Emanuela's Blog

Category: history

Democracy and the USA – Leonard Cohen

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was perceived by many as a beginning of a new era, optimistic and full of joy. At the time is seemed that the influence of the US and western European countries was expanding, and nothing could stop it. Many thought the world is gradually advancing to a better future. Only some – Leonard Cohen among them – expressed concern regarding this very extensive historical process, arguing the promoting democratic values is a slow complex process, more complicated than simply establishing a democracy.

Leonard Cohen began writing “Democracy” after the fall of the Wall. Many notebooks were filled with lines and rhymes, words crossed out time and again, there were more than fifty version of the song until he was happy with the final one, released on 1992. The song is an epitome of his perception of American culture and the way it metes out democracy. It is an intricate puzzle of serious historical observations and ironic references to sentences often heard in the US.

The leitmotif is rather surprising: “democracy is coming to the USA.” We tend to think of the US as a source of inspiration for other countries; it is often referred to as the most prominent democracy on earth. But in the first line we are astonished to learn that democracy is penetrating into the US from holes in the air and in the walls, from the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Yet a couple of lines later we realize that Cohen is referring to places within the US (like Chevrolet workers) as sources of democratic ideas “coming” to America. So where exactly is the US and where are the democratic ideas coming from?

If we follow the logic of the song we find that the US is essentially a concept, an idea, a place not defined by its geographic borders but by its fundamental values. I think the events of the last couple of months truly affirm this view: It is not the physical border of the US that is important but the American way of life. In an interview after the song had been released Leonard Cohen said, “It is a song where there’s no inside and no outside. This is just the life of the democracy.” And what is the US? “A lab of democracy,” a place where democratic ideas are truly tested. Democracy is not a steady state but a process, an infinite examination of ideas like equality, freedom, opportunities. The song compares the US to a sailing ship, which must be vigilant against greed and hate.

From here Cohen attempts to define American culture. He first affirms America’s religious roots. “The Sermon on the Mount” is his point of departure, after which he provides a fascinating depiction of life in the US. Democracy, he argues, is not self-evident; it is acquired with effort, pain, it emerges “from the sorrow in the streets,” from inter-racial tension, from women kneeling down suffering, from a struggle about who would serve and who would eat – the song is full of descriptions of people in agony. Cohen’s US is not a tranquil wealthy place, a country in which human rights are secured. It is a country in which a constant battle is taking place, “the cradle of the best and of the worst,” where people can achieve the best and fall into deepest darkness.

His observations of American individualism are especially interesting. The spirit that drives people to achieve their goals also pushes them away from one another. “It’s here they got the spiritual thirst,” he says, but then he connects self-fulfillment with the breaking of the family, “It’s here the family’s broken.” In an ironic tone he elaborated on the loneliness so typical of life in the US, along with a denial of its source, “and it’s here the lonely say that their heart has got to open in a fundamental way.” Clearly loneliness is not a result of the lack of openness; it is a mechanism of denial, unwillingness to admit that there is a link between extreme individualism and loneliness. And though the American spirit has a pronounced sexual character, sensual and passionate, ultimately people are alone.

In the last stanza Cohen seems to break life in the US into the smallest components, almost into the physical material it is made of. “And I’m neither right nor left, I’m just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen.” This is a reduction of high principles into a very simple, uncomplicated life. Many American are not concerned with politics or the fundamental principles of democracy; they completely withdraw into their private space, watching TV for hours. But the strong determined spirit of America is also embedded in these people, who seem so detached from the public sphere, they are “like a garbage bag that time cannot decay.”

There’s nothing like this metaphor to express a big idea with a small object: not passionate speeches on the American spirit, not the American bald eagle or the hand on the heart while singing the national anthem – but a disposable garbage bag; it is man-made, lacks any elegance or grace, but endures forever.

Democracy/Leonard Cohen

It’s coming through a hole in the air,
From those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
That this ain’t exactly real,
Or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
From the sirens night and day,
From the fires of the homeless,
From the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
From the staggering account
Of the Sermon on the Mount
Which I don’t pretend to understand at all.
It’s coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay,
From the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of Chevrolet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin’
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It’s coming to America first,
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the women and the men.
O baby, we’ll be making love again.
We’ll be going down so deep
The river’s going to weep,
And the mountain’s going to shout Amen!
It’s coming like the tidal flood
Beneath the lunar sway,
Imperial, mysterious,
In amorous array
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
That Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

January 28, 2025
The Paradox of Liberalism

As an undergraduate, I studied comparative literature and philosophy. Literature was a natural choice for me, philosophy a compromise. I decided it’s a good option for what would be second to literature. Three years later, when I concluded my Bachelor’s Degree, I was relieved that I was done with philosophy. Although I felt it encourages systematic and coherent thinking, it was detached from life. I like literature – and arts in general – because they are always a mixture of the abstract and the concrete, of general truths and facts and details of everyday life. Philosophy was too abstract for me.

But recent events made me think I was all wrong. Liberalism, the philosophy that shaped the West, has become the source of major social and political events. Newspapers and TV programs discuss the immigration to Europe using terms like freedom of choice, religious tolerance, natural right to liberty—all philosophical terms coined by the founding fathers of liberalism.

Liberalism is, of course, a rich and complex philosophy. Created in the seventeenth century, the British philosopher John Locke is considered its founder. From its birth until today, it has shaped almost every aspect of the western world: the political systems, the nature of society, the place of education, the right to private property, and more. Liberal ideas affect both liberals and conservatives.

The very general idea of liberalism is that man should be free. He should not be enslaved, jailed for no reason, or forced to accept things he cannot agree with. But the founders of liberalism were well aware of the paradox that lies at the heart of their philosophy: full freedom of one man or woman is the slavery of another; a comprehensive self-fulfillment of one person will prevent achievements by another. The need to have some kind of government stands in contrast to the complete freedom of each individual.

Modern liberal philosophers created a huge body of work discussing this topic. They focused mainly on the relations between the individual and the regime and how to maintain freedom in a society that has some form of government. John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Isaiah Berlin and other great thinkers elaborated on the paradox of liberalism.

In their eyes, the threat to human freedom came from within society: it was the regime that endangered the liberty of the individual. Monarchies didn’t give people the rights they deserved, and certain forms of government prevented people from acting according to their own will. Some regimes didn’t give equal rights to all its members and instead kept some people free and others enslaved. The mental image most philosophers had was that society’s own ruling system was the threat to liberty.

In the nineteenth century, when Europeans were well aware of the non-western world, John Stuart Mill referred to the encounter between liberal and non-liberal societies: juxtaposed with western societies were the “barbarians,” societies that didn’t share western values. He contemplated whether the West should interfere with their way of life: “Barbarians have no rights as a nation, except a right to such treatment as may, at the earliest possible period, fit them for becoming one. The only moral laws for the relation between a civilized and a barbarous government, are the universal rules of morality between man and man.” Though he did call all foreigners “barbarians,” it should be taken in perspective. This is an early example of a political philosopher referring to the world outside Europe as part of his own. While he didn’t think the “barbarians” endangered his society, he did contemplate forcing liberal ideas upon them.

Thus, philosophy almost never addressed the question of this kind of external threat to a liberal society: not facing enemies but joined by people who lack liberal values. Let me be clear that I am not referring to humanitarian aid to refugees escaping genocide. They are entitled to get help from Europe, the United States, and Israel!

It seems to me that the paradox of liberalism is resurfacing in a new form since the threat to liberal society is changing. No longer is it the government. Now it is people with non-liberal values, who join western society and change its nature. Nowadays many see Islamic believers as a peril, but it could be any other group. Since our world is so virtual, the threat can be illustrated in the context of social networks. Suppose you were part of a Facebook group dedicated to human rights. If many people who object the very idea of human rights wanted to join the group and express their views, would it be right to block them?

The philosophical contemplation of the past should have a fresh, contemporary dimension. The new reality calls for a theoretical expansion of liberalism, perhaps by adding another aspect to the old ideas. Recent events generated new unanswered philosophical questions, like how does liberalism treat non-liberal members of society? Should we enforce liberal ideas? Should we accept whoever want to join our society, regardless if he or she holds anti-liberal values?

I am now glad I studied philosophy, yet it makes me further appreciate the lack of a much-needed theoretical development in the philosophy of liberalism.

January 24, 2025
The Pope and the Nazis

Pope Francis’s attempts to direct the Catholic Church into a more progressive path brings his influence into question. As a spiritual leader of millions, to what extent can he change both the church and the world? His believers live in different places around the globe, speak many languages, belong to various cultures, yet they all look up to him as the ultimate moral authority. Can a leader without an army, so to speak, be as influential as political leaders? And what happens if national sentiments stand in contrast with religious faith?

Early in 1963 The Deputy, a play written by the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth, was staged in Berlin. It was the first time concentration camps were presented onstage, which at the time provoked fierce protests. But this wasn’t the only objection to the play; its theme could not be tolerated by many: it blamed Pius XII, the Pope during World War Two, for not taking public action against the unfolding of the Holocaust. According to Catholic dogma, the Pope is the deputy of Christ on earth, and his lack of action is interpreted in this work in religious terms.

The play is most unusual. It combines two genres we see as conflicting: a historical play and a religious work of art. Hochhuth presents concrete historical arguments within a religious framework. Doctor Mengele is a modern manifestation of the devil, and Auschwitz is his way of provoking God. As Satan tries to annihilate life, the divine creation, the author articulates his historical insights—and his reservations about Pius XII.

The Nazis intentionally avoided an open rift with the Roman Catholic Church, argues Hochhuth in the historical notes added to the play. In spite of their obvious ideological objection to Judeo-Christian tradition, some Nazi leaders had ambivalent feelings towards Catholicism. Hitler’s mother, we are reminded, was a devout Catholic and attended church regularly with her children. Also, many German soldiers were Catholic. A public attack on the Pope and the Church might generate a sense of alienation, perhaps whilst in battle—a most undesirable result that may weaken Germany. Thus, the Nazi leadership wished to blur its alienation from the Church, at least until the end of the war.

This made the Pope extremely influential, argues Hochhuth. Had he voiced a clear and unequivocal condemnation of ‘the final solution,’ the Nazis may have reconsidered the plan to exterminate European Jewry. But Pius XII refrained from condemnation. In the play, his reasons are both practical and theoretical. From a practical perspective, the Nazi regime is the only impediment to the spread of the anti-religious ideology: communism. Also, the Church must keep its neutrality since its believers are on both sides. And possibly more Jews could be saved if an open conflict with Nazi leadership is averted.

The play also ascribes to Pope Pius XII profound theoretical arguments: protecting the Roman Catholic Church is his ultimate mission, worthy of any sacrifice. And there is a theological discussion on predestination and free will. “Was not ever Cain, who killed his brother, the instrument of God?” argues Pius XII. Hitler may be part of an obscure divine plan beyond our understanding.

But what about the Jews? Hochhuth claims that this was the response of the historical Pius XII: “As the flowers in the countryside wait beneath the winter’s mantle of snow for the warm breeze of spring, so the Jews must wait, praying and trusting that the hour of heavenly salvation will come.”

Many Catholics were deeply offended by the play. When staged in Europe and the United States, both Jewish and Christian protestors interrupted the show. Yet The Deputy is not at all anti-Christian. There are two saint-like characters that sacrifice their lives in the struggle with Nazism: a Catholic priest and a Protestant officer in the German army. The Catholic saint cannot endure the Pope’s moral stand. He thus shares the destiny of the Jewish victims and joins them in Auschwitz. To break his spirit Mengele makes him remove bodies from the crematorium. This drives him to desert his way of passive resistance to Nazism and try to murder Mengele, who then kills him. The Protestant saint is a man of action. He impedes Nazi plans to speed up the extermination of the Jews. He is a Christian, he says, because he is “a spy of God”—a man engaged in action aimed at saving lives, changing the route of history.

At this specific point in history, the Pope could have transcended his role as the head of the Catholic world and spoken against universal crimes, but Pius XII chose to defend Catholicism rather than fulfill the moral obligation of being a deputy to God. Unlike some junior priests who saved Jewish lives, he kept quiet, doing nothing to stop the Holocaust.

Many questioned his motivations.

January 24, 2025
Who Is an Idiot?

Most of Dostoevsky’s novels are in fact experiments. He sends his protagonists into the world to test a certain hypothesis on the nature of man or society. As we follow a murderer, a gambler, a monk, a prostitute—or simply ordinary people—we are driven to pose the questions Dostoevsky wants us to ask. And though the novels are extremely exhaustive and complex, they can be reduced to rather simple intelligible questions.

In 1868 Dostoevsky began publishing his novel The Idiot in a journal titled “The Russian Messenger”. It is a story of a truly good person: innocent, kind-hearted, selfless, forgiving, a man without moral faults. Prince Myshkin—this is his name—is “a positively good and beautiful man”, as the author describes him. The experiment in this novel was a rather odd one: what would happen if ordinary men and women were to encounter a man who is utterly good? The intuitive answer, I think, is that it would somehow ameliorate their lives. But the great author demonstrates his belief that the result would be altogether different.

The novel begins as Prince Myshkin arrives in St. Petersburg after spending years in Switzerland for treatment of epilepsy. He comes to meet a distant relative of his and encounters the various characters. Rogozhin, a passionate and violent man, is infatuated by a societal beauty; he inherits a fortune and wants to marry her. She, Nastasya Philippovna, was made a concubine at the age of sixteen by her legal guardian, appointed after the death of her parents. She threatens to expose him; he promises her 75,000 rubles if she marries his assistant, Ganya, an ambitious young man. Myshkin himself falls in love with the beautiful Aglaya, the daughter of his family relative; she is infatuated with him, almost against her will, though ridiculing his good nature and naiveté.

Myshkin, as has been pointed out, is an extremely good person. He sees the positive side of everyone, always offering help, calming any dispute—and taking the blame for the sins of others. This makes the various characters think he is, well, an idiot… They see self-sufficiency, egotism and selfishness as evidence of intelligence; their absence implies stupidity. Yet this protagonist, clearly somewhat of a Christ-like figure, ignores common beliefs and adheres to his strictly good ways.

The plot takes several dramatic turns. Rogozhin confesses that his deep desire for Nastasya Philippovna is so overpowering that it makes him think of cutting her throat. She is so traumatized by her sexual exploitation at a young age that she is overtaken by self-destruction. Ganya wants to marry her to upscale his social status. And poor Myshkin, shaken up by her sufferings, offers to marry her to prevent a catastrophe, and thus disappoints the lovely Aglaya. At the end, after many vicissitudes, Nastasya Philippovna runs off with Roghozin, who then murders her. Aglaya, broken-hearted, marries a ‘wealthy exiled Polish count’ who is revealed to be neither wealthy nor a count, and turns her against her family. Myshkin finds Rogozhin with the body of Nastasya Philippovna, and they both lament her. Rogozhin is sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Siberia. Myshkin goes mad and returns to the sanatorium in Switzerland.

Clearly Dostoevsky is portraying tragic consequences of the encounter with this perfectly good man. Yet the roots of these misfortunes are not unequivocal. Myshkin is something of a Christ figure. Is it possible that the encounter with Christ leads to nothing but misery? Though profoundly religious, Dostoevsky often points out the paradoxical nature of religious belief; it is the most profound yearning for something beyond our reach.

Possibly Myshkin’s habit of taking the blame for others is the cause of all this misery, as some scholars have pointed out, since it seems to drive his sinful friends to more desperate misdeeds. It is a fundamental criticism of Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church: forgiving the sinners only drives them to commit worse crimes.

But Dostoevsky’s work cannot be reduced to a religious statement. This novel seems to convey a very strong message: taking the blame for others is harmful, aspiring for eternal good is destructive, and forgiving anything is detrimental. Oddly, in spite of his being a profoundly religious man, this comes rather close to contemporary secular values: personal responsibility for one’s achievements and failures; the aspiration to relative advantages rather than absolute ones; the treatment of mental defects by science, not devotion. George Panichas, a noted scholar of Dostoevsky, said that “Through Myshkin, Dostoevsky gives his prophetic vision of a modern world in which a life ordered by Revelation and the ability to experience the world in a religious way are lost.”

So is Myshkin an idiot? Not in a simple way, of course. His choice of self-sacrifice is conscious and not the result of stupidity. But in a more profound way, Dostoevsky is suggesting that perhaps he is.

January 23, 2025
Falling into Nazism

There is something enigmatic about the way the Nazi regime came into being. I am not referring to its profound historical sources, but to the gradual transformation of Germany from what seemed like a normally functioning society into one that endorsed a state of ecstatic devotion to a ruler, a nation, a race, an ideology. The shift of values and habits is intriguing, especially when we compare the early manifestations of Nazism with the end result – WWII and the Holocaust. In retrospect, Germany underwent a comprehensive change. But was it possible to grasp the enormity of the transformation as it was taking place?

Klaus Mann (1906-1949), a German writer and publicist, began writing his well-known novel Mephisto in 1933 and concluded it in 1936. A fierce opponent of National Socialism, the son of Thomas Mann and brother of Erica, he fled Germany in 1933 to reside in Amsterdam and in the United States. His public criticism of the Nazi ideology made Nazi Germany strip him of his German citizenship. Mephiso, later adapted as a film, focuses on the psychological mechanism of adjusting to a new spiritual atmosphere, a new regime.

The protagonist, Hendrik Hoefgen, is an ambitious young man. At the beginning of the novel he is a young actor with a revolutionary spirit, supporting Communist groups; at the end he is the head of the German National Theater in the Nazi era. So how does a man who publicly opposed Nazi ideals become part of the Nazi establishment?

Mann’s answer is subtle gradation: a very slow and gradual process of moral decadence, in which every step appears almost plausible. There is no one moment of moral collapse, of adoption of racial or anti-Semitic ideas, only a very slow process of adjusting to a new regime, gradually adhering to its standards.

When Nazi ideas begin to spread, the young Hendrik gets a role in a major theater in Berlin. He openly denounces racism, calling Herman Goering’s girlfriend, herself an actress, ‘a stupid cow’. As the Nazis are gaining power, he is shooting a film in Spain. The director cancels the making of the film. His friends and wife decide to leave Germany – but not him. His burning ambition to become a famous artist, well-known and wealthy, makes him persuade himself that free art will always survive, regardless of political developments.

Strangely, Goering’s girlfriend, oblivious to his past remark, asks him to appear on stage with her in Berlin. Hoefgen hesitates, but the professional temptation overshadows everything. He returns to Nazi Germany to play with her, also becoming acquainted with Herman Goering. The latter grants him the role of Mephisto in Goethe’s Faust. He even attends the opening gala; in the intermission he invites Hoefgen to his stall, shaking his hand as the audience watches. At that very moment Hoefgen becomes a famous actor. “How easily everything went! Hendrik feels he must have been born under a lucky star! … Should I have refused so much splendor? No one else would have done so given the same opportunities; and if someone was to claim otherwise, I should denounce him as a liar and a hypocrite.”

The next step is using Goering’s affection to save an old friend who was engaged in anti-Nazi activity. He takes pride in saving his friend, but not only in that: “I have rescued a man, he thought proudly … But might there not be a day of upheaval and great wrath? In case that happens it would be wise – and indeed necessary – to take insurance. The good deed constituted a particularly valuable insurance policy. Hendrik congratulated himself on that.” He is cold and calculating. Should the Nazi regime collapse, it would be wise to be able to justify his collaboration with it.

When Goering is about to eliminate Hendrik’s black mistress, he manages to have her deported to Paris. He meets her in her dark prison cell, before deportation, warning her: “There is one condition attached to this great favor … you must keep quiet! If you can’t keep quiet then it’s finished for you.” He now explicitly threatens a woman he cherishes dearly.

His appointment as head of the National Theater is a moment of personal triumph; he remarries and lives in extravagant wealth, yet members of the underground threaten him: “we will know who to hang first.” His shaken sense of security leads to his emotional collapse, and, in tears, he cries: “what do they want from me? … All I am is a perfectly ordinary actor.”

This last sentence encapsulates Klaus Mann’s historical observation: many Germans who were not ardent Nazis yet fully cooperated with the Nazi regime did not accept the moral responsibility for their deeds. The gradual development of the adherence to Nazism made the avoidance of a full reckoning possible. Hendrik may have even argued that he was a victim; but Nazism couldn’t have thrived without people like him.

January 23, 2025
A Jewish State of Mind

Sometimes reading a book creates a feeling of ‘recollection’. Something about the atmosphere, the use of certain words, the depiction of daily life, seems so familiar, almost as if we have actually been there, in a different time and place. When I read Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto: a Study of a Peculiar People, I felt this way. In a way, the spirit of my parents, who immigrated to Israel from Eastern Europe, was similar to the state of mind depicted in the novel. Alongside their intellectual engagement, they also had these inclinations to be down-to-earth, to cling to common sense, to cope with hardship through humor. I find Zangwill’s portrayal of the Jewish mentality prevalent in East London in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries astonishingly familiar.

Israel Zangwill (1864-1926), the “Dickens of the Ghetto” as he is sometimes called, a British writer and humorist, was born in London to Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe. He went to school in East London, where education was free, and later became a teacher, journalist, author and political activist. He married Edith Ayrton, a non-Jewish author and feminist, and openly encouraged the feminist struggle. Zangwill was also involved in the Zionism movement, supporting the foundation of a Jewish state, though not necessarily where Israel is today.

In his literary work he describes the life of Jewish immigrants, both in London and in the United States. Children of the Ghetto: a Study of a Peculiar People is a wonderful, rich, deep and humoristic description of the Jewish immigrant community in East London. The colors and spices of the ‘exile’, the Diaspora, are all there: the Yiddish language, the abstemiousness born of poverty, the inbuilt skepticism, shabby appearance, and above all, humor, which alleviates any suffering. But Zangwill also adds some observations on the nature of the Jewish people, a ‘peculiar people’, as he puts it.

“People who have been living in a Ghetto for a couple of centuries are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. The isolation imposed from without will have come to seem the law of their being.” Centuries of forced isolation from the non-Jewish environment created an inner seclusion. Of course, in London Jews could live wherever they wanted. But they had already internalized a sense of being essentially different from others, though not in a negative manner: “For the Jew has rarely been embittered by persecution. He knows that he is in Goluth, in exile, and that the days of the Messiah are not yet, and he looks upon the persecutor merely as the stupid instrument of an all-wise Providence.”

Life in the Ghetto was anything but pomp. The synagogue provoked no sense of intimidating awe: “Decorum was not a feature of synagogue worship in those days, nor was the Almighty yet conceived as the holder of formal receptions once a week. Worshippers did not pray with bated breath, as if afraid that the deity would overhear them. They were at ease in Zion.” Yet this lack of distance from the divine – people often talked business in the back seats of the synagogue – went hand in hand with an affinity with ‘the Almighty’, a sense that Providence is concrete and tangible.

Perhaps the most palpable feature of Jewish life Zangwill depicts is the granting of immense importance to satisfying life’s simplest needs. Not that emotional and spiritual inclinations did not matter; they did, but always after food and shelter were ensured. When describing the signing of an engagement contract, Zangwill writes “As a nation, Israel is practical and free from cant. Romance and moonshine are beautiful things, but behind the glittering veil are always the stern realities of things and the weaknesses of human nature. The bridegroom, Pesach, … was a boot-maker, who could expound the Talmud and play the fiddle, but was unable to earn a living. He was marrying Fanny Belcovitch because his parents-in-law would give him free board and lodging for a year, and because he liked her. Fanny was a plump, pulpy girl, not in the prime of youth…. and had pain in her chest before she fell in love with Pesach Weingott.” Fanny’s father, in his Sabbath clothes (which, “like the Sabbath they honored, were of immemorial antiquity”), made sure that the engagement contract would be fair to his daughter.

The collective self-perception is a central part of the novel. Characters often see their conduct and choices as deriving from their being Jewish. The Rabbi tells his daughter “Be a good girl, dear, and bear your trouble like a true Jewish maiden. Have faith in God, my child. He doeth all things for the best.” It is the deepest framework of looking at the world; not only a natural outcome of being part of ‘a peculiar people’, but a conscious appreciation of the almost encompassing place of Judaism in one’s life.

My father used to quote an old Jewish proverb: a Jew must never ever be stupid; but if he wants to, it’s fine.

January 22, 2025
A Song of Misery and Hope

The dramatic historical events of World War II are extremely difficult to contain. The plenitude of films, documentaries, photos, and books on the subject often obstructs the desired transformation from pure academic knowledge to empathy with the victims of the atrocities experienced by so many. Yet sometimes a very simple sight or sound can capture the events of the past better than anything. Whenever I think of the Nazis, a childhood memory immediately surfaces: I hear the monotonous sound of Nazi soldiers marching in Le Chant des Partisans, sung by Yves Montand.

Le Chant des Partisans was the song of the French Résistance during the Nazi occupation of France, a symbol of the underground forces fighting the German army. Anna Marly, a young dancer and singer who fled from Russia with her mother at a very young age, composed it. A talented and colorful young woman, she was a ballet dancer in Monte Carlo, studied with Prokofiev, and worked in Parisian cabarets. In 1940, after the fall of France, she escaped with her husband from Paris and ended up in London. Her inspiration for the tune of Le Chant des Partisans was an old Russian song she had heard. Anna wrote the lyrics together with Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon, but later complained that the only suggestion of hers that was accepted was the use of ‘crows’ as a metaphor for Nazi planes. The lyrics and melody were completed in 1943. She sang it beautifully.

It was first aired on Radio-Londres, the BBC daily broadcast in French to occupied France. Immediately, it became extremely popular. Anna was also a very good whistler, and André Gillois, a radio broadcaster at the BBC, used her whistled version as Radio Londre’s theme tune. French Resistance members appeared on this show, encouraging their fellow countrymen to actively resist the Nazi occupation. These broadcasts were also used to convey coded messages to Résistance groups in France. The Nazis prohibited listening to it and attempted to jam the transmission. Yet many Frenchmen waited every day for Anna’s clear whistling of Le Chant des Resistance.

The song became a hymn in anti-Nazi France. Singing it was an act of rebellion. Since their national anthem, The Marseillaise, was banned by the Nazis, Frenchmen used Le Chant des Partisans as a substitute. In fact, it became customary to sing it every time a Résistance fighter was killed. Many years after the war, whenever Anna performed it in France, people would come to her with tragic and heroic tales, remembering what it had represented for them. Once, a former fighter revealed a horrible story: he and four others had been captured by the Germans and ordered to dig their own graves. As they dug, “to give us spirit we were whispering your song”. They were shot, and he was the only one to survive.

Even after the war the song did not lose its significance. It was even proposed as a new national anthem for France. Anna had written other songs about the partisans. One of them, written with the Résistance leader Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie, was called “La Complainte du Partisan”. It was translated into English and performed by many artists, among them Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez.

I came across this recording of this song as a child, in Jerusalem. My parents, like most people whose lives had been shattered by World War II, refrained as much as possible from describing the arocities of the war. It was my cousin, the late Claude Gandelman, who brought us the record. Claude was born in France and was a child during the war. He was hidden in the centre of France, where his father, a physician, was active in the Résistance. He later immigrated to Israel and was a professor of French Literature in Haifa University. He gave us a box full of old records, and thus I was introduced to the best performers of French music.

But this song was different. I listened to it over and over again, though I didn’t speak any French. The sound of the Nazi soldiers marching was chilling; the Nazi screams were horrifying. But then I realized that some whistles could be heard alongside the clicks of the soldiers’ boots. When I asked Claude, he explained that preceding a Résistance action, its members would communicate with each other via very low, almost inaudible whistles. I listened to the song many times but since he told me this, I began to hear a different tune – more bearable, less threatening.

The partisans’ song – English Translation

Mate, do you hear the dark flight of the crows over our plains?
Mate, do you hear the muffled clamour of enchained countries?
Hey, partisans, workers and peasants this is the signal
tonight the enemy will know the price of blood and tears…

Join the sabotage, get off the hills, comrades!
Take the rifles, the machine gun, the grenades out of the straws.
Hey, killers, with a bullet or by knife, kill swiftly!
Hey, saboteur, take care of your charge: dynamite…

It’s us smashing the prison bars for our brothers,
The hatred on our backs and the hunger that drives us, the misery.
There are countries where people are dreaming deep in their beds,
here, we, you see, we’re marching on and we’re getting killed, we’re getting whacked…
Yes, we’re getting whacked…

Here everyone knows what he wants, what he does when it takes place,
Mate, if you go down, a mate out of the shadows takes your place.
Tomorrow black blood will be drying under the sun on the roads,
sing, colleagues, freedom is listening to us in the night…

Sing…
Come on, sing…
Sing, colleagues!

January 21, 2025
Germany and the Germans

On May 29th 1945, three weeks after the surrender of Nazi Germany but before the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world-famous German author Thomas Mann (1875-1955), Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, gave a lecture at the Library of Congress, titled “Germany and the Germans”. Many looked forward to this address with anticipation; Thomas Mann was considered a supreme interpreter of German culture throughout the world, and a fierce opponent of Nazism. The emigration of the Mann family from Germany in 1933 had echoed in the international press, contributing to the universal opposition to Nazism.

Addressing the question of German national character, he began by announcing that “I am to speak to you today on Germany and the Germans—a risky undertaking, not because the topic is so complex, so inexhaustible, but also because of the violent emotions that it encompass today”. Yet, notwithstanding the turmoil created by WWII and the Holocaust, he presents a fascinating and solid explanation for the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Before delving into a historical analysis, Mann asserts that he sees himself as part of German culture. In spite of being a brave opponent of the Nazis, he argues that there are no ‘good Germans’ or ‘bad Germans’: “Any attempt to arouse sympathy to defend and to excuse Germany, would certainly be an inappropriate undertaking for one of German birth today. To play the part of the judge, to curse and damn his own people in compliant agreement with the incalculable hatred that they have kindled, to commend himself smugly as ‘the good Germany’ in contrast with the wicked, guilty Germany over there with which he has nothing at all in common, — that too would hardly befit one of German origin. For anyone who was born a German does have something in common with German destiny and Germany guilt”.

He then turns to the historical arguments. Already in the sixteenth century Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation, instilled an ambivalent attitude towards freedom: “And no one can deny that Luther was a tremendously great man, great in the most German manner, great and German even in his duality as the liberating and the once reactionary force, a conservative revolutionary. He not only reconstituted the Church; he actually saved Christianity”. From the individual’s perspective, Luther was a great liberator: he encouraged a direct encounter between man and God, freeing him from the power of the priesthood. He translated the Bible so every believer could read it himself. Yet from the perspective of society as a whole, he supported the darkest forces oppressing the evolvement of a free society. He was a liberator of the inner experience, but fiercely rejected the idea of political liberty. Germans were encouraged to nurture their feelings, artistic drives, religious beliefs – yet political freedom was denounced.

This dualism, argues Mann, was further expanded by Goethe, the great German poet, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In his play Faust, a masterpiece, the protagonist, Faust, makes a pact with the devil in order to achieve full self- gratification. Though the explicit point of view of the author is a condemnation of this pact, the play leaves plenty of room for moral ambivalence. The reader can infer that in order to fulfill one’s desires it would be imperative to have a pact with the devil. And Mephisto, who satisfies Faust’s wishes, is far from being repulsive. He is smart cunning and strong: “And the devil, Luther’s devil, Faust’s devil, strikes me as a very German figure, and the pact with him, the Satanic covenant, to win the treasures and power on earth for a time at the cost of the soul’s salvation, strikes me as something exceedingly typical of German Nature. A lonely thinker and searcher, a theologian and philosopher in his cell who, in this desire for world enjoyment and world domination, barters his soul to the Devil, — isn’t this the right moment to see Germany in this picture, the moment in which Germany is literally being carried off by the Devil?” Indeed, during WWI, Goethe’s Faust was distributed to the German soldiers before they were sent off to battle.

If Luther’s theology created a sense of a boundless self, utter liberation of instincts, emotions, thoughts — yet without any political progress towards democracy – Goethe implanted the notion of moral ambivalence, suggesting that in order to achieve one’s goals one would have to succumb to the enchantment of the devil.

These two influences led to the evolvement of Nazism. The State of Germany was not the result of a yearning for democracy: “Fundamentally Bismarck’s empire had nothing in common with “nation” in the democratic sense of the word. It was purely a power structure aiming toward the hegemony of Europe, and notwithstanding its modernity”. Boundless individual self-fulfilment was encouraged; the widespread moral stand was ambivalent, suggesting that cruel brutality is a necessary evil – and the result was Nazism; a full realization of a historical process that commenced in the sixteenth century.

Well worth reading; a brilliant historical analysis.

January 21, 2025