We're Also Holocaust Survivors...

I had never really considered my family as being connected to the Holocaust, since all of my grandparents made it from Eastern Europe to the USA a couple of decades before World War Two. 

Both of my parents were born in Brooklyn, NY, just like me. I grew up in a neighborhood built after WWII for US military veterans. Our parents spoke native New York English. We didn't hear Yiddish at home. We were American Jews. I first heard about the Holocaust when the Anna Frank Diaries was being publicized, and then there was the Eichmann Trial. None of this was connected to my family.

My father had lots of aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides in New York. My mother had siblings, no aunts, uncles or cousins. When I was older I discovered that my mother's father had been born an orphan in the Ukraine. His father had been murdered in a pogrom, before he was born, and his mother died in childbirth. He was raised by grandparents. My mother didn't know which ones, and as a young man he went to America. My mother's mother left her family in Rogotshav, Belarus for New York, when married to her first husband. They had three daughters, but he died leaving her a poor widow. A few years later, she married my grandfather, who was widowed with two sons. Together they had four more children, including my mother.

My mother was never told much about all the family left in Rogotshav. My grandmother died before my third birthday, just before my brother was born, and I already had two children by the time my mother discovered that she had had an uncle in London. By then he had passed away, but with the help of HIAS my mother and her siblings discovered cousins in London and New Zealand.

Great-Grandfather
Vishnefsky

Great-Grandmother
Vishnefsky

After World War Two, neither my grandmother nor her brother ever discovered or heard from any surviving relatives. So, I guess you can say that my cousins, our children and grandchildren are the only SURVIVORS of the Vishnefsky Family of Rogotshov*. 

It's strange to think that it has taken me so long to realize that even though neither my parents nor grandparents suffered in concentration camps, death marches etc, we are part of the story.

Holocaust Memorial Day, 5772, 2022

*Honestly, I'd love to discover more Vishnefsky relatives.

That's where my Vishnefsky Family had lived

Heroism, Gevurah גבורה Yom HaZikaron LiShoah UliGevurah

Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day

Since last night we've have the television on quite  bit. Some of the stories, first person survivors have been rather amazing. They sound like fiction, but we all know that real life is sometimes more amazing and unreal than fiction. Writers wouldn't dare write things that nobody could believe.

If I'm not mistaken, today used to be called Holocaust Memorial Day, without the Heroism. Also, the standard way Israelis liked to describe the Holocaust was to give the impression that the Jews went passively to slaughter, like sheep. That fit the prevailing labor zionist image of the strong, daring secular Jew versus the weak cowering, religious galut Jew.

As the Holocaust survivors who made aliyah gained their confidence as Israelis, and historians began hearing more of what really happened during the Holocaust, Jews under Nazi persecution began looking stronger and braver. Survivors began demanding a change in the name.

The small number of minimally armed Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto fought a longer battle against the Nazis than some European countries.

A surprising number of Jews in the concentration camps defied the Nazis by managing to keep mitzvot, such as praying with Tefillin, conducting Passover seders and more. Each story defies all the previous stereotypes.

In addition, don't forget the bravery, true heroism that it took for the survivors to start their lives all over again, mostly in totally new countries and languages. Many, whose school years were spent hiding or as prisoners, still managed to learn professions, start businesses, etc. Some, whose families had been murdered in the Holocaust, married again and were blessed with more children. These are all examples of Heroism no less impressive than those who fought with the partisans or managed to kill their Nazi captors.

Today, despite the physical infirmities and weaknesses caused by the survivors physical suffering, many are miraculously survived by children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, ken yirbu. That's the true revenge over the Nazis.

Holocaust Remembering Day

I usually "ignore" official Holocaust Memorial or "Remembering" events. To be honest, they make me feel rather "left out." Speakers, whether first generation survivors themselves or those my age who are called "second generation"  use too much of the "we" and "our" presuming that we all have the same sort of family history. No, I'm not from one of the Jewish communities from "Arab countries" that hadn't been affected by the the Holocaust. I'm just as Ashkenazic as your typical Holocaust survivor, but all my grandparents had moved to New York in the early twentieth century. Apparently, all of their relatives who had remained in Europe were killed in the Holocaust, but I never heard anything of it while growing up.

Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, was a new neighborhood built for American military veterans after World War Two. All the other parents were raised and mostly born in America, just like mine. We grew up hearing of Anna Frank's Diary and then the legendary capture of  Adolf Eichmann and his trial in real time.

Mayor Moshe Leon and two "survivors"

But last night I found myself at a Holocaust Memorial event, davka, at the home of the Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon. We heard amazing stories from these two men.

I've always wondered how people could find the strength to go on with living after experiencing the hell and cruelty of the Holocaust. The one on the right didn't want to talk about how he had suffered, only how he started a new life in Israel. The one in the middle had a truly amazing story. Two neighbors helped hide him and seven relatives for four years. First they had been crowded into a specially built "double wall." They couldn't stand, walk or speak during that time. Afterwards they were moved to the basement of a preschool, where they stayed until it was safe to leave. All but one of that group made aliyah, moved to the Land of Israel, which was under British rule at the time. The British tried to keep them out.

I'm glad to have had the opportunity to hear these brave men speak.

I recorded some of the talk, and posted it to youtube. If you understand Hebrew you can listen.

"No Holocaust Story" is a Story

I grew up without knowing anything about the Holocaust or the term "survivors." This was the 1950s in New York. From the time I was a few months old my parents and I lived in a brand new garden apartment development/community for veterans, Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY. Our parents were all pretty much the same, Jewish (well over 90%), white born/raised in a poorer neighborhood of New York and determined to give their children a better childhood than they had.

Our parents had survived the Great Depression with difficulty, and if our fathers had suffered fighting in World War Two, most of us never knew about it. Children of the 1950s were protected from awful realities. Disney reigned, and we were supposed to "live happily ever after."

Most of our mothers considered that their job; they were home raising us. Our parents were 100% American and didn't have foreign accents. Only our elderly grandparents had accents. They had come from somewhere in Europe to America, the Land of Opportunity. I didn't know more than that.

It seemed in my childhood perspective that we were all the same. The only real difference was that my father had aunts, uncles and cousins, while my mother had none. Only much later on, when I was already a grandmother did I fully discover that not only had most of his parents' siblings made it to New York, but so did his grandparents.

I only became aware that there had been Nazis, a Holocaust etc from the news, television and maybe a bit from Oakland Jewish Center Hebrew School. I was in Elementary School when The Diary of Anna Frank came out and Adolf Eichmann was captured and tried.

I never felt connected to any of the Holocaust stories or history. It happened to others, not my family, just like the Spanish Inquisition.  It took many decades for me to realize that my lack of a personal family story is the Holocaust story personified.

My mother's parents had to have come from families before they got on those boats to New York. They certainly didn't sprout from laboratories. Over the years when I had tried to discuss this with my mother, it became very clear that she, too, was in the dark about her parents' histories. Being the eighth out of nine of a very poor his, hers and theirs family, she was raised more by her elder siblings than her elderly and tired parents who were busy trying to scratch out a minimal survival in Brooklyn.

To personalize Holocaust Memorial Day, I'll just write a bit about what I know of my grandmother's family.  I have only the vaguest memories of my maternal grandmother, Ida Vishnefsky Finkelstein Shankman. She died just before my third birthday. Until my mother was close to fifty and already had two grandchildren, she thought that her mother was the only one of the family that escaped Europe. Only by chance did one of her elder half-sisters mention that they had an uncle and cousins in London, but the one sister who knew more and had corresponded when young, had already passed away.

My two older "half aunts" then brainstormed trying to remember what they could of their mother's history and information about the uncle who went to live in London. They put together what they could remember and sent it to HIAS. A cousin read it and via HIAS contacted them.

We are descended from the Vishnefsky's of Rogotshov, Belarus. Apparently the family was relatively successful. They were musical and someone was a barber/doctor. I don't know their first names. One son moved to London, Harry who changed his name to Marks and worked as a carpenter.

My grandmother, Ida (Chaya Raisia) married a Finkelstein and had a daughter while still in Europe. Her husband went to New York, and she followed a bit later, first visiting her brother in London. When they reunited in New York, she had two more daughters before her husband took sick and died. A poor widow with three young children she married my grandfather Abraham Shankman a widower with two sons. Together they had four more children, including my mother. None of my grandmother's relatives ever made it to America as far as her children knew. They must have been killed in the Holocaust or by Stalin just after the war. So, I too have a Holocaust story.

My Family's Lack of Holocaust Story is the Biggest Story

For most of my life, ever since I first heard of the Holocaust in Hebrew School and on television, when the The Diary of Anne Frank came out my reaction has been.

It's not my family's story. My parents were born in America, and my grandparents all immigrated to there in the early twentieth century, decades before the Nazis.

And yes, I've written it here too on my blogs.

The late 1950's and early 1960's were when the general public learned about the Holocaust, because besides the Anne Frank story, which was packaged perfectly, the very young State of Israel managed to capture Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann and bring him to public trial.

Even though all of my grandparents were from European locations, Rogotshov, Nasielsk and Kiev, that had seen its Jewish population decimated by the Nazis I had never ever heard a single story that connected my family to that major and unprecedented tragedy. In addition, I grew up in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, which was housing for American war veterans, and none of the parents although over 90% Jewish, had European accents or were Holocaust survivors. In the local Conservative synagogue, Oakland Jewish Center, where I went to Hebrew School, I don't remember anyone coming in giving a first-person story of the Holocaust or saying that their family had escaped or experienced it.

Actually, the easy fact that my mother had neither cousins nor aunts and uncles in America wasn't attributed to the Holocaust until the poem Babi Yar was published and publicized in America. That's when my mother said that her mother's family was probably among the Jews massacred in Babi Yar.

The Vishnefskys of Rogotshov, parents of my mother's mother. And above that is a small photo of my mother's family, Passover, most probably 1948 or 1949.

This morning when I was trying to decide what to write, I first rejected Holocaust Memorial Day, because I don't have a "story." My father's father's family all left Nesielsk, Poland over a decade before it was conquered by the Nazis, so they were safely in New York long before the Nazis came to power. And we have heard nothing about what actually happened to my paternal grandmother's two sisters who remained in the USSR, except that they were loyal communists.

The truth is that we don't know if there are any heroic stories from my family, because nobody survived to tell us. And just now I've realized that I do have a story. My story is that my family members who stayed in Europe were all swallowed up in the black hole of the Nazi Holocaust not even leaving enough clues to discover a story. We can't even add their names.

Judaism Built on History and Memory, Part 1 Holocaust

Yes, there is a connection to this and to last night's post based on Pirkei Avot:

1. Moses received the Torah from Sinai and gave it over to Joshua. Joshua gave it over to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets gave it over to the Men of the Great Assembly. (Chabad)

Now that the Jewish World is commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day, it's also mourning the fact that there are fewer and fewer actual survivors who are capable of telling their stories to the younger generations.

Ignorance and amnesia – a deadly combination

World War Two, which included the Holocaust, ended over seventy 70 years ago, and that means that especially considering the problematic physical/medical condition of those who had survived, not too many people are still alive and in any condition to tell what they had suffered/experienced. Also, quite a few had kept all of those horrendous memories all bottled up in order to survive and thrive emotionally.

In recent decades there had been great efforts to convince survivors to tell/record their stories. And there have been many Holocaust memorials built all over the world. I've even complained that it's easier to raise money for these memorials than for any projects to try to increase Jewish identification, education and observance among young Jews.

Assimilation and intermarriage have been emerging as the direct result of Jewish embrace of Liberalism and Equality which aim to take down the social and cultural barriers between different religions. In many Jewish families living outside of Israel there is hardly a single marriage between two Jews on the horizon. What is most disturbing is that the acceptance of this situation is even described as a "Jewish value," and Reform Judaism makes "conversion" and the definition of "who's a Jew" simpler and more encompassing than ever. To do this they have gone farther and farther from traditional Torah Judaism, the Judaism that was passed on from Gd to Moshe and further in an unbroken line to this day.

At best they've kept the box and some superficial symbols but emptied them of Gd's authority over us. Convenience and modernity have replaced the Authority of Torah and Gd.

Modern "versions" of Judaism are also attempts to avoid/prevent antisemitism by making Jews less "different," as if the Holocaust was caused by the strict observance of Shabbat and Kashrut, two principles that separate the Jewish People from other religions.

The Nazi Holocaust had nothing to do with Judaism as a strict religion. Intermarried Jews, their children and grandchildren were murdered along with rabbis and their followers. Even German Jewish war veterans who had been awarded medals for bravery in World War One were included as Jews and not exempt as German patriots and heroes.

It is very necessary to look at the big picture, especially now that the individual stories are getting harder to hear.

The big difference between now and the world eighty plus 80+ years ago is that now there is a State of Israel, a Jewish State, which almost nobody really believed would happen way back then. And in addition, not only is strict Torah Observant Judaism getting larger and more popular, but even the non-observant Jews here in Israel are showing a strong interest in classic halachic (Jewish Law) literature and Philosophy.

Ironically, as Judaism is getting stronger here in Israel, Germany is at the forefront of the European Union and the concept of Europe as a People. Yes, I see the Hand of Gd in this.

Shabbat Zachor: Remembering Our Eternal Enemies

For me there is no need for a special "Holocaust Day." We have one every year the Shabbat before Purim, Shabbat Zachor, when we are commanded by Gd to remember that Amalek will use any trick to attempt to destroy us.

On a personal level, it's the Shabbat right after I was run over by an Arab terrorist in 1996. That Shabbat, while my foot was still very swollen, I hobbled down the hill to the large central Shiloh Tabernacle Synagogue, and all of us from Shiloh who had been at the attack thanked Gd together for our survival.

Gd commanded us, yes a real Torah Mitzvah/Commandment, to remember the dangers Amalek presents to us at all times.

“Zachor Et Asher Asah Lecha Amalek BaDerech Betzetchem MiMitzrayim”“Remember what Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt! (Devarim 25)”On the Shabbat that precedes Purim, two Torah scrolls are taken from the ark; one for the regular parsha and one for the Maftir – ‘Remember what Amalek did to you’ (Devarim 25). Because of this reading, it is called, Shabbat Zachor (Remember). The Haftorah also deals with Amalek.
There is a mitzvah in the Torah to remember Amalek and his descendants and to orally recall their iniquity. We are to tell our children in each generation what the people of Amalek did to us during our departure from Egypt. This mitzvah will be fulfilled completely only when we shall have caused Amalek’s memory to perish, and their name to be erased from the world, together with the slightest remnant of anything that bears their name. As the Torah says: ‘Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, upon your departure from Egypt’… ‘You shall erase the memory of Amalek from beneath the heavens, you shall not forget.’ Upon which the Sages have expounded: ‘Remember,’ orally – ‘You shall not forget,’ in your heart. (OU)

On the Shabbat before Purim, the holiday on which we celebrate the foiling of Haman the Amalekite's plot to destroy the Jewish people, the weekly Torah reading is supplemented with the Zachor ("Remember!") reading (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) in which we are commanded to remember the evil of Amalek and to eradicate it from the face of the earth. (Chabad)

That's why I consider this Shabbat, the Shabbat before Purim, to be the true Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Nazi attempt to destroy the Jewish People, all ages and even those who weren't even Jewish by Jewish Law, just had a Jewish grandparent, were included in the Nazi extermination sic plan.

Unfortunately, as we can read in the news, the Jewish People/Nation still have enemies, tricky enemies. They will use "fake news" and pseudo-morality and inaccurate distorted history etc to destroy and endanger us. And like the Hellenists of old, even Jews will join the chorus claiming their Jewish roots make them experts in what's good for other Jews and the State of Israel.

Being "paranoid" is being wise. 

• We must REMEMBER that our eternal enemies still exist and haven't given up in their attempt to destroy us.  
• We must REMEMBER that King Saul was deposed by Gd, because he didn't destroy all of Amalek immediately.

The State of Israel and World Jewry must REMEMBER that our eternal enemies still exist and haven't given up in their attempts to destroy the Jewish People/Nation. These enemies are really one, Amalek, and we won't have a true peace until we destroy them completely, the way that Gd commanded King Saul. It is completely forbidden to have mercy on our enemies. That is the Torah Commandment of ZACHOR, זכור  REMEMBER!

Shabbat Shalom u'Mevorach

May You Have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

ZACHOR, זכור  REMEMBER!

No Holocaust Survivors in My Family

Since moving to Israel in 1970, I've always felt rather fish out of water during this season. It's Holocaust Memorial time, and it has always seemed that I'm the only one who doesn't have a "Holocaust Story."

Especially, since moving to Shiloh in 1981, where there are large community commemorations, and so many of my neighbors have family stories that could even be made into films, I feel left out. I wasn't raised at all with any family awareness of the Holocaust. It was something I learned about in Hebrew School and on American television. It was "newsworthy" because of the play the "Diary of Anne Frank" and the Eichmann Trial, both which happened when I was still in elementary school.

I spent my childhood in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, which was a garden apartment neighborhood/public housing development built for United States army/military veterans. Also the private and two-family homes in my neighborhood were built as part of the same program. None of our parents, to my memory, had foreign accents; they had all been raised in the United States. Most grew up in the tenements/slums of Brooklyn, The Bronx and the Lower East Side. Moving to the new neighborhood in northeastern Queens was their escape from poverty and a chance to give us kids a new wonderful life.

I have friends of the same age, raised in very different sorts of New York, and other North/South American and European neighborhoods in which all of the parents were Holocaust survivors. You could say that we lived in parallel universes.

My grandparents were all born in Europe, my paternal grandfather from Neshelsk, Poland, my maternal grandfather from near Kiev, Ukraine, and both my grandmothers were from Rogotshov, Belarus. All of those areas were seriously affected (meaning that the Jewish communities were decimated) by the Nazis and their enablers during the Holocaust, so how could I have been so far removed from Holocaust awareness and stories?

All of my father's grandparents, almost all aunts and uncles, too, made it to the United States well before the Holocaust. He grew up in a large extended family on both sides. Only after I was married did I hear that two of my grandmother's sisters stayed in the USSR; they were great believers in their country, and since the war there hasn't been any contact.

On the other hand, my mother was raised without any aunts, uncles or cousins. Her parents were alone in America, and she has no idea what happened to the rest of her family.

Great-Grandmother Vishnevsky

 of Rogotshov, Belarus

Great-Grandfather Vishnevsky
 of Rogotshov, Belarus

After the war, no relatives searched for my grandparents on either side, and whatever searches they did for surviving relatives were unsuccessful. There may be distant cousins alive someplace in this earth, but I don't know them, at least not as cousins. When the big Russian FSU aliyah made it to Israel over twenty years ago, I told my family story hoping for some miracle to find long lost relatives, but I failed. My father's two missing aunts were called Milka and Nechama Brynien, born in Rogotshov, Belarus, and my maternal grandmother's family was the Vishnevsky's of Rogotshov, Belarus. From some old pictures, there probably were family members in Minsk, too, and other nearby cities. My maternal grandfather was Abraham Shankman, born an orphan, raised by grandparents without any siblings.

That's why, at least to my knowledge, there were no Holocaust survivors in my family.

Holocaust Memorial Day, Worse to Come?

Credit: United with Israel

One of the big adjustments for me as a mourner of a parent, a status that lasts a Jewish Year, is that I'm not permitted to watch my usual entertainment on the television, or my favorite movies--mostly old musicals-- on DVD. I've been listening to a lot of shiurim, Torah and Tanach (Bible) classes from the computer, mostly Matan where I study, and I have no problem with newscasts.

In Israel there are two days a year when all the television programs suit the restrictions of mourners. As according to Jewish Tradition, the day begins at night, so last night on the Eve of Holocaust Memorial Day there were all sorts of television shows about the Holocaust, survivors etc. One I found particularly annoying and political; it was on Israel's Chanel 1. Their news editors do their best to turn even the weather into complaints about the government, and they had an "expose`" of sorts emphasizing the difficulties many elderly "survivors" have financially and how some sort of fall between the bureaucratic cracks, because they don't fit the clerical and/or legal definition of "survivor."  They may have been too young or escaped too early or stayed in Europe too long to get German reparations which helped so many people financially. And now they are decades past retirement age, and like many elderly, have serious financial problems which they hope the Israeli Government can solve.  I changed channels.

I caught another program with interviews and films of survivors returning to their "former homes/countries" where they had suffered. There was also a Holocaust movie with Daniel Craig that I watched a bit until they had a crazy scene that meshed together Jewish wedding music and a battle.

Everyday fewer and fewer survivors, witnesses to the atrocities of the Nazis and too many others remain alive and/or capable of telling their tales. Yad Veshem and the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive are rushing to film and tape everyone who can possibly tell a first person tale of the Holocaust and survival. A friend of mine and her siblings recently accompanied their father back to Europe on a trip filmed by one of these groups.

The Holocaust was a very black and evil time in World History, and we shouldn't forget that it happened in advanced and cultured Europe. That's a message we must take to heart, and that is why I consider the terrible anti-Israel/antisemitic rhetoric coming out of even the most respected, academic and "open/Liberal" universities all over the world so troubling. The distortions in their thinking, teaching and ideologies are even more dangerous than  Hitler's rantings and Mein Kampf.

I see myself as a realist, a pragmatist. Do you agree?

Holocaust Day, "Medinat Tel Aviv" Media hasn't a Clue

First of all, thank G-d all is well. The story why I haven't been blogging is a simple click away.

Here in Israel Holocaust Day is a major memorial day. Children from the youngest ages are told stories of the Holocaust as "age appropriate" as possible, especially considering that the message is like in the story of Purim, when our enemies condemned us all, from infants to the elderly.

Israel's "founding fathers" were mostly from Europe or their families were. Yiddish was a language many spoke or grew up hearing. In the early decades of the state, and in some Israeli social circles even today, There is discrimination by the ethnic European Jews against North African Jews. Unfortunately Holocaust Day has become a focal point of this problem.

Last night I heard a television talk show about the pros and cons of Holocaust Day, and the discussion ended up on that subject and the claim that the holocaust is/was a European tragedy and not a Jewish one, The panel went into the wrong direction. One speaker said that the solution was to stress the "universal" aspect, which is what Yad Vashem has done of late. That is not what today's Israel must do.

In today's Israel the message should be something totally different. It could be that the "Medinat Tel Aviv" Media is unfamiliar with what I would stress. I think that it is important to point out that the Ashkenaz-Sefard (Europe-North African) divide is rapidly blurring. Among our family and friends here in Israel, our grandchildren are not of the same ethnic groups we are. My paternal great-grandparents' great-great-grandchildren are Yemenite, Tunisian and part-Moroccan. This is the "new Israel." I had expected the panel to mention it.

Yes, today you can find Yemenite, Iraqi, Tunisian, Jews, yes, Jews from all ethnic groups who are descended from Holocaust victims and survivors. No one Jewish ethnic group owns the Holocaust and no single ethnic group is removed or immune. This is the New Israel and this is the true Jewish People.

Unfortunately, Holocaust Memorial Day is a Political Photo-Op

I really didn't plan on a post like this, but when I was writing my Havel Havelim promotion post on me-ander, this just came out.

Holocaust Memorial Day is when Israeli and Jewish leaders make all sorts of wonderful speeches that make them all sound like strong Right wing leaders, yes, to the Right of Jabotinsky and Uri Tzvi Greenberg. No doubt there are professional speechwriters who make a killing during this season, like those who can live a full year off of their etrog sales. I know that I sound like a terrible cynic, but I'm telling the truth.

Many of you know that I don't take speeches, especially by politicians very seriously. I see it all as an act, theater. I'll never forget reading a very interesting thing that former United States President Ronald Reagan, who came to fame first as a screen actor, said about how when he entered politics people put him down because of his acting profession. But after being president for a while he realized that it would be hard or impossible to do his job as president if he hadn't had acting experience.

Photo Credit: Flash 90

Both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres could easily have made it as professional actors. They have the charisma and presence. They can be very convincing even when you know they aren't telling the truth. The same goes for the former and disgraced PM Ehud Olmert. Yair Lapid and other Israeli politicians first made their name and fame on the TV screen.

There are many people who feel the weight and tragedy of the Holocaust daily. It may not be something they can talk about. Lorrie posted a very haunting poem from the Holocaust that says more than all of those professional speeches.

“I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when he is silent.
I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone’s there
But a voice rises within me, saying hold on
my child, I’ll give you strength,
I’ll give you hope. Just stay a little while.
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there’s no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.
May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace….“
– Unknown

I found an old post of Rafi's which also says more than the speeches.

Wertzberger was a young boy, assigned to work detail shlepping heavy rail ties with his bony hands. When it was meal-time, he joined all the other hungry boys to go get some food and satisfy some of that hunger.
While lining up for his food, the Nazi officer looked at him with disgust and said, "You dream to go to your Jerusalem? Maybe your ashes will get there via the chimneys of the concentration camp."Eventually, Wertzberger succeeding in surviving the horrors and made his way to Eretz Yisrael, where he got a job in maintenance of the Kotel. Wertzberger said, "I never looked at the watch. Every minute I wanted to give what I could. Every time I cleaned the stones of the Kotel, from where the Shechina never left, I felt that I was getting revenge on that Nazi officer. This is the most Jewish vengeance that there is." (source: Kikar)

Honestly, I lost all faith in Bibi Netanyahu when I heard him speak at the first (of only two) International Jewish Bloggers Conventions when he followed up on a fantastic historic overview of how there have always been Jews in the Land of Israel and the dangers we're facing as a nation by saying that as a politician he's a Centrist, even though it may contradict what he had just told us.

At the time he was gearing up to run again in Knesset Elections to be Prime Minister. He made it very clear that his Centrist stand was a strategy and he'd do an say whatever to be Prime Minister again. That was no lie. It was a clear admission of his ambition. That's what politics is all about. Most politicians are the same. They will do and say whatever they think will attract voters. You may call me a cynic; I call myself a pragmatist.  I've been observing politics and politicians for half a century. It's the same all over the world. The person who is best at charming the voters wins.

When I was a student at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University many years decades ago we were assigned to write a parody of a speech for a politician campaigning. I got a very high grade on it, and one line has stayed in my mind ever since:

"I want what you want."

Yes, so when I hear all of these brave speeches on Holocaust Memorial Day I groan. They are just speeches, just words. The truth is that Jewish leaders, Israeli leaders and world leaders today are no different from those in the late 1930's and early 1940's.  It's sad but true.  I'm not interested in listening to their empty-worded speeches, those well-crafted expensive lines filled with pathos and tears. I don't see any real leadership and the guts needed to do what's right.

Where is our modern Pinchas willing to execute the public sinners? The State of Israel doesn't even execute convicted Arab terrorists.

HOLOCAUST! Can it Happen Again?

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel.  Here we are almost seventy years since the Nazis were militarily defeated by the "allied forces," there are hardly any more survivors still alive and Holocaust memorials are bigger than ever in Israel.

Israelis commemorated Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day Sunday night, marking the start of 24 hours during which schools, government offices, the IDF and local municipalities will hold ceremonies to honor those murdered by the Nazis and their helpers.

The national flag was lowered to half mast at 8 p.m. at the start of the main ceremony wat the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke and Six Holocaust survivors lit memorial torches in memory of the 6 million Jews who were murdered.

The IDF Chief of Staff  Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz  led the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau.  Even on our small old TV screen, you could see the tears he fought to hold in during the ceremony.  In Israel, even the greatest generals are Jews who can cry when confronting the Holocaust.



At Rami Levy, Sha'ar Binyamin, the workers, both Jews and Arabs rushed under extra stress to close the giant discount supermarket early so workers could attend Holocaust Memorial Ceremonies, because the main road #60 was to be closed for United States  Secretary of State Kerry's return trip from Ramallah to Jerusalem.  If they didn't finish on time, everyone, Jews, Arabs, employees and customers, would be "locked in" Sha'ar Binyamin until the convoy was considered safely through.

Considering all of the Holocaust history which is part of Israeli culture, are we immune from another massive slaughter of Jews?

Prior to Nazi Germany's systematic murder of six million Jews and a few million other "undesirables" by Nazi standards, the world, including the victims thought the idea of such a slaughter totally impossible, unthinkable.

Step by step and stage by stage, there was denial and confident misreading of the signs.  Those who did see the dangers, like Ze'ev Jabotinsky were condemned and shunned by the mainstream Jewish World.

The following is a translation from Yiddish of Jabotinsky's touching and sad speech in Tisha B'ev, Oct. 24, 1938, Warsaw, Poland. It was his prophetic warning to his people, to the masses of his brothers and sisters:
"It is already three years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry, who are the crown of World Jewry. I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer, I became gray and old in these days, my heart bleeds, that you dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all consuming lava. I see that you are not seeing this because you are immersed and sunk in your daily worries. Today, however, I demand from you trust. You were convinced already that my prognoses have already proved to be right. If you think differently, then drive me out of your midst. However, if you do believe me, then listen to me in this 12th hour: In the name of G-D!! Let anyone of you save himself as long as there is still time, and time there is very little. (complete article here)

Remember, too that the allies' defeat of the Nazis had nothing whatsoever to do with rescuing Jews.  They fought to save European countries and Great Britain from Nazi rule. And remember that the military experts, post 1967 Six Days War were certain that the Arabs would never dare risk attacking us again.

We should be seriously worried by the rise in anti-Semitism.

Report: Anti-Semitism worldwide up by 30% in 2012

A new report published Sunday, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, noted a 30 percent increase in anti-Semitic violence and vandalism worldwide in 2012.

The report, by Tel Aviv University's Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, said the past year had seen "an alarming rise in the number of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks against Jewish targets, and an escalation in violent incidents against Jews worldwide."

The report presented an extensive review of various anti-Semitic trends, including anti-Semitic discourse in the public and political spheres and similar expressions on the Internet, especially in social media. Facebook and Twitter, the report said, have become a breeding ground for anti-Semitic and fascist groups promoting hatred against Jews.

It's dangerous to ignore and whitewash such things.  Remember that most people, including Jews and Israelis refuse to take Arab threats to destroy and annihilate the State of Israel seriously.

This official PA map of "Palestine” was broadcast on PA TV in September 2011. The map includes both the PA areas and all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights) wrapped in the Palestinian flag - a symbol of Palestinian sovereignty over the whole area - and has a key through it, symbolizing ownership. Similar maps presenting all of Israel as "Palestine" appear in Palestinian schoolbooks and are shown regularly on PA TV.

We mustn't be overconfident and ignore the threats against us.  That should be the lesson of the Holocaust.

What Makes Me Different From Many Other Jews of My Generation...

To set the mood, watch the new version of the classic Passover song Chad Gadya:

Unlike many of my peers of the immediate post World War Two Jewish world, I was brought up totally oblivious of the Holocaust.   No, it wasn't a silent, repressed and repressing shadow shading and affecting my life.  It just didn't exist, didn't affect my immediate family.  My parents' voices and those of the other neighborhood grown-ups were totally American though with Jewish inflections and Yiddish slang.  And before you guess wrong, I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, New York.

The fathers in the spanking new garden apartment neighborhood of Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, New York, were all United States military veterans.  That was a condition of acceptance to the Veterans Authority co-op.  I wonder if any sociologists have written their doctorates on why that and other similar housing developments were almost exclusively filled with young Jewish families.  BPG was over 90% Jewish and so were the other nearby garden apartments, Oakland Gardens and Windsor Park.  The same went for the one and two-family homes in the neighborhood.  All of the new, post-WWII neighborhoods in northeastern Queens were Jewish.  Churches could only be found in older, pre-World War Two areas.

I first heard about the Holocaust when The Diary of Anne Frank was published.  It was featured on television shows, and I probably heard about it in Oakland Jewish Center's Hebrew School, which I attended for five years, three days a week.  At that time there weren't many books, especially for children, written about the Holocaust.  I tried to take out The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich from the Hebrew School Library, but the librarian offered me Minister of Death, about Eichmann, instead.  I presented it to my Sixth Grade class for an oral bookreport.  As soon as I named the book and author the teacher interrupted:

"No sixth-grader is capable of reading a book by Quentin Reynolds.  You must be lying.  You get a zero!!!"

In those days, one didn't question authority, certainly did  not argue with teachers.  I did read the book, though I probably didn't fully comprehend it.

I only became aware and met children of Holocaust survivors when I joined Betar.  Many of my Betar friends had the opposite Jewish childhood.  All of the parents in their circles were survivors or got out just in time.  Think of it as an old film picture and negative.  From different directions we ended up embracing the same ideology.  Many of us made aliyah and live in Israel.

My children, Israeli born and raised, grew up with strong knowledge and awareness of the Holocaust.  Jewish History is intertwined with Israeli culture and education.  Personal history, stories of bravery and survival from their friends' grandparents give them an intimate knowledge beyond anything I can comprehend or pass on.

Today is Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day.  It's a day I feel as a stranger here in Israel.  That may sound peculiar considering my politics and ideology.  Regardless as to how I arrived, I have no doubt that as a Jew my place is the Land of Israel.

The True Lesson From The Holocaust

Arlene Kushner has an excellent article on YNET explaining what has been missing in Israel's hasbara, information campaign.

This is a very long-running problem. Nothing is new at all.

Today, being Holocaust Remembrance Day, it fits for me to criticize Israeli and Jewish leaders' reliance on a false premise that many in the non-Jewish world support us because we lost so much in the Holocaust. The world didn't care when Jews were being systematically and legally discriminated against when the Nazis first took over Germany, by democratic means, and they didn't do anything at all to stop the legally sanctioned murder of Jews.

We have no cushion of support and sympathy. It's a myth.

How many world leaders have clearly apologized for what was done to European Jewry?

The legitimacy of the State of Israel isn't derived from the ashes of dead Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Yes, murdered; they didn't perish!

I guess I'm in a very tiny minority of Jews, because I consider the Holocaust misused. I don't want anyone's sympathy. I don't want their money as "reparations." By emphasizing the money, the financial losses, there has been a de-emphasis of the moral aspect, the moral responsibility of Germany, Europe, the United States and the rest of the world.

By demanding money and not demanding that the world admit its guilt, World Jewry has failed. And that is the foundation of the constant condemnation we suffer from the United Nations and all the so called human rights organizations.

If World Jewry hadn't considered money as the payoff for the Holocaust, we wouldn't be witnessing Durban II right now.

According to Jewish Law, Teshuva, Repentance is dependent on first admitting sin. That is stage one.

Instead of just walking out on Ahmadinejad's speech, the European countries, the Unites States, Canada, Israel etc should walk out of the United Nations, banish it from New York and stop all the financial support.

The United Nations is a disaster. Without western money it would fold up. And that's what it should do. It's dominated by fascist, racist hypocrites who blame everything on Israel.

The lesson of the Holocaust is that we, the Jews, can't count on anyone, on any other nation or people.

Our strength must come from ourselves,

our unity and G-d.

UN Watch, Worth Watching

The UN Watch surprised the delegates at the U.N.’s “anti-racism” conference, known as Durban II. The chairwoman kept banging her gavel and interrupting the Arab doctor who had been imprisoned in her country. She kept insisting that he was off-topic.

Here are two videos of it:






And here is the short and clever video produced by Israel to illustrate the vast variety of races living together here in Israel.




Honestly, I don't think the way to influence the United Nations or most other countries is to be "nice" and amenable. No doubt the countries which walked out of the conference in protest were inspired by the fact that Israel, the USA and others didn't attend.

We're better off just cancelling our membership in protest and saving the money we waste. We'd probably make more friends by standing up for our rights and not being afraid of foreign disapproval.

Tonight and tomorrow are Holocaust Memorial Day. What country in the world did anything to try to stop the murder of the Six Million Jews and the millions of others the Nazis decided didn't have the right to live? A few individuals, yes, but not a single country. And yes, that includes the United States which refused entrance to refugees.

Remember that the United States did not fight the Nazis for the sake of the Jews. And Britain didn't either. Both countries fought the Nazis for their own benefit. Great Britain just wanted to survive, and the United States didn't want the Nazis to attack the United States, so it joined, rather late, Britain in the battle to contain them in Europe.

After the allies defeated the Nazis, then the Jewish prisoners in the death camps were discovered. Many of them died, because they were overfed, given the wrong foods by the American soldiers.

The message we must understand from the Holocaust is that we are alone, alone with G-d and we can't trust any other country, organization or leader to care about what happens to us.

"Yisrael Batach B'Hashem!"

"Israel, Put Your Faith in G-d!"