Rest in pieces

Gone is the era when the world understood, even if momentarily, that we, no less than anyone else, deserve a place to be.


Daniel Gordis
Guest Columnist/JPost
16 July '10


Khaled’s been our “fix-it” guy for a decade. When he was over recently, I came upon him in the living room as he was taking a break from his work. He was looking at a series of photographs on the wall, one of which is called “Rest in Pieces.”

“What is this?” he asked.

“It’s a Jewish cemetery in Argentina,” I told him. “See the Hebrew lettering on the tombstones?”

“But why are the tombstones shattered?” “People broke them,” I explained.

“But why would anyone do that?” “Because they hate Jews, I guess,” I told him.

“Why?” And a moment later, “But these Jews were dead,” he said to me. “They hate dead Jews, too?” Now things had gotten surreal. Was an Israeli Arab really asking me why anyone might hate Jews? Khaled wasn’t kidding. He seemed utterly perplexed, and continued studying the photograph.

I didn’t really know where to begin. I told him that in some places in Europe, people still destroy Jewish cemeteries. He was astounded. For a moment, I considered telling him what the Jordanians had done to Jewish cemeteries between 1948 and 1967, but for whatever reason, I decided not to. Maybe I just wanted to relish, even for a few moments, the hopeful moment of an Arab man who couldn’t understand why anyone would hate the Jews. It was the sort of moment that gives you some hope, even if but a faint flicker.

But flickers fade, especially in this region. A few days later, my wife and I were in Tel Aviv for an outstanding program on “The Law of Return: Just or Discriminatory?” sponsored by the Metzilah Center, founded by Prof. Ruth Gavison, one of the country’s most eminent jurists and a Zionist thinker of great profundity. Dr. Raif Zreik, of Tel Aviv University, whom I’d never heard before, was the first speaker.

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