Houdini, Mata Hari, and Lynn Jenner's imagination

Lynn Jenner was guest speaker last week at the L'Dor va Dor session at the Jewish Community Centre, and I was asked to introduce her. I knew little about Lynn Jenner, her book, Dear Sweet Harry was published after I completed my essay on New Zealand Jewish Writers in Jewish Lives in New Zealand. I checked her out. She started writing late in life after a career as a psychologist and school counsellor. She completed a Master's degree in creative writing at the International School of Letters at Victoria University, and Dear Sweet Harry was the product of that programme. To the uninitiated like me, who has not kept up with trends in modern literature the book immediately raised questions about the nature of poetry. Is a collage of anecdotes, documents, hearsay poetry? Whatever it is, the book is compulsive reading. In an interview with Guy Somerset in the Listener Lynn explained that 'I am usually writing in order to find out what it is about this thing that is drawing me to it and fascinating me'. She wrote about Houdini, Mata Hari, Katherine Mansfield and her grandfather, Harry. What fascinated her was getting inside the skins of these people, putting flesh on the bones, expanding the details we know about them, without imposing her own explanation on these, It is the juxtaposition of real and invented historical evidence in a way to provoke questions and elicit insight that make this collection fascinating. This is a goulas of biography, history, fiction and documents that make up this collection, which as one reviewer said, is greater than the sum of its parts.

The creation of Israel – Causes and Consequences

We keep facing new challenges at the Holocaust Centre. Yesterday a large group of senior students from Marlborough Girls College, Blenheim, came to look at the history topic they are studying, the “The creation of Israel – Cause and consequences”. The New Zealand school curriculum is not prescriptive, the focus is on interpretive skills, the topic is “Causes and Consequences of an important world event”. We keep learning, extending our teaching repertoire. This is a topic we have never been asked about before. Israel is a contentious topic, and in principle we don't want to get involved in political discussions, we don't want to appear to be apologists for the Zionist cause, yet we cannot dodge issues as they come up. My approach was to show the DVD about Sosha Galler, in which she talks about growing up in an assimilated well off comfortable middle class home in pre-war Poland, and after the German occupation witnessing her father being shot, then living in the ghetto, surviving Auschwitz as a fifteen year old girl, returning to her home town after the war to find that almost all her family had been killed, and them moving to Israel, where she joined the army and regained her self-esteem, met her husband and eventually moved to New Zealand. It is a very powerful film. It was as clear an account of the causes of the establishment of Israel as you could get. I then talked about growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, where people would talk daily about someone who 'came back' or 'didn't come back'. It required no explanation, one survived, the other was killed or died. Every day, as an eleven or twelve year old I would read in the newspapers about atrocities, some involving people I knew. So when our teacher, Marton Beno, at the Jewish Gimnazium, told us the story of Bar Kochba, the Jewish resistance fighter, who took on the Romans and fought back, his story resonated with us and sucked us into the Zionist movement. I asked Rick, son of two Holocaust survivors in Cleveland to talk about what attracted him to Israel at the age of 16 we didn't have to labour the point, the causes of the establishment of Israel was clear. There were a few questions, one of them about the way Holocaust survivors were accepted in Israel, but there was no discussion. Politics didn't seem relevant. 

A Labour budget by a National Government

Giving beneficiaries extra money, taxing wealthy property speculators, taking away Kiwi Saver subsidy from people who can already afford to put money aside is not the budget you would expect from a libertarian left leaning government. Perhaps John Key and Bill English are old fashioned socialists disguised as Tories. Politics is about hand-outs from the public purse. A government that is elected for only a three year tenure cannot make fundamental changes. The big talking point is the budget surplus or the absence of it. In three years time when new elections are due the government promises a budget surplus and tax cuts. In the meantime issues that hold back New Zealand's economic and social development, and the two go hand in hand,are put on hold. The 'rock star' economy that politicians boasted about looks a bit tired with the fall of milk prices. There is little else that offers hope of more prosperity. Issues of income inequality, a minimum wage that people can't live on and has to be subsidised by the tax payer, an unemployment rate stuck on 6% plus, uneven regional development with productive facilities lying idle all over the country while Auckland can't cope with its growth, poverty, crime and the inefficient delivery of rehabilitation programmes, the impact of poverty and the booze culture on health expenditure are all left in the too hard political basket. To make matters worse, the politician opposition, Labour, seem bereft of ideas about the way forward. Perhaps the next couple of years will give them the opportunities to put their thinking caps on and focus on long term goals about making New Zealand a better, fairer and more prosperous society.

Talking of Genocide

Yesterday I had the privilege of talking to 25 Year 12 students of St Oran's College. They are studying 'Genocide', any topic to do with Genocide, for their NCEA assignment. They were not particularly focussed on the Holocaust, but their teacher was one of the teachers who advised the Holocaust Centre on how to teach the Holocaust within the New Zealand school curriculum. The term 'Genocide' and the whole question of understanding genocide within a Holocaust context bothers me. Where do I start? How do I start? I began by showing the short film we have about Holocaust survivors in which I make a cameo appearance. This gave the girls a chance to settle down, get their breath back after walking from the new War Memorial park to our Centre. It also gave us the opportunity to prompt some questions. These questions enabled me to get to know the students better, explore ideas, and help them to think about their assessments. The girls were studying a wide range of genocides: the Ukranian famine, Rwanda, the Armenian genocidal, Pol Pot, perhaps Serbia and Kosovo, and interestingly, the slaughter of Tasmanian Aborigines. One of the girls asked me about medical experiments in Auschwitz, not a nice subject. This lead the discussion on to the topic of inferior races that can be treated as less than human. Inevitably, because I was taking the session, and because they came to the Holocaust Centre, I touched on racial theory and the corruption of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution, but I also pointed out the difference between the Holocaust and other so called genocides. Genocides happened between neighbours, and the killing takes place where the conflict occurs, whereas the murder of Jews was not, by and large, executed by neighbours, but by outside authorities. There were certainly exceptions, Romanian fascists killed their Jewish neighbours in the centre of Bucharest, Hungarian Arrow Cross shot some Jews in the streets of Budapest, Polish villagers killed their Jewish neighbours in their local village even before the German troops arrived, but compared with the vast numbers killed, these were exceptions. The norm was that people in Amsterdam, Thessalonika, Byalistok, Berlin and all parts of German occupied Europe were put on trains, delivered to camps purposely designed to murder people and were killed there. We had the opportunity to explore the nature of genocide, and found that differences of race, genes, hardly came into it. Ukrainians died not because they were Ukrainians, but because they were peasants attached to their land and were not prepared to join collectives as demanded by Stalin's Five Year Plan and forced collectivisation, The Hutus murdered Tutsis not because they were a different race, but because of perceived different tribal traditions. Pol Pot murdered people to purify society, get rid of colonial and capitalist strains, Yugoslavs, South Slavs murdered each other for religious differences and different historical memories. One of the issues, I suggested, that the girls had to do in addressing the question of genocide is to unscramble the meaning of the term. Perhaps the only true genocide we talked about was the hunting of Tasmanian Aborigines. It was a source of great satisfaction that at my age I had the opportunity of sharing thoughts with a roomful of 16 – 17 year olds. They thanked me for sharing my life with them, I said that sharing is a two sided affair and thanked them for listening to me. 

Into the Storm

The concert by the NZ Symphony Orchestra last Saturday was one of the few concerts this year I could go to. Most of the other concerts are on Friday nights and I don't go out on Friday nights. It was thrilling to hear this large orchestra play at full blast. The programme appealed, Britten and Sibelius, music not heard that often. I don't recall ever hearing the Britten Violin Concerto. It was an excellent concert, much praised in today's review in the DominionPost. But I was dismayed by the many empty seats. It is a great privilege to have a symphony orchestra of such standard in a small city like Wellington, and we need to treasure this. It would be sad to see the audience gradually dwindle and provide reason to the Philistines to do away with such a cultural icon. But I have to question the programming and the promotion. The concert was promoted as Into the Storm. To me this sounds like a meaningless term, dreamed up by some advertising guru with no appreciation and little understanding of music. If I go to a concert I go because I want music that would challenge me, broaden my cultural horizon, not because a picturesque advertising label caught my fancy.. I want to gain an understanding of what music is all about. These disparate works may or may not have had anything to do with Storm. There may be some rationale in throwing them together into a programme of music of the first half of the Twentieth Century, although this rationale is not obvious to me. Some years ago we used to have two series of subscription concerts in Wellington: one of popular mainstream classics which are essential repertoire for anyone who is new to classical music, the other of challenging, less familiar works for those who want to explore new vistas and broaden their appreciation of music. The popular series was always virtually sold out, the less familiar series was well supported and only sold out if some celebrated soloist or conductor was on the stage. We have regressed since those days. We are pandering to PR experts and advertising specialists who think that we can only reach a broader audience by dumbing down our offerings and sticking catchy labels on them. It is instructive to look at the website of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for tips on programme building and ways of adding value to the concert experience.

Floods in the Hutt Valley

The Hutt Valley was under water yesterday. Aerial photos show whole suburbs inundated, water where there were streets and gardens. The highway by the Petone ramp and railway station was one raging river. Such floods are not everyday occurrences. The last time we remember such a flood was in 1976, soon after we moved into our new house. The garden was a scene of devastation. It was also just before Christmas, a day that should have been one of our best trading days. The trade was washed out and we probably never made up for lost business. Now however our house and garden stood up to the storm. We had a slight leak in our family room, possibly because the guttering was blocked, but more likely because the storm water drain just couldn't cope with the deluge. Much of the garden was under water, but we were cosy inside the house. I thought of the settlers who arrived on the first immigrant ship, the Aurora, on 22 January 1840. No sooner did they disembark and start to get themselves sorted out than the Hutt River flooded. Most of the 1000 settlers packed up and moved across the harbour and set up camp in Thorndon. The downpour this time brought to mind the plight of those settlers. After a harrowing three month voyage they arrived in a picturesque harbour, surrounded by lush vegetation, a place full of promise. Then shortly after, they faced a flood that drove them out, a shattering disappointment, with no way back, no chance of retreat. They had to face the challenges of nature, the suspicion that they were ripped off by New Zealand Company, and the threat of touchy and at time hostile Maori. The fortitude that was required to dig in, make the most of their opportunities, and build their own paradise was brought home by this recent storm.

Ethiopian riot in Rabin Square

They riot in Baltimore, in Ferguson, in Washington, in Los Angeles, and I think 'How terrible!' But they are goyim, they are different. Ethiopian Jews rioting in Tel Aviv is something different. It touches me more immediately. What were the two policemen thinking when they beat the Ethiopian soldier that sparked these riots? What was the Ethiopian soldier doing? It is easy to understand that Ethiopians feel disadvantaged, discriminated. They come, after all, from a world so different from that of the Ashkenazi Israelis. Their poverty, their isolation is so far removed from the baggage of European Jews, or even Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, a baggage stuffed with memories of persecution and murder and a sense of resilience. Davke, they tried to kill us but we will show them that we are not so easy to annihilate. The deep historical roots of Ethiopian Jews do not prepare them for the life they found in Israel. But nor were the impoverished shtetl Jews prepared for the society of assimilated Central and Western European Jews. The Hungarians, the Germans, the Sabras, looked down on the Polishers. They were noisy, their manners were uncouth, they were persistent, dragged you into their shops to sell you something. This was not how cultured Europeans behaved. And they had old fashioned medieval beliefs. They withdrew into closed circles that reproduced the shtetl environment they knew. They were an embarrassment to those who over a few generations left that environment behind. But there was a degree of empathy, and a large degree of charity that linked all the diverse different Jews. When Israelis offered the Jews of Ethiopia a refuge, a home in Israel, it was this spirit that underpinned it. We are all different, but we are all Jews, a persecuted minority linked with an attachment to the Torah. I am sure that the Ethiopian Israeli soldier who arrived in Israel as a seven year old orphan had his dreams that involved being like everybody else around him. He joined the army and he was no longer an Ethiopian, he was an Israeli soldier. Whatever occasioned the assault on him must have dented his dream and aspirations. The story goes that when someone told Dizengoff, the mayor of old Tel Aviv that a murder had occurred in the newly found city, he said thank God, we are like all other people. We don't want to be like all the goyim in Baltimore. We must not be like all other people.

Tories and Whigs – a conversation with my grandson

One of the great privileges of old age is that I can have heated discussions with my thirteen year old grandson that remind me of myself as a thirteen year old, except that my grandson is a true Tory while I was a staunch communist. My grandson was delighted with the Tory electoral victory in the UK. This laid down a challenge for me to present a contrary view. By nature I am a contrarian who enjoys a good argument. So I put to him that the libertarian ethos that underpins the values of the British Conservative Party, and generally conservative politics the world over is founded on a Protestant world view, a direct link to God who rewards hard work, sober living and frugality with worldly riches. This ethos of individualism is contrary to the basis of civilization. Civilization is based on the cooperative efforts of the whole society. It is the belief that the greatest good for all is paramount. Greed is bad. The myth is that capitalism rewards the efforts of the hard working individual, but in reality no matter how hard an individual works his rewards will never match the rewards of someone with a little capital to invest who buys a house in Auckland or London and on-sells it six months later making a huge profit, which then he can reinvest in similarly profitable ventures. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates didn't make their obscene fortunes by sheer hard work but by monopolistic business strategies and by blocking or limiting competition. Aggregating wealth in the hands of a tiny minority is bad for the economy. Spread wealth across the earnings of 'hard working individuals' it is spent and benefits the whole economy, but in the hands of the super-rich wealth either lies idle or is spent on frivolity, super-yachts, luxuries with inflated values, and of course on political clout to enshrine their privileged position. Politicians on the left should concentrate on addressing income inequality, and achieving a more equitable distribution of the wealth through fairer taxation, taxing not only the hard-working individual but also taxing income generated by speculative profits and those earned  from the benefits of social infrastructure. I suppose that to achieve this they have to re-think the basis of taxation and welfare distribution. The fact that at present, with libertarian thinking holding sway, such measures may be political unpalatable doesn't mean that they should not form part of the political debate.

The generosity of the Jews of Auckland

There were not many Jews in Auckland in the 1840s, but then there were not that many people either. The good citizens of Auckland collected funds for the "Sufferers at Wellington and Cook Strait" in December 1848. The list of donors that appeared in the newspapers included a number of Jews among the 86 names: Joel Polack, a few Keesings [6], Nathans [2],  Ashers, Hart, Hyam Josephs, Newman, perhaps also some others. Jews were an influential and significant part of the the population of Auckland of the 1840s. The population of Auckland grew into a city of some million people, but now Jews form an tiny insignificant proportion of these. They punch above their weight, their influence is still significant, but their community as part of world Jewry did not keep apace with the growth of the city's population. Is it because these early settlers did not bring enough of their Jewish cultural baggage with them, or failed to transmit this cultural baggage to their children and grandchildren in a meaningful way, or was it just too difficult, the burden of the mitzvot, the keeping of the commandments too great, or was it a little of all these? Perhaps the question we should ask is not why there are not more Jews in Auckland, but why are there any at all? What does it say about being Jewish in a society that is so tolerant that it does not matter whether you are Jewish or belong to any other faith and culture. Opting out was an easy choice for Jews in New Zealand. It is opting in that was a challenge. For the future of Jewish life in New Zealand it is the choice of opting in that we should look at. There are those who see the merit of Jewish life, culture and values, and seek conversion. But there are many, an unquantifiable number, who don't need conversion, just an appreciation of their heritage and its vast richness. For historical comparison in 1886 there were 6000 Jews in Johannesburg, about the current number in New Zealand, Now there are about 50,000, even after many had left.