Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu

Living most of my life in the United States, I knew Israel’s independence was not something to take for granted, and indeed to be celebrated at every opportunity. Nevertheless, with the pace of life there not focused of Israeli holidays, the ability to celebrate and commemorate Israel’s independence sometimes conflicted with business meetings, kids’ activities and other day to day challenges. I remember my rabbi imploring us to attend annual community-wide Yom Haatzmaut celebrations, but also remember that even in the community in which I lived – one rich in opportunities to live a full Jewish life – the attendance at these events struck me as being far too low for a community of its size and commitment. Since making aliyah, I have seen something new. Even amid the differences within Israeli society, the fear that we are in a post-Zionist era, and overall challenges of life in Israel, celebrating Israel’s independence is done with a sense of pride, joy and such a level of spirit that is simply inspiring. Beginning at Passover, Israel starts to get decked out in blue and white leading up to Yom Haatzmaut. Highways are lined with flags. Kites fly bearing the blue and white. Small flags fit with a plastic clip are sold at major intersections for your car. In 2008 I adorned my car with 60 to the delight of many passers-by. Newspaper ads become patriotic and use the blue and white regularly, and the weekend papers have free inserts of Israeli flags. The Yom Haatzmaut celebration in my new community it is emotional. The past two years we have left with a lump in our throat from the feeling of pride and awe at being able to live in Israel, to raise our children here, and to build for the future. Fireworks are seen throughout the country, just as on July 4th in the US. Other than religious holidays when work is prohibited, Yom Haatzmaut may be the only day that no newspapers are printed. Family celebrations are varied, but many involve finding a patch of grass somewhere and setting up a portable bar-b-que to picnic into the night. We add Hallel to our prayers offering God special thanks for this milestone. But based on living most of my life in the Diaspora where it was often a challenge to carve out time to acknowledge, much less actually celebrate the holiday, it strikes me that there are no formal rituals associated with celebrating Israel’s independence. So I started wondering, what could be done after six decades to mark Israel’s independence in a way that is perhaps more universal, and even to facilitate a five minute pause in the life of someone overseas who wants to celebrate Israel’s independence, but for whom the pace of life is more about the daily grind rather than the festive nature we have in Israel. Thinking about the meaning of what we are celebrating, the message I hope my children will take with them forever, I realized that though the words of Hallel are meaningful, perhaps we needed something more contemporary. Building on an element of the Passover Seder, I came up with “Yom Haatzmaut Dayeinu.” IF God had only given us Herzl’s will to dream, and not given us the Zionist Congresses, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Zionist Congresses and not given us the 1917 Balfour Declaration affirming the reestablishment of a Jewish home in the Land of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the Balfour Declaration and not created the spark for early waves of aliyah to dry the swamps, irrigate the Land and build our country, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the spark to ignite waves of early aliyah to build our country and not taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only taken us out of the ashes of the Holocaust and not continued the ingathering of the exiles from the four corners of the earth, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only continued the ingathering of the exiles and not given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote to create the State of Israel, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only given us the 1947 UN Partition Vote and not enabled our victory in the War of Independence and our Declaration of Independence, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled our victory to establish and declare independence, and not restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land for the first time in 2000 years, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land and not built us a thriving democracy, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only built our democracy and not helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us in 1956, 1967, 1970, 1973, 1982, 2006 and even today, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only helped us overcome our enemies’ attempts to destroy us and not returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland, rescuing black Africans from slavery in Africa to freedom, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only returned the Jews of Ethiopia to their homeland and not enabled the aliyah of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former Soviet Union, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only enabled the aliyah of Soviet Jews and not reunified our Holy City, Jerusalem, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. . IF God had reunified Jerusalem and not made Israel a world leader in medical, biotech and high tech fields – a modern light unto the nations - it would have been enough. Dayeinu. IF God had only made Israel a world leader in technology, and not continued to bless Israel with His promise to build Jewish life for eternity, it would have been enough. Dayeinu. So let us pause on this special day to remember these and many other miracles that God has done for Israel, and that we magnify every day just by living as Jews in our homeland. Dayeinu. Happy Independence Day Israel. Chag sameach. By Jonathan Feldstein, a new Israeli, celebrating the miracles of Israel in the Land of Israel.

The Kitniyot Konundrums - 5770

The following is an encore presentation of a timely and pressing issue of the gravest importance. When first written in 2009 and submitted as an entry to the blog of a major modern orthodox Jewish organization, the article first had to be approved by the “halacha department” as if the issues discussed were somehow in wild contradiction of accepted Jewish law. In the end, the article was not published. This year, allow me to share a more recent update as a preface: I am sitting across the table from a man after donating blood, drinking nauseatingly sweet juice and eating particularly bland cookies. I mentioned to him that I have accepted recent rabbinic rulings that it’s OK for Ashkenazi Jews like us eat Kitniyot on Pesach. He is horrified, as if I suggested killing someone. “Kitniyot are chametz. You can’t eat Kitniyot on Pesach,” he stammers. “No,” I retort. “Kitniyot are Kitniyot. It’s a tradition that’s important, but they are not chametz.” “No, they’re chametz. But you just can’t sell it like chametz.” “If you can’t sell it like chametz, maybe it’s because it’s not chametz.” “No, Kitniyot are chametz.” “So what you’re saying is that Sephardim who eat Kitniyot are eating chametz and violating the most fundamental law of Pesach.” “No. It’s their minhag. It’s OK for Sephardim.” “But if they’re chametz, how is that OK for anyone to eat them during Pesach?” … Who’s on first? I don’t ever recall thinking about kitniyot during Pesach in any substantial way while living in the US. I grew up there and made my first home there, and kashrut, particularly relating to Pesach, seemed to focus on the customs of Ashkenazim like myself which made up the majority of American Jewry and, therefore, dominated kosher and culinary things there. Since making aliyah, it seems that not only has a year not gone by without kitniyot being an issue about which I have had to think considerably, but one that seems to get more heated year by year and as preparations for Pesach get closer. For an understanding of what kitniyot are, please see http://www.kashrut.com/Passover/Kitniyot. There are many challenges and opinions surrounding the kitniyot question ranging from whether Ashkenazim can eat them at all, eat derivatives of products from kitniyot, eat things classified as kitniyot that have no historical bearing as kitniyot, following minhag avotaynu (our father’s customs), and not eating them at all. It’s eye opening to walk the aisles of grocery stores throughout Israel and see things like pasta, rice cakes, Doritos, chumus, popcorn, and a wide range of other things that are indeed kosher l’pesach. It’s challenging to shop for cookies, candy, oils, sauces, beverages, ice cream and many other things that may have traces of kitniyot, or things derived from kitniyot, that make consumption of these items for Ashkenazim an issue. Indeed, in the past years, we have eaten our share of kitniyot by mistake because it’s easy to let it slip by that generic kosher l’pesach cookies might be made from something that our ancestors in Poland did not eat. More confusing was the time when we were on an outing and got ice cream for the kids in a familiar yellow Magnum wrapper – checking that it was kosher l’pesach – but without thinking that there might be kitniyot that made this Pesach version of the yummy white chocolate ice cream so tasty. Last year, going out to lunch at a mall in Haifa became an exercise in frustration because every restaurant that was open and kosher l’pesach included kitniyot in their menu, or ingredients. That time, all the kids had to eat was the one ice cream that could be found without kitniyot. As complex as it is to shop and eat as an Ashkenazi who does not eat kitniyot, people are passionate about why they do or don’t. While my personal thinking has evolved, without getting into my practice, I’d like to share just a small sample of the opinions that have been presented on Anglo e-mail chat lists here. First, a conversation I initiated with a respected Rabbi in the US last year as the issue – or my awareness of it – came more to the surface. Dear Respected Rabbi, Recently, we were talking about the topic of eating kitniyot on Pesach. There seems to be a great deal of interest this year more than the past two that we've been here, a flood of e-mails and the like. I am passing along this e-mail from one of the Anglo lists and very much wonder what your thoughts are. Not that we're running to eat kitniyot, but the issue is interesting. As many things, I know there are two sides and it's not normally the role of a Rabbi outside Israel to make a psak on issues in Israel, but we're curious what you think. Yonatan Dear Yonatan, As you correctly noted I cannot issue a Psak Halacha for people residing in Israel. There is much merit to this argument (of eating kitniyot on Pesach). Others have said something very similar as well. The mainstream rabbinate will have to make that decision. Unfortunately, I don't think that it will be coming too quickly. Chag Sameach. Your Rav There are those who passionately disagree that there is any merit to this at all…. I am curious, all those Ashkenazi Jews who are so willing to eat kitniyot, are they also ready to change their nussach tefilah and get up for slichot all of Elul! There is a principle stated in Pirke Avot that one should not separate from the tzibur. The vast majority of orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbis today, and for very many generations in the past, don't permit eating kitniyot on Pesach, except under extraordinary circumstances. There is a very, very small minority who permit Ashkenazim to eat Kitniyot on Pesach. It seems to me that generally speaking, an Ashkenazi Jew should follow the vast majority of today's orthodox Ashkenazi Rabbis, and not eat Kitniyot on Pesach. As far as I am concerned, when (someone writes) that “…. (Rabbi) Hartman said…” and that “…already there is not a single family in the country without a Sephardi member..” is enough to invalidate his position. (The latter is just) not true. And others who feel just as passionately the other way… By separating themselves from the MAJORITY of Jews who live in Israel and who, just by chance happen to be Sephardic, it is Ashkenazi Jews who insist on keeping up their traditions at all costs, who are continuing to keep Am Yisrael from becoming one nation with one halacha. It is these Jews who separate themselves from the tzibur. This year we're going with the things that were added to the original gezera and didn't exist at the time- like soy, peanuts, humus, canola etc. Rice is a bit much at this point for us. I just found out that Moroccans don't eat rice, either, but definitely things have gotten too machmir and there's a rebellion. For us the real selling point was that if we're 'Eretz Yisraelis' and the minhag makom was to eat kitniyot and ideologically this is consistent with other things we do, then we're okay with it. Already the majority of Jews in Israel are Sephardi. It’s almost a certainty that at least one of my four girls will marry a man whose custom it is to eat kitniyot, and they will. By the time the grandchildren are married, there will be very little difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi, and few families outside Mea Shearim and Bnai Berak who are 100% Ashkenazi. I like to see myself as a Zionist visionary, just starting to do something that will be done in the future anyway. Some are more confused with the issue as time passes… I used to give the Kitniyot Madness Award every year to the most lunatic new humra on kitniyot. One year it almost went to the rabbi who solemnly proclaimed a ban on tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. Why? Because the seeds are edible. (Siddown, rabbi.) He lost out to the rabbi who proclaimed cottonseed oil to be kitniyot. I can think of several good reasons not to eat cottonseed oil ever but none of them has any connection whatever to Pesach. The only reason I can see to call cottonseed oil kitniyot is that kutnah sounds something like kitniyot. Now, I am told that products can no longer get a mehadrin hekhsher if they have cottonseed oil. Please tell me this is not true! Meanwhile, many of the same people who worry over every new humrah on kitniyot buy ordinary matzot and not matzo shemurah. We are told the ban was instituted to protect the integrity of the matzo and now there are people who are hamur on kitniyot and meykel on matzah. Does that make any sense? A few years ago, news went out the quinoa is not kitniyot because it was not known to the rabbanim at the time of the ban and we do not expand humrot by analogy. That may be true as a general rule but kitniyot is a madness way beyond that sort of nicety. That year, I did not find quinoa with a Pesach hekhsher. The next year, it appeared on the market, “Kasher lePesah l-okhlei kitniyot bilvad.” (Kosher for Pesach only for those who eat kitniyot.) As much as some passionately agree, and others passionately disagree, there are those who are passionately irreverent and must be using this as a mindless interlude from cleaning and cooking…. If we decide to eat kitniyot....are we also obligated to celebrate Mimouna? If that is the case...the deal is out...I can't think of having to cook an entire Mimouna festival after 8 days of cooking matza brei.... Just a warning -you might see me during Chag sitting in the plaza with bare legs munching on a rice cracker - please don't call security on me. The rabbinate is so corrupt I can get a psak for anything, if I ask the right person for the right amount of money. So why do I need to wait until someone issues a psak, because his brother in law just started a wholesale chick pea distribution business. I know an Ashkenazi man who, in order to please his Sephardic wife and in-laws, wants to finally (begin) eating kitniyot but he also wants to keep his great-great-grandmother's tradition of eating "non-gebrocht"... Question: Is there any way to do both: Eat "non-gebrocht" and eat kitniyot? And if there is no way to do both...do you know of any good marriage counselor who can give him advice as how to please his wife and (honor) his great-great great grandmother’s memory? Please note: he wants a marriage counselor who eats non-gebrocht if possible... When Mashiach comes, (bimeheyrah veyameinu) if he tells the Ashkenazim, “Well done, and bless you for your perseverance in kitniyot, and you can now actually eat kitniyot,” they will not do it. They might decide he didn’t really say that and what he said didn’t really mean that "and in any case, just to be on the safe side, we won’t do it.” And if he says to the Sephardim, “Continue to enjoy your kitniyot on Pesach but you may not grind it into flour,” they will say “But we never accepted the ban on kitniyot.” Chag sameach and may we need to keep ourselves busy with kitniyot issues rather than with security and defense issues, even though I doubt that this will be the case. As the last post suggested, there are many other more pressing issues this Pesach and in general. Nevertheless, the issue has become so widespread that even the far from religious oriented Forward published an article on it, “Pesach Kitniyot Rebels Roil Rabbis As Some Ashkenazim Follow New, Permissive Ruling” at http://forward.com/articles/104483 Perhaps the primary recent source that has aroused this debate is Rav David Bar-Hayim's Beit Din well-publicized psak permitting the consumption of kitniyot by all Jews living in Israel which can be found at www.machonshilo.org Finally, not to be outdone or leave people to think that kitniyot are the only potentially divisive issue during Pesach, last year Haaretz reported that “A 28-year-old yeshiva student was arrested late Sunday after undressing completely in a Tel Aviv supermarket with only a sock to cover his genitals, to protest the store's sale of chametz during Passover. The same student was arrested for pulling the same stunt last year, after the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court passed a controversial ruling which permitted the sale of chametz (foods Jewish law prohibits on Passover) in some businesses. The court ruled then that the matzot law, which prohibits the display of chametz, in public places during the holiday, does not apply to supermarkets, pizzerias and restaurants, as they are not considered "public." The student was detained for interrogation on suspicion of performing an indecent act in public. In his defense, he claimed that since chamez was sold on the premises, it could therefore not be legally recognized as a public place, and as such, there were no grounds to press charges against him.” Perhaps it’s obvious that the majority of recent Anglo olim here are Ashkenazim who are confronted with something in kitniyot that they never had to consider before, so these Anglo lists are probably more prone to this debate than Israeli society on the whole. What will be in the future? Will you eat in my home during Pesach? Will I eat in yours? Only time will tell. After all, yetziat mitzrayim took 40 years so I suppose we can give this a little time too. Chag sameach.

Let Freedom Reign

Our dinner at a very nice Jerusalem restaurant consisted of appetizers of fried and stuffed mushrooms, stuffed artichokes and spicy Moroccan fish. The main courses were steak, burgers and chicken. Dessert was halvah parfait and lemon tart, tea and coffee. And a very nice bottle of Israeli wine. On the surface, it was a nice evening out for two couples, friends whose relationship goes back more than two decades. Over dinner, as much as I enjoyed visiting and catching up with David and Anna, seeing photos of their kids and finding out what they are doing, and reciprocating about our family, talking about work and recent job changes, politics, and a little reminiscing of stories past, I couldn't help but recognize that this visit was worlds away from our first meeting. Thursday October 1, 1987, I had just landed in Moscow with a friend, Michael. This would be my second trip to the Soviet Union for the express purpose of visiting and helping Jewish refusenicks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik), Jews who were brave enough to submit a formal application to leave the USSR, flagging themselves for all sorts of problems socially, legally, politically, and professionally. Despite optimism from perestroika and glasnost, the USSR was still an oppressive society where the cloud of fear and mistrust loomed as a huge as the vast reach of the Kremlin itself. This was especially the case for Soviet Jews whose struggle for freedom had ebbed and flowed along with the tide of international affairs, and who were definitely feeling the heel of the decades of oppression in spite of much publicized hopes. In all of 1987, fewer than 1000 Jews were given permission to leave the USSR. Most of them were long term refusenicks. My trip that October was initially intended to launch the process of marrying a woman my age whose family I had adopted some years earlier. After years of correspondence, I finally met the Steins 1985. I proposed marriage with the hopes of using that as leverage to get her and her family out of the USSR. That year, they were four among the lucky few who had already received permission to leave, and actually had left that summer, so my trip became about helping others. (See the following links for video and stories as background about this chapter of my life, the first from ABC News anchored by Ted Koppel March 25, 1988: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKu_UyoAHtw , and the second a research project about which I was the subject http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/Kate.html) Back to Moscow 1987. We arrived two days before Yom Kippur for a seventeen day journey that would take us through Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Odessa, and encompass both Yom Kippur in Moscow, the first days of Sukkot in Leningrad and then back in Moscow for Simchat Torah which had become a celebrated outlet for Jews to express their Judaism, under careful watch of the KGB. Toting a new address book in which I had transcribed all my contacts, long before this could be done electronically, I opened it to look for the names of the refusenicks I was to contact, who had been entered among all my friends, family, and others, in code, so that the KGB would neither suspect me nor be able to identify who I was supposed to visit. We followed careful instructions as to which pay phones were believed to be relatively safe to use and not draw attention upon ourselves, or those we were calling, even though it was common belief that no call was really safe from KGB ears. Within hours we were off to meet the Lurie family, long term refusenicks whose matriarch had been allowed to emigrate, but the rest of the family had been refused. Anna, the oldest daughter, had recently married David, a young Jewish activist, and we became instant friends. Getting to know them I felt that David’s story sounded familiar, but wrote it off to my several prior years of involvement and activism. We went about the rest of our visit including being the first to see the legendary Ida Nudel hours after she received her permission to emigrate. Our audio tape of that visit and the accompanying photos showed her immediate transformation from an oppressed slave of the Soviet system to a free woman. We shared a taxi to the synagogue for Yom Kippur eve services, and she left the following week. With the exception of this euphoric experience, most of the rest of the visits with dozens of refusenicks we met were less upbeat. They were appreciative of our help and being there, but still felt the fear and oppression that existed, and they desperately yearned to be free. Our last night in the USSR was back in Moscow, both to be ready to leave on our flight home and to be there for the Simchat Torah experience. Thousands filled the street outside and hundreds, maybe thousands, more inside Moscow’s then only “functional” synagogue. Those outside either could not get inside, did not want to be branded as a potentially bigger troublemaker by actually entering the sanctuary, or were just having too much fun where they were. It was said that the scene outside the synagogue on Simchat Torah was like a big Jewish singles event, resulting in many matches being made. Based on the demographics, that was probably true. But the scene outside was also the meeting point of older Jews, married and not, those who had applied to leave, and those who just wanted a taste of Judaism. We bumped into several leaders of the refusenick movement there, a virtual who’s who of Moscow’s Jewish community. Drawn to some festive singing and guitar playing, we noticed our new, old friend, David, at the center of a circle, guitar in hand, leading in Hebrew songs, something that in and of itself could have been punished by trumped up charges and a prison sentence. But the Jews of Moscow felt just free enough that festival, as they had in the past, to push the envelope, just a little. For a few hours each year, Moscow’s Jews experienced a hint of freedom. Yet the KGB watched very closely and, when they were ready, gave the order to close down the festivities. As we walked from the Archipova St. Synagogue together with David and Anna, saying good bye but not knowing when we might see one another again, I started giving David things that we really didn’t need. Among them, my long wool coat that was keeping me warm in the cold Moscow pre-winter. Initially David refused, but I insisted. I told him to take it, and sell it on the black market if he needed money. He liked that idea as, rather than keeping the money himself, he’d use it to buy an amplifier for his guitar so that when they had clandestine festive Jewish gatherings full of song and dance, more people would be able to hear from further away. David and Anna were allowed to leave not long thereafter. By then, Daniel was born, and they had to leave their families behind initially, not knowing when they’d see them again, but also not knowing when there might be another chance to leave. Now that they were parents, it was all the more urgent that they be free, so they could raise a new generation of Jewish children in Israel, in freedom. After they made aliyah, they visited me in the US, and I’d visit them in Israel. Though we don’t make the opportunity to see one another often enough due to the complexities of life, kids, work, etc, at least today we have the freedom to do so as now we’re living only 45 minutes from one another. Some time after David and Anna were in Israel, I discovered why, when I had met them some years earlier, his story was familiar. It turns out that David was the subject of a 1982 article in Hadassah magazine, the very one my mother read to our family over dinner one night that had inspired me to become active. We learned that David and I share the same birthday, and that Anna’s birthday is the same as our wedding anniversary. Other than the nostalgia of dinner with David and Anna, our story, and reliving my past involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement, it is a story that is particularly relevant this season, on the eve of Passover, the festival of freedom, the celebration of the Jewish redemption from slavery in Egypt. Our tradition teaches that Jews must observe Passover, reliving the Exodus of thousands of years ago as if we, too, were slaves in Egypt. That’s a very hard to do today, unlike in my day when Jews were still largely enslaved in the USSR, Syria, and in other corners of the world. It’s hard to feel as if you ARE a slave leaving Egypt thousands of years ago, when the concept of a refusenick, modern Jewish persecution and enslavement, the idea of living in fear, and even a black market to deal in wool coats to sustain Jewish life is one that is completely foreign and unimaginable. Even the children of these brave Jews who resisted Soviet oppression and assimilation, those living in Israel as free and proud Jews integrated with my kids and the rest of Israeli society, don’t fully grasp the struggle their parents had to endure to bring them to a life of freedom in Israel. As we celebrate this festival of freedom and redemption, looking back on ancient history as if it were the present, it’s important to remember that freedom has a price, but that no matter the price, it is far less than the value. In addition to teaching us about suffering of generations past, Passover teaches us to appreciate our freedom, and never to take it for granted. May we be privileged to have the freedom to continue to recount our redemption as if we had been redeemed ourselves, never actually knowing what that was like. May we have the ability to celebrate festivals together with friends and family, as well as long overdue reunions, but be mindful not to take these for granted, even though we have the freedom to do so.

Some of My Best Friends are Christian Zionists

Now the tide has shifted. I am no historian, but I suspect that if there was ever any precedent for Christians loving Jews as Jews, and supporting Jewish independence and statehood in Israel as a pillar of their faith, it was an historical anomaly that was short lived, rather than the impact of a growing movement with hundreds of millions of devotees today. Last week I had one of the most inspiring and meaningful experiences of my life. I attended the “Night to Honor Israel” under the auspices of John Hagee Ministries and Christians United for Israel, in Jerusalem. Twenty four hours after the event, my hands were still hurting from all the clapping. This was not my first event like this. Over the years I have had the privilege to participate in several similar evenings entirely orchestrated by fervently Zionist Christians. My early exposure to, and participation in, these events filled me with a combination of emotions – shell shocked to see such vibrant, colorful and sincere expressions of love and support for Israel, but outside the Jewish framework in which I was raised and with which I was familiar. I also felt a sense of awe and appreciation that for the Christian organizers and participants, this was simply a biblically mandated imperative which they embrace and undertake with the sincerity and joy of living God’s word. It’s that simple. While the “Night to Honor Israel” last week was especially inspirational, meaningful and motivational, the first one I attended was smaller but equally unforgettable. At the “Bless Israel Rally” in 1988 or 1989, in Cleveland, Tennessee, I was invited and escorted by a wonderful friend, Doug Chatham, who exposed me to an array of such events. Even more, he gave me an early understanding and appreciation for the genuine and sincere love for Israel as a growing phenomenon in the Christian community. In the ensuing years, I have had the privilege to participate in many events with similar themes and objectives, organized by Christians United for Israel, Eagles Wings, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, John Hagee Ministries, and others, and made genuine warm friendships through relationships established at these events. It is inspiring to celebrate support for Israel with 1000 people or more in any framework. I have attended countless Jewish rallies and parades like this, and of course living in Israel is the ultimate celebration of that. There’s something truly awesome and emotional in singing Israel’s anthem, Hatikvah, among hundreds, or thousands, of people. But when it is emotionally led by a Christian, among a sea of 1000 other Christian supporters of Israel, it is something uniquely so. One feels the palpable change in tide from a time, not that long ago, that the majority of Christians used their faith to persecute Jews, and even worse. Making this all the more unique is that the love for Jews and Israel expressed in these events is unconditional. It is the feeling of love like that which one feels from a parent. But with great respect for Judaism and humility, the love expressed is not that of a parent, but rather like that of a sibling, in this case a younger sibling, who looks up to the older sibling with respect and adoration. Christian Zionists today, and the growing relationships between Christians and Jews, are built on an underpinning of recognition of the proud Jewish roots as the foundation of their faith. Christian Zionists’ lives and faith are enriched by Judaism, not there to replace Judaism. Some who don’t know any better ascribe malicious intentions to these relationships. Some fellow Jews are threatened by these because of their own lack of faith, or knowledge of their own traditions. Some can’t get beyond differences politically, socially, and religiously, hanging an association between Jews and Christians on one divergent issue as compared to the wealth of issues and values that bring us together. Some can’t get beyond the thousands of years of Christian persecution of Jews and want nothing to do with “goyim,” used pejoratively, carrying with it thousands of years of fear and mistrust. The reality is that having a meaningful interaction, even close personal relationships, with Christians of faith who share a mutual belief and devotion to Israel, and the God of Israel, is uplifting. This year, I risked shaking up the relationship with my own wife over extending an invitation to friends from a church in Washington to visit our home. Under normal circumstances, she’d have been perfectly happy to open our home to any guests, in the finest spirit of our patriarch, Abraham. However, I dared to suggest that they visit us the day before Rosh Hashanah. Anyone who knows the pace of life in a Jewish home that is preparing for a major holiday knows that the house is in disarray, last minute errands need to be run, and cooking, cooking and more cooking abound. And then, cleaning up the mess. Comforted by the fact that my wife loves me, and that killing me on the eve of Rosh Hashanah would generally be a bad thing, I told her not to worry. After my friends left, I braced for another thing for which I’d need to ask forgiveness, fearing my wife’s response from inviting our Christian guests into my home, almost as much as our forefathers feared the pogroms often inspired by Christians which would cause their homes to be burned and looted. Ready for the hammer to fall, I was struck, rather, by my wife’s response. Meeting and getting to know these people, understanding their sincerity and devotion, appreciating the expense that each undertook to be in Israel, some not for the first time, left her with a sense of awe and appreciation as we went into the Days of Awe. Since then, my wife has recounted this experience as having helped to give her an extra special appreciation and sense of devotion in her Rosh Hashanah prayers. Rather than pissing her off, I helped her have a sense of the warmth of some of these relationships which I have been blessed to have for more than two decades. The Jewish principle of hakarat hatov, teaches us acknowledge kindness received from, or done by, another person. But more than just to acknowledge such kindness, hakarat comes from the word lehakir, to know or become familiar with. Rather than just remembering to say thank you to someone, hakarat hatov means to take time to recognize the benefit one has received from another. To that end, it’s not just a human value to say thank you, but a Jewish imperative. When someone expresses unconditional love for another as in this case, it’s our obligation to acknowledge that, to appreciate it, to say thank you. And taking it a step further, to offer a reciprocal embrace of such sincere love and support not only is proper, but makes us each stronger in our respective faith. On Easter 1945, which corresponded to the first days of Passover, three months after the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of WWII, several Jewish holocaust survivors who were neighbors of my grandmother and who had returned to their homes in search of other survivors were murdered by their Polish Catholic neighbors. The murderers threatened to finish the job the next day and kill the remaining twenty Jews in a town that, once, was almost half Jewish. There are more than enough reasons for fear and mistrust. However as the spring ushers in the respective Jewish and Christian holidays of Passover and Easter, let the renewal of this season serve as a harbinger of renewal of personal and interfaith relations between Jews and Christians, with the model like that of the thousands just with whom I have had the privilege to interact, to serve as a living example for the future.

February 26

Purim is the Jewish festival depicted and ordained in the Book of Esther. Including this year, in the past 17 years this celebration of Jewish good over Persian evil, fell on or within a day of, February 26 only three times. Most, I am sure, have no clue why one would even care. Haman said to King Achashvairosh, "There is a nation scattered and separated among the nations throughout your empire. Their laws are different than everyone else's, they do not obey the king's laws, and it does not pay for the king to tolerate their existence. "If it pleases the king, let a law be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay to the executors ten thousand silver Kikar-coins for the king's treasury." Esther, Chapter 3, 8-9 http://www.beingjewish.com/yomtov/purim/esther_intro.html Over the past several years, a new threat against the Jewish people in particular, and the West in general, has arisen from modern Persia embodied in Iran and its theocracy, and its president. Today’s Iranian threat against the Jewish people and the West is no less ruthless than the threat of the wicked Haman in ancient Persia, albeit that today's threat comes at the tip of a nuclear armed Shabab missile, or in a suitcase smuggled into any western mall or train station, not a hangman's noose as 2500 years ago. Yet the level of genocidal agitation is no less great, and their rants do not cease. http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=169723 On February 26, 1993 I sat in naïve bliss, just two months from the birth of my first child. Like any first time parents, much of our energy was focused on preparing for this imminent arrival and to become parents for the first time. As I brewed my coffee that morning, nobody imagined the evil that was brewing for that day. Nobody could imagine it, except the terrorists who had hopes to destroy the World Trade Center as high as the buildings themselves. Their plans were foiled and the buildings remained standing, but six people were killed and some 150 injured. February 26 passed and life went on. It was a wakeup call, but like the rest of the world I probably remained ignorant or naïve, or both and, and like most, either did not comprehend that it was serious, or that the threat was what it was, or that this was not just an isolated incident of some angry Moslem men playing with explosive toys. The US and the world hit the collective snooze button. Whether the terrorists who planned and implemented the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center attack were trained and funded by Iran per se, they were and are ideological twins. For eight years the world sat by silently and ignorantly while other terrorists trained, learning how to fly but not land a plane, until the rude awakening the morning of September 11, 2001. This wakeup call was loud and jarring. We jumped out of bed, but I can’t help but feel that in reality, eight years since September 11, we’ve gotten back in bed, and covered our heads with a warm comforter of ignorance and naiveté once again. What’s so perverse is that those who would execute further terrorist attacks have made their intentions fully known. There are no secrets. We know that they are out to get us. Yet we sit back, rather complacently, removing shoes of old ladies at airports, and engaging a proxy war in Afghanistan and Iraq while places like Yemen and Iran heat up. Centuries ago the tables were turned on the evil Haman who ended up dying at the end of the noose which he had prepared for the righteous Mordechai. Today a new threat from Persia looms and we can only pray that those who threaten to carry out such an evil plot again will end up meeting the same fate as their ideological and geographical ancestor. But we can’t sit by and do nothing. We need to be sure that our governments are aware of the threat, are held accountable to act with unswerving strength, and are dedicated to our protection and defeating this new evil. Perhaps this year, amid the joy as we celebrate our victory from genocidal evil twenty five centuries ago, we can use the wakeup call from February 26 seventeen years ago to remind us that the same evil looms in this generation, and must be defeated today as it was then. Like Esther and Mordechai, we must devote ourselves to this, fast and pray, and take action, to be sure that it never happens again. In two months my daughter will turn seventeen. The world is a vastly different place since the two months before she was born. Not because the evil looming is unique, but because if we sleep through it again, we may doom ourselves to not waking up. As a parent, it’s my responsibility to look out for the welfare of her and her siblings so that seventeen years hence, they will have the ability to raise their children in a world that is safer, or at least not more dangerous and radioactive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/february-26-1993-1.819530 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516469.stm

The Right Place at the Wrong Time

One of the hardest things about making aliyah from the US in an era when, and from a place where, Jewish life thrives and where it is not threatened, if not the hardest thing, is leaving behind friends and loved ones. Of course, as hard as it is, we also live in an era where technology enables families and friends to stay almost as close from 6000 miles away as if we were just down the street. Almost. I am always mindful of how much easier it is for us today in this regard as compared to others who made aliyah in previous generations. Like my grandparents, who made aliyah in the 1930s, not only not having regular let alone internet phones or Skype, not having e-mail with which to be in contact daily, and no airlines with frequent flyer programs and credit cards to accrue points toward free tickets, and literally not knowing when, or if, they would ever see their loved ones again. Knowing that missing friends and loved ones is expected makes us prepared, but does not make it any easier. Things that we'd have taken for granted by being able to spend time together, planned or impulsively, are now a distant but fond memory. Conversely, the infrequent opportunities to visit and celebrate milestones with friends and loved ones are occasions which we relish, and which we cannot take for granted. As much as a challenge as it is to move a family of eight anywhere at once, traveling internationally as a family is a virtual non-occurrence. Yet when given the opportunity to celebrate two family bat mitzvahs three months apart, it is a challenge for which we rise to the occasion. Planning and anticipating these trips are full of excitement equal to the resources needed to make them happen, as infrequent as this may be. In addition to missing most of the celebrations, we also miss opportunities to share the grief, or comfort a loss, with friends and loved ones, both because of distance as well as that these are never planned. The most recent trip that was planned months in advance for a joyous celebration turned into a case of our being at the right place at the wrong time, combining the joy of dancing at a family simcha with shedding tears at the funerals of two parents of two loved ones. As much as we looked forward to the celebration which was the purpose of the trip, we were glad to be able to be in the right place at the wrong time to mourn as well. A phone call to a mourner does provide comfort and, measured by the final episode of Seinfeld when discussing phone call etiquette, may be considered particularly meaningful to be sure to go out of the way to express condolences from 6000 miles, even by phone. But reaching out and touching someone by phone is not the same as reaching out and embracing them in person. For good or for bad, this is not the first case of our being in the right place at the wrong time. A trip in 2006 that was meant to be for another celebration, ironically of the granddaughter of one of the men whose funerals which we attended, ended up falling at the end of the 30 days of mourning following the death of my wife's mother. That same trip also saw my wife and our oldest and youngest children visiting with my mother, the day before she was hospitalized for what would be the last time, and I received the call to come at once because it was not expected that she'd be alive by the time my trans-Atlantic flight landed. Sometimes, being in the right place at the wrong time is in fact perfect timing. When my grandparents made aliyah, if there was news to share with, or from, those in the old country, the only means of doing so was by a letter. When my father was born, there was not only no realistic expectation of him meeting any of his relatives in Poland in any reasonable amount of time in the foreseeable future, but news of his birth likely took months to be transmitted. Just as news of the natural deaths of his cousins, uncles and aunts came as a shock albeit long after the fact, and long before the Nazis left nobody with whom to communicate. It’s unlikely to be likely that we'll be able to dance at and celebrate all the special occasions in person. Yet we'll look forward to relishing these, even from a distance. Whether we're there or not, mindful that the other side of the equation can come at any moment, it’s extra meaningful to be able to do so in person when possible. And if death and mourning are inevitable as they are anyway, it’s all the more meaningful to be able shed tears of sorrow, even if all that was planned was tears of joy. But sometimes the wrong time is just the wrong time. As I was packing our luggage into the snow covered car to take the family back to the airport for the flight home this week, my cell phone rang. “Steve died.” My good friend, colleague and mentor succumbed to a heart attack like the one that he survived several years ago, and on the anniversary of which I would always call or e-mail, a happy one indeed. But with a flight home in just a few hours, his was not a funeral which I would make. I won't get to mourn with or comfort Steve's family in person as I did with my sister in law on the loss of her mother, or our former neighbor on the loss of her father. But we did get to celebrate our niece's bat mitzvah, and look forward to the next one in a few months, and just hope that there are more happy milestones than sad ones, even if we miss them all. May Carol's, Jacob's and Steve's families all be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, may their memories be for a blessing, and may they (and we) all have many more occasions to celebrate than mourn.

Water Under the Bridge

In 1817, Benjamin Franklin famously uttered the phrase, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Had Franklin lived in Israel today, he might have added two certainties: water shortages and Syrian belligerency. Indeed, recent reports about both affirm this including the most recent saber rattling from Damascus, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147473.html Israel’s water crisis is well known and something that weighs on the mind of Israelis across the spectrum. Water is about politics, religion, the environment, economy, agriculture, and impacts all sectors of Israeli society. It’s interesting to live in a place where Biblical traditions play out on a day to day basis with fervent prayers for rain in its season to fill our aquifers and provide abundance, and the reliance on the rain to sustain our lives. In an arid and largely desert land, while agriculture continues to be relevant, the simple fact of Israel’s population nearly doubling in the past two decades, coupled by many years of less than average rain leading Israel to one of its’ most severe droughts, water use and conservation play a role in every facet of our lives, from the price of produce to the length of our showers. In the past, Israel has dealt with the water situation in many new and innovative ways. Israel leads the world in reclaiming and recycling of grey and brackish water. Israel has given the world drip irrigation which brings just the amount of water a plant needs to thrive right to its roots. Israel has built and continues to build desalination plants which provide a growing amount of potable water, and Israel regularly practices cloud seeding to precipitate maximum precipitation. Israel has also proposed but not implemented vast international projects to supply water. Some have been shelved for political, diplomatic, and economic reasons, as well as what sometimes appears to be ineptitude. As much as Israel has built and continues to build desalination plants, wide criticism exists in our not having done this sooner, faster and to a greater extent. Plans have existed for decades to build a canal from the Mediterranean (and since formalizing peace with Jordan now the Red) Sea. This would serve four important purposes of 1. Providing a source for generating energy, 2. Desalinating water for use, 3. Creating tourism and industry along the way, and 4. Replenishing the Dead Sea which is rapidly drying out. Even Theodor Herzl envisioned this in his 1902 “Altneuland.” In better times, Israel even proposed importing water from Turkey, by pipeline or by tanker ships. But the water situation in Israel is deeply tied to politics and peace with our neighbors. As noted in a recent article (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=167544), the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan obliges Israel to provide tens of millions of cubic meters of water to Jordan each year. Leading up to the 1967 Six Day War, Syria attempted to divert water from tributaries of the Yarmuk and Jordan Rivers which Israel considered belligerent, and to which it responded accordingly. Controlling and use of water resources in the Middle East is something that can both be part of the terms of establishing peace, and can be the trigger for a full fledged war. In this context, I was interested to read an article about how years of drought have impacted Syria, http://www.greenprophet.com/2009/11/08/13399/syria-drought. Since my first visit to Israel as a teen, I have been aware of the lack of water and how water has been a source of potential regional conflict. It was interesting to read that Syria, a much less developed and much more agrarian society with virtually no natural resources, was suffering as a result of years of drought. It made sense to me how over the past few years Israel has facilitated Druze farmers on the Golan Heights, who have had surpluses of their famous Golan apples partly by benefitting from using Israeli irrigation technologies, to export their apples to Syria. As if two streams coming together to form a river, in my mind, a number of issues flowed together to yield a possible source for conflict resolution, if not peace itself. At a minimum, there is a possibility to rehydrate the region if not bring peace. While there’s no sign that peace with Syria is in the offing, it is clear that if it were ever to come, one of the issues that will have to be resolved is water rights, especially because Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan requires it to provide vast quantities of water to the desert kingdom. Similarly, while in the past year, once very warm Israeli-Turkish relations have become more strained as if in a drought. At the same time, Syrian-Turkish relations which had been mired in conflict in the past, some of which as a result of water problems between them, have seen a new wave. In the past, Syria has long complained of Turkish plans to build a string of dams cross the Euphrates, depriving it of water on which its agriculture so heavily depends. So as the tide seems to have changed, perhaps a new way of thinking is in order. Maybe Turkey holds the key. Maybe a rapprochement between Turkey and Syria can be catalyst for the former to provide relief for a parched Syria. Maybe Turkey, long desiring to serve as an intermediary between Israel and Syria in making peace, can provide water guarantees that provide not just Syria, but Israel and Jordan as well, with an ample flow along the natural network of rivers that feed one another, oblivious to national borders and regional conflicts. Rather than being a thorn in the side of one another’s mutual distrust, perhaps Turkey can be the leverage for the resolution of a problem that will not go away on its own. An Israeli public burned over and over the past year by growing Turkish intransigence can be reassured that maybe Turkey’s interests are not as wildly anti-Israel as an objective observer might believe. Syria’s active participation in rehydrating the region would restore its centrality in the region as a player, not a pariah. Seeing water flow over the border between Israel and Syria would go a long way to repair decades of hate, rhetoric and threats which is all Israel has ever seen from its northern neighbor. This flow of water could energize life for Israel, Syria, Jordan and even the Palestinians, literally and figuratively, and lay a foundation for peace in its wake. There’s been more than enough hostility, and that’s been like swimming against the tide. Perhaps it’s time to let history be seen as water under the bridge and let water, the source for life, be part of the solution, not an ongoing part of the problem that yields conflict and death.

The State of the Union is (adjective)

This week, President Obama will deliver the annual “State of the Union” to Congress, broadcast live throughout the United States, and around the world. Commentators and pundits will spend days analyzing and commenting on Obama’s address from even before he begins, with advanced copies provided to the press. Many are looking at this address as much as a “State of the Obama Presidency” as it is about the state of the Union. Indeed, it will be interesting to hear what the President has to say about the state of the Union, reflecting on the end of his first year in office and looking ahead. The President is likely to begin his remarks with the traditional formula, “Madam Speaker, the State of the Union is (adjective).” The question is what adjective President Obama will use. It’s unlikely that he’ll pick a word that resembles one which Jimmy Carter used in a different address, and which has haunted him since, malaise. And he may want to use a word that has not used before, or at least one that has been over used. What do you think? What word will President Obama use? What word should he use? While not scientific, please do share your thoughts before the pundits have their say and before Obama begins his remarks. And while you’re at it, please share any notable highlights of Obama’s first year, good or bad. Living for the first 40 years of my life in the United States, it’s clear that the state of the Union is important to all Americans. However, living in Israel since 2004, it has become clear that the state of the Union is something that is important worldwide, on a myriad of levels. Ideally, please share your adjectives and any other remarks at http://jonathanfeldstein.blogspot.com, or you may go to my Facebook page but since that is an audience of limited number, I’d rather you share your thoughts on my blog. If you don’t want your comments shared publically, you may send me an e-mail at no1abba@gmail.com.

Remembering To Never Forget

The following excerpt is from “Hidden” (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) a memoir of the survival of a brother and sister from Kanczuga, Poland, the town in which my paternal grandmother’s family once lived for generations. Their account of life in Kanczuga and their lives in hiding is deeply personal and I share it this week, marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Rather than passing along things that have been circulating e-mail lists and the internet for years, I hope to add a moment of meaning and a personal reflection on the Holocaust for those who read this, and for future generations, even if it is only those who are my own descendants. While Jews observe Yom Hashoah on the 27th of the month of Nissan, international Holocaust Remembrance Day will take place this week, January 27. In an era of growing Holocaust denial, and the aging of the remaining survivors whose personal experiences will one day only be a distant memory, I share this account both because it is personal and vivid, and also because while I do not know the Rosens and did not know their family, the life and murder of their relatives as noted here were lived and ended the same as my grandmother’s family. In the event that one day someone should ever doubt the veracity of these accounts, I take the liberty of sharing something that is also deeply personal and connected to my own family in Kanczuga, and the recount below. In the early 1990s, I became president of the First Kanczuger Society, a Landsmannschaft (welfare and cultural associations for Jews from cities, towns and villages throughout Europe and Russia established to provide kinship and support for émigrés, survivors and their descendents) established by my great-grandfather, Shalom Yakov Birnbach, in 1901. In the course of meeting several of the members who were born in Kanczuga and who remembered my family, I got to know Benny Shanzer (Yankele Kelstecher*). Benny shared with me that when my father came to the US, Benny got him his first job. And Benny also remembered my great-grandmother, Dreizel Hamel Birnbach, who he credited with saving his life. As the Jews of Kanczuga were being rounded up to be murdered, Dreizel turned to Yankele and said, “You’re too young.” Yankele knew that meant they were going to be murdered and used this as the impetus to escape, and survive, as is recounted just in passing below. I have never been to Kanczuga and can only imagine what life was like there before 1939. My sense is that just as in any community there were rivalries and differences within the community, yet there was nevertheless a great sense of community. This sense of community was what motivated my great-grandmother to inspire Yankele to save himself. It is what brought Yankele, Bernie and Yehuda to come back to Kanczuga in April 1945 to bury the seven Jews murdered in a pogrom after the War ended and to protect the survivors. It is what made it second nature for Benny to help find a job for the grandson of Dreizel who saved his life when he arrived in the US as a new immigrant himself. While this week we mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my relatives who were murdered, with their neighbors witnessing it all standing by as spectators, on a hill on the outskirts of Kanczuga never made it to Auschwitz. I remember my great-grandparents, Shalom Yakov and Dreizel Birnbach, their children, sons and daughters in law, siblings, cousins and grandchildren who were murdered in a hastily dug ditch in the summer of 1942. I also remember the relatives on my grandfather’s side whose names are not all known but whose lives must be remembered nonetheless. While the account below is not about them, their lives were lived alongside those who are mentioned, as were their lives taken from them in exactly the same way. May we, and the generations that follow, always remember to never forget. Hidden – Fay Walker and Leo Rosen Prologue 1942 (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) We were hidden in the countryside by the time the war flooded the streets of tiny Kanczuga, until the screams and bursts of gunfire were as familiar as the cries of the peddlers hawking their wares in the rynek, the town’s main marketplace. More than a hundred of our people were executed at point blank range in front of the Brill’s house. Then early one morning, two young SS men, ably aided by the Polish police, rounded up the hundreds of Jews who had not managed to hide themselves in time. The officers deposited then in the main square, where they stood in shocked silence, some of them still in nightclothes, shivering in the sparkling dawn. Now the police herded their prisoners past the jeering crowd and in to the synagogue. Our people struggled to stare straight ahead, but, as they trudged the dusty streets, they found themselves peering into the faces they had known all their lives, into the flat features and pale eyes of their closest neighbors, empty and cold as death. Kanczuga‘s newest synagogue was a good quarter mile from the Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. It was not quite complicated, but already it was the pride of our community, a spacious sanctuary large enough to seat several hundred people. That Shabbos, every inch of the shul was filled for the first time. Yet it was eerily quiet, the low murmurs punctuated only by the occasional barking if a policeman. Our family, apart from the two in hiding, filled the floor by the eastern wall. Tata’s brother David sat with his wife and three of their five children, Aron, Runie, and little Golda, named after our grandmother. The other two children had been on vacation with their mother’s parents and had already been captured and sent to Siberia. Wordless and watchful, our Tata fingered a pocket of his long, black coat and stroked his beard. Beside him, Mamche, her face raw from weeping, rested a delicate hand on one of my sisters’ shoulders. Now and then she whispered to little Tunia, who was serious even in the best of times. The child’s face, olive-skinned as a Gypsy’s, glistened with tears. Pretty Senia, Aryan-blond and almost a teenager, seemed out of place in this group of frightened Jews. She scanned the wan faces, searching for friends from school. With so many bodies huddled together, the room was close with the odor of human flesh. People slept standing, straight as sentries; others twisted into unnatural positions on the floor. At some point, rain tapped a somber staccato on the roof and windows. A poor tradesman, reverential and cowering, broke off from the crowd to consult with Tata. “Do you think they’ll deport us instead of killing us? Maybe send us away and spare our lives, God willing?” Our taciturn father shrugged and shook his head. “Who is to say?” he asked. “I have heard that the families who didn’t come to the square to be picked up were shot in their homes. We can only wait and put our faith in God. God will provide for us. God has never forsaken us.” Like everyone else, my parents had come to the shul without packing a bag. But my best friend, Bruchcia Laufer, whose family had been temporarily spared because they were engineers still useful to the Reich, visited every day with supplies. That Friday morning, she brought two white Shabbos candles. The crowded room was hushed now, as Mamche lit the trembling flames. For a moment, her face was illuminated, as if from within. When she said the bracha, her shimmering soprano could scarcely be heard, so quickly did it make its way to God. Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who commands us to light the Sabbath candles. Shabbos morning arrived warm and bright, but the synagogue was musky with fear. Several men began to daven, and Tata joined them in prayer, swaying back and forth to the familiar chants. Mamche, as a woman forbidden to pray with the men, hummed the wailing nigunim under her breath, her voice sweet and smooth as her homemade jam, her pitch never wavering. The families were still praying when the police ordered them to leave their families and trek the short distance up the hill to the cemetery. Mamche gripped the girls harder, her fingers digging so deeply into their flesh that they squirmed, but they did not break away. Our father, never a demonstrative man, reached for our mother’s hand. The gesture was so unexpected that she met his eyes with a smile. Then the butt of an unseen rifle knocked Tata squarely between the shoulder blades, and he flinched and moved on without speaking. They traveled a short distance in wagons. A boy named Yankele Kelstecher jumped out of his wagon and disappeared into the woods before the policemen could fire.(*) Then the men were ordered out of the wagons. Perhaps the thought of Yankele gave the men strength as they climbed in a thin, halting line along the muddy path that wove through a cornfield. They passed a scarecrow, mocking in unfettered repose. At the crest of the hill was the tree-lined cemetery, its tombstones swathed in even rows of shrubbery. As if on command, the men paused to catch their breaths and to wipe their brows. They gazed out over the crest of the hill to the patchwork of fields below. For a moment, they forgot their terror and shook their heads at the lush landscape. It could not be helped; they loved this country. A straight-backed officer handed out shovels and told them to dig. “Keep digging,” he said. “We’ll tell you when you’re finished.” Most of the men were spindly and weak, with soft palms more used to the Hebrew siddur than to the spade. “Dig, keep digging! Thought you could get away with something, eh? Thought you could hide from us, you filthy Jews?” When at last they were allowed to stop, the men stood in silence beside the freshly dug earth. Their faces slick with tears and sweat, they stared at the raised rifles in astonishment. At eyes opaque as marbles, that didn’t look back. Then they saw the other eyes, those of their neighbors, the customers in their shops, the people to whom they had just last week sold a loaf of bread, who gave them a good price on chickens and eggs. The goyim stood or sat on their haunches in unruly rows alongside the policemen. Whole families, with baskets of cheese and bread and homemade wine, little ones scurrying along the fringes of the crowd, hunting down field mice. The chattering spectators were in an edgy, festive mood, the women’s heads bobbing in their colorful scarves. “Zyd!” they cried. “Jew! Out with the Jews!” The policemen raised their rifles. One hundred hearts were broken before a single shot was fired. When it was over, the audience applauded and cheered. The next day, the sunlight was so fierce that the women shielded their eyes when they were led outside. They climbed through the tall grass directly to the pit, as if they had done so many times before, their children sobbing at their skirts. A fetid smell they did not recognize reached their nostrils, and they covered their faces in horror. When the policemen loaded their rifles, Senia clutched Mamche’s waist. “I don’t want to die!” she cried. “The sun is shining so brightly, and I am so young, Mamche. I want to grow up in this beautiful world.” For the first time in Senia’s life, our Mamche could do nothing to help. She could not hold her any closer; she could not love her any more. One policeman who witnessed this scene was so moved that, later, he would recall Senia’s words to the Kwasniaks, who had worked for us back in town. Then a bullet shattered our little sister’s face, and she collapsed at Mamche’s feet, spraying blood in her new white shoes. Next, Tunia dropped onto Senia, her breath a shallow purr. Even before the third shot was fired, our mother fell on them both, trying to protect what was no longer hers. Beside the gunmen, the onlookers, some of whom had tied handkerchiefs over their noses to stave off the scent, clapped and shouted their approval. A burst of laughter skimmed the crowd. Neighbors clapped each other on the back, not quite meeting each other’s gaze.

Remembering To Never Forget

The following excerpt is from “Hidden” (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) a memoir of the survival of a brother and sister from Kanczuga, Poland, the town in which my paternal grandmother’s family once lived for generations. Their account of life in Kanczuga and their lives in hiding is deeply personal and I share it this week, marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Rather than passing along things that have been circulating e-mail lists and the internet for years, I hope to add a moment of meaning and a personal reflection on the Holocaust for those who read this, and for future generations, even if it is only those who are my own descendants. While Jews observe Yom Hashoah on the 27th of the month of Nissan, international Holocaust Remembrance Day will take place this week, January 27. In an era of growing Holocaust denial, and the aging of the remaining survivors whose personal experiences will one day only be a distant memory, I share this account both because it is personal and vivid, and also because while I do not know the Rosens and did not know their family, the life and murder of their relatives as noted here were lived and ended the same as my grandmother’s family. In the event that one day someone should ever doubt the veracity of these accounts, I take the liberty of sharing something that is also deeply personal and connected to my own family in Kanczuga, and the recount below. In the early 1990s, I became president of the First Kanczuger Society, a Landsmannschaft (welfare and cultural associations for Jews from cities, towns and villages throughout Europe and Russia established to provide kinship and support for émigrés, survivors and their descendents) established by my great-grandfather, Shalom Yakov Birnbach, in 1901. In the course of meeting several of the members who were born in Kanczuga and who remembered my family, I got to know Benny Shanzer (Yankele Kelstecher*). Benny shared with me that when my father came to the US, Benny got him his first job. And Benny also remembered my great-grandmother, Dreizel Hamel Birnbach, who he credited with saving his life. As the Jews of Kanczuga were being rounded up to be murdered, Dreizel turned to Yankele and said, “You’re too young.” Yankele knew that meant they were going to be murdered and used this as the impetus to escape, and survive, as is recounted just in passing below. I have never been to Kanczuga and can only imagine what life was like there before 1939. My sense is that just as in any community there were rivalries and differences within the community, yet there was nevertheless a great sense of community. This sense of community was what motivated my great-grandmother to inspire Yankele to save himself. It is what brought Yankele, Bernie and Yehuda to come back to Kanczuga in April 1945 to bury the seven Jews murdered in a pogrom after the War ended and to protect the survivors. It is what made it second nature for Benny to help find a job for the grandson of Dreizel who saved his life when he arrived in the US as a new immigrant himself. While this week we mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, my relatives who were murdered, with their neighbors witnessing it all standing by as spectators, on a hill on the outskirts of Kanczuga never made it to Auschwitz. I remember my great-grandparents, Shalom Yakov and Dreizel Birnbach, their children, sons and daughters in law, siblings, cousins and grandchildren who were murdered in a hastily dug ditch in the summer of 1942. I also remember the relatives on my grandfather’s side whose names are not all known but whose lives must be remembered nonetheless. While the account below is not about them, their lives were lived alongside those who are mentioned, as were their lives taken from them in exactly the same way. May we, and the generations that follow, always remember to never forget. Hidden – Fay Walker and Leo Rosen Prologue 1942 (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3522.htm) We were hidden in the countryside by the time the war flooded the streets of tiny Kanczuga, until the screams and bursts of gunfire were as familiar as the cries of the peddlers hawking their wares in the rynek, the town’s main marketplace. More than a hundred of our people were executed at point blank range in front of the Brill’s house. Then early one morning, two young SS men, ably aided by the Polish police, rounded up the hundreds of Jews who had not managed to hide themselves in time. The officers deposited then in the main square, where they stood in shocked silence, some of them still in nightclothes, shivering in the sparkling dawn. Now the police herded their prisoners past the jeering crowd and in to the synagogue. Our people struggled to stare straight ahead, but, as they trudged the dusty streets, they found themselves peering into the faces they had known all their lives, into the flat features and pale eyes of their closest neighbors, empty and cold as death. Kanczuga‘s newest synagogue was a good quarter mile from the Jewish cemetery on the edge of town. It was not quite complicated, but already it was the pride of our community, a spacious sanctuary large enough to seat several hundred people. That Shabbos, every inch of the shul was filled for the first time. Yet it was eerily quiet, the low murmurs punctuated only by the occasional barking if a policeman. Our family, apart from the two in hiding, filled the floor by the eastern wall. Tata’s brother David sat with his wife and three of their five children, Aron, Runie, and little Golda, named after our grandmother. The other two children had been on vacation with their mother’s parents and had already been captured and sent to Siberia. Wordless and watchful, our Tata fingered a pocket of his long, black coat and stroked his beard. Beside him, Mamche, her face raw from weeping, rested a delicate hand on one of my sisters’ shoulders. Now and then she whispered to little Tunia, who was serious even in the best of times. The child’s face, olive-skinned as a Gypsy’s, glistened with tears. Pretty Senia, Aryan-blond and almost a teenager, seemed out of place in this group of frightened Jews. She scanned the wan faces, searching for friends from school. With so many bodies huddled together, the room was close with the odor of human flesh. People slept standing, straight as sentries; others twisted into unnatural positions on the floor. At some point, rain tapped a somber staccato on the roof and windows. A poor tradesman, reverential and cowering, broke off from the crowd to consult with Tata. “Do you think they’ll deport us instead of killing us? Maybe send us away and spare our lives, God willing?” Our taciturn father shrugged and shook his head. “Who is to say?” he asked. “I have heard that the families who didn’t come to the square to be picked up were shot in their homes. We can only wait and put our faith in God. God will provide for us. God has never forsaken us.” Like everyone else, my parents had come to the shul without packing a bag. But my best friend, Bruchcia Laufer, whose family had been temporarily spared because they were engineers still useful to the Reich, visited every day with supplies. That Friday morning, she brought two white Shabbos candles. The crowded room was hushed now, as Mamche lit the trembling flames. For a moment, her face was illuminated, as if from within. When she said the bracha, her shimmering soprano could scarcely be heard, so quickly did it make its way to God. Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who commands us to light the Sabbath candles. Shabbos morning arrived warm and bright, but the synagogue was musky with fear. Several men began to daven, and Tata joined them in prayer, swaying back and forth to the familiar chants. Mamche, as a woman forbidden to pray with the men, hummed the wailing nigunim under her breath, her voice sweet and smooth as her homemade jam, her pitch never wavering. The families were still praying when the police ordered them to leave their families and trek the short distance up the hill to the cemetery. Mamche gripped the girls harder, her fingers digging so deeply into their flesh that they squirmed, but they did not break away. Our father, never a demonstrative man, reached for our mother’s hand. The gesture was so unexpected that she met his eyes with a smile. Then the butt of an unseen rifle knocked Tata squarely between the shoulder blades, and he flinched and moved on without speaking. They traveled a short distance in wagons. A boy named Yankele Kelstecher jumped out of his wagon and disappeared into the woods before the policemen could fire.(*) Then the men were ordered out of the wagons. Perhaps the thought of Yankele gave the men strength as they climbed in a thin, halting line along the muddy path that wove through a cornfield. They passed a scarecrow, mocking in unfettered repose. At the crest of the hill was the tree-lined cemetery, its tombstones swathed in even rows of shrubbery. As if on command, the men paused to catch their breaths and to wipe their brows. They gazed out over the crest of the hill to the patchwork of fields below. For a moment, they forgot their terror and shook their heads at the lush landscape. It could not be helped; they loved this country. A straight-backed officer handed out shovels and told them to dig. “Keep digging,” he said. “We’ll tell you when you’re finished.” Most of the men were spindly and weak, with soft palms more used to the Hebrew siddur than to the spade. “Dig, keep digging! Thought you could get away with something, eh? Thought you could hide from us, you filthy Jews?” When at last they were allowed to stop, the men stood in silence beside the freshly dug earth. Their faces slick with tears and sweat, they stared at the raised rifles in astonishment. At eyes opaque as marbles, that didn’t look back. Then they saw the other eyes, those of their neighbors, the customers in their shops, the people to whom they had just last week sold a loaf of bread, who gave them a good price on chickens and eggs. The goyim stood or sat on their haunches in unruly rows alongside the policemen. Whole families, with baskets of cheese and bread and homemade wine, little ones scurrying along the fringes of the crowd, hunting down field mice. The chattering spectators were in an edgy, festive mood, the women’s heads bobbing in their colorful scarves. “Zyd!” they cried. “Jew! Out with the Jews!” The policemen raised their rifles. One hundred hearts were broken before a single shot was fired. When it was over, the audience applauded and cheered. The next day, the sunlight was so fierce that the women shielded their eyes when they were led outside. They climbed through the tall grass directly to the pit, as if they had done so many times before, their children sobbing at their skirts. A fetid smell they did not recognize reached their nostrils, and they covered their faces in horror. When the policemen loaded their rifles, Senia clutched Mamche’s waist. “I don’t want to die!” she cried. “The sun is shining so brightly, and I am so young, Mamche. I want to grow up in this beautiful world.” For the first time in Senia’s life, our Mamche could do nothing to help. She could not hold her any closer; she could not love her any more. One policeman who witnessed this scene was so moved that, later, he would recall Senia’s words to the Kwasniaks, who had worked for us back in town. Then a bullet shattered our little sister’s face, and she collapsed at Mamche’s feet, spraying blood in her new white shoes. Next, Tunia dropped onto Senia, her breath a shallow purr. Even before the third shot was fired, our mother fell on them both, trying to protect what was no longer hers. Beside the gunmen, the onlookers, some of whom had tied handkerchiefs over their noses to stave off the scent, clapped and shouted their approval. A burst of laughter skimmed the crowd. Neighbors clapped each other on the back, not quite meeting each other’s gaze.