141: Wartime Diaries - Walter Bingham

Israel Story

Religion & Spirituality, Palestine, Jewish, Stories, Judaism, Israel

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2024

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

The horrific events of October 7th reminded many people of the darkest chapter in Jewish history - the Holocaust. And indeed, for the past six months, there have been as many comparisons to the Shoah as there have been critiques of those comparisons.

Of the roughly 130,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today, just under 10,000 reside in Jerusalem. Many of them participate in the Jerusalem Foundation’s Café Europa, which offers a physical meeting place, a wide range of social and cultural activities - concerts, lectures, memorials, workshops - and professional help in navigating the thickets of Israeli bureaucracy. We recently spent a morning at the Café Europa branch in Jerusalem’s German Colony neighborhood, where we heard all kinds of opinions about the Holocaust comparison. But the person with the strongest feelings on the matter just so happened to also be Café Europa’s oldest member - 100-year-old Walter Bingham.

The end song is Tzair LaNetzach ("Forever Young") by Rami Kleinstein.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, so this is Cafe Europa.
0:06.0	Café Europa, I think it's wonderful. It's some place to meet people from your own generation.
0:15.0	Café Europa has existed since the 1980s. It began in America. It was named after a cafe where Holocaust survivors met in Europe.
0:24.0	And sometimes they have very nice programs and sometimes it's a little boring.
0:28.8	Joe, he's the comedian here. My name is Joe Weisner. What's the draw for you?
0:35.9	They have some good-looking women here.
0:38.3	The food is okay also.
0:42.3	My original name is Monique because I come from France.
0:46.3	I am also an Holocaust survivor.
0:48.3	You are?
0:49.3	I am, yes.
0:50.3	We are all, Ola.
0:52.3	In Holland, I was in hiding from the age of six weeks.
0:56.0	You mean this war now? Yeah.
0:58.0	Everybody talks about it.
1:00.0	It's so awful.
1:02.0	And it's like it never stops for the Jews.
1:08.0	They're killing the Jews. They hate the Jews. Yeah, our grandson was serving in the Gaza.
1:14.6	He was, Miloim, they called him in, and he was there for a while.
1:18.6	Wasn't doing much, and then they released him, so now he's home.
1:22.6	So if you know the songs, I invite you to sing with me, and if you don't,
1:26.6	and you just want to relax and enjoy them, I hope that you enjoy it.
	...

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