Editor’s Desk: Remember, this is a ‘golden period’

          Sometimes journalism is one of the most frustrating professions in which to work. Not least of the reasons why is its inherent incompleteness and often shallowness. Because of deadline pressures, space limitations and many readers’ impatience with stories that don’t say things in ways that are quick and simple, all journalists can only tell a part of a story.

          To give a recent example, on Feb. 28, Tal Becker, Ph.D., spoke at Congregation Sinai. Becker is principal deputy legal adviser at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a senior iEngage Project research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

          He is a senior member of the Israeli peace negotiation team, and is, as he put it, “a diplomat for Israel, dealing with war and peace issues.” As such, he was very concerned about his remarks being published, and he told me his talk is “off the record,” but he graciously gave me an email address through which to discuss which of those things he said that could be made public.

          However, when listening to my recording of his remarks, I came to the conclusion that he said so much in just 45 minutes — about Iran, Hamas, this past summer’s Gaza conflict, the Palestinian Authority, Syria — that there was simply no way I could put even part of it into a relatively brief report without distortion. So for the most part, all I think that The Chronicle can do is acknowledge his being here with a Chai Lights photograph that you will see in the back of the first section of this issue.

          All, that is, except for something he discussed at the very end of his talk, quotations from which he approved my using.

          I had been struggling to find something uplifting or positive to say for this issue of The Chronicle that is appropriate to the important Jewish calendar days coming up this month — Passover, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikharon (Israel Memorial Day) and Yom HaAtzma’ut (Israel Independence Day).

          And I couldn’t think of anything, being so caught up in the short term bad news — anti-Jewish terror attacks in Europe, anti-Israel expressions over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech to the U.S. Congress, instances of outright anti-Semitism on U.S. university campuses. (That’s another reason journalism can be hard; most news is bad news.)

          Becker did joke a bit about how “when I appear in front of an American audience, there’s an expectation that you have to end on a note of optimism.” And yet after discussing threats and challenges Israel faces, he managed to fulfill that expectation.

          “We as a people are 3,500 years old,” and for most of those years “things have been a lot worse than they are today,” Becker said. “In fact, this is a golden period in Jewish history.”

          “The capacity we have today as a Jewish community to worry about what we should do to deal with the challenges we face is an unbelievable privilege,” he continued. “If my grandparents, both of whom were Holocaust survivors, knew that I get every day to think about how the Jewish people should navigate their way through the challenges to get to a better place, they would think I am one of the luckiest Jews who ever lived.”

          “The reason to care about the Jewish future is not because it’s in danger, but because it’s a privilege to be part of a generation that is writing the next chapter of Jewish history,” he said. “We can’t dictate all of it. But we have a much greater opportunity to shape our destiny than ever before.”

          These are all good ideas to think about during this April. “Journey of a People” is the title and theme of the Yamim 2015 commemoration events being organized by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center. But the theme could cover the whole month.

          We have Passover, the festival of spring and freedom; Yom HaShoah, marking the culmination of the evil done to us; Yom HaZikharon, recalling the price that too often must be paid for freedom; and Yom HaAtma’ut, celebrating the climax of modern Jewish achievement.

          History’s “golden ages” have all had great problems as well as great achievements; in fact, the problems may have inspired the achievements. Today is indeed a “golden period in Jewish history” and it is an “unbelievable privilege” to have the Jewish lives to which we have journeyed and at which we have arrived, making us able to remember the past and “write the next chapter” of the future.