My Family History and Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)

I'm taking a break from writing about Torah this week to write about

my family, how it was affected by the Holocaust (The Shoah), and to

share a few incredible stories.

The information I know about my Grandfather, Benjamin Taub's youth is

quite sparse. I know that he was born in Romania,in a city called Bitczkev, near a city called Sziget (about amile or two from where Elie Weisel was born). You can see where that is on the map - it's the red marker.

According to my grandfather,one day he went to school and they said, 

"Jews don't go to school." That was the last day he was enrolled in an educational

setting for the rest  of his life (he lived till his 70's).

My Zeidi (grandfather), Ben to the left.
His twin brother, Sam, on the right.

Upon reaching Auschwitz, he and his twin brother, Sam (who, sadly passed away about a month ago) were told that the Nazis were looking for twins, and if they were found together, that would be the end of the road. The two made a pact not to be seen with one another, or speak to one another, ever. For years they lived in the same few block radius, and did not speak. It's unbelievable.

After the war my grandfather was relocated to a displaced persons camp in Italy. 

He remembered fondly being called "Binjamino", and eating a lot of macaroni. Initially, these camps were funded by the Allies. Later on the American Joint Distribution Committee - AJDC funded them. To the right you can see a pictures of just such a camp on this page, and on their website. I'm honored to be an employee of AJDC. For the last three years I have written curriculum about exactly these moments in Jewish history.

             
AJDC ran orphanages after the war.
Photos with permission of USHMM Photo Archives

From Italy he participated in what's called "Aliyah Bet"- a tounge-in-cheek term for 'Plan B'.

Plan A was move to then Palestine legally. 

When that was not an option

(the British blockaded Palestine and did not let refugees in), organized movements including the Haganah arranged for boats to bring in survivors illegally. My grandfather's boat was stopped, as were many others, and rather than returning to Europe (which had cost him nearly his entire family) he jumped off the boat, and swam to shore. Unfortunately, he was tracked to land, and promptly picked up by the British military, and put in a detention camp / jail.

From one camp (Auschwitz), to another (the DP camp in Italy), to another (prison). It's unbelievable what some people of that generation lived through. 

The story goes that a cousin had left Romania before the war, and they somehow were notified that a person with the last name Taub was being held in jail. That person, Efraim Taub (who had settled in Rehovot in the early 1910's) either bribed a guard or paid some amount of money to have him released. No more camps for my Sabba (Hebrew for grandfather), now he had freedom, now he had to figure out what to do with his life.

In Rehovot, Binyamin tried his hand at key making, and even worked as

a bricklayer. That would not last long.

Being above 18 (read: of army age), Benyamin joined the Haganah - the predecessor to the IDF - the Israeli Defense Force. There he fought for Israeli independence in 1948, alongside his new brother in law, Moshe. 

After a few decades, a few more wars, and having had two of his three children (my mother Sarah, and my uncle Howard), Binyamin and his wife Rachael moved to the Goldene Medinah -"The Golden Country" - America.

In America my grandfather was a member of and helped support the Supinker Relief Association - a landsmanschaften - a group of people from a country now living in America, cooperating to make their lives better, jointly.

Green Road Synagouge traces its origins to a
handful of immigrants from Marmaresher Sziger,
Hungary, who established the Marmaresher B'nai
Jacob Society in 1910. 

My grandfather was a member of a temple,  referred to now as Green Road Synagogue. But if you look at the name on the building, it's officially "Shearit Marmoresh" - the remnant of Marmoresh, the area in Romania near the Carpathian Mountains that the founders were from - a lasting monument to the family they lost, the lives that were taken from them, and the relatives they'd never again see again -

The Jews of Romania that were killed in the Holocaust (nearly 85% of all Romanian Jews were killed in the Holocaust). 


In retrospect I feel like I grew up going to shul (synagogue) with the grandchildren of all those scarred survivors, in Beachwood Ohio - of all places. 

I'm not sure what lessons can be drawn, other than the intense loss and fragility of life.

Perhaps Yom Hashoah should be a day to reflect and feel thankful
for all that we have, all that was built on the backs of those survivors
with stories like my grandfather's. 

Perhaps it should also be a day of introspection -

Are we living up to the creed: Never Again?

Not just for us, but for anyone fighting for their right to live -
literally for the right to be alive, and also to live the way they see fit -
be in it in Syria, Darfur, Sudan, The State of Israel, or here in America.

I'm not sure. I know that we do have a responsibility to educate - 

Here are some of the curricula I wrote on the Holocaust, if you are interested in learning more or in teaching this material. 

• Kristallnacht - The Genesis of a Distaster
• The story of the event, eye-witness accounts of The Night of Broken Glass, and a lesson on The Righteous Among the Gentiles

• Yom Hashoah - Remembering the Fight for Life 
• Resistance and Nazi Propaganda  

• Bringing the Past to Light - 
• The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Partisan Poetry

• The Aftermath and Zionism
• Displaced Persons Camps and Zionist thought

• Voices and Images: Exploring Israel's 65 Years through the Arts 
• How have Israeli artists and poets shared their world views?

I do feel that if we only look back and mourn, we might be missing the point - the point these people figured out quite quickly: 

Freedom has a price, responsibility. Whether it's building a nation, founding a

landsmanschaften, or creating a community and a temple with like-minded people - they knew it was time. Time to heal, and time to grow. And they did - My grandfather had 6 grandchildren and now would count 4 great grandchildren.

What will we build? 

How will we use the memory of those who were cut off to make life anew? And perhaps most importantly, will we not just learn about, but also ACT upon our collective understanding: that evil unabated will thrive?

I'd love to hear your thoughts /comments.

Why Matzah? A Reflection on Passover - To be read before or during the seder.

Mark Chagall. Exodus Series.

It's Passover, and we eat the matzah and say: 

"We were slaves, now we are free people."

Ok, but: Why matzah?

• First idea:

1. We were in a rush when it was time to be free, and couldn't wait
for the bread to rise / God wanted us out of Egypt, and fast. 

Delivery and redemption - the change we so desperately wanted - couldn't come fast enough, we couldn't wait / God wouldn't wait, even the minimal time required for bread to rise. 

I think there's a power to this idea -- that which is unacceptable has to come to an end immediately.

Imagine if we thought about our modern day plagues this way...

• Second idea:

2. This is the bread of poverty - this is honestly the message I find
most meaningful - it's about remembering that, once upon a time the
only food we could afford or were given was matzah. Matzah is
delicious once, even twice, maybe even for a whole week if necessity dictates,

but the challenge is to imagine that this flat dry cracker was the entirety of
your diet.


And so we learn about pesach - it's about people that are living
subsistence lifestyles. As members of the lowest rung on the social
chain of Egypt, 

we learned what makes a people holy: treating humans
like humans.

The way the Seder proceeds is that through the telling and actions we are 
supposed to see "our selves as if we were in Egypt". We celebrate freedom, but we also mourn loss - the drops of wine at the ten plagues are a physical reminder that our happiness is lessened by suffering, even if it the suffering is felt by people that have done us wrong.




A story is told in our tradition about a king and his son, traveling through the desert. When the son has a need for water, the king orders that a well be dug and a sign placed showing the location. 

The prince, confused, asked: 'Why not just send someone to one of the nearby town to fetch water?'
The king responded, 'Right now we have access to water, but many years from now, when that town is no longer here you'll be able to access the water."


According to the tradition, that's what the holidays are to us -
access to the special energy of the day. On Shabbat we enter the
"palaces in time that we create", to quote Rabbi Heschel of blessed memory, 
and on each of the holidays we are called upon to dig deep, to tap into those reservoirs,
to access those special waters. So if Shabbat's special 'water' is rest and appreciation for the world of creation, what is the energy, the 'special water' we have access to on Passover night? 
Freedom. Freedom from tyranny - Pharaoh, and freedom from forced labor and poverty - Matzah.  


And so, we get to the meal - we sit, we eat, we sing, and by
consciously trying, we access that ancient energy - the special water
of the day that's only available right now. What is it? It's interdependence. 
We rely on God, the world, each other, and our tradition to build meaningful lives. 

Dayeinu - aren't we fortunate.

Wishing everyone reading a happy, healthy, and meaningful pesach.

Mick Fine

Three Passover Mistakes to Avoid

The word of the week is עוני (oni) it means poverty. The Passover Seder is kind of all about it. 
But we forgot, and made it all about songs, and afikomans, and frogs, and freedom, and slavery. 

Those are important too -- but why Matzah for freedom? We were in a rush. Or maybe there's more to it...

So what's Passover really about?

• It's about identity -  How do you see yourself? Are you impoverished? 

Probably not, you're reading this on a smartphone or a computer - either way, you're doing OK.

• But we're supposed to "see ourselves as if we had been" enslaved. We were so poor that ALL we had to eat was matzah. 

Not that matzah is bad, I quite like it with coffee (matza and kava was a staple of my

Ashkenazi Romanian upbringing) but ONLY matzah. No turkey for the matzah sandwich, no
Nutella. Just matzah. All the time.

• It's about saying things, things we mean.

                                                  "All who are hungry, come and eat." 

This is the saddest statement in the Haggadah.

It's sad because we say this not to hungry people (i.e. those for whom food
insecurity is normal) but to those people we invited, sitting at the table. If they're
hungry, it's only because it's getting to be around 7pm, and the Seder is lengthy.

DOES ANYONE NEED TO EAT??? COME!!!

We were supposed to put it into action. To physically get up and say:

- הא לחמא עניא דאכלו אבהתנא בארעא דמצרים, כל דכפין ייתי וייכול," כל דצריך ייתי יפסח.

“This is the bread of poverty – that our forefathers ate in the Land of Egypt. All that are hungry, come and eat; those who need – come and dine.”

So here are my 3 Pesach mistakes to avoid:

1. Singing songs without thinking about their meaning.
If you are singing a song about thanks (that's much of the songs) figure out
and say aloud in English what it is you're thankful for. 

To quote Rabbi Heschel z'l: 

"What's needed is a worship of the heart,

not a service of the lips."

2. Reading the Haggadah as if it were in indecipherable Sanskrit.

Today's Haggadah will tell you what all that funky Aramaic and Hebrew
means. Take a gander even 5 minutes beforehand - it's supposed to be
meaningful, but that only happens if you're involved in
meaning-making. If you only have an old-school Haggadah - it's time to invest.

3. Making it all about "them, then" and not at all about "us, now".
I am a teacher, so I understand - you need to talk about the ten plagues.
Let's start talking about modern day plagues too -- The kind that are
still plaguing us, and that we should work towards ending: 
Hunger,        Despotism,       Lack of clean water,      Bullying,        Racism,         Sexism,
Intolerance,  Greed,              Death from curable diseases 

- to name 9 - add one of your own.

It's not easy to affect change. I know. I grew up attending the Seder
that my grandparents organized, and it was like a high-speed bulldozer - 

if you got in the way of monotonous reading - prepare for destruction. 

15 years later one of my greatest regrets is not engaging my grandfather in

meaningful conversation about his Judaism, his Jewishness and personal connection. 
Don't accept a Judaism that doesn't speak to you. Speak to it. Make it your own.

OK, sure, sounds nice. But: How?


Here's 3 ideas. Try one, or come up with your own.

1. Do weird and new stuff. The whole point of the random Seder
elements was so that you could get down to business: saying, "What the
heck is going on here?!" (That's a loose translation of mah nishtana
by the way).
    

    - Pass a matzah over people's heads around the table (Moroccan
tradition). When someone invariably asks: "What the heck is going on
here?!" Answer: Matzah is supposed to be on our minds: once upon a
time we were so poor all we could afford to eat was matzah with a side
of matzah.

   - Put an orange on the Seder plate (Feminist custom) commemorating
the valiant efforts of the women in the Exodus story that are
thoroughly locked out of the Haggadah. The midwives refused Pharaoh's
orders to kill the baby boys (the first recorded act of civil
disobedience), and it was Moses' mother and adopted mother that saved
and raised him.

2. Tell stories.
           Tell the story of your family.  The holiday is all about ancestry, 

leaving one land for another, and reasons why - add your own family's
piece to the puzzle.
           Tell the story of your food. The blessing on the bread (in
this case matzah) is: Thank you God, ruler of the universe, that
brings matzah out of the ground. Except, matzah doesn't come out of
the ground. Someone has to seed, maintain, and harvest grain. Then
someone else has to process it into flour, take it on a truck to a
factory where people make the matzah - appreciating the process can
make even sawdust-like matzah a valued commodity. Engendering
appreciation is the whole point of blessings - don't miss the boat.

3. Add to the Haggadah -- it's really old.
Either buy a set of Haggadot (that's the plural) that has new, imaginative,

interesting readings and art in it, or add your own pages - see the bottom

of this post for one such page. I have a hard time watching 80's television,

why on Earth we would think that it will be exciting to read 380's texts 
without any eye for our world is beyond me.

If you'd like some resources to help in the process of modernizing the Seder here are a few:

1. An outline of the Seder* with notes on pages, and family friendly
activities. The Haggadah this is designed around is: "A Different
Night" by Mishael Zion - A GREAT Haggadah.

* My sincerest thanks to Professors Hauptman
and Tauber at JTS for their input and notes.
Matbeah was developed as a resource for the
Ohel Ayala Brooklyn Seder 2013

 


















2. If the topic of hunger is one you'd like to build on here is a source sheet with some Torah (ancient) and
a few voices (classical and modern) discussing the commandment to "open one's hand" to the ani - the poor person". This can 5 minute discussion material, or a whole lesson for you Day-School / Religious School / Hebrew School teachers out there. 

It's related to a topic that I think is very rich -- 

In what ways did being a slave in Egypt form our national identity?  Our idea of moral / ethical concerns? Of kedusha (holiness)?

Right click, Save, then Print.

3. Multimedia extravaganza. If you feel comfortable showing a video -
http://www.g-dcast.com  has a cute 5 minute cartoon on the four sons. Here it is:

4. I have developed two curricula on Pesach - If you are a teacher of Hebrew School / Day-School / Religious School or Adult-Ed - please check out these two links. Each is 5 activities / lessons, and It's free!

Looking for Heroes in the Exodus Narrative          AND        Pesach - A Living Tradition


Most importantly, have a happy and a healthy holiday.


Mick Fine
UJA-Federation Rabbinic Fellow
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America



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The Most Unpopular Parsha (Torah Portion) -- Leviticus

This week begins a new book of the Torah - Sefer Vaykira - ספר ויקרא - the first word of it is ויקרא which means "and ____ called", and here it is in the sentence below.

וַיִּקְרָא, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיְדַבֵּר ה' אֵלָיו, מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר. 

And Moshe was called to, and God spoke to him, from the Tent of Meeting, saying...

In Hebrew קריאה - kriyah means reading. These two meanings are probably connected, you can conjure up the image of the town crier, opening up the scroll of the king's decree and "calling" it out, i.e. reading it. 

It is also (for many) the most boring book of the Torah, hands down. 

Whereas
בראשית [Genesis] has, well, Genesis -
the beginning of everything:

the universe,
the creation of mankind,
the beginnings of the Jewish people,
the drama of Joseph, famines, marriages and sibling rivalry.

And שמות (Exodus) has, among other things,

a Bob Marley song named after it,
10 plagues,
a tag line: "Let my people go...",
a sea splitting in two (!),

and a major holiday (on our horizon - Passover) celebrating freedom.

Sefer Vaykira, AKA Leviticus, is
short on drama,
long on rules,
and is therefore the bane of the Bar / Bat Mitzvah kid that has this week's reading,
and the modern Jew, strapped with the task of making meaningful these ancient codes. 

So what's it all about?

Sacrifice. 

Sure, it's a buzz word, and very meaningful, but who really yearns for the good old days of burning cows and doves whole? Or for that matter the delightfully pleasing scent of incense mixing with freshly slaughtered and burnt animals?

Not I said the calf. Not me said the bird. 

 

But what's it all about for us?

• We could say: nothing. 

Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan developed the idea of revaluation, the process of looking through the tradition, and thinking honestly about what speaks to our moral and ethical needs - keeping those, and relegating the rest to the bin of archeology. He was a professor at JTS (Conservative), and a rabbi at the Jewish Center (Orthodox), and started The Society for the Advancement of Judaism (Reconstructionist). The idea, apparently is / was quite popular. 

After all, we don't sacrifice animals, we protect them. 

• We could say: it's about a calling. 

The people called Cohanim had their rites, their special tasks, the Leviim too, had their own roles (helping the Cohens, and moving the portable temple around on sticks - talk about the short end of it). The regular Israelites too had a role (if you were a male over 18 -- thanks for bringing this up last week Lizzie) you are called upon to be a part of the army, and responsible for funding the priestly system - the Cohanim are busy sacrificing and can't farm, so you'll need to pay into the system, so that they can afford to live too. 

We all have our roles to play, not everyone can or needs to be the Cohen, the rabbi, or the janitor, but they are each important roles. 

• Or you could say: it's about a system of holiness. 

Whether or not you want to think back on the days of sacrifice and say: Wow, I wish I had that opportunity! I imagine you would agree that holiness is a worthy goal, one that takes a heck of a lot of effort, and a community to accomplish. To quote our outgoing Secretary of State: "It takes a village" to be holy. 

And what is holy anyway?

In this book, which I hope I've started to convince you isn't so bad - we find out:

It's us. Well, kind of: 

Later on in this new book, we hear

וידבר ה׳ אל משה לאמר: דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת אליהם: קדשים תהיו... 

"And God spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the whole community of the people of Israel, and tell them: Be holy people..."

• When we stretch ourselves to include the community, and when we act as members of a people and not only as individuals - that's holy. 

• When we remember that it's not just the ark that holds the Torah, but also every person in attendance (and not) that's holy and worthy of our concern -- that's holy.

And that's what the prophet Micah was sharing, when he said:

What does God require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Want to learn more? Teach this idea? Check out the source sheet I made below. Just right click "Save image" open it and print. Let me know how it goes.  Mick Fine UJA & MAZON Rabbinic Fellow at JTS