A Soulful Journey

Written by Leslie Fiedler, Fiedler of the Roof is a book that tells an unfolding tragedy.   He began his life with the deep-seated belief that the world could become whole, one.   He favored a world community where all differences would be erased.   He   carried this out in his own family.   He married a non-Jew and his eight children also married gentiles.   None of his grandchildren are Jews.   He speaks of two holocausts; one committed by Hitler and the Nazis and the other a secret one which he, and others like him, perpetrated against themselves.   We can weep as we read his confession.   “There is no one to say Kaddish for me when I die.   I am not just a minimal Jew; my Judaism is nearly non-existent as I have only recently become aware, it is a terminal one as well, the last of a 4,000 year line.”

In the 1970's Meir Kahane started a campaign for Jewish women to leave their Palestinian husbands.  He went so far as to trace to remote villages (like Taibe) to make his request of the Jewish women. This has echoes of Ezra, the scribe, who make the same effort 2500 years ago when the Jews began to return from Babylonian captivity.  Does history always repeat itself?