Rehov SoomSoom and Ghetto Fighters

I figured it's about time I wrote about my roommate Marcin. He's a funny little 34 year-old Professor of Political Science from Breslau, Poland. He is Jewish (a rarity in Poland) and only in Israel for the month to learn as much Hebrew as he can. For the last week, his fiancee Kasha has been visiting him. She earned her Master's in English and speaks fluently. Marcin's English is rather broken and so he relies heavily on Kasha to translate whatever he cannot express in his own words. He calls her his "little dictionary". The two of them are rather affectionate and when they are in the same room, it is unusual for them not to be touching in some way. The great thing about Marcin is how excited he gets over seemingly mundane things. For instance, when he's trying to come up with the right English word, he wiggles his tongue back and forth between his teeth and then if he comes up with it or someone prompts an especially apt term, he snaps his finger and points at you with a beaming smile on his face. He seems to get so much pleasure from merely putting the right words in order. I have a hunch this might come from the fact that he wants to prove to his future wife how much he enjoys English. She is very patient, petite and pretty, waiting for him to look to her for help and never jumping in before he finally gives up on those slippery little English phrases. I have spent many nights sitting with them talking at the kitchen table after a long day of studying.

Meanwhile, Hebrew class is moving along at a rapid pace. There is only one week left. I've been trying to hide the truth about Hebrew class to save the last morsel of self-respect I have left. In truth, it is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever done and also some of the most fun I have ever had. Hebrew class is a serious endeavor but it also involves lots of singing, dancing, play-acting and laughing. The most banal of phrases can turn suddenly into "I want to walk around in the bathroom and enjoy myself" or "I'm so hot (sexually) today!" In addition, I have relearned the beauty of Sesame Street, only here it is called Rehov SoomSoom. We sing songs with the kids who are learning about body parts or new words. Sara, our teacher, demands that we all stand up and wave our arms in the air for all of the refrains. Israeli pop songs are also learned which involve lyrics like "Every dream of my heart is fulfilled. There is a sea of happiness in your eyes." Blahhh. Nonetheless, you would see us all singing and dancing our hearts out to this superficial little ditty. At night, we create dialogues with partners using the words we have learned that day. I have portrayed drunks, little kids, women, part of an unhappy aging married couple. I can think of no better way to learn a language. They are fabricated scenes and the acting is horrible but seeing how the language works in an everyday way is an important lesson and the entertainment is invaluable.

Finally, yesterday we visited the Ghetto Fighters Museum, the first museum in the world to commemorate the Holocaust, in particular, the ghetto of Warsaw. The Museam was started as an extension of a Kibbutz (commune) that was created by some of the individuals that were involved with the Jewish Uprising in that particular city. It is an overlooked aspect of the Holocaust but not an unimportant one, especially from an Israeli historical perspective. Before the Nazi invasion of Poland, Jews made up about 35% of the population of Warsaw, comprising of about 500,000 people. When the ghetto was created, it included only 2.4% of the residential area and the entire 500,000 people. In the first year of its existence, disease, malnutrition and starvation killed tens of thousands. Then, the Jews began to be deported in 1942, about 300,000 in the span of two months to Treblinka Concentration Camp, which only operated for one year but saw the extermination of 900,000 people. Armed resistence first occurred when the Nazi's began the deportation of the remaining population. The resistence numbered about 500-700 fighters that had pistols, homemade explosive devices and a few rifles while the German troops numbered over 2,000 reinforced by artillery and tanks. The Jewish fighters proved resilient and resourceful, connecting a series of attics and tunnels to attack then quickly retreat. The Nazis stopped the deportation after four days and instead began the systematic destruction of the Ghetto and the annihilation of the remaining population. They began burning and blowing up the buildings until the entire Ghetto was levelled. I have included several pictures. A few of the fighters, including their leader, Yitzhak Zuckerman and his later wife escaped through tunnels, made their way to Israel and established the Kibbutz dedicated to socialist and Zionist principles and to the memory of the Holocaust. Their story was an important one at the beginning of the state because they represented the new identity of Israel--strong, resilient, militant and unbending to oppression. Holocaust victims were looked upon with contempt and suspicion within the nascent state because they represented the unconfident and subservient Diasporic Jew, which the state rejected completely. Not until the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 did Israel begin to recognize the traumatic events that these people witnessed and survived. The Holocaust began to be seen in a different light thereafter.

Nick