Unsuccessful escape

Sometimes, as hard as you try, you just can’t escape.

I don’t know about you, but one of the reasons I take vacations is to ‘get away from it all.’ My recent trip to Ireland was no exception. Both my jobs at the IJN and at a pro-Israel foundation in Zurich mean that I’m constantly surrounded by news about Israel and the Middle East. Sometimes, especially during the current crisis igniting the powder keg of anti-Semitism simmering beneath the surface, I just need a break. So I planned to tune out Middle East politics during my vacation.

If only escape were that easy!

As anyone who has ever attended any Jewish event well knows, it’s nearly impossible to go anywhere without running into someone or something from ‘back home.’

So too was it for me in Ireland.

I’ll start off with the positive experiences. In Dublin, we visited the Chester Beatty Library, which had been recommended in just about every guidebook and brochure I’d come across. The library houses a rare collection of Islamic manuscripts and other artifacts from the Near and Far East, including the world’s second-oldest-known papyrus Biblical texts. (The oldest are the Dead Sea Scrolls.)  It’s a spectacular collection, housing beautiful illuminated manuscripts along with an explanation of the evolution of printing.

Being housed in Dublin, the collection belonged, I presumed, to an Irish or British person. In fact, though he may have later become an honorary Irish citizen, Alfred Chester Beatty was a born New Yorker who — and here comes the reminder of home part — spent many years in Colorado as a miner and was married to a Denver beauty, Ninette Grace Rickard. Basically, Beatty was Horace Tabor, but without the tragic ending. He took his successes to Europe, where he increased his wealth and stature, collecting artwork and manuscripts from his various travels.

That was the pleasant ‘it’s a small world after all’ moment.

Less so was the proxy Israel-Gaza war being played out in the sectarian neighborhoods of Belfast and (London)derry. I wasn’t too surprised too see Northern Ireland’s Catholic or nationalist neighborhoods adorned with Palestinian flags. After all, the IRA has long accepted under its banner any sort of ‘freedom-fighter/anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist/liberation’ group — never calling them terrorists, of course! More surprising was that in this latest conflict, the Protestant or Loyalist side has adopted the Israelis as mascots.

The whole thing was truly bizarre, as was the ‘Viva Palestine’ atop the hills — you know, kind of like LA’s Hollywood sign — just outside Belfast’s most known Catholic enclave. It drove home the point the utter imbalance of the world’s interest in the Israeli-Palestinian affairs. There’s something pathological about the attention this conflict receives out of all the other horrible and far more violent and deadly conflicts taking place globally right now.

The constant buzz of anti-Israel conversation in the streets of Dublin just cemented that for me. I made a concerted effort to avoid news programs and newspaper headlines. But alas, ignorance wasn’t an option. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Walking through Dublin’s St. Stephen’s Green, sitting in a café, I couldn’t avoid hearing people speaking about the crisis.

So whether from the good or the bad, sometimes, as much as you want to, you just can’t get away from it all.