Our Synagogue Trip to Eastern Europe and the Iranian Nuclear Talks

Fatefully we arrived in Vienna on July 13, 2015 - the last full day of the P5+1 Iran nuclear arms talks. Our synagogue group from Marietta, GA had spent the previous week in Warsaw and Krakow, Poland - the images after our visit to the death factories of Auschwitz and the ghettos of Warsaw and Krakow - freshly etched in our memory. After Poland, and just prior to our Vienna arrival, we spent the weekend in Budapest, where we learned about the equally dismal plight of Hungarian Jews as the Nazis escalated their timeline to kill as many Jews as possible prior to their assured loss to the Allied Powers during the wars final days.

While we were in Budapest learning about the Nazis determined Jewish genocide, Iranians were celebrating Quds day. Quds Day is held the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as an international day of struggle against Israel and for the liberation of Jerusalem. Israeli and US flags are burned as the Iranian crowds chant their all too familiar, Death to America, Death to Israel.

The Nazis systematic answer to the final solution to the Jewish question had resulted in two thirds of Europes pre-WWII 8.8 million Jews having been slaughtered. Even today, the worldwide Jewish population is still not at the level it was prior to the implementation of the Nazi solution. Never Again!

Arriving in Vienna, I appreciated the significance of the Iran nuclear talks, and thought about the Munich Conference of 1938. Hitlers Germany was appeased. Neville Chamberlain proclaimed Peace for our time. More recently, in 1994, I remember President Clinton triumphantly hailing the 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea - Today...we have completed an agreement that will make the United States, the Korean Peninsula, and the world safer. Under the agreement, North Korea has agreed to freeze its existing nuclear program and to accept international inspection of all existing facilities. Sadly, neither of these agreements resulted in their intended objective - at least for the negotiating party that I was aligned with.

During the often contentious and frequently extended Iran nuclear negotiations, we read reports that indicated that the US had capitulated on many of its original core positions. Some suggested that Obama and Kerry were determined to get a deal done, even if it meant going against initially stated principles - for the sake of their legacy. They should be reminded that Neville Chamberlain also has a legacy.

Our synagogue group, 34 of us in all, was small in number, but loud in voice. We felt compelled to let our feelings about the nuclear talks be known. We gathered outside of the Palais Coburg, the venue of the final meetings, and chanted No Deal, No Deal... The prodigious media assembly approached us, we shared our concerns, and an Iranian blogger tweeted about our protest. Not surprisingly, his tweet was answered with familiar, anti-Semitic, comments about us.

The next day, the deal was finalized and the text of the agreement was made public. Many of the terms were even worse than what we had anticipated. Iranians celebrated the agreement as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed to defy American policies in a speech punctuated by chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". US Secretary of State John Kerry said the speech was very disturbing...very troubling," seemingly surprised at the rhetoric. Im not surprised. History has a way of teaching us if we let it.

As our trip winded down, we were grief stricken after visiting so many relics of Nazi evil and destruction. We are dismayed that American leadership believes that the Iranian nuclear deal will stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the region and make the world a safer place. We want to believe.

It was Saturday night, July 18th, the last night of our two week sojourn. We were in Prague. After a group dinner, we gathered outside the restaurant at a busy intersection. Our Rabbi led us in Havdalah service - the Jewish ceremony that marks the symbolic end of the Jewish Sabbath and ushers in a new week. The Havdalah candle was lit, and we joined each other, arm in arm, forming a ring and sang the Havdalah prayers.

We felt safe. There were no anti-Semitic rants. The rounding up of Jews on these very streets only a few generations ago, seemed incomprehensible.

Towards the end of our Havdalah service, two young women from Germany, walking by, stop and join our ring, concluding the Havdalah service with us. The irony that they are from Germany is not lost on me.

We finish our prayers, bring in the new week, and meet our new friends. We want to believe. For now, anyway, there is hope.

Mark Schwartz