Dialogues: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FWD; Anders Carlberg: After Gaza, Judaism is at a crossroads

Kinsman Cornelius,

You have wondered well!

Often when I show up, by "invitation", at some high and low places, to talk "Holocaust" and "Genocide", I realize that I am the only "continental African scholar" in the pool, and I get asked how and why I got into the fields of study relating to "the Holocaust". I respond that I "stumbled" into it "by association" with Jewish mentors whose "heritage stories" resonated with me as an "Akan village boy" steeped in Akan folklore and ethics. But I think I now know how, why, and when, and will share that with you "privately" and "off Dialogue".

Recently, I have been happy to see a few continental African faces at these places of Holocaust and Genocide talk.

And thanks for the links to key reading resources that you often embed in your Dialogue contributions. Will be in touch soon.

Edward Kissi

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2025 6:03 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FWD; Anders Carlberg: After Gaza, Judaism is at a crossroads

Wofa Edward Kissi,

For some time now I've been wondering what motivated you to specialise in Genocide Studies. I, and I suppose the Ghana Union too, is looking forward to your arrival in Sweden, a country that is reasonably well informed about the Holocaust - lately, thanks to Tell Ye Your Children which was introduced as part of the school curriculum in 1998 - and with regard to the ongoing genocide in Gaza the Swedish people are well informed to the extent that the collective conscience and "the still small voice " cannot truthfully claim ignorance or feign innocence or shirk the Brothers' Keepers mentality on the grounds that Gaza is "far away"

I've just watched, aghast, What has Israel's denial of food done to Gaza's people? | Inside Story

Otherwise, right now the weather is brilliant and hopefully the sun ( "the eye of heaven") will continue to shine until about the end of October. I suppose that as an expert on Genocide Studies, apart from some of the Swedish experts on Genocide and Swedish researchers on the Holocaust , inevitably - in your quest - if I may so suggest, you will be meeting the Raoul Wallenberg people as well as people like Göran Rosenberg , perhaps, Dror Feiler, some of the pro-Palestine Groups , the Swedish equivalents of Jewish Voices for Peace, and at your own level, have a chat with Raphael Cohen-Almagor - if he's still here - in Sweden, and is still above water, on this planet. I 've referred to him before, here . Of course you'll be visiting the Swedish Holocaust Museum in Stockholm - and if you have time, might as well kill two birds with one stone, hop over to tour the Estonian Jewish Museum a few hours boat journey to Tallinn ,Estonia

The Electronic Intifada must continue !

Palestine Chronicle: Home Page

Palestinian news day by day | PNN

Palestine | Today's latest from Al Jazeera

https://www.dn.se/varlden/ ( please Google translate)

https://www.dn.se/kultur/elisabeth-asbrink-varje-dag-tanker-jag-pa-raphael-lemkins-fraga-om-folkmord/

On Wednesday, 30 July 2025 at 09:00:05 UTC+2 Edward Kissi wrote:

Uncle Cornelius,

Anders Carlberg may be up to something profound. Not only Judaism, I can tell you that Holocaust Studies, Genocide Studies, and Global Holocaust Education will not only be at the crossroads too, but the rationale for them will be imperilled. I am deeply involved in these intellectual and ethical projects, nationally, and globally, and I know the pushback I get from audiences, and the references to Gaza I hear.

I am not the only one who is at the crossroads on this. My senior colleagues and mentors such as Omar Bartov, Martin Shaw, among others, in the fields and vineyards of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Global Holocaust Education are too.

I may be in Sweden soon and I will seek you out for a sober reflection on what Gaza has wrought for us all.

Your Nephew,

Edward Kissi

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 29, 2025, at 5:54 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.dn.se/kultur/anders-carlberg-efter-gaza-befinner-sig-judendomen-vid-ett-vagskal/

CULTURAL DEBATE

Anders Carlberg: After Gaza, Judaism is at a crossroads

Updated yesterday 14:54 Published yesterday 13:09

Palestinians carry sacks of flour in the devastated Gaza. Photo: APA Images/TT

Jews around the world are now forced to confront what has been done in the name of our religion. The Israeli government's war crimes in Gaza must be addressed. If Judaism is to survive as a world religion, harsh self-criticism is required, writes Anders Carlberg.

This is an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter. The writer is responsible for the opinions in the article.

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A central part of the Jewish Shabbat service on Saturday mornings is the sermon. It is the service that most Swedish Jews – both religious and more secular – attend, and they also listen to the rabbis' sermons on the high holidays: Passover, New Year's Eve and the Day of Atonement.

It is the content of these learned interpretations of our religion that has given us the picture of what Judaism is about and what the meaning is in our teachings, the Torah: What does God say and what does it mean for how we should live together, with our loved ones, with our fellow human beings and in relation to the world at large?

At least that's how I 've experienced the purpose of the sermon; to enable us to see connections between humanitarian values and Jewish tradition. Stimulating, sometimes a timely word and often provocative. Part of a dialogue.

Today I ask myself how the rabbis of today and tomorrow should relate to the mass murder of Palestinians taking place in Gaza. The killing of up to 60,000 Palestinians or more must fundamentally change the narrative of Jewish doctrine.

In the New York Times (15/6), Israeli-American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov argues whether Israel's war in Gaza can be described as genocide. Bartov comes to the "inevitable" conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. He writes:

"Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the army as a soldier and officer, and spent most of my career researching and writing about war crimes and the Holocaust, it was painful to come to this conclusion, and I tried to resist it for as long as I could. But I have been teaching genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one."

The restoration of humanitarian Judaism is a necessity so that the fascists do not destroy Judaism as one of humanity's living guides.

Bartov reviews the premises for his conclusion; how Israel's systematic violence and political and practical goals for the war meet the criteria for genocide agreed upon in the international agreements, and he presents the assessments of other researchers and institutions, which, with a few exceptions, share his conclusion.

One consequence of this violation of international law concerns the foundation of civilization. Judaism, like the other global religions, sets the framework for how people live with each other and together. When Judaism has now been used by Israel's religious extreme nationalists and racists to justify ethnic cleansing and mass murder of "the others" - the Palestinians - it rests partly on an interpretation, a use, of the religion that all Jews who do not share this view must react to. The restoration of humanitarian Judaism is a necessity so that the fascists do not destroy Judaism as one of humanity's living guides.

In the podcast Unholy (12/6), author Yuval Noah Harari warns of a future scenario in which Israel has not examined itself regarding its warfare in Gaza. An Israel that moves forward without remorse, without regret for its terrible violence, its responsibility for the tens of thousands of lives that have been wasted, and without the realization that the national rights of the Palestinians must be met. How should the Jews in the diaspora – who have seen the entire course of events from the front row with access to all the information about what has happened – relate to Israel, which claims to be the center of the Jews, the Jewish state.

Harari answers his own rhetorical question: "No Jew in London or New York or anywhere else will be able to say, 'This is not the new Judaism.' It's like being a communist in 1950s London and saying, 'No, today's Soviet Union is not really communism, they misunderstood it.'" No, this will be the new Judaism and perhaps the only Judaism," warns Harari in Unholy.

The question of the future of Judaism in the diaspora congregations can only be answered by the Jews themselves. Should we dare to discuss what the Gaza War means for our Jewish self-image, one that has been dominated by the Jewish legacy of the expulsion from Jerusalem in 70 AD when Judaism became a religion of learning instead of the priestly sacrificial religion it had been during the time of the Temple?

We must both face and seek the terrible truths, and this happens in dialogue with each other and with those who are victims of this genocide.

Harari describes the destruction of the Temple and the expulsion as a crucial change in Judaism that lasted for almost two thousand years. Instead of the Temple being the central sanctuary, the rabbis built a Jewish academy in the small town of Yavne. Harari writes: "They completely change the meaning of Judaism, they make it a religion of study, this has become the main Jewish value to fulfill, to learn, to debate, to develop wisdom. Jews sit in Yavne and they learn, and they go to Baghdad and Cairo and they learn, and they go to Golders Green and to Brooklyn and they learn. And for two thousand years this is what they do, we do, we learn."

Judaism is at a crossroads. Do we have the ability and the confidence to continue on the interpretation of Judaism that Harari describes, and thereby confront what has been done in the name of our religion? We must both face and seek the terrible truths, and this happens in dialogue with each other and with those who are victims of this genocide.

There will be many independent diaspora congregations, not least in the United States, that choose that path. Judaism will survive through them, and also provide support to all in Israel who do not want to see their tradition become a pseudo-religion of denial, reduction, and trivialization.

Former chairman of the Jewish congregation in Gothenburg (1998-2008) and author of the book "When loyalty is tested. About Israel and Swedish-Jewish identity". Later this year, "The Crossroads of Zionism" will be published.

Read more:

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