Lord Byron became a household name here in Israel this past two weeks. Or rather, just Byron.
As Israel is part of a regional group that includes Greece and Cyprus, which together make up the Southeastern Mediterranean storm-naming cluster, this winter season’s list of possible storm names included “Byron” for the second storm. It is the fifth year that Israel has participated in the project. The naming of a storm is intended to indicate to the populations a high potential for damage.
This being Israel, much information on the expected results of the storm, its winds and amount of precipitation, flood warnings and thanks for the rainfall for our agriculture were well published. Alerts were broadcast. What was not provided to Israelis was: Who was Byron? Nor was his relevance to the modern-day State of Israel emphasized.
Lord George Gordon Byron, a major figure of the Romantic movement, is regarded as one of the greatest British poets. He composed in late 1814 and early 1815 some 30 poems that were published as “Hebrew Melodies.” They were set to music by Isaac Nathan, who, upon Byron setting out to participate in the Greek war for liberation, similar to that of the Maccabees in 164 BCE, sent him a farewell gift of matzah.
Several of the poems deal with the unfortunate historical plight of the Jews, suffering not only from antisemitism but the circumstances of a stolen homeland. Byron’s poetry is quite emotional. As a commentator noted: “Zionism was a thing of the future, but the sense of persecution, lost community and threatened tradition which led to Zionism was ever-present, and Byron was well aware of the issues ... .”
Allow me to quote lines from several of his poems there.
“A people nationless … stubborn Israel still!” (Magdalen)
“And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? And when shall Zion’s songs again seem sweet? And Judah’s melody once more rejoice. … The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their Country, Israel but the grave.” (Oh! Weep for Those)
“The wild Gazelle on Judah’s hills, Exulting yet may bound, And drink from all the living rills That gush on holy ground. … The cedars wave on Lebanon, But Judah’s statelier maids are gone. … Our temple hath not left a stone. And Mockery sits on Salem’s throne.” (The Wild Gazelle)
More than two centuries ago, the non-Jewish Byron was aware that Jews were in exile. He knew from where they had come and to where they desired to return. He recognized the hatred that was the Jews’ lot, but also foresaw an aspiration returning home.
He wasn’t the only one.
In 1876, the novel Daniel Deronda was published. Written by George Eliot, the pen name of the Christian Mary Ann Evans, its main character discovers his Jewish origin and roots and realizes a new life-mission:
“The idea that I am possessed with is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a national center…That is a task which presents itself to me as a duty; I am resolved to begin it. … At the least, I may awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened in my own.”
Mordecai, the mentor of Deronda, asked if he was moved by “a spiritual destiny embraced willingly,” corrected him and said,
“It was the soul fully born within me, and it came in my boyhood … [from] men who made the ancient language live again … they still yearned toward a center for our race.”
The novel that appeared before Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State and before the Hovevei Zion (“The Lovers of Zion”) first aliyah pioneers, mentions “the ruins of Jerusalem” and, at its end, there is a “departure to the East,” to the Land of Israel. In a section that reads as if written for today’s attempts to erase Jewish national identity, by pro-Palestine adherents and anti-Zionist Jews, Mordecai tells Deronda,
“The soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive the organic centre: Let the unity of Israel, which has made the growth and form of its religion, be an outward reality. Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life … which will plant the wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and understanding.”
And he adds, “There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old—a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community. …Then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations. … And the world will gain as Israel gains … let there be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality.”
The present storm named Byron was over the hills and coast of Israel, but there is also a storm of anti-Zionism that is raging as well. We hear rumblings of Jews as colonialists and thundering charges of Jews as supremacists, as stealing another people’s land and of committing genocide. But the sun will yet shine.
And shine, too, will the candles we’ll be lighting for the upcoming Chanukah holiday. The festival, though, is not only about the sufganiyot, the Israel-style doughnuts, or the latkes, the fried potato batter. Nor is the importance on the exchange of gifts.
The eight days of Chanukah mark not only religious elements, family customs or a counterpoint to Christmas. The holiday commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, won back from the occupation forces of the Greek-Seleucid regime that attempted to force Jews of the second century BCE in Judea to adopt foreign culture.
The Temple candelabrum was on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where struggles of Jewish identity and freedom on another scale are still taking place. There, too, it is stormy.
However, we Jews must fixate on the lights we need to kindle still. We must, as Byron wrote, deny those who wish to mock Jerusalem.
