These and Those

I’ve been busy recently, but that’s not the only reason it’s been taking me so long to write this post.

Last week I had a conversation with a chevruta (study partner) on the subject of how we perceive & relate to the presence of G-d (it was a class assignment). We discussed a difficulty that we share in expressing our thoughts on G-d — the inherent limitations of language. The two of us feel that words somehow trivialize our experiences of the Divine — that we can’t translate something so complicated & nuanced into language, which comes filtered through the human mind.

I’m finding that writing about some of my trip to Poland is like this. I’m having difficulty describing some of my experiences in words.

My father asked me how visiting Shoah sites in Poland was different for me than visiting a Shoah museum in the USA or in Israel. It was a question that I’d already asked myself, and it is a question that I have difficulty answering — in words. On one (superficial) level, it was no different than visiting a Shoah memorial; on another level, it was… something I can’t seem to find the language for.

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The memorial at the Belzec Death Camp serves an important function, preserving the memories of those who perished there at the hands of the Nazis… The camp isn’t large because it was never intended for anything other than murder (it was 1 of only 6 Nazi extermination camps); it was a machine designed for death, and it successfully served its function and was dismantled. We have only one survivor’s testimony of the horrors at Belzec; that’s why we so rarely hear of it (unlike Auschwitz, for example).

[Ground Zero is now a memorial of a terrible event that took place at its site. People from around the world come to see it... and New Yorkers can visit it whenever they like -- some pass it regularly on their ways home and to work.]

Before WWII, there were more than 3.5 million Jews in Poland; today the Polish Jewish community is comprised of ~4,000 who are aware of their Jewish identities. No Jews pass Belzec on their ways home and to work. I feel… Jews need to visit. I feel… Jews should honor their own. I feel… this matters.

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Belzec is not a museum (Auschwitz is a museum); it is a memorial (with a small museum attached to it).

Mass graves lie throughout Belzec, but nobody is quite sure where their boundaries are. The Poles drew a grid over the camp and drilled at the corner of every square to determine where the mass graves might be. If their drills hit human remains at any point, they would mark the surrounding four squares as part of a mass grave. One can well imagine that some human remains were missed with this method, and one may well be bothered by the defilement of a drill striking human (JEWISH) bones lying below the surface of the earth. Rabbi Avi Weiss saw the memorial being developed at this site, and he saw bones poking through earth, revealed by the digging and construction. Rabbi Levi Cooper refuses to enter into the memorial (which I describe below). Some experiences, he says, are not worth the cost.

I chose to enter the memorial. There was only the slightest moment of doubt in my mind at this choice. I wanted to see the memorial that stands at Belzec today.

—–

Belzec is sloped, and the center of the memorial has been dug into the hill — a horizontal path through the earth, lined by uneven concrete walls topped with twisted iron bars that rise above the visitor as xe walks between them towards two opposite marble walls; one of which lists the first names of Jews who died at Belzec (I found the name ‘Dawid’), the other of which bears a quote: “EARTH, DO NOT COVER MY BLOOD; LET THERE BE NO RESTING PLACE FOR MY OUTCRY!” (Job 16:18).

The site of Belzec around this path and central memorial has been entirely covered with large artificial rocks resembling ash, preventing new plant growth.

There are other aspects to the memorial, but these are the ones I remember most clearly.

—–

How did I feel at the Belzec memorial, knowing what it was? How might I have felt at an identical memorial constructed elsewhere… in NYC perhaps… or Jerusalem? How did I feel knowing that I walked along a path dug through the remains of Jews who had been exterminated by the Nazis as soon as they entered Belzec? How did I feel about not seeing any physical evidence of their bodies? How did I feel about seeing a beautifully constructed Shoah memorial in Southern Poland that serves to educate mankind of the Nazi horrors? How did I feel? How do I feel?

I feel… it matters.

Tags: Death Camp, Emotions, Memorial, Poland, Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Shoah, Tiyulim

Celebration #1:  Tu B’shvat

For me, it feels like Tu B’shvat in Israel all year round because of the multitude of dried fruits all over the place, but during January, they really hit their peak.  It’s time to go back to the fresh fruits, in my opinion… I’m ready for springtime.  Nonetheless, I attended two different Tu B’shvat seders and had a chance to reflect on my community, what it means to live in the Israeli environmental fabric, and what our connection is to the larger world.

Does Tu b’Shvat have the same place in the Israeli psyche as Groundhog Day?  As in… can the weather now tell us how soon spring is going to arrive?  This past Shabbat was dreadfully cold and rainy – probably the coldest it’s been since I’ve been here – and I’ve been piling blankets upon blankets on top of my bed in an effort to stay warm.  I refuse to cave in and buy a space heather, because by golly, spring is just around the corner!  Maybe by Purim…

Celebration #2:  Mea Shearim Wedding

I’m now volunteering in Mea Shearim on Tuesday afternoons at a place called Ezrat Avot that offers different kind of programming and services for senior citizens, and I’m involved in chopping vegetables for their healthy meals on wheels program.  It’s the kind of work that is really satisfying after a long day of sitting in class – you chop for two hours, and you can see the concrete effects of your labor.  That usually doesn’t happen in Gemara class…

Anyway, as I was leaving Ezrat Avot last week and walking toward the center of town with friends, we heard loud music just up the street.  It sounded like a recording – we joked that in Mea Shearim, they do their Shabbat cleaning on Tuesdays – and as we walked up the hill, the music got louder and louder.  We could tell that it was drifting to our ears from over a high wall, and we saw some kids looking down onto whatever was behind the wall from their balconies.

Suddenly, a random woman approached us and said to us in Hebrew, ” The chuppah’s that way – it’s very beautiful if you want to see!”  We had nowhere to be, so it was time for an adventure.  We found a small archway where Hasidic kids and teens were crowded, watching the wedding below, and we stood as close as we could to peer down into what looked like a parking lot.  The chuppah was the only symbol that I noticed that marked the day as different from any other day, although the 15 or so young girls in attendance were all wearing the same matching gold dress with colored polka dots.

The entire ceremony was in Yiddish, of course, so we couldn’t really follow exactly what was going on, but we knew the anticipation was building before the kallah (bride) arrived, and she sparkled in the crowd in her bright white dress, in contrast with the dark tones of the rest of the men and women.  The kallah was covered from head to toe – her veil probably reached down to her stomach and was entirely opaque – so two women, presumably her mother and mother-in-law to be, led her in her seven circuits around the hatan (groom).  We remarked at how scared she must have been – an entire ceremony focusing on her, and she can’t even see what’s happening around her!  In a few short minutes they were wed, and the hatan led the kallah out from under the chuppah as we remarked how that was the first time either of them was touching a member of the opposite sex outside of their immediate families.

Now I’m preparing for the next celebration – Purim! – by learning Megillat Esther trope from a very Ashkenazi-sounding recording.  I DESPERATELY need costume suggestions – got any?

On the 2nd day of our tiyul, we visited the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, the Majdanek concentration camp, and the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva. Majdanek was the first of three Nazi camps that our Pardes group visited over five days, and I will likely refer to it in later posts when I reflect upon the others; my thoughts in this post were sparked by our visits to the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery & the Lublin Yeshiva.

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The Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva (CLY) has been renovated to reflect its original glory, but its bookshelves stand almost entirely empty. Its library once included tens of thousands of books, which the Nazis burned in 1939… it took the bastards (my anger breaks through here) 20 hours to burn all of the Jewish holy texts.

I encourage you to read the history of this amazing institution, but I will highlight several points below:

Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapiro (1887-1933) spent more than half a decade raising funds to build the CLY; he toured Europe, the US and Canada promoting his vision and consulting with rabbis throughout the world. In its time, this yeshiva was a revolution in the Jewish world of education. The corner stone was laid in 1924, and the institution became operational in 1930. It was the first yeshiva to provide housing for its students, and the first to provide them with regular meals. At its peak, nearly 200 yeshiva students studied at the CLY; the brightest young Jewish students came there from around the world; the admissions requirements were incredibly high.

I was glad to hear that R. Shapiro didn’t live long enough to see the Nazis turn his beautiful yeshiva into the local military headquarters. I am thankful that the CLY has been restored and made available to visitors, but its empty shelves tear at me, and the floor of its beit midrash sparkles too brightly.

—–

Beautiful shuls and Yeshivot in Poland remain standing as markers of European Jewish history and culture, but the Jewish cemeteries in particular stand out to me as panoramas of time; thousands of Jews lie buried at the Okopowa Street Cemetery in Warsaw; visitors to this site can see the graves of many Jewish generations buried alongside one another in unbroken continuity.

To my mind, the cemetery is a celebration of Jewish life, culture and accomplishment. Famous Jews (like Dr. Zamenhof & R. Soloveitchik) lie buried there in Warsaw, their graves scattered among their Jewish brothers’ and sisters’. The tombstones are all different – some intricately carved into animals, books, and plants. One could spend hours at the cemetery, continuously exploring the sundry Jewish personalities who made their marks upon the world.

I felt this on the morning of that 2nd day when we visited the cemetery, but the roots of this idea spread and took hold when R. Cooper brought us to the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva that same night. Unlike the CLY, the cemetery continues to serve its purpose… and most Jews who lie there died naturally. The cemetery left me with a profound feeling of peacefulness and shleimut (wholeness, completedness).

Tags: Emotions, Heritage, Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Tiyulim, yeshiva

There’s a stunning, old shul (synagogue) in Tikocyn, Poland. It’s made of stone so it remains standing… the wooden synagogues of Polish yesteryear are no longer. The shul currently serves as a museum; the prayers painted upon its walls have been redone by Poles who traced the faded, unfamiliar letters (and made some errors in the process). Second in size only to the Tikocyn church (due to Polish law), beautifully constructed and decorated, the shul stands as a testament to the community’s central commitment to Yiddishkeit. Its exterior is simple, but the walls and furnishings of its interior beckon the curious mind; we explored it, we studied it, and we prayed within it… this was the first shul that we visited in Poland, and it made an impression.

Numbly, I walked through the snow towards it.

I examined the fence and commemorative markers left at the grave by other visitors, walking around the 2nd pit until I noticed that the group had finished its nigun, and was making its way towards me. Again, I backed away through the snow, and looked around to take in the winter forest. Again, through the snow, I noticed… another fenced off field. The voice at the back of my mind spoke up again, “R. Cooper said there were three mass graves…”

I walked towards the 3rd covered mass grave, thinking… feeling… nothing. I couldn’t really process this; the idea of hundreds of Jews lying dead, twisted in a single, fenced off, snow-covered mass grave was disgusting, terrible… unbelievable… dehumanizing. The idea of two further pits filled with hundreds more twisted, tortured Jewish corpses didn’t quite register. How much more could I (should I) feel at visiting three mass graves than one?

Tags: Emotions, Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Shoah, Tiyulim

A brief explanation. As David pointed out already, the Poland trip was filled to the brim with learning , walking, and reacting. Getting back to the hotel at midnight, we were expected up and bright eyed by 5:45. As the days went on, it became increasingly difficult to process our thoughts by the time we got home, let alone blog. I’d like to contribute a few posts to the blog this week so keep a look out for some random musings. Below is something I wrote up the first day but was unable to post.

Rabbi Levi Cooper’s reader calls our Poland trip a ‘Seminar.’ The implication of this label is that our journey in Poland will be more than just a emotionally evocative experience it is also a chance to learn our history. And it is history that has been on my mind throughout the first two days here. The sad history of the Jews in Poland has been chronicled in thousands of books attacking the period from many angles. Books can be read anywhere, but in order to make use of our presence in the land where these events took place, our educators got to utilize a more imerssive form of history learning.

In the small village of Tikocyn in August 1941, hundreds of Jews were herded into trucks and driven to the nearby forest of Lupachowa. Thinking they were merely being transported, the Jews of the community marched forward despite the heat. The Nazis prodded the victims to the edge of deeply dug pits, at which point they shot and killed the multitude and left the forest hoping their deeds would remain undiscovered.

Levi told us none of these facts directly, instead, he used a first person account of a survivor of the shootings along with the surroundings in order to guide us through an experience of the events rather than simply teach us of the events. We began in Tikocyn’s central square, where Levi read us a young girl’s tale of being ripped away from her father and forced into the carts toward the forest. Levi related the tale, describing the square as it existed in 1941. I was able to look around and experience the sights and sounds of the square as it is today. Levi picked up the story at the edge of the woods, the long march to death brought to life both through both Levi’s words and our own walk through the snowy wood. As I stood gazing at the gaping holes listening to the tragic end of our young girl’s tale, I reflected on the painful nature of the experience. Through a carefully constructed combination of touring the site and reading one person’s experience, Levi was able to inspire affect unobtainable by even the most thorough historical works. We all experienced the very strong Jewish technique of living, rather then telling, history. Rather than allow us to view the Holocaust from a distance, our trip to Poland has enabled us to undergo the difficult process of literally walking in our father’s footsteps. Though difficult, I can’t help but feel inspired by the continuity of experience across time that further unites us as a people.

Tags: Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, tiyul

One of the Poland trip participants wrote an e-mail to her father about the Poland trip, and sent it to me for this Pardes blog… here it is: 

Hi
Poland was an enriching experience. The days were emotionally intense and long
and cold, but Rav Levi Cooper--my Hassidic teacher and main tour guide made sure
the trip was educational and appropriate; also the group was supportive of one
another and introspective. 
Most times I was disgusted at what the Nazis and Polish people did to our
fore-brothers/sisters/mother/fathers/etc AND other human beings and I felt
defiant and remembered what Danny Steinmetz said to me this summer, "we (Jews)
are too strong, rich, smart, and powerful to let that happen to us again." This
thought left me with a feeling of power and responsibility TO DO and to
ACTUALIZE my POTENTIAL, BUT ALSO not to forget other people who are not so
strong to take care of themselves. And in the name of social responsibility and
being a light-onto-the-nations I feel a new responsibility.
I learned a lot in Poland about the War and about Jewish life. Furthermore, when
we got to the Polish airport I was soooo excited to go to Israel. I didn't not
like Poland and I didn't feel like I was in a country that didn't want me, but
Israel truly felt like a safe-haven. I wasn't expecting to feel that.
good shabbas, see you in February!
love, Jordy

Tags: Jordyn, parents, Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Tiyulim

I had intended to post daily from Poland, but the schedule left me exhausted; I didn’t sleep for more than five hours at any time… late nights and early mornings (particularly for those who woke up to daven Shacharit)… trekking through the bone chilling cold and snow of Poland… travelling back and forth by bus between centuries old Jewish cemeteries and synagogues and Nazi concentration and death camps… absorbing information, emotion, history, culture… it was an intensive five days.

—–

I have impressions that I’d like to share from each day of my trip, but I’ve been left with some feelings that I’d first like to journal.

This trip to Poland was my first visit to Eastern Europe, and as a Russian speaker, I enjoyed picking out the Polish words around me that sounded similar to their Russian equivalents; I took photographs of shop signs throughout the trip. Also, the Polish guards who accompanied us on our trip happened to speak Russian, and I chatted with them about various subjects. Poland felt… close to the homes of my ancestors.

And yet… I had no family members who died in Polish concentration camps; my family’s stories mostly took place in the Soviet Union. My father’s parents both served in the Soviet army; his mother returned home after the war to find her village in Ukraine destroyed, and her family killed. My mother’s father was caught taking potatoes from a harvested field, and was conscripted into the Soviet army as cannon fodder.

I’m not sure how similar the Jewish culture lost to us in Poland was to the Jewish culture of my family. I wish I had sense of the nuances… how did my grandfather’s grandfather practice Judaism? Are my roots in Chassidism or in its intellectual opponents? I know I had rabbis on both sides of my family, but I have no sense of their traditions. I follow the rabbinic laws of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewry, but my religious thinking and practice are very much a reflection of twenty-first century Jewish culture in the (Northeastern) USA.

—–

I practice Judaism because I love it, but this trip roused my sense of defiance: I am a Jew despite this past evil (and all other past evils)… and I am a Jew despite the evils of the present day. I am a part of preserving my people’s heritage.

…

And yet, I wish I knew more of who my people were – I wish I could somehow discover and be a part of my family’s traditions. I often feel very lonely in my Jewish identity, despite feeling very connected to Jewry and Judaism.

Tags: Ashkenazi Judaism, Heritage, Identity, Poland, Tiyulim

R. Levi Cooper told us that we should avoid experiencing our tiyul to Poland through our camera lenses. He told us that some people use their cameras as defense mechanisms.

When the tiyul participants volunteered to take responsibilities upon ourselves so that things might run as smoothly as possible, I volunteered to be one of the ‘Poland Trip 2010′ bloggers; I like writing. Then, at some point, it struck me: blogging about my trip in Poland could become like experiencing the tiyul through a different kind of lens… the lens of entertaining an audience.

Tonight, in a couple of hours, I meet the Pardes group, and we leave for the airport. We’ll be in Poland for five, bitterly cold, emotionally intensive days. We will be exploring the Jewish culture of Poland’s past and present, as well as the impact of the Shoah upon the Jewish and non-Jewish populations of this country. If our hotels provide us with Internet connections, I hope to share my impressions with you…

I hope to keep my stories as true to myself as possible; I’ll try to keep my lens clear.

Tags: Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Tiyulim

It was a chilly morning, and I felt it. According to my tradition, I wrapped my tefilin around my left bicep, down my forearm, and around my middle finger. The morning davening is the longest of the three daily services, and I prefer to daven at a comfortable pace, pronouncing every syllable carefully… so I stood, davening with my tefilin on in the chilly morning air for some time (perhaps 45 minutes – I’m not quite sure).

A friend of mine once explained to me that she tends to have poor circulation in her fingers so her hands are often cold. She prefers mittens to gloves because she finds that her fingers warm one another when they’re clasped together. I remembered her explanation that morning because my tefilin prevented the fingers of my left hand from clasping together, and the chilly air nipped at them, stinging. The stinging felt grounding, human, as did the comforting warmth once I completed my davening and removed my tefilin.

—–

Later that Friday, I visited Yad Vashem with a friend for the first time since I was on a Birthright trip more than three years ago. It was particularly liberating to walk through the museum without a large group or tour guide, navigating ourselves through the displays and taking the time to discuss our impressions and ideas.

I recall once visiting The Har Herzl National Cemetery with my mother as a youth, watching her cry for the deaths of the many young soldiers that had given their lives in defense of Israel, wondering why I felt… nothing.

The older I get, the more emotional I become. As a seventh grader, learning about the Shoah (the Holocaust) in Hebrew school, I was barely emotionally affected by lessons and stories of hatred, tragedy and death… and then I taught the very same class (I took over for my Hebrew school teacher) for two years as an adult, and I cried over and over again at the videos and lesson plans. For me, adulthood brought with it heightened sensitivity.

It now feels as though I’ve integrated much of the tragedy of the Shoah. Some of the exhibits at Yad Vashem brought tears to my eyes and caused my heart to beat more heavily, but I generally felt a constant, soft ache for the great loss… I’ve had, after all, a lot of exposure to Shoah material. Still, I learned some new information about the specifics of the Holocaust in particular countries across Europe, and one exhibit in particular happened to give me pause.

Towards the end of WWII, the Nazis forced the emaciated, sick Jewish prisoners out of concentration camps in ‘Death Marches’, on foot, across hundreds of kilometers of frozen terrain, bringing many to their deaths through forced, inhuman overexertion and starvation. Yad Vashem’s description of these frigid, torturous journeys struck me, and it took me a moment to realize why. It was only that morning that I’d wanted to protect my fingers from the slight chill of the Jerusalem morning, conscious of my 45 minute discomfort, appreciating life and sensation, wincing slightly from the air’s sharp, chilly sting…

It struck me at the ‘Death Marches’ exhibit at Yad Vashem that day that I will never be able to comprehend the Shoah. Would that nobody ever experience such terrible Evil again.

Tags: Introspection, Israel, prayer, Shoah, Tayelet, tefilin, Tiyulim, Yad Vashem

I would like to share a unique shabbat experience I  had a couple of weeks ago. It was on a small religious yeshuv (town/gated community) called Hoshaya in the North of Israel. I went with my boyfriend to stay with one of his friends from Hebrew Universtiy who is studying archeaology with him. We had an amazing weekend of seeing various archaelogical sites around the area. The first was Sha’ar Hagolan which is a prehistorical archaelogical site that was found when they began to build a kibbutz there in the 1930s. They believe it was one of the first places that transitioned from a hunter gather society to an agricultural society. Since we were the only people to come to the museum that day, we got a personal tour from an old and slightly crochety kibbutz member who toured us around the basic tools, pottery shards and cone-head looking sculptures they found. On Shabbat day we walked for about an hour to Tzippori which was on the hill adjacent to her yishuv. Tzippori was a bustling town around the time of the Romans and many famous jews lived there included Rabbi Judah the Prince who complied the Mishna. Tzippori itself was amazing but it was more fun walking to and from her village through an olive grove and enjoying the beautiful view knowing that what I am studying in class was written in this place.

To top off the weekend, her family only eats raw food and so I got exposed to the raw food culture in Israel. They have bread only once a week so they can say the blessing over it on shabbat. They will heat food to a maximum of 45 degrees celsius and are total vegans. Despite the restrictions, it was suprisingly delicous food. What I could not get used to was the fact that they do not drink during their meals but only have tea afterwards. I have never met Orthodox Jews who were vegans before and it inspired me to know that people are really concerned with what they eat and to know that the “funkier” food movement I have seen in the US have made it here. It was also the first weekend since I’ve been here that was conducted entirely in Hebrew. It gave me a great chance to practice my Hebrew and positive reinforcement that I do indeed speak this language. More importantly the whole shabbat grounded me in the fact that I am in Israel for the year, and not just at Pardes and I hope that I can continue to remember that for the rest of the time that I am here.

Tags: Katie, life in Israel