Gunter Grass
When I was a kid in the ’50s, America was the greatest and we were all glad we won World War II. Even though my heritage, on both sides, was German, my father, of course, fought against Hitler as an American. And the Jews? Well, I didn’t know bout that holocaust until my pre-teens, when I started reading TIME magazine. I asked my Mom about it. As I recall, she deflected my question, and shooed me away. (Her maiden name, by the way, was Rosenberger. She told me it was not Jewish, but German: “Rosenberg,” she said, was Jewish.)
Later, my mentor in graduate school was a feisty Israeli.
At some point his daughter met my brother and sparks flew. My mother did NOT like it.
Meanwhile, I grew up, and in my 40s, met and married a Jewish mathematician. Jeff got along pretty well with my family, and I with his. We both noticed that I, a German Catholic, had married a Jew of mostly Eastern European extraction. The first time I went with him to synagogue (a rare event, even for him), and heard the Hebrew language, I cried. I was stunned. It felt so familiar.
After Jeff’s death in 2003, I joined a group of people who meet with Saadi, or Neil Douglas-Klotz, a Sufi, scholar, and teacher/composer of the Dances of Universal Peace. Saadi’s translation of the Lord’s Prayer from the original Aramaic (which apparently, is close to Hebrew), made me cry again. “Oh birther of the cosmos . . .”
THE ARAMAIC PRAYER OF JESUS
as translated from Aramaic in ‘Prayers of the Cosmos‘ by Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz
O, Birther of the Cosmos, focus your light within us — make it useful
Create your reign of unity now
Your one desire then acts with ours,
As in all light,
So in all forms,
Grant us what we need each day in bread and insight:
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
As we release the strands we hold of other’s guilt.
Don’t let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The song that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
I affirm this with my whole being.
Hearing this prayer, I realized that it brought me back to roots. Had the Aramaic translation been the one I heard as a child, I would not have had to leave my religion.
About a year ago, I discovered that my mother (now deep into dementia) was (is) Jewish! Which makes me Jewish! Her own mother refused to let her children meet their relatives, though they lived in the same town of Saint Cloud, Minnesota. I always knew that, and wondered why.
The whole “Jewish” question has resonated deeply within my family of origin, though no one talks about it. It’s a massive living tissue that lies beneath conscious concern.
In his critique of the Israeli government, David Icke has long distinguished between Zionism and the Jewish people, making it clear that he is not anti-Semitic. I don’t know how many people actually heard him. Here’s one excerpt from “The Zionist Elephant in the Living Room,” in a David Icke newsletter:
| Hello all …The political creed of Zionism has big ears and a long trunk and I think it’s time that was pointed out. It also stampedes through our lives at every level and that needs to be said, too.
It has created a pincer-movement on the human mind by hijacking staggering amounts of political, corporate, banking and media power on one side and by using the fear of being called ‘anti-Semitic’ if you dare to state the bloody obvious. They have been able to do this by equating in public perception that Zionism = Jewish people. It does not. Zionism is a political creed introduced by the House of Rothschild to advance the goals of the Illuminati families that are largely controlled by the Rothschilds. When people think of Zionism they think of Jewish people. When they think of Israel they think of Jewish people. That’s understandable given the propaganda, but it is seriously misleading and those instant connections need to be broken if we are going to understand what’s going on here. Zionism means Rothschild just as Israel means Rothschild. When we see the extraordinary number of Zionists in key positions around the world we are looking not at ‘manipulating Jews’, but manipulating Zionists representing the interests and demands of the Rothschilds. |
Now Gunter Grass’s recent poem about himself as a German who has been silent on the ethical status of the Israeli government brings the whole question into high relief, causing a ruckus, not just within Israel and Germany, but inside me. Here is a reading of the text of his poem. Below that, links to three commentaries on the reverberating situation.
More Israelis Going Ballistic about Gunther Grass Poem
Former German Minister: My Response to Gunter Grass
