The Death, The Life, Hatikvah

Thank God. Thank God I don’t know how to be homeless, or how to cope with having all of my belongings stolen. Thank God I don’t know how to be ripped from my mother’s arms, or how to never see her again. Thank God I don’t know how it feels to be stripped of my dignity, or my humanity. Thank God I don’t know how to lose everything. Thank God I’m one of the lucky ones. I am one of the “2nd generation”, the child of the child of a Jew who lived during the second world war... but the original generation was not so lucky. 

As a Jew in today’s world, I am obligated to carry on the legacies of those unfortunate souls who endured the horrors of the Holocaust, so as to ensure that their struggles for life cannot be forgotten, and so the phrase “never again” never has to be said again. One of the ways I can fulfill this duty is through education; by going to the sites where these heinous atrocities happened, and by learning as much as possible about the lives and tragic deaths of these people, I can become the gateway between the past, present, and future generations... and I have already begun this journey.

I traveled to Poland last week in an attempt to learn about the deaths, the lives, and the hopes of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe around and during the time of World War II. Throughout the masa, I visited many sites. While, of course, I visited places of tragedy, warfare, and death, I also was able to bring life back into communities that used to bloom with Jewish culture. 

One of the most impactful and meaningful moments of this trip, and possibly of my life to date, was leading Kabbalat Shabbat services in the Cheverai Lomdei Mishnaot synagogue in the little town of Oświęcim. While each synagogue that I walked through told a story, this one told my story. It told the story of the Szmulewsky family, a Jewish family who lived in Oświęcim. It told the story of Bluma, David, and Gershon, my grandfather’s extended family. That synagogue, the holy place of my family, told the story of how their community was slaughtered in the Holocaust, how David and Gershon were sent to Auchwitz, and murdered in the gas chambers... but my voice, ringing through that sacred space, brought them back.

The memorial candle I lit in the
Oświęcim synagogue

Their ashes remained scattered where the Nazis left them, but their souls returned. When my grandfather, a first generation Samuels, created my father, he liberated them from that death camp. When my father created me, he brought them a step closer to home. When I, along with my own Jewish community, sang, danced and offered praise to the same God that they believed in, I was able to finally bring them home. They went home, not only to their town, but to their family that had so little possibility of surviving, but did. I survived... we survived. My family tree continued to grow, despite the horrors of the Shoah, but many did not. Too many families were ended before the gas chambers were even built. In August of 1941, Nazi volunteers took approximately 2,000 of these lives in the Łopuchowo forest, next to the neighboring shtetl, Tykocin. The murderers marched the population of Tykocin into the forest, and forced them to start digging three enormous pits in the ground. They then stripped these Jews naked, lined them up on the edges of the pits, and shot them into the mass graves that they had just dug. While some died at the moment of being shot, some did not. As they laid in the pits, surrounded by the bodies of their families and friends, they were buried by even more warm corpses, and they died gasping for air. We know for a fact that these massacres took place because one woman, Rivka Yosselevska, survived to tell of how she, after watching her daughter be slaughtered, mustered the strength to climb out of the grave.

The entrance to the Łopuchowo forest,
where thousands of Jews
were murdered in pits

Being in this forest, and recounting Rivka’s story, I had an out-of-body experience; in a way, I felt like I became Rivka. Her strength filled my steps and her courage guided my thoughts. As I walked through the trees just as she walked, as I headed toward the grave that she was shot into, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride. Pride in my Judaism, pride in my community, and pride in my life. I sat on a tree stump beside one of the graves, and I heard a group of Israelis singing Hatikvah. I looked up from my notebook, and clutching the flag of the modern State of Israel, I sang the hope of my people. When the anthem ended, I turned back to my notebook, and wrote:

Hatikvah

The hope of my people,

My family.

Their bodies lie in this pit,

But their hope...

Their hope will never die.

I am their hope.

I am the future

For which they lost their humanity.

I am the future

For which they lost their lives.

I am them,

And they are me.

We are one people,

One prayer for peace,

One cry for hope

That will never die....

Am Yisrael chai.

Am Yisrael chai... the people of Israel live. Through the atrocities of the Holocaust, Jews found ways to not only survive, but truly live, in even the worst of conditions. While at Auchwitz 1 later that week, the place where my grandfather’s family was murdered, I learned of a man named Ovadia Baruch, a Jew from Salonika, Greece, who was brought to the death camp. While being beaten by one of the guards, he cried out “Madre!” in Ladino, and a woman, Eliza, recognized his accent. She went searching for him, and through passing secret notes to each other, became friends, then fell in love. In one note, Ovadia asked her if, given that both of them survive the war, she would marry him. She agreed, and was soon taken by Dr. Schmuel, a Jewish doctor, to Block 10, a barrack known for performing surgical experiments on Jewish women and girls.

Eliza survived the procedure that she believed had made her unable to conceive children, and both survived the war. Ovadia went looking for her, and eventually tracked her down. He asked again to marry her, and while she was unsure because of her infertility, she eventually agreed for the second time. The two married, and made aliyah, and soon, Eliza became pregnant with her first of two children. The couple later discovered that Dr. Schmuel had been executed for performing false procedures on other prisoners.

Sitting on the steps of Block 10

These people demonstrated true iberleben in the most heinous of the concentration and death camps. Eliza and Ovadia, two prisoners with no reason to expect a life longer than six more months, found motivation to live in their love for each other. Their secret notes, and their engagement was quite possibly one of the only sources of light in the darkness of their lives... but it was enough. They not only survived, they lived. Dr. Schmuel, unfortunately, did not live to tell his story. While being held captive in Auchwitz, this doctor, this Jewish man, knew that he would be executed if his false sterilizations were ever discovered by the Nazis. Despite this incredible danger, Dr. Schmuel had undying faith in the continuation of the Jewish people, and willingly sacrificed his future for that of the next generation.

My classmates: the future of
the Jewish people

The symbol of Jewish freedom,
made from bone fragments of Jewish
prisoners murdered at Auchwitz-Birkenau

As we look back to these stories of bravery and life during the Shoah, we, as Jews and as human beings, must comply with the statement of Rabbi Emil Fackenheim. He believed in the addition of the 614th commandment to those written in the Torah. He said, “Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victories, they are commanded to survive as Jews, lest the Jewish people perish.” By this, Rabbi Fackenheim was stating that if thriving Jewish culture died with the 6,000,000 people, Hitler’s goal would have been realized. In order to continue the Jewish people, we must not be afraid of our identities. We must learn every bit of knowledge about our collective history. We must pass on the legacies of our ancestors to our children, and never cease to take pride in the strength of our people. We must exercise the same faith, the same hope, as all of those who endured these horrors, and ensure that this never happens again. We must make absolutely certain that Am Yisrael chai... the people of Israel live.

Majdanek concentration and death camp

Pieces of smashed tombstones, made into a large memorial wall
in the Krakow cemetery

Me, holding the Israeli flag
at the gates of Auchwitz-Birkenau

Am Yisrael Chai...The People of Israel Live

Today we visited Tykocin, a place that was once a shtetl that bloomed with Jewish life. Now they are all gone. Now there are no Jews, only the mass graves into which over a million were shot. 500 years of Jewish life, massacred in 24 hours of horror. These were my thoughts as I sat next to a small plot of land, one of the 3 graves with so many unnamed bodies lying beneath the ground:






I walk down this path
intended for humiliation
intended for dehumanization
intended for death

I walk down this path
their voices echoing
their spirits singing
their souls never truly dying.





Hatikvah
The hope of my people,
my family.
Their bodies may be here
in these pits,
but their hope...
Their hope
will never die.

I am their hope.
I am the future
they lost their humanity for.
I am the future
they lost their lives for.

I am them
and they are me.
One people,
one prayer peace,
one cry for hope,
that will never die.




Am Yisrael chai... the people of Israel live.

I Am

Yesterday I was in Israel, learning about the devastation of the Holocaust. Today, I am in Poland, visiting the places where the devastation happened... where my people lived and died. I wrote this poem today while reflecting on my time in the Warsaw Ghetto.

I am not myself.
I am 4,000 years
of perseverance and determination.
I am the continuation of a people
who have died
so I can be alive.


But I am not myself.
I am the memory
of exodus from Egypt
and the joy
of reaching the Promised Land.
I am the song of hope
for a future generation
that so many prayed for.


But I am not myself.
I am an exiled people,
a people that learned to thrive
and make any place holy.
I am the synagogue
that my ancestors built
to keep their souls above ground
while their loved ones went under.


But I am not myself.
I am one of the unnamed,
one of the many in a mass grave.
I am the hero of the ghetto
that history has forgotten
but whose great-niece
can never forget
because she would not be here
if not for my bravery.


But I am not myself.
I am the tears of joy
on my grandmother’s cheeks
when she realized
that her people had begun
an era of redemption.
I am her laughter
at the moment
when she first held my mother
and knew that she would be safe.


But I am not myself…
I am a Jew.

Now Matter How Hard They Try, They Will Never Silence the Voices of the Righteous

The last few weeks have been INSANE!

First we did "Yam L'Yam", the 4 day trek from the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean. Long story short, I got back 2 and 1/2 weeks ago and I still have bug bites left over, I have become an expert of relieving myself in the woods and I have discovered that I hate not showering and sleeping on a very thin mat without a tent for 4 days in a row... But hey! I climbed a few mountains along the way, so it was all totally worth it.

From the top of Mount Hermon

Me trying to stay warm by
squeezing in between
Jillian (right) and
 Hannah (left) 

NFTY EIE praying Kabalat Shabbat
by the shore of the Mediterranean

 THEN MY FAMILY CAME!!!!!!! My mother and my aunt joined a bunch of other families on what's known as the "Family Pilgrimage" here on EIE. While I still had all my classes (bleh), and they were out touring the highlights of where we've already been, being able to spend meal times and prayer services with my family was so incredible, and I didn't want them to leave... I guess this whole "being away" business just shows me that I love them so much more! But while they were here, we got to share one of the most incredible experiences together as a family...

My mother, aunt and I, eating dinner with
my friend Stephen and his parents

November 2, 2016...This day will forever be known as a turning point for Judaism, and for the State of Israel. NFTY EIE had the honor of joining Women of the Wall and leaders of Progressive Judaism from all over the world in a complete prayer service on the women's side of the mehitza. While WOW has conducted services at the Kotel before, for the first time in history, a whopping 14 Torah scrolls were openly, and with great force and determination, brought in to the women's section of this segregated prayer space. Given that it is not allowed to bring any Torah from outside, the fact that 14 made it past security, and into the women's section at that, is a monumental step in Jewish culture.

As a person who does not identify as simply "male" or "female", the idea of going to a single-gender prayer truly scared me, and seemed in no way holy, regardless of location. The last time our group went to the Western Wall, I stood back and cried for 30 minutes, because when I was confronted with the choice of a men's section and a women's section, there was no place for me. So, naturally, I was hesitant to go back. While I did start the day bawling my eyes out and feeling like I was in physical pain, given some time, I found that Rosh Chodesh morning to be one of the most empowering, spiritual experiences of my life.

The morning began with all of my peers and I walking through the integrated entrance to the Kotel. A woman with a baby sling got stopped on her way in, and it turned out that it was not a baby she was carrying, but a small Torah. This was the first clue that something big was going to happen that day. After a small delay, the whole group entered the main plaza of the Western Wall, and immediately the staff and parents started ushering the students to the side. I didn't know what was happening at first, but then I saw numerous security guards and Ultra-Orthodox people screaming and lunging at a common target: people carrying Torahs from the outside. I saw people spit at, scream at, and rip tallitot off of men and women alike. There were people on the ground, and cameras everywhere. All I could think in that moment was, "How can these Hareidi people, these G-d-worshiping, Torah-loving people be okay with ripping the scrolls out of peoples hands, risking dropping them, harming them? How can these people be capable of so much violence, especially in the presence of one of the holiest sights in all of Judaism?" Nobody around me could find an answer.

Women reading from the Torah at
The Western Wall

As the commotion continued, it came time for the boys and girls to split up. At this point I heard my mother, who was visiting for 10 days, say, "I know it's not ideal, but you have to pick a side. Pick now, and go there". I then started crying, not knowing which side to choose because both sides existed within me. Fortunately, the parent of another one of our students stayed with me, and the rest of my classmates split up into their respective single-gender sides. After a few minutes of having a major panic attack, a staff member took me and the other parent down to the side of the women's section. We did not sing or pray, but we observed. I was dumbfounded by the amount of ruach I heard coming from my family, my friends, and about 100 other women. My awe was then broken by the sound of shrill whistles being blown by young Hareidi boys who had found their way into the women's section and were trying to disrupt the prayers (later we found out that they weren't in school because their parents/guardians had known that our protest was going to happen, had given them the whistles, and had sent them to try to drown us out). The women did not stop singing, but only prayed louder to show that they could not be stopped.

Shortly after, other boys, and even some older men made their way to the Wall, pushing, shoving, and scolding the women for praying. When I heard one man tell a woman that she was disgusting for showing her arms, I then stood up and took my jacket off, showing my bare arms and accentuating the fact that I was wearing "men's" clothing. Then my mother walked up to this man, standing in solidarity with this other woman as she held her own against the offensive man. The women praying had just begun to sing a prayer of peace, so I stood up, started singing, and walked over to my mother. We stood there together, praying for peace, as this man started saying that we were turning into Catholics because our actions were so un-Jewish. This is when I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

One of our students, Zoe, smiling as she
dances with the Torah

"I am not a Catholic, I am a Jew," I said. He then started arguing with me about how a Jewish girl should not be wearing pants or a yarmulke, how I should not have piercings, and that if any of us had learned what Jewish women had learned for thousands of years, we would know that we are wrong, disgusting, and crazy. I let go of my mother, looked this man in the eye and proclaimed, "I am modern, I am the future! I am the new generation, and I am the future!" This man then gave me a disgusted look and told me that I was not modern, but simply wrong. My mother told him that that was his opinion, and that his opinion belonged on the other side of the mehitza, so he could pray the way he wanted to and we could do the same. He asked us, "Does G-d really hear your 'prayer'?", to which my mother and I responded, "G-d hears all prayers. G-d hears the prayers of righteous people". As he was yelling at us about how blasphemous we were, one of our madrichot came to fetch me away from the conflict. The woman standing with us shooed him away, and my attention was drawn back to the crowd of women.

Female Orthodox protesters,
 wearing signs that read,
"I am sorry that the clowns
are desecrating this place."

I couldn't help but join the crowd. I still refused to pray, but I could not help but feel moved by the history that I knew I was a part of. After a few minutes of watching these women, including some of my classmates, dancing with the Torahs, I found a unique solution to the 'single-gender' thing. I took the chair I was standing on, placed it right up next to the mehitza, and stood up again, this time with my arms draping over the segregating barrier. Part of my physical self was in the men's section, just as part of my identity was (and is), and I felt content... until I saw little boys ripping siddurim and stomping on the pieces, while still bowing their whistles as the female protesters among them yelled and spat at us. My first thought was, "How can these little children, who can't be older than the age of 7, be capable of so much sinat chinam, so much senseless hatred?"

 

      Me standing in front of
the women's side of
the mehitza
     (with Daniel, Steven, and Evan)

I then saw a woman holding the Torah not 10 feet away from me, so I stepped down from my chair, walked over to her, and asked to hold the holy text. One of my female classmates and I each took a side, and lifted the scroll over our heads. Some cheered, some spat, but we smiled at each other, knowing that in that moment, we were making history. Then one of our staff members came over to us in a hurry, telling us to bring the Torah to the middle of the group to keep it safe, seeing as the Hareidi protesters were beginning to get more violent. She then took the women in our group (and me), off to the side and prepared us to leave, so as to avoid the worst of the violence and because the service was almost over. Just then, the leader of the prayer service started singing the Israeli national anthem, and we all grabbed hands and sang along.

The service ended, the women dispersed, and my classmates, our families and I began singing again, standing in a circle with our arms wrapped around each other. We sang another song of peace, making a statement about why we were there and what we had been praying for all morning. As the staff quickly had us stop singing so we wouldn't attract more violence, we stood in a clump and were quickly surrounded by a circle of young boys who had grabbed hands and were now shoving into us, spitting directly at us, and screaming things such as "Nazis!" and "whores!" We pushed our way through their tiny arms and made it back to the main plaza, where we met the men of our group.

They immediately began hugging all of us who had come from the women's side, declaring how proud they were and how they wish they could have joined us. As the principal of our school explained why we couldn't stay for the egalitarian prayers (because the crowd would inevitably become even more aggressive at the sight of men and women praying together), I held onto my mother and I thought, "No matter how hard they try, they will never silence the voices of the righteous".

Top Left: Yael, one of our staff members, getting her hair pulled after being spat in the face

Bottom Left: Me, holding the Torah at the protest

Top Right: Anat Hoffman, the chair of Women of the Wall, holding the Torah (with me in the background!)

Bottom Right: 8 of our female students and 3 mothers praying for peace