Canary In The Coal Mine

The Jews of Libya

by Rachel Soussan  |  Algemeiner.com  |  June 14, 2011

 

Reconciled identity: David Gerbi with the director of the Museum of Libyan Jews, in front of the Israeli, Italian and Libyan flags.

 

Following his recent trip to Libya, psychoanalyst and former Libyan refugee David Gerbi met with members of the World Organization of Libyan Jews in Jerusalem and was appointed their official representative in public affairs. The Organization which was established in 1982 aims to provide a platform for Libyan Jews who were exiled from their native country following pogroms and political and religious oppression which culminated following the Six Day War of 1967. Furthermore, the Organization advocates for Libyan Jews to have the possibility of revisiting their homeland to rebuild and restore desecrated Jewish holy sites such as cemeteries and synagogues. Gerbi hopes to play an active role in facilitating dialogue between the World Organization of Libyan Jews and other parties who share their values.

In an article published earlier this year  in The Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, Gerbi discussed his struggle to regain and redefine his cultural identity after his family was exiled to Italy following the mass expulsion of Libyan Jews in 1967. After a curfew was imposed on the Jews, similar to the beginning of the Holocaust, Gerbi recalls his mother sending him out to collect food for him and his five siblings. “From one day to the next we lost our societal status.” Gerbi’s family was forced to hide in their apartment for weeks, surviving on minimal rations supplied by kind neighbours and Gerbi’s own nightly feats.

His more permanent trauma however, was caused following his abrupt relocation to Italy. He describes his paradoxical identity crisis; while he felt hated and repelled by the Arab World, he still felt inherently connected to his Mediterranean roots. The phenomenon of being stateless affected thousands as they struggled to reestablish their identities on foreign soil.

Gerbi speaks of the ‘collective trauma’ caused by the fear of retaliation. “If people are afraid to speak out against injustice, they strengthen the oppressor. It is a vicious cycle that becomes harder and harder to break out of. It took me years to finally address what had happened to me and my family.” He describes himself as a part of the generation of the Children of Silence.

In 2002, while helping his mother to renew her passport, Gerbi discovered that his aunt was still living in a nursing home in Tripoli. She was at the time, the last Jew known to reside in Libya. He immediately decided to take action in trying to reunite her with her family.  Through what he describes as a meaningful coincidence, the Libyan Ambassador to Italy was a regular customer in his sister’s store and was able to help Gerbi in his endeavor to return home for the purpose of bringing his aunt to Italy. Gerbi was the first Jew granted a visa to return to Libya in thirty six years.

His first return to his home country was both cathartic and sparked Gerbi to take an active role in preserving the Libyan Jewish legacy and taking the platform geo-politically. He returned to the USA with messages of peace from Qaddafi. “I felt I had established a basis for a future development of cordial relations and I felt grateful to the Italian Consulate as well as the Libyan government, ” Gerbi writes.  In 2007 Gerbi returned to Libya and was invited  by Qaddafi on the premise of helping to normalize the relationship with the Western World, however upon arriving in Tripoli, Gerbi was arrested and searched, and all of his belongings, including his religious items were confiscated. Gerbi was escorted to an airplane of which he had no idea as to the destination. He was flown to Malta from where he returned home to Italy. Feeling disappointed and traumatized yet again by his country, Gerbi spent many months in silence and finally spoke out in an interview with the Jerusalem Report.

Despite these set backs, Gerbi says he believes in “the theory of small footsteps.” Together with the World Organization of Libyan Jews, Gerbi hopes to work towards an open free Libya, where Jews have the opportunity to return to visit and reconnect with their Middle Eastern heritage. David Gerbi has worked hard to reconcile his identity and now says “I know how important it is not to live in conflict, but in harmony, which for me is the Mediterranean identity of Jewish-Italian-Libyan.” 

Below, Dr. Gerbi training mental health professionals in Tripoli, Libya.

The World Organization of Libyan Jews holds its base in, Israel. The reason for this says Gerbi, is that Israel is not only the center of monotheistic religions but also a democratic state, and in this respect a paragon for what the people of Libya are now demanding from their own country. While there are no Jews living in Libya today, the Organization has clearly expressed its solidarity with the Libyan people who are fighting for freedom from Qaddafi’s four decade long rule.

Gerbi now visits Libya regularly to train mental health professionals to address and treat Libyan civilians who are, now forty years later, suffering from the same phenomenon of the fear of retaliation. Gerbi hopes to help to strengthen the people, help them overcome their fears and work together with them to build an open country through justice and peace.

 

Source:  http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/06/14/the-jews-of-libya/

Rep. Brad Sherman Will Introduce Bill Outlawing City Circumcision Bans

by Jonah Lowenfeld  |  JewishJournal.com  |  June 14, 2011

Reacting to recent efforts to advance ballot measures banning circumcision of underage males in California cities, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) is set to introduce a bill that would prevent municipalities nationwide from prohibiting the procedure.

“Religious freedom is a federal issue, and medical practice is a state issue, maybe a federal issue as well,” Sherman said today. “Neither of them is in the proper realm of cities.”

The exact language of Sherman’s bill, the Religious and Parental Rights Defense Act of 2011, hadn’t been released as of press time, but Sherman said the bill would be presented to the House Judiciary Committee today or tomorrow. Sherman also said that he was gathering co-sponsors. “One of note is Keith Ellison,” Sherman said, referring to the Minnesota Democrat, the first Muslim American to be elected to Congress.

A proposition banning circumcision in San Francisco will appear on that city’s ballot in November. An effort to put an identical proposition before voters in Santa Monica was abandoned by its proponent on June 6.

Sherman did not coordinate his legislative efforts with the local organizing effort to defeat the San Francisco ballot proposition, which is being led by the Jewish Community Relations Council. He said he does not expect the measure to pass in San Francisco, nor does he expect any state to enact such legislation. Nevertheless, he was moved to act by the anti-Semitic comic book “Foreskin Man,” penned by Matthew Hess, an anti-circumcision movement leader.

Asked about the precedent for using federal legislation to restrict the types of laws that may be enacted by cities, Sherman cited a 2000 law that prevented cities from enacting zoning laws that would inhibit the construction of houses of worship. “Even when it is a city issue, such as zoning, the federal government steps in when we think cities are unduly burdening First Amendment rights,” Sherman said.

Ultimately, Sherman said, the decision over whether to circumcise “should be left up to the parents. I’m not going to propose a mandatory circumcision bill.”

Source:  http://www.jewishjournal.com/politics/article/rep_brad_sherman_will_introduce_bill_outlawing_city_circumcision_bans_2011/

San Francisco Should Vote Against Arrogance, Not Circumcision

 

by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance  |  HuffingtonPost.com  |  June 8, 2011

 

 

I've been with the Simon Wiesenthal Center since the day our human rights organization began back in 1977. An important part of my work is combating the world's oldest hate, anti-Semitism. Hate crimes, Holocaust denial, Nazi War Criminals. Difficult and emotional issues to be sure, but I always try to approach each with a modicum of objectivity.

But that's not always possible ...

Eight years ago, I sat on Elijah's Chair in a Jerusalem Synagogue, fighting back the tears as I heard my infant grandson being named in honor of my late father, Isaac Cooper. Little Shmuel Yitzchak Wolff was sucking on a grape juice-soaked gauze pad. The 8 day-old had just undergone a Brit Milah -- the ritual circumcision by which every Jewish male enters the Covenant of Abraham. It was a sublime moment of continuity, of validation of my past Jewish heritage and of hope for the future of another Jewish child.

At the ceremony that morning were some elderly men, including Holocaust survivors and former Soviet Jews who had miraculously survived both the Nazi onslaught and Communism's rabid hatred of religions.

Hitler's "Final Solution" murdered a generation of Jewish kids, 1.5 million children. Racist Nazi law forbade Germans from following the abhorrent Jewish practice of circumcision, apparently viewing it as an affront to the image of the pure Aryan race.

Jewish ritual circumcision was banned in the USSR. During the Stalin era, Mohels, the pious practitioners of this biblical commandment, performed the ancient rite in great secrecy. Some of those caught were jailed, sent to the Gulag and/or murdered by the NKVD secret police.

Tragically, Jewish history is fraught with similar draconian decrees. As far back as 167 BC, Antiochus IV, a Greek ruler, ban of circumcision in the Holy Land, helped spark the Maccabees' revolt. A few hundred years later, Hadrian, the most anti-Semitic Roman ruler who sought to crush the Jewish nation, banned this practice as well.

And now we have the San Francisco initiative that would criminalize Brit Milah; that would jail and fine Jewish parents who have the audacity to practice their faith.

Who is behind it and why?

Some backers are just anti-Semites creating, in the tradition of Nazi propagandists, caricatures of "monster Mohels" and the blonde haired blue eyed "Foreskin Man".

Others just don't like the idea of making any changes to the human body. They sweep aside the medical evidence that circumcision also reduces the incidence of penile cancer, offers some resistance to STD's and helps protect against AIDS. My colleague at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein says that what some campaigners really detest is the central message of Jewish circumcision: Not everything that is "natural" is perfect. Humans are supposed to perfect this world through their own actions, indeed improving upon what G-d created. The good Lord deliberately left room for that, to challenge us to act.

Some activists cannot tolerate such talk. Religion is OK if it doesn't bother anyone, but people shouldn't be so stupid as to think that it could be a guide for living. Values should come from the most "enlightened" in society -- like the fanatics behind the initiative. It is they who apparently should be the ones to dictate how children should be raised, not religious values, and not parental instincts.

I am not sure what faith, if any, the primary sponsors of this initiative follow, or if they even have kids. No matter. What needs to be curtailed in San Francisco is not circumcision, but arrogance.

 Follow: @simonwiesenthal on Twitter

Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-abraham-cooper/san-francisco-should-vote_b_872796.html