German and Yiddish

It's been an unbelievable semester so far. I can't decide if this tops my last semester at Colgate or not. As one professor pointed out, I'm experiencing different kind of stress so I'm actually very happy and upbeat many days.

I'm finishing up my MA thesis on Shanghai Jews' post-war immigration and resettlement in San Francisco. It's going excellent, thank you very much.

I'm focusing on languages. No. More. Seminars! It's been amazing in a way because I'm really starting German in an intensive First Year German course, and I'm continuing my Yiddish readings. So it's been a blast comparing the two languages and "re-learning" Yiddish grammar in my German classes. My Yiddish teachers weren't all that terrific in their pedagogy to help me learn Yiddish grammar. So I was happy for a repeat course on Germanic grammar and boy, do these German teachers explain it so well! Even though it's been six weeks, I'm just so amazed how much better I can understand my Yiddish readings and improve my translation skills. I'm reading Sholem Asch, a very well-known writer who immigrated to America from the Pale, and he wrote Yiddish using German pronunciation. So I'll see aleph and heh in places where they wouldn't be in Standard Yiddish (developed after WWII). Now I read the sentences aloud and listen to myself sound the words out.... usually I can actually figure it out in German! And if my Yiddish dictionary doesn't have the word, even if I've re-written the word in standard Yiddish, I'll take the German pronunciation and transliterate it, and then look it up in German. Works nearly every time. Works every time.

I love my German course. It's fun and it's really nice to be in company of 3 other graduate students plus 9 undergraduates (mostly freshmen). The teachers are so different in their approaches to teaching us German. One is an American Jew who is super-involved with theater so she loves it when we act out dialogues. The other is a native Berliner so she's got that "hot" high German accent that I heard when I was in Berlin two years ago. She's more quiet but excellent at teaching grammar in a systematic manner, as well as teaching us idiomatic German and expressing ourselves. For example, you don't say "Was?!" (What?!) but "Wie bitte?!" ("Pardon?!"). Both of them just love talking about Deutschland. The former tends to do comparisons between German and American behavior. The latter, well, Berlin's her home.

I'm just so surprised how quickly I can pick up German all around. I've actually used my German to do some more archival research for my thesis. Now I can read Aufbau, a German-Jewish newspaper published in the US, to find out what happened with Shanghai Jews and what German Jews in the US knew.

Today, the American Jew teacher and I had a big discussion after we laughed at keyboard differences and went over my questions regarding my quiz and paper. We talked about German today, how I, as a Jew, felt about German language, and exchanged impressions and works. She made me think about how different would my Literature of the Holocaust course be different had my professor included some plays. The instructor asked that maybe I should come to her theater class to talk about my impressions of Berlin. I told her that I had written a blog from when I was in Berlin.

I just read through the entries just now. I must say... Wow. I still remember Berlin but, wow, there were a lot of things that I didn't remember! It was so amazing to see how I felt with certain things, people, and places. I went from "no way in hell I'm living in Germany" to "I want to live in Germany." I grew up a lot during that week. I didn't realize how much I felt at home in Germany in a way that it's scary that I can feel at home both in Germany and Israel. I mean, I had always thought Israel would be the only place that I could call home. But... Germany.... you just can't ignore what Jews contributed to German culture and history. It was as if Germany was "Israel" before the war where so many Jews could live in relative peace and without fear.

And on the way home today, I realized how much "my" Shanghai Jews inspired me to learn German and want to learn it in a good way. These were real German Jews who loved their hometowns in Germany. They had a very vibrant German speaking culture and language in Shanghai that lasted until after the war. When you just sit there and listen to their German accents and talk about Shanghai, there's that strong sense of feeling connected simply because they shared a common language and culture that helped them to preserve through the war. Yes, some came to do little with German when they found out about the Nazis, but just listen to them speak and you just realize that German language experienced beautiful moments during World War II.

Holocaust Literature and Harry Potter

I'm not a Potterhead. I'm serious. I don't collect anything except for the books. I don't even own any of the DVDs. I love JK Rowling's writing- she is truly a gifted artist. Yes, I have read the "sequel" which I liked okay.

Yet, as I'm sitting through my "Literature of the Holocaust" course, I am getting freaked out each week. The novels, as my professor warned, would get more difficult as we progress. Well, last week, we read Israeli novelist David Grossman's See Under: Love. It's a beautiful story that should be read at least twice. It's a difficult book because of the writing structure (not just because it's translated from Hebrew). It's full of magic realism. In class, we began covering the usual themes of Holocaust literature. The more we discussed the themes of good vs. evil and language, the more I thought about Harry Potter.

For example, there is a long chapter where Wasserman, the house Jew, and Nigel, the SS officer, discuss Wasserman's story-telling. Wasserman manages to convince Nigel that humanity exists in this world and what Nigel was doing out there to the laborers was just pure evil and thoughtless, and heartless. Nigel commits suicide because he couldn't believe what he was doing and accept the fact that humanity exists. Wasserman wins by telling the story of love between him and his wife, and his actual story characters. Love saves Wasserman's life, just as many other Jews', their faith in humanity.

And of course, the Nazis lose.

Seeing the power struggle between Wasserman and Nigel completely reminds me of the scene between Voldemort and Harry in the Goblet of Fire where their wands clash. Harry triumphs because he saw the love in the characters whom Voldemort killed in this scene. Voldemort killed innocent people who believed in humanity and Harry decides to fight to preserve that. Also, people speculated for a long time why Harry survived. They believed that he was the Messiah, the Chosen One. But Dumbledore points out that Voldemort was defeated because of Harry's mother's love saved Harry and defeated Voldemort when he attempted the death curse on them. Harry goes on in the rest of series with this belief that his mother saved his life and uses humanity and love as a weapon to fight off Voldemort. Before Goblet of Fire, Harry survived their duels through wit and talent.

There's the issue of racism in Harry Potter as well.

Voldemort represents Hitler. They believe in racial purity. They have specific categories. Any drop of non-pure blood is considered inferior. Both of them have a drop of non-pure blood but they don't make an issue of it at all (or rather, just makes them believe the importance of having pure blood in order to keep the rest of the world from becoming deformed and crazy like them). The terms are extremely offensive and marginalize the targets- mixed blood and inferior blood people (In Harry Potter, that means Mudbloods and Muggles, in Nazism, Jews all around). In Harry Potter, the issue really is whether you have the blood and inherited ability to perform magic. There are mudbloods like Herimone who are exceptionally talented. There are squibs, like Argus Filch the groundkeeper at Hogwarts, who are wizards but cannot perform magic to save their lives. For Nazis, you had to be Aryan without mental or physically disablities. For them, if you were not pure and perfect, you would be detested.

Recruitment for evil deeds

In Harry Potter, we have watched Darco Malfoy struggle in school. He's a decent student but feels like a failure compared to Harry Potter and Herimone Granger. As he moves up, especially after The Order of the Phoenix, he becomes intrigued by the idea of joining Voldemort's world of Death Eaters. He also is under pressured, by self and his father, to be part of it because then he would be something, somebody. Through this line of thinking, Draco begins to fantaizes about killing Harry Potter himself. Voldemort gives him the opportunity to do so but Draco fails because he still had some sense of humanity within himself.

This parallels with the recruitment for Hitler Youth and the SS. The SS officers joined because they were just "ordinary" German citizens who didn't see a future for themselves. They wanted an opportunity to be part of something big that would change history.

Death Eaters and SS officers will tell you, if on trial, that they were just "following orders".

Yes, both groups have internal motives. They believed in purity. They hate the fact that "impure" people are highly successful in the society. Death Eaters cannnot stand Harry Potter because he "loves" mudbloods and is the sensation of the wizardry world. This is analogous to German Jews, especially the highly acclaimed scientists like Oppeheimer and Einstein.

Language of silence.

If it's one thing that I truly learned from this course and connected with this series is the use of language. In Harry Potter, there is a specific set of vocabulary that pertains to Voldemort's world. Nazis butchered German language, taking certain words and associating them with their own actions. Consequently, the population can't bring themselves to say certain words or make specific references. For example, I saw this connection in See Under: Love when Momik (the protagonist) hears specifi vocabulary of "Over There" and "Nazi beast". "Nazi beast" represents anything (in my understanding) relevant to the Nazis, most likely the whole systematic killing machine developed in death camps. They never mention Hitler, Auschwitz or Europe, or anything. This is the same for when wizards avoid naming Voldemort by his name, but only "The One Who Must Not Be Named". They never mention the three "unforgivable curses". They want to forget the horrible times when Voldemort was in full power. People rejoice when they see or hear about Harry Potter and don't ever want to talk about the past with him. (That is the beauty of the series, forcing the readers and Harry Potter to keep going in order to understand his past.)

Resistance.

I liked "Dumbledore's Army" to the Jewish resistance fighters. I see a connection between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in The Half-Blooded Prince (one of the most amazing scenes in any of Harry Potter films). This was a somewhat failed attempt by Dumbledore's Army to kill as many Death Eaters as possible. It was heroic in a sense that they took a chance. When Harry, Herimone, and Ron drops out of school to "fight" Voldemort by finding all the Horcuxes and encounters danger in every corner, I am reminded of the Jewish partisan fighters in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. To be such a fighter, one had to be willing to face the worst.

Rowling acknowledged that she made "death" the major theme of her books. We always knew that Voldemort wanted revenge on Harry Potter but it only becomes serious when Voldemort returns to full power after Goblet of Fire. When he realizes that he didn't kill Harry just by taking his blood, he decides that in order to truly banish Harry from the world was to create a "final solution" - to kill him once for all, not to take him by alive and do something. It wasn't enough. The Nazis, once they figured out mass killings through Einsatzgruppen and gassing, death became a prevelant theme of the Holocaust literature. Elie Wiesel's Night smells of death. Once the Nazis and Voldemort figured out the "Final Solution", the rest of the story is centered around death.

These just some... rambling thoughts that went through my head during class... truly, I haven't read the books in a good while... I'm sure I can do a deep analytical paper on this. But I don't think my English professor would go for it at all. If she actually says fine, this would be the best final paper that I can ever write in my whole academic career in a sense that I would absolutely enjoy this topic.

Again, I will emphasize that I'm no Potterhead but simply that I recognize JK Rowling's incredible literary imagination that encompasses all themes of the Holocaust throughout her series.

Forgiveness

Quite a few of my friends posted ".... Please forgive me for any wrongdoings I have done..." on their status on Facebook and GoogleTalk. I'm not the one who forgives easily unless the person's touched my heart. I know that holding grudges isn't good but the feeling usually goes away and I don't think much about them unless they are brought up. There are very few people that I have a hard time forgiving because I like a lot of people who have entered in my world.

So today, I decided that the most important person whom I should ask for forgiveness is my landlady. She is still a nut. But things have normalized in the past week and I didn't see her as much as I did before. I wanted to show her that I did care (mainly to keep my deposit) and I respected her house. So while she was doing some yard work this morning, I stopped and said to her, "I just want to ask for your forgiveness for any harm I've done to you. That is all." She accepted it.

(I also reminded her a little that it's a Jewish holiday since it seemed like she already accepted my forgiveness).

Now where to go from here? I will tell my roommates tomorrow night that she is welcomed to come when Claire cooks in two weeks.

Thanks, friends, for a little social pressure. Thanks, technology, whatever would we do without you?

Voter's Remorse

Yes, yes, Sarah Palin was just way, way too scary for me, as a woman. I just... couldn't vote for that team so as long she refused to provide rape kits for victims. I suppose that her views of abortion and sexual health were my biggest pet peeves because her views were just anti-feminist. Women need to be protected from personal invasion.

But does Israel need to be protected from Iran? Yes. I couldn't trust Sarah Palin enough- I doubt that she even knew much about Israel and the origin of the Israeli-Arab conflict before joining McCain. Obama, however, had some sense.

These days... well... since probably May, I've been feeling this "buyer's remorse" for voting for Obama. Since Cairo speech, really. It's nice that he's succeeded in convincing Muslims to stop being "anti-American". He's got excellent speechwriters but damn, those speechwriters quietly pissed off plenty of Jews and Israelis. The Israelis and I are not happy that he has yet to visit Israel since the previous summer. Who am I kidding? I once thought he was a faithful Christian. And faithful Christians were supposed to support Israel. I think that Cairo speech hurt my affinity for Obama and changed my views of the Arabs. (I must admit that I was also stunned by a fellow Jewish Colgate aluma's decision to join the Arab side after witnessing Operation Cast Lead from Cairo). What Obama lacked to understand was that within the Israeli-Arab debate, you just could not stand on the fence. The conflict itself was too ingrained in history, very much like Russia and its national states, or China and Taiwan. With that Cairo speech, Obama officially declared his position as pro-Palestinian by sympathizing with the Palestinians' plight. Obama claimed that to be a good friend, you must be able to criticize constructively. But I disagree with this method. He basically told Israel to stop settlement building, which was the heart of Zionism. He striked me as anti-Zionist.

And that began to annoy a lot of American Jews, A whole lot of them. We're beginning to think about voting Republican next time. If Obama doesn't do something to placate American Jews before 2010 elections, we're going to see Republican controlled Senate, depending how many seats are up for election.

Norman Podhoretz's article in Wall Street Journal was pretty similar to those that I read for my American Jews and Social Justice seminar last spring. But his conclusion differed from other writers as it reflected today's events. He said, "

What I am saying is that if anything bears eloquent testimony to the infinitely precious virtues of the traditional American system, it is the Jewish experience in this country. Surely, then, we Jews ought to be joining with its defenders against those who are blind or indifferent or antagonistic to the philosophical principles, the moral values, and the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.

In 2008, we were faced with a candidate who ran to an unprecedented degree on the premise that the American system was seriously flawed and in desperate need of radical change—not to mention a record powerfully indicating that he would pursue policies dangerous to the security of Israel. Because of all this, I hoped that my fellow Jews would finally break free of the liberalism to which they have remained in thrall long past the point where it has served either their interests or their ideals.

That possibility having been resoundingly dashed, I now grasp for some encouragement from the signs that buyer's remorse is beginning to set in among Jews, as it also seems to be doing among independents. Which is why I am hoping against hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long been so misguidedly loyal."

Thing is, many of my social values align with the Democrat Party. I strongly believe that the needy, children, and low-income families must be helped by state and federal governments. I am a large supporter of women's rights. I believe that Americans should get assistance for their education. Okay, call me socialist. I also support gay rights- whatever makes the gays happy. But I am still against abortion unless it's for stem cell research because A) teenagers are stupid and women should pay for it by carrying the baby for 9 months, B) The waiting list for adoptions are endless, and C) psychological damage from the procedure. Not because it's in the Bible.

I inherited my values from being in super-liberal academia (Smith and Michigan, anyone?), not so much from my family as researchers suggested as major contributers to children's political values. My family and I rarely discussed politics for a long time. My parents are independents although my mother tends to vote Democrat. I read a lot of humanist and socialist works when I took European history and they influenced how I wanted to envision my life. French Revolution was a great idea, seriously. I loved Rousseau's ideas of how to teach children to be worldly. And I stand by Jefferson's words that we all have the right to have "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." If I was a colonist, I could never be a Loyalist/Tory.

Israel had never entered in my picture until this past election. When I voted in 2004, it was more of being anti-war and I was very afraid of Bush's desire to exploit civil liberties such as his National Protection Agency. In 2008 election, as I've discussed before, I was on the fence for a long time because McCain was actually pretty moderate and didn't strike me as someone who would abuse his power.

I hadn't actually thought much about my values being connected to Judaism until I took this social justice seminar. It seemed to me just a concidence. I also figured that Israel could take care of itself as long the Israelis like our Secretary of State and the State Department. And as Israel have already demonstrated, if it didn't want to listen to our President, it didn't have to unless military aid is really at stake. Like, it won't strike Iran without the aid of US military.

So what am I regretting now? Probably having this consciousness that the fact that I have a strong Jewish identity, that I align with the Democrat Party, and that I vote based on social justice issues. So that makes me appear to be aligning with the Democrat party out of American Jewish tradition. Yet, when I see Republican controlled Senate in Michigan and California, I am infuriated with their "solutions" to close the budget deficit. This is what would happen if we have total Republican control in Washington. How can Republicans cut social and educational programs at the expense of low-income and children? That's our next generation. It's true- you can take out loans for college but you can't take out loans for retirement. But why should we shortchange potential leaders?

Who am I supposed to vote for in the next election? Should we get a third party in? Should I stop factoring in Israel? After all, it IS the Congress who controls the President's ability to act- including declaring a war. That's the beauty of our check and balance system. Maybe I should focus more on keeping the Congress Democratic to ensure social justice in America while having a Republican president who can keep Israel happy. Bush did have a heck of time trying to pass anything that he really wanted once the Democrats took over in 2006. Yet, the Democrats had trouble getting themselves together (although I'd attribute to this that it's the first time in 12 years that the Democrats were in charge).

Sometimes I have a hard time believing that I am living in the United States, the land that many foreigners dream of living in. They're coming from socialist countries, not capitalist like America. I have a lot of respect for American history and traditions, which is part of why I agree with the consensus that America can never go democratic socialist like Britian and France. It's just not meant to be according to the Constitution. Health care is... another story.

Report on Summer 2009

Throughout my last day in San Francisco, I looked back to my last 3 1/2 months of summer. I still remembered my advisor's e-mail in June when I reported to her on how things were going. She was happy that I was having a very productive summer. At first I thought, "Well, I don't know... I feel like I still have plenty of downtime..." At first, it felt like being on vacation in San Francisco. Now, I realized that this summer had been productive in sense of giving my time to do my work. I tried to do something for at least 3 hours or more each day except for Fridays and Saturdays (I have been stuck on Israeli work week schedule since returning two years ago!). It might be working on my computer, getting things organized and e-mailing people about transcripts, appointments, and information. It might be taking Van Ness bus down to the library to browse a month's worth of San Francisco Chronicle. It might be on the phone, making appointments. Or preparing and thinking about my day's interview appointment. In any way, I felt that I was making steps forward to creating a thick binder full of notes to go through in September. Even in Israel, I showed up for classes everyday on time. I made sure that my second trip to San Francisco was very productive in terms of getting all the rest of the materials before I resign myself to mircofilm only access at Michigan. It wasn't always a chunk of 3 hours but just spread over the day (you know, those "start exercising by breaking up 30 minutes into 3 10 minutes workouts). I had to be very flexible in order to work around various people's schedules. So in all, I loved my workdays as I'm in "schedule-doesn't-matter-so-as-long-things-get-done" school.

I sigh with disbelief on how I made this summer so productive in comparison to the last two or three years. I was a serious bum in the last two summers in Israel and Rochester. I couldn't take an internship or a job as my sessions in Israel fell during the month of July. It certainly had been a while since I *worked* on regular hours.

I got the experience of living in a city that had once been my vacation destination as a working woman. Did I like this change? (Washington hadn't been a vacation destination as my family and I rarely ever went in the city when we visited my uncle in the suburbs.)

In many ways, yes and no. I learned to navigate San Francisco on my own, explored new neighborhoods and eateries, and experienced what it's like to live in one of the world's most expensive cities (Tel Aviv is expensive on an Israeli salary, especially with the rent). In other ways, living there diminished the excitement of going to certain places upon arrival because, well, they're there. So what?

Yet, I enjoyed learning about San Francisco Jewish heritage and what made San Francisco Jews tick. I also needed the feeling of being isolated from the East Coast, away from Yiddish influenced culture into inherently American, Californian inspired culture. Each city has its reasons to be proud of. For San Franciscans, they indeed look down upon nearly every major Pacific port city and proclaimed San Francisco to be ideal. The weather, long history since Gold Rush, low-key liberal atmosphere, and high rate of assimilation defined San Francisco. Oh yes, they love the fog. (For them, it's hellva better than rain!) I've heard critics lambasting San Franciscans and Californians for most part for living in the past and believing that their Golden Age had yet to pass (By Golden Age, I do mean the decades following Gold Rush that brought wealth to the area from industries, port shipping, and exploitation of natural resources). They said, "San Franciscans, wake up! You're in middle of a budget crisis!!!" Although there's nothing I could do about Muni and BART's woes, I could understand where San Franciscans came from with their native pride due to its early years of building a new American city.

As I progress with my project, I learn more about my paper in sense of topics it will cover. It empasses such a wide variety of topics within that without a strong framework, it will get muddled. There are number of things I will need to emphasize what this is all about.

*Jewish refugees in the United States, not only Shanghai Jews but also need to mention the Russian Jews as it was the source of anger for Shanghai Jews when they reflect on assistance from Jewish organizations. The contrast between European refugees and Soviet refugees demonstrated the change in American Jews' education and awareness of the Diaspora.

*San Francisco Jews clearly separating themselves from the rest of American Jewish population, including Los Angeles (especially Los Angeles) by identifying themselves to be free of Yiddish/European yolk, assimilated into American culture (as far as having Christmas trees), and I believe, saw Judaism as peoplehood, not religious nor cultural.

*Distance to the Pacific theater frightened all San Francisco Jews yet they shuddered a bit as they sponsored distant relatives from Germany from 1938 to 1940. "We knew something bad was happening that we had to sponsor them but we didn't know."

*Like many other Jews in America, I believe, San Francisco Jews were no exception in participating in war efforts. Their location heightened their desire to fight the Japanese and give their best efforts to help the United States win. Nazi Germany was still an enemy but war hysterics dictated their attitudes. "The Japanese attacked us! We were so afraid that they'd bomb this city..." Gradually, however, the Jews admitted that as the war dragged on, it became important to fight both fronts, not only the Pacific.

*After the war, individual San Francisco Jews turned their attention away from the aftermath of European war to focus on all the returning servicemen, return of normalcy, and building of homes in the Presidio, Richmond, Sunset, and Sea Cliff neighborhoods. Presidio had been the home of military activities. Families wanted to move out into bigger dwellings, thus this was the beginning of surburbia within the city. Also, the Jewish population became even more spread out, creating multiple bubbles that left them unaware of other neighborhood Jewish communities like Shanghai Jews in the Sunset district.

*As predicted, Shanghai Jews, when they could, maintained its refugee community as it had in Shanghai within the "ghetto". Baghdadi and Russian Jews were probably left out of the resettled community.

*Jewish migration pattern changed due to suburbia and rules of resettlement for the newcomers. Prior migration patterns should be taken note as well as many of San Francisco Jews hailed from German Jewish background. Only one family who I interviewed came after the 1906 earthquake from the East but they were still German.

This project still raises questions in which I will write all over my new whiteboard. While this project revealed interesting perspectives, I must think further how does this fit within scholarship in American history, American Jewish history, and Holocaust history.

I enjoyed every interview that I conducted with San Francisco natives and Shanghai Jews. I loved listening to Shanghai Jews' accents (mostly German, still heavy after all these years!) and admired their resilence. San Francisco natives shared their idealism and journey to their Jewish identities. I was shocked that many had grown up with Christmas trees but had to laugh afterwards because how they saw Christmas trees was how I saw them when I was growing up as well! (I did not, unfortunately, had a Christmas tree.) Sometimes it was challenging to convince San Francisco natives that their stories were important to my project because often after reading my consent form, they exclaimed, "But I didn't know anything! I knew nothing! I can't help you..." Shanghai Jews weren't easy as well as some of them were exhausted from many interviews over the years or experienced different forms of losses that made them unwilling to share at the moment. I had to use my charm to persuade them into believing that they could trust me that their stories mattered in the face of history. I knew that many Shanghai Jews would come out a-okay but I wanted to know just how difficult it was to get sympathy and assistance from American Jews as that was the point of my project.

I owe so many thanks to people who assisted me in the archives, friends of my grandparents in giving me contacts, and of course, my grandparents for providing me a bed and a kitchen.

One thing that did hit me hard was having one Shanghai Jew cancelling on me and later finding out that he was "very old and frail". I realized what Holocaust centers really meant when they say that we're "racing against time" in obtaining testimonies. I did manage to obtain testimonies from many of Shanghai Jews because they did want to talk a bit about their experiences even though I gave them the option to skip over to 1947-1948. It makes me wonder what will my job as a historian in a Holocaust museum/center will look like 20 years from now when the survivors were only small children. The world just lost the last WWI veteran and a Titanic survivor. Next will be somebody in the Russian Revolution. Soon enough, it will be the Holocaust. All we will have left are testimonies and recordings. I am extremely fortunate enough to have opportunities to interact with Nazi refugees in person so that I will never forget their voices and facial expressions as they articulated their stories in front of me.