(“Where would the police be in the next lynch?” – activestills ©)
Thursday (22/8/2012) Rabbi Yechiel Grienimann and I went to Hadassah Hospital to visit the young man who had been attacked in Kikar Zion in the middle of Jerusalem and the Palestinian family who had been attacked. Six members of the family lie in hospital, the mother with her face burnt and her hands in bandages, two little ones of 6 and 4 of whom the boy the grandmother said he been burnt on his whole body, and three men. We only saw the one man briefly as the television crew was there but his hands and both his legs are in enormous bandages.
So I am asked why I go to visit them and not to Israelis who are attacked by Palestinians……first of all the latter have all their family and friends who can visit them without needing a permit to do so. If I knew of anyone who was alone I would go. Secondly they always have the Israeli media reporting on them …and that the main question is …..Netanyahu, Peres all of you who say what a heinous thing it was ….how come none of you or no members of the government or members of the Knesset have visited them. You are always there in the hospitals with the television crews as you pay your homage to Israelis who have been attacked……this to me is worse. Our people are descending to the level of our enemies. Put your money where your mouth is…..or rather….put your feet where your mouth is. Netanyahu , do you not go because actually you don’t give a damn and are only paying lip service or also because you will lose all those votes on the right of those who hate Arabs…..probably for both reasons. Don’t you think, as Yechiel said, that if you or Peres had gone it would have been a tremendous gesture to show that who perpetrate the deeds that you do not back them?
It took a while for us to track them down and in both cases the nurses at the desk asked who we were and in the case of the young boy went to ask the family if they would see us. We first visited the mother who was injured and her mother who was sitting with her. Thank goodness for all my teachers that to some extent I could communicate with them. Yechiel will now try to help to get permits for the two sisters who are not allowed through to visit. I said to them that we had wondered if they would want to see us and the response was so warm. The nurse as she came back to tell us said “Kol Hakavod.” While we were there Rachel whom I know from the olive harvest came with a young man but I can’t remember which organisation they were from. We also met two religious women who were giving out sandwiches. I was not altogether surprised to find that the one knew nothing of the Molotov cocktail which had been thrown at Bat Ayiy. But they told us also of the two Eritreans who were hospitalized also as a result of a xenophobic attack….but later they saw us again and said they had checked and the two had been released.
Victims of molotov attack by settlers, Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, West Jerusalem, 18.8.2012
With the family from East Jerusalem it was easier
The father speaks Hebrew and when he was interviewed by the television crew who I think were from the Arabic tv I managed to follow quite a bit of what was asked and answered. He said that a policewoman had actually seen what was happening and had said . “Oh it is just kids” and that the calls to the police had gone unanswered.
I was just thinking of friends who have said to me that they also do….in our own society and that there it is much easier. You do not go wondering if you will be rebuffed and also not without the feeling of guilt with which we go. To each his own. And of course they are fulfilling “charity begins at home.” The question is what sort of home are we building. The 13 year old who showed no repentance even though he and his friends had nearly killed the one young man and his only response was that he wished he had.
And then of course we had the drama of getting out of Hadassah which I hate. First of all we had not noticed at which floor in the parking lot we had stopped and had to search and then although someone had helped us to pay one of those damn machines for the parking we had evidently not taken the right ticket to get out and so Yechiel had to go back and luckily he had paid with his visa. Once that bar went up I did not even wait for him to get back into the car but was out of there like a shot.
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I wonder where the Jewish ethics….with which I grew up….have gone to hide. The wonderfully warm stories showing how sensitive, righteous and generous we Jews are…..seems to be no longer evident with most Jews in Israel. Those who claim not to support this kind of racist violence….actually collude with the perpetrators, because of their not speaking out against this most un-Jewish of behaviors.
Hamburger , if you were being attacked daily, you surely would have react with violence at some point. Let alone the Jews in the land of Israel are being attacked for many decades with hate and terror. Although we have to condemn every illegal reaction to Arab’s aggression, one should understand that a long and continuous attacks of Arabs at Jews may invite some similar Jewish reaction. The difference is that Arab, kids, men and even women usually operate violence against Jews by the call of their leaders and teachers, and the few Jews that reacting to that violence are few and act against the call of their leaders and teachers. I’m very much disappointing that some Jews in America know almost nothing about that matter and are being influences by some weird Rabbis that see their ultimate goal to play the moron Jew haters and for the real occupiers of the land of Israel – the Arabs.