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Last update - 02:33 14/12/2008 The pogrom as heritage By Mark Baker Tags: disputed house, israel news  Try calling a Jew a Nazi or the Jewish state a form of Judeo-Nazism, and the wrath of the community will descend upon you. Yet a fine historical distinction has been drawn these days to judge by the epithets used to describe a community of Jews committing acts of violence against Palestinians. Last week, I counted no less than five articles in Haaretz (including an editorial) that referred to the rioting Hebron youths as pogromists, reserving the Nazi tag for the Mumbai terrorists. Even outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was compelled to resort to these historical parallelisms, labeling the Hebron riots a pogrom, whose Jewish perpetrators must be mercilessly stopped. The comparison between Jews and the descendants of Bogdan Chmielnicki is no small irony. After all, Zionism was born less out of the Holocaust than amid the cyclical turbulence of Russian pogroms. Advertisement The pogrom is backdrop to Zionist awakening, the opening chapter in the memoirs of Israel's founders, who recall parents cowering under tables or barricading ramshackle doors against the force of marauders on horseback. These stories are fashioned to demonstrate that Zionism is not only a response to the pogroms, but also an answer to it. The sovereign Jew no longer cowers behind doors but holds the keys to usher in a new history. The native-born sabra stands tall and armed, a masculine warrior who answers power with power. Thus, the image of the pogromist has always been buried deep in the psyche of Zionism, scarring the modern state with traumatic memories. Last week the festering wounds opened, and the Jew's psyche was exposed for the world to analyze. In the Israeli popular imagination, the sight of Jews desecrating Muslim cemeteries with Stars of David and threatening to burn families in their homes stirred the ancestral demons from their resting places. In what way are the riots not a pogrom, suggested Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Yet in the mind of the Hebron settlers, it is Olmert and the state that trigger images from the past: As in the Gaza disengagement, the government, courts and army are evicting Jews from their homes and homeland, making the territories Judenrein and acting like obsequious leaders from a shtetl. The state has become the new gentile enemy, a secular tool of anti-Semitic interests that has betrayed the biblical destiny of the Chosen People. The question of identity struck home for me this week through an encounter I had with an Australian friend. We acknowledged that we are both cut from the same cloth, the children of Holocaust survivors who took refuge in Australia. In her eyes, the lessons of the past have led her to offer unconditional support for the Hebron settlers. There will only be peace, she said, when the Arabs achieve their goal of erasing Israel from the map. Politics in this worldview is a zero-sum game; the world is Auschwitz, writ large, and the Jewish state is an embattled shtetl that has to make the fateful choice: to either die behind the doors, or stand in front of them and use any means to ensure its survival. History has also scarred me but in a different way: While I know that the circumstances in this century are different, I cannot help but recognize in the ideology and actions of the settlers a distinct relationship with our persecutors in their old and present guises. The distant mirror that frames my view of the future is repulsed by the settlers, who lean on the conflict to rationalize the racism and culture of their synagogues and holy streets. It compels me to reject the nationalist fervor of those who worship the land and their identities above others. It recognizes the need for security walls, yet fears what these walls conceal on the other side. But I also recognize an image of the entire Jewish collective that would prefer to regard these extremist youths as stray weeds rather than as products of the garden we have all tended. Avraham Burg in his new and controversial book, "The Holocaust is Over," has called for the demons of the past to be exorcised; they cannot, because the past shapes who we are. The real choice is what to do when we awaken each morning from our dreams or nightmares and remember... Mark Baker is director of the Australian Center for Jewish Civilization at Monash University and associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Israel's KKK The desire to march in Umm al-Fahm has nothing to do with protest. A courageous throw Gadhafi's daughter awards the reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush.   1.   Mr. Baker, a masterful insight... 03:52  |  BBSNews 14/12/08   2.   pogrom as heritage 06:33  |  edward 14/12/08   3.   the muscled sabra and other dreams 12:13  |  John and the Truth 14/12/08   4.   greeks have been rioting for over a week 12:35  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 14/12/08   5.   n.4 14:27  |  John and the truth 14/12/08   6.   #4 14:43  |  richi 14/12/08   7.   Pogroms 15:54  |  mark 14/12/08   8.   pogroms (for #4 especially) 20:49  |  Reuben Jacobs 14/12/08   9.   You may be correct and still antisemitic 00:36  |  The Observer 15/12/08

Read & React Iraqi police detain local reporter who threw shoes at Bush during farewell Baghdad visit Responses: 118 Benjamin Hartman: Israel's merry band of Klansmen, the far-right Responses: 69 Mass welcome awaits over 200 freed Palestinian prisoners in Ramallah Responses: 58 Far-right Dutch MP: There is no moderate Islam Responses: 79 Umm al-Fahm Mayor: Rightists will never march through our city Responses: 79 Yehuda Ben-Meir: We must not give into Hamas demands Responses: 35 More Headlines 22:36 Hezbollah chief calls on Arab, Muslim world to help lift Gaza blockade 22:12 UN: Israel's expulsion of human rights envoy is 'dangerous' 01:15 Report: Elie Wiesel, Steven Spielberg among victims of Madoff affair 00:08 Netanyahu, Barak reject Livni invitation for political debate 00:16 Arabs across Mideast hail reporter who hurled shoes at Bush 00:13 Spate of mysterious infant deaths prompts health ministry investigation 20:36 Court restricts West Bank separation fence in ruling hailed as precedent 17:04 Abbas: Israel must free all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners 21:36 Rice cites Bush's peace initiative as best chance to end Mideast conflict 01:43 VIEWPOINT: Israel's merry band of Klansmen, the extreme right 15:55 Settler population growing three times faster than rest of Israel, study says 21:19 Barak to Austrian president: I'm not afraid of Gaza op, but I'm not rushing 21:06 Top Defense Ministry official: Gaza truce has no expiration date 17:01 El Al to operate direct flight to Brazil for first time in a decade 18:21 British PM urges Obama to make Mideast peace a top priority 11:44 'There is no moderate Islam,' says far-right Dutch legislator Geert Wilders 12:51 JEWISH WORLD / The Shas version of Obama's 'yes we can' Previous Editions Select Day 15 dec 14 dec 12 dec 11 dec 10 dec 09 dec 08 dec 07 dec 05 dec 04 dec 03 dec 02 dec

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