SHADENFREUDE…THAT GREAT GERMAN WORD…..SEE NOTE PLEASE
WHEN IT TURNED OUT THAT ONE OF THE IDIOTS WHO SIGNED THAT LETTER TO NETANYAHU, MELVYN WEISS WAS IN JAIL, I RHETORICALLY ASKED “WHAT IS THAT GREAT GERMAN WORD FOR JOY AT THE PAIN OF ONE’S ENEMY?”…THANK YOU ALL FOR THE RESPONSES. HERE IS A COLUMN ON THAT WORD BY SI FRUMKIN IN 2005 THANKS TO BARBARA T…..MY WONDERFUL E-PAL FROM ROCHESTER…..RSK
http://www.think-israel.org/frumkin.schadenfreude.html
I am not a great fan of German achievement. I believe that a Lexus or a Cadillac
is better than a BMW or Mercedes. But I do acknowledge that Germans have a way
with words. They created words that other languages simply do not have.
Schadenfreude is such a word. In case you are not familiar with it, it takes 7
English words to define it: “malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of
others”. The dictionary also explains it with a quote from the New York Times
about historian Peter Gay — who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in
Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936
Olympics; he said that it “can be one of the great joys of life.”
All this is a prelude to inform you that I felt – and greatly enjoyed –
Schadenfreude recently. A friend had recently come back from a trip to Russia.
He told us that he saw beautiful flowers at an expensive flower shop in Moscow
and asked where these out-of-season flowers had come from. “Holland,” he was
told. “Most of our flowers come from Holland but the Dutch buy a lot of them
from Israel and resell them throughout Europe. We are lucky to get them. They
are so beautiful?”
Another friend spent a week in the French countryside where he enjoyed a
wonderful tasty fruit, apparently some kind of a cross of a peach and a plum. He
asked what it was and was told that it was imported from Israel, the only place
where it was cultivated.
I am sure that at least some of the flowers, fruit and vegetables that cater to
European sophisticates came from the more than 3000 Gaza greenhouses. They were
all built on barren empty land by the Jews who – until a few years ago –
employed over 12,000 Palestinians there. Since the start of the last Intifada
and several terror attacks by the more demented employees, the number of Arabs
working the greenhouses was drastically reduced, and they were replaced by
Thais, Africans and Filipinos.
During the months of preparation for the Israeli withdrawal there were many
questions on what should be done with the greenhouses. They were state-of-art
agricultural marvels with their own sophisticated temperature and humidity
control systems, they turned out millions of dollars worth of produce yearly and
they were a source of employment for thousands of people in an area where close
to 40% were unemployed.
Should these marvelous structures be destroyed? Moved? Abandoned? And then a
wonderful and heartwarming solution was found. A small group of wealthy American
Jews decided to buy the greenhouses from Israel and donate them to the
Palestinian Authority. One of the donors was former World Bank president James
Wolfensohn who put up $500,000 of his own money. All in all, $14 million was
collected, the deal was done and appreciative Palestinian spokesmen announced
that the greenhouses would become the cornerstone of the future Palestinian
economy.
So where is the Schadenfreude, you say? Happy ending for all, right?
Palestinians get the greenhouses, Israelis get $14 million and the small group
of admirable Jews in America get the warm feeling of having made the world a
more tolerant and loving place where Arabs appreciate Jewish kindness and are
less eager to murder Jews, right?
Well, no, not really. Have you heard the old story about a scorpion that asked a
fox to carry him across a river? The fox refused: “You are a scorpion and you
might sting me,” he said. The scorpion scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would
I sting you? We would both drown if I do,” he said. The fox thought this made
sense and told him to climb on his back. Halfway across the river the scorpion
stung the fox. “Why? Why did you do this? We’ll both drown,” cried the drowning
fox. ” I know, my friend, but this is the Middle East,” said the scorpion before
dying.
Just an hour or so after the Jews left Gaza thousands of Palestinians swarmed
into the empty settlements. The Palestinian police watched the mob demolish the
abandoned synagogues and set them on fire. They also watched with interest as
part of the crowd turned on the greenhouses — breaking windows, taking plates
of glass, wiring, computer and electronic parts and irrigation pipes and timers.
It didn’t take long — after a few hours or so the greenhouses that it had taken
years to build were just so much junk.
And so I have Schadenfreude. The Palestinians will not export flowers to Holland
or fruit to France. The greenhouses will not be rebuilt. The Palestinian
economy, such as it is, will continue to be mired in corruption, hatred and
violence. They will suffer — Schadenfreude — but still, they’ll never admit
that it was their own fault.
And I have Schadenfreude towards the naive rich Jews who thought that the Arab
reaction to their gift would be based on logic and not on inbred hatred. You
silly people, didn’t you learn yet that this is the Middle East where scorpions
sting even if this means their own destruction? You lost $14 million and, you
know, I am glad you did.
I only hope that Israel cashed the $14 million check before it was too late.
Si Frumkin was born in Lithunia and survived a concentration camp, the only
member of his family that did. He now lives lives in Valley Village, CA.
He is a contributing columnist to the Jewish Observer, Los Angeles,
(http://www.jewishobserver-la.com), where this article appeared as an editorial
in the October 3-9, 2005 edition. Thanks are due Mordechai Ben-Menachem for
bringing it to our attention
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