Musical Dispatch from the Front – The World’s Gone Meshuggah – January 2026
Frank Baarda
Shalom my friends,
My father was a keen philatelist. He worked for a Dutch bank (De Hollandsche Bank Unie) in Buenos Aires. Through his many Jewish colleagues, friends and acquaintances who corresponded with their mishpacha in the newly declared nation, he managed to collect a complete set of Israeli stamps.
When on his return to the Netherlands he ran into some financial problems (due to three months of unemployment), his Israel stamp collection came to the rescue because he was able to sell it for a not insubstantial sum.
When I started to write my first book, I hesitated whether I should allude to the parallels I perceived with the sorry recent (post white settlement) history of the First Australians and their descendants and the Holocaust. Wendy set me straight (pages 24-25 ‘My Yuendumu Story):
“… we need to keep remembering this. We need to learn from this history. We must remain alert to the acceptance of unfair treatment, unjust laws, racist language and the creeping slide towards dehumanisation of other races, cultures or religions. If we don’t, all of those people have died in vain.
As far as I’m concerned killing is wrong, full stop. No amount of research, debate, argument or propaganda can persuade me otherwise.
What is happening in the Middle East may well be explained, but can never be justified.
I see what is happening in the Holy Land to be the ultimate insult to the memory of the victims of the Shoah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP1LdTat5oU
♫ ♫ ♫ Esther Lamandier La Rosa enflorece circa 1492
Many years ago, I watched three small films dealing with post-World War Jewish matters. I can’t remember the names of the films, nor if I viewed them on SBS or the ABC.
One of these films dealt with Jewish emigration from Russia to Israel, when the Soviet Union created a small opening in the Iron Curtain for such to take place. The main character in the film is an old lady who had become widowed and was leading a lonely existence in a Moscow apartment. A young couple who was about to emigrate to Israel, took pity on her and persuaded her to emigrate with them.
Soon after they arrived in Tel Aviv, the young couple moved to a kibbutz leaving the old lady stranded in the bustling city’s cacophony. The old lady went on a confused search for a cousin she’d been told lived in Tel Aviv. She only spoke Russian and Yiddish (and childhood French), and Hebrew speaking busy bystanders were of no help.
Eventually she caught a bus and got off at the end of the line. There she was sitting in the bus shelter alone and miserable. The next bus was hours away, but she didn’t know that. A young lady, a recent arrival in Israel, saw the old lady and invited her in for a cup of tea. To the old lady’s delight, the young lady spoke Yiddish. An animated discussion ensued and the old lady was happy for the first time since her arrival from Russia.
The old lady proclaimed:
“You know, there are no Jews in this country, only Israelis.”
Mazel tov
Frank
Nina Simone’s ‘I wish I knew how it would feel to be free', performed by the Boston Boys in Jerusalem: