Op-Ed – Page 40

How to treat siblings, others

When you have twins, many people ask questions, particularly about “when” you will separate them. When did they sleep in separate cribs, rooms, go to different activities, or have separate school classes? The answers for every family are different, of course.

My kids arrived at the same time, but they’re fraternal twins. That means, they’re brothers and they’re the same age. From the beginning, we tried to make Jewish connections to this: part of their Hebrew names are Ephraim and Menashe, and their dad is named, in part, Yosef. (And his father’s name is Ya’akov.) In the Bible, Ephraim and Menashe were brothers, not twins.

Twins have a special bond. My kids slept in the same crib for about nine months, and then in cribs across the room from each other. I met another parent of twin girls once. He described how the two toddlers would be placed in their separate, but adjoining, cribs to sleep. Inevitably, someone climbed into the other crib. When their parents went to get them, they both were sleeping in the same place.

Even now, one of my twins begs the other for a “sleep over” and what he means is, “Can I go climb into your bed with you?” (We say no, as it ends up keeping everyone in the house up.) My kids also shared something else – they didn’t sleep through the night until they were 4½ years old. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say: we value sleep and bedtime, perhaps much more than togetherness.

The Torah portion of Vayeshev (Genesis 27:1-40:23) is a difficult story about brothers. It’s essentially about favouritism and sibling rivalry – when Joseph’s older brothers decide to gang up on him and get rid of him, because he is their father’s favourite.

I asked my kids what they thought about it, and they mentioned how great it was to have a brother, and a twin. They didn’t have toys that were “too old” or “too little kid” for them and they always had someone with whom to play. They love each other. They are best friends. They chose to take baths together in our claw foot bathtub until they were too big to fit comfortably.

At the same time, they also fight, get very jealous of anything seen as “unfair” – all the normal sibling things. However, instead of reading only rabbinic commentaries this time, I thought about my kids’ responses. This is valuable, too. They’re learning to take turns and take care of each other, and are establishing these bonds for life.

My husband shared a room with his brother throughout their childhood. In adulthood, despite managing young families and living in different countries, they still communicate often, about everything and nothing.

A teacher recently suggested I might separate my kids so they could develop their “individuality.” Instead, I reflected on the teenagers I met when I lived on a kibbutz in Israel. They were raised in children’s houses, all together. Though not twins, they were raised as a group. While this model isn’t common anymore, kibbutzniks produced great leaders for the state of Israel: many brave volunteers, military leaders and strong politicians. The kids I met answered questions as a class: their favourite game was soccer, their favourite foods were chips (French fries), ice cream and salad. The strength these kids had together and their camaraderie were powerful. We chose to keep our kids together, to nurture a deep feeling that someone has their back.

Part of sharing everything is learning together what’s safe and acceptable, and what isn’t. I want to raise my kids in Jewish ways – and that includes working on raising boys who know how to respect others. My kids love the newspaper cartoons, but require an adult to read and interpret them and, lately, political cartoons about celebrities and sexual assault are more frequent. This is a “touchy” subject for 6 year olds.

The rabbis teach us that everything is worth examining, and open to interpretation and extrapolation. Whether it’s the Torah portion’s lessons about how to treat siblings or a cartoon at the breakfast table, we need to think critically and learn from what is presented to us. This morning, we covered another lesson – “This man touched other people without permission. No one wanted to be touched that way. He lost his job. Now people are saying how wrong this behaviour is – in the cartoons and news.”

North American society puts a strong emphasis on being rugged individualists; people who know their minds and act independently. However, being a good Jewish person, a mensch, involves knowing how to behave among others – people you love, and strangers, too. Often, life isn’t fair – your youngest brother gets a fancy handmade coat, like Joseph. Yet, what matters is where the rubber hits the road; how we use derech eretz (the right way to behave) to cope with what life gives us. How we behave and treat others, no matter who they are, is what counts. In Jewish tradition, it’s how we act that matters.

Sometimes, the Torah portion of the week reminds of how we shouldn’t behave. When we read about Joseph’s “Technicolour Dreamcoat,” we’re reminded to examine how we behave: as parents, as siblings, and as people. We don’t live completely independently of our families and communities, even if we see ourselves as individuals. When I used to teach full time, I often had to stop students from doing something inappropriate, and I’d ask, “What would your mother or grandmother think of this?”

My twins know the Jewish thing to do – your mother wants you to keep your hands to yourself, to take care of each other and … don’t act like Joseph’s brothers did!

Joanne Seiff writes regularly for CBC Manitoba and is a regular columnist for Winnipeg’s Jewish Post and News. She is the author of the book From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Survivor’s talk inspires

“There are as many Holocaust stories as there are Holocaust survivors,” said David Ehrlich, a survivor outreach speaker of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, to open his afternoon talk at Langara College. On Oct. 31, a class of 20 students and several faculty members and guests heard Ehrlich – a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz who immigrated to Canada via Paris in the late 1940s – tell his personal story.

This class is part of a program called Writing Lives: The Holocaust Survivor Memoir Project. In the first term, its students produce research papers on prewar European Jewish communities like the one that Ehrlich called home; in the second term, they will interview survivor-partners and together write memoirs of the survivors’ experiences.

Ehrlich is an evocative speaker. He spoke lovingly of his family home in Transylvania (now part of Romania). “We had a three-room home, and we were middle-class. But we had no running water and no electricity, not for another 20 years,” he said. “Kids don’t know any better. I thought that we had it well: chicken on Friday night, bread on the table, it was wonderful!”

But he also told of his experience with antisemitic violence, the hard choices made by families who tried to avoid a Nazi roundup, and life in Auschwitz. He silenced the room when he spoke of stepping off a train boxcar at Auschwitz: “I’ll never forget the view when the sliding doors opened, or the noise that the doors made,” he said.

The students – who in this term’s research papers attempt to imaginatively reconstruct Jewish life before the Second World War’s devastation – responded with questions about Ehrlich’s journey to Canada. He spoke of the family that he made in Canada: a wife and three sons. He made his story accessible to the audience of all ages.

The students admired Ehrlich and a bond was formed during his talk, which was about an hour long. When he finished speaking, there was a respectful silence, and no student seemed willing to be the first to break it. Teachers from Langara began the question-and-answer session and, once the ice was broken, the students filled the remaining time with questions. Ehrlich in turn shared relevant wisdom for Writing Lives’ participants.

“You are educated and smart,” he told them. “There comes a time where you’ve got to learn to put up with people who are different because you have to get along. Start practising by getting along with your fellow students.”

Indeed, Writing Lives features groups in which students collaborate on research and, ultimately, on memoirs with the course’s survivor-partners. These collaborations require empathy. Ehrlich conducted himself as an exemplar of empathy, stating, “I can’t hold the grandchildren of Nazi-era Germans accountable for the Holocaust,” and the students’ response to his talk suggests that they, too, understand empathy’s importance. The course thus offers an excellent venue for students’ development of collaborative skills and of compassion. It provides a space in which students can grow closer together.

The afternoon also contained humour and reference to contemporary subjects. Ehrlich joked that he was now willing to use various German-made appliances and recalled that the heavy rainfall during a roundup of Hungarian Jews paled in comparison to Vancouver’s weather. Ehrlich also demonstrated strong knowledge of news and politics by interspersing references to American and Canadian current events into his remarks. He shared his general optimism about the post-Holocaust situation, stating, “After three or four generations, the Germans are coming clean; they are behaving like good nations do. It’s the only country in the world where you cannot say that the Holocaust didn’t exist.” He added, “We in Canada are very lucky – multicultural – and there’s no way that one minority group could be persecuted as in the Holocaust.”

His audience appreciated his graceful, optimistic tone. One enthusiastic student baked dozens of cupcakes to celebrate Ehrlich’s recent birthday.

Ehrlich’s talk will guide Writing Lives’ students through the remainder of the program. They will respond to it in one of their weekly written submissions, and the experience of interacting with a Holocaust survivor foreshadows the interviews that they will conduct in early 2018. They could not have asked for a better guide.

William Chernoff is a student in the Writing Lives program. Coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines, the two-semester program is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation.

Follow the middle path

One of the stories that my father, z”l, used to tell me about his father, my grandfather, Rabbi Eyad Acoca, z”l, was that back in Morocco, at a young age, my grandfather traveled to the city of Sale to learn under the revered hacham, Ribbi Rafael Enkaua, z”l. In order to get there, he had to cross the Bou Regreg river. Once, while my grandfather was on a raft with other travelers, the raft tipped and all the people drowned except my grandfather, who held tightly onto his Talmud volume and got to the other side of the river safe and sound!

My father often recounted that my grandfather’s last wish was that at least one of his descendants continue his legacy and become a rabbi. His wish was fulfilled when I became a rabbi; in doing so, I merited to inherit a few volumes of my grandfather’s set of Talmud.

Through the years, I have come to understand that I have a big responsibility to continue in my grandfather’s footsteps and teach about Sephardi Judaism, which is unique and special. In recent years, numerous articles and lectures have been given regarding the future of Sephardi Judaism. As a Sephardi rabbi, I am delighted. However, to my dismay, I have found that most of the lectures have been framed in the extreme right or left. In my opinion, Sephardi Judaism has to come back to its origin, which was always the middle path.

Our great sage Maimonides, teaches us in his book Mishneh Torah (De’ot, the laws of personal development):

“Each and every man possesses many character traits. Each trait is very different and distant from the others.

“One type of man is wrathful; he is constantly angry. [In contrast,] there is the calm individual who is never moved to anger, or, if at all, he will be slightly angry, [perhaps once] during a period of several years.

“There is the prideful man and the one who is exceptionally humble. There is the man ruled by his appetites – he will never be satisfied from pursuing his desires, and [conversely,] the very pure of heart, who does not desire even the little that the body needs.

“There is the greedy man, who cannot be satisfied with all the money in the world, as [Ecclesiastes 5:9] states: ‘A lover of money never has his fill of money.’ [In contrast,] there is the man who puts a check on himself; he is satisfied with even a little, which is not enough for his needs, and he does not bother to pursue and attain what he lacks.

“There is [the miser,] who torments himself with hunger, gathering [his possessions] close to himself. Whenever he spends a penny of his own, he does so with great pain. [Conversely,] there is [the spendthrift,] who consciously wastes his entire fortune.

“All other traits follow the same pattern [of contrast]. For example: the overly elated and the depressed; the stingy and the freehanded; the cruel and the softhearted; the coward and the rash, and the like.” (chabad.org)

Maimonides writes, “The two extremes of each quality are not the proper and worthy path for one to follow or train himself in. And, if a person finds his nature inclining towards one of them or if he has already accustomed himself in one of them, he must bring himself back to the good and upright path.”

He continues, “The upright path is the middle path of all the qualities known to man. This is the path which is equally distant from the two extremes, not being too close to either side. Therefore, the sages instructed that a person measure … his character traits, directing them in the middle path so he will be whole.” (torah.org)

How I wish that the great minds of Sephardi Jewry would sit, united, and craft the future of Sephardi Jewry through Maimonides’ model. I hope that this will happen soon but, for now, let us all implement the lesson of Maimonides and implement the middle path in all our endeavours.

Rabbi Ilan Acoca is a veteran rabbi and educator. He is the rabbi emeritus of Vancouver’s Congregation Beth Hamidrash and currently serves as the rabbi of the Sephardic Congregation of Fort Lee-Bet Yosef, in Fort Lee, N.J., and rav beit hasefer of Yeshivat Ben Porat Yosef, in Paramus, N.J. He is the writer of the book The Sephardic Book of Why and has written hundreds of articles on various topics for different publications.

Why we head home

(photo from oliveandwild.com/collections/judaic)

It is the season for gatherings and celebrations, and many travelers are urgently trying to make their way home for the holidays. An innate urge seems to drive them back to their roots. And, I wonder, What is it that draws people home for the holidays?

This existential question arose one year as I was lighting the menorah on the first night of Chanukah. Friends and family were gathered at our home to celebrate the holiday season once again. The loving faces, which crossed generations, reminded me that, for some, it is Christmas, a time to spread peace and joy throughout the world. For others, it is Chanukah, with its message of rebuilding, rededication and freedom from oppression.

Suddenly, I had a surreal experience in which the immediate sounds, sights and smells faded into the background. I am both participant and observer in this scenario and am filled with an overwhelming realization that I am looking at the history of the years, the culture and religion of past centuries, sitting at my table eating symbolic foods like potato latkes, gefilte fish and sufganiyot. It gave me pause to reflect on one of our most basic human needs – a sense of belonging.

The rituals that accompany such special occasions, regardless of whether it is Christmas, Chanukah or a powwow, serve to strengthen communal and family ties. There may or may not even be a religious focus but their significance should not be underestimated, as they have a deep and long-lasting impact. It is our cultural and social heritage that carries us from the cradle to the grave, and we learn these social ceremonies within the safety and security of the family.

The emotional attachments that are developed in the course of such activities are powerful, especially for a developing child. If you ask many adults who celebrate Christmas, for example, they will recall the occasion with fond memories. The nostalgia of the colourful lights, the smell of turkey roasting, the sounds of fun and laughter with family and friends and the excitement of exchanging gifts are hard to erase from one’s psyche. Special foods like Christmas cake, latkes or bannock, which are interwoven with the particular celebration, help form a powerful emotional bond that ties us to one another, its strength consolidated with annual repetition.

And, when we are adults, we are bound to repeat them, not only for ourselves, but to give to our children and grandchildren. We want to provide them with the beautiful memories of childhood we enjoyed. Rituals link the past with the future. Those who have never had these experiences, or have lost them, suffer a sense of painful loneliness at these times, leading to a widespread myth that suicide rates increase over the winter holiday season.

Numerous studies indicate the opposite. For example, an analysis by the Annenberg Public Policy Centre, which has been tracking media reports since 2000 in the United States, found that half of the articles written during 2009-2010 perpetuated this myth. However, reported incidents of suicide are the lowest in December and this has not changed in recent years, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. A Canadian article, Holiday Depression by Michael Kerr, which can be found at healthline.com, also dispels the myth of higher suicide rates during the holiday season. However, it may trigger other issues, such as substance abuse or depression, which do increase.

Sadly, people may become aware that, with the passing years, family and friends are no longer always available. Children move away, people pass away and these celebrations can emphasize solitary feelings that are glaring in their stark contrast to the happy family images portrayed all around. But there are remedies for loneliness. Volunteer at a homeless shelter or see what your local synagogue has on offer. Create a new tradition and invite over new friends and neighbours. Stay active. It can offer much to alleviate feelings of isolation.

While these philosophical meanderings ramble through my mind, an explosion of laughter jolts me back from my reverie. I contemplate the people around me with warmth and appreciation. The people sitting at my table are not so different from those sitting at yours. Social formalities are found in all societies, religions and cultures, and are strikingly similar. Though the focus of holidays varies, they cement communities and families together. As Barbra Streisand sings, “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.”

Libby Simon, MSW, worked in child welfare services prior to joining the Child Guidance Clinic in Winnipeg as a school social worker and parent educator for 20 years. Also a freelance writer, her writing has appeared in Canada, the United States and internationally, in such outlets as Canadian Living, CBC, Winnipeg Free Press, PsychCentral, and for Cardus, a Canadian research and educational public policy think tank.

The beauty of the light

(photo from flickr.com/photos/scazon)

The sky turns shades of orange and mauve as I glance outside my dining room window and notice the sun slipping behind the trees. The havoc and chatter in the house has peaked. I call my daughter to come and light the Shabbat candles with me. It’s time. Eighteen minutes before sunset.

We light the candles, nine for me, representing each of our family members, and one for her. We cover our eyes and circle the flames three times with our hands as we say the blessing that ushers in the holy Shabbat. “Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav, v’tzeevanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat kodesh.” (“Blessed are you, G-d, our Master of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His mitzvah, and commanded us to light the candle of the holy Shabbat.”) Instantly, the chaos subsides and peace and serenity reign. It’s visceral, and a mystery to me how it occurs every Friday evening.

The Shabbat candles warm the atmosphere of the Shabbat table. Their soft glow draws us in. All week, we run from home to work and school, activities and errands that fill our days. Many of us do not share meals or spend time together at all!

Only on Shabbat do we have the opportunity to have precious moments with family and share meals, discuss our week’s events, share Torah thoughts and stories of the parashah, to enjoy each other’s presence as well as that of our Shabbat guests.

Shabbat, the seventh day of the week, is the gift that G-d has given us in order to reconnect with family and friends, and teach us, by His example, to rest as He did after creating our beautiful world for us in only six days. We reconnect with our G-dly souls and recharge our batteries for the busy week ahead. We pray at home and in a synagogue and get a special spiritual feeling as we connect to G-d and our community.

We also have Chanukah, an eight-day festival of lights, falling yearly on the 25th day in the winter month of Kislev. Chanukah recalls the Jews’ victory, with a small army, over the huge Greek army in the second century BCE. It also commemorates the miracle of the tiny bit of light, enough to burn for one day, which lasted for eight days, until the rededication of the Temple was possible after the struggle.

The Shabbat candles are placed inside our homes, while the Chanukah candles are placed so they can be seen from outside our homes. Why the difference?

On Shabbat, we are supposed to enjoy and benefit from the holy glow of the Shabbat candles as they shine over the beautifully set Shabbat table, with its white tablecloth and lavish settings. It is the main attraction for those fortunate to have a place around the table.

On Chanukah, we are forbidden to use the light of the menorah for any practical purpose. As the Chanukah candles melt, we are not supposed to do any housework at all. Only after they’ve melted, can we celebrate the miracle of the oil with food and games.

From this, we can extrapolate an essential difference between Shabbat and Chanukah. Shabbat is for us, the Jewish people; it nourishes and reinforces us weekly. Chanukah reaches beyond the warmth of the home to light up the darkness of the outside world. It reminds us not to be afraid, even in the harshest times. And Chanukah candles teach us to stand up and speak out for those who do not possess this strength. This feeds a pride that transcends ego. This is our proud Jewish heritage and our gift to the world.

As I polish my Shabbat candelabra, candlesticks and our family’s chanukiyah, I smile as memories of past Shabbatot and Chanukah celebrations mingle with anticipation. This year, Chanukah begins on the evening of Dec. 12 and continues until the 20th. Wishing you a very happy and festive Chanukah.

Esther Tauby is a local educator, writer and counselor.

Balfour is but one milestone

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a cause for commemoration and even celebration on the part of Jewish activists worldwide.

The Balfour Declaration refers to a short letter from Lord (Arthur) Balfour, former U.K. prime minister and then-foreign secretary, to Lord (Lionel Walter) Rothschild. In it, Balfour declared that the British cabinet had approved a statement that the government favoured the establishment of a Jewish national home in what was soon to become the British Mandate of Palestine.

The implications of the declaration have been debated by pro- and anti-Israel activists for, well, an entire century. For many in the pro-Israel community, the declaration is akin to a Magna Carta for the Zionist movement: an affirmation – from the very authority that would oversee the territory – that Zionism was indeed a worthy enterprise.

Without diminishing this sentiment, I offer my interpretation of the Balfour Declaration and what it teaches us about pro-Israel advocacy today.

The Balfour Declaration was a strategically vital recognition of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination – and one that clearly affected the course of history. But Balfour did not establish our national rights, which pre-existed the declaration. These rights have always been rooted in the natural right of every nation to shape its own identity and achieve self-determination in its ancestral land.

This is not a minor distinction. We dare not confuse the validation of our rights with the source of our rights. Indeed, our detractors falsely do so. In their minds, if the Balfour Declaration can be dismissed as a “colonial” statement, the rights of the Jewish people to which it speaks can be similarly undermined.

It’s this sort of nonsense that suggests Jewish history in the land began in 1917. To believe it, one would have to ignore the mountains – and caverns – of archeological and historical evidence that confirm a Jewish presence in the land for millennia. In addition to various non-biblical documents confirming Jewish indigenous roots in Israel, the Bible itself is widely recognized – even by ardent atheists – as a historical chronicle of a particular people in a particular land.

As Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive office of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), recently observed, the Balfour Declaration was “one milestone among many that confirm the moral, historic and legal right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral land. Just as many states endorsed the Balfour Declaration at the time, the international community’s support for the national liberation of the Jewish people after centuries of exile has been expressed time and again.”

Fogel further noted that, in a similar vein, November also marks “the 70th anniversary of the UN partition resolution of 1947, which expressly called for the creation of a Jewish state.”

The Balfour Declaration matters today precisely because it is more important than ever that we show how our fundamental rights as a people are backed by international consensus. The declaration is not the linchpin of this recognition but rather a signpost on the road to achieving widespread affirmation of our rights.

Every year, CIJA brings approximately 200 Canadian leaders and future leaders (almost all of whom are non-Jewish) on fact-finding missions to Israel. As someone who heads an annual trip of post-grad students, I can tell you that most Canadians – including those sympathetic to Israel – are not particularly interested in what a British lord had to say about the region a century ago.

But what they do care about, and what makes them more receptive to understanding the strong legal and moral foundation for Israel’s existence, is that many global figures and organizations (including the United Nations) have echoed these rights. In this regard, Balfour is an important thread of the historic fabric.

The importance of non-Jewish validators applies to many pro-Israel advocacy issues, such as Israel’s right to define itself as a Jewish homeland, the dangers of BDS (the movement to boycott, divestment from and sanction Israel) or the threat posed by Israel’s neighbours. On these and other topics, our target audience is generally more receptive to our perspective when we can demonstrate that it is one shared by others, including governments and leaders around the world.

Balfour matters, but we should remember why. The declaration serves not as the basis for modern Israel’s existence but as a key witness to the abundant evidence – irrefutable, millennia-old proof – of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination.

Steve McDonald is deputy director, communications and public affairs, at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/koshermcdonald.

Why I collect

I never set out to be a collector. Whenever I read about millionaires with fabulous private collections of art and sculpture, I thought, why not just keep a few pieces you really love and give the rest on loan to a museum or gallery so that others can share their beauty?

Yet, I find now that I do have collections. They’re not worth any money and probably no one else would want them. Most people in my age group have accumulated possessions they can’t bear to part with, despite moving homes and maybe even countries several times in their lives.

Who remembers that song of yesteryear: “Among My Souvenirs”? Part of the lyrics were: “Some letters tied with blue, a photograph or two, I find a rose from you, among my souvenirs.”

What we are collecting are memories. There are moments we want to hold on to forever and, when we handle these mementoes, they bring a smile, a tear, a bittersweet wave of nostalgia.

I have more than a thousand books, and nowhere to put them all. Many are paperbacks, yellowed pages and tattered covers. But, to throw them out would be like disposing of dear friends. Lots of poetry – some by almost-forgotten writers like Alice Duer Miller, Rupert Brooke, A.E. Housman, Dorothy Parker. Novels by Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh, Hemingway, Steinbeck. Volumes of Jewish essays, which provide great divrei Torah. Books on philosophy, psychology, the craft of writing. They all represent my youth, when I discovered the world and the wonders it contained. No, I can’t throw them away!

Then there are the photos. They started out in albums, but there are too many and I’m too lazy. Beloved family no longer with us. Friends from long ago. Weddings. Babies, bright-eyed and dimpled. Rites of passage – first day at kindergarten and school, b’nai mitzvahs, graduations. Grandchildren. Holidays. They are all cherished, and overflow from drawers and cabinets.

Bric-à-brac. One earring (the other lost), given by my first boyfriend. Small children’s drawings. Their clumsy efforts at making you things from wood or papier mâché. A challah cloth with crooked stitches. A letter on a torn page that proclaims in shaky Hebrew letters, “Savta, I love you.” How could you ever toss those?

I also have a collection of shells and rocks. Most were gifts from grandchildren who wanted to give me something in return for the toys I gave them. There is a pinecone. There are stones I gathered at the Dead Sea on my sister’s last visit, when we spent a perfect, quiet day together, exchanging memories of our parents and siblings, our childhood, the dreams we realized and the ones we lost along the way. All precious. All irreplaceable.

“Get rid of the clutter,” we’re told. Not me. I shall go on collecting mementoes and memories until I die. And I hope my children, even then, will save a few of them. Because some things are worth more than money.

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

The Holocaust in literature

This academic year marks the second session of Writing Lives, a two-semester project at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines. Writing Lives is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation. This fall, students are learning about the Holocaust by studying literary and historical texts. In January, students will begin interviewing local Holocaust survivors and will write their memoirs on the basis of the interviews. Students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. Many students used their most recent journal entry to reflect on the value of literature in transmitting Holocaust memory. Here are a few excerpts.

The role of literature in preserving history is controversial but important. Understandably, there are people who are reluctant or even vehemently opposed to recording the Holocaust through the lens of art, concerned that the act of rewriting events in a fictional context may undermine the significance of the tragedy. Others may worry that historical inaccuracies are inevitable in these artistic works, thus doing a disservice to the victims and betraying their memories.

I would argue otherwise: that literature and historical facts can and should build upon one another, used to educate and not obscure. For me, reading our history textbook this semester has not always been easy, but reading the short story A Ghetto Dog by Isaiah Spiegel took the experience to a different level. Such is the power of narrative. As Menachem Kaiser wrote in his article “The Holocaust’s uneasy relationship with literature” (The Atlantic, Dec. 28, 2010), “literature affects us in ways that even the most brutal history cannot.” Literature makes the event close, immediate and personal. It’s hard for me to imagine being a Jew in Second World War Europe, but personal accounts and narratives come close to letting us immerse ourselves in the tragedy.

– Athina Leung

In his article “The Holocaust’s uneasy relationship with literature,” Kaiser argues that Holocaust literature is an important part of history. It can provide the emotional connection that reading facts cannot. It is a window to understand what people felt without having to experience the ordeal that the characters or author went through. Literature has the power to move the human heart. Facts are important, but they do not give the reader the ability to connect with history in ways that a more emotional and personal experience can provide.

– Tina Macaspac

I found the assigned reading, “The Holocaust’s uneasy relationship with literature,” to be incredibly relevant and thought-provoking. This article discusses the various difficulties associated with Holocaust literature, including the opinion by some historians that the only valid way to recount the Holocaust is through historical facts and memoirs. I agree that acquiring factual knowledge about the Holocaust is integral, and that reading historical documents is essential. However, I find myself disagreeing with the perspective that Holocaust literature is distasteful or discrediting to the Holocaust. Rather, literature provides an alternative, more emotional perspective that one cannot acquire from reading a fact-based history textbook. This week, for example, we read the short story A Ghetto Dog, which narrates the tale of the Jewish widow Anna and her dog Nicky. While I was aware of the facts (in this case, Jews being rounded up by Nazi troops) from a historical perspective, the story emphasized the feelings of helplessness and exhaustion that Holocaust victims and survivors felt. It touched a part of me in a way that facts and statistics could not.

– Emma Proctor

In A Ghetto Dog, the widow Anna and her dog Nicky are persecuted under the Nazi regime and forced to move into a ghetto. It is very clear from the beginning that Nicky is extremely important to Anna, and that he is her last remaining tie, not only to her deceased husband, but to her home.

The Nazis took livestock and any useful animals away from the Jewish people in order to make a profit. The livestock had value, which is why they were kept alive. People’s dogs, however, were not valuable to the Nazis, and that is one reason the dogs were killed.

Another reason was psychological. To the Nazis, it was important to wound people emotionally in order to conquer them. In the story, there were Jewish children dragging their dogs on ropes and leashes, bringing their pets, beloved family members, to be put to death. Dogs were part of a support system and, as with Anna, were reminders of home. To kill these dogs was to kill hope of return. The deaths of dogs were a stern reminder that just as easily as they could kill animals, Nazis could kill humans.

– Yukiko Takahashi-Lai

Lifelong Jewish relationships

Awhile back, I was talking on the phone to my mom in Virginia. Oh, she said, your dad is busy. He’s out at the cemetery. It turned out that he had taken one of my brothers with him. The two of them used their fix-it skills to mend a broken gravestone. The next time I visited the Jewish cemetery in Alexandria, Va., my dad pointed out the neatly mended marker. The person had died 100 years before. Despite good records, they couldn’t find any surviving family to maintain the gravestone. So, my dad and brother stepped up to the job.

Reading the Torah portion for this Shabbat, Chayei Sarah (Sarah’s Life), Genesis 21:1-25:18, makes me think about this cemetery story. This week’s portion is full of family lifecycle events. Here’s a quick summary from the ReformJudaism.org website:

Abraham purchases the cave of Machpelah in order to bury his wife Sarah. (23:1-20)
Abraham sends his servant to find a bride for Isaac. (24:1-9)
Rebekah shows her kindness by offering to draw water for the servant’s camels at the well. (24:15-20)
The servant meets Rebekah’s family and then takes Rebekah to Isaac, who marries her. (24:23-67)
Abraham takes another wife, named Keturah. At the age of 175, Abraham dies, and Isaac and Ishmael bury him in the cave of Machpelah. (25:1-11)

There is so much in this portion that it’s lucky we reread it every year. The first thing I noticed is how the Hittites, who owned the land around Machpelah, honoured Abraham. They valued him so much that they tried to give him the burial land for free – but Abraham honoured them back, and made an effort to pay for it. This exchange reminded me of how careful we need to be in managing Jewish burial sites. My mom has often had the opportunity to help families who need a cemetery plot and don’t have one. “Real estate” in Jewish cemeteries can be expensive. Sometimes it’s hard to get a spot when there’s an unexpected family death. The bottom line? Nobody comes out of this alive, so let’s help each other when dealing with death.

Next issue: finding the right life partner. Abraham works hard to find Isaac the right wife. Although love matches are usual these days, your family’s opinion is often pretty useful in making such a big choice. Rebekah makes a good impression.

Abraham then remarries. Rashi indicates that Keturah is actually Hagar, although other commentators disagree. In any case, this brings up another issue. Some people vilify Hagar, but here it seems that some believe she and Abraham are actually a likely couple. They go on to have several more children. How does that work? When one marries again and has more children, does parenting differ? Do religious differences work themselves out? How is it that some people outlaw intermarriage, and refuse to incorporate kids from intermarried families, when it was clearly prevalent in the Bible?

When Abraham dies, Ishmael helps Isaac bury him. However, Isaac’s name is mentioned first. Why? Some rabbis indicate this is because Ishmael repented and acknowledged Isaac’s superiority, even though Ishmael is older. Others indicate that, since Sarah was Abraham’s wife, her son should go first, before Hagar’s. While this sort of discussion about whose name is first seems out of date, we need only look at the succession of the British (Commonwealth) monarchy to acknowledge that we still look at birth order with some importance. How has our view of this changed over time?

Also, if Ishmael is the father of Islam, was this an interfaith funeral? Or just two brothers who loved their father?

This week’s portion also relates to Remembrance Day. How do we dal with profound issues of life and death? How do we confront mortality, embrace issues of loyalty and honour, while embracing our family responsibilities to the living? What are our priorities? Why?

As my family walked through that old cemetery in Virginia, we passed familiar names on gravestones. My dad told stories about the different family friends he knew during their lives. My uncle, visiting from Boston, chimed in. The conversation continued. We also celebrated another important milestone in life with my uncle. He and his high school friend Don were celebrating 50 years of friendship this year, too.

Someone recently said that my newspaper columns are about relationships. I’d suggest that the primary relationship I explore here is with Judaism. Many of us associate our religion with other people, in a sort of club or tribe mentality. However, what if we saw it as a tool? Imagine Judaism as a tool that helps us navigate life’s events and how to behave with others.

If so, we can often use a Torah portion as a guide – just as we might do with other kinds of literature or non-fiction – on how to respectfully bury our dead, and maintain meaningful relationships with family members and also in the wider Jewish and non-Jewish communities. We can offer support, as the Hittites did, in a time of grief. We can build new or rekindle relationships, as Abraham did with Keturah.

Sometimes, doing the right thing might mean repairing a gravestone for someone who is long gone. Maintaining long relationships with friends or with communities takes a different kind of work – emotional as well as physical upkeep. Do we put the same amount of effort into our relationship with understanding Judaism as well?

Need for interfaith learning

Have you heard about the sacred text in which the Almighty says, “Stand back from this community so that I may annihilate them in an instant?”

What about the king who gives permission to a people “to destroy, kill and annihilate the powers of any people or province that oppressed them, [even] young children and women, and to take their spoils.”

How do you feel about stoning a rebellious child?

That isn’t our religion! That’s not Judaism. It must be from some other religion’s holy book, right? Wrong. Actually, these come directly from the Tanach. Respectively: Numbers 16:21, Esther 8:11 and Deuteronomy 21:18.

Religious literature – heck, all literature – has concepts that might shock or offend. What about ideas that one doesn’t understand? Many educated people don’t read these sections as the literal truth. Thousands of years of commentators, in all religions, help us understand ideas that perhaps don’t make sense to modern sensibilities. These uncomfortable statements are sometimes proving a point by hyperbole, or creating metaphorical relationships to prove a point.

Many of us don’t take literature or anything we read – never mind the Torah – literally. We also know that, when something seems dubious, we should look it up. Use a dictionary, an online encyclopedia or even … a book.

Awhile back, an acquaintance sitting at a Shabbat table said something that seemed outrageous about Islam. His language and vehemence made me wish that there weren’t kids playing nearby. The man insisted he quoted the Koran correctly – nonetheless I felt concerned. Was he taking it out of context or distorting the point? When I got home, I looked it up. How? Easy, I have a copy of the Koran on my bookshelf. I took a whole course on the Koran as an undergraduate at Cornell.

Much of the time, we are too gullible. We believe what we read or hear from others or what we see reported in the news. We take it as true without thinking about it critically. We’re not always thinking about the words used in media reports … was the killer in Las Vegas a “lone wolf” or a “terrorist”? Does religion or race matter when it comes to how the media portrayed him? It does matter. A white man with Christian origins often doesn’t get called a terrorist or an extremist.

In that vein, many – including politicians and media commentators – feel free to make comments about Islam without actually reading the Koran. That sometimes results in a pretty skewed understanding of that faith tradition. Why am I talking about Islam? We live in a multicultural society. It’s important to know about our traditions and those of our neighbours.

Recently, Dr. Ruth Ashrafi gave a series of lectures to Catholics in Winnipeg about Judaism and the New Testament. She did it in connection with the Manitoba Interfaith Council, an important community organization. The president of the Interfaith Council is Belle Jarniewski, another member of the Jewish community.

These types of outreach efforts benefit everyone. Both Christianity and Islam have Jewish roots. Many Christians and Muslims want to learn more about Judaism. Further, Jews could learn a thing or two about others’ beliefs. Mutual understanding and education go a long way towards bridging differences and building on our common values. Ignorance breeds hate. We could all do with less of that, so let’s work on education.

It is easy to get whipped into a fervour when dealing with media reports or reading the newest bestselling polemical book about another people’s faith traditions. Yet, we aren’t experts in those traditions – unless we start from the beginning, read their holy texts, understand their customs, holidays and values before reading the newest polemic. Most of us aren’t even experts in our own traditions. When I was required to read the Hebrew Bible from beginning to end in graduate school, there were definitely upsetting things I read that I hadn’t known before. I had to read commentaries (both Jewish and non-Jewish ones) in order to get a better grip on what it contained.

I’m reminded, when seeing hot media rhetoric, of how my twins tell me about one of their fights. I hear the dramatic narrative from one side, and an entirely different tale from the other. The truth – or my understanding of their fight – lies somewhere in between all the different versions of their stories.

A friend of mine reads the news in multiple languages. If he has particular interest in one issue, he might use one piece of paper to take notes from all the international news sources. When he’s finished, he has created something like a Venn diagram. The news everyone seems to agree on, no matter the language or political agenda of the news source, is somewhere in the middle.

It’s only through study, asking questions and gaining knowledge that we become educated enough to understand difficult conflicts, religious disputes and political issues. We’d benefit from the programming of organizations such as the Manitoba Interfaith Council. As well, we can take time to read our sacred texts and others’ holy books in order to understand ourselves and our neighbours better.

Living an upright life as a Jew includes seriously taking responsibility for engaging with our foundational texts. Then, maybe, we’ll be living out our mandate as the People of the Book.

The next time you read a polemic against someone else’s religion (or your own) or hear a skewed media report and believe it without further research, remember that Venn diagram as a way towards better understanding.

We’re People of the Book. Maybe it’s time to crack some open? We can always learn more.