All posts by jtazarte

An American Who Stayed Abroad

Interview

“Sometimes I think I’ve seen it all” says Kathleen De Carbuccia, nee McDonough. “I mean, I am a small-town American turned spy, turned foreign diplomat, turned lawyer in Paris.” She is petite, elegantly dressed and has a bob of silver hair that follows her gestures to a tee. The small town she refers to is Cooperstown, located in upstate New York, where baseball was invented. Her demeanor is kind and inviting, she is warm, easy to talk to. Now retired from diplomatic work and the law, she talks about her experience as an ex-pat in Paris.

As a young adult, De Carbuccia studied at Wellesley College, the all-women’s institution outside of Boston. Here, Kathleen developed an interest in foreign governments. The Vietnam War was in full swing, there was increasing mistrust between the then USSR and the American government. “We all thought a nuclear bomb could drop at any moment.” De Carbuccia’s eyes have a far off look. She is remembering.

What De Carbuccia felt, along with many of her peers, was frustration in the face of the drastic changes happening across the world. They all wanted to be involved, one way or another, in the shaping of the world. Some opted for the artistic route, others became involved in the anti-war movement, still others got involved in local government. At 21, Kathleen chose to join the foreign service. She took exams for the CIA and the State Department, both of which offered her positions. Though she began CIA training to become a foreign spy, her most probable posting being Eastern Europe, De Carbuccia ended up on the diplomatic route, but she kept in touch and often dealt with covert agents in her future work as a diplomat. Kathleen is a little reticent when it comes to her own covert work; however she has no trouble recalling the irony of her working alongside her CIA counterparts: “spies needed covers. Some were placed at the State Department, so anytime I would mention I was a diplomat, everyone simply assumed I was a spy. It was like a badly kept secret that is never confirmed. Sometimes I would receive sensitive information from undercover operatives who mistook me for one of their covert colleagues!” She smiles, but it is evident the times were far from amusing, and relating any sort of information was dangerous even for the lowliest of diplomats.

During her years as a diplomat, she served as an interpreter for the American Embassy in Paris and helped with the relations between representatives from across the globe. “Cultural exchange was done through the State Department and we were trained specifically to handle different situations,” she says. “The most complicated portion of our jobs was to interpret other cultures, to know how to act in front of different representatives and to advise our higher-ups on the better ways to handle certain events, talks, deals, etcetera.” De Carbuccia’s work, however, also focused on the promotion of her own culture abroad: “Until the 1990’s the US government had an agency (US Information Service) which promoted US culture (art exhibits, speakers, concerts) abroad; they had an active center in the Latin Quarter that put on lectures and had movie screenings on a daily basis.”

Once married, De Carbuccia became a licensed lawyer after studying at the University of Paris and becoming a member of the New York State Bar Association in 1987. She worked at the Paris branch of an American corporate law firm. Though out of the State Department, De Carbuccia still acted as a go-between different cultures, except this time her work had less to do with the understanding and promoting of cultural heritage, and more to do with the intricacies of perspective each culture perpetuates. As she says herself, “there are two attitudes toward culture: that of art and that of business.” De Carbuccia says her work as a lawyer fell under the second category. She would arrive at meetings with her own culture, her colleagues arrived with theirs, and collectively they’d try to find a balance.   

She continues, “I had just spent so much time understanding the small workings of politics and culture, this time I was thrown into conference rooms and dealings. I wouldn’t worry that the way a single prime minister holding his spoon could offend a foreign visitor, instead I worried that the conditions of a contract would be acceptable to an American and not to a Frenchman.”

A 30-year veteran diplomat of Paris, De Carbuccia found roots in her posting , like many other foreign workers before and after her. She remains on the board of various American citizens’ abroad organizations, and sometimes still acts as go-between, an interpreter for her grandchildren, her husband and her fellow ex-pats.

A Response To: “Is Russia Testing Trump?”

Letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

I find Morell and Farkas’ judgement that Russia is testing Trump to be too lenient. I agree Putin has tested the boundaries of what the Trump administration will accept in the last few months. Russia is indeed taking advantage of what the authors call his “infatuation” with the Russian leader. It has been clear for a long time that President Putin’s end goal is to have uncontested political control of his surrounding countries as well as to become a main player on the global political stage as one of the great powers.

The article, however, barely mentions the continuously unraveling scandal of Russian hackers and their involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election. This may have less to do with Russia’s support of the Syrian dictator, or their push for control in eastern Ukraine, and more to do with the relationship between the two leaders – the power dynamic that was created when President Putin favored the election of Donald Trump.

Which brings me to my point: Russia is not simply testing Trump and his administration by pushing the limits of what is acceptable, they are taking advantage of a puppet.

The article discusses the lack of action on the part of the US government in the face of Russian expansionism. The authors mention strong wording from multiple members of the Trump administration condemning Russia’s actions that never spark any real movement to stop it.

Trump owes Putin. He owes him his post as commander in chief. Putin has come to collect on that debt.

Julia Tazartes

Wellesley, MA

April 11th, 2017

History Is Written By Diplomacy

Op-Ed

The saying “history is written by the victors” is commonly attributed to Winston Churchill. However, its true origin is unknown. What we can say without a doubt is that the expression has been applicable to the many ups and downs of human history. Whoever emerges on top in a struggle controls the narrative.

Sometimes the losing side’s story turns into one of the war casualties: the losers are portrayed as unprepared, insurgents, the wrongdoers in every way. We forget that in times of war each side can be guilty of inflicting cruelty and both are prone to the same bloodlust.

Nowadays, however, winning and loosing have become relative terms. There are even times when history is not simply rewritten: sometimes it is entirely forgotten. Sometimes a historical event is never spoken of again because doing so is better for all involved: it is too embarrassing, too damaging to the reputations of entire countries. At other times the event is lost in the general confusion, when there is so much history being made, good and bad, that keeping track of it all is simply impossible and some falls through the cracks.

In the increasingly globalized world we live in, one in which we can no longer afford large-scale wars, the divide is no longer as black and white as victor and vanquished. Instead, we have mediators and negotiations. There are back room deals, treaties and agreements: diplomacy at work.

From the last months of the second World War, and well into the period of peace treaties that followed, this precise phenomenon occurred. Something happened, and it was swiftly forgotten: what the Italians call “Massacri delle Foibe,” the Foibe  Massacres.

The term “foiba” was attached to the massacres because of its meaning in Italian: a deep karst sinkhole. As the image above illustrates, these sinkholes were the natural weapon used to commit the massacre.

As Tito took control of the government in what was then Yugoslavia and his troops took over the country by force, these encroached on territories that had been in both Italian and Yugoslavian hands since the first World War. The future dictator and tyrant wanted to reclaim the territory he saw as rightfully Yugoslavian. In their revolutionary spirit, their bloodlust, and reflecting the heavy prejudice that many Balkan states had against Italians, the troops murdered thousands of the inhabitants of Northeastern Italy by throwing them into the many sinkholes that are characteristic of the mountainous area. Italy was in disarray because of the recent collapse of the Fascist government: troops had no one to report to, resources could not be allocated, and the victims were left to fend for themselves.

It was a tragedy in every sense of the word, yet anyone reading this piece will be surprised to hear this ever even happened.

With the second World War still in the rearview mirror, and the Cold War quickly approaching on the horizon, the context of time weighed heavily upon the two countries. Whether dealing with (or facing) another genocide was too much to bear for European morale, or governments didn’t want to exacerbate tensions in the area from the long-standing dispute over the region, or even because of sheer embarrassment, these events occurred without creating any sort of turmoil, and for a long time without consequence.

Today Italians have the “Day of Remembrance” in honor of the victims lost to the sinkholes of their landscape, yet most of the world is still unaware of these events.

So, was history once written by the victors? Absolutely. However, in more modern times, there seems to be a new phenomenon emerging. As disputes and tragedies are no longer solved via war, diplomacy takes the reins. In the case of the decision to not react to the Foibe Massacres, there were many factors in play that contributed to the Italian state’s silence: the separation between Tito and Stalin after Yugoslavia refused to become a Soviet satellite state; the problem of fascist war criminals the state did not want to be forced to deliver to Yugoslavia if they went public with the massacres; the fact that by the 1960s tensions had eased between the two countries. So the government remained mum until the 1990s, when scholarly books and tales of survivors emerged and became increasingly available to the public. With a new government in place and the memory of Fascist times behind it, Italy chose a day out of the year and dedicated it to the massacres.

History used to be written by the victors, now diplomacy steers and determines the narrative of History.

There is always a larger plan at play, a bigger picture to think about, small-scale sacrifices in the name of the greater good. The world of international relations is no longer one of straightforward ‘attack and defend.’ It is a game of chess. One move can be deceptive; three moves can decide the fate of the entire game. It is easy to sit in our safe, millennial bubble looking back on the mistakes of the past, in this case judging the hypocrisy that comes with diplomacy: the constant compromises between humanitarian issues and the long-term needs of a country.  I could continue this piece and lament, “the Italian government sold out its own people to avoid dealing with an infuriated Yugoslavia!” However, kicking and screaming won’t change the events of the past, nor will it prevent anything like this from happening again.

Instead, we must strive to remember. Once something is uncovered, we should not waste time on blaming those from a time that is past. Rather, it must be our priority to preserve those memories, no matter how belatedly we find them.

The Saint and the Sinner

Film Review: "Ida" (2014)

Ida, released in 2013, is a black and white film about self-discovery, betrayal and family set against a backdrop of 1960s Poland. At the time, the landscape of the country was grim, suffering from economic downturn and failure to recover after the world war. The film follows the journey of Ida and her aunt, Wanda. The two are brought together for the first time after the convent that raised the orphaned Ida urges her to visit Wanda, her only living relative. They embark on a mission to uncover the truth behind Ida’s parents’ death. Her father was Jewish and had been slaughtered with his wife and nephew, whom we later discover to be Wanda’s son, by their neighbor. Their killer believed Ida could pass as a non-Jew and left her with the priest of the local chapel.

Days away from completing her vows to become a nun, Ida, paired with her secular, promiscuous aunt, discovers life outside of the convent: smoking, drinking and jazz. As she and her aunt get closer to finding the burial site of their family, Ida starts exploring herself and her femininity by looking at herself in the mirror or bringing her beautiful hair out from under her nun’s veil and chatting with a young saxophone player. These small moments of temptation create doubt in Ida’s mind as to whether or not she is prepared to fully commit herself to a life as a nun.

Throughout the film, we see elements of the western world, suggesting that even through the Cold War era, the progress of the West has rippled through to Eastern Europe: a “Bar” sign in a small village, and the most prominent feature throughout the film, American jazz.

The common thread is music. In fact, the film is defined by it. Sometimes the tempo is fast and lighthearted, in scenes such as the evenings attended by Wanda and Ida in the hotel’s basement. Other times its tone is melancholic and grey.

There are also scenes in which the camera does not follow whatever character it is focused on, and as this person exits the shot there are some seconds of suspense in which our focus is fixed on inanimate objects rather than the living, breathing characters.

Towards the end of the film, Wanda is overcome by sorrow: the son of the neighbor who killed their family has shown them where he buried their relatives. Here Wanda finds the bones of her infant son – she had left him in the care of her sister, and had joined the resistance against Germany. Her choice had taken her son from her, but it also allowed her to become a state prosecutor, and ultimately a judge; it had turned her into an essential “comrade” of the new Polish order, and had given her status. However, this does not seem to give Wanda strength. On the contrary, it eats at her, as though it were all for nothing. She refers almost sarcastically to the other Poles she’s sentenced to death in her position of power, as though the words should carry an important weight. Instead all they do is make her feel cowardly, like a traitor.

Felix, the man who murdered her son, is also overwhelmed. In the small ditch he’d dug to bury the family, he crouches down in pain, succumbing to the guilt he feels over his past actions.

Once Ida leaves her to return to the convent, we see Wanda spiraling into despair by drinking more, smoking more and bringing more men home with her.

Just as her son’s murderer is desperate after years of carrying the weight of his past actions, Wanda enters a state that is increasingly similar to Felix’s. Their despair is reflective of the Polish times the film is set in: after a temporary surge of success that brought them a new regime and new hope after the tragedies of WWII, the country had fallen into a dark pattern that no false hope could alter. Wanda had fought for a better Poland, now she was merely a tool of the Communist regime. Her ideals were shattered: she’d given up her child for nothing and was left feeling empty and desperate.

At the peak of her sadness, Wanda plays one of her Mozart symphonies where the tempo is fast and loud. She goes about in regular routine, smoking a cigarette, opening her window, putting on her coat as if ready to go out. Then, with chilling speed, she walks up to the open window, steps onto the ledge, and jumps out. The scene happens so quickly, paired with the liveliness of the music playing in the background and the nonchalance with which Wanda steps off the ledge, that it is shocking to the viewer like a sudden electric shock from a loose wire.

After separating from her aunt, Ida shows increasing signs of doubt in her commitment to her faith. She begins giggling in the middle of a meal, a traditionally silent affair, and stares ambiguously at another nun that is bathing in front of her, leading us to believe she is, as Wanda put it, having “sinful thoughts.” This climaxes in her confessing to a statue of Jesus that she is not ready and asking for forgiveness. By the time she returns to the city, her aunt is already gone.

Ida moves into Wanda’s now vacant apartment, and simultaneously inhabits the space as well as the identity of her aunt: she puts on her aunt’s clothes, tries a cigarette, consumes a bottle of vodka. At her aunt’s funeral, she is reunited with the charming saxophone player she had met on her travels with Wanda. After meeting him at one of his gigs, they return to Wanda’s apartment, and spend the night together.

The abrupt change in Ida’s character seems to signify her haste in cutting ties with the life she had always known, of chastity and devotion to God. It seems as though she is on the verge of changing for good – that she will follow her new romantic partner to the seaside where he is scheduled to play with his band, and as he suggests, get married and start a life together.

It seems as though the “happily ever after” we are promised in most modern-day cinema is nearing. Instead, just as quickly and harshly as Wanda took her life, Ida changes her own narrative in a completely unexpected way: as morning comes, the young girl retrieves her convent clothes, retires her hair once again to her veil, and quietly slips out of her late aunt’s apartment, leaving behind her lover and the life they could have had together.

Some may interpret this ending as a sad one, as though we have been cheated of the romantic ending we were expecting. In truth, the ending reflects a great deal of what we have seen throughout the movie: the dynamic between a saintly, quiet girl, and a woman wrecked by loss. Ida chooses solitude and salvation: she chooses her loyalty to her family at the convent, the ones that had raised her, rather than following in the footsteps of her bereaved aunt.

There is power in this ending. It almost seems as though she is moving toward a life that serves a greater purpose than serving as a man’s wife, a mother to his children. Instead she chooses to serve her creator, what she believes to be the most powerful thing in existence.

The final shot, in which Ida walks steadfast, almost defiantly down the dirt road, with clear conviction in her eyes, shatters the bleak trends of the movie so far. It makes one feel as though there is hope for the young girl, and by association hope for Poland. There is nothing beautiful, or romantic, about the state Poland found itself in at the time. However, Ida is a small ray of light in an otherwise grey landscape, a woman who chooses the greatness of the unknown over the safe promise of a domestic life.

Shabbat Shalom!

Feature article

Every Friday afternoon, at 3 p.m., like clockwork, the city of Tel Aviv undergoes a transformation. Stores begin shutting down, the market is packed up, the bars and restaurants become silent. For the next twenty-four hours, finding even a carton of milk becomes a challenge.

In the Jewish tradition, this metamorphosis is better known as Shabbat.

Graffiti-covered metal shutters replace the store fronts and the standard greeting of “Shalom” turns into “Shabbat Shalom!” for a day.

Historically, from Friday evening to Saturday evening, sundown to sundown, observers of the tradition of Shabbat will retreat into their homes. In Hebrew, the term means “to cease, to end, to rest,” and is the equivalent of Christian Sunday, the day of rest and the day of worship.

Across Tel Aviv and the rest of Israel, each family gathers into a single house. The women of the households have spent the entire day preparing Challah bread, soups, and various types of mezze that will be served at the evening meal. Because Shabbat is a day for rest as well as for worship, it is tradition that nothing else is done but pray and eat. Food is kept on a slow-burning flame throughout the duration of Shabbat so such menial things as cooking do not interfere with the centuries-old tradition.

As the Torah dictates, at dinner the wine and food are blessed, everyone washes their hands, and the feast begins. Sometimes the meal is shared with friends in large numbers, sometimes it is a small family gathering. The common thread among all Jewish households, be they traditional or more modern in their ways, is the concept of Menuchah, the idea of rest. Worshipers remain in their homes until the end of Saturday, without using their phones, doing homework, watching television, or undertaking any other task that would take them from their prayers.

It may sound as though the guidelines for a “proper Shabbat” are rather strenuous, especially considering the millennial generation that is addicted to its technological gadgets, its social media accounts and its outings with friends. God forbid they miss out on a Friday night party! However, as the country of Israel, and in particular the larger cities such as Tel Aviv and Eilat, break out onto the global platform of technology and advancement, their traditions have followed. Just as western children will personalize their rooms and closets, in the new era Israelis and Jews across the world are personalizing their own traditions. Though the religious authority on how Shabbat should be observed remains unwavering, there has been a clear cultural shift in the greater Israeli cities and among younger generations.

One can see how the newer generations have created a variety of ways to find balance between pleasing their families and enjoying their youth.

In the liberal city of Tel Aviv, both ends of the spectrum exist.

Some will participate in the Friday night dinner with family and then celebrate their youth later in the night at the bar or club of their choosing. Others will gratefully retire their cell phones for the day to undergo a “technology cleanse.” Yet another group will disregard the tradition entirely, going about their days, and expressing their frustration at the limited resources offered in the city during those twenty-four hours.

In spite of the initial afternoon lull, Tel Aviv turns into a vibrant and energetic city by evening-time: most of the hip restaurants, bars and clubs are now owned by twenty-somethings who are more concerned with running their businesses than wasting an entire day’s income on a rigid tradition. The newer generations are catering more and more to their millennial peers, and to increasing numbers of tourists passing through their cities.

Shabbat has a varying effect on the passers-by, the study-abroad students and the tourists of Tel Aviv. For some, it is simply frustrating: the stores and cultural attractions all closed, the streets deserted until night time, and the hotels with their peculiar elevators without buttons that, on a loop, stop at every floor. A tourist that does not know any better might get stuck in the longest elevator ride of their life.

Others, those who are in town for more than a weekend getaway, may become grateful for the tradition: it provides an excuse to be lazy and relaxed for twenty-four hours. As for the party-goers, they are free to dance all night and sleep all day.

Though among Jews Shabbat is a religious and historical tradition, it has in time turned into a weekly cultural event. The evening dinner has become an excuse to have over friends, new and old. Its less rigid guidelines now allow for secular people and other religious minorities to partake in the process. In a conversation, you are more likely to invite the other over for Shabbat dinner, rather than a regular, week-day coffee. It has turned into a special evening for the practicing and non-practicing, religious or not.

With the modernization of the tradition, a program was created in the larger Israeli cities that connects newcomers with natives to share a Shabbat dinner, as an introduction to the city and its traditions. Elsewhere, we might do this by touring the city with a newcomer, or taking them to a fun event in the coolest neighborhood.

In Tel Aviv, what brings people together is a Shabbat dinner.

Metzoke Dragot

Blog Post

Today, like every day since I’ve moved here, I wake up in a daze. I say a daze, because I still have trouble believing I am in Tel Aviv. October, verging on November, and it’s still 25 degrees centigrade out. I make my way to class along with thousands of others, blending into the crowd, a part of the campus and the city.

This weekend, Dani and I have decided to do something out of the ordinary: we’re going on a yoga retreat. It is out of the ordinary because most twenty-year-olds in Tel Aviv spend their weekends partying through the night and nursing their hangovers through the day. This time, we thought we’d leave all that behind and head for the shores of the Dead Sea with a group of strangers.

“Time to escape the world!” Dani and I high-five as we jump into a Gett, the Israeli equivalent of an Uber, to get to the  meeting point.

The chaos of this past week, my friends in Boston constantly reporting the ugliness spreading after the 2016 election – after everything that has happened, a peaceful retreat is the perfect distraction.

We arrive at Metzoke Dragot, our hotel on top of a hill. The sight before us is overwhelming. We all stand, transfixed, staring at the view, incapable of looking away. The Dead Sea lies still below us and beyond are the Jordanian shores. I tell the receptionist I’m here to escape reality. “Or maybe explore a different reality,” she corrects me, smiling. She’s right; this may seem like a dream to me, but this place is her reality.

Our little group is as particular as it is perfect: a sweet young couple, an Israeli and a Dane, together for nearly ten years with a baby on the way. An Australian girl who’d fallen in love with Israel and had moved here not two years ago. A seventy year-old woman, who’d been a hippie throughout the sixties and had written a book on her work as a welder, fighting for feminism. Everyone is here for one reason or another, and in no time we begin talking about our lives outside of the retreat, becoming friends and promising to meet again in Tel Aviv.

I cannot help thinking “only in Israel,” as my roommate Gili, would put it. Something about this country makes those who visit it feel instantly intimate with those around them.

Only in Israel could eight people, completely different from one another, strangers only hours before, spend an impromptu weekend together and have time slip by without even noticing.

A couple of couches had been placed on the peak of the hill, right on the edge, facing the view. Any time we aren’t doing yoga or walking through the desert, I sit here and read with Dani for hours in comfortable silence. Sometimes I feel the need to stop reading, or chatting with my new friends, and look across the view before me, from the silent sea to the rolling hills of Jordan. I still have trouble realizing just how close the two countries are. “I could swim there” I joke with one of the group members, “and yet these countries are thousands of miles apart.” He understands me: the wars that happen and don’t happen between Israel and its surrounding countries, the bad blood that has existed in this region for over sixty years. I think to myself, “It feels so unreal that, in spite of the beauty we see around us, we are in a territory plagued by the constantly looming threat of war.”

I think back to our drive here, while crammed in a car filled with supplies for the weekend. As we made our way along the winding desert roads towards the sea, we passed a checkpoint of armed guards a few miles before our final destination. A month ago my pulse would have been racing; today, as I watched the soldiers clutching their firearms, I think of Dov, of Jonathan, and the other friends I’ve made who are serving in the military. Knowing them eases my anxiety, and I feel safer knowing they’re out there protecting us.

The peculiar bipolarity of this country is striking to all of us, and we carry on chatting about our individual relationships with the place we’ve chosen to call home, for however long.

The weekend has had its desired effect: Dani and I have gotten to experience a different part of Israel, and have finally started making sense of the country we’ve come to love.

“Back to normal,” I say to myself, once we’ve returned to Tel Aviv, staring at an entirely different sea. The wind propels the waves of the Mediterranean rapturously onto the shore, and I already miss the retreat, the friends I made, the things I saw.