Update: I noticed several people are leaving comments for Helen below because they didn't see the original diary -- i will also collate these, and take them to her when i next go (which again, will only be in several months, at this point). So i welcome all further comments.
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Well there good Kossacks -- so i did go and have a little talk a few days ago with Helen, and delivered the selected comments from this diary (of mine), from 2 weeks ago, as i'd promised to do in that diary.
Helen was very, very touched by them, said they warmed her enormously, and it made me happy to have put in the effort to collate, print, and deliver them.
I actually made her a short handwritten card myself, as did the 6 yr old boy of the family i was staying with (who mainly knows her as a kindly old nextdoor neighboor lady), and then printed the comments out separately, and gave them all to her. After she read them over, we sat down for a bit and talked about the incident, the state of the world, etc. My time was limited in this instance, so we talked probably just 20 min or so (i had to take some kids to the local swimming pool is why!).
Now first -- i want to say i did edit down the comments to provide them in what would be the most comforting form to someone in her situation, which was my intent in the original diary, as is i think i made pretty clear. I did invite there others who felt in a contrary way to direct their comments to her themselves, if they felt so inclined. and i am quite sure she has gotten plenty of these kinds of comments in the meantime privately, on top of all the public piling-on she has received. but my intent was to praise, comfort, and honor her, and that's how i edited what i gave her.
So, just for 'completeness' about what got into the version i gave her, i included parts or all of comments from (and i'm capitalizing all usernames here, just by default):
Sophie Amrain
Funkygal
Celtic Merlin
Moodyx
Boadicea
Red Bean
Alice Olson
Silverbird
Blueoregon
Llbear (x3)
Daysey
Corvo
Susanala
Bee tzu
Carol in San Antonio
2laneIA
Nottoosureanymore
Valadon (x2)
Lyvwyr101
CarolDuhart
(i could have included a few others, but i aimed to be on the safer side of including quite positive comments, for now).
I will be going back there in likely 5-6 months, and as long as Helen is in good health then, i may well be sitting down to a longer dinner with her, which we tentatively talked about, and i may have more to report back then, but for now, i wanted to just say a few brief things on our conversation. I'm pretty sure that if enough people comment here, the comments section will get at times into snippy back and forths about the Israel-Palestine issue vs. a discussion about Helen per se, and her role in the world, etc., but that's how it goes on DKos, so i won't try to prevent any of what's nearly inevitable.
Before getting to Helen's words, an initial aside from me: though i fully believe in the right of the state of Israel to exist, i feel that much has to change in how they treat the Occupied Territories at the moment, in order for us to get to any resolution of this situation in a finite amount of time, such as has happened in N. Ireland and S. Africa. i have friends on both sides of the 'divide' as well, and have been caught in the crossfire for having made various (fairly moderate) statements, so i do realize how highly polarized the issue is. But e.g. i have Jewish friends who were born and lived their whole life there, and thus don't feel all the history is their responsibility, though they do believe the current
situation partly is, and thus they work for peace there, just as there
is a strong minority of Israelis who do, and of American Jews (through
groups like J Street, Brit Tzedek etc.).
-------------- Anyway, here are a few things Helen said:
- Yes, she didn't really mean that any Jews should go back to Europe --
she was only making an extreme analogy to what people who tell the
Palestinians to go back to Jordan or other places say, and how silly
that kind of comment is. that's the essential nub of it, and trying
to read in anything beyond is just hypersensitity to the issue.
- Our lives end when we don't speak up about injustice being done to
our fellow humans, this is what leads to large scale atrocities --
and she said she got this the most from one of the Holocaust
survivors (i think it was Wiesenthal who has said things of this form?)
- No, she had no idea that the conversation was being recorded in that moment
- As people have pointed out, that Rabbi who recorded the conversation
has been doing some pretty morally shady things for a while now.
- She does regret losing her job, but she doesn't regret speaking the
Truth at any time of her career
- We talked about the one and two-state solution, and she said what's
being done to the Palestinians right now is just horrible and
morally unconscionable. she thinks of Settlements as
simply a euphemism for Colonization, at the moment. we didn't
have enough time to get into much more substantive issues on this all, yet.
- I suggested she take up blogging, because many people wanted to read
her words, but i don't know that i convinced her really on this
point. she said she was thinking of a few possibilities, but hadn't
decided yet (she's not very mobile anymore, needs an assistant at
all times, so i doubt she'll be going on many trips or anything, but
i do hope to see more words from her at some point).
So -- thanks very much to each person who wrote -- i know Helen
very much appreciated it.
in Peace, Justice, Truth, and Human Fellowship--
X
ps. added on July 6, 2010:
Here is another excellent little piece i came across that puts her comments in a little more context about what she really meant.