My online friend Erin at Queen of Spain recently implored other bloggers to write about something that is important to them. I'm sitting in the airport in LA watching TV and all that is on are stories about the situation in Israel. I am scared. I don't know what will happen. I know that Israel is not perfect, and I do not agree with many of their policies, but I have been there twice now and I find most Israelis to be interested in sharing the land; they will support a two state solution. I think about my family. My dad was born in the Ural mountains in Russia in 1946 to two Holocaust survivors. They went to Warsaw not long after my dad was born to look for my grandfather's family. There was no one left. Not one sister (of six), not one niece or nephew, not one brother-in-law (although recently I found that one did live and I made contact with his family in Israel and Paris; they are wonderful). Not one friend. I think about what I would do if I lost every single person I ever loved. It is utterly overwhelming to me. (I have been thinking about writing about my family for a long time now, thanks to the encouragement of Eddie. Both Erin and Eddie are right, and I will do so in more depth this week.)
My grandparents and my dad lived in displaced persons' camps for five years. They thought they would go to Israel. No one else wanted them; no one wanted more Jews.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Jews really did cease to exist. Who would be scapegoated in our place?
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I cannot describe the overwhelming satisfaction I get in finding out the life stories of my ancestors and relatives. I think yours would even be more so, for what they had to go through.
ReplyDeletehave you ever read MAUS by Art Speigelman? It makes me cry.
ReplyDeleteOOps - I mean - damn jews.
Thanks for accepting and writing. And WOW. What a post. It amazes me how large and scary the whole world can be sometimes...and then how very small and intimate. I mean, here the Middle East is exploding, and yet we can find time to take a shower and shave. YET, then we think about our relatives, ancestors, etc.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, is really what I was trying to say.