WASHINGTON-This was just going to be a straight news story. This happened, the president said that, etc., etc.
But I couldn't do it that way. Because too much pulled too strongly at my heart and soul.
It's not just that each time I enter the White House grounds, I feel so very privileged, feel so aware of breathing rarified air. And I wonder each time, what am I doing here? Why have I, I who could do, thought she would be doing very different things than this, been put here?
So I say a prayer each time I enter the White House gates and each time I click on my camera, and each time I open my laptop, I ask G-d to please guide me to do that which S/He wants me to, in the best ways possible. And though I'm afraid I often miss the mark, I certainly give it my best effort.
However, I just had another White House experience which resonates so deeply within, that despite my wonder, I know somehow I am where I belong, for now.
It started on the train to D.C. I'm on my way to cover the president meeting with Jewish leaders, a yearly event that occurs on the same day as the White House Chanukah menorah lighting.
I can't help but overhear the conversation of the man in the seat ahead of me; I hear him say something about Rabbi someone on his cell. Then my fellow traveler pulls on a baseball cap and I can only see the back of the hat -it says something about Jerusalem. So as we gather our belongings to step off into Union Station, I take a deep breath and ask, "Excuse me, are you going to the White House? Do you want to share a taxi?"
The gentleman smiles and says, "Yes I'm going, but later in the day." I introduce myself and curiously ask his name. He says, "Malcolm Hoenlein." And I, without thinking, exclaim, "Uncle Malcolm!" When he looks a bit startled, I hastily explain that I'm friends with several of his nieces who always refer to him as "Uncle Malcolm," and he graciously recalls meeting me at a relative's bris.
We part company as I rush to the White House. As I enter the security gate, a man with a kipa ahead of me is unsure of the procedure; I show him the way and he warmly smiles thank you and tells me his name is Rabbi Gershom Sizomu from Uganda. I am a bit stunned. Who knew there were Jews in Uganda?
Once inside the White House grounds, I proceed directly to the press room for the daily briefing conducted by press secretary, Dana Perino. Questions about the destruction of videos showing CIA interrogations dominate the briefing.
Ironically, it's a fitting topic considering that at that very moment President Bush is in the Roosevelt Room of the White House meeting with a group of Jews, some had themselves been the victims of persecution, just because they were Jews; others represented Jews living under persecution.
The small group of journalists and photographers designated to be in the press pool for that meeting's conclusion were escorted to just outside the Roosevelt room door and there we wait silently for about 40 minutes, cameras, pads and pens poised.
Suddenly, we get the signal and are ushered in, and the president proceeds to make a two-minute statement about the gathering.
The event occurred on the sixth day of Chanukah, which was also International Human Rights Day, and which is why the president chose to meet with several Jews who were born outside the United States and most of whom came to America in search of religious freedom.
The guests included Jack Abraham, president of the only Afghan synagogue in the United States; Maurice Shohet from Iraq, currently working at the Middle East Research Institute; Dr. Mayer Ballas, the founding president of the Council to Rescue Syrian Jews; Yuli Edelstein, former Soviet refusenik, now deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament; Rabbi Sizomu of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda; Elliott Benjamin, the vice president of the Iranian American Jewish Federation; Dr. Susana Feldman-Naim, a psychiatrist from Venezuela; Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, a colonel in the United States Army Reserve; Dr. Vladimir Kvint from the former Soviet Union, now president, International Academy of Emerging Markets; Rabbi David Shofet from Iran,now of the Nessah Educational and Cultural Center; Rabbi Manny Vinas, Lincoln Park Jewish Center; Holocaust survivors Gerald and Joan Schwab; and Judea and Ruth Pearl, co-founders of the Daniel Pearl Foundation.
In a statement after the meeting, the president said that the group discussed "how America must remain engaged in helping people realize the great blessings of religious freedom and where we find societies in which religious freedom is not allowed to practice, that we must do something about it
... "We all recognize that we're in an ideological struggle against people who murder the innocent in order to achieve political objectives, and that on the one hand, America must do everything to protect ourselves and are doing so," Bush said. "In the long term, the best way to defeat an ideology of hate is with an ideology of hope."
After the gathering, the Chicago Jewish News met with several of those who participated in the meeting with Bush. Rabbi Koppell said what seemed to "most strike the president was when the group pointed out how many Jews had been displaced from Arab countries in which they lived and how Israel had taken them in and given them a home. Seeing how the Arabs have allowed Palestinians to live in refugee camps for more than 60 years, the president said he hadn't really thought of the difference between how Israel absorbed Jews while the Arabs have used their refugees for political ends."
Rabbi Manny Vinas, who publishes the only Spanish language Jewish newspaper disseminated throughout the United States, said the president expressed special concern for the Jews of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Rabbi Vinas told President Bush of his concern for Cuban Jews who, the Rabbi said, are being manipulated by the Castro regime. "It used to be illegal to go to the synagogue, now it's illegal not to go to the synagogue," he said ruefully. That's because American Jews in increasing numbers have been coming to see Cuban Jews, and leaving behind money, medical supplies and other goods. "As soon as the Americans leave, the Cuban authorities take the medical supplies and other items the Americans have brought and confiscate it for their own purposes."
Jack Abraham talked about the rich and long Jewish history of Afghanistan. He noted that his grandfather was a clothing merchant who used to travel between the three cities with significant Jewish populations, pretending to sell cloth but actually enwrapping a Torah scroll in the fabric for each community to use for that day.
Echoing the President Bush's comments about the freedom of religion afforded in this country, Abraham noted that his Afghan synagogue in New York is flourishing and includes Jews from Iraq, Persia and other countries that all trace their roots back to the Jews forced to leave Israel after the destruction of the First Holy Temple by the Babylonians.
It was fascinating to meet a group most of whom came from countries in which they endured enormous hardship, beyond the scope of the mind or experience of us very fortunate Americans. Each person has managed to survive and thrive despite the often odious challenges of their previous ordeals.
As Rabbi Koppell was leaving, she mentions that this encounter between the president and the Jewish leaders from around the world was the brainchild of and organized by a man who wasn't present, Mr. Malcolm Hoenlein.
After the interviews, something really was gnawing at me. When I asked if the leaders had brought up the subject of Jerusalem to the president, one chastisingly answered me, "Jerusalem is a hot button issue. When I'm a guest in someone's home, I don't bring up a hot button issue."
I do understand, and I don't know what I would have said had I been an attendee instead of a member of the press covering the meeting. But it gives me great pause and pain to think that a cluster of Jews sat face to face with the president of the United States and did not utter a word regarding the fate of the city and the land that we face towards each time we pray. A land for which we pray, at least three times a day, for thousands of years to be reunited. For which we conclude the Passover Seder, "Next year in Jerusalem, next year in Jerusalem rebuilt!"
The holy land from which springs the spiritual light which illuminates the world. The land from which emanates the holiness that we strive to embody in our everyday lives.
Have we become so complacent, so diluted in the diaspora that we have forgotten or no longer know the meaning of diaspora? Webster's dictionary defines it as," being scattered from our ancestral homeland." Have our eyes become so used to the darkness that we think we see clearly and no longer yearn to return to the Holy Land?
As I continue to mull over the talks, my stomach speaks up and reminds me that it's time for lunch, just a short while to grab a bite before the lighting of the Chanukah menorah at the White House at sunset.
So I run to a kosher restaurant in downtown D.C. and as I walk in, who do I see? Yes, you may have guessed it, there is Uncle Malcolm, as well as Mr. Abraham from Afghanistan, who's there with his daughter, as well as others from the White House function, all scattered at different tables.
In the Roosevelt room of the White House, the press is not allowed to speak to those assembled. We click our cameras, scribble our notes and are escorted out, pronto. In a kosher restaurant, we're all a bunch of Jews, delighted to see one another, playing Jewish geography and shmoozing so much that we barely eat! It makes me recall how we are all equal in the eyes of G-d and that we are all family. As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz says, we may have our estrangements, like most families, and/but the bonds that connect us are ultimately far stronger.
Then we all dash back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the lighting.
As the press pool enters the festive room, guess who was meeting and greeting the multitude of guests for the ceremony? Yes, there was Uncle Malcolm! Uncle Malcolm, it should most respectfully be noted, is vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Then the celebration began. President Bush along with First Lady Laura Bush, and several prominent Jewish members of the administration including Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and Deputy Chief of Staff Joel Kaplan gathered with other guests.
In the president's remarks he said, "During Chanukah, we remember an ancient struggle for freedom. More than two thousand years ago, a cruel tyrant ruled Judea-and forbade the Israelites from practicing their religion. A band of brothers came together to fight this oppression. And against incredible odds, they liberated the capital city of Jerusalem. As they set about rededicating the holy temple, they witnessed a great miracle: That purified oil that was supposed to last for one day burned for eight.
"Jewish families commemorate this miracle by lighting the menorah for the eight nights of Chanukah. The Talmud instructs families to place the menorah in public view-so the entire world can see its light. The flames remind us that light triumphs over darkness, faith conquers despair, and the desire for freedom burns inside every man, woman and child.
"As we light the Chanukah candles this year, we pray for those who still live under the shadow of tyranny. This afternoon, I met with a group of Jewish immigrants to mark International Human Rights Day. Many of these men and women fled from religious oppression in countries like Iran and Syria and the Soviet Union. They came to America because our nation is a beacon of freedom. And they see a day of hope on the horizon when people all across the world will worship in freedom. The forces of intolerance can suppress the menorah-but they can never extinguish its light."
He then invited two very special guests to light the menorah and say the blessings-Judea and Ruth Pearl, the parents of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and murdered allegedly by al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan. The menorah Daniel's parents lit once belonged to Chayim Pearl, Daniel's great-grandfather, who brought the candlelabra with him when he left Poland to live in Israel in 1924.
The president noted that Daniel Pearl's "only crime was being a Jewish American-something Daniel Pearl would never deny. In his final moments, Daniel told his captors about a street in Israel named for his great-grandfather. He looked into their camera and he said, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, and I'm Jewish." These words have become a source of inspiration for Americans of all faiths. They show the courage of a man who refused to bow before terror-and the strength of a spirit that could not be broken.
"By honoring Daniel, we are given the opportunity to bring forth hope from the darkness of tragedy-and that is a miracle worth celebrating during the Festival of Lights."
In the end, Daniel Pearl chose to do tshuva. Tshuva is atonement, at-one-ment with our true self and with G-d. In the end, Daniel Pearl's mighty heart and soul came home. He had a shining moment of embodying Jerusalem in all its glory, by declaring the street in Israel that his relative was named for, by declaring for all eternity that he was a Jew.
So in choosing Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal, G-d chose a Jew who, when the darkness was deepest, the circumstances the most gruesome, chose life, chose light, chose glory and eternity.
According to Jewish law, one of the only reasons that a person may leave the Holy Land is if what will be learned in the diaspora will enable that person to build and inspire Jewish continuity, thus better building the Holy Land. Let us honor the memory of mighty Daniel Pearl and all who have embraced their birthright, their heritage and identity as Jews despite being on foreign soil by our carrying the flame, inspired and inspiring to grow, to make within ourselves, our homes, our families and communities" little Jerusalems" so that we may bring light to the darkness and, together, return to our true home.
