A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

The recent arrest of Gillian Gibbons in Sudan is yet another cultural difference between east and west. Gibbons, a 54 year old English teacher at Unity High School in Khartoum was arrested for holding a competition in her class for naming the class bear, allowing it to be called Mohammad. The Muslims are extremely sensitive to any depiction, religious or not, of their prophet. One merely has to remember the Danish cartoon riots and how the cartoons of Mohammad inflamed the Middle East.

While I am sympathetic to religious differences and respect cultural beliefs, the Danish fiasco will always be an event underestimated by world, but to me, it is a major point of reference. Depictions insulting another culture are distasteful and unnecessary. But I find it so hypocrtical, in fact socially schizophrenic, to detain or violently riot against irrelevant cartoonists or teachers on the one hand, yet on the other hand casually and unapologetically ridicule the 'infidels'. It is as if the insensitivities of a cartoonist's depiction of Mohammad are completely divorced from the insensitivities of burning an American or Israeli flag.

When Hezbollah guerillas march over an Israeli flag, is it not demeaning and highly offensive to a Jew? Is the Star of David and blue and white colours not of religious and emotional meaning to the Jewish people? Similarly, America may have divided church and state, but the stars and stripes are ideals beyond red, white and blue. To Americans, atheist or religious, the American flag is a belief in everything they hold true for which many have died in pursuit of its ideals.

Until the Muslim world collectively starts to show a fraction of sensitivity to other cultures, their protests and over-reactions to those demeaning their culture will have little credibility. In printing this article, I like to follow a habit of placing a picture suitable to the content. In deciding whether to place a picture of the Mohammad cartoon or a burning flag, I opted for neither. Denying genocides, declaring a nation the 'great Satan', burning flags or belittling prophets all have a common denominator- incitement of hate. I won't fall for that trap.

THE LEGACY OF RHODES

A Greek shopkeeper sprawls his fake goods on the cobblestone streets, waiting for the new batch of tourists to disembark from the cruise liner. For the tourists, Rhodes probably is just another stop remarkably similar to all the other Greek Islands visited, but this is merely on the surface. Behind the neon lights of the bars, stand crusader buildings surrounded by ancient walls, reminiscent of Acre or Jerusalem. On the doorpost of the shopkeeper’s arched cove, are scratches where a Mezuzah once was. In the public square, so aptly named after the Jewish martyrs, where children now play, stands a lone monument to a community perished through war. For this remote island on the tip of the Aegean Sea was once home to a Sephardic community, rich in culture and deep in history.

There has been a Jewish presence in this area of the world since Greco-Roman times. Following the Spanish Inquisition of 1492, the Ottomans, seeking skilled professionals in building its empire, welcomed Jewish refugees into its empire. Rhodes, a port town conquered by the Ottomans in 1522, saw an influx of Spanish Jews during this time. The community, carrying a heritage from the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry, flourished for 400 years under Ottoman rule.

At its peak, with only 4 000 souls, the community had 6 synagogues, Sephardic Yeshivot and a Chief Rabbinate. The Jews mainly stayed in the Jewish Quarter of the old town, known as La Juderia in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), which can be described as a ‘Mediterranean Shtetl’. With the exception of a few isolated incidents of anti-Semitism, such as the infamous Rhodes Blood Libel, the community lived in relative harmony with its Muslim and Christian neighbours.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Rhodes fell under Italian colonisation. As is the history of the Jews everywhere, economic deprivation forced many of the youth to seek new opportunities or follow their relatives to Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo, the United States and South America. As the century progressed, the community gradually declined and eventually was exterminated in Auschwitz in 1944, barring 151 survivors.

As for the emigrants, they set up a new Diaspora in their host lands. Despite the challenges of adaptation, Ladino remained the home language, Sephardic recipes were not forgotten, the community remained tight-knit, and new synagogues, schools and institutions were built in accordance with the Sephardic tradition.

Ironically, war and economic opportunities in the 1960’s and 1970’s again dispersed many of the second generation of the Rhodes Diaspora to countries such as South Africa and Belgium. Today, there are communities in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Rio de Janeiro and Brussels while only a few remain in the DRC and Zimbabwe.

To its Diaspora, Rhodes is not just a place but rather a state of mind. It is a sense of nostalgia to Ladino expressions, vava’s (grandmother) home-baked delicacies, and papu’s (grandfather) canting of Sephardic prayers. This romantic longing to a community destroyed has sparked a yearning to keep its traditions alive. In America, foundations have been established to preserve its heritage. On the island today, which is under Greek sovereignty, a small community remains to run the newly established Jewish museum, upkeep the cemetery and keep the only remaining synagogue, the Kahal Kadosh Shalom Synagogue (built in 1577), open for pilgrims and summer tourists. The synagogue is listed by the World Monument Fund as one of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the World, bringing worldwide attention to its necessary restoration.

Time erodes communal memory. With every generation, the children of Rhodes are dispersing and diluting within a more dominant contemporary Jewish culture. Like Yiddish, Ladino is a language spoken by grandparents, understood by their children and vaguely recognised by their grandchildren. Perhaps this romantic longing cannot last forever. Yet the legacy of Rhodes is a reflection of the national Jewish psyche. Despite the difficulties of carrying a tradition to new continents and being a minority within a minority, the Rhodes Diaspora exists today. So too, despite 2000 years of exile and all historical certainties, the Jews exist today and still long for Jerusalem. It is no co-incidence that Rhodes is called ‘La Chica Yerushalayim’- the small Jerusalem

THE ANNAPOLIS 500

For months, Condoleezza has been mustering all her political resources for a conference to finally implement, or rather re-invent, the now defunct road map on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Annapolis, November 2007, will be a 'hail Mary' throw for the Bush administration that ends in 12 months time and heralds the beginning of Bush's historical legacy.

For all parties, it is a do or die situation. Olmert's fractionalised government is hanging on by the skin of its teeth after its dismal public support record. Months ago, a poll placed his support in the single digits. Static results from Annapolis could render an even more static government without a vision, causing the coalition partners to jump ship for new elections. For Abbas and the PA, coming home empty handed with no results will render the PA a lame duck de facto government which would inevitably give Hamas a stronger ideological grounding in the West Bank, perpetuating the internal conflict.

Yet with all these chips on the table, there is a minimal chance of actual success from this conference. No side has the practical logistics or political resources to ensure a deal of Palestinian statehood within the proposed 6 month time frame. Any state created within this time will have the sovereignty and political clout of the Siam government.

The Annapolis 500 is a race with no poll position, no chequered flag and no champagne. In this race, there will be no winner, only relative losers.