Tag Archives: American Jewish Life

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” – By Nathan Englander – Book Review

24 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Stories, Uncategorized

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What I appreciate most about Nathan Englander’s new collection of short stories, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (publ. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), is not only his gifts as a writer, story teller and psychologically sophisticated observer of people, but that he actually knows something about Judaism, Jewish history, modern Orthodoxy, Ultra-Orthodoxy, the secular Jewish world, the state of Israel, and the place of the Holocaust in the psyche of the Jewish people.

Mr. Englander was born in 1960 in New York, raised on Long Island and educated in Orthodox schools through high school. In his mid-thirties, he moved to Israel where he lived for five years, but returned to the states and moves between Brooklyn, New York and Madison, Wisconsin where he teaches fiction and creative writing.

His Jewish/Israeli/secular background plays itself out in all his stories. He is at once an insider and outsider, sympathetic to the Jew as victim and vanquisher, and he knows Jewish tradition, though I suspect he  is no longer Orthodox himself. I sense, as well, that despite the darkness that undergird his stories, he sees the world through a comic and ironic eye as some of his stories are at once absurd and hysterical.

Englander’s eight stories, mostly involving Jewish characters and 20th century Jewish experience, touch upon many themes; the limits of love using the Holocaust as a backdrop in the title story (“What we Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”); the very different fates and destinies that befall two Israeli sisters who move into the West Bank after the 1967 Six Day War with their husbands and children to establish a settlement that eventually grows into a city (“Two Sisters”) – one sister loses her husband and all her children in war and a freak accident and the other survives with 9 children; the revenge-filled encounter with an anti-Semitic bully in America that is reminiscent of Bernard Malamud (“How We Avenged the Blums”); a dream sexual fantasy of a married protagonist who has lost his faith but is still plagued by Orthodox Judaism’s moral strictures (“Peep Show”); the influence of a person’s family history, familial bonds and memory on his heart, mind and soul long after everyone has died (“Everything I know About My Family On My Mother’s Side”); the ease towards paranoia among Holocaust survivors who, in an unlikely setting of an American seniors summer camp, accuse another survivor of being a former Nazi (“Camp Sundown”); the pain and loneliness of a once famous writer whose fan base is now old, dying but ever-demanding (“The Reader”); and the legacy of the death camps on a boy survivor who returned after the liberation as the only one left in his family to his boyhood home to discover his “governess” plotting to murder him in order that her family will keep his family’s farm (“Free Fruit for Young Widows”).

Every story is provocative, imaginative, engaging, entertaining, moving, and memorable. As a whole, they challenge the modern Jew to think about the nature of one’s Jewish identity in modernity, the role of religion, God, faith, culture, and history in forming who we are, and our capacity for evil and revenge. These stories are complex and operate on multiple levels from the real to imaginary to allegorical. They will leave you impressed by Englander’s skills,  moved and wondering – who am I?

Two Narratives – Two Truths

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Stories, Uncategorized

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Much will be said in the coming days and weeks about what negotiations mean, what Israel and the Palestinians are willing to do and give up, whether the gap is just too wide, and whether a two-state solution is possible given current thinking on both sides.

I have just begun reading an important new book published last year called Side By Side – Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine edited by Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-on (zal), and Eyal Naveh of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). Developed over the last 15 years by Palestinian and Israeli scholars and educators, this work represents a wholly new way of teaching the Middle East to Israeli and Palestinian High School students. Regardless of one’s identity, both sides likely will be surprised that, more often than not, each holds a one-dimensional view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will obstruct peace-making.

The two narratives and interpretations of the meaning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are set side by side in 400 pages. Clearly, we live in two worlds and our understanding of the same historical events are very different.

Each side’s better understanding of the “narrative” of the other will hopefully result in a softening and opening of the heart to the other’s identity and experience.

No one in the Middle East wants to be a fry-ar (Israeli slang; “sucker”). Negotiations will be very difficult.

We here should be giving Secretary Kerry every benefit of the doubt in his efforts to facilitate negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians towards a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution of this conflict. Criticism of Kerry should be silenced. Mocking him, especially by Jewish media pundits should be quelled. What is important now is to support this renewal of negotiations. The alternative to a two states for two peoples resolution is more war, more suffering and a darkening of the landscape to death and the destruction of dreams.

The Challenge of Defining Who is a Jew and What is an Israeli Today – A Book Review

30 Sunday Jun 2013

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The 188th Crybaby Brigade – A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah, by Joel Chasnoff (publ. 2010) is a well-written, insightful, at times hysterically funny memoir of a young American Yeshiva bucher who sought to live the complete modern Jewish experience while shedding the diaspora coat of victimhood. He made aliyah, enlisted in the Israeli army, did basic training, was chosen “Outstanding Soldier of the Platoon,” fought the Hezbollah as a tank commander in Lebanon, and got engaged to a beautiful Israeli woman.

One would think that he had arrived. But not so fast!

Joel’s army experience was not what he expected. He was, in fact, disheartened by the capricious, nasty, sadistic, and dehumanizing treatment of recruits by some of the commanders. Yet, after three weeks of training he reflected that

“…mandatory army service is the reason why Israelis are the way they are: aggressive, hotheaded, and stubborn on the one hand, and, on the other, unbelievably generous and community minded. It’s because these are army values. And since just about every Israeli comes of age in the army, these values become national values.”

When he finished his service, Joel and his fiancé Dorit sought out an Israeli Orthodox rabbi to officiate at their wedding, but upon inquiring into Joel’s family past, the rabbi said, “You are not a Jew!”

As Joel and Dorit sat there bewildered, the rabbi explained that though Joel’s mother had converted before he was born with an American Orthodox rabbi, she was instructed by a Conservative rabbi who “practiced an invalid brand of Judaism.”

Dorit was furious, and, pounding her fist on the desk, shouted, “A young man risks his life for the Jewish state, and you have the chutzpah to say [he’s not a Jew]… Rabbi, did your sons serve in the army?… You don’t mind if he dies for your country, so long as he doesn’t get married here.”

Joel was devastated: “It’s as if my entire identity just got kicked in the nuts, and then it hits me: As far as this country is concerned, I’m a Gentile….I was enraged at how Israel had stabbed me in the back.”

He then reflected about his identity and Israel’s dilemma:

“I was a Jew, through and through. I couldn’t reinvent myself if I tried…. I’m not the one [however] with the identity crisis. Israel is. I know exactly who I am, but after two generations in which Israel defined itself as a post-Holocaust haven from antiSemitism – in other words, the past – Israel now faces a much greater challenge: defining its future. In the meantime, the country has no idea who it is. It’s a democracy with no separation between church and state. It’s a sovereign nation with only one rigidly defined border: the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a Jewish state where observant Jewish soldiers have to choose between breakfast and prayers, where the most religious Jews don’t even have to serve in the army, and where the criteria for getting drafted aren’t enough to get you buried in the military graveyard. The country is confused. Meanwhile, at the top of the pyramid is this tiny group of rabbis who think they’re Kings of the Jews and therefore get to decide who’s in and whose out. But the Kings of the Jews are out of touch, because they fail to realize that Israel’s future, if it has one, depends on all the reject-Jews they’ve been pushing away from the table: the half-Jews and intermarried Jews, the queer and bi Jews, the women rabbis and young, freethinking Israelis who crave spirituality, not just restrictions, and the children of supposedly illegitimate converts, like me.” (p. 255-256)

The author articulates the central challenge of the Jewish people and State of Israel today. Who are we and what are we becoming? Are we stuck in the past governed by narrow religious definitions and extremist politics, or are we inclusive of all religious streams, expansive in our thinking and moving forward?

Despite his feelings, Joel decided to convert, but admitted:

“The stage in my life where I could innocently take for granted that I belonged to the Jewish people simply by virtue of being me-when I dunked in the water, that part of my life ended and a piece of me died. Even though I chose to convert, I’m furious at Israel for forcing me to choose, for humiliating me, for making me stand naked before three rabbis. I’m also furious at myself for going through with it, because by dunking in that pool, I accepted their claim that it is they, not I, who get to determine who I am.”

Joel and Dorit married and now live in Chicago. Their decision to leave Israel is a great loss for the State.

Vocally Support the American Effort to Reach a Two-State Solution Now

11 Tuesday Jun 2013

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Those who say that PA President Abbas’ constant refusal to sit down with PM Netanyahu without preconditions to restart negotiations for a two-state solution is an indication that he and the Palestinians are not able or willing to make peace is not the entire story.

When Israeli government leaders like Likud MK Danny Danon make statements that the government of Israel does not support a two-state solution, we have to understand that the Palestinians can legitimately argue that Israel too (at this point) is not a real partner for peace despite Bibi saying he is for a two-state solution.

Further, When PM Netanyahu insists that the Palestinians accept Israel as a “Jewish state” (which raises all kinds of problems internally including what “Jewish” means and who decides, and that such a designation excludes 20% of Israel’s non-Jewish population) as opposed to the “Democratic state of the Jewish people” (which includes all Jews and every other non-Jewish citizen) Palestinians can legitimately argue that he is throwing obstacles in the way of finding a two-state solution.

Remember that no Israeli Prime Minister before Bibi ever made the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” The PLO and PA have recognized the state of Israel, but not with any more specificity than that – and why is it even necessary if a secure two-state deal can be reached? Israel will define itself. All that is necessary from the outside is that it recognize Israel – and that has already occurred.

The Palestinians claim that they have no partner for peace in the Israeli government. Some Israelis claim they have no partner for peace among the Palestinians. There is truth in both claims. It is a mistake to lay all the blame on one side.

There has been a powerful silence among all American Jewish organizations in support of the Obama-Kerry mission except the Union for Reform Judaism and J Street. Why is that? I suggest that far too many of our organizational leaders are being led by cynicism and fear.

That negativity will not bring us closer to a secure two-state solution, which is in America’s best interest, Israel’s best interest, and the Palestinian’s best interest. Rather, we need to be supporting Secretary Kerry vocally, letting the Obama administration as well as our senators and congressional representatives know of our support (call and email them all) and let the American effort take its course. Indeed, we will know in the next 2 to 4 weeks what success, if any, this American effort will have.

Even former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel cannot afford for this American diplomatic effort to fail.

I ask that those who have already decided that a two-state solution is not possible to ask themselves what is the alternative – one state that loses Israel’s Jewish character or an endless occupation that loses Israel’s democratic character?

Time is not on Israel’s side, and the only way to secure Israel’s future as a democracy with a Jewish majority is in a two-state solution. If you love Israel as a democracy and the state of the Jewish people, this is the ONLY alternative.

Let your representatives know how you feel and support everything the American government can do to promote a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to this age-old conflict that results in two states for two peoples.

    

Secretary Kerry’s Speech and J Street’s Open Letter to the American Jewish Community

06 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a powerful and important speech [watch] at the American Jewish Committee conference, calling on American Jews to make their voices heard in support for negotiation efforts and a two-state solution. The speech was not given much attention from Jewish groups, but I, as a co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, believe that it is important to elevate Kerry’s call and to make sure that our community is vocally supporting Kerry’s efforts in the Middle East.

In that vein, J Street has released an open letter to the American Jewish community, which I hope will be circulated and read by many in an effort to galvanize support for a reinvigorated peace effort. The text of the letter can be found here. [ http://jstreet.org/blog/post/an-open-letter-to-the-american-jewish-community_1 ]

The next few weeks provide a critical window of opportunity to do all that can be done to ensure that negotiations move ahead. I urge you to use this open letter as a jumping off point to encourage to your friends and communities to vocally and actively support Secretary Kerry’s efforts.

Should Jews Say Kaddish for a Beloved Pet?

30 Thursday May 2013

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It is estimated that there are 70 million dogs in American homes today, in addition to millions of other animals Americans have taken into their hearts like members of their families. These pets are our companions and friends, and though they are not human beings, their significance cannot be underestimated in the lives of those who love them.

As a dog-lover myself, I understand the depth of connection and love that we can experience with a pet, as if souls are touching souls, and hearts are touching hearts, sweetly, purely, singularly, constantly, and joyfully. Therefore, when a beloved pet dies, I understand the sadness and grief that comes with the loss.

Last week a member of my congregation had to “put down” his very sick cancerous dog of 14 years, and he was devastated. He came to Shabbat services and asked me if it was appropriate for him to say the Mourner’s Kaddish publicly for his dog. This is how he described that unique relationship in his life:

“He was not only my friend and companion; my dog was an integral part of my family and, at times, my only family. When I first saw him in his litter, he was the puppy who got the most excited and wanted to come home with me. He was like a child, and I always felt that he looked at me not only as his master and caretaker, but as a parent. He trusted me as a puppy, as a dog in his prime, and in his last months when he suffered most from his cancer. Putting him down was extremely difficult, and I mourn him deeply.”

Please understand what I am about to say, especially if you have a relationship with a pet like my congregant’s relationship with his dog. Pets are not human beings. They are not our “children.” Yes, they are companions and dear to us (as my dog is to me), but there obviously are significant distinctions between human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom.

Judaism places high value on the compassionate treatment of animals. Beginning in Genesis, tradition affirms that animals, like humans, have a “soul” (i.e. nefesh chayah) though they lack a “higher soul” (i.e. n’shamah). In the Talmud there is a category of law called Tzaar Baalei Chayim (“Concerning the suffering of living creatures”) the main focus of which is to prevent the suffering of animals and to treat them kindly and with dignity and respect.

Understanding that many of us feel strongly about our pets and some feel more connected with their pets than they do with people, the Mourner’s Kaddish is meant to be said in memory of human beings, not animals. To say Kaddish out loud the way we would for a deceased parent, spouse, sibling, or child blurs distinctions between us and the rest of creation and is not a Jewish response no matter how liberal we may be.

And so I gently told my congregant that it is inappropriate to say Kaddish publicly for his dog. If he wishes to remember his dog when Kaddish is said, he should do so, but privately.

That being said, people whose pets die have a legitimate need to mourn and grieve their loss. There are many appropriate ways of doing this. Mourners can arrange for burial of their pet in a pet cemetery. Friends and family should reach out with sensitivity and love to mourners. Mourners might contribute charity to shelters that sustain animals until owners can be found, or contribute to organizations that advocate on behalf of the humane treatment of animals.

To my friend, I expressed my sorrow and understanding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I Recommend Peter Beinart as a Synagogue and Jewish Community Speaker

26 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice

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A column appeared in the May 20, 2013 Jerusalem Post by Rabbi Eric Yoffie entitled “Synagogues, Red Lines and Free Speech” that he wrote in response to the recent decisions of two synagogues in New York and outside Toronto to cancel appearances by Pamela Geller, an inflammatory anti-Islam activist, who Rabbi Yoffie characterized as a “a bigot and purveyor of hate.” http://blogs.jpost.com/content/synagogues-red-lines-and-free-speech

He used the incidents to revisit the theme of free speech in synagogue settings, and drew helpful “red lines” for rabbis and synagogue leadership when considering who to invite to speak.

Rabbi Yoffie writes first of the consequences of shutting down legitimate debate:

“A synagogue that shuts down discussion whenever a wealthy donor is offended may appease the donor but will ultimately drive away its own members and lose its standing in the community…”

He says, however, that some speech is inappropriate in synagogues:

“Synagogues must have red lines. A synagogue bima is not an open forum; it is a platform used by a Jewish religious institution to promote Jewish values and strengthen the Jewish people and the Jewish state. There are people who should never be invited to speak there and things that should not be said there.”

And he drew clear “red lines”:

“Invite those with a firm commitment to Israel as a Jewish and democratic  state; who, when criticisms are offered, will offer them with love and respect; and who are sensitive to Israel’s security needs and oppose terrorism against Israelis and Jews—indeed, who oppose terrorism in all forms and at all times.”  

Rabbi Yoffie noted that Peter Beinart has that “firm commitment” to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Truth to tell, Peter is among the most important speakers on Israel and the state of the American Jewish community that I have invited to my congregation in recent years.

Peter is the author of “Crisis of Zionism,” the senior political writer for The Daily Beast, editor of its blog “Open Zion,” and Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York.

Yes, his views are controversial. Nevertheless, as a modern orthodox Jew, his writings on Jewish values, the American Jewish community,  Zionism, the State of Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comport with surveys that show that most American Jews agree with most of the positions he articulates.

I invited Peter a year ago to debate David Suissa, the President of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, because despite the wide gap in their positions I wanted my community to hear two intelligent people argue respectfully the great issues facing Israel and the Jewish people, and they did not disappoint. (See http://www.jewishjournal.com/los_angeles/article/peter_beinart_and_david_suissa_debate_zionisms_crisis_20120517)

Given that Rabbi Yoffie mentioned Peter prominently this past week, I was curious to know what impact Peter’s writings have had and whether he had been invited to speak before congregations and communities despite the controversy his writings have stimulated.

I called Peter and learned that, indeed, he has spoken on a number of occasions to Reform, Conservative and Orthodox synagogue communities including my own at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles (Reform), as well as at Temple Israel of Boston (Reform), the Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. (Reform), Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan (Conservative), the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (Orthodox), Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan (Orthodox), Manhattan Jewish Center (Orthodox), and to other Jewish organizations including the 92nd Street Y, the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism’s Board of Trustees, the Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco JCCs, the Jewish Funders Network, and the Israeli Presidents’ Conference.

I know that there are those who remain uneasy about Peter’s views while many others who are unfamiliar with them. Both groups would find interest not only in his book, but in three articles he penned in The Daily Beast.

The first explains why he does not support BDS against Israel proper; http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/12/why-liberal-zionists-won-t-join-bds.html

The second explains why he believes Israel is not an apartheid state: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/why-israel-is-not-an-apartheid-state.html

And the third is harshly critical of the American political left for ignoring Hamas’ abuse and brutality against Palestinians living in Gaza: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/08/the-pro-palestinian-left-s-hamas-blindspot.html

In short, I encourage my colleagues, congregations and Jewish organizations to invite Peter Beinart to their communities to address the great issues confronting American Jews and Israel. His thinking is often different from what we hear from others. His approach, however, is a welcome alternative especially given that so many American Jews feel alienated from Israeli politics and policies, and uncomfortable with positions taken by much of the organized American Jewish community.

On Demolishing and Rebuilding our Chapel

23 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Art, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Jewish History

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Among the most compelling of Biblical verses is Exodus 25:8 – Asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham (“Make for me a Sanctuary that I might dwell in them.”) because it is the basis over three millennia upon which the Tabernacle, the Jerusalem Temple and synagogues have been built.

In mid-June we at Temple Israel will commence the final stage of a ten-year rebuilding project to be completed before the High Holidays of 2014. The first act is to demolish this Chapel. In late September after the High Holidays 2013 we will gut the lobby, social hall, library, and administrative offices.

In place of the old will arise a newly designed state-of-the-art enlarged light-filled multi-use space that can accommodate a congregation four times the size from what we had twenty five years ago.

Tonight we pray together in this Chapel for the very last time, and I want to reflect on its unique history, architecture and sacred character, and to respond to the question – What Jewish tradition says about demolishing a synagogue, as we are about to do?  

Generations have used this sacred space for worship, Torah reading, learning and life cycle events thus making it a place of holiness and memory.

The Chapel was built 60 years ago as part of the Briskin Building construction, and was named in memory of Isaac Chadwick, a founding member of Temple Israel of Hollywood and owner of Chadwick Studios.

It was built in the Bauhaus design (lit. “House of Construction”), the modernist  German arts, crafts and architectural movement that thrived between the First and Second World Wars. Bauhaus architects turned away from “fanciful experimentation,” and based their designs on what was considered rational, functional and standardized principles. Bauhaus elements include non-symmetrical forms, indoor-outdoor continuous space, and simplified design elements such as those on the right front wall evoking menorot, the glass on the eastern wall over the Ark, and our Ner Tamid (Eternal Light).

Our Aron Hakodesh, however, is not Bauhaus. It was commissioned in the mid-1930s by one of our early Temple leaders, the film producer Hal Wallis (e.g. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, True Grit, and Anne of the Thousand Days), who hired stage designers at Paramount Studios to create an Ark for the first Temple Israel building on Ivar and Sunset (now demolished). This Ark has a carved relief of Moses leading the people to the Promised Land.

There was a minor controversy at the time that Hal Wallis used Paramount Studio funds to build our Ark. He denied it and claimed that he paid for the Ark out of his own pocket and the studio workers built it on their own time.

We are likely the only synagogue in the world with an Aron Hakodesh designed and constructed by a Hollywood film studio. We will keep and display the Ark doors, though it will not be part of our new Chapel.

Emotionally it may be difficult for some among us to witness the demolition of this prayer space. Change is, after all, at times difficult. The larger question, however, is does Jewish tradition permit a community to demolish its synagogue at all?

There is nothing stated directly about this in the Hebrew Bible. However, based on verses in Deuteronomy (12:4-6) the rabbis legislated against destroying synagogues (Babylonian Talmud, Megilah 26b).

Rav Chisda (d. 320 CE) taught that a synagogue, however, could be demolished if a replacement synagogue were built first. We, of course, have not done so because the new Chapel will be built on the site of the old. Rav Chisda’s primary concern was based on his fear that even if the money were raised, the community might decide to use the funds for another purpose, such as the ransoming of captives (pidyon sh’vuyim) (Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 3b) thereby not building a synagogue at all.

If, however, there were already another synagogue available for worship adjacent to the demolished synagogue, other sages rule that the demolition of the older synagogue is permissible. Since our Nussbaum Sanctuary will be our “replacement” synagogue for the next 15 months and, of course, beyond, we see no violation of the tradition in what we are about to do.  

To the contrary, the plans for this new Chapel are inspiring (Koning Eizenberg Architects). It will be built upon the faith and traditions of the old.

Most of all, we will be able to fulfill the mitzvah – Asu li mikdash v’shachanti b’tocham (“Make for me a Sanctuary that I might dwell in them.”)

Chazak v’eimatz v’Shabbat shalom!

“A German Life – Against All Odds, Change is Possible” by Bernd Wollschlaeger – Book Recommendation

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Stories

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Bernd Wollschlaeger, born in 1958 in the small German town of Bamberg, is the son of a former Nazi tank commander and member of one of the elite units of the Wehrmacht, the Germany army, for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross personally by Hitler.

Bernd loved his parents and admired his father, but growing up he needed to know all about what his father refused to discuss with him, what the Nazis did to Europe, Germany and the Jews, and what was his role.

When Palestinian terrorists murdered Israel’s Olympic athletes in 1972, the German press noted that again Jews had been killed in Germany. The fourteen year-old Bernd wanted to know what that meant. However, he could not get a straight answer from his parents. What he learned about the Third Reich at school horrified him. When he asked his father about German crimes his father told him that Bernd’s “teachers were all communists and liars and that a Holocaust never actually existed.”

Curious too about Judaism and Jewish faith, Bernd sought out a small orthodox Jewish community in his home town where he met and befriended a Holocaust survivor who began to teach him Judaism. Increasingly rejected by his own family, these mostly elderly Jews became Bernd’s new family.

One day he read about a peace conference being held in a nearby German town for Israeli Jewish and Arab youth organized by Neve Shalom. He decided to attend and from that point on his life would never be the same again. He now wanted to visit Israel.

In 1978 Bernd sailed to the Holy Land. He was reunited with his Israeli and Palestinian friends, fell in love with Vered, one of the young Israeli women, visited his Palestinian friend Chalil, and prayed at the Kotel. There, before the ancient stone wall he felt a spiritual stirring he had never known before. A kindly Orthodox man, watching him in his reverie, approached and encouraged him to seek out and reclaim his n’shamah, his Godly soul.

Bernd returned to Germany, completed his medical degree, converted to Judaism, and made aliyah. These acts severed whatever bond was left with his father and family.

In Israel, Bernd joined the Israeli Defense Forces as a medical officer, served for two years in the West Bank during the first Intifada, married and had a son.

The First Gulf War frightened his American-born wife, and so with a heavy heart he agreed for her sake to move to Florida. They divorced three years later. Bernd remarried and had two more Jewish children. Today he is a practicing family physician and an addiction specialist.

Bernd wrote of his remarkable journey, love of Judaism and Israel, and self-search:

“Initially, I came to seek answers about the Shoah, the crimes committed by Germans against [the Jewish] people, and of course the role my father played during that part of German history. Now I feel that there are other issues I need to explore. Why am I so attracted to this country? Why do I feel at home here? Why does Jewish faith and prayer seem to touch something deep inside me? Now I am searching for who I am. Since we’ve been here in Jerusalem, I’ve felt so close to finding it, but I still don’t know….

Many stories have been told by survivors, but this memoir (publ. by Emor Publishing, 2007) is the first I have read written by a child of a perpetrator.

When his own children asked about his family past, Bernd vowed not to do as his parents had done:

“I decided to break the wall of silence and tell them the truth about me. I needed to express what compelled me to dramatically change my life. I finally had to explore the relationship with my father and how it was overshadowed by the Holocaust. Our unresolved conflict and his denial motivated me to search for answers, and I found them within me and my acquired faith: Against all odds, change is possible…”

Dr. Wollschlaeger spoke to my synagogue community during this year’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration. We came to know of him from our member, Claudia Ehrlich Sobral, a child of survivors and a documentary film maker who produced “Ghosts of the Third Reich” which highlights Bernd and several other descendents of high ranking Nazis confronting the legacy that each carries.

Bernd’s courage to confront the truth and the transformation he underwent in order  to create a new life despite his family’s past amazes and inspires. His memoir will move you and I recommend it.

Hag Shavuot Sameach!

Taglit-Birthright Ignores The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to Israel’s Detriment

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Uncategorized

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The article below is evidence that there are committed and passionate American Jewish college students who love Israel and want Taglit-Birthright to stop ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when it takes American college students on a 10-day free trip to Israel.

“Birthright Is Co-Opting Our Future” by Hannah Fishman appeared on The Daily Beast and speaks for itself.

It is not the first time I have heard that Taglit-Birthright, for all the good it has done in connecting hundreds of thousands of young Jews to Israel, may be doing Israel a disservice when it neglects to address fairly and comprehensibly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The writer, Hannah Fishman, is an International Relations student and the former West Coast Representative to J Street U’s National Student Board. She currently studies in Jerusalem and is J Street U’s National Political Advocacy Co-Chair.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/23/birthright-is-co-opting-our-future.html