I have been a bit delayed in writing this post, because I feel a little unequipped to.
We are struck with emotion at the news of the seemingly ongoing terrorist attacks in Mumbai (as many hostages remain imprisoned). I cannot imagine the damage inflicted on those who already mourn, on those who await news, on those who were witnesses, on the psyche of the city and nation as a whole. The locations of these pre-meditated acts of violence are varied, but altogether quite loaded. The train stations are proof of the non-discriminating bloodlust of the players. The hotels are proof of a deeper political agenda, a real discrimination, perhaps against the Leisure Class? And Chabad House is proof of the most obvious discrimination.
Such a brutal event, anywhere in the world, is bound to affect all feeling people, but we, as Westerners, are clearly meant to feel the hand of these criminals, who, according to many reports, specifically sought American and British targets (while murdering so many Indians). An abusive message has been sent: Indians should now live in fear, Americans and Europeans should fear India . . . and, of course, Jews, ever running, even in the 21st century should always assume that violence attends them. I've delayed this post, in part, because I hate to be selfish (focused on the small number of victims who are, like me, Jewish) and in most circumstances hate to align myself with Chabad (far too conservative a sect for me), but it is the element of the attack that has most shaken me.
I recall having lunch with my grandmother at Cafe des Artistes in the summer of 1993; I was eight. The muralled room (as always) and the food were quite memorable, a succulent Portuguese fish soup to start (the broth of which has never been matched in my experience). In the course of conversation, she brought up neo-Nazis. I had never heard of them. Though the meal was such a pleasure, it marked the beginning of a positively manic internal struggle over the Holocaust and the indistinct possibility of its recurrence. For many nights, I lay awake obsessing over the idea of my family being trapped, hidden, hunted, captured, separated, starved, killed. These irrational, morbid night terrors have subsided. Most of the time, for me, the Holocaust feels simply inaccessible and haunting. The whole of my known family came to New York decades prior. Obviously those related to me who had remained in Poland were affected, but I have no names, no notion of them outside of the general--films, photographs of schtettles, short stories.
What has occurred, as I've grown, is an awareness of Jews who do feel that the Holocaust nips at their heels, those related to survivors, those connected with Israel (a place that I and my relatives have never been). They are my friends (and rabbis too), but politically they give me pause. I am sick over the notion of Jews voting for Republicans because of the dippy coalition of Evangelicals and Zionists, the mission to expand Israel to its "Biblical borders." The very idea is repugnant. It stinks of fiction, of the marriage of church and state, a sort of colonialism (fascinating to think about in the wake of a Subcontinental attack); it implies so much violence, new crops of refugees, and the growth of bitterness and, in turn, anti-semitism. I could write pages of invective here. I'll check myself, because, though apropos, it's pretty dangerous to point fingers at other Jews for "rousing anti-semitism." I simply mean to reference the political backdrop of the moment, the tumult that marks my new era of fears, a post-Bush Administration world in which Jews are sought out by terrorists (rather than Nazis), not just in Israel, but in India, in Europe, . . . in America?
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