The Middle East is a Reflection of All of Humanity
05.11.2023 - 17:55
/ metroweekly.com
kidnapped Israeli children gruesomely displayed by their captors as props, to read of nearly 500 Gaza children — as of this moment — killed by Israeli bombings, how can anyone look away?I have learned that the worst pain may be helplessness in the face of loved ones’ suffering. For the families of those abducted by Hamas terrorists, or who can’t escape Gaza, I cannot imagine the depths of your pain.Not an expert in Middle East geopolitics, nor a Jew, nor an Arab, nor Muslim, nor Israeli, my own thoughts on the conflict may be irrelevant in the extreme. Still, I’ve got to share them before I can move on to anything else.When I think of Israel, of course, I think of the Holocaust, which I learned about when I was about 5.Aunt Betsy was in from San Diego, visiting us in Springfield, Virginia.
My mom, Dora, drove us to their old Baltimore neighborhood. On that same Silver Hill Avenue where they grew up, we visited Lily and Walter. I remember Lily, a pediatrician, being kind.
I remember Walter teaching me how to draw a star of David. Dora explained to me how, circa 1940, Lily and Walter, Jews from Austria, fled the Nazi onslaught.They got as far as Lisbon before hitting a dead end. Through a byzantine network of extended family, my grandfather received a plea to sponsor them, allowing them to evacuate to America.
They lived with my mom and her family in Baltimore for some months.Not long after, Dora told me of her first home with my father, stationed at a U.S. Army base in Germany, in what had been quarters for Nazi officers. The plates in their furnished apartment were marked with “SS” insignia.