It was 2023. I had written a book that I thought was about death and memory work but then death came for real. My father became very ill. I woke up one day, it was October 7th. I wrote to my friends. That we were shocked is an understatement. We tried to understand what had happened, what was going to happen, while tentatively trying to navigate between Israeli and Palestinian flags without losing friends, connections and work.
We read the reports of Hamas massacres, of people killed near the border with Gaza, at the music festival and in kibbutzim. Between our quickened breaths and the news of acquaintances affected, there was a fear of what would follow: merciless retaliation by the Israeli state and settler violence, increased aversion to Jews in general, and closed, uncompromising allegiance to the State of Israel in our Jewish circlesâa brutal concentrate of decades of Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The dead were not allowed to remain mournfully dead for very long, they were transformed before both ourselves and others into pawns in a cruel game
We could not fully see what the next three years would do to our own hearts and the hearts of others. The dead were not allowed to remain mournfully dead for very long, they were transformed before both ourselves and others into pawns in a cruel game. An empathetic approach to the death of others, asking ourselves how it would affect us.
In November 2023, I and other musicians were invited to play my father's music at one of the memorial ceremonies for the victims of the Holocaust, organized by a Jewish congregation and a religiously and politically unaffiliated organization. At short notice we were canceled and replaced by other musicians on the grounds that one of my fellow musicians â a parishioner like myself â had signed a call for a ceasefire in Gaza. I was offered to participate alone, something I naturally declined.
A few weeks later, my friends and I published a text in Expressen with an appeal for a ceasefire and criticism of the lack of condemnation by the Jewish community and Swedish politicians of the Israeli killing of Palestinians, the occupation and the blockade of Gaza. We wrote about what it is like as a Jew to become a political bat in an Islamophobic era. Afterwards we were showered with more or less fanciful epithets and the hatred took new and uncompromising forms.
I dipped in the mikveh and showed my father, where he was lying in the hospital bed, the certificate: Channa bat Georg. A kind of sighing light in the world
During the same time - in the middle of this hell for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank - I finished my conversion, to the religious community that I have been invited to and rejected from since my teenage years. I dipped in the mikveh and showed my father, where he was lying in the hospital bed, the certificate: Channa bat Georg. A kind of sighing light in the world. Three months later, my father became an angel and a moonbird. My father died. I don't know what to call it to be true and at the same time possible to take back.
Eight months later my son was born. Or he was picked out, hastily, and as if by chance, on my birthday. When dad transferred his heartbeats to the little bundle, everything happened very quickly. And then there was a very small heart, but completely misconnected. We sang that he was free like a bird in the wind, that he was a little lion, that he was a little green banana. He was connected, plugged in and then the helicopter took off with the ECMO and the rather large little bundle, without us.
There my father took over, he flew next to the rotor blades, sat by the little hand, played about little bumblebees and soft cheeks. Our son was operated on for seven hours. They moved little tiny vessels, they rewired all the wires and eventually stitched together a tiny, tiny chest. Who are you? we asked. And all the nurses said: He will appear. A little grandfather's boy. Bearer of burdens.
Peter Beinart describes in the essay book "To be a Jew after the destruction of Gaza" the uncompromising loyalty of most major Jewish institutions to the state of Israel. He believes that it is to be regarded as a kind of idolatry. The conclusion is drastic, but gives a good picture of the formal or implicit demands that are made. In most Jewish cultural or religious contexts, you are wise to profess or at least not openly disclaim allegiance to the State of Israel. Whether you live religiously, keep Shabbat or kosher, is often of less importance.
It has never been so easy to call other Jews self-haters. And then you have to remember that it was never particularly difficult. When my father received the honorary Gullspiran award at the Guldbaggegala in 2009, it was in the middle of one of Israel's brutal wars in Gaza - "Operation Cast Lead" in Israeli. In his acceptance speech, Dad waved the golden scepter and said: "If I had a real golden scepter, a magic wand, I would have now put an end to the suffering that all children in Gaza are subjected to." At a Jewish party a few weeks later, a man came up to me and hissed, "Your father, he's such a self-hating Jew." The man in question later apologized to me. But for us Jews who protest the Israeli occupation of Palestine, his reaction is not unfamiliar.
From left to right â everyone claims to protect Jewish life and Jews. So fitting then to lay the blame for anti-Semitism on Swedish Muslims
The massive support for Israel's genocide in Gaza, or the lack of condemnation, from political parties, institutions and associations, has contributed to the silencing, suspicion and ridicule of Jewish voices against the genocide and occupation. This has resulted in us not being able or allowed to attend memorial ceremonies for our dead or celebrations of our lives. We have been excluded from the collective grieving process. From left to right â everyone claims to protect Jewish life and Jews. So fitting then to lay the blame for anti-Semitism on Swedish Muslims. The radical right-wing movement's reformulation of itself, from anti-democratic to the standard-bearer of democracy, ironically enables it to position itself against anti-Semitism and play out a stereotypical image of Jews against an equally constructed group of Muslims.
In that case, what kind of Jewish life do you want to promote and highlight? And whose? Are our lives also included? Despite the fact that new research reports from both the Forum for Living History and the Segerstedt Institute clearly show that anti-Semitism and negative attitudes towards Jews are most widespread among moderate and Sweden Democratic voters - and least common among environmentalist and left-wing ditto - the dominant narrative continues to be that anti-Semitism is something that only the "left" engages in. Therefore, our lives and symbols can also be used as partisan political clubs by liberals and their radical right-wing friends.
They are often presented as the "true" Jewish voice, which coincidentally rhymes very well with the prevailing right-wing conservative, Islamophobic and nationalist social development
In closed Facebook groups, on open social media accounts, at holiday celebrations and membership meetings, scores of hateful, derisive, threatening and sexist comments have been uttered and harassment directed at left-wing Jews, including directly at me and my friends. Senders are sometimes people who publish themselves and are seen publicly in cultural events, newspapers and on television. Their views are regarded as legitimate, their stance as sober. They are often presented as the "true" Jewish voice, which coincidentally rhymes very well with the prevailing right-wing conservative, Islamophobic and nationalist social development.
The search for the "real" Jew, the "true" Jewish voice, is simultaneously recorded in the flow of some of those who want to support the Palestinian struggle. Countless times I have encountered sharing of posts with and about representatives of the ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Neturei Karta. These men are visibly Jewish with beards, tallis, peyes and fur caps. They demand the dissolution of the state of Israel and believe that Judaism and Zionism are incompatible. The basis of this stance is that the state of Israel must not be formed until the Messisas have returned - but once this happens, they too want to see an ethno-nationalist, Jewish state. Furthermore, representatives have participated in a Holocaust denial conference arranged by the then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As the online magazine Vashti Media puts it: Neturei Karta are not your allies.
In the fantasy of twisted nationalism, its opponents are the truly anti-democratic. But the conflict line is not between those who protest and those who stand idly by. The conflict line does not run between the allegedly anti-democratic self-haters and the concerned friends of Sweden or Israel. The questions we worry about are about what world we want to see. Whether or not nationalism â on whatever territory it arises â is a fundamental threat to a diverse, just world. I'm not more self-hating than anyone else, I'm assertive.
In my deep, ever-present grief for my fatherâa friendâa worldâmy religious homelessness becomes all the more apparent. A child can be a home. Who will take responsibility for my and my peers' children also being allowed to be Jewish children in Sweden? Who will guard their hearts, their Star of David or chai around their necks, who will ask: Who are you? They will show themselves.
But let the dish flow like water
and righteousness as an unfathomable stream
- Amos 5:24.
