5 Jun 2003 @ 22:31, by Raymond Powers
The article I posted about Orthodox Jews protesting the Israel Day celebration caused some passionate comments, here and on Bernard's Hodgepodgeblog.
I wrote a lengthy comment and answered some questions Bernard asked of me on his blog.
Here is a copy of what I wrote:
I'm happy to answer the following questions you posed to me and will also give you some insight into my background, which is little known outside of anyone in my immediate family. I have recently delved deeply into my geneaology, much of which I already knew, and unearthed a plethora of documents and photographs about my fathers side of the family. I have many relatives that have lived in Israel since the beginning of it's statehood and before.
My responses to you:
You ask: "By the way I have three questions for you. It sounds like you might be implying that there should be a state of Palestine but no State of Israel--is that Right?"
Not at all I don't believe in ownership of land on any land mass, nor dominion of one people over another. Patriarchy to me is an obsolete concept.
You ask: Are you an Orthodox Jew?"
No. I am "culturally" Jewish, raised in a non-religious household. We did not belong to a temple nor participate in one. I attended the Jewish Community Center and summer camps for several years in my youth.
You ask: "Has your a majority of you family been exterminated...?
I am of Polish and Ukrainian descent. Much of my family was killed either in WWI or II. Most of my fathers brothers and sisters I have never met. Four of ten children survived.
Here is some of my paternal lineage, of which my father recently gave me a book in Hebrew and I found an English translation of it on the web, that has many of my family members in it and tells the story of the the town of Sopotkin, Poland.
Sopotkin was a hub of the Zionist Youth movement, of which my father was a part from the age of 7. The town was also birth to many of the early pioneers, including some of my uncles, who went to Palestine around 1921.
From the aforementioned book:
"Sopotkin was a distinguished, par excellence Zionist town. No other non-Zionist movement found ground in that wonderful town. The first youth movements that blossomed in the Jewish streets of Poland did not leave out Sopotkin. The first youth movement was in the town by the name "Hashomer Trumpeldor" (the guard Trumpeldor).
In the year 1926 the movement of the youth "Hashomer Trumpeldor" merged with the youth movement "Hashomer Hatsair" (the Young Guard). After the merger the movement "Hashomer Hatsair" became the main and central movement in town. This movement concentrated the best and most intelligent young people in Sopotkin.
After a short period of time arose a religious youth movement "Hashomer Hdati" (Religious Guard) and later came to being "Brit Trumpeldor" (Beytar) - Zionists Revisionists.
It seems that the young people did not live here permanently. Their life and stay in the town was on a temporary basis. They waited for the movement to be able to leave for the land of Israel. This was a wonderful youth which grew up on the face of surrounding nature and beauty. The young people in the town grew up on the bosom of the nature, breathed the fresh air of the mountains and forests and felt that they were a part of the fields and rivers. The young people were happy, strong in body and spirit."
This was the town my father grew up in. The birthplace of the Beytar and many, including him, later became part of the Irgun in Palestine prior to and during the 1948 war there. He went to Palestine, sponsored by his older brothers, along with his father and sister, around 1931. They lived in Karkur. My father was in Palestine with Begin (spl?) and others who later became the politcal leaders of Israel. My father immigrated to the U.S. in 1951 when he met and married my mother, who lived in New York. That's another story.
I have been interviewing him as of late to document his early history in Sopotkin and experiences in Palestine. He is one of the few surviving elders of that era.
The article I posted on my soundingcircle.com blog about the Orthodox Jews who protested Israel Day was not a reflection of my own beliefs. To me, it was intriguing journalism and offered a diversity I had not seen before, thus I shared it.
As you are now privy to, my personal history is very tied to Israel on my fathers side. On my mother's, most of her family immmigrated to the states from the Ukraine as early as the late 1800's. The rest were killed in the wars.
I hope this lengthy post has enlightened you a bit about my heritage and my opinions. I am for peaceful co-existence. There is a lot of history about Israel that is rarely spoken of, i.e. the un-honored Balfour Declaration of 1917 wherein Lord Balfour of England promised to give the Eurpean Jews (as if it was his to give) a Holy Land to live in if they helped in WWI, the animosity that was purposely incited between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine by the British etc. It's a complex history that I don't claim to have scholarly knowledge about, however I do have first hand genomic memory that lived through it. Part of my life path is healing the wounds I have inherited from my father that have been left unresolved and unsken of in many instances. It IS a legacy that I cannot forget and that I must learn from.
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