Living in Israel, I had been fully aware of the extent to which the country’s unity and identity were defined by shared opposition to the surrounding Arab world. A theme, which could be heard in the articles and which people usually prefer not to articulate, is that the very existence of Israel is predicated on permanent resistance to Arab hostility. In addition, Jews profoundly believe that the Catastrophe which befell them ripened in the bowels of Christian civilization and was perpetrated by Christians. The Nazi state separated itself from the Church, and many Christians not only did not approve of the murder of Jews but indeed saved their lives. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that for 2,000 years official Christianity, although supposedly guided by precepts of Christian love, harbored an undying hatred of the Jews. Accordingly, Stein’s adoption of Christianity was regarded by many Jews as renegacy and betrayal of his national religion.
Stein, for his part, was claiming his right to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return which grants it to anybody who considers himself a Jew and was born of a Jewish mother. Stein was turned down without being given any reason and then appealed to the Supreme Court.
The legal issue was that he was granted citizenship not under the Law of Return but through naturalization. He was demanding recognition of his Jewishness, and entry of the word “Jew” in the box on the form for “Ethnicity,” in full accordance with Jewish law or Halacha.
All this prompts one to reflect that secular and religious laws should be more clearly separated, and that there is a disjunction between theocratic ideals and the democratic arrangements of the modern state.
We left Israel before the Stein lawsuit began and I simply lost sight of him. The lawsuit went on for several years and yesterday I read in an Israeli newspaper that Stein had finally lost. That seems to me the height of idiocy. Here is one Catholic who actually wants to be a Jew, so why stop him?
It would be interesting to know whether the situation is analogous on the Christian side, and whether Stein is persona grata with the Catholics.
19. February 1964, Jerusalem
L
ETTER FROM
H
ILDA
E
NGEL TO
F
ATHER
D
ANIEL
S
TEIN
Dear Father Daniel,
You probably don’t remember me. My name is Hilda Engel. We met in a kibbutz in the Jezreel Valley where I was working and learning Hebrew. You brought a group and stayed overnight in the kibbutz hotel. I cooked for your group. People usually remember me because I am taller than anybody else. I should say immediately that I am writing because I want to work with you. I have thought a great deal about what you said after supper when we were all together in the dining room. It was just what I was looking for.
I did not write at once because I knew that without appropriate training I would not be much use to you. I took a parish workers’ course in Munich for priests’ assistants and Church social workers and came back to Israel. At present I am working at the Catholic Mission in Jerusalem, but I’m little better than a filing clerk and that is not what I had in mind in wanting so eagerly to return to Israel.
I know a lot about you, of course, while you know nothing about me, and since we shall be working together in the future, I want to tell you all about myself now. That is very important.
My family comes from the Eastern territories. To this day the estate of my great-grandfather is falling apart near Schwedt, not far from the border with Poland. He was a rich, eminent man with a political career. During the Third Reich my grandfather was a general and a member of the Nazi Party. He was a military specialist, a scholar even. At all events, I know he was involved in the German missile programme. I bear my father’s surname and for a long time did not even know the surname of my grandfather. My mother never told me anything. My father died on the Eastern front in 1944 and after the war my mother emigrated to West Germany, married my stepfather, and I have three stepbrothers. I am on good terms with one of them but the other two are complete strangers to me, as is my stepfather. I know nothing about his past. He is a salesman and not very interesting. I spent the whole of my childhood not asking questions. In my family nobody ever talks about anything. They were afraid of questions, afraid of answers. We were most comfortable with silence. On Sundays we were taken to church, but even there we didn’t talk to anyone. In the early 1950s my stepfather bought a big house in a small town on the banks of Lake Starnberg near Munich. A lot of people living there did not want to talk about their past. When I was 14, I came upon The Diary of Anne Frank. I had known before then about the extermination of the Jews. I had half heard certain things but my heart had been unmoved. That book broke my heart. I could tell it was best not to ask my mother about it, and that is when I began to read.
Later I did nevertheless ask her what our family did to save Jews. My mother said her life had been so hard during the war she had had no time to worry about Jews, and anyway, at that time she had known nothing about the concentration camps or gas chambers. I went to the town library and found a great many books and films there. More than that, I discovered there had been a vast extermination camp, Dachau, not far from Munich. What most shocked me was that people lived there, slept, ate, laughed—and it wasn’t a problem for them!
My mother’s cousin came from Schwedt to pay us a visit and I heard from her that my grandfather had committed suicide one week before Germany surrendered. She also told me my grandfather’s name. If he had not shot himself, he would probably have been hanged as a war criminal. It was then I realized I wanted to dedicate my life to helping the Jews. Of course, the historical guilt of the Germans is immense, and as a German I share it. I want to work now for the State of Israel.
I am a Catholic, was a member of a Catholic children’s group, and when I applied for the Church training course, I was immediately given a reference. Now I have completed it, finished my fieldwork with problem children, and have been working in a hospice for three months. I don’t have much experience but am willing to learn. I also have some knowledge of bookkeeping and speak Hebrew reasonably well. I thought it best not to try to write to you in Hebrew because I did not want you to receive a letter with mistakes, and it is in any case much easier for me to express my thoughts in German.
I am 20 years old, in good health, and can work both with children and elderly people. I am not well educated and at one time thought of going to university, but that no longer seems to me to be necessary.
I look forward to hearing from you and can come to Haifa immediately to start work with you.
Yours sincerely,
Hilda Engel
March 1964, Haifa
L
ETTER FROM
D
ANIEL
S
TEIN TO
H
ILDA
E
NGEL
Dear Hilda,
You wrote to me in German but I am replying in Hebrew, which will be good practice for you. You wrote me a very good letter which I fully understood. I would be glad to work with you but we have only a small congregation and no money for paying a salary, so how could you afford to live here? I myself live in a monastery, but you would need to rent a flat. So I think it best, when you are free at the Mission, for you to come any time to Haifa for a service, to meet our congregation and spend time with them. During the service we usually spend a few hours together, have a simple meal, sometimes read the Gospel together, and then talk about a variety of things. Give me a call when you intend to come and I will meet you at the bus station because otherwise you won’t be able to find us. It’s not a simple matter.