Fiddler on the Roof: West Bank version
The original story set in Russian Ukraine of the play and film Fiddler on the Roof is more than about a poor Jewish man, Tevye, having trouble with one of his daughters. She has eloped with a Christian. It is far deeper than a father concerned about star crossed lovers, it is more than just one daughter, in fact the star crossed lover is just one of five daughters to marry off. The oldest has an offer from the rich butcher but she is in love with the poor tailor, the second is also presenting some drama as she is courted by a young revolutionary who is filling her head with radical politics. And the third daughter runs off with the Christian literature fan. There are two younger daughters yet to grow up to be troublesome. Life seems to be falling apart, the traditional values with the father being listened to, his authority being accepted all up in the air.
Life would be so much sweeter if only he was a rich man. Ah, to ‘build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen, right in the middle of the town’, what a dream!
And then there is the revolution.
Russia was in trouble. In 1905 it was struggling with the humiliation of losing the the Russo-Japanese war and social unrest as workers were starving, but the aristocracy were living off the fat of the land. Imperial growth from the mid 18th century had seen at the inclusion of parts of Eastern Europe into Greater Russia and with it a large population of Jews. Religious conflict followed as the control of Russian Orthodox was threatened. A number of pogroms followed, including a severe one in 1903. The Jews were targeted, partly as a deflection from the real issues which were besetting Russia at the time.
So, getting back to the story, to the Fiddler on the Roof, not only was Tevye having trouble with his daughters, but he and his Jewish neighbours were being forced out of the village they lived in, being moved on to ‘anywhere but here’. The mantra in part was convert to ‘our’ religion or move. But where to? Other parts of European Russia was forbidden unless they converted, a bit like the acceptance of Jews into Catholic Spain seven hundred years earlier, there the Spanish Inquisition was established to ensure compliance. So it was convert or move to Siberia, the Caucasus, the Far East or Central Asia, the far flung outposts of the Russian Empire or perhaps even America.
Look the other way, it’s the Jews who are the problem here, look the other way, nothing to see here, look the other way.
Throughout the Christian era it has been the same for Jews. Things got tough, blame the outliers, blame those at the fringes, blame the Jews, after all, they killed Christ, didn’t they?
Russian pogroms through the nineteenth century saw millions of Jews escape to the USA, where their mark on culture and business is most visible; in music, Bernstein, Gershwin, Mendelssohn, more recently, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Bette Midler, Billy Joel just to name a few. Movies; Warner Brothers, MGM, the Cohen Brothers, Weinstein, again the list goes on and on. In business too, some of the most successful are Jewish, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan and so that list too goes on and on. In literature too, Jews are prominent. Writers such as Gertrude Stein, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, again just to mention a few.
Much of the resentment against Jews has been because of their ability to be successful without considering why this happens, why so many are so very successful, and that too lies in their history. As being perpetually marginalised but having a religion based of a written coda, and learning to deal with money to create wealth because they were denied the right to own land, the traditional foundation of wealth throughout Europe, they developed skills which were marketable in other fields; finance, entertainment, the arts, business as well as in academia.
The resentment continues. In the USA the KKK also targeted Jews and Jewish establishments and even in recent times, with the recent increase in racial violence, attacks on Synagogs have been reported.
Is it any wonder then that the creation of Zionism in the late nineteenth century focussed on establishing a safe place for the Jewish population, a safe place to practice their religion, and what better place than the lands promised in their holy books, the land of Israel as promised to their forefather Abraham thousands of years ago. A safe place to be who they are, Jews. After the shock of the Holocaust, international sympathy grew so that on November 29, 1947 the General Assembly of the newly formed United Nations adopted a resolution for the establishment of an Independent Jewish State in Palestine, partitioning the Mandated British Protectorate of Palestine into two economic zones, effectively, a two state agreement.
Immediately after the signing of the UN agreement, the Israeli leadership which included the first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as well as several men to become Prime Ministers later including Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin who had been part of a ‘terrorist’ group Irgun, fighting against the British occupation prior to 1947 which included the bombing of the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in TelAviv killing 91 people.
The fight to establish a safe place for Jews, or Israelis continues today, but the agreement made by signing the establishment of Israel and the partitioning of the region was quickly contested with the ethnic cleansing of Israel: the bulldozing of Palestinian villages, displacing over 750,000 Palestinians as refugees who sought sanctuary in neighbouring Syria, Lebanon and Jordan where many of their descendants still live in refugee camps. Other Palestinians were settled in the Gaza Strip, where they have been ever since.
The attack by Hamas on 7 October last year was on farms and villages which were Palestinian lands prior to 1947. (I am not condoning or minimising that attack in any way.)
The wars of 1967 and 1973 saw Israeli forces occupy East Jerusalem, The West Bank and Golan Heights which have remained as occupied territory since, but under UN conventions and international law remain Palestinian Territories and cannot be claimed as part of Israel, although Israel prefers the term ‘Disputed Territories’ and has engaged in development of Israeli settlements throughout the region.
Since October 7 last year the persecution of Palestinians and Bedouin people who live in the Palestinian Territories have seen an increase in violence and persecution, as there appears to be an increase in the active campaign to drive them from their lands.
While the focus is on Gaza and the destruction of anything that resembles a place to live in that overcrowded space, the gaze on what is occurring on the West Bank is averted… look over there at Gaza, remember October 7, release the hostages, nothing to see here, as villages are attacked, people harassed on a daily basis, security check, arrests for no apparent reason, a constant level of fear and intimidation.
Basic human rights are being denied on an ethnic basis, undesirables are being driven out but have no where to go while the world’s eyes are focussed on Gaza
It seems that the play Fiddler on the Roof is being re-scripted. But no option to convert to Judaism, no offer of resettlement, not even in Australia, a land of immigrants, just go anywhere but here… except where?
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13 comments
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Terence Mills
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Senna
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Canguro
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Phil Pryor
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Steve Davis
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GL
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Canguro
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Steve Davis
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Terence Mills
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leefe
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corvusboreus
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Senna
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Teiresias
Return to home pageThe Doha peace negotiations appear to be bogging down as Israel seeks to tweak the original Biden proposals.
The UN has demanded an immediate seven-day humanitarian pause in bombing to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio – Israel have not responded so far.
Palestinian/Hamas negotiators believe the negotiations should focus on a commitment to a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the return of displaced people to their homes, plans for reconstruction and reinstatement of essential infrastructure and the end of the Israeli blockade.
Israel has not formally responded but they appear to reject most of these demands.
I see UN Secret-General “Antonio Guterres said that if a cease fire is not enacted, then a “polio pause” would be necessary for a vaccination campaign to take place.” OK, the plan is – Before the IDF bombs the children, again, let’s inject them with whatever GAVI & the WHO is pushing, because the UN delegates really, really care?
Great plan not. Rather than injecting malnourished children with dubious substances, how about just providing some clean water, nutritious food and a roof over their heads. And stop traumatizing them with bombs.
BTW, anyone seen what happened to full disclosure of late? Senator Rennick on the TGA’s approach: https://gerardrennick.com.au/the-tga-provides-70-redacted-pages-of-safety-data/
Senna, as others have noted, you have this peculiar quality of opening your mouth and then shoving your foot deeply into it, thus muffling whatever it is you’re endeavouring to put across to the extent that you sound like an idiot.
FWIW, the success of the global commitment to the eradication of polio is measured by a greater than 99% decrease in polio cases over former statistical levels of infection.
If you’d made a conscientious effort to inform yourself before embarking on yet another anti-vax rant, you’d have had to acknowledge that in terms of the history of modern medicine’s fight against this disease, since “the early 20th century, polio was one of the most feared diseases in industrialised countries, paralysing hundreds of thousands of children every year. [And] soon after the introduction of effective vaccines in the 1950s and 1960s however, polio was brought under control and practically eliminated as a public health problem in these countries.” (Citation linked here).
But no, your clod-headed obtusity argued here would preference children suffering this disease unnecessarily rather than be accommodated in a vaccination program which has prevented millions of children from suffering a similar fate.
Senna, the obnoxious pod, a shit inducer by reputation, reminds one that the Senna here is armoured against knowledge and resents sense, if it conflcts with entrenched stupidity. The Australian Federal Authorities in Health offer 25 pamphlets on death preventing vaccines for diseases which once ruined lives, took them in agony. Twenty five major blights, and polio is and was one, yet we have the unruly idiots (Rennick was offered as a reference, a known distorting liar) challenging the efficacy of prevention. And, do zionist murdering supremacists care about anything much for others? Chosen races are there to choose…
Canguro and Phil, sorry fellas, but I’m with Senna on this one. With regard to priorities that is, let me hasten to add.
To talk of vaccines when kids are being maimed and slaughtered, well, it’s almost like a sick joke.
If the UN is talking vaccination then it’s a case of having to appear to be doing something. Anything at all. Because it cannot force a cease-fire.
The UN is on its last legs.
It cannot survive this display of impotence.
Senna,
“…how about just providing some clean water, nutritious food and a roof over their heads. And stop traumatizing them with bombs.” That’s only part of your comment that I agree with, as for the rest…well…
Steve; a clarification. My comment to Senna was specifically about the use of the polio vaccine. I made no reference to anything else he wrote, nor did I take account of priorities.
The second section of his second paragraph is entirely reasonable, and yes, I agree, ought to be prioritised asap.
And notwithstanding, but your reference to ‘a sick joke’ appears to be rather ironic, whether intentional or not.
Cheers, CG.
All good old mate, I realised you had isolated the issues, so I should have made that clear.
If the UN were able to achieve an immediate seven-day humanitarian pause in bombing to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio it may give them the opportunity to flood Gaza with humanitarian aid personnel and healthcare professionals and thus make it almost impossible for the IDF to continue air raids without risking the lives of UN aid workers and thus confirming Netanyahu’s pariah status.
For this reason, the Israelis are unlikely to agree but it is an interesting tactical gambit.
For the recoord, part of the push for a vaccination pause is that cases of polio have skyrocketed in the area.
There’s no reason such a pause cannot be used to also ship in humanitarian aid, especially food, drinking water and medical supplies.
leefe & TM,
Indeed, the prioritisation for vaccination is due to a recorded emergent outbreak/epidemic of polio in Gaza (the first such in 25 years).
And yeah, given opportunity, aid agencies will undoubtedly also use any potential ceasefire opportunity to provide hydration, nutrition and other basic care.
Thanks for your reply & research there Canguro. The linked info is one side of the story, the other side of the story is that the chemical fumigant DDT was being phased out at about the same time the polio vaccine was being rolled out.
I checked ‘Our Partners’ of the ‘polioeradication-org’ site and it’s a ‘Who’s Who’ of Pharma criminals imo.
One of the diseases in 2021 Pfizer Post-marketing study was ‘acute flaccid myelitis’. “Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a disabling, polio-like illness mainly affecting children.” The Pfizer report is titled ‘5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports of Pf-07302048 (Bnt162b2) Received Through 28-Feb-2021’. See Appendix 1: https://www.phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/reissue_5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
About a month or so ago a news clip showed children being vaccinated in Gaza. Now there’s a polio outbreak. The CDC has a page on AFM which it said showed up in 2014. https://www.cdc.gov/acute-flaccid-myelitis/hcp/clinical-overview/index.html That document reads like a Big pHarma hit list of classic vaccine injuries. It notes that most patients had “preceding febrile illness 1–2 weeks before onset of acute flaccid limb weakness”. The Pfizer report above mentions ‘febrile’ 5 times. Now riddle me this, which group of people, including children, were the most vaccinated prior to 2020?
If anyone thinks the WHO is about health, and the UN about peace, and the WEF about equality, dream on. To even the most stupid of people, this will become abundantly clear by Xmas this year, as that is when we get to see what Labor signing over our health sovereignty to the WHO with their IHR looks like in practical terms, imo.
And if anyone thinks the LNP will fix it, is that delusional or what?
The Balfour Declaration, 2/11/1917
“From that day to the present, the Balfour Declaration has been acclaimed as an act of magnanimity such as is rare in the history of Government, and deplored as the most heinous blunder in the long record of the British Eastern connection.”
Christopher Sykes, First NEL Mentor Edition 1967 (p. 11)
The IJC sees the Israel-Gaza war as full of war crimes on both sides and deliberate destruction of race on one side.
It also has a plan for how reparation can be made. No hope?