Jo Saunders and the Nazis

Summary

It is sad that Jo Saunders died, and apparently, many people cherished her. Moreover, there is a tradition of saying only good things about a person who died, and rightfully so. But I think it is also useful to mention mistakes that people did, and have never really corrected. JS had said a very hurtful antisemitic thing about us Israeli Jews, comparing us to the Nazis. Then she apologised for it. Then, after a few years more, she repeated that comparison, only in different words. Which makes me think that her apology was not sincere. I don’t want to insult the dead, but I do not want to be silent either. I would like to ask everyone to recommit to not comparing us Israeli Jews to the Nazis, especially in the coming weeks, when the media in the global north is very likely to turn against us Israeli Jews. Actually, I would like to ask everyone to recommit to not comparing ANYONE to the Nazis. That has never been helpful. 

Also, perhaps one of you would read my story and think, “Hey, that happened to me too. I heard a leader say some horrible things and was not able to interrupt it immediately”.  

I would like to tell that person – you are not the only one to whom it happened.

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1) 

The 1st time I met Jo Saunders was during Passover 2001, when she came to lead a regional workshop in Israel (Passover is a Jewish holiday that happens at the end of the winter in the northern hemisphere). This was after the a period of violence in Israel: suicide bombers were blowing up busses, shopping malls, restaurants. But the horrors stopped for several weeks by then. This was my first RC workshop. I was mostly concerned with surviving the workshop and was not listening attentively to the theory. But I noticed that JS cared very much about the suffering of the Palestinians. Which was fine, because that agreed with my center-left political opinions. I did not want the Palestinians to suffer either.

2)

A year or two afterwards, during another round of violence in Israel, with a shooting during the Passover feast in Netanya, JS came to lead a regional workshop again. This time, I could not attend, due to family commitments. After the workshop, I asked a fellow co-counselor to fill me in on what went on. She told me that JS compared the Israelis to the Nazis, havoc followed, and JS apologized. I imagined that this was some weird idea of “Tough Love” on JS’s part. That is, acting harshly towards a person to make sure that a lesson is learned. I was glad to hear that the mistake was corrected.

 
3)

The 2nd time I met JS was in a regional workshop led by M-, the RRP of Israel at the time. JS came to support her. The violence inside Israel had diminished by that time, and the 2006 war with Hezbollah had not yet happened. M- made a demonstration with D-.  D- was an Orthodox Jew, a single woman in her 30s, who worked as a musician in kindergartens. She had a very sharp sense of humor and was never afraid to say what she thought. She had talents that would make her a great stand-up comedian nowadays. M- would often invite her for demonstrations, as if to “give voice to Orthodox Jews”, although M- never liked D- ‘s right wing opinions. On that day, D- started the demo with the kind of comments that a comedian would make at the audience as part of the gig. Soon enough, D- looked at JS and called out: “Hello Jo! So, do you still think we are like the Nazis?!”. JS mumbled that she had already apologized for saying that. 

4)

I met JS several times afterwards in international workshops, including my first HFW workshop in Poland, 2008. Shortly afterwards, JS  came to lead another workshop in Israel, again during Passover. On the first morning, while presenting RC theory, JS told the workshop about a visit she had made to N- ‘s town. N- was the leader of the Palestinians in RC and lived in Israel. JS concluded her report from the visit by saying that the situation of the Palestinians in Israel at the time reminded her of the situation of the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. I looked left and I looked right, but I saw no sign that anyone had noticed what had just happened. I was expecting the same havoc that happened several years ago to happen again, but it did not. D-, who could have spoken up against that comparison, left RC long ago, as did many other Orthodox Jews. My chronics began to play. The recording was that this is only my problem, my restimulation. So, I spent the remaining session times of the workshop discharging over what I should do. Mostly, I was counseled to work early, about what JS’s comments brought up for me. On the closing circle of the workshop, having realized that nobody was going to speak up, I did. Not in the most eloquent way, I’m afraid. The question that JS offered for the closing circle was: “what will you do differently from now on?”. In the first round, I could not think of something to say. Then, when they returned to those who had not spoken, I said “I will no longer send Palestinains to death camps”. I was ready for someone to attack me for that on the spot for what I said, and for others to come to me later and reprimand me. To my surprise, none of that happened.

5)

My relationship with JS pretty much ended there. It is sad that she passed away, and apparently, many people cherished her. Moreover, there is a tradition of saying only good things about a person who died, and rightfully so. I have read all the posts that people made about the moments that they shared with her. I don’t want to insult the dead, but I do not want to be silent either. I would like to ask everyone to recommit to not comparing us Israeli Jews to the Nazis. Especially in the coming weeks, when the media in the global north is very likely to turn against us Israeli Jews. Actually, I would like to ask everyone to recommit to not comparing ANYONE to the Nazis, that has never been helpful to anyone’s re-emergence. Please try to interrupt  antisemitism, to avoid singling out the Jews for criticism, and to remember the inherent goodness of all humans, Jews and Palestinians.

Also, perhaps one of you would read my story and think, “Hey, that happened to me too. I heard a leader say some horrible things and was not able to interrupt it immediately”.  

I would like to tell that person – you are not the only one to whom it happened.

With love,

Yohai from Israel

A listening project in Tel-Aviv’s climate march, March 2019

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Dear fellow co-counselors,

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Last week, Timna Raz had led a listening project on the occasion of the climate march, that took place in Tel-Aviv. The listening project was preceded by preparatory classes, that took place in the Galilee, in Jerusalem and in Tel-Aviv. She was assisted by Ela Gil.

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In my 18 years in RC, I had only participated in one listening project, and I was very eager to be in another one, remembering how useful the first one had been as a contradiction to my chronic distresses. I attended the preparatory class that Timna led in Tel-Aviv on Wednesday, and then the listening project itself on Friday.

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In the class, Timna read aloud a text from the wide world literature about climate change and the urgent need to revert it. All the attendants agreed to that, so there were no questions, and Timna could move on to what we are actually going to do. As it turned out, the march was going to go from Gan-Meir, a small park in the trendy center of Tel-Aviv, towards the governmental campus that has been built over the past decade. Prior to the march, there was to be a fair in Gan-Meir, where environmental action-groups were about to place booths, hand out flyers, etc. Our goal was not to listen to activists (although that is also important!), but to approach people who were passing by, ask them what they thought about climate change, and offer a brief information about RC. So, the rest of the class was dedicated to practicing exactly that. I had a lot of fun compiling my 1-minute introduction to RC (also known as “the elevator pitch”), and taking part in the simulation that Timna had set up, first as the one who approaches, and then as the one who is being approached. At the closing circle, we were given homework: we were to use the one day left before the march (Thursday) to practice our routine on non RCers.

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I did not do too well with the homework. At the office, I brought up the subject to two co-workers, but they acted as if they have not heard me, just kept on doing their work. On the bus stop, on my way home from Tel-Aviv, I was not able to form an eye contact with any of the men who were there. There was one man who seemed to be open to communication with me, but before I managed to approach him, a school bus stopped by, his young daughter went off it, and both of them walked away happily.

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But, things went much better at the fair ground on Friday. I got there early, so I was able to communicate with the activists who were there, starting to set up their booths. This time, they were the ones trying to approach me with their messages. They were all nice, and it contradicted my isolation. Some school classes marched into the park with their teachers. Then, Timna and Ela arrived, as well as few other co-counselors. We went to a quiet lane on the edge of the park, and began to split time. Gradually, be became a group of around 15 co-counselors, and people who were passing by began to stop and stare at us. I thought this was a wonderful opportunity to approach them, but then I thought, that maintaining the safety in our small group was more important. When everyone got their time slice, we paired up. Each pair prepared a sign, and headed to the main street outside the park. Inside the park, it became dense, loud-speakers began to be used, so not much listening could take place anyway.

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It was much easier for me to approach people than it was yesterday. I was not by myself, but paired with a partner. I had been given discharge time in the group. The day began nicely. And most importantly, the people were more open to communication. Of course, they would be more so on Friday than they would be on Thursday, and they would be more so on the trendy center of Tel-Aviv than they would be in other parts of the metropolitan area. In 30 minutes, my partner and I got to approach some 8-10 people. Most of them were embarrassed at first, but then they were glad to have a chat with us. Some asked us who are we with, which gave us the perfect opportunity to give the 1-minute introduction to RC and hand out the fliers that Timna had provided us. Ironically, on two occasions people that we approached turned out to be activists. When I asked them what they thought about climate change, they opened up their sweaters, revealed their printed T-shits, and gave us THEIR speech about climate change, who is to blame and what the government should do. I thought, that we were given a taste of our own medicine 🙂

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Finally, before the march began, we met together for a closing circle, and were asked what went well for us. My reply was, that it was good for me to realize that I am not as introvert as I sometime perceive myself, that in the right setting and with the right support, I can approach people on the street and convey messages to them. That was a good contradiction to my powerlessness patterns. I hope there should be more listening projects like this one in Israel!

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With love,

Yohai from Israel

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Report from a Healing From War workshop in Poland, October 2018

I have attended a Healing From War workshop in Poland in the first week of October. The workshop was led by Julian Weissglass and was organized by Yvonne Odrowaz-Pieniazek. Some 70 co-counselors attended, from all five continents of the globe: Oceania (Australia, New Zealand), Asia (Japan, Israel), Africa (Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Swaziland, South Sudan),  Europe (Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Basque country, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, UK) and America (US, El Salvador). I love it that these workshops are so diverse. It is not dominated by USers and UKers, with some people from other countries acting as exotic decorations. Furthermore, deliberate actions are being taken in these workshops to contradict US-centrism, in particular the pattern that makes USers think that whatever works for them must work for all humans. The need to include people who do not speak English has evolved into a system of interpreting and transcribing, that actively contradict the domination of the English language. It also contradicts and the pull to abandon some people in order “to get more work done”, a pattern that is installed on us by the oppressive class society. I think that these active contradictions are much more effective than any verbal direction that one might be offered to take to a session.

There has been classes about a wide range of topics that relate to war: classism, eliminating nuclear arms, ending the oppression of young people, nationalism, being allies, ending anti-Semitism, religious upbringing, ending modern slavery, and leadership. The classes were all very good. Christine Diamandopoulos presented our method for resolving problems resulting from irrational behaviors of men towards women in an HFW workshop. I thought that it was a very helpful piece of theory as well.

This was the 10th time that I attend this workshop in the past 11 years, and I love the way that the workshop has been improving over the years. New things are being tried, and the ones that work become a regular routine in the workshop. I love it, that we don’t do things that apparently do not work, just because we have been doing them for so many years. A recent change that I Iiked was the way we put up discharge groups. Instead of having them fully set up in advance by the workshop leader, the workshop leader only assigns the group leaders, and let the other attendants join the leaders by numbers (that is, arbitrarily). Adjustments are then made for language reasons. That saved time to the workshop leader, and included everyone’s thinking in the process. I noticed, that since this method has been deployed, I get to share discharge time with more attendants, especially with attendants who are from different constituencies than mine.

One other change that I liked was about Shabbat. Julian had decided that we would have a Secular Shabbat, one that would be welcoming to non-Jews and to Jews who are not believers. The Secular Shabbat consisted of a combination of a class about being an ally, a class about ending Anti-Semitism, and discharge groups about our religious heritages. We were asked to form groups that were diverse in term of religious background, and that turned out really helpful. The secular Shabbat took place right after Friday’s dinner, and before creativity night. During Friday’s dinner, a the traditional RC Shabbat took place, in a meal table that was set up for that purpose. The creativity night was by cultural groups, which felt like a natural continuation to a class about religious influences on our cultures.  The whole evening was interesting and thought provoking.

I am looking forwards to next year’s workshop!

Love,

Yohai from Israel