Operation Shylock: A Confession by Philip Roth Read Free Book Online

down to is fearful Jews in flight, terrified Jews once again running away.”
    “To flee an imminent cataclysm is ‘running away’ only from extinction. It is running
toward
life. Had thousands more of Germany’s fearful Jews fled in the 1930s—”
    “Thousands more would have fled,” I said, “if there had been somewhere for them to flee to. You may recall that they were no more welcome elsewhere than they would be now if they were to turn up en masse at the Warsaw train station in flight from an Arab attack.”
    “You know what will happen in Warsaw, at the railway station, when the first trainload of Jews returns? There will be crowds to welcome them. People will be jubilant. People will be in tears. They will be shouting, ‘Our Jews are back! Our Jews are back!’ The spectacle will be transmitted by television throughout the world. And what a historic day for Europe, for Jewry, for all mankind when the cattle cars that transported Jews to death camps are transformed by the Diasporist movement into decent, comfortable railway carriages carrying Jews by the tens of thousands back to their native cities and towns. A historic day for human memory, for human justice, and for atonement too. In those train stations where the crowds gather to weep and sing and celebrate, where people fall to their knees in Christian prayer at the feet of their Jewish brethren, only there and then will the conscience cleansing of Europe begin.” He paused theatricallyhere before concluding this visionary outpouring with the quiet, firm pronouncement “And Lech Walesa Jiappens to believe this just as strongly as Philip Roth does.”
    “Does he? With all due respect, Philip Roth, your prophecy strikes me as nonsense. It sounds to me like a farcical scenario out of one of your books—Poles weeping with joy at the feet of the Jews! And you tell me you are
not
writing fiction these days?”
    “This will come to pass,” he declared oracularly, “because it
must
come to pass—the reintegration of the Jew into Europe by the year 2000, not a reentry as refugees, you must understand, but an orderly population transfer
with an international legal basis, with restoration of property, of citizenship, and of all national rights
. And then, in the year 2000, the pan-European celebration of the reintegrated Jew to be held in the city of Berlin.”
    “Oh, that’s the best idea yet,” I said. “The Germans particularly will be delighted to usher in the third millennium of Christianity with a couple of million Jews holding a welcome-home party at the Brandenburg Gate.”
    “In his day Herzl too was accused of being a satirist and of making an elaborate joke when he proposed the establishment of a Jewish state. Many deprecated
his
plan as a hilarious fantasy, an outlandish fiction, and called him crazy as well. But my conversation with Lech Walesa was not outlandish fiction. The contact I have made with President Ceauescu, through the chief rabbi of Romania, is no hilarious fantasy. These are the first steps toward bringing about
a new Jewish reality based on principles of historical justice
. For years now, President Ceauşescu has been selling Jews to Israel. Yes, you hear me correctly: Ceauşescu has
sold
to the Israelis several hundred thousand Romanian Jews for ten thousand dollars a head. This is a fact. Well, I propose to offer him ten thousand more dollars for each Jew he takes back. I’ll go as high as fifteen if I have to. I have carefully studied Herzl’s life and have learned from his experience how to deal with these people. Herzl’s negotiations with the sultan in Constantinople, though they happened to fail, were no more of a hilarious fantasy than the negotiations I will soon be conducting with the dictator of Romania at his Bucharest palace.”
    “And the money to pay the dictator off? My guess is that to fund your effort you have only to turn to the PLO.’’
    “I have every reason to believe that my funding will come