The Fire that Hardens the Egg, Melts the Butter

 

People who read my articles, occasionally, write to me asking about the level of my piety and Jewish observance.

Though I am not an observant Jew in the traditional sense of the word, I do believe, and very deeply, in G-d. I try to understand His wisdom, His teachings and accordingly live up to the role I have been destined to fulfill.

As I am sitting here, trying to grasp the enormity and the underlying messages of G-d in this week’s Torah portion, “Ki Tetze,” which I was first introduced to as a child, through my father’s teachings, I am yet again, thankful to have been born into such a great culture padded with so much insight and enlightenment. Its depth and wisdom are flabbergasting. The more I delve into it, the more I am left in awe.

It so happens that, in recent days, I have also been listening and watching a video where the mother of one of my childhood friends unfolds her horrific ordeals and misfortunes during the Shoah. She also shares experiences from her childhood where she was raised in a home steeped in Jewish tradition and customs and a staunch belief in G-d.

Auschwitz, unfortunately, "cured" her from her faith in G-d. That cursed place is where, for her, G-d existed no more.

That awareness, naturally, affected and determined the extent of Jewish education that my friend received at home. It was minimal if any, at all.

Like her mother, though, my late father had also been a survivor of the Nazi inferno.

Unlike her, however, and despite witnessing the horrible death of both his parents (burnt in the synagogue, along with other "useless" beings), as well as the untimely death of other family members, my father never lost faith in G-d. His motto was "G-d giveth and G-d taketh, may G-d's name be blessed." Somehow, I felt that the older he got, the stronger became his trust in G-d.

How else could my father, part of the remnant of the big fire, express his gratitude for his survival, for moving with my mother and brother to Eretz Yisrael, raising a family and living a long rewarding life?

Both my friend’s mother and my father were scorched by the same fire. They both came out of that experience different people, each with their own conclusions, resolutions, and world view. One melted, the other hardened. It is not my place to say which is which. I will leave it to each reader to decide that, should they wish.

Having said that, it is important to emphasize that one cannot and should never judge people for their decisions and choices. Each person holds life stories woven intricately which, jointly, make up the tapestry of their essence.  Each responds accordingly and reacts differently to similar experiences.

What I can and will continue to do is be obliged to my earthly father and the choices he had made, choices that had defined his Jewish substance which left its footprints on my core. Likewise, I will, forever, be beholden to my Heavenly father for that which I have and for that which I do not have. Both molded me and defined the terrain and the course of my physical and spiritual journeys through life.

 

"Germany, at Odds" - by Eldad Beck

 

The first time that I experienced anti-Semitism it came from a young German man.

It was in the seventies when I attended school in England.

One morning, a fellow student, Alfred, a pleasant young man from Frankfurt, came into class, sat next to me, and said, “I have a joke for you.”

“There was, once, a military base,” started Alfred in a thick German accent as a wide smile was spreading over his face. “English soldiers were prohibited to smoke in the bathroom, the French in the kitchen but Jews were allowed to smoke in the ammunition room.”

The truth? I did not know how to react. For a split second, I did not even comprehend the anti-Semitic nature of the joke. I liked Alfred and, as an optimist, I tried to console myself, after I sobered up, that he, himself, failed to understand the essence of his joke and, especially, the fact that he told it to a Jew and a daughter of Shoah survivors.

Deep inside of me, I was hoping that the German people of that era had not yet digested the crime which, part of their parents’ generation, were guilty of. I was expecting a different Germany, a better one, one that assumes responsibility of its past, internalizes its lessons, and contributes to creating a more sensible world.

Beck’s excellent book, “Germany – at Odds,” was an ear deafening wake up call.

It is for a reason that Beck elected to entitle his book by that name, a choice which, in my view, leaves no room for doubt. Beck does not present the essence of today’s Germany as a question which he is about to research. Beck has already conducted the research, and thoroughly. He cites and documents, in his book, the reality that exists in that country, a reality that is clear and obvious. Germany, as described in Beck’s book, is, indeed, different. It is different than what many wished it to be, especially those who carry the scars of its past and their offspring who carry them on their soul.

The series of shuddering descriptions and documentations, which Beck weaves artfully and skillfully into his book, exposes growing tendencies in certain segments of the German population to hide that which their country had experienced and sweep the Shoah under the carpet. Sadly, in many cases, it is done to please a reality which is dictated by demographic, political or ideological factors.

A captivating, very well documented and thought-provoking book. Highly recommended.

Shabbat Nachamu

Shabbat Nachamu is the name of the first Shabbat after the Ninth of Av, which according to tradition, is when both Temples were destroyed. Its name is taken from Isiah 40:1, “Comfort, Comfort my People says your G-d,” which is the first verse of this week’s Haftarah

This Shabbat officially ends the three weeks of mourning which culminate with the fast of the ninth of Av. Its Parasha  aims at offering solace and consolation for the suffering our People endured as a result of their transgressions that preceded the destruction of the Temples.

I believe I first remember it being mentioned when I was seven years old. Though I am certain that “Shabbat Nachamu” had been mentioned many times before, it was only when I reached that age that I finally grasped their profound meaning.

For my parents and many other Jews, Shabbat Nachamu was the day on which they were liberated from the Nazi Death Machine. It ended the darkest chapter in our Jewish history.

Each time I heard them, and there were many, they scorched my Jewish essence forming yet another painful scar that refuses to heal.

As symbolic as the liberation of my parents and my unborn older brother which occurred on this Shabbat may be, I kept pondering on the reasons that brought about the destruction, Churban, which, incidentally, is what the Shoah is referred to in Yiddish, that befell them and their generation. What sins could my two wonderful parents have committed to have brought such a punishment upon them? What crimes could my young little cousins have possibly carried out before they perished in Ponar, I ask, as the waves of grief refuse to subside. I try to find some logic, some order, in the chain of “cause and effect,” in the great world that G-d once created for us.

Alas, no matter what, the answers evade me.

Instead of resuming to torment my soul, I have decided to focus on the future and the lessons that we could apply  towards it, lessons which our Jewish history has been trying so desperately to teach us.

As we are approaching the end of the period that is referred to as “between the straits” (bein hametsarim), the three weeks of mourning over the tragedies that befell our People over two thousand years ago, I look around me. I observe our People, “The People of the Book,” the ones who were destined to be “A Light unto the Nations,” their practice of our cherished values, or rather their lack thereof, I keep asking, have Jews learned anything from our sanguineous history?

We are still exercising vain hatred and continue to intensify that already deep divide among us, while our enemies continue to weave their web of design to destroy us. We adopt foreign customs, we name our children after foreign deities and worship the golden calf.

Am Yisrael and fellow Jews, time to wake up and look inside ourselves. This is where we shall find the answers to the why and the what that has befallen us.  Let us practice that which we gifted the world. It is time to shed off all masks and be true to ourselves first.

Let us console, support each other and unite during these hard and trying times. Let us defy all odds, pursue justice, and continue to live up to that which we are commanded to do and “Choose Life.” We owe it to ourselves  and to our future generations.

Better days are ahead of us and despite and in spite of it all, the People of Eternity is here to stay, in our Jewish Homeland, in Eretz Yisrael.

Am Yisrael Chai

A Vanished Culture

Last night, I was watching a TV programme about the acclaimed Yiddish poet, Avraham Sutzkever.

In my view, he is probably the best poet that the Yiddish language ever gave rise to.

Fortunately for me, Yididsh is my first tongue. What a blessing it has been to be able to read and study this and other great Yiddish poets in that language, in the context of the Yiddish culture

Sutzkever was born in the town of Smorgon, my mother’s hometown. As a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, their part of former Poland fell into Russian hands. Shortly after the Nazi invasion into the Soviet Union, in the middle of 1941, they set up a Ghetto in Vilna to where my parents and their family were transferred. Sutzkever, also, ended up there.

Vilna, its rich Jewish history and Jewish life have been part of the fabric of my upbringing. Prior to the war, I had a large family there. My late grandmother visited that city on a regular basis. I used to listen to her stories, her vivid description of famous landmarks, its thriving Jewish culture, Yiddish theatre and renowned scholarship of Yerushalayim D’Lita” (Jerusalem of Lita). That city was an inseparable part of me.

I have been to Vilna three times. During one of those times, I spent a summer programme at the Vilnius University Jewish Institute with my daughter. It was there that I was introduced to the great Avraham Sutzkever.

One of his poems that was taught in the course, “By the Golden Chain,” (Songs from the Diary), especially, caught my attention. Here is my free translation of it from the Yiddish:

“By the golden chain […]
Already time to unbutton out of darkness the secrets

Where tiny hearts of slime continue to beat in the ocean’s laboratory

Now it is time to drink wine with long drowned
Sailors in water – innkeepers on deck of ocean, in a cabin

And hear them tell of pirates, albatrosses

And Love of a thousand years, and everything not yet - tranquil.”

It struck a familiar note. As an undergraduate in English Literature, these words reverberated those of another poem, a very well known one. It was Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” written in the late 18^th century.

 In Coleridge’s poem, after the ancient mariner commits a sin by killing the albatross, guilts hounds him. The ship he was on was wrecked by a storm and its crew of sailors sank to the bottom of the sea. The mariner was its sole survivor.

Without getting into the discussion on why Sutzkever chose that metaphor, I remember being astonished and utterly awestruck at the fact that he was familiar with Coleridge’s work. Moreover, I was very impressed by how well he incorporated it into his poem.

After having delved into some of his other poems, I understood the profundity and talent that Sutzkever possessed. I was intrigued, curious and challenged by his poetic gift and decided to learn more about him. What I discovered was overwhelming.

Poetry, Yiddish poetry it turns out was Sutzkever’s survival mechanism during the harsh daily reality of life in the Vilna Ghetto. That did not come as a surprise to me. Having been exposed to the pearls of Yiddish culture, values, its humour, I was aware of their potential to generate a perennial spring, keeping its speakers’ spirits and minds forever alive and alert. They were the source of vitality, endurance, and resilience that prepared, guided and supported Jews through the monstrous chapter European Jewish history.

Sutzkever wrote a poem every day during his stay at the Vilna Ghetto. He was also involved in the vibrant cultural life and activities in the Ghetto and was even able to salvage some literary works.

Following their liberation, Sutzkever, his wife and young daughter made their way to Eretz Yisrael.

Unfortunately, in the early days of the nascent state, Yiddish was discouraged from being taught, spoken. It was suppressed and even banned. To modern day Yisraelis, it was the language of the Diaspora, the language of the people who had allowed themselves to be led to slaughter without much resistance. Many mocked and ridicule me for speaking it with my grandmother. Many continued to mock me for teaching it to my daughter.

 I vowed, then, that I will do whatever is in my powers to preserve that great and wealthy culture. It is the fiber of my essence, the culture that helped shape my destiny and that of my offspring. I, we owe it to hundreds of years of Jewish survival and to all the immolation our Jewish brothers and sisters have endured to keep its practice alive and thriving.

It will not stop with me. It cannot stop with me.

Peace and Unity among us

My dear friend, Dr. Mordechai Kedar once told me, while co-authoring an article with him, "we cannot fight that which is Right by using and employing that which is Wrong."

These words have resonated with me always, more so in recent days.

Last week, we Yisraelis, commemorated Yom Hashoah and paying tribute to our six million brothers and sisters who perished in the Shoah. Today, we honour the fallen heroes who gave their lives during Yisrael's unending wars of existence. We also remember the victims of Terrorism. 

Each year, on both occasions, our nation stops whatever it is doing and stood united while the sirens are wailing, reminding us how the shared pain and suffering inflicted upon our People has joined us together and forged us into one cohesive group.

It is these brief moments that I longed for and would have given anything to experience and relive during all the long years that I resided in the Galut. It was not the pain, neither the mourning nor the grief that I longed for. Rather, it was the unity that they sowed and produced even for a brief moment.

Last week, just like yesterday and today, as I was standing still, along with the millions of my Yisraeli brothers and sisters, sharing the sense of togetherness and devotedness, I asked myself, "why can't it be like that always? Why do we need bereavement to remind us of the need to remain united? Why not let our shared history, glorious present and promising future be the criss - cross threads in the fabric of our nationhood?"

It is at moments like these, that I recall Dr. Kedar's wise words.

It is then that the troubling gnawing questions keep surfacing. How can we be united when many of us continue to use language which contributes to nothing but merely to deepening the divide? How can we expect unity and Peace among us when in order to achieve these desirable RIGHT and wishful results we use, instead, the WRONG means and the WRONG compass to negotiate the challenging terrain that could get us there?

Rather than dignifying differences, we shun and humiliate that which is foreign to us. At every opportunity, we wage war on anyone and anything that disagrees with us.

How can we live with each other when instead of exchanging, some resort to insults and name calling? How can we allow Peace to settle among us when each time we run out of good and logical arguments, many  start throwing curse words and using foul language at each other?

But most importantly, how can we remain a family when we put the needs of others before those of our own, needs which are in dire need of attention? If one of the founding principles of our heritage is "Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh lazeh" (All of Yisrael are guarantors for one another), why can we not think of our own FIRST, adhere to it and put our People’s needs before those of others?


After all, isn’t that what those who we commemorate today had in their essence when they rushed to defend us in war? Did they not choose that which is RIGHT to beat that which is WRONG when they entered the battlefield? Did they not put themselves, as Arevim for us, before all?

May Am Yisrael finally learn the lesson of the old adage “United we stand, Divided we fall.”

Happy Birthday Medinat Yisrael 

As a Jew, I define myself in Hebrew only (Part Two)

About two years ago, I published the following article. Needless to add, I still stand behind every word I wrote in it.

https://wingnsonawildflight.blogspot.com/2016/02/as-jew-i-define-myself-in-hebrew-only.html

Recently, as result of my studies towards earning a PhD in Hebrew/Yiddish Literature starting at the end of 19^th century through post WWII, I realized, yet again, the need to stress and share with my fellow Jews why I believe it is important that as Jews, we should define ourselves in Hebrew only.

As many know, the period I mentioned above also includes one of the darkest, if not the darkest chapter in our history, the Shoah (AKA Holocaust). I have resolved that from now on, I will use the Hebrew word Shoah when I refer to that chapter.

Here are some of my reasons.

The etymology of the word “Holocaust” stems from the ancient Greek holocaustun “a thing wholly burnt” and Latin holocaustum origins which later morphed into its Old (12^th century) French holocauste “sacrifice by fire, burnt offering,” and the English “holocaust” forms. (https://www.etymonline.com/word/holocaust). According to Morris and Morris, Dictionary and Phrase Origins (1962), in its original form, a holocaust was a sacrificial burnt offering to pagan gods in pre-Christian times.”

Sacrificial burnt offerings, as a means to overcome guilt for failing to live according to one or another moral code, is a practice that many cultures adopted, especially in ancient times. Yes, Torah also requires the sinner to bring sacrifice. The only difference, though, between it and other sources, is that in Hebrew, the language of Torah, we do not call it “burnt offering.” The Hebrew term for that practice is referred to as “Offering Korban” (from the word karov – to come close). In the Hebrew/Jewish tradition, the offering of Korban, or sacrifice, according to Rabbi Steven Heil, “is governed by strict regulations, “so that “we tangibly relate to G-d in a true proper way.” The detailed rituals of sacrifices as outlined in the Torah played an essential role in our ultimate way to serve G-d.  

Is that how the world and some Jews wish to refer to the untimely death of my young cousins and millions of other innocent Jews, young and old, who were killed by the Nazi war machine? Were they a “burnt offering” of some sort, as the term “holocaust” suggests? Were they even a “korban” for any sins committed?

Shoah, which in Hebrew means “catastrophe,” on the other hand, defines that atrocious episode in Jewish history more accurately. That event was aimed at eradicating our People from off the face of this earth altogether. There was no sacrifice involved here, merely some evil force that played god and decided who should live and who should die. Whichever way one looks at it, it is a “catastrophe.”

Are we, Jews, going to let a term that originated in ancient pagan cultures and has nothing to do with our sad experience, define us?

If other nations, or groups wish to use the term “holocaust” to define efforts to annihilate or slaughter them, let them use it. They are already doing it anyway.

For me, as a Jew, however, there is only one word to describe what happened to my parents and their generation. I call it Shoah.

A Little Known Genocide

History has been laced with genocides. Some, however, received much coverage and are known to many, albeit by name only.

But few, so it seems, know about the first genocide of the 20^th century, the one that took place not on European soil and by members of the Second Reich, a few decades before the rise of Hitler.  I am referring to the genocide committed against the Herero Tribe of Namibia, a genocide that left them close to extinction.

I recently spent a couple of weeks with members of the Herero Tribe. What a wonderful experience it was. I visited their villages, their homes and their schools. They are generally happy people, hospitable and polite. Looking at them, it would be hard to trace any hint of the fact that merely two generations ago, attempts were made to rid the world of them and their beautiful heritage.

That is why I set out to learn as much as I could about this little known atrocity, share it and educate others about it.

For that, I will have to take you, the readers, back in time to 1884. That year, the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck assembled what has come to be known as “The Berlin Conference.” Its purpose was to determine the future of the African continent. As part of it, Bismarck designated South West Africa as part of the German Empire and suitable for settlement.

 

Following that declaration, the Germans began to appropriate more and more land from the local population while at the same time introducing laws and policies aimed at limiting and restricting it. One of the reasons that the presence of the Second Reich was moderately tolerated in that part of the world was because in many instances, its representatives acted as intermediaries between feuding tribes. However, as it turns out only when it suited them. The treaties they engineered were dubious, ambiguous and drawn merely to serve their interests. According to Dutch historian Jan-Bart Gewald, the German colonial governor “Leutwein, gladly offered military support to controversial chiefs, because violence and land seizure among Africans worked to his advantage.”

 In the early days of the German colonial venture in Namibia, the Herero People which, along with other tribes, were part of Namibia’s indigenous population, were still strong both economically and socially and were thus able to fend off German colonization efforts.  The Rimferpest plague which struck their herds in 1897,though, left them fragile both economically, as it destroyed their main source of wealth, as well as physically since it shuttered their source of protein.

That, however, did not prevent from the Herero to stand firm against the endeavours by the Germans to take over their land. By 1904, tensions rose to a peak and under the leadership of their paramount chief, Samuel Maherero, the Herero rebelled against the Germans, a rebellion that turned into a full-fledged war in which 123 Germans were killed. Kaiser Wilhelm II sent thousands of troops to fight the reels. The Herero were defeated and fled to the Kalahari Desert, where many were left to die of hunger and thirst.

What, to me, was the most devastating part of this whole chapter was that all members of the Herero and other tribes that the Germans came across, men women and children, were sent to concentration camps where they were used as slave labour to build railways and buildings which can still be seen throughout Namibia.

According to an article published by the BBC in 2011, German scientists collected skulls of Herero members, and shipped them to Germany “to perform experiments seeking to prove the racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans.” 

This, of course, helped plant the “seeds for the Nazi genocidal ideology which was later followed up by similar research of other “inferior” groups by the likes of Dr. Mengele and his ilk.