And the Sea Is Never Full by Elie Wiesel

treat Russian Jews as brothers, even when they change their minds on the way and decide to settle inAmerica? Are we wrong to ask you to adopt a more Jewish attitude toward Palestinian Arabs and, particularly, toward Israeli Arabs? To be less intransigent, more receptive? From Israel we expect no more, no less than the impossible.
    Let us open our eyes, my Israeli brothers. As a Diaspora Jew, I live the life and the destiny of Jerusalem. And I should like you to understand us. We are responsible for each other; you do not deny it. If the principal task of the Diaspora is to protect Israel, yours should be to become a new source of life to the Diaspora. Let us assume the dialectics of our so singularly Jewish and so Jewishly singular condition: that we both live on two levels simultaneously; that we both lead a double life; that we be each other’s heart and conscience, constantly questioning and enriching each other. Without the Diaspora, Israel would have no one to question and no one to be questioned by. Without Israel, the Diaspora would know nothing of victory but the anguish that precedes it.
    In these extraordinary times our generation is at once the most blessed and the most accursed of all. Some thirty years ago Jewish heroes wept every time a courier brought them a weapon; today strategists marvel at the Jewish army’s military genius. Fifty years ago nobody imagined that Russian Judaism could survive Communist dictatorship; today we are witnessing its rebirth. A generation ago we discovered the ruins of the world and the dark side of God; today it is on them that we are building future Jewish history.
    This speech of 1974—which in my mind remains valid even now—was one I had prepared with great care. I weighed every word, every question mark. I knew that I was treading on mined terrain. But, I did not deliver the speech … at least not in its entirety. For a strange thing happened: During the first half, while I was saying
mea culpa
for myself and my fellow Jews in the Diaspora, the Israeli officials were listening, their faces beaming approval. As soon as I began the second part, suggesting that Diaspora Jews also had a few reproaches, the mood in the hall turned. It was as if a wind from Siberia had frozen my listeners’ features. The contact had been broken to the point that I asked myself what good it was to continue, to hurl myself against this human wall. In any case I would not be heard … and so I, too, brokethe connection. I set aside my prepared text and improvised a different conclusion. I needed to finish. I had to get out of there.
    The following year I receive a call from Pinhas Sapir, former finance minister and acting chairman of the Jewish Agency: He would like to pay me a visit at my home in New York. I tell him that I will gladly come to his hotel; after all, he is someone I respect, and he is my elder. Nothing doing. He insists on coming to my home, accompanied by his entourage. Without preamble he tells me: “I heard you last year, but I was not present at the debate your speech provoked. I know that my colleagues attacked you severely, and I know that they were unjust. That is why I wanted to come and see you today. To offer you our official apologies and, especially, my own.”
    Sadly, this remarkable man died shortly afterward during a ceremony in an immigrant village, clasping the holy scrolls in his arms.
    In spite of his soothing words, the incident in Jerusalem stays with me. I still don’t understand my inability to criticize Israel. Perhaps I am guided by the readings of the biblical and talmudic commentaries. Is it not said that even our teacher Moses was punished for having been too harsh with our people?
    It is a troubling subject. I shall return to it.
    It was only in 1995 that I discovered that the Six-Day War was not as noble as I had thought.
    I had been so proud of the moving simplicity of “our” officers, the bravery of these soldiers who, to quote my friend André