I am a Doctor in Law and Social Sciences, that is, a lawyer, and all legal and current affairs interest me, which is why I regularly read both national and international press.
And I only observe wars and violations of the most basic principles of law that I learned in my distant years as a student at the Faculty of Law of the University of the Republic, secular and state, with a misunderstood monopoly on university education and then the only existing. Therefore, I received non-religious training at that institute. This misunderstood monopoly was only broken with the authorization of the Catholic University of Uruguay, of which I was later a Professor. I am retired, but I also see with astonishment that, in the concrete application of the law, there are serious shortcomings in practically all countries and a decline in the training of lawyers, judges and prosecutors. However, there are always honorable exceptions in these positions, occupied by younger colleagues in general, who make up for what is not adequately taught to them with their own study.
Before the appearance of Universities, there were self-taught people who were precisely the ones who founded these Universities in the Middle Ages.
That said, I see with special interest what is happening in Poland and Ukraine, the homeland of my father, born in a former Austrian town until 1918, then Polish and from 1945 Soviet until 1991 when Ukraine became independent.
And I only observe more of the same: a corridor without natural borders in war, current (Ukraine) or potential, (Poland) that historically was the entrance of various invasions towards Europe and more recently, but that has been going on for several centuries, a confrontation between Russia and Germany, the two great historical invaders. Today it’s the Russians… tomorrow we don’t know. Even Napoleon was there too.
And this reality is so much so that my father, born in 1925, in the region of Galicia, was officially Polish, but my grandparents, until 1918, were Austrian, and he felt Austrian-Polish.
But since my father emigrated as a child to Montevideo, Uruguay, he was also a Jew by birth, converted to Catholicism in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1950, he saw the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, being a Jew by blood and de jure, an issue that was object of discussion within the Jewish community between Zionists and anti-Zionists, who did not want the State of Israel, considering it not appropriate and others, like my partly Orthodox family, not wanted by God. The Zionists were basically secularists, followers of the theories of Herzl, who even invented a new language, modern Hebrew, which my father did not understand, and he only read it without understanding, I insist, when news about Israel appeared in the press.
Child’s home of my father Professor Mario Hübner Lehrer in his native Nizankowice Nyzhankovychi and Polish identity card of the child and my grandmother Chaja HindaSo the Jewish and Israeli issue interests me, although I am a convinced practicing Catholic, son of a Spanish mother, born in Galicia, Spain, a country that of course interests me a lot because I opted at the time for Spanish nationality and the Galician civil neighborhood without leaving of being Uruguayan, being able to also opt for a third, Polish, for my father, although curiously he stopped being Jewish de jure, since 1950, and being one only by blood. For this reason, I indicated that he saw the birth of the State of Israel as a de jure Jew. The State of Israel does not nationalize the mamzers or traitors, who have chosen another religion, but they leave them with only one right: to be buried in a Jewish cemetery in the mamzers or traitors sector. How curious. There is no religious freedom!!
But I am very proud of my two bloods, Jewish and Spanish, although a practicing Catholic. I am not Jewish nor do I wish to be, by Hallajah because my mother was not Jewish. Well, but there are tolerant people too. Among the Jews. I remember with great affection my favorite deceased aunt, my father’s younger sister…
In this complex context, because the Jewish ethnicity is very complicated, pure races do not exist, as anti-Semitic Nazism believed, etc., in the face of a cruel war that has developed over the years between Israelis, not all of them Jews, there are Arabs and Christians, and the Palestinians, Muslim Arabs and Christians, the fault of the leaders of both sides, with honorable exceptions of course, such as the former Egyptian president Anwar el Sadat who paid with his life for peace with Israel and his Prime Minister Menachem Begin, before the last episode in Gaza, between Hamas ruling in the strip and Israel, better said its government in power, in addition to Hezbollah, from Lebanon etc., that is, leaders, not between peoples I discovered with joy The Road to Recovery, an NGO o Israeli association, not politicized, helping Palestinians to provide them with medical assistance, without asking their religion, there are Muslims and Christians, which motivated me to contact them and their current CEO, Yael Noy, mother of four children, with parents displaced by Hamas attacks, nephews in the Israeli army, and often she, like the other members of this organization, frowned upon when they pass the checkpoints between the West Bank and Israel, since they can no longer go to Gaza now.
And they continue forward, despite the fact that some of their members have died victims of Hamas as well.
The Road to Recovery
The website www.theroadtorecovery.org.il speaks for itself about what these good people do, even promoting good coexistence and understanding between Palestinians and Israelis.
They transport Palestinian patients to and from border crossings to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals.
Travel from the border crossing is virtually impossible for hundreds of parents of sick children, due to both expense and logistical complexity. Parents are left completely defenseless against their children’s illness. The Palestinian Authority funds hospital treatment, but getting to and from the hospital remains a huge and often insurmountable barrier.
With the help of Road to Recovery volunteers, this journey becomes simple and doable. And by performing that simple act of kindness, a strong bond of new warmth and friendship is created, replacing the suspicion and doubt that are all too present.
Dr. Pablo Santiago Hübner Varela – Montevideo, Uruguay, South America
