Countries on for information for basic intelligence about whats happening. Rose roger cohen and a look at the future in libya and yes, maam em. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose roger koen is here, a columnist for the new york ties. His new book is called the girl from human street. It explores the nature of modern jewish identity. I am pleased to have him back at this table. So just thinking about this before you made the commitment to do it, what goes through your mind . Is it the imperative to do it . Is it you have to convince yourself to do it because you know its not going to be easy . What is it . Well on the one side, there was the imperative because there were mysteries in my family that i wanted to explore. On the other hand, doing something so personal charlie, is always very difficult. I think if my editor john siegel at knopf hadnt pushed me i might have shied away from it. I was going to write a book about iran. And he said thats a little depressing. Why dont you write a book about suicide loss, displacementes rose the story of your family . And of love. Rose it moves from lithuania to britain to israel . Yeah rose and the United States . I became an american citizen. The family has been on the move for four generations. Here in the u. S. , we think of immigration in positive terms an opportunity. But, of course, immigration is also loss. You are leaving something behind. And my mother is the girl from human street. She was born on human street in a little mining town in south africa, and she was plucked out in the 1950s from this tightknit Jewish Community in south africa and plunked down in postworld london, with my dad, a hard driving young physician. It was too much for her. She was a transplant who didnt take. And she fell apart. Rose do you say, i am an american . And then they say where are you from . What do you say. I say i am an american. I grew up in south africa and britain. I spent most of my upbringing in britain. I had a wonderful education there. My dad did very well. I had every privilege. But a bit like my mother something didnt quite gel and i feel the United States and south africa are more intimately tied at this point to my identity than britain. I think it had something to do with the difficulty for a jewish family in britain, the phillip roth has this observation that when jews are alluded to in britain, voices drop a bit. I remember my mother in a restaurant pointing to another family and say, you know, darling, that family is jewish. I said mom, why are you whispering . And she said i am not whispering but they are jewish. We were koens. We didnt hide who we were. For me, coming to new york, you can live as a jew in this way. You can live that identity ex uberently rather than the bargain in britain always seemed to me to be you keep a little you are discrete and make your way. You choose the jews are very successful. Its probably the best place in europe today for jews to be. Rose how many antisemitism is there in europe. Its growing, definitely growing. I was correspondent in germany from 98 to 2001. So thats what . 15 years ago. If anybody had said to me then, charlie that you would have people in the streets of germany saying, jews are pigs as they were at the time of the gaza war last summer, i would have said you are crazy. Thats never going to happen again in germany. We have had jews shot in a myselfem in brussels four jews killed in the kosher supermarket in france. And its not an easy situation. My book is ptly about belonging. Where do you belong . And i think after love belonging is a very basic human instinct. Its right up there in the top 3 or 4 human urges. You want to know what home is. Rose the search for identity . Thats right. Absolutely. And you have a very alienated Muslim Community right now in europe. And you have an increasingly fearful Jewish Community. Rose what did you think of Prime Minister netanyahus investigation to come to israel at the time of the paris assassinations . To be in paris. Rose to say 0 i see. Yes. What he said in paris. Well, i think perhaps Prime Minister netanyahu has a tendency to meddle. He is on the campaign trail. There is an election in israel march 17th. I think it was a genuine investigation. Any jewish person can go to israel. I hope conditions dont reach such a point that jews en masse start leaving france. I think french jewish identity in the diaspora is an important part of jewish identity rose you write about the black sun of displacement. I think the bright star is new possibility, and the black sun is displacement. My mother as i said, collapsed when i was nearly three years old. She had what was then called postpsychosis, now called postpartm depression and she disappeared from my life. I cant prove scientifically that her collapse was due to having lost her roots, lost her anchors being taken away and plunked down somewhere unfamiliar but the more later in her life, she suffered from manic depression. She was bipolicyaver and she always craved south africa. She always craved the sun. She wanted to return. When i found a box in the attic of my parents place a farm in wales. A place my mother hated. Always windy, never sun, the opposite what she wanted rose she wanted thesun of south africa. My doctors precise annotations. Rose you discovered my mothers suicide attempts. I did both times road you read them . I read them and i copied them out and i thought about them endlessly. Thats a very substantial part of the reason why i had to write the book. And i thought i could tell an intimate story of one persons breakdown and a wider story of jewish migration during the 20th century. Not just jewish. Its the girl from human street. I think this is a very human condition these days. We are on the move. And a lot of people are uncertain where they belong what their true home is. How do they build community . How do they feel part of something . Rose has the book helped you reconcile her experience . It has, charlie. I feel at this point i have done everything i could to discover what happened to my mother. I now know something i never knew because it was never talked about, that on the eve of my third birthday, she was in a Psychiatric Institution having electroshock treatment. This was more or less when sylvia platt had it in the mid 1950s, more or less the images portrayed in one flew over the cockoos nest. At the time, i knew it psychecally but i feel like i know where i came from as well because when i grew up, i was sitting in Westminster Abbey most mornings because i was going to Westminster School and i had no idea that my grandmother came from the lithuanian shettle. This, knowing where i came from knowing what happened to my mother has given me acceptance. I guess that would be the word. I think you need acseptemberance to get to peace rose how did they explain the absences to you . They didnt. They didnt. There was silence. There was silence in the family just as there was silence about the lithuanian past, and i dont think that was that unusual in the post rose when you sat down to write the book, you sat down to write the book, between that moment and to do the research to find out everything you could and today, what is the most powerful thing you have learned that may make you at least at ease from the knowledge . I think the most powerful single thick was finding through britains freedom of information act my mothers medical records from the 1950s which enabled me to know that. But there were also extraordinary discoveries like my great uncle, it turned out, had been a rabbi. During world war i, he was the chaplain as it was called, to jewish soldiers who were fighting in flanders and elsewhere. He was going around the battlefields of europe giving last rites to jewish soldiers and more than 2000 jews were killed in the British Forces and i found his dooifshingz. He quotes has the house of israel now done enough to demonstrate its loyalty to crown and empire . And everywhere rose the experience in world war ii . Exactly. And i guess the book has strengthened my identification with israel, with the jewish homeland because i feel that my familys experience demonstrates without question that jews need a homeland. Jews need a homeland ideally not built on the stateletsness of over people. Thats why i am a zinist who believes in a twostate holyland. Rose israel. Israel cannot remain a jewish and Democratic State unless two states emerge there the demographics go in the other direction, and sooner or later rose there will be a palestinian majority . An arab majority. An israeli leader will come along and find himself face to face with a palestinian leader, and the two of them will have the statesmanship and the stature to recognize that the past is gone. We will never agree on the narratives. We will never agree on what happened in 1948, but what matters is the future and we want to build something better. I was just reviewing larry wrights book on camp david and president carter. Leaders can rise above the immediate state of affairs. Rose the book brought clearly forward to us and president carter talked about it. It was when he went to see at the end when all was lost and the appeal he made to begans grandchildren. Yeah rose he said, there is one more chance but mainly because of human reasons. Yes. Rose my grandchildren. Thats the thing the future grandchildren. Big speeches invoking the olive groves, 1948, the past. Doesnt put food on the table. When they went into those talks with one bomb bottom line. He was never going to give up the settlement in the sinai. What did he do . He gave up the settlement. Rose it did not destroy israel . And there has not been another war between israel and egypt rose you dedicated it to your father and to the memory of your mother. What did he contribute to this story . Well, he kept that box in the attic, and he knows i am a writer. And i dont think rose he dmooul you would have access to it. I dont think he kept all of that believing that i would never see it. He encouraged me to write the book. Scan he wrote a wonderful letter to me i quote at the end of my mothers life about her spirit and about how he and his human frailty had done his best to cherish and preserve her. He had another relationship with his survival mechanism. But you know what, charlie . I tried to put myself in his shoes going through the mental anguish of my mother in the 20 years of his life and how he tried to survive. The mafrming lasted 49 years. We are frail. I certainly did not come away thinking i could pass any kind of judgment. I think like everyone, both my parents made mistakes. Maybe there could have been a better outcome but i dedicated truck driver to my father because to my father because i know he loved me. Rose you did not know the extent of his lithuanian origins. Not at all. I knew nothing of it. It was gone. We were in a new tral zone neutral zone. We didnt have a christmas tree. Yes have a bar mitzah. He hated his own. He thought it was for the best. But i think people, people need an identity. They need something to at least react against rose do they need memory . They do. Memory is absolutely fundamental. Without it, we dont know who we are. It is very volatile. Every war i have covered, in a way, is about memory. Its about who came first to the land . Who built the synagogue . We were here before you. In bosnia it was about with the Ottoman Turks and what they had done to the serbs and so on. We need memory, but we also need the Historical Research that brings us close to truth rose you quote from lewis lewis carroll. Its a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. Yeah. Of course, memory is intimately tied to the future. Rose in some ways, its a guide to the future. Thats right rose and paul filon set your life at memory at half mast and from the beloved country when people go to johannesburg they do not come back. South africa was deep in my parents. It gets back to this issue of belonging. I think my father hated apartheid. Thats why they left but part of them never came back from johannesberg johannesberg. Certainly part of my mother. Rose what was it . She was part of something. She was part of a tightknit jewish world in south africa where she felt comfortable. She felt at ease. I think one reason i am so drawn to south africa, when i close my eyes and think of my mother. I see her in south africa, she is laughing with one of her floppy sun hats. When i see her in england, its either i dont know how much you have encountered manic depression is a devastating state because in certain moods, you are endlessly active making plans, buying things, selling things and its followed by complete inertia. Usually in the manic phase, you buy a ticket on concord to go to new york as my mother once did or leave her possessions at the time of the ira and the security came out and said whats this and she said i am a magistrate. How dare you Say Something like that. They put her in a room. They locked her up for a while and she was fiercely indignant. You are out of control so when you are in the depressed phase, you have a lot of guilt about what you have done in the manic phase which is why i feel so strongly. My mother was treated basically with drugs. She was not she didnt have much psychotherapy. I think you need both. And i think the big argument is whether these conditions are endogenous. You have a certain genetic tendency. I think it was a combination with my mother. Rose you said some interesting things about your jewish hair heritage. You said, for example, my jewishness does not believe in the notion that there is a lib biblical right to real estate. There isnt, i dont think. There are plenty of people in israel. I make a distinction between the zinism i believe in and the messianic believes all of the holy land between the mediterrrainian and jordan river was duded to the jews mel in me melinnial ago. The fact is however there are millions of palestinians who live there. We as jews if there is one condition we know more than any other it is of being strangers in strange lands. And jewish ethics tell us to take the stranger in. And demon dom inyun over another people is core rosives. If we can get it as distant as it seems to be. Rose i assume it is good news to discover your family. It is. I have already had many messages and letters. You know i think Mental Illness is the last taboo. I think its bet tory talk about it. Thats one fundamental reason i wrote the book. And again i think there is a message, also of stoism, payable, sadness. It is a book that involves my cousin in israel was also bipolar. Its reaappeared at every generation. She did commit suicide. There is sadness but to me, its been a journey toward knowledge, acceptance and greater peace. Rose turning from that to political life, you said recently in a column ive never felt more uneasy about the state of the world. The rule book has been torn up. Yes. Bad times, charlie. Last year was terrible. I wrote a column for the great unravelling. We hint had the annexation of a part of the european state in europe since 1945. Thats what president putin did in ukraine. We have a severe depression really some parts are e mensching. Thats combined with large alienated muslim communities fearful jews, this parable ideology that keeps matastisizing that now calls itself islamic state. Its 35 years since from iran came the fatawa against rushdie and now among the sunni arabs we are seeing the harshest expresses of this ideology of hatred. We saw it in the United States withdrawing, i felt for a long time that president obama was not being Strong Enough in syria when there was all of the talk of hitting singles, maybe doubles. We dont have a strategy for isis. When he was in asia, i didnt feel the commitment to the defense of japan was 100 clear. Rose today, you do . I feel the president has had a good run more recently wellith cuba. Rose a bold stroke. A bold stroke. Yeah. I believe he is serious about trying to do a deal with iran, which i think would be a good thing if its a deal that really makes sure the iranian rose saudi arabia doesnt think so. He is over there courting them like crazy. Yeah, but nevertheless, the saudis are going to have to get used to the fact that the Iranian Nuclear program cannot be dismantled. So, the best thing you can do with it is lock it in a corner reduce the number of centrifuges. Its good for israel. Its good for the region. Rose they believe if the royal family believes that the iranians have a nuclear either proximate or intact, how long do you think it will take them to get Nuclear Weapons from pakistan . A few billion bucks. Its not a problem. I dont think i dont think iran is going to go. Rose out of their own choice . Out of their own choice and we are going to force them not to. Rose how are we going to do that . Like i said, if there is an agreement that strictly limits the amount of enrichment thats going on, then they cant make a bomb and if they do not accept that agreement, if we have solid evidence which we dont have at the moment. At the moment we dont actually think they are trying to produce a bomb. I dont think any u. S. President can accept a nucleararmed iraq. I think they are clever enough not to take that final step and that they will see that its in their interest ultimately to try to make a deal. The big gamble for hama khomeni, when iran comes close to the world, the theocracy will be weaker. They want to be close to the world. So, a bit like president putin who makes the calculus that anting anism with the west is more in his interest than getting close to the west. The situation in russia is lousy for many people. Rose you are saying its more in the political if he wants to shore up his own political support, the more antagonistic he is to the west, the better off he is . Correct. I think thats why there has been a 180 degree turn in moscow that took us all ununawares. We thought when president punishment said that the breakup of the soviet union was the greatest geo strategic tragedy was maybe half a joke. He couldnt be that serious. But, no he wants to rebuild not the soviet union but he wants to rebuild reportsrose the sphere of influence . Yeah. Dominated by moscow and ukraine, as we have seen, he is not prepared to have to allow it even to make a trade agreement rose