North by Northwestern, IL
May 9 2008

A birthday celebration that lost sight of Israel’s complex history

By Lana Birbrair

`What is Israel?’ Elie Wiesel asked the packed crowd in Welsh-Ryan
Arena. `It is, to all of us, a question mark.’ He was referring to
Israel’s timeline, not poking at the inner workings of the country’s
existential crisis. But the issue that Wiesel inadvertently raised is
the one that Jews should have been asking, yet were not, at the
Thursday night celebration of the country’s founding.

Wiesel ‘ a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, activist, and
author of more than 40 books, most famously Night ‘ was the
highlighted speaker at the Israel @ 60 Gala, a sold-out commemoration
of Israel’s independence. I and about 8,000 other people attended the
event, which included music and speakers, including Wiesel, comedian
Jeff Garlin and Barukh Binah, Consul General of Israel to the Midwest.

The audience included prominent Illinois and Chicago politicians, as
well as representatives and consul-generals from 20 nations, ranging
from Bolivia to Jordan to Australia. Most received enthusiastic
applause ‘ except France and Germany, which were met with claps and
boos. The event’s tone was congratulatory and hopeful, a celebration
of Israel’s 60-year history as a nation and its longer history as a
Jewish land.

Despite the hopeful overtones, many of the speakers’ messages were
clearly political. Barukh Binah, in his opening remarks, praised
Israel’s achievements in the arts and sciences. `I promise you today:
We will never cease to astonish the world,’ he said.

Nevertheless, he warned that those accomplishments would not come
without a price. `I humbly suggest to you that Israel is unique in
just about everything, but it is most unique in that it is a country
that must still be fought for. We may take Israel for granted, but
unfortunately, some of her neighbors do not.’ And when Wiesel called
for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of the most outspoken
Holocaust deniers, to be thrown out of the United Nations, he was met
with enthusiastic applause.

Optimism is to be expected at the birthday celebration of a nation
that many fought so hard for. But the steady self-assurance troubled
me slightly. In a video celebrating four Chicagoans who fought for
Israel, one man, who was in the audience, spoke about learning to
throw Molotov cocktails at tanks, and how it was the most exciting
time in his life. And when the audience stood to clap for him, it did
not seem to recognize that the tanks he destroyed were filled with
people trying to regain the land that had been taken away from them.

I do not mean to make a political statement about Israel one way or
the other ‘ enough has already been said about the injustices and
cruelties committed on both sides of the debate. But when Wiesel
proudly stated, `Israel rejected hatred as a principle. Anger,
sometimes, but hatred is on the other side,’ I felt a stirring in my
stomach that was not of pride, but of shame. If, 60 years later, young
Americans can boo when Germany is mentioned as a supporter, but cheer
for Turkey, which still denies the Armenian genocide, then perhaps
hatred has not been rejected by all.

The creation of Israel was a major, long-fought-for accomplishment for
the Jewish people, and I do not begrudge a celebration by a people
whose history is full of such hardship and overwhelming
resilience. But when, even at this occasion, that pride threatens to
turn to arrogance, when that celebration loses sight of the
complexities and contradictions that fill the history of Israel’s
formation, we Jews momentarily lose sight of the reality of our
position. We must keep in mind that although Israel came at a large
price, that price was not paid only by Jews.

But in the end, I do say `we.’ Because sitting in that audience,
surrounded by people who look like me and share my past, there was no
question that I was a Jew. In the middle of an audience dotted heavily
with yarmulkes, waving white-and-blue glow sticks, and singing along
to the Israeli national anthem, Wiesel’s words struck me: `We shall
never speak of Israel as `them,’ but as we ‘ for after all, we are one
people.’

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