The Tone Makes All The Difference

Reflections of the din that is riling up Israel these days

By Vera Schwarcz

I made Aliya five years ago to savor the fullness of life as a Jew in our Jewish homeland. My heart is aching now for the tattered brotherhood that is amply evident on the streets these days. Each of us experiences present events in the light of the past—both personal and communal. My reactions are shaped and shadowed by growing up in Communist Romania and in studying Communist China for five decades.

I have kept my distance from the judicial reform debates for the past months. That distance however was shattered on a recent Tuesday in the Jerusalem train station.  I was just returning from Ramat Gan after interviewing a prominent elder of the leftist camp about his youth and friendship with the founder of a Jerusalem community garden (the subject of my current book project). Politics was not on our radar—only the subject of beauty and the effort to do good in the public realm.

Coming home to Yerushalaim, I was aware that several people with Israeli flags had boarded the train from Tel Aviv. When we got out into the Jerusalem train station, about 30 people poured out from different cars. Immediately, the screaming started. We were at the bottom of four escalators in a closed space. The drums started to roil shatteringly loud. Followed by screeching little trumpets and deafening cries of: “DE-MO-KRA-TIA.”  Terrifyingly loud. I saw children shudder. Lean into their parents in dread.

I was shaking too. The sloganeering, the drums, the  ear-piercing shriek of the trumpets called to mind my time in China in the spring of 1989. I was there for a conference of “Science and Democracy.” The student demonstrations were growing larger and larger. The sloganeering about “democracy” louder and louder. I remember Tiananmen Square in May 1989 filled with  youthful mobs. The words were about freedom of thought and speech. The tone—as Deng Xiaoping, a survivor of the Cultural Revolution said later—was identical to the murderous Red Guards of 1967-68. It all ended badly. Very badly with a tanks and a massacre.

This tension between words I want to honor and the terrifying violent tone of willful intimidation is what Jews outside of Israel cannot fathom. This our tough struggle here these days: To find a way to lower the decibel between different points of view. On the days before Tisha B’Av, the religious public kept praying for “Ahavat Chinam”—“Unlimited Love” to replace the mutual hatred that led to the destruction of the two holy Temples in Jerusalem. After Tisha B’Av now, we are praying for something more modest: ההקשבת –חינם”–Ha’hakshvat Chinan—Unlimited Listening.

Lowering the volume and truly listening to each other has become the order of the day. I believe with all my heart that we can practice this, since none of  

us wants to court verbal or any other kind of violence.

A former resident of West Hartford, Vera Schwarcz is Emerita Professor of History & East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University, CT USA.  (www. BetweenTwoWalls.com)