Bearing Witness: A Window Closes

I thought it was risky expecting college students to give up a Friday night and come to Hillel, the Jewish Student Center, to hear a Holocaust survivor. We usually invite speakers during the week and had already held two ceremonies, one on the SFSU campus. But sometimes you hold events just because they are popular, and sometimes: something needs to be said.

A student requested that we invite her grandfather, who has a tragic but amazing story. I was stunned to see our small family house fill with over 80 students. People stood along the walls, sat on the stairs and all listened in silence as Herbert Heller told how he was ordered as a boy to take some laundry for a guard’s son, and instead put them on and walked out the camp and escaped.

Herbert Heller talks with a student

He told us of coming to America and trying to live a fulfilling life without hate and guilt guiding his every step. His voice was quiet and clear. He was not a polished speaker, which only served to make the experience so much more genuine. He was one of our friend’s grandfather. He could have been anyone’s grandfather.

I walked around afterwards asking students if this was their first time hearing a Holocaust survivor and why they had come. I was particularly interested in a small group of students I had never seen; a group that I decided was probably not Jewish. They had been invited by two Jewish students when they had heard these students talking about how important this was to them, they had felt a clear sense of purpose that this was something they wanted to experience.

The common response I received was that a sense of urgency, that a window is closing on the opportunity to hear first-hand accounts of the Holocaust. There is a genuine concern among millennials, who are fueled by a sense of justice and order, that the Holocaust will become just another massacre of a people in a long historical list of shame on humanity, but a page in a history book, nonetheless.

Gloria Lyon, San Francisco resident.

I fear for our ability to keep telling the story. I believe we must each find the opportunity to meet and hear a Holocaust survivor, especially if this someone is a family member.

Two 18-21 year old students said to me separately (paraphrasing): You have the opportunity to bring this amazing man to speak to me, but what will I do in order to pass on the story to my children, to my grandchildren?

We need to hear the story. As Elie Wiesel said: we need to bear witness. When these students sit down with their children and grandchildren, they will begin their story with:

“One Friday night I met this amazing man and he told me his story…”

—————————————————————————————————–

Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.

.

Survival – No Matter How

Unwanted Heroes was much longer before my editor got his hands on it. A number of chapters were cut because they do not directly move the plot along. They seem to have something in common – my desire to show the many facets of San Francisco. I began sharing these passages with you last Wednesday and would like to share another one here.

There is nothing here that spoils anything in the book – which probably vindicates the editor’s decision to cut them!

They sit in the corner of our coffee shop every day. They are old and somewhat withered, but they exude a mature and vibrant vitality that has a unique influence on our young staff.

He invariably wears a dark blue woolen hat, sturdy glasses and sports a full gray beard. All this partially hides a wrinkled, weather-beaten face and I fancy he could be a retired captain having spent a life at sea. He wears thick sweaters; today’s is dark brown and his training shoes are white, complimenting his beard.

She also sports gray but wavy hair. She wears comfortable corduroy trousers and often removes her Birkenstocks and curls her legs up under her or folded in front of her. She seems to possess an array of hoodies, all zip-fronted. The frames of her eyeglasses are thin and compliments waves of majestic wrinkles that line her face.

What makes this couple special? It is not that they are regulars, not that they always drink non-fat lattes, always ordered with a request from him to ensure the coffees come hot to which she lovingly rolls her eyes. It is not the single scone they order and carefully share.

It is the dynamics between them: the intimacy, the comfort. I watch as they share photographs. They never sit opposite each other with a table between them, but always gravitate to a corner where they sit on the bench that hugs the wall, close together with their backs on the red wood rest.

She has an arm around his shoulders and they enjoy close conversation. Nothing is forced. If there is silence, it is also shared and comfortable. But they are often talking and laughing. I am sure they have their aches and pains, their trials and disappointments, but there is always time to laugh, always time to share a loving gaze.

How do they keep it up? When does it cease to be new and fresh? They have been together forever, have children, grandchildren and maybe great grandchildren, but their focus is always on each other; their relationship is the anchor, the calm in the eye of the storm.

They have reached Budddahood, perfection. And they have achieved this by simply being together, by sharing the photos, the memories, by sharing the moment.

We are a young staff at The Daily Grind, all single, constantly vigil as we seek our own soul mates. We all observe this couple from behind the counter or when we clean around the café. We know their names and they remember snippets of our lives that they allow us to share with them. We are all silently asking the question.

We are their children, their grandchildren. We can be because they have enough space to share a bit of their Buddahood with every soul they come into contact with.

            *                                    *                                    *                                    *

It was a rainy day in January. Still no sign, no indication of Spring around the corner. Twain’s coldest winter was a summer in San Francisco, but he never braved a winter by the bay. The wimp! It is a tough time of the year. Christmas is over, gone long enough for people to return to their resilient regimes, but not long enough to forget the season of goodwill. We seek a glint in each other’s eyes, but they are glazed over now.  Eyes open, but shut.

The morning rush is behind us now and the place is completely empty of customers. I wrestle to clean an intricate and generally forgotten part of the Beast – our nickname for the Italian coffee machine that Mr. Tzu is extremely proud of. When he imported it from the old country, it was the only one of its kind in the New World.

I am so absorbed in my struggle that I am not aware of the door opening. Tabitha elbows me hard and I bang my head as I rise sharply. My pain is soon forgotten and the entire staff are now frozen to their spots and watching her.

She approaches the counter slowly, cautiously. Her head is bowed; she is defeated. Tabitha walks around and opens her arms to hug her. No words; it is clear. Their absence had been remarked upon over the last few days, but the inclement weather was assumed to be the culprit.

Now we know the weather is not to blame. I clear my throat. Even the most experienced barista is never experienced enough, but the responsibility falls to me. 

“A non-fat latte, extra hot?”

She nods. Now cones the hardest part. Will she or won’t she? She just takes the latte and shuffles, yes shuffles, to a table in the middle. It is not the one in the corner and it should not be. It was a brave enough act just to enter the store.

She sits and for a moment gazes over to the corner. The she picks up her coffee and sips. Returning the cup to the table, she reaches into a bag and pulls out a book to read. I see a slight shake in her grip that I had never noticed before.

Tabitha takes off her apron and makes herself a coffee. Usually, she would ask me if she could take a break, even this close to break time. But she takes her coffee and a plate, on which she puts a scone and two forks. Then she walks over and sits opposite the old woman.                                                                                                                                               

Words are exchanged and the old woman briefly smiles. They begin eating the scone together and Tabitha is talking. At one point they both go to take a piece of the scone and their forks clash. Her head suddenly sinks. This is the difference. She would always be able to find someone to share a scone with, but after all these years the forks had been synchronized. The synchronicity has gone, forever.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, strike him down. We are deep in the grasps of winter and, even in this most beautiful of cities, it is cold and lonely. Even here, the Buddha has not tarried.

I walk over to the table and pull up a chair. I take her hand in both of mine and squeeze gently. I swallow, not sure what to say. I stammer:

“My grandparents were together for more than sixty years. They were very different from you. She always seemed to be telling him off and criticizing him. He had an arsenal of cutting responses. My sister once asked my mother why they stayed together all this time if they couldn’t get on.

“My mother replied that it was just their way of communicating, that they had stood by each other through many crises and upheavals. She told us that they were really very much in love. I tried to understand this, but even as a boy I knew that theirs was not the relationship I would seek.

“When my grandfather died, my grandmother put on a brave face for a few months. But then she withered away, before our very eyes. As she lay on her deathbed, she told my mother not to mourn her as she was going to join my grandfather and was looking forward to seeing him. She was going to let him have it for leaving her behind after all these years.                                                                                                                                    “But it seemed wrong to us. We were kids. It seemed like she was leaving us, leaving her daughters and grandchildren and all those she had touched in her charity work at the church.

“I guess she couldn’t survive without him. I’m just trying to tell you that you have a lot of people here who love you and still need you; your family, friends, us.”

She smiles and squeezes my hand. Then she pulls up her sleeve to reveal her forearm. Her voice takes on a steelier edge.

“I will survive. It is tattooed onto my body, engraved into my psyche. I can do nothing else, for it would betray the memories of my people. We are survivors.”

Then she covers her arm back up and pats my hand.

“And you have a shop to take care of, customers and a lovely staff.” She forces a tight smile. “And this coffee wasn’t hot enough!”

Gloria Lyon, San Francisco resident.

—————————————————————————————————–

Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.  

Remembering Ilan Ramon

Sometimes it is hard to forget that Israel is such a tiny country. It takes six hours to drive from the most northern point to the southern border with Egypt. I’m told you can fit 250 States of Israel into Texas. Our population is considerably smaller than New Jersey.

So when one of us excels in something we are all proud. I remember Maccabi Tel Aviv winning the European Basketball Championship or when Israeli soldiers rescued the prisoners at Entebbe.

So you can forgive us getting extremely excited when one of our own was chosen to fly into space – to boldly go where no Israeli has gone before.

Ilan Ramon was chosen to join the ill-fated space shuttle payload specialist of STS-107, the fatal mission of Columbia, in which he and six other crew members were killed in the re-entry accident.

He was a man acutely aware of his place in history and the weight of his people on his shoulders. Ramon asked the 1939 Club, a Holocaust survivor organization in Los Angeles, for a symbol of the Holocaust to take into outer space with him. A barbed wire mezuzah by the San Francisco artist Aimee Golant was selected.

Against all odds, or perhaps a divine act, several pages of his journal impossibly survived. Curator Yigal Zalmona said: “The diary survived extreme heat in the explosion, extreme atmospheric cold, and then “was attacked by microorganisms and insects. It’s almost a miracle that it survived — it’s incredible. There is ‘no rational explanation’ for how it was recovered when most of the shuttle was not, he said.”^[

Ramon wrote on the last day of the journal: “Today was the first day that I felt that I am truly living in space. I have become a man who lives and works in space.”

An entire nation mourned the tragedy. Three days later my second son was born. Asif Ilan never knew his namesake, but he proudly tells people of the man he was named after ten years ago, a man who reached for the stars.

We remember Ilan Ramon.

—————————————————————————————————–

Alon Shalev writes social justice-themed novels and YA epic fantasy. He swears there is a connection. His latest books include: Unwanted Heroes and At The Walls Of Galbrieth. Alon tweets at @alonshalevsf and @elfwriter.

.

Remembering Blair Peach

I was fifteen years old when he died. I don’t think I had even met him, but I might have. We had participated in the same demonstrations. We had shared the same political agenda. Yet I took his death hard and it left its mark on me to this day.

Blair Peach and many other Englishmen and women were demonstrating against the unthinkable. Not even four decades had passed before Hitler’s Nazi army were massing on the Normandy shores to invade Britain, not forty years since six million of my people, a third of all the Jews on earth, had been murdered in the Holocaust.

And now the British National Party (might have still been called the National Front) was making alarming gains in local elections. As they marched through immigrant neighborhoods, many of us swelled the ranks of the Anti-Nazi League.

I had been brought up to trust the police. “If you get lost,” my mother drilled into me, “find a policeman. He’ll help you.” The neighborhood bobby was still a British value.

And yet, as I stood in the demonstration, preventing the Nazis from marching, the police charged us. I will never forget the one who punched me in the face. I had learned early to duck and weave. My school wasn’t in the nicest neighborhood and I was Jewish, with friends who were black, Asian and Irish. I just never expected a policeman to pop one at me without cause and then look on with no apology. To this day, I fear the uniform.

But Blair Peach, a man who had dedicated himself to teaching kids in a public school for children with special needs was not so lucky.  On April 2nd, 1979, he was pulled from the demonstration by members of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Patrol Group, and beaten unconscious. He  never woke and died 24 hours later. The  next day, over 10,000 of us took to the streets. Disband the SPG (Special Patrol Group) became our mantra. A huge cover up ensued. SPG members shaved their hair, mustaches and every uniform was laundered the next day before any evidence could be found. Many SPG officers, however, were members of the Nazi Party and used unauthorized weapons such as baseball bats, crowbars, and sledgehammers. No apology was ever given, no one brought to trial for police brutality.

I share this as the police patrol the streets of Cairo. I vividly remember an US army officer, flown in to take charge of the army in New Orleans after Katrina, yelling at his troops to put their weapons down. “We don’t turn them on our own citizens,” he barked.

A police officer, a soldier, like any one else has the right to defend him/herself when their safety is threatened. There is no other justification to use violence on anybody.

Blair Peach should be thinking of retirement right now, at the end of a distinguished career, giving four decades of himself to his students. They were denied him, his family were denied him and the police brutality that killed him is still being denied.

——————————————————————————————————

Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com

 

The N Word Revisted

A couple of days ago I wrote about the controversy surrounding the new edition of Mark Twain’s The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn that has changed the N-word for slave.

I wrote that I wasn’t comfortable as it is not for a white person to decide how a person of color feels when they hear the word in the context of literature. I have been thinking about this ever since. Before I share my own thoughts, I want to give the floor to Suzanna La Rosa, co-founder and publisher of NewSouth Books. While admitting their offices have been flooded with negative e-mails and phone calls, she states:

“We didn’t undertake this lightly. If our publication fosters good discussion about how language affects learning and certainly the nature of censorship, then difficult as it is likely to be, it’s a good thing.”

Others, however, have attacked the publishers for “censorship” and “political correctness,” or simply for the perceived sin of altering the words of a literary icon. The hefty “Autobiography of Mark Twain,” published last year, has become a best seller.

English teachers have also expressed their objection to the idea of cleaning up the novel. Elizabeth Absher, an English teacher at South Mountain High School in Arizona, says:

“I’m not offended by anything in ‘Huck Finn.’ I am a big fan of Mark Twain, and I hear a lot worse in the hallway in front of my class.”

Ms. Absher does not teach ‘Huck Finn’ because it is a long book. She does, however teach many of  Twain’s short stories and makes “Huck Finn” available for students.

“I think authors’ language should be left alone,” she said. “If it’s too offensive, it doesn’t belong in school, but if it expresses the way people felt about race or slavery in the context of their time, that’s something I’d talk about in teaching it.”

In another New York Times editorial, That’s Not Twain, the opinion was made very clear.

“When “Huckleberry Finn” was published, Mark Twain appended a note on his effort to reproduce “painstakingly” the dialects in the book, including several backwoods dialects and “the Missouri negro dialect.” What makes “Huckleberry Finn” so important in American literature isn’t just the story, it’s the richness, the detail, the unprecedented accuracy of its spoken language. There is no way to “clean up” Twain without doing irreparable harm to the truth of his work.”

I am not going into the sanctity of literature or the censorship of authors. There is plenty of such reactions on the blogosphere. But, in my previous post, I wrote about how as a white person and even as a Jew, I felt this was for African-Americans to decide. If I am offending them by reading such words and having our children read them.

This is what has been on my mind. As a Jew, I resent when people use the word Holocaust freely. I believe it cheapens what the Nazis did to my people. I think where anti-Semitic words are used in a historical context, I want them to remain so. When my son heard the N-word being used in the audio book I was listening to, he challenged me. What came out of that was a discussion of slavery, of racism, and of the way we can hurt people by using offensive words.

If literature can facilitate such discussions and empower a greater understanding of slavery and racism, I think I side with those who want the N-word left in Twain’s work. Nothing will come out of burying our sins. We need to face them, admit to them, and ensure they will never happen again.
——————————————————————————————————

Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at www.alonshalev.com

An Open Letter to Jeff Bezoz, Founder of Amazon.com & the Kindle

Dear Mr. Bezos,

Firstly, thank you for thinking up the idea of Amazon.com. I’m a big fan – I read books that I buy from Amazon, I write books that I sell on Amazon, and I love my Kindle, both to read books and to think of how we are positively impacting the environment. I have just written a number of blog entries on the e-book revolution and also the tragedy of the pulping industry.

I learned that many of the books that are pulped are textbooks because they are constantly being updated. Now I realize that this good for business, but it is bad for the trees (and therefore us). I just can’t get over the images of books being pulped and left in huge garbage tips. Perhaps it is a Jewish thing – I once witnessed a perfectly rational friend totally lose control of himself when he saw someone burning old moldy books.

His parents were Holocaust survivors who had once boasted a house full of packed bookcases. While some of the family survived, his house had been burned with all the books inside. I have since learned that this is a common in many Holocaust survivors and their offspring, as Nazis piled Jewish books in the street and burned them.

I digress. I work with university students, Mr. Bezos, and they are hurting. They are going into debt for their studies, living expenses and textbooks. Their parents can’t help them and more than a few of my students have taken on a second job to send money to their families. This is not some 3rd or 4th world country, sir, it is San Francisco. And I am sure it is all over Depression-hit America.

So here is my idea, Mr. Bezos, and it is win:win, so bear with me.

1. Every student who enrolls in a state-run university or community college (I would like you to consider all colleges and universities if you can) receives a Kindle in their freshman year, for FREE.

2. They receive generous discounts on their textbooks for three years – we can give them a code that expires then. Moreover, they get updated versions of a textbook they purchased for $1.

What do you get out of this?

1. The gratitude of a generation that saw you reach out to them when they were struggling.

2. Hundreds of thousands of loyal customers. These students will get used to purchasing through Amazon. They will get hooked on the ever-evolving Kindle (because you will ensure that it will always be cutting edge) and on the concept of e-books, of which you are the biggest seller in the world.

3. These students will, we assume emerge from school and the depression into young professionals with spending power and disposable income. They will also have a buying habit and brand loyalty.

4. Help stop the terrible waste of resources, of trees being cut down while global warming increases.

5. Help stop the senseless pulping of books because they have been printed without demand and/or have become out dated.

6. Fame and fortune for doing the right thing for the American people when they most needed it.

On behalf of our students and the planet, I thank you for considering this. Here’s to a bright future for us all.

———————————————————————————————————

Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at www.alonshalev.com

 

 

Veteran’s Day 6 – A Bumper Sticker Bears Witness

I’m not sure that I agree with this one. It can sometimes be too simplistic to make such historical comparisons (I appreciate that this is coming from a person who finds profoundness in bumper stickers).

But there is a point that I have been trying to convey in my blog posts this week that is also a clear theme of Unwanted Heroes. You cannot change the past. The treatment of war veterans from previous wars can never be corrected. Organizations like Swords to Plowshares help to remedy the injustice, but the memories remain.

What can be done is to learn from past mistakes. When soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan, they must be received with respect regardless of our political views, and they must receive the support and benefits that were so sadly lacking for those who returned before them.

Otherwise a travesty begets a travesty. The worse crime we can commit as a society is to fail to learn from our past and our mistakes.

Never Again is a powerful rallying charge for my people when we talk about the Holocaust. But is a worthy rallying cry for other injustices such as this.
——————————————————————————————————-

Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at www.alonshalev.com

Movies That Matter – Invictus

One of my defining episodes as a teenager exploring social activism was the anti-apartheid movement. I attended my first demonstration with them, asked people to sign petitions, and had a Free Nelson Mandela sticker on my pencil case. When people were asked to play their favorite song at the local youth center, I offered up Biko by Peter Gabriel.

I always get excited for the soccer World Cup. This year was different. It was not just for the once-every-four-years’ festival of my favorite sport, but the recognition of how far South Africa has come. In a world of hate, corruption, violence and extremism, South Africa is a beacon of what can be achieved.

The overthrow of a brutal, racist system did not spiral into the bloodshed and vengeance that so many feared. The brave and difficult decision to heal memories and move on are a tribute not only to Nelson Mandela, but to every South African who committed themselves to this part.

Invictus was a landmark movie. It is a fictionalized the true story of South Africa hosting the rugby World Cup, as they exited the dark ages of apartheid. In the year leading up to the tournament, the team comes together to be an example of unity that trickles down through society. In an interesting parallel, Mandela needs to deal with integrating his personal security detail with the South African police detail.

I am not usually much of an actor/actress observer, but both Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon are awesome in their roles. I was skeptical that anyone could possibly ‘play’ a man who is truly a living icon, a larger-than-life inspiration for me. But Morgan Freeman is terrific.

It might be a sign of age, but there is something urgent in wanting to share a historical period of time that you lived through and ensure that generations to come will never forget it. I feel this sense of urgency when I talk with Holocaust survivors.

Invictus helps to fill this role. I will buy the DVD, and will sit my sons down to watch it. They will enjoy the movie, as it is a great movie. And then I will share my own story with them, and try to pass on my memory to the next generation.

——————————————————————————————————-
Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at www.alonshalev.com