01/30/05

'You seem like a nice girl ... just say you're Canadian!'

By Rabbi Barbara Irit Aiello

Religion Columnist

I am a rabbi living and working in Milan. Walking around the city with my ki-pah (yarmulke) on my head generates a lot of questions, but mostly it offers an opportunity for dialogue and exchange. That's how it happened that one day as I emerged from the bakery, a lovely older woman stopped to talk. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, this woman, whom I now know as Silvia, grabbed my hand and with a voice filled with real concern, said, "You seem like such a nice girl. It is difficult enough to be a Jew. But a Jew from America ... don't create more problems for yourself. Take my advice, cara mia. Take off the yarmulke and say you're Canadian."

College students do it. American tourists do it, too. Everyone knows that the hatred by some Europeans for all Americans is so intense that the easy way out when asked "Da dove?" (Where are you from?) is to avoid mentioning the United States. Keep it simple, avoid conflict. Say Canada and leave it at that.

The impact of Silvia's advice hit me hard and I felt the double whammy. Her admonition put into words what many Jewish-Americans have been feeling for a while now. Being Jewish in Europe can be challenging. Living in Europe as an American Jew can be downright difficult.

Surely there are many reasons for Silvia's emotionally laden advice, some of them substantiated by my hometown newspaper, Milan's Corriere della Sera. The paper commissioned the Ipso Institute to conduct a poll of the general citizenry of Italy as well as every other country in the European Union. Their findings are astonishing: 46 percent of those surveyed believe "Jews have a mentality that is different from others," 40.5 percent believe Jews have "a particular relationship with money," and 35

percent said, regarding the Holocaust, Jews should stop "playing the victim." Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee said "... the virus of anti-semitism is far more resilient and determined than we might have thought in the past."

It is no secret that in France in particular but in Europe in general, anti-semitism is on the rise. Assaults on Jewish people, including Jewish children, have increased. In Britain a member of the Royal Family thinks its clever to dress up like a Nazi. In Italy a local soccer star offers the "Heil Hitler" salute to his fans. Journalists report a significant number of European audiences who watched movies like "Schindler's List" laughed out loud at scenes of the SS humiliating Jews. Recently I conducted Shabbat services in Rome. As we walked to services, I and the young family I was with were subjected to a bright red swastika with the words, "Jewish Dogs Must Die" scrawled in three-foot high letters, and in major European cities like Milan there are more swastikas per square foot of graffiti than most of us have seen in many years.

The Ipso researchers concluded there was a significant relationship between the increasingly negative attitudes of Europeans toward their fellow Jewish citizens and the criticism leveled at Israel over the conflict in the Middle East. My neighbor Silvia cranked it up a notch with her advice, which seemed to indicate that the support the United States has given to Israel, has now

given Americans, particularly American Jews, a really bad reputation.

Where do these attitudes come from? Why all the bad press? Simply put, because there has been biased "bad press," and often "no press" at all. When another survey recently conducted in the European Union determined that a majority of citizens identified Israel as the biggest threat to world peace, it seems that the time has come to ask for a balanced perspective.

Did you see the news report about the Israeli organization, Latet? Within hours of the tsunami disaster Latet (Hebrew for "to give") filled a jumbo jet with 18 tons of supplies and headed for Asia. Or the one about the ZAKA recovery team that arrived at the disaster site two days after the tragedy? ZAKA brought specialized equipment for identifying bodies. These materials and procedures have been perfected, sadly, because Israel has had to learn to identify thousands of its own murdered children.

Maybe you saw the piece about the IDF rescue team that arrived in Sri Lanka with 80 tons of supplies, including 10,000 blankets and tents, nylon sheeting and water containers? Did you hear about the blood plasma components immediately donated and shipped by Israel, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars collected by American Jewish aid organizations?

No? You are not alone. Apart from news outlets in Israel or monitoring sources like HonestReporting.com, few people have had the opportunity to read about these efforts. Strange, especially because every major news agency has teams of reporters stationed in Israel on a full-time basis, who are required to submit at least one Israel information article every day. Based on this level of journalistic commitment one might expect to have heard that at one point Saudi Arabia pledged $10 million for Muslim tsunami refugees -- not especially significant, unless we also learn that in a telethon held last year Saudi Arabia raised fifteen times that much, or $150 million for the families of homicide bombers.

It seems to me that the insane idea that we Jews, whether we come from America, Israel or the EU,

are egotistic, self-serving, money-obsessed people who are "mentally different" from decent Europeans has been fostered, at least in part, by the media. Under-reporting of Israeli humanitarian efforts and over emphasis on politics and violence seems to have made an impact on my neighbors. Experience teaches us there is no such thing as benign neglect. Ignore the positive and the negative stereotypes will fill the gap. How do I know? Just ask Silvia.

Rabbi Barbara Irit Aiello is the first Progressive and first woman rabbi in Italy. She is rabbi of Sinagoga Lev Chadash in Milan and advisor to Chavurah Ner Tamid in Bradenton. She can be reached at rabbi@rabbibarbara.com.