decades…the ultimate insider’s account.”

I highly recommend this well-written andabsorbing, if perhaps rather lengthy, book to allthose who, in the words of Sir Martin Gilbert, areinterested in the first fifty years of the history ofthe State of Israel.

The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative ofIsraeli Leadership by Yehuda Avner, Toby Press LLC,2010, 715pp

51


10 WHOLE WEEKS!

It would never happen to me!‘Pa’ would live forever.Then the reality – cancerPanic, self-pity then denial,Hebrew – no go, Kaddish – never.This was me – what next?10 whole weeks!

Concern for his wife and familyFear of the great unknown.First nothing … then the pain …Uncontrollable – the circle had turnedFrom our ‘Pillar of Strength’ to helplessnessThat was ‘Pa’ – what now?10 whole weeks!

Time we thought was too short.We discussed, spoke and learned.His sense of humour never wanedBut the pain … the fear … the helplessnessNot knowing nor understanding … Why?Was the time really so short?10 whole weeks!

For some there are no goodbyes,No time to talk or make one’s peace.No time to say “Thank you” orTo express their love and respect.No time to learn, trying to understand.We had the time – “Thank You, HASHEM”,10 whole weeks.

SHIVA – The first seven days,Numb – confusion, pain and tears,Fear – my Pillar has been removed.SHLOSHIM – The next three weeks.Reality – acceptance back into the community,Acknowledgement – my strength has gone.KADDISH – Eleven months, with DeRabanan,Three times daily – every night, morning andeveningFour seasons came and went, learning tounderstand.YORTZEIT – One year now the anniversary,Memories – the heart healed – but ‘Pa’ neverforgotten.Thank you one and all.YA HOOD

Jeff Fine

In memory of: TZAPHANYA ben YEHUDAH YOSEPHha KOHEIN.23rd November, 1927 – 18th October, 1998.

BEGINNINGS & ENDINGS

Life is a series ofBeginnings and endingsStarts and finishes Cul de sacs and bendingsNot decades or years or months or daysThat is not the way that destiny playsChances and choicesCycles of seasonsEndlessly repeating its times and its reasons

With you, without you; do’s and don’tsEvers and nevers; wills and won’tsNew and old; timid and boldWords preserved and stories untoldUp-to-date fashion and clothing well wornDeath and dying and the new-born.

Old contests, new racesOld places, new faces A friendship finished – a relationship renewedForgive and forget; or acrimony accruedComing together or pulling apartA parting of ways or a brand-new startA broken promise – a reaffirmed vowFor the happily ever after; or for the ‘here andnow’

Lose or win – again to beginHellos and goodbyes – congratulations and sighs“What could I have done? What should I havedone?”Questions and answers, ‘what ifs’ and why’s

Remain where you landed …keep pushing aheadWork a new idea – or just stay in bedPick yourself up or want to lie down and dieWake with intent – or let the world go by

Life is a continuum of giving and takingRepeating its patterns again and againA never-ending recurrence of beginnings and thenA continual closing and ending again

Charlotte Cohen

Devotion

Godly pure devotion,Deepest human emotion,Resides in the depth of the soul,And supplants your normal self-control,Tremendously powerful and strong,And pulls you mercilessly with magnetic pullalong’You fall prostrate shake and cry,I love you Lord and for you I will die,You long to embrace and touch,The one you love so much,You crawl and grovel like an obedient slave,Before the almighty you so desperately crave,You pray and sing G-d’s song,And wish to be near him where you belong.

Israel Silberhaft

We wish all our Jewish customersa sweet and blessed New Year

and well over the fast

52


I was interested to read the article by Gwynne Schrire ‘Art as protest: Jewish inversions of theCrucifixion motif’ in the Pesach 2012 issue of Jewish Affairs as it brought back memories.

I was friendly with George Lowen, QC, a refugee from Nazi Germany and a senior advocate at theJohannesburg Bar. He was visiting me one evening and noticed a painting I had by Father FransClaerhout, the Roman Catholic missionary from Belgium, who lived in the Tweespruit mission station.The painting depicted a crucifixion, with Jesus portrayed as a horse with a crown of thorns.

He explained that he was defending Harold Rubin on a charge of blasphemy for painting a Jesus thatthe prosecution complained looked like a monster. Could he borrow the painting to take to the court?If a Catholic missionary could paint Jesus as a horse, then surely a Jewish artist could paint him as aman?

This he duly did and my painting was produced as evidence for the defense. Harold Rubin was foundnot guilty. I do not know whether it was my painting or common sense that prevailed.

‘Ploni Almoni’Johannesburg

READER’S LETTER

*

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

www.sasfin.com | 0861-sasfin(727346) | [email protected]

Wishing our clients, associates

and staff a sweet New Year.

Shanah Tovah.

Some partnerships

you just can’t do without.

JEWISH AFFFAIRSFAIRS - sajbd.org · 4 JEWISH AFFAIRS N ROSH HASHANAH 2012 Africa and the first in...

Documents

Transcript of JEWISH AFFFAIRSFAIRS - sajbd.org · 4 JEWISH AFFAIRS N ROSH HASHANAH 2012 Africa and the first in...