Tired and disheveled, David Gerbi spoke from Tripoli early Tuesday morning about
the last 72 hours in which he single-handedly raised international awareness over
the rights of Jews in a Libya free of longtime dictator Muammar
Gaddafi.
“As a Jew I’m tired of paying the price,” the Libyan-born
psychologist, who recently returned from exile in Italy, told
The Jerusalem Post
via Skype.
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Libyan Jews abroad deeply ambivalent about uprising“I did what I had to do to raise the issue and see what kind
of a country this will become.”
On Saturday, Gerbi showed up at the
city’s abandoned central synagogue wearing an “I heart Libya” T-shirt and
carrying a sledgehammer. He broke through a wall sealing the Jewish place of
worship and told reporters he planned to reopen it to prayers.
But when
he returned the following day he was greeted by a group of armed men with
assault rifles warning him his life was in danger. The door was locked and
neighbors who had previously expressed support warned him to stay
away.
“It’s not the right time for this,” one of them was quoted by
National Public Radio as saying. “It’s a very sensitive matter. We appreciate
having different religions in our country. We want that. But not at this
time.”
Back at his hotel room, Gerbi was angry at those who barred him
from returning to the temple.
“I was told I was abusing an archeological
building. This is the place where my uncle is buried,” he said.
Gerbi’s
initiative and its failure made headlines around the world. Meir Kahlon of the
World Organization of Libyan Jewry, a diaspora group based in Israel, hailed his
efforts for raising awareness to the rights of Jews exiled from Libya, while
others, including the National Transitional Council, said they were provocative
and premature.
“The fact that he can move around freely is an indication
of how Libya has changed,” a spokesman for the NTC was quoted as saying. “The
NTC is a temporary body and isn’t prepared to deal with this sensitive issue
right now.”
Gerbi even came under fire from other members of the Libyan
Jewish diaspora, which numbers about 200,000 people living mostly in Israel and
Italy.
“Anyone really interested in finding a collective negotiated
solution on the Jewish-Libyan question would do well to refrain from seeking
personal results and return to the ranks of the Jewish community,” wrote Elio
Racch, a member of the coordinating committee of the Libyan Jewish diaspora in
Italy.
But Gerbi, who left Libya with his family at the age of 12 because
of state-sanctioned anti-Semitism that emerged in response to the Israeli-Arab
conflict, said he had waited long enough.
“The Libyan government needs to
prove it is not anti-Semitic and justify the support from the US and Europe,” he
said.
Regarding his critics from within the Libyan Jewish diaspora, he
rebuked them for not returning to the country in person like he
did.
“They can speak from there and have their opinions but they don’t
know what the reality is like here,” he said. “Only by being here and being part
of the revolution I have respect. Why aren’t the people of Libya on our
side? They ask. Why are they so indifferent? They think we don’t exist, that we
don’t support them.”
In hindsight he admitted he had not expected the
backlash over his attempt to reopen the dilapidated synagogue, but said he was
glad he tried.
“I’m going to stop now and start to talk but it
transformed the issue,” he said. “I thought the reopening was going to be a
happy end and there’d be a Jewish delegation coming over to do a kadish
[mourner’s prayer], but it didn’t happen like that.”