THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

seemed to side with me and my friends. It was not just because his value system wasmauled by his party colleagues, but because of his Talmudic approach, according towhich a Jewish text must contain disagreement. You do not expel the challenger fromthe school; you contain him and his views. In the Talmudic tradition it is called“heavenly disagreement.” Because today’s minority view may be tomorrow’s majorityview.My mother had a harder time, since she lived by the Book of Ruth, according towhich a good neighborhood is an essential part of life. The question, “What wouldthe neighbors say?” played an important role in her life.We stood on the porch and had our respectful argument. I was furious with thegovernment to which my father belonged, and she was trapped between the two ofus, wanting yet unable to defend us both. “What do you need this ‘Peace Now’ for?”she asked gently of the peace movement I supported. Funny indeed, for a womanwho had sacrificed everything in the name of the public life of the man she lovedsince youth, to ask me why I had chosen a public life. I almost said something harshexpressing my anger at my father, who was in a position he did not wish to be in. Itwas a warmongering cabinet, headed by Begin, a Jew with an exilic mentality and achildish prime minister.“Mom,” I said, “I would happily give up my struggle, but I want to pass on to mychildren a better country than the one you’re passing on to me.” My mother repliedwithout hesitation, “This country is not the country that we built. We founded adifferent country in 1948, but I don’t know where it’s disappeared.”Our struggle for peace took place in the worldly Jerusalem. My parents built andlived in the heavenly Jerusalem. They did not want to come down to reality to see oursuffering. I am convinced that they never spoke about this conversation, but throughtheir tacit communication she knew his message. A great disappointment separatedthem from the reality in Israel; they were almost dumbfounded. They saw a differentreality, and they could not see ours because of Shoah blindness.My partner Yael and I have been together since age fourteen. She is short and I amtall. She has abundant hair and I am balding. She stands upright like a dancer and I