Libyan Psychoanalyst Tries to go to Shul

Libyan Jewish exile David Gerbi breaks the sealed entrance to Dar Bishi synagogue.

David Gerbi, who hit the headlines this week, is a psychoanalyst. He is also a consummate performer, a refugee peace envoy and a Libyan Jew. This week he also turned out to be a canny activist in the views of some, or an ill-timed opportunist in the views of others.
 In the week that Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) was preparing their final onslaught on Sirte, Gerbi, who had entered Tripoli with the rebels in August, decided to take brooms, rakes, buckets and cleaning materials to start restoring Tripoli's crumbling main synagogue which has been unused for decades. He started the clean-up on Sunday. By Wednesday the building was padlocked but Gerbi had made his stand. Probably knowing that revolutions provide only a short-lived window of opportunity for openness, he had decided to test the NTC for its democratic intent. Would Jews be welcome in the new Libya? Some say his test came too early - that's certainly the line of the NTC. Only time will tell. Maybe he wanted to be able to pray there on Yom Kippur - the Jewish day of Atonement - the holiest day of the year. In fact, I wonder where he has spent Yom Kippur today?
 I first encountered David Gerbi, who seems to be well-known around Cape Town, when he performed his one man, one act play, "Making Peace with Qaddafi" at a conference in Cape Town held to mark the 10th anniversary of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) in 2006. In addition to evoking the pain of dislocation which was Gerbi's teenage experience, it told an extraordinary story: Gerbi's family sought refuge in Italy when most Jews left Libya in 1967 after anti-Semitic riots killed 18. In 2001 Gerbi discovered he had an elderly aunt still living in Tripoli - the last Jew. She had stayed to guard the family treasures. She had been hospitalised and her house and possessions confiscated. Gerbi eventually managed to get a visa to rescue her in 2002. Qaddafi wanted something in return. He wanted Gerbi to approach the USA on his behalf and so began the Western rapprochement with the Libyan dictator.

Dr. David Gerbi offers his hand to Colonel Qaddafi in a traditional Libyan gesture of friendship.

 In a talk given some months ago to the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative, Gerbi outlined his wish to go to Benghazi to help the traumatised survivors of the rebellion:
“I want to go to Benghazi to treat traumatised victims in hospital to help the process of reconciliation”, he told the startled group. He was determined to work as a Jewish volunteer in a psychiatric hospital with refugees and victims of war, as an example of reconciliation. Stuck at the border, he then appealed to the CTII for a letter of recommendation to help him cross and a little later managed to achieve his aims, teaching his colleagues at the Benghazi Psychiatric Hospital, the techniques of healing post-traumatic stress disorder.
Later reports say he only spent a week there. Nevertheless, it appears that he spent the summer in Libya, allying himself with the revolution. The current news reports do not say in what way, but you can be sure of one thing with this compact dynamo of a man, the story will not be boring!

Postscript
By Sunday, according to the Jerusalem Post, there were demonstrations outside his hotel telling him he was not wanted in Libya. I quote his response:
“what happened reveals the extent of Gaddafi’s anti-Semitic conditioning of an entire generation, those in their forties and fifties. Forty-two years of lies, of hate propaganda falsely accusing Jews of having been paid off to abandon the country in 1967, of having robbed Palestinians of their homes and of planning to colonize Libya. Fortunately, the older generation still recalls warm friendships with former Jewish neighbors,” Gerbi said, “and I will continue to work to restore a 2,300-year-old coexistence and advocate active roles in the NTC for Libyan Jews, for the Libyan Amazigh population, for women and all ethnic and religious minorities.”

On Sunday, after a personal meeting with Libyan and Italian diplomatic representatives, he agreed to return to Rome on Tuesday by military plane in order to ease the tension.