Thoughts from a trip to Berlin

With so much news about virulent criticism of Israel morphing into antisemitism in Europe, I wondered about my plans to visit Berlin this summer. I wasn't scared for my safety, but had some trepidation about the potential for bitter, defensive conversations.

More to the point, I wasn't worried about conversations, but about not being able to have them; that I might find myself at loggerheads with people I otherwise liked, with old friends... being yelled at rather than talking. 

I was grateful to find another reality.

I've tried to explicate some of the specific political perspectives I heard below. With few exceptions, they were fairly sophisticated and nuanced- no one with whom I spoke had notions of uncompromising black and white. 

Of course if I had expected a pro-Israel consensus I would have been gravely disappointed. But fearing the opposite- blindly anti-Israel diatribes, I was relieved by the sanity of the discourse. 

I wanted to document my experience in order to help fill in a vacuum of understanding about the way this discourse is going - at least in Germany - and help mediate some alarming reports about the worst examples of discourse that seem to have been generalized to implicate the entire society.

Most significant to me was that I found virtually everyone with whom I discussed the situation open to listening. 

Why is it important to be open? Because it proves that viewpoints are not ideologically set, that learning, which is a fundamental condition of any real conversation - is possible. And because I felt that there was genuine interest in hearing my perspective, a Jewish one.

Why does it matter if a few people - the small sample of my friends - are open minded? Shortly before I arrived, there had been demonstrations including ugly antisemitic calls that were widely reported and some violent actions of grave concern. 

Two responses.

First, the offensive chants and behaviors also involved very few, and they were roundly condemned and prosecuted. It is important to understand that the perpetrators were generally relative newcomers to Germany who do not see themselves as heirs to its cruel past nor the lessons learned. Certainly, these incidents should serve as wake-up calls -- certain values such as tolerance are not optional, but rather foundational and must be accepted by all, and much more must be done to make this the case. What these incidents do not prove, however, is that Germany's broad post-War efforts to come to terms with its past and to create a better society and a more open one for Jews have failed, and it was this extreme reading that I saw reflected in much of the media coverage.

Second, a country or community - any group - doesn't stand out because of a majority, or even because there is an angry minority-  but because there is a minority that is committed to doing what is right and feels empowered. That's all, in my mind, you can ever expect -- and it's also he very best thing to hope for. Germany has been impressive to me not because of majority sentiment, but because of the individuals I've met who are so truly committed to building a better society and fighting antisemitism and racism and other inequalities in very profound ways. In this case- there is a healthy number, including the people I spoke with, who may be critical, but who are not blindly so and understand the complexity. 

One last note- I was so grateful for the unexpected openness I found - perhaps not in small part because it allowed me to be open too. I don't doubt that some of my concern in advance of the trip was that I might spend a vacation spouting talking points. 

That's not fun for me. I am someone who is eager to "translate" different experiences into greater understanding. And someone who wants desperately to see Israel living in peace with its neighbors and who needs to feel there is a chance precisely through the possibility of reconciling different narratives, pain and aspirations.

Below were some of the viewpoints I heard:

In general there was deep concern about the many Palestinian civilian casualties. One friend said she'd like to hear more nuanced viewpoints on both sides, but in particular on the Israeli side, and instead was presented with opposing black-white narratives in interviews with involved parties.

The demonstrations in Berlin were largely made up of people "of immigration background" as Germans say. Many are now also German citizens, but they carry with them a family history and often are attuned to a media and discourse whose origins are far away from Germany.

I heard strong concern about antisemitic utterances and acts that had taken place in Germany at these events - mirroring the clear condemnations of every major politician- and a worry that extremists might be bred and tolerated locally. It almost seemed a wake up call, though it is hard to predict if anything long term will result, nor is it clear what can be done most effectively beyond a society's strong insistence through education, political rhetoric, and civil courage on tolerance as a primary value, one learned in a most painful and personal way through the country's own history.

There was a deep concern about where this conflict might go and whether it would ever end, what if any long term solution might still be feasible, and a skepticism of the honest intentions of some of the players. 

There was also a clear and critical understanding of the destructive extremism of Hamas, and an understanding that Israel couldn't ignore open fire and tunnels. Perhaps the terrible revelations of ISIS acts that were concurrent with my visit lent additional emotional weight to that perspective.

It's personal

Getting tidbits of stories of so many friends and colleagues in Israel has given me pause - not so much to think, but to feel. 

Even if thankfully no one I know has been hurt- it is not hard to understand that the constant barrage of missiles and sirens and running takes an enormous toll on these people I like and admire. Perhaps even the greater toll comes from something that underlies all-- the fundamental ceaseless unease, even if it is  well hidden in many Israelis with their tough exteriors and on many FB posts with sardonic humor. 

And many of these friends happen to be worried about people beyond themselves, which makes it all even harder- caring for their small children, teaching other people's children, and helping others - in JDC's case the most vulnerable Israelis - elderly. disabled, poor.

So it feels very personal indeed. 

There have been two reasons why I have tried to temper some of those strong feelings as well. 

 

First- I realize the vast gap between my empathy and the actual experience of living under bombs. My empathy comes when I have time for it, the actual experience comes whenever a siren goes off and, in some low level but neverending way, all the time. Given that, it feels more fitting to  "listen" or read accounts than to make pronouncements.

And second, I'm very aware that I don't know as many Palestinians at a time like this though their human stories are doubtless devastating- and this does feel like the other part of the story.

Even if you disagree vehemently with the political decisions of Hamas, as I do, it is so important in my mind to recognize the human side. 

Here's a story that moved me deeply and forms my thinking on this: In his book reflecting on his experience during the Holocaust, Jorge Semprun speaks of a visit years after the war with a woman whose home overlooked Buchenwald, where he was held. She told him with great sorrow that she had lost a son in war. He responded angrily- how could she - likely a former Nazi party member - speak to him of her sorrow, which didn't nearly add up to his own? ...And it was "her side" that held Semprun and so many others prisoner and murdered countless of them. Later, in a moving scene, he reflects on his anger and comes to appreciate, though it is painful and hard, the fact that a mother's suffering is deeply real and to be honored- from a human perspective even as the political overlay remains abhorrent. And even if she cannot do the same and appreciate his pain.

The situation is of course vastly different. But when one recognizes pain and suffering and fear- it feels right to do so broadly.

The political judgements are something else again and I don't want to get I to that here. But two points that are general but seem important:

It's too easy to equate suffering with right, and it leads to wrong answers. We need empathy when we consider the political situation, we need to get the personal- but that alone is not enough- we also need  the ability to see the other side if we ever want progress. Political thinking should include but also transcend the personal. Empathy alone leads to anger and terrible mistakes. That's why Semprun's ability to  empathize on the other side is such a feat of humanity and a source of deep wisdom and hope for me.

And, second, it's important to look at the short term decisions and also at the longer term developments together. That's hard in the moment- but crucial.

  

Narrowing narratives

It's amazing to watch a big news story unfold over time. 

First there is a lot of random reporting. The news is all over the place, like pieces of a game- each one something in itself - a thought, a new fact, a comment or idea - but not necessarily tied to a greater whole.

That's an interesting time because the recipients of the news - if they really care - are actively engaged. They are trying out combinations of pieces, figuring out how seemingly unrelated bits fit together. They are making decisions- to weigh one piece of news more than another. They are truly bothered when they read something that doesn't work with what they have managed to bring together, but they can't quite rule it out.

And then suddenly the disparate pieces all start to merge together into a few big narratives. It's like someone discovered the game that's being played and now the scattered pieces take their rightful places. 

Each new story now serves a greater whole. 

How does that happen? In that initial period, a few interpretations are floated and some are stickier, seem to describe and explain the situation better. There is a certain satisfaction when these strong stories are found. They gain traction- they are repeated, restated.  There is a shift then- one gets the sense that  subsequent pieces of news are actually in the service of the larger narratives rather than the other way around.

I don't know if others are like me, but after a while of hearing these narratives, I often start finding them less rather than more convincing. It feels to me as if news is being squeezed to prove the story and the contrarian side of me starts wanting to poke holes in them and to point out contradictions.

Interestingly, it's harder to genuinely feel in this climate. This is the moment when a lot of people who don't really need to be invested tune out and when others seek like-minded confirmations. It becomes ideological- a question of belief rather than an open exploration of complex facts.

Of course there are still some people who embrace more than one narrative and make the point that it is a struggle to keep two narratives in mind simultaneously. But these voices  grow dimmer.

What am I grateful for? The insight into how this dynamic works, even as I have a horse in these races and care deeply about their outcome. But it feels too easy to have figured it all out, not reflective of a complex and changing reality.

Hate speech

There is a small statue in Berlin with a sweet, childlike cast of animal characters and these biting words, in translation here: "It's easy to be moral when your belly is full." The quote is from Brecht- perhaps the Three Penny Opera. 

I'm very cognizant of that when I am writing this... Not only that it is easy to preach when you're not hungry, but also to throw out moral theories when you are perfectly safe and not under siege. Still, being perfectly safe also affords a certain perspective on developments that I think is indeed valuable...

I'm in shock about the amount of hate speech I'm reading these days on social media. It's like a genie is out of the box and what's spewing forth is abhorrent.

Did I write a while back that I'm grateful for the sense that stereotyping is not the norm in the places I find myself? And did I lament that PC- for all the bad rap it got back in the 90s - has not laid root in most of the world?

Well, my circle of sanity has gotten a lot smaller.

Over the last days I've seen people characterized as animals, comments about how they should be wiped out, how they are fifth columns. I'm waiting for someone to describe them as a cancer- biomorphizing hate was a favorite Nazi embellishment.

That's hate speech I've pointed to all my life as dehumanizing. It's one of the values I associate with my Judaism, and  for which I'm deeply grateful .

What is dehumanizing about hate speech? It assigns motives without bothering to check, it creates a narrative without regard to the voices or intentions of those it characterizes. 

In this way, it steals individuality-  a person's volition and ability to tell his/her own story and to influence the way his/her actions are understood.

Dehumanizing is attributing motivations (and the worst possible) rather than really looking for them. Creating echo chambers rather than reaching out and asking. 

I say this knowing it's easier to speak about individuals in safety and security. But descending to this is nonetheless deeply troubling.

So what am I grateful for? My own sanity. Yes, my own safety. My own sense of sanctity?

Silence

Today I stopped to listen to the city. What's the tune of our town?

I'd say closest to a jackhammer.

Repetitive, loud, defeating actually: A combination of work being done, masses of people and more than anything else, incessant cars.

I had to will myself to stop listening, which is actually possible as it turns out.

In fact, willing yourself to not see things and not to hear things has a bad rap. It's used as shorthand for immorality or an immoral amorality. 

Actually, in very explicit ways, it's how we get through our day. Without being able to funnel stimuli out, we wouldn't be able to prioritize certain sites and sounds over others. If we insisting on taking in and responding to everything, we wouldn't be able to dedicate ourselves to anything at all. Overstretch= complacency. 

But whereas in some other places selective blindness and deafness may be the prerequisite for a decent level of focus, in New York, it's a prerequisite for keeping your sanity.

That's the reason this city wears on people - or at least on me. After a week here, I literally crave silence. 

I love the fresh smells, the pretty base color green, but more than anything else- it's the lack of noise, the ability to stop filtering out sounds and do something else with that dose of attention. It's energizing to leave New York. Recuperative....

There is increasing research on noise polution leading to stress, hypertension, further health problems, bad decisions, divorce, meanness, ugliness- you name it. I channel those studies personally.

Cities make noise- so is the answer to decrease cities, or just get out oneself?

There are other ways. Bikes- for one.

The best recent thing to happen in NY has been citibikes ... Let's see how pre-k compares.

And of course forays out of the city and into the silence.

Abundant nature

One of our family members just took a tour around Central Park with the "Wildman" Steve Brill and came home all excited. 

No, he said in the evening, he couldn't bother with ice cream, instead let's go outside. He was keen on eating little clovers, which have a delicious light lemony flavor. He wanted me to see and to try.

He also noted that their leaves are shaped like hearts, and showed me the big ones and the little ones- all carefully crafted.

And did I know there are wild strawberries growing behind the playground? And sassafras?

It was a mild and beautiful evening, and as he observed, there was a nice light.

Was that a sparrow or a starling singing?

Kids can amaze, and nature, but one of the best combinations is when nature amazes kids-- so moving and wonderful.

Does everyone believe in equality? Anyone?

I was raised to think people are basically equal and that diversity was a positive. I don't think I'm unique in that- not by a long shot. At the time, I felt it represented the norm. 

Or maybe it's better to state in a religious language- that all human beings are created in the image of God, and therefore each person has fundamental goodness in them, and value, as well as some basic needs and aspirations we all share. And then there are differences; they are important but not fundamental, opportunities but not prisons.

In fact, I don't doubt that religion played into this. The focus on learning about the Holocaust made me very sensitive to prejudice- anti-Semitism, racism. 

That's one of the reasons that traveling was so eye opening. I remember new friends in Europe spending hours of drinks and conversation trying to nail down just how the French were different from the Russians, or some other "people" from another... It was a favorite mode of conversation, a pasttime.

Of course when it took on a slightly anti-Jewish tone I bristled a bit, but it was always presented in good fun, which made it hard to take up arms.

It was hard to condemn this recognition of difference, in part because it felt like the antidote to political correctness gone crazy in the U.S. I didn't know to urge a slightly different angle - a frame of cultural context rather than a sort of absolutist characterization would have turned stereotyping into sociology.  

But even if the language was sloppy or reactive and might have been fixed, were the underpinnings about fundamental human value the same? 

I've come to think they were not and are not in much of the world, and to see that they are in question sometimes even here at home. This is an ideal that is minority opinion- not recognized wisdom. Even political correctness, which sometimes seemed to represent tyranny of the majority here- is a battle against the odds in the larger world.

What seemed to me to be accepted wisdom, almost trivialities about human equality, about the richness of diversity, are actually the product of a very specific time and place. And I'd argue an important, enlightened one. 

Is there a lot to criticize about the implementation of this ideal? Yes- if you look at the shocking statistic of New York of all places having some of the most segregated schools... Not by law, I should add, but in practice, which is the bottom line. Even if you look at how many, and me too at times, choose to group by background rather than taking advantage of the incredible differences and crossing boundaries. And so much more to add....

But I don't want to lose the fact that the ideal is still solid. And it's a lot more precious than I ever thought... A lot more worth defending. 

I'm grateful for being brought up with that, and for living in a society that at very least still articulates this ideal. It's not to be taken for granted- it's to work on and share.