Editor’s note: The views expressed in essays posted or printed as part of the newspaper’s Community Voices Project are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board.
Covarrubias is a licensed educational psychologist and lives in Bonita.
I am a first-generation American Jew born shortly after the close of WWII. I grew up keenly aware of my minority status in the United States and the earlier genocide conducted in my parent’s country of origin, Ukraine (was then Rusia).
Firsthand stories of pogroms, living in ghettos, violence endured were told to my generation. The importance of separation of church and state was emphasized as what allowed us to live freely as Jews here. It always made intuitive sense to me.
My mother’s stories emphasized how community support could mean life or death.
Early I saw how other people also faced bias and exploitation. I knew what redlining was, what hate speech sounded like, and how recognizable physical features often meant doors of opportunity were opened or closed. I inherited community activism as part of my Jewish culture, just as important as our foods, celebrations, music.
During my development, at my father’s hand, I also learned lessons from family violence. I saw how volatility could change life in an instant, returning afterward to a pretense of normalcy without discussion. I learned to be silent.
As an adolescent, I was troubled. I watched my older sisters. The one closest to me married at 17 to get out of the house. I ran instead. Perhaps predictably, I entered a relationship with someone who may have been more troubled than I was. He certainly was meaner.
I learned much over those years. Not everything was hurtful; much of life was good during those times. And yet one abiding lesson lingers from both experiences: Violence — of all kinds — weakens us all.
I mentally, then physically, escaped that relationship by pursuing advanced degrees. I met and married a kind man who supported and shared my values. I sought and received help through many sources. My marriage, my career as well as my mental health advanced.
That is why I now feel compelled to write about the after-effects of violence: It doesn’t achieve its goals. In my personal and professional experience, violence kills something in its victims and its perpetrators. Maltreatment breeds maltreatment. It spans generations, often inexplicably. We may look to charismatic leaders who promise salvation, but the road to healing is complex and lies within. We need to develop healthy, life-affirming responses. We need to recognize the humanity in others who are demonized or exploited. There are reasons to be angry, but we need to change the equation. Our responses need to lead to peace, not destruction: peace within ourselves, peace with others.
Wounds remain from our injuries. None of us escapes without traumas. Rarely do our injuries strengthen us. Mostly we self-medicate, numb ourselves, bury pain, put one foot in front of the other. We go on.
This leads me to my discomfort with the notion of a “Jewish state.” In what sense is this true? Because powerful countries “created” it does not make it true. Neither do the sins during World War II. Do not Druze, Muslims, Arabs inhabit Israel? I know this will sound inimical to my relatives, maybe even most Jews. After all, we have had a long history of trauma. So have masses of humanity.
First, I recognize myself as a Jew because of my ethnicity. My DNA sample comes back not as measuring my religion, but my ancestry. Second, civil societies need distinction from religious communities if we are to agree on common rules for our governance. Otherwise, ideologies can easily lead us astray. As Pope Francis repeats, we need faith, not ideologies. Faith leads us in our religions; laws lead us in nations. I agree with Thomas Jefferson’s emphasis for the need of separation of church and state; otherwise, how do we maintain liberty?
To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “If we are to have peace on Earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.”
Let me emphasize that Israel cannot kill its way out of this horror. Palestinians want to live. Israelis want to live. There is no way to kill our way out of terrorism with war. Torturing others warps us — it does not produce good outcomes. Dictators pronounce that they alone can save us. Consider our worst atrocities: enslavement, forced labor, containment camps, genocide, separation of children from their parents. We must find the way to negotiate to live in peace, in democracies, in communities, in families. We have choices to live differently, only if we take them.
