In 1980, I was working for a small publishing house called The
Pilgrim Press. My task was to acquire and edit social justice books.
Very quickly I took a crash course in book publishing. I
learned that every year in the fall an international book fair was held
in Frankfurt, where rights to books were sold.
Pilgrim Press, the country’s oldest publishing house, was owned by a
liberal church group, the United Church of Christ. The head of the
publishing arm was a Protestant minister, a man named Paul Sherry.
Paul loved books, and had the idea of creating a trade book division
of social justice issues in line with the institution’s beliefs. I’d had a
brief stint at Simon and Schuster working for Alice Mayhew, editor of
social justice books there (including Woodward
and Bernstein In my job interview Paul and I talked a lot about ethics
and books, and he hired me. Though I made it clear I didn’t know
much about the book business.
I told him about Frankfort, and he suggested I go.
I had traveled some by then- the Middle East, much of Europe,
but I was reluctant, for reasons of history, to go to Germany.
To make the trip easier, I flew to Paris, where I had a small group of
friends. My friends were Jewish, or partly. All Marxists too, none of
them had ever been inside a synagogue.
I am not a shul goer either, but I’d heard about a beautiful Reform
synagogue on Rue Copernic. It was shabbat, and I thought the
service would be palatable for everyone so I suggested
we all go. My friends were reluctant. Why would they want to
go to a synagogue?
‘
Still I talked them into it and the night we were there, the synagogue
was bombed. They’d been ambivalent about seeing themselves as
Jews – all Marxists first, by choice, they left the synagogue redefined.
Four people were killed outside the synagogue: an Israeli journalist, a
student, a cab driver, and a janitor. The Prime Minister, Raymond
Barre, caused outrage and protests when he said,
“This odious attack was aimed at hitting Israelites going to the
synagogue but hit innocent French people.” He never apologized.
This week a Lebanese sociology professor Hassan Diab was convicted
of murder for the bombing. Diab, living in Canada educated at
Syracuse University, was sentenced to a life in prison.
Diab claims innocence. The Canadian government has not
decided whether or not to extradite him.
Over the years, I have thought about this bombing very often, and
about the countless people throughout history who have witnessed
inexplicable tragedies.
After the bombing, I called a man I was seeing in New York – a
sensitive, funny Armenian film editor, to talk about what happened.
You don’t have to go to Frankfurt he said.
You have a good excuse to come home.
Shaken, still I went. It was a hard Frankfurt week.
Returning home, I didn’t know how to
understand what happened. Hearing news this week
of the conviction forty three years later,
I still don’t know how to piece the story together.
Except for this. When I returned home from a difficult two weeks,
the funny Armenian was waiting in my apartment.
Marry me he said. I did.
BOMBING
I love this complicated poem for its beauiful complications.
What a story! I love the personal/political. I'm so glad that Armenian guy asked you to marry.