Rothschild Boulevard | Lisa Goldman

I did not intend to write about Yom Hashoah this year. Sometimes you feel you’ve said all there is to say. And in the case of the Holocaust, I am really tired of seeing the memories kicked around in the name of political ideology. I cringe when visiting heads of state are taken to Yad Vashem rather than schools for gifted children, places like Neve Shalom and innovative hi-tech companies; I am appalled when I hear that (non-Israeli) Jewish teenagers who don’t know the difference between Genesis and Judges, can’t speak Hebrew and have never heard about the 500 year history of the Jews in Spain are nonetheless able to recite names of concentration camps; and I am disgusted when I read comparisons between the Palestinian-Israeli armed conflict and the death camps. Lately, a lot of people have made me feel like yelling, “Shut up and have some respect, moron.” (Bert has a more intelligent response, here). But I was raised in Canada, so I am polite. Usually.

There’s no denying that we Jews are still grappling with a collective trauma that is visited unto the third generation – and probably beyond. Today, for example, I read about a man who walked into a Tel Aviv tattoo parlor to have his father’s concentration camp number copied onto his own forearm. And right now I’m reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, which is reviewed here.

Last year my mother sent over “my library” – 15 boxes of books that I’d collected over the decade I lived in New York and then left behind when I went off gallivanting around the world. As I unpacked them eight years later, it was almost embarrassing to see how many of those books were novels and historical accounts about the Holocaust. Wait, didn’t I have a whole bunch of books on ancient Rome, existentialist philosophy, Baroque music and contemporary architecture? Um, apparently not so much. There I was, thinking that I was this secular, worldly, urban type, but my boxes of books told the truth: From Judtith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit to Tom Segev’s The Seventh Million, I was just as obsessed and bent over under the burden of memory as the next Jew.

Yesterday afternoon on Rothschild Boulevard I saw another piece of installation art that attempts to address this issue of collective memory. (I’m hoping the artist will replace the turf at some point!).

It is called “Broken Jew: Memory as a Genetic Scar.”

The anonymous artist left the following explanation tied to the railing with a yellow ribbon – to match the yellow star, a replica of the one German and Austrian Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear. Translation below.

BROKEN JEW

(Memory as a Genetic Scar)

Plaster orthopedic mould for the rehabilitation of back problems as a reflection of a society with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The heavy weight of memory on our spine.

A wall can make life difficult, sometimes. This past Friday morning, as weekend strollers on Tel Aviv’s peaceful, tree-lined Rothschild Boulevard were on their way to cafes, yoga class, and shopping, many were surprised to find their path blocked by what looked like a concrete wall. Actually, it looked like a section of the oft-photographed wall that forms large parts of the separation barrier in places like Abu Dis and Qalandiya.

According to 37 year-old artist Ehud Segev (the bearded guy wearing a canvas hat, sitting on the bench in the foreground), about 98 percent of passersby stopped to express their support for his installation art-cum-political statement. Mauran Paz (the one holding the bicycle), said that a few parents pushing kids in Bugaboos were angry at the inconvenience of having to lift the pram around the wall. To which Ehud responded that they were absolutely right to be upset: a wall did indeed make life difficult.

Others stopped to use the chalk and spray paint provided by Ehud to decorate the wall.

Around lunchtime, a couple of guys approached Ehud and told him they were more concerned about the well-being of Israelis than of Palestinians.

“I actually agree with them,” said Ehud in an ambiguous response that is open to interpretation. “But in general I am against walls. They always fall, in the end. In the meantime, they just create disconnects and misunderstandings between people.”

And how, I asked, do you respond to those who point out that the separation barrier is often referred to as a security barrier – i.e., that its purpose is to save lives by preventing terrorists from entering Israel?

“I am an artist, so it’s not my job to respond to people who say the wall prevents terror attacks,” he answered. “But I do think there is something very cowardly about building a wall. It’s like sitting in a reinforced room in your house all day, wearing a helmet and bullet proof vest. Who wants to live like that?”

Then, almost as a non-sequitur, he volunteered , “I think the solution to the conflict is for every Israeli to learn Arabic in school from day one. A lot of misunderstandings could be avoided that way.”

By 1.30 p.m. the police ordered Ehud, who had put the installation up around 8 a.m, to take the wall down. “I wasn’t upset,” he said calmly. “Actually, I was surprised it lasted as long as it did.”