A Son of Zion

He was born in a small town in Belarus in the latter part of the 19^th century. His father, Yitzchok, was a distinguished rabbi. His mother, Tscherna, was a hard-working woman who raised him and his eleven sisters and brothers in the finest way .

As the years went by, one by one, several of his siblings left the nest to roam in greener pastures, overseas. Unlike them, he elected to stay and get certified as a Jewish ritual slaughterer.

These were not easy times for Jews in the Russian Empire. Many were exposed to the Haskalah ( Jewish Enlightenment Movement) which promoted the use of Hebrew, in Literature, instead of Yiddish, exposed many to the noble ideas of the French Revolution which ignited their political and social involvement and pushed a great number of them  to follow the Marxist doctrine and even attempt to set up a Marxist party in Minsk in 1898. He was one of them.

As someone who is opposed to any form of such doctrines, I try to rationalize this young man’s political and social choices. These were times when the Marxist ideology seemed like the ultimate panacea for injustice, inequality, and illiteracy. No one, including our young hero, had expected that it would fail and fade into the realm of utopia and in such a short period.

His strong desire to make the world a better place also drove this inquisitive young man to travel to Warsaw in order to meet and befriend Dr. Zamenhof, the Jewish linguist who invented Esperanto. The idea of a world without wars, without religious or linguistic barriers which could be materialized by the use of an international, easy to learn language which would be accessible to all, pushed him to master it almost to perfection. He became one of its most avid advocates and supporters.

In the early part of the twentieth century, this ambitious young man decided to join his sister, Hilda, who had moved to London several years earlier and try his luck there. He started his way as an encyclopedia salesman, albeit not with much success. There were days, I was told, when he suffered hunger and cold. During those times, he would deliberately break a window merely to be arrested, spend the night in a warmer jail cell where he would also get to eat a free hot meal.

Sales, obviously, were not his strong suit. He left London and moved to Oxford. There, our brilliant hero earned a PhD in English Literature.

At the onset of world war I, he was deployed by the British army. During the war, he travelled with the navy all the way to southeast Asia. He did not like what he witnessed there. In his outspoken manner, he criticized the colonial endeavour and protested the way the British treated the locals.

For me, he was an early version of George Orwell.

His words, protests and harsh condemnation of British imperialism did not go unnoticed. He was dismissed from the army and forced out of the kingdom.

Left with no choices, our young man moved back to Russia where the early buds of the Bolshevik revolution were beginning to sprout. Being a firm believer in the Marxist ideology, he joined the effort.

A short while after the onset of the Revolution, disorder settled in. Our intelligent perceptive hero realized that it was a dream which would never come to fruition. He was a living witness to its collapse and the unavoidable conclusion that as attractive as the solution  that it offered to end world maladies, it was doomed to failure.

Shattered by what he observed, he decided to move to Poland.

One day, during a train ride to Vilna, he noticed Sarah, that was her name as he learned later, sitting  across the aisle from him and instantly fell in love with her. Her green, lovely eyes and her red wavy hair mesmerized him. Sarah was on her way to get betrothed to a young man that she had never met. When their glimpses met, they both knew that she would never reach her destination.

Sarah was the daughter of a very wealthy wholesale merchant. Our young man joined him, soon after he married Sarah, learned the art of trade, and eventually ran the whole business together with his fiery wife Sarah.

Yesterday’s Marxist became a capitalist and he loved it. He raised two brilliant talented children. They had everything money could buy, maids, nannies, trips and a summer home.  They even had a radio where they would listen to the finest operas while our man would describe to his children in, as vivid a manner as possible, the various scenes as he experienced them at Covent Garden or other concert halls. Poland, Polania (in Hebrew translates as “here G-d slept”) for him, was just that, the land of milk and honey.

Unfortunately, history had other plans in store for our protagonist. Twenty years later, the world was thrown into chaos when World War II started.

The infamous Riventrop-Molotov agreement of September 1, 1939, put him and his family at harm’s way. Luckily for some, not for our man and his family, though, they were situated in that part of Poland which fell into the hands of the Russians. As a business owner, a rich bourgeois, our man suddenly became the enemy of the state. “Criminals,” like him deserved only one fate. They should be sent to the Gulag where they would be placed in forced labour camps. On September 3^rd, the “culprit” was already on a howling train which made its way eastward to the unknown. He never came back.

This great man was my maternal grandfather, Ben – Zion (son of Zion, in Hebrew). I, Bat-Zion, am named after him and I pledge here and now that I will never desert his legacy and will continue to share his story with the world.

Shanah Tova, Am Yisrael <3

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.