Caspari Center Media Review – January #5, 2012
During the week covered by this review, we received 9 articles on the following subjects:
Attitudes towards Christianity
Anti-missionary activities
Christian Zionism
Christian sites
Archaeology
Film
This week’s review contained an article on Lior Dayan’s experience at Qasr al-Yehud.
Attitudes towards Christianity
Ma’ariv, January 27, 2012
Lior Dayan joined the members of a photographic club on a day trip to Qasr al-Yahud, the baptismal site near Jericho where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus, on the day celebrating that event. As they neared their destination, the guide announced that the group should use “telephoto and wide lenses” so as not to miss a “unique experience, which you’ll find nearly nowhere else in the world.” Dayan found himself on the trip due to the fact that, wanting to write a column about the feast, he had no other way of reaching the site because his driving license had been suspended. “How else do you think I could have got here?,” he asked one of the photographers. “Should I have got a lift with the Holy Spirit?” He then related his take on the event: “The first thing I think to myself when I get off the bus and begin to march with thousands of believers towards the baptismal spot is that there are two possibilities: either I’m in the middle of a dream or I’ve been drawn into a Cohen brothers’ movie. Everything around me is strange, as though I’ve landed in a foreign country, as though I’ve become stuck in a unfinished Lou Reed song – a sort of roaring soup of reality with an out-of-the-ordinary taste. All I can do is to try and break down the heavy atmosphere into the elements composing it: the inexplicable heat, the great mass of Christians clad in white cloaks or black robes, the monks and nuns with their impenetrable gazes, the blond, blue-eyed shiksas murmuring rustling prayers in a form of eroticism, the medley of melodious tongues in the mouths of the people (primarily Russian, Arab, Romanian, and English), the commerce being conducted here around the baptism and religion (35 NIS for an official baptismal robe, a certificate attesting to your baptism here – another dozen shekels), the prayers in Latin bursting out of the loudspeakers and sounding like an eastern song gone out of control, dozens of palm trees set up all around like monuments of sanity, casting a shadow over the Christian madness going wild underneath them, the golden landscape of the desert meeting the River Jordan, dozens of TV crews from all over the world who have come here to cover this crazy event – which gets almost no coverage in the Israeli press – and above all, the absolute ecstasy in the eyes of each of the thousands of people at the site. But maybe it’s all simply because I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning. The closer I get to the wood planks from which those getting baptized descend into the water, the more I’m able to see that there are two kinds of baptizees: those who just stand near the river, eyes shut, murmur a hasty prayer, sprinkle themselves with a few drops of ‘holy’ water, and leave; and those who take off all their clothes, garb themselves in a white robe, and immerse themselves totally in the water, including their heads. I have no doubt that I came here in order to be counted amongst the second group. I went to the changing room, undressed, put on the white robe I bought in the souvenir shop at the entrance, and stepped over to the water like a good, godfearing Christian … Without thinking too much, I went into the water – consisting principally of sewage water from all the factories in the area. I didn’t feel God’s Spirit resting on me, nor did I hear Yeshu’s voice speaking inside my head; all I felt was the freezing cold of the holy-polluted water. What really moved me in this whole underwater experience was seeing the Jordanian Christians on the other side of the river, three meters away from me, also going into the contaminated water in their white robes. At that moment, I felt a unique sense of exceptional solidarity. A Jordanian boy who’d just been baptized smiled at me and I smiled back at him. We both knew that, despite the gaps between us, we were both swimming in the same river of shit and sewage.”
Anti-missionary activities
Yavniton, January 20; Zman Ma’alei, January 19, 2012
These two pieces carried the recent story of the distribution of the “Important Information” leaflet across the country (see previous Reviews).
Christian Zionism
Jerusalem Post, January 25; Zman HaNegev, January 27, 2012
According to an article in the Jerusalem Post (January 25), “The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense subcommittee on Foreign Policy urged the government Tuesday to garner support from Evangelical Christians around the world, and to strengthen its connection to those outside of the US. One of the topics that most intrigued subcommittee chairman Robert Ilatov (Israel Beiteinu) and MK Einat Wilf (Independence), who attended the meeting, is that of Evangelicals in Brazil and other South American countries. Hispanic Evangelical Christians are a growing group in the US, and an increasing percentage of the population of Latin America is leaving Catholicism for Evangelical Christianity, Foreign Ministry representative Shmuel Ben- Shmuel explained. According to Ben-Shmuel, there is an equal number of Evangelical Christians in the US and in Brazil – each approximately 60 million … The Foreign Ministry is trying in North and South America to appeal to televangelists to speak about Israel and invite Israeli ambassadors to their television and radio shows. In addition, the ministry is in touch with pastors of large churches … [MK Einat] Wilf said she finds it exciting that there is a ‘new, young generation in Latin America that sees Israel as part of the foundations of its faith,’ adding that this is a chance for the Foreign Ministry to do work for the long-term. ‘It’s fascinating that in South America, an area that we’re used to seeing as either apathetic or anti-Israel, has hope for a deep change,’ Wilf said. According to Wilf, such a ‘transformation’ could take 10 to 20 years. Therefore, she said she understands that it is difficult to strengthen pro-Israel sentiment in Brazil, where Evangelicals are ‘not used to translating their spiritual admiration to political support,’ as opposed to the US, where there are organized and politically influential Evangelical groups.”
A brief note in Zman HaNegev (January 27) reported that Project Nehemiah, largely funded by American Christian Zionists, recently distributed equipment and food to the needy in Beer Sheva.
Christian sites
Gal Gefen, January 19, 26; National Geographic (Hebrew), January 16, 2012
A review of the “Enchanted sites of Ramleh” included the Franciscan Church in the city, erected in 1960 (Gal Gefen, January 19). The same paper noted the visit of a group of Israeli sightseers to Qasr al-Yehud and the nearby monastery of Dir Hajlah, and a lengthy feature in the National Geographic (January 16) reviewed Christian sites across the country.
Film
Haaretz, January 29, 2012
This review looked at Agnieszka Holland’s latest film, “In Darkness,” which is on the shortlist of five nominees for an Academy Award for best foreign language film. “In it, Holland, a Polish-born writer-director, depicts the true story of Leopold Socha, a Polish Catholic petty thief and sewer worker in Lvov. Socha’s story starts out like that of opportunistic Oskar Schindler; Socha’s initial motivation is to benefit from the plight of Jews fleeing the liquidation of the Lvov ghetto by hiding them – for money – in his sewers. It soon emerges, however, that, as was the case with Schindler, Socha is more than merely venal; he develops a deep relationship with ‘his Jews’ and is ultimately their rescuer. ‘In Darkness’ is an adaptation of Robert Marshall’s 1990 book ‘In the Sewers of Lvov,’ skillfully condensed for the screen by David F. Shamoon, and revised again during the course of production. A number of characters in the film are composites; some are omitted entirely. While the details of the narrative were modified by the filmmakers, and scenes were added for dramatic effect, the film’s basic accuracy was confirmed by Kristin Kerem, who was a youngster in the sewers … When Socha comes to the sewers to bring his Jewish charges food, water, news and dry clothes, the flashlight he uses to go through the tunnel is symbolic of the light and hope he provides in the darkness. Holland’s own family saga resonates with the theme of victim and rescuer. Her father was a Polish Jew who lost most of his family in the Warsaw Ghetto; her mother, a Polish Catholic, has been designated by the State of Israel, via Yad Vashem, as a ‘Righteous Among the Nations of the World’ for having saved Jews in Warsaw. ‘In Darkness’ is not just another slick thriller. Actors voice impeccably accented Polish, German, Ukrainian and Yiddish, and even daven Jewish prayers in Hebrew, lending the film verisimilitude. Water streaming through the tunnels, strange noises that echoed and died, vermin, the maze of holes and tunnels and narrow spaces, darkness. The stench, the dank, the cold of the sewer felt immediate. Comparisons with Schindler, especially Steven Spielberg’s Schindler, are unavoidable. When an ethnically German Nazi Party member like Schindler decided to save Jews, he became vulnerable to criticism and loss of rank, but was most likely protected from execution. Not so for an ordinary Polish citizen whose one wrong move would mean the end for him and his family. The tension in ‘In Darkness’ builds as, time and again, Socha and his wife and daughter are a hair’s breadth from death. One hair-raising moment takes place when a Ukrainian officer pays a surprise visit to Socha’s home and starts eating the food that’s on the table. Their little girl shouts out not to eat the food, because it is for ‘their Jews.’ While her parents are shocked into silence and bone-chilling fear, the little girl cleverly says that her dolls are ‘my Jews.’ Over time, Socha, played by award-winning actor Robert Wieckiewicz, saw the Jews as human beings like himself. Socha was an observant Catholic, and he respected the Jews’ religious beliefs. He brought them candles for the Sabbath and matzo for the Passover Seder. When a flood in the sewer threatens the lives of the Jews, Socha, in coat and tie and in the midst of his own daughter’s christening, leaves the celebration to plunge into the sewer waters to save his Jews from drowning … When the Russians liberate Lvov at the close of the film, the Polish onlookers are not overjoyed with the idea that the Jews – whom they thought had all been killed – are coming back, climbing out of the sewers. Socha’s wife (known in the film as Wanda), acted by the peerless Kinga Preis, who had her own ambivalent feelings about Socha’s rescue efforts, is overjoyed at their survival and, unlike her fellow townspeople, greets them with baked goods and drinks. The secret act of saving Jews becomes public, and the rescuers are forever tainted and live as pariahs among their townspeople, a pattern that has received scant attention over the decades … By not shirking the dirt, the danger or the darkness, Holland’s movie enables us to remember and honor those righteous Poles.”
Archaeology
Lev HaSharon, January 17, 2012
A Byzantine wine press, together with the artifacts found in its vicinity, has restored in Kfar Ya’anetz by schoolchildren in conjunction with the Israeli Archaeology Institute in order to ensure its accessibility to tourists.