INTERVIEW: From Berlin gangland youth to Israeli army spokesman

By Helen Maguire Nov 4, 2010, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - As a teenager in Berlin, Arye Sharuz Shalicar was confronted with anti-Semitism on a daily basis.

At school he was called a 'bloody Jew' who 'deserved to die,' while youths on the streets threatened to beat him up because of his religious belief.

This was not 1930s Germany. Shalicar grew up in 1990s Berlin, in the predominantly Muslim district of Wedding, where the children of Turkish and Arabic immigrants engaged in gang warfare and the Berlin Wall was simply another surface to spray graffiti on.

The 33-year-old now lives in Israel, where he is an army spokesman. Last week, he returned on a rare visit to Germany, where his book has just been published, documenting his violent teenage years in inner city Berlin.

He said he still felt uneasy as he returned to the streets of his youth, where he was taunted daily until he earned respect as a gang member.

'There are corners where you don't see a single German. I still don't feel comfortable in Wedding,' Shalicar said.

When his family moved to the Muslim-dominated neighbourhood, the teenager's Middle Eastern appearance blended in perfectly and everybody assumed he was 'one of them.'

But Shalicar's parents were Iranian Jews who had moved to Germany in the 1970s, in a bid to give their children a life free of persecution and religious labels.

Shalicar grew up with little idea of what it meant to be Jewish. He did not understand the meaning of the star-shaped necklace he wore with pride after his 13th birthday, nor the reactions it elicited.

'Until I moved to Wedding, my Jewish identity did not interest me one bit,' he said. 'It's shameful really, how little I wanted to see that this was my destiny too. I thought we were living in a modern world where other things matter - I guess I was wrong.'

When his Jewish identity came to the fore, his many Muslim friends and classmates disowned him and Shalicar risked attacks on his path home from school. He was faced with a choice: live a life of evasion and shame, or fight back.

'The fear I experienced, at the age of 14 or 15, is beyond words. It was a daily panic: what can I do to simply walk the street in peace in my own neighbourhood?' Shalicar said.

He chose to fight. Shalicar became a knife-wielding gang member and graffiti sprayer, dealing in minor drugs and taking part in fights - even stabbing a rival gang member during a group skirmish.

Yet the more security and respect this life earned him, the harder it became to escape the criminal world he was being drawn in to.

'My situation in Wedding improved, but it was a downward slope,' Shalicar said. 'After a while, there was no way out.'

At the age of 20, Shalicar visited a kibbutz in Israel, where he spent several months.

'It was the first time I left Germany for a longer period of time, and a new world opened itself. For the first time I had Jewish friends, and truly felt free,' he said.

To the dismay of his parents, Shalicar moved to Israel. It was around this time that he started writing about his experiences of growing up in Berlin.

'I didn't intend to publish the book,' he said. 'My aim was to write down my thoughts so that I can show it to my children one day, when they ask why I left Germany.'

In many ways, Shalicar said life in Wedding prepared him for his role in the Israeli army.

'In Wedding, I met Muslims who were good to me and Muslims who were very bad to me,' he noted.

They included people who loved and defended him, irrespective of race or religion. But he also met 'real fanatics, who were raised wrongly and live in the wrong environment and carry this hatred within them.'

'If you experience both extremes, then I think you understand how life really works, because these poles exist in every society,' Shalicar said.

Nowhere was this more true than in the Israeli Army, Shalicar said, where it became his job to defend the homeland against its foes.

'I know that on the other side we have enemies as well as friends, and you need to know who you can speak to and who you cannot,' he said.

He said his Berlin youth had taught him another important lesson that many Westerners have not yet grasped.

'If you try to conduct a dialogue with extreme radicals, in most cases this simply cannot work,' he said. 'These radicals have a completely different value system, and a different idea of how the world should be.'

His book, A Wet Dog Is Better Than A Dry Jew, came out in Germany last month. He hopes it will be published in France next, where he believes many Jews in migrant suburbs are living experiences similar to his own.

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