Sunday, March 30, 2008

Star of Jaffa

Star of David photo at JaffaHayim Shyater took this Star of David photo at Jaffa on March 2008. It is not clear what the creator of this mural meant.
Copyright: Hayim Shyater 2008

People, Jewish people and non-Jewish people

From: groundviews dot org
2007/12/17/
A political commentator who witnessed this new phenomenon on its first day of implementation has noted thus; “Yesterday I saw people on the streets. Today I see Jewish people and non-Jewish people.” This new arrangement caused so much of pain to Jews that most of them curtailing their outings consigned themselves to be indoors, a virtual voluntary house arrest. If it were necessary go out they carried something like a book so that they could hide the badge being shown, by way of holding the book over the badge. If caught not wearing the badge due to sheer reluctance in some cases or mere forgetting with many elders, one earned the wrath of the authorities resulting in being thrown into prison with no clemency. Therefore, the trauma instilled in the mind of the affected was such that people resorted to a habit of getting a hand written notice displayed on the interior side of their house doors as a precaution against probable absentmindedness. “Is the badge OK?” “Don’t forget the badge” “Where is your badge?’ are the common reminders.

The Deputy

From Wikipedia entry: The Deputy

The Deputy, a Christian tragedy (German: Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel), also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 drama by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages.

[In Act III, Father Riccardo Fontana, the priest protagonist] “first voices his idea to follow the example of Bernhard Lichtenberg and to follow the Jews to the death camps in the East, and possibly to share in their fate”. [In Act V] “he dons the yellow star and joins deportees to die at Auschwitz, where the rest of the act takes place”.

Bernhard Lichtenberg was a German Catholic priest who protested against the Nazis attitude towards Jews, and was considered by them as incorrigible - that’s why they sent him to the Dachau concentration camp.