Heritage

The two concerts I attended within the last couple of weeks raised questions about my cultural heritage. Marta Sebestyen sang old Hungarian songs going back to the sixteenth century. I knew none of them, but there was a sense of the familiar in the idiom. Last night Amelia Hall played Bartok's Second Violin Concerto with Orchestra Wellington. Listening to both of these concerts made me regret the heritage that was stolen from me. My father and my grandmother wallowed in Hungarian folk music, as well as kitschy operettas and popular hits of their time. Hungarian music was an integral part of their personality. They knew hundreds of songs. My father played them all on the piano that was given to him for his Bar Mitzvah. His piano playing, his music defined him, the charming, lovable man sitting at the piano while the rest of the company danced and sang. 

Sixty people saw us off when we left Budapest on 18 October 1948, a hall full of people who attended Bartok's last concert in Budapest sang 'El indultam szep hazambol', 'I left my beautiful country behind' and this homesickness never left Bartok. It cropped up in his Concerto for Orchestra and it was foreshadowed in his Second Violin Concerto which he wrote just before he left for the United States. Unlike Bartok, I didn't leave happy, beautiful memories behind. The mid 1940s was not a happy time in Hungary. But this sense that the antisemites, the Nazis, stole my heritage lingered below the surface. When these antisemites  came to power they declared that Jews, who were so much part of Hungarian society and contributed so much to the image of Hungary, to Hungarian culture, music, literature were not real Hungarians. Serbs, Moldavian, Slovaks, Germans Romanians were all OK, real Hungarians, but Jews were an alien element. I lost this Hungarian heritage, but did not acquire a British, New Zealand heritage. Perhaps the great thing about New Zealand is that I was honored for for what I did, my contribution to the Jewish community and music. Others were recognized for their contribution to a variety ethnic or minority groups. This is something about New Zealanders that my father recognized and this is why he chose to migrate here.

Order of Merit

To say that I was flabbergasted, bowled over, when I received a letter from Government House that said that I had been nominated for membership of the New Zealand Order of Merit is an understatement. Such gongs, medals, distinctions usually go to well known personages with substantial public profiles, and perhaps, as I imagined, egos to match. Who am I, a humble retired bookseller and care giver to get such distinction. But I am very flattered. I particularly appreciate the comments from numerous people, who said how much I influenced, helped or mentored them. Often people do things, say things, that has a great impact on others without realizing this. It may be just the way I do things, the way I think of things, that sheds a new or different light on the perceptions of others. Perhaps my strength is thinking outside the box, where others see problems I see challenges, opportunities and solutions. This is how I got involvement with the establishment of the Hutt Valley Chamber music Society when the national organisation closed down the Hutt Valley series of concerts, this is how I got involved with the establishments of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, the success of which exceeded our wildest hopes and imagination. Unworthy as I deemed myself, I obviously cast a longer shadow than I was aware of and I greatly value the honour confirmed on me.

Gaza

Rabbi Donniel Hartman's Blog on the Times of Israel page describes the ambivalence that confronts everybody who is troubled by the casualties on the Gaza border, yet sees no immediate solution to the lethal confrontation. It is not that sixty people were killed in one day, or that some fifty people were killed since the beginning of the protest, had one person been killed it would have been one too many. I feel for the Israeli soldiers, one of whom may be my grandson, who are ordered to shoot to kill to prevent a breach of the Israeli border. They have to bear the burden of guilt for taking a life. Yet I don't want to contemplate the slaughter that would ensue if the militants of Gaza would breach the border and rampage through Israel. I believe in Israel's right to exist. Despite those who refuse to accept Israel's existence and want to relitigate the history of the last seventy years, Israel is there, a prosperous democratic middle-eastern country. The problem is that the hatred of Jews, the delegitimization  of Israel has no cost to the perpetrators. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the other Arab countries that waged war against the nascent State of Israel seventy years ago, put the issue of Palestinian refugees in the too hard basket. Over the years they have persecuted, murdered Palestinian refugees, isolated them from the rest of their society, resisted their absorption and assimilation, but used them to confront domestic issues that had real costs. Syria is fractured, Persia is divided with the chasm between the urban cultured Persians and the impoverished underdeveloped and superstitious countryside can only be contained by the use of force, but painting Israel as the source of the problems unifies the warring factions.  There were 13 million refugees after the Second World War, which included a million Jewish refugees, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees that fled from Arab lands. They were all absorbed over the years. The only ones who remain refugees to this day are the Palestinians, because it suited the rest of the worlds to keep them separate, keep them in refugee camps. Palestinians and Israelis could live side by side in prosperous cooperation, were it not be in the interest of others to foment this antagonism. I feel sorry for the Arab young men and some women, who in desperation seek a martyr's death in the frontier, though not for those who take their children to expose them to the danger and should they be killed in the skirmish use their death for propaganda. I feel sorry for the young Israeli soldiers who are tasked with holding back the rabble trying to breach the border. I feel for the people of Ashkelon, Ashdod, southern Israel, who would be in imminent danger should the Palestinians rampage across the border. My only hope is that by next week this confrontation will be old news, that the leaders of Hamas would think of those killed and sit down with the Israelis, the Egyptians. the Jordanians, and above all, with their brothers in Judea and Samaria and work towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict and try to achieve a better, prosperous life for their people. 

Liberal humanist ideals

Some years ago I posted a blog about the Relevance of teaching about the Holocaust. I can't remember what prompted this post, but my brother, who is also involved in Holocaust education, in Japan, recalled it, and now. I shared it with volunteers and educators at the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand. It is now posted among the Blogs on its website. It prompted the question by one of my respected senior colleagues asking me what I meant by "embracing the liberal humanist ideals that permeated Western culture". It is a fair question. If I can't explain it to a high school student  it has no meaning for educators. Perhaps I should only use the term “humanist”, the word “liberal” is redundant except in so far it refers to the concept of freedom as understood in the last 300 years, but “humanist' means for me some specific ideas.

• It asserts the right of every human being, as distinct from the group the individual belongs to. Every human being is valued, respected and has rights not as a member of a group, a nation, an ethnic group, a class, or rank, but as a discreet individual.
• Knowledge is based on empirical experience, not on dogma. Knowledge is not absolute and unchangeable, it needs to be constantly evaluated in light of empirical evidence.

I don't know whether this clarifies what I wrote. It is open to discussion, and like most of the things I assert, to argument. So bring it on. Let's argue. That is part of the privilege implied  "humanism".

Paul Wah's Thin slice of heaven

I have known Paul Wah for something like sixty years. I can't recall whether it was Teachers' College or university, but we go back many years. Our paths have crossed from time to time. When I received an invitation to the launch of his new book A thin slice of heaven, I looked forward to meeting there some people from my long distant past. Paul published his autobiography Wooden man Stone Heart five years ago. It traced his story from the grocer's boy in a small Taranaki town to his very successful career in education. For the last five years he worked on his historical novel that had probably certain parallels with the story of his own great-grandfather and grandfather. A Chinese immigrant, a successful merchant in New Zealand, goes back to the village in China he came from and takes his grandson with him to give him a Chinese education. There the grandson is abducted by bandits. A lot of cowboys and Indians murder, mayhem and bloodshed enhances the action, but in the end the grandson is saved, the ransom money is not called on, and grandfather and grandson return to peaceful prosperous New Zealand. There are vivid descriptions of the simple life and poverty in the Chinese village, as well as the breakdown of law and order. For the villagers, New Zealand is the Golden Mountain. But there is a dark side to the lives of Chinese in New Zealand, gambling and opium, which ruined the business that the grandfather bequeathed to his son. 

It took five years for Paul to research and write this book. He explained that he wrote it for the Chinese children of a younger generation in New Zealand to tell them about their roots and heritage. I, as a Jewish immigrant saw parallels between the stories of Chinese and Jewish immigrants. Being like everyone else, assimilating, had a price to pay. The looked down on  tailor in the back street tailoring shop, or the garment worker, the hawker trying to make a living from the back of a cart, the labourer working long hours too make a living and get out of poverty and give his children a better chance in life, was probably a man learned in Talmud, speaking five languages, but with an accented version of the the Queens or the BBC's English. In many ways, the Chinese became the new Jews. The former image of the Chinaman, who for my grandmother was synonymous with the greengrocer became in this generation the image of the doctor, the successful lawyer, the brilliant musician, the overachiever, and the Chinese mother became the Tiger Mother, the driven Jewish mother of a generation ago. The great difference is that the descendant of Chinese immigrants has a village in China to go back to, where remnants of his family history is still remembered. The roots of the Jewish immigrants have been almost without exception annihilated, destroyed, and the people in these places had betrayed their Jewish neighbours that had so enriched their world. 

Refugees in South Tel Aviv

Refugees are a world wide problem. This week's discussion that Rabbi Mizrahi organised focused on Israel's refugee problem. Ann Beaglehole outlined the international convention on refugees, who is a refugee, a displaced person, an economic refugee, and all the other terms used for people who for one reason or another had to get away from their homeland. There are some 50,000 refugees in South Tel Aviv. Most of them are from Africa, predominantly from Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia. Many of them had been there for some years. There are no more arriving because Israel put in place a border fence and came to an agreement with Egypt whereby Egyptians shoot refugees on sight. Now Israel is negotiating with Rwanda and Uganda to take the refugees already in Israel. Why someone who fled one of the war turn countries in Africa would want to give up a relatively peaceful life in Israel to move to yet another unstable country in Africa is a question Israeli politicians do not address. All over the world, refugees are useful punching bags for politicians who face difficult problems that they want to divert attention from. Don't worry about public corruption, concern yourself about the problems of getting rid of 50,000 benighted, impoverished, harassed Africans in Tel Aviv. Israel of course has a vast wealth of experience in settling refugees. These refugees make up the fibre of Israeli society. But these were refugees who were more or less Jewish, or claimed to be Jewish. They were not necessarily upright, moral citizens. Some were criminals and introduced international crime to a country that was largely proud of its ethical record. The Halacha is clear, the strangers among you have to be accepted and accorded rights. Ann suggested that the answer to the refugee problem is to convert them all, let them be Jewish refugees. Arguing that the treatment of refugees in israel is not worse than it is in many countries of Europe or the treatment of boat people by Australia is an argument hard to accept. Israel is a country of refugees and must do better than others.

Taika Waititi and racism

Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen described New Zealand as a racist country (DomPost April 10, A5) and undoubtedly racial profile occurs. People have their mindset about Maoris, Polynesians, Chinese, Indians, Africans, Middle Easterns, and these mindsets are not based on personal experiences or scientific knowledge, they are received opinions from  elders, mates, people around. Does mispronouncing Maori place names amount to racism? After all a generation earlier people, including such notable people as the conductor, Thomas Beecham, made a point of mispronouncing German and French names. Perhaps this was part of a British ethos, a snobbish pride in not being too intellectual, too smart for their own goods, characteristics associated with Europeans, and particularly Central European Jews. Anglicising European names somehow implied British and New Zealand superiority. Not even attempting to utter unfamiliar names, was a way of putting people in special boxes marked 'different'. Mispronouncing Maori names is in this category. But is it racism? When talking of racism Taika Cohen doesn't mention that he is Jewish. Jews know more about racism than most, but he doesn't mention antisemitism.  Is it because antisemitism is totally absent in New Zealand? I doubt it. It is just that New Zealand society is accepting, taking people as their are with all their different ways. Put the odd derogatory remark down to ignorance, put it down to ingrained prejudice, a relic from an older, obsolete social order. Shrug the odd racist incident off. Racial prejudice is ingrained in humans. Don't make a big thing of it provided it does not involve violence, or legal and economic discrimination.