Waarheen moet ik gaan? Where shall I go?

Posted on August 27, 2022 by wordpressgrethe

Waarheen moet ik gaan is an outstanding book about the recent history of a Jewish family, written by John Dunkelgrün. It starts in the 2nd half of the 19th century and leads us through 2 World Wars, lots of joy of life and loads of antisemitism. It is an exciting book, showing the power of optimism and entrepreneurship, but also a story of loss and the reality of evil. Many familymembers described in this book did not survive the holocaust. Waarheen moet ik gaan makes very clear what happened; it can not answer the question why… Nevertheless, because of the special skills of the writer, Waarheen moet ik gaan grabs your attention in every chapter.

John Dunkelgrün follows his family lines from father’s and mother’s side. He is a master storyteller with a good sense of humor. Personally, I found especially the international aspect of this book very intriguing – it left me as a reader full of admiration about the way his family members were open to new cultures and experiences. Also it gives lots of indepth information about Jewish life in different countries. Three characteristics are always there: trade and entrepreneurship – being Jewish and a minority that is constantly met with prejudices – openness to others, whoever they are in background, wealth, etnicity and the like.

In the line of his father the adventure goes through Poland, Germany, Palestine, Belgium, the Netherlands. In the line of his mother, the story starts in Roumania, Russia, Hungaria and Austria passes via Hamburg to the United States, continues in the Netherlands, Persia and London. All these travellings are described in detail in the first two parts of the book; the author makes you look around and really see all those places.

Waarheen moet ik gaan is a very special chronicle of a family history in a turbulent century. Sometimes, the writer intervenes, explaining what he knows or what he could not find in his research. Rather then disturb the reader, it gives this book an extra dimension – the reader is aware that Waarheen moet ik gaan is not ‘just a book’ but that there is an author behind who wants to show some things and is willing to be accountable for what one reads.

Waarheen moet ik gaan is also the story of starting over and over again. The writers’ grandfather is unsafe in Poland and leaves a good business behind, to start another one in Germany. Some years later, he is unsafe again and moves with his family to the Netherlands, where he starts a new business again. But then, in WW2, he is unsafe again and this time he and his family have to run without a sure place to go. His other grandfather grows up in extreme poverty and runs away from home at the age of 13 or 14. What follows, looks like a story of a fairy tale. You will not be bored for a minute when reading this adventure, as an amazing, almost incredible story is told by a master storyteller.

In the 3rd part of the book, it is war time WW2. Slowly by slowly the situation deteriorates and both families have to run, almost too late. Borders have closed, administrations disencourage refugees especially the Jewish ones, many try to profit financially from the situation of refugees. This part of Waarheen moet ik gaan is deeply oppressive and dramatic. The loneliness in the continuous threat, the need to survive in an environment that is probably hostile… the family makes it into France but they do not know who can be trusted. Betrayal is everywhere, as well as greed. Eventually part of the family arrives in Switzerland where the writer is born.

Life is described in detail including life in camps full of hardship in France and Switzerland. The end of WW2 does not just mean to ‘start again’, it means also dealing with what happened during the holocaust in a context that is not welcoming or facilitating, on the contrary. The scars of the survivors are enormous and lasting. However, immediately there is life again, full of business and humorous anecdotes. So much energy and resilience.

Is there nothing that could be done better in this book? Well yeah, there are so many names that a register to explain who is who would help the reader. There is an existing register explaining many words, Jiddisch, Hebrew, German, Hungarian that I found very helpful. Waarheen moet ik gaan is in Dutch but deserves a much larger, international public.

If you like this blog, you may also like:
Idiss – by Robert Badinter
Simone Veil – Une Vie

Are Jews White?

Posted on June 16, 2021 by wordpressgrethe

Are Jews White?, is the name of a new exposition in the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. As an expert in diversity and inclusion, I went there almost immediately after the opening. Are Jews White? is an interesting and also a bit disappointing exposition. I explain you my mixed feelings in this blog.

When you enter the expo, there are a number of signs on walls and pillars, and a short introducton video. After that, you arrive in a former synagogue which is the religious part of the Jewish Historical Museum. I was surprised: was that all? Indeed it wasn’t. After the religious part, the exposition Are Jews White? continues. Video has a central place. The exposition makers have interviewed around ten persons with different background who reflect on the theme Are Jews White?. After some nice cutting and pasting, they produced a good series of interesting comments on the subject: many aspects of the theme are thus covered from different perspectives. A disadvantage however is that this production does not elevate the theme above the average ‘circus of opinions’. I could not discover where Are Jews White? rises above existing concepts. Are Jews White? rather shows how deeply we are imprisoned in boxes, unable to liberate ourselves from them.

To me, the concept of black and white is evidently not applicable to Jews (and many others). I remember how I visited a camp with Jews from Ethiopia in Tel Aviv who newly arrived, somewhere in the begin of this century. They had been health care workers in Ethiopia and were preparing for a similar job in Israel. They had a good selfconfidence of what they had to offer to Israeli Jews – for example, more respect for the elderly – but many of them felt underestimated and discriminated upon. Therefor I wondered how the exposition would work this out. Are Jews White? failed to do so, but shows clearly that the concept of black and white has strong limits and serves rather as a concept to divide people more than to unite them.

Professor Gloria Wekker is one of the persons interviewed in the video. Her concept of intersectionality has no answer to the Are Jews White? issue. Intersectionality (in my view) was an original concept encouraging us to leave a dualistic world and enter the multifaceted one. Especially when Gloria Wekker just started as a professor and called her concept ‘kruispuntdenken’ (crossroad thinking), it was much more open to the dynamics of diversity. Something went wrong during the years along the intersectional road. Not only did intersectionality create more boxes, these boxes are also more oppressive, there is no escape from them.

The result, and that is very clear in Are Jews White?, is that Jews would be called black or white for political reasons, or for the opinion people have about them, or that they have about themselves. The tragedy is that this limits Jews to be who they are. And indeed this may be true for all of us: the concept of black and white limits us all. Of course I understand that the concept of black and white serves to explain the construction of society but let’s be fair: watching the video in the exposition, it is clear that the concept of black and white is more than a methodology. It serves the need of many to be part of a group or to see others as such. It provides a safe world of boxes where skin color and other aspects are all well set and clear and can be explained in predictable terms. The exposition fails to explain this need at a deeper level: why do we need to put people into categories? Why do we get upset when Jews do not fit in?

Maybe the ambition to have more answers is too high. I remember my last visit to Israel when I discussed with a scientist in the Holocaust Museum: why is there antisemitism, and why does it seem to be always there? He admitted that as a scientist, he can prove it is there and describe it, but he can not explain it scientifically.

My guess is that the Jewish Historical Museum created Are Jews White? to open the discussion about (useless) boxes and to prevent that we lock ourselves in and that we try to lock Jews in. We have to live with a rather misty and multi-interpretable reality for ourselves and for others, even though that comes with uncertainties. All-in all, I recommend the exposition. For your notice, it is totally bilingual (English and Dutch).

And don’t forget to walk by the paintings I show on the picture here, that I adored above every object in the museum, especially the woman’s dress: Benjamin and Chaile (Kaatje) Cohen from the 18th century. There’s more info about them but you will find that when you visit…

Idiss – by Robert Badinter

Posted on February 16, 2020 by wordpressgrethe

Idiss was the grandmother of the French well-known politician Robert Badinter. He wrote this book in her honour. It offers both a moving family history and perspectives of jewish and non-jewish Europe. Idiss is an interesting and moving book.

Idiss is the story of a turbulent life that started and ended amidst crises of antisemitism. Badinter’s grandmother was born in 1863 and raised in Bessarabie, Yiddishland: a region ruled by Ottomans, Russians, Roumanians and Soviets, nowadays part of Moldava. Her community were Ashkenazic Jews, most of them living in poor circumstances. Idiss married her great love, Schulim.

The atmosphere in Bessarabie is threatening towards Jews, discriminating against them in many acts. In 1903 a terrible pogrom takes place, killing 50, wounding 100s, looting and destroying shops and houses. The two sons of Idiss and Schulim leave for Paris, to start a new life. They are quite successful and in 1912, Idiss, Schulim and daughter Chifra – Badinter’s mother – follow their track. Imagine what that journey meant for Idiss who never left her village before.

Robert Badinter shows how France was seen as a paradise through the eyes of the inhabitants of Bessarabie. Yes, there was the antisemitic affaire Dreyfus but Dreyfus was nevertheless protected by the law and the values of the République Française (‘laïque’) and famous French people stood up for him. So from the perspective of the Yids in Bessarabie the proverb ‘living like a Jew in France’ remained attractive.

Badinter describes the situation of Jews in France in the first half of the XX century as a place where they were considered as French in the first place: being Jewish was their religion: “citoyens français de confession israélite” (p.39). Simone Veil in her biography gives a similar vision. It is interesting to read how French society dealt with the Jewish citizens, rich like Rothschild and Citroën and poor like Idiss and Schulim.

Badinter gives more nuanced insights later in the book (p. 61-64) explaining how Jews were envied or despised by the French, suspected for plots to dominate the world and not considered as ‘real’ French: “Pour eux, les juifs avaient beau donner tous les gages du patriotisme, ils n’en demeuraient pas moins d’étrangers sur la terre de France, plus hospitalière dans ses lois que dans les coeurs” (p.62-63).

He tells that the Jewish community was not homogeneous like antisemitic pamphlets suggested and that there was some kind of zionist movement but that most “Israélites français” considered it more of a fantasy than a real dream, saying: “Un sioniste est un juif qui paye un autre juif pour envoyer un troisième juif en Palestine” (p.63).

I cannot simply resume this book as it has several layers. The language used is beautiful and suits the life of Idiss that was pure and loving. Many happy years are described, a great pleasure to read. The different developments in the family are very interesting and by times amusing. In 1942, the end of the book, Idiss dies. It is 2nd World War also in France and there is only one son, Naftoul, present at the funeral; the rest of the family is hiding, hoping to escape the Holocaust that is in full development. Naftoul is arrested soon after the funeral and dies in Auschwitz. Badinter’s father dies in Sobibor. The book Idiss leaves you with the same feeling as the first chapters of the biography of Simone Veil: you are just living your life, working, trying to do good things and be happy, and then you get persecuted for how others see you: as a Jew and a Jew only. They want you to die for that reason.

Idiss is very refined in language, lovely to read. Moreover Badinter succeeds to describe times, insights and places that are not common knowledge in Western-Europe. In the Netherlands, Sephardic customs and contributions have traditionally dominated more than Ashkenazic experiences (see also this book). Idiss can enrich your views of the European society and European diversity.

More about Idiss in this (French) blog.

The Coffee Trader

Posted on January 2, 2020 by wordpressgrethe

The Coffee Trader is a good book for you, a friend told me and sent me a second hand version by post. My friend was right. What a story about trade in 1659 Amsterdam, where cultures and religions vary and new ways of doing business occur in the markets. David Liss is a writer who knows the word research: he depicts the 17th century with many details of context and history. A great book!

The Coffee Trader tells about Miguel Lienzo, a Jew who lived in Portugal as a converso – a Jew converted to Catholicism – like many other Jews. However the conversos in Portugal were still facing discrimination and many had to fear for their life. So he flew to Amsterdam, at that time a safe haven for Jews. Jews in Amsterdam could practice their religion and be active in trade – although there were plenty of rules between Jews and non-Jews. That in itself is a story so interesting that it is worth to read the book for it. You’ll learn how different communities found a way to live together in a religiously and culturally divided city and have relative peace and justice; at that time, unique in Europe.

Also it is intriguing how converted Portuguese Jews rebuilt their ‘identity’ in Amsterdam. A well organised structure supported those who knew little or nothing about that identity. I particularly liked the description of a woman’s position, Miguel’s brother’s wife Hannah who was brought up in ignorance, thinking she was a Catholic and unable to read or write. In Amsterdam, she is suddenly a Jew, supposed to adhere to a religion and a people that she had learned to despice. She is not walking on that path automatically.

New for me was also the idea of a Mahamad, an 17th century authority in Amsterdam that dealt with all matters for Jews: religiously, politically and legally. Together with rich Portuguese tradesmen they supported the poor Jews, so that the Dutch in Amsterdam would not complain about a burden on their back that came with the Portuguese refugees. However, when tudescos, Jews from eastern countries like Poland arrive in Amsterdam, that attitude is less generous. Most of the tudescos are poor. Although they faced very severe persecution in eastern Europe, the Mahamad takes measures to make their life difficult in the hope that they will choose other destinations than Amsterdam. There are really surprising details about the historical context in The Coffee Trader – and by the way nothing that could not be seen today…

Miguel lives in an era where tradesmen can easily become very rich or the opposite: loose everything they have. This period in Holland is called the Golden Age and brought a lot of wealth but it was risky. Miguel lost almost everything in the trade of sugar and now wants to try his fortune in a brandnew product: coffee. He wants to acquire the monopoly over this new drink that he estimates to be very promising. His strategy is breathtaking. And so is his playing field. There are so much rumours and hidden agendas around the trade market of Amsterdam that the story is a dazzling experience for the reader. It is really difficult to remember all that’s happening or has been said or might be possible. And that was exactly the reality for tradesmen in 1659 Amsterdam. How can they make their daily decisions without an excellent memory and the right focus?!

Many ethical questions come with the way business was done amid rumours and hidden agendas. Intriguing is the fact that in the end, the hidden agendas Miguel expected were exagerated. Half of them can be interpreted as misunderstandings or even imagination. An interesting lesson learned – but still, when bankruptcy is around the corner for tradesmen who do not watch their backs in the all or nothing market of 1659 Amsterdam, maybe inevitable.

Even though The Coffee Trader appeared already in 2000, this book is of great interest also in 2020. In the light of history, these 20 years do not matter at all. Go read it if you love Amsterdam, if you love trade, if you love history, if you love Jews and the Dutch, if you love risk taking and of course: if you love coffee!
The Coffee Trader exists in Dutch under the title Handelaar in koffie.

You may also like these blogs:
Anne Frank House
Minorities in Gaziantep
Jewish Museum Warsaw context

Churches in Şanlıurfa

Posted on December 29, 2018 by wordpressgrethe

Churches in Şanlıurfa are remainders of a different past when Christians and Muslims lived together in this region. All three churches that I visited are mosques now but it is still possible to see that they were churches before. Few locals speak English. If you speak Turkish (or Arab), locals explain you without any problem what they know about the history of the buildings.

Where are the Jews and the Christians, I asked in Gaziantep one year before my visit to Şanlıurfa. Locals felt embarrassed to answer and in the end of the day I found out that a painful history of the ‘80ies made them careful to speak out. Şanlıurfa has its own history. If you mention the word ‘Jew’ here, faces go blank. Jews is rather something from the time of Sogmatar, long gone, far away, non-existent. ‘Jew’ is not a word that I could hear anyone pronounce in Şanlıurfa.

As for Christians, locals do remember them but I could not find anyone to go into detail about why they are not here any more. Like Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa played a major role in the freedom war 1919-1923 after Turkey had been defeated and divided in the 1st World War. In 1924 the Christians of Urfa migrated to Aleppo. The neighbourhoods they left are still recognizable in style. It is also where the former churches are found. For the history of the churches in Şanlıurfa I visited, the responses are unanimous: already in the ‘50ies, the churches in Şanlıurfa were long deserted and in an neglected state. I met no one who spoke about a period earlier than the ‘50ies.

My first visit was to Fırfırlı Cami, the former Armenian-Protestant Fırfırlı Church dating from the 11th century. Fırfırlı is a nickname, used because of the sound of the whispering wind here. The original name was Church of the 12 Apostles. It must have been a big complex and still has a nice court. Many details both inside and outside were added in the 1956 restauration to turn the church into a mosque. Local opinions differed about the question which details were or were not original when I asked so you have to guess a bit yourself.

Part of the complex is now a guesthouse. Upon request, they will show you around for a few minutes. There are traces of the mosaic floor that lay here originally. Interesting is also the entrance of a tunnel that goes all the way to the Kale, the castle, as an escape road for people living in the castle when they were under siege.

After the Fırfırlı Cami, I went to the Reji Kilisesi, the former Syriani Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was made in 1861 on the ruins of a church dating from the 6th century. When Urfa’s Christians migrated to Aleppo in 1924, the Reji Kilisesi was used as a tobacco factory and grape store by the board of excise = régie in French. Documents and sepulchral monuments were moved to the Urfa Museum (not sure what museum is meant, I did not see them in the Arkeoloji Müzesi – maybe I was just obsessed by the great antiquities there). Apparently the church was restaured with European money and is therefor not allowed to change it into a mosque or put a minaret on it. It is used as a kind of community house. Have a look inside to see. Also the courtyard – photo on top of this blog – is worth your attention.

The third former church I visited was the Ulu Cami. A sign at the entrance tells us that the Saint Stephen Church was built on the remains of a synagogue in the 5th century. In the 12th century it was transformed into a Mosque, first called the Red Mosque because of the red marble used. The octogonal tower originally belonged to the church and now serves as the mosque’s minaret. I asked if I could visit the mosque at the inside. Alas that was only possible through the women’s prayer room – not so much a ‘do-as-you-like’ mosque here… And that was very disappointing.

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The women’s prayer room is completely separated from the general mosque. It is very ugly from the point of view architecture: how to ruin the beauty of the past…! Moreover, it felt like a second or even third class place to pray. Women here litterally pray against a gypsum wall, locked up in their own space. I did not stay long, strongly regretting religious practices that offend women to such an extent.

So far my search for churches in Şanlıurfa. A local told me that there are still some Christians in Şanlıurfa and that they live a completely hidden life. The score on Christian-friendliness of Şanlıurfa is certainly lower than in other Turkish cities: not for incidental visitors who temporarily adapt to basic rules. But for those who live here, circumstances are (very) unfavorable.

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Link to detailed (technical) info on every aspect of the Ulu Cami (in Turkish)

Follow this link for more info and photographs of the Fırfırlı Church: scroll down to see a great picture of the Armenian community in the church in 1919.

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Abraham’s cave of birth
Balikli Göl: the sacred fish pond

Simone Veil: une vie

Posted on September 16, 2018 by wordpressgrethe

I found Simone Veil’s autobiography Une Vie while buying groceries in the Super-U. In France, culture and quality can be found everywhere, a characteristic that I adore in that country. It is a breathtaking book about a life that started in an ordinary, middle-class way and got heavily interrupted by the Second World War, went through the Nazi death camps and then on to government positions at the highest level of France and Europe. Compared to the intensity of that life, the book is short (343 pages Livre de Poche). There are many chapters where the reader would like to know more because her experiences are unique and give insights one rarely gets.
Simone Veil was a Holocaust survivor and she was also a major player in France’s after-war period. Une Vie tells a lot about the things she did, but her influence went much further than that because of who she was, a woman with clear principles that she followed in any function she would fulfill: ‘le sens de la justice, le respect de l’homme, la vigilance face à l’evolution de la société‘ (p. 262).
She says she liked politics but not the political game and indeed in her book the description of such games are rarely found. It is about the goals Simone Veil was going for and about what she achieved. The reader can only wonder how she did that. The same goes for all the positions she got – it seems to be just the natural flow of her life and it would be so interesting to learn more how she got there. The political part of Une Vie shows little relations or emotions; if I may criticize Une Vie, the only point by the way: this is not about living a (political) life, it is too factually descriptive for that (though very interesting).
Anyway I highly recommend this book that was translated in many languages; (just) some parts of the book that I found breathtaking:

* the description of the Holocaust, an inside story. ‘l’enfer‘ (p.53-89)

* the question whether governments should have stayed or left their countries during the Second World War. France had the Vichy-régime that collaborated with the Nazis. Simone Veil always thought that was wrong, until she met Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands who told her how heavily her mother Queen Wilhelmina was criticized for leaving to Canada and thus ‘abandoning her people’. ‘aucun événement historique, aucun choix politique des gouvernants, surtout dans des périodes aussi troubles, n’entraîne des conséquences uniformément blanches ou noires‘. (p.46)

* the letters she got when she fought as Minister of Health for the first Law on Abortion in 1975. The verbal abuse was so terrible that her staff destroyed some letters. Simone Veil regrets that because these letters are witnesses of a history of reform and should have formed study material by now to remember that changes come with pain. ‘il faut rappeler aux esprits angéliques que les réformes de société s’effectuent toujours dans la douleur‘. (p.165)

* in the beginning of her European period she expected that in twenty years countries would go beyond their national frame. She found out that it doesn’t work like that and that everybody looks for their roots. Thus nowadays she compares the EU more to the aggregate of Russian matrushka puppets than a monolithic building. (p. 190)

* her ideas about human rights that she supported all her life; how militant activists rarely bring peace and rather increase human rights violations because their approach is too one-sided; that there are no universal human rights when it comes to business and other modus vivendi. ‘Au fond, ce sont toujours aux faibles que l’on fait la morale, tandis qu’on finit par blanchir les puissants‘. (p.194)

* Simone Veil concludes that she has become more and more a fighter for women’s rights because equal chances for women are not naturally based in laws or in the rules of the game. ‘Les chances, pour les femmes, procèdent trop du hasard‘. (p.258)

Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/30/simone-veil-funeral-paris-pantheon
http://www.theheroinecollective.com/simone-veil/
https://www.editions-stock.fr/livres/essais-documents/une-vie-9782234058170
https://www.trouw.nl/cultuur/simone-veil-succesvol-omdat-ze-een-vrouw-is~abb3e42e/

Other blogs you might like:
Mikve Israel-Immanuel synagogue: religious pearl in orange-loving Willemstad
‘Why are people like this?’ Boualem Sansal

Minorities in Gaziantep

Posted on December 25, 2017 by wordpressgrethe

minorities gaziantep
Minorities in Gaziantep: there is a painful past that remains untold. Armenians and Jews lived in this city, called Aintep or Ayintep in the old days, for over a thousand years. Going to Gaziantep castle / kalesi, the signs that tell you about the history of 1919-1923 narrate about the coalition between the French and the Armenians, thus reducing Armenians to the status of traitors of their city and their country. It is a convincing, consistent story for visitors who never heard about the period before. As the death of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in 1914-1916 is even formally recognized by the Turkish government, a museum fails when it presents facts in this way.

Minorities in Gaziantep: heritage
Few signs indicate that Gaziantep once had thriving minority communities who largely contributed to the wealth of the city in trade, science and arts. The former synagogue has been restaured and is now a cultural center for the university. The former Kenderli church has also been transformed into a culturel center. The former Armenian Catholic Surp Asdvazdadzin church is now a mosque called the Liberation Mosque (Kurtulus Camii). In the center close to the castle there is a neighbourhood called Bey where the minorities used to live. It is full of cafes and hotels and also home to quite some Syrian refugees. The investment in restauration is strikingly less here than in other parts of the city. What is rebuilt, is the great Ottoman past. There is an inclination to wipe out a part of history that is more difficult to explain.

Minorities in Gaziantep: local truths
I asked around to see what locals would answer me. Where are the Armenians and the Jews? Where did they go and why? These are sensitive subjects but locals were not unwilling to shed some light on them. For the Armenians, I met with two kind of responses. Mostly and at first sight locals told me that Armenians cooperated with the French and that they left with them, in 1923. But other views were also given, and what surprised me is that they were given by very nationalist locals. ‘They got rid of them, yani…’ (and then a waiving hand symbolizing their disappearance). ‘You know there was freedom of religion in the Ottoman empire and we were living side by side. That was better’. ‘I do not respect the heroes shown at the castle (see my blog about that), you know what these people did, they used the situation to steal from the Armenians and enrich themselves. They have become wealthy by killing and looting. I would never go to the exposition in the castle, these people are not good’. This kind of responses by ordinary locals show me that on a deeper level, there is awareness of how the Gaziantep society deals with minorities and the historic narrative, even when you do not hear it in the daily narrative.
As for the Jews, it is difficult to get an answer from locals. ‘But the Jews, where did they go? They were not involved in the fight with the French. I saw the synagogue, they were here. So…?’ All but one I got there was a kind of blank look; locals staring at me with a look I can not interprete. Don’t they know? Do they think I am naive? Is there some embarrasment they do not want to speak about? On the subject of the Jews, they stayed silent. All but one. ‘I will tell you what happened to the Jews, and to the last Armenians that were here in Gaziantep. In the ’70s crosses were put on their houses to indicate that Jews and Armenians lived there. So they left, not all of them abroad, also to Ankara, to Istanbul. They didn’t stay here because they were threatened. People won’t tell you that but this is what happened’…. (another wave of the hand, to show how despicable the actions in the ’70s have been).

The new Syrian minority
Syrians form now a 20% minority in Gaziantep. Their migration has come up in just a few years time. They are called ‘brothers’ and that is not only because of the status of neighbours; they are muslims like the people of Gaziantep are. I can not prove it but walking and talking around I had a stronge sense that that matters more than ethnicity. Also, Syrians are seen as guests and their venue is expected to be temporarily, although maybe for ten or fifteen years. Future will tell how that develops.
Another thing that I can not prove, there is a new, cosmopolitan spirit in Gaziantep that would like to go back to Ottoman times where respect is shown for minorities, also religious minorities. Although there is hardly any Armenian and Jew left in town, this is always a sign of hope. We can not change the past but we might influence the future.

Links
A very interesting blog about the Liberation Mosque, (Kurtulus Camii) and the Armenians in Gaziantep’s history: a beautiful mosque …

About the restauration of the Kenderli church:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/century-old-church-now-a-culture-center-45562

Short info about the synagogue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaziantep_Synagogue

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Istanbul and souvenirs with a religious component
Maronites in Northern Cyprus

Anne Frank House Amsterdam: remembrance and reflection

Posted on November 24, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

Anne Frank House bookcase
2000 inhabitants of Amsterdam got free tickets to visit the Anne Frank House during evening hours without queues. I was lucky to be one of them: a great initiative, thanks! It was wonderful to wander through the ‘Achterhuis’ in a quiet and respectful atmosphere.
The Anne Frank House is not far from my home and I pass the long rows of tourists a few times a week or I better say: try to pass….It is always busy, noisy, not a place where you’d like to go as an inhabitant.
I think I went there once, as a child – I remember it quite well, especially the book case (on the picture) that served as protection from the entrance to the hide-out of 8 Jewish people. These people spent 2+ years there but were betrayed at the end and only one of them, the father of Anne Frank, survived the holocaust.
anne frank house quote Compared to my childhood visit many elements were added in the ‘museum’; quotes on walls or on blinded windows – short video’s from witnesses, classmates of Anne and the like. They are very impressive.
What I remember most are the words of Otto Frank on his daughter’s diary. He always felt close to his daughter but when he read her diary after the war, he realized that she never showed the deep thoughts and feelings that she wrote down. Since that moment he thinks that parents rarely know their children to the full. I guess that could be true. The way he expresses is very refined and respectful towards his daughter. I cannot write it down, you have to go visit the Anne Frank House and see that movie to understand the impression it made. And then imagine that he read that diary when she had already died (when she had already been killed). He would never have the opportunity to ask her any question any more…
Anne Frank House opening hours I really thank the Anne Frank House for this opportunity. I wonder why this does not become more usual in Amsterdam. As for me, it is not about the free ticket, but the fact that I could go at 21.00h (I came home from work only at 19.30 and had to have dinner first) and that I did not need to wait in a queue or go in with plenty of loud speaking tourists. Would it be financially difficult for musea to have similar evening offers or are they just not used to opening hours in the evening?
As for the Anne Frank House tonight, it left me with quite some emotions as we live in difficult times and the idea that ‘it could happen again’ is in the hearts and minds of many. A place for remembrance and reflection, most valuable.

Other blogs that you might find interesting:
Jewish museum Warsaw
Sderot: 15 seconds to run for your life
Mikvé Israel-Immanuel synagogue: religious pearl in orange-loving Willemstad
Grandfathers, Jews and the impulse to act

Security is your friend in Tel Aviv

Posted on July 1, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

white night

Security Tel Aviv

White Night in Tel Aviv is an enormous street festival. On balconies, in parks, on the street sides and in squares, acts, music bands, DJ’s and the like have their performance while thousands of people are passing. Security Tel Aviv: how does this city deal with that in a country where attacks on Jewish people (two more attacks on the day of White Night alone) can always be expected?
It means they have controlpoints on every street opening to festival activities. Imagine that this would be done in Amsterdam: it would give a lot of discussion and the poor security officers would have a lot to explain and to deal with. There would be rows at the controlpoints and the idea of controlpoints would prevail over the joy of the festival. Security Tel Aviv means that it is clear that security is essential and it comes first for everybody. The threat is felt as real – so security is your best friend when you go to a festival.
There is no delay at all at the controlpoints. The public acts with discipline and speed: showing quickly what they wear under their shirts, opening bags on time. The only problem I saw, was with a Dutch guy who wanted to go in with a (glass) bottle of whisky, which was not allowed… This is the most efficient security I have ever seen and this way, a festival stays pleasant under difficult and risky circumstances. Even when the average visitor might pass 5-10 controlpoints in a single evening, White Night in Tel Aviv means just high quality performances in a great atmosphere.

Other blogs you might like:
Recycling plastic: the Amsterdam or the Tel Aviv way
Grandfathers, Jews and the impulse to act
Mikvé Israel-Immanuel synagogue
Simone Veil: une vie
Jewish museum Warsaw: context

Ramallah: Jews removing Christians from Middle East

Posted on June 28, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

Ramallah is a lively and kind city. During a short trip through the city, at least five people said spontaneaously ‘welcome’ to me. Isn’t that nice? I love tourists in Amsterdam (except when they walk on the biking paths) but I never tell them ‘welcome’; maybe that is a good thing to learn from the Palestinians here! It makes life more beautiful…
Ramallah2 Ramallah is also a contradictory town where you can buy the biography of Hillary Clinton at several places as well as Mein Kampf from Hitler, both in Arabic. I met with some police officers who were nice and accepted to have their photograph taken; another spontaneous move I guess, in this region where officials usually say no.
The kindness and politeness of this city’s inhabitants is in strange contrast with the attitude as soon as ‘politics’ enter the arena. Faces become rigid, attitudes harshen, voices turn loud. The people of Ramallah and the Westbank suffer real hardship because of the Israeli occupation. They tell you heartbreaking stories about it, and you don’t want anybody to live that, themselves or with their children.
Somehow, Isreali’s or Jews are to blame for everything here. Most of all I was surprised about the story of a Christian Palestinian who said there is a Jewish plan to remove all the Christians from the Middle East – not just the Westbank – so that the Jews can have all the land and the Americans can claim that Christ was born in the US (in New Jersey for example) and not in the Middle East. When the Americans chased Saddam out of Iraq, they looted the musea of Iraq and sent all the stolen antiquities to Israel so that the real archaeological history could be wiped out. I always thought the Americans didn’t have a clear plan in case they’d win in Iraq and they just forgot to protect the musea but here they are themselves deliberately looting the musea, following a deliberate plan they have together with ‘the Jews’.
My Christian Palestinian continued by telling that the Jews left Egypt and they also left Babylon 7000 years ago and now they want this land, Palestine, for themselves. Wasn’t leaving Babylon closer to 2700 years than 7000 years ago? I am just guessing but 7000 seems way too long ago. ‘Yes’, my Christian Palestine friend says, ‘of course 2700 years ago, that is the same, they left Babylon’. I do not think that that is the same in the ligth of the discussion we are having but my view is ignored.
He thinks the Jews are behind the removal of the Christians from Iran, Iraq, Palestina, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Libanon and maybe more countries. It is evident that during the last 40 years Christians have been fleeing the Middle East and I have been quite involved in that but this is really the first time in my life that I hear someone tell that this stems from a Jewish plan. How this would serve the Jewish case is not clearly explained. What matters is that ‘they want this country from the sea untill the river since the 19th century’. The Jews crucified Jesus and now try to remove the Christians from Middle East countries. The Americans work with them because that will help them to turn Jesus into an American born citizen.
A nice conversation just turned into a conspiracy theory that divides us into two worlds… I do not know what to answer. I just remain speechless.

Sderot: 15 seconds to run for your life

Posted on June 27, 2016 by wordpressgrethe

sderot

In Sderot, people have 15 seconds to run for their life when they hear an alarm because a rocket bomb will fall on the city. Before, this alarm was a siren. At the sound of the sirens immediately everybody in the 25.000 populated city started to run for a nearby concrete shelter that is safe. Nowadays the sirens have changed for a voice telling ‘code red’, because the life-threatening rockets fell so often at Sderot that it was difficult to bear the sound of the sirens all the time. During the last 10 years, 8.000 rockets hit Sderot…
Imagine if you had to run for a rocket once a day, just once a day: how would you feel? And how alert would you be, knowing that when the signal came, you had 15 seconds to reach a safe shelter? It means you’d have to know all the shelters in the places you regularly visit and that you’d always be aware of the distance between yourself and those shelters (as 30 seconds is too late and could mean death).
sderot Nevertheless, with 25.000 people, Sderot has a shopping center. The parking lot in front of this shopping center counts 3 concrete shelters so that everybody who comes to the center can be sure to find safety on time when he/she will be surprised by a rocket while shopping. They sell nice stuff and they are really surprised when you buy a shirt but don’t speak the national language; Sderot is not a town where tourists use to pass by….
It is almost impossible to understand how this mixture of normal life and rockets effects adults ànd children in Sderot. Especially children are traumatized but also adults can be stressed and quite affected by the continuous tension. Just try to run for your life 3 times a day and see what it does to your mood, your emotions, your productivity and your hope for the future. Then imagine that you live this situation hundreds of times a year. Maybe you cannot imagine. But it is real in Sderot… since many years.

Other blogs that might interest you:
Grandfathers, Jews, and the impulse to act
Security is your friend in Tel Aviv

Jewish museum Warsaw context

Posted on January 13, 2015 by wordpressgrethe

Like most tourists I walked in the streets of Warsaw-Center and visited shops like a souvenirshop and a antiquitiesshop. Well, that was quite a surprise.
In the souvenirshop it was possible to buy magnets with symbols of Poland, like one finds magnets with canalhouses, tulips and wooden shoes in Amsterdam. One magnet was a yellow ‘Jewish’ star that mentioned ‘ghetto Warsaw’. I couldn’t believe my eyes, stood there thinking for some time considering whether I should buy it as proof.
But I did not want to buy and thus encourage such souvenirs so I ended making a secret (and not well succeeded) photograph. I am sure that this yellow star would not be sold in the Netherlands but maybe this had a different meaning for the Polish people. I asked in the Jewish museum, showing the pictures but they reacted in a very neutral way, telling that they couldn’t read that it said ‘ghetto Warsaw’ which was true of course 🙂
In the antiquitiesshop it was possible to find all kind of symbols and pamphlets from the last century: communist and anti-communist posters, lots of stuff. I even found a poster in Dutch mentioning ‘Indonesië moet bevrijd worden’ showing an Indonesian guy in chains resisting against a Japanese soldier. As said it was in Dutch and not in Indonesian, this is a real historic thing as Indonesia was freed from the Japanese but then subject to a colonial war with the Netherlands, this poster maybe symbolized that already. The shop also offered Nazi objects. The picture on top and the one below were made secretly in this shop. Maybe it was not necessary to make them secretly, I didn’t know; as a Dutch person I had the feeling that it was a risk to take those pictures but maybe it wasn’t in the Polish context.
All together this tourist street gave me many reflections about the context of the new and beautiful Jewish museum in Warsaw, Poland.

My other posts about the Jewish museum in Warsaw:
Jewish Museum Warsaw dilemmas
Jewish Museum Warsaw beauty

Grethe van Geffen

culture and diversity

Category Archives: Jewish culture / heritage