history – Page 42

Dr. Ruth a force of nature

Celebrity sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer started life as Karola Ruth Siegel in Weisenfeld, Germany. (photo from Mongrel Media)

Before she rocketed to 1980s TV fame as sex advisor Dr. Ruth, she was simply Ruth Westheimer. And long before she was Ruth Westheimer, she was Karola Ruth Siegel of Weisenfeld, Germany.

It is those formative early years that provide the most resonant and affecting passages in Ryan White’s solid documentary Ask Dr. Ruth, which is scheduled to open in Vancouver May 10. I’ll go even further: They provide the film with its raison d’etre.

Sure, lots of people were helped in ways big and small by Dr. Ruth’s high-profile acceptance of (almost) every form of sexual behaviour and by her uninhibited, direct language about intimate acts and love relationships. But what lifts Ask Dr. Ruth above a “where are they now” profile of an old-media, pop-culture celebrity is Karola Ruth Siegel’s experiences before, during and immediately after the Second World War.

Most audiences, especially non-Jewish viewers, will come to Ask Dr. Ruth for the sex. The mitzvah of the film, as it were, is that they will get the Holocaust.

To be clear, Dr. Ruth doesn’t see herself as a Holocaust survivor. She is “an orphan of the Holocaust,” which is the most poignant and wrenching phrase you’ll encounter all week.

Born in 1928, Karola Ruth was the sole child of observant Jewish parents. She was too young to fully understand when the Nazis sent her father to a labour camp in the 1930s. And, as bright as she was, she couldn’t fully grasp the long-term implications when her parents put her on a train to Switzerland with a group of Jewish children.

Placed in an orphanage, Karola Ruth and the other Jewish kids were handed housekeeping duties and some responsibilities for caring for the Swiss kids. They received food and shelter, but zero love and little compassion. A natural ringleader – on the train, she’d organized a sing-along to distract the homesick youngsters – Karola Ruth figured out ways to educate and entertain herself.

She discovered boys, of course, and the film accompanies her abroad to a warm reunion with her first boyfriend, Walter Nothmann. It’s pretty chaste stuff, presented by Westheimer with nostalgia and charm, which conveys universal attitudes of adolescence.

At the same time, though, Karola Ruth was devouring and savouring every letter and poem she received from her mother and father – until weeks, and then months, passed without any communication. (She preserved and protected these treasures throughout her travels, and keeps them in plastic sleeves in a notebook.)

The animation style used by filmmaker White to illustrate Karola Ruth’s Swiss period is annoyingly juvenile, unless one presumes that children are one of the intended audiences of Ask Dr. Ruth. Admittedly, those experiences are as accessible and relevant to today’s children as Anne Frank’s, if not more so, but parents and guardians would need to know that the focus of a documentary about a sex therapist isn’t, uh, sex.

At some point after the war, Westheimer accepted that her parents had been killed by the Nazis, but she never sought out the details. All these years later, while visiting Israel during the filming of Ask Dr. Ruth, she goes to Yad Vashem and learns that her father died in 1942 in Auschwitz. The notation for her mother is “disappeared/murdered.”

Ask Dr. Ruth skilfully weaves three threads and three distinct time frames: its subject’s biography from the 1930s to the 1960s, her high-profile heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, and her peripatetic schedule of speaking engagements and family contacts, climaxing with her 90th birthday last June.

The trek to Israel, fascinatingly, includes a visit with a friend from Kibbutz Ramat David, where Ruth Siegel – persuaded that Karola was too German, she dropped it – landed in Palestine at age 17. This remarkable chapter of her life includes ceding her virginity, being trained as a Haganah sniper and, on her 20th birthday during the War of Independence, being injured so badly in a bombing that there was a question whether she’d be able to use her feet again.

The next 70 years of Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s life, spanning Paris, New York, three husbands, two children, a doctorate at age 42, a radio show, household name recognition and four grandchildren, are acutely interesting. But the imprint of coming of age during the war, without her parents but with determination, resourcefulness, intelligence and humour, defined Karola Ruth Siegel and infuses Ask Dr. Ruth with timeless importance.

“From my background, all of the things I’ve survived,” Westheimer declares, “I have an obligation to live large and make a dent in this world.”

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Celebrating our history

An April 15 press tour took journalists to the Israeli side of the Jordan River. Joshua and the Israelites made their crossing here. (photo by Gil Zohar)

Seventeen bulletproof buses of pilgrims, plus one carrying journalists, spilled their contents April 15 at Qasr al-Yahud (Arabic for the Jews’ Castle) on the muddy banks of the not-so-mighty Jordan River, 10 kilometres east of Jericho. The buses were provided by the Government Press Office in Jerusalem.

The holy site is also called the Land of Monasteries because of the seven Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Ethiopian churches there. Until 2011, it was a fenced-off, closed military zone ringed by minefields. Qasr al-Yahud is revered by Christians as the place where John the Baptist immersed his second cousin, Jesus of Nazareth.

For Jews, the shrine marks where, on Nissan 10, circa 1290 BCE, Joshua bin Nun led the Children of Israel to ford the Jordan River and begin their conquest of the Promised Land. But, with the cold peace prevailing between Israel and Jordan, soldiers of the Hashemite Kingdom’s Arab Legion warily monitored the crowds, making sure that no brave souls crossed to the polluted stream’s east bank to reenact Joshua’s miraculous crossing on dry land.

As Joshua and the 12 tribes approached the river, they were met by the kohanim (priests) carrying the Ark of the Covenant. The Jordan then miraculously split for them – perhaps caused by a landslide in the earthquake-prone region that temporarily blocked the river’s flow – allowing them to cross. After fording the Jordan, Joshua erected 12 stones taken from the river at Gilgal, whose location today is disputed by historians and archeologists.

Symbolizing that the process of the Israelites conquering the Promised Land some 3,289 years ago is still underway, Palestinian teenagers in Jericho pelted the armoured bus in which the journalists were riding, smashing one of the shatterproof windows. No one was injured in the attack.

For this writer, the explosive sound of the thump of the rock on glass brought to mind Joshua’s advice when the Israelites marched on ancient Jericho to begin their conquest: “Be strong and of good courage.” (Joshua 1:9)

Qasr al-Yahud is a corruption of “the Jews’ break,” traditionally the place where the Israelites crossed over, that is, “broke” the Jordan River after their 40 years of wandering in the Sinai Desert: “When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand in one heap.” (Joshua 3:13)

It was here, too, that Elijah the Prophet ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot after he and Elisha crossed the Jordan: “And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters; and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground.” (2 Kings 2:8)

The strategic and diplomatic significance of the Jordan Valley were spoken about by retired Israel Defence Force (IDF) deputy chief-of-staff major general Uzi Dayan, who was elected to Israel’s Knesset (parliament) in the country’s April 9 general election.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, and previously Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, spoke of the Land of Israel’s long centuries of foreign occupation, from the Romans to the British.

From 1948 until 1967, Qasr al-Yahud was under Jordanian control, and was a popular destination for tourists and pilgrims. In 1968, following the Six Day War, access to the site was prohibited by the IDF because of its location beyond the border fence in a closed military zone. In recent years, the Israeli Civil Administration – with the assistance of the tourism and regional development ministries – carried out infrastructure and development work at the site, including the clearing of mines. In 2011, the site was opened to visitors on a permanent basis without the need for prior security coordination.

Entering ancient Jericho, with its 8,000-year-old remains at Tel as-Sultan and two Byzantine-era synagogues, is another matter. Large signs at the entrance to the city proclaim in Hebrew and English that entry is prohibited to Israelis. In honour of the Nissan 10 celebration, however, Israelis were allowed to enter the city in Area A, the Palestinian self-rule section of the West Bank, which is off limits the rest of year.

And what of the minefields? One million square metres of land are currently being cleared of approximately 3,000 anti-personnel mines, antitank mines and other unexploded ordinance. The project is being carried out by Israel’s National Mine Action Authority under the direction of the Defence Ministry, together with HALO Trust, an international mine-clearance charity.

Gil Zohar is a journalist based in Jerusalem.

[For more on this press trip to the Jordan River and Jericho, see “Traveling into our past.”]

Traveling into our past

Christians preparing to be baptized in the Jordan River. (photo by Barry Kaplan)

A few days prior to Passover, the Israeli Government Press Office organized a special field trip to the Jordan River and Jericho. The bus with 40 journalists left the GPO office parking lot at 8:30 a.m. and traveled on Highway #1 to the southern part of the Jordan Valley with a guide. We passed Maale Adumim, now a city with 45,000 residents, and headed through the desert area.

We began the ascent to Jericho, passing the Inn of the Good Samaritan, the sea-level sign and the barren hills. A strip of restaurants and souvenir places seemed to appear out of nowhere. We heard about the history of Kibbutz Bet Arevo, situated in this area from 1939 to 1948, passed a veritable forest of palm trees and, by 9:20 a.m., we were at Qasr al-Yahud, where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus. After it passed through the security fence, the bus parked and we walked down to the Jordan River.

Until 1967, this site was under Jordanian control and, in 1968, access was prohibited. In recent years, the tourism and regional development ministries have carried out various projects, including the clearing of mines, and, in 2011, the site was opened to visitors. The site and facilities are overseen by the Israeli Civil Administration and the Israeli Ministry of Tourism as part of a national park.

Running down the middle of the Jordan River is a metal divider. On the other side of it is Jordan. There were people standing around the river and, behind them, churches were visible on the Jordanian side. On the Israeli side, down more steps, people were wearing white cover-ups and going into the river, presumably to be baptized.

photo - Writer Sybil Kaplan with friend Walter Bingham, who, in his 90s, is the oldest working journalist in Israel — Writer Sybil Kaplan with friend Walter Bingham, who, in his 90s, is the oldest working journalist in Israel. *(photo by Barry Kaplan)*

In addition to its significance to Christians, two Jewish events took place at this spot.

In the Book of Joshua, we read how the Israelites, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, led by Joshua, crossed the Jordan River as the river became a stream. Supposedly this happened on the 10th of Nissan, this year April 15. Our guide says this could have taken place 4,440 years ago.

The passage in the Book of Joshua reads: “When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand in one heap.” (Joshua 3:13)

At this point in our trip, we were joined by Uzi Dayan, former major general, national security adviser and Israel Defence Forces deputy chief of staff. According to Dayan, this passage from Joshua describes “the first aliyah to Israel.”

Another biblical text (2 Kings 2:1-2) says Elijah struck the Jordan River water with his cloak. The water parted so that he and Elisha could cross. After Elijah ascended, Elisha again parted the waters with Elijah’s cloak so he could return to Israel. This occurred before Elijah ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot.

Dayan noted that, on the day of our visit, there would be 17 other busloads of people coming to commemorate what has happened here, and that a ceremony would be held that afternoon. We would return for it, but not stay (as I will explain later).

* * *

At 11:10 a.m., we reboarded the bus and became part of a convoy, with IDF soldiers and jeeps leading us and several soldiers inside each bus. On one side of the road are mine fields, still being cleared.

Our next stop was the sixth- or seventh-century CE Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue. Down some steps, we walked around the 10-by-13-metre mosaic floor that featured a menorah in its centre. It was identified as being the floor of a synagogue because of the images of the menorah, as well as an ark, shofar and lulav. The name stems from a mosaic inscription with the Hebrew words Shalom Al Yisrael.

photo - Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue mosaic in Jericho — Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue mosaic in Jericho. *(photo by Barry Kaplan)*

The synagogue was probably used for hundreds of years, but then the Jericho Jewish community dissipated, and the synagogue was forgotten. It was revealed in excavations conducted in 1936 by Dimitri Baramki of the department of antiquities under the British Mandate.

After the 1967 Six Day War, the site came under Israeli military control and remained under the administrative responsibility of the Arab owners – the Shahwan family, who had built a house over the mosaic floor and charged admission to visit it. Tourists and Jews began visiting the site regularly for prayers. In 1987, the Israeli authorities confiscated the mosaic, the house and a small part of the farm around it. They offered compensation to the Shahwan family, but it was rejected.

After the 1995 Oslo Accords, control of the site was given to the Palestinian Authority. It was agreed that free access to it would continue, and that it would be adequately protected.

There have been some incidents. For example, on the night of Oct. 12, 2000, the synagogue was vandalized by Palestinians who torched and destroyed most of the building, burned holy books and relics, and damaged the mosaic. For more than eight years, no Jews were permitted in Shalom Al Yisrael Synagogue, but, during that time, it was restored by the Municipality of Jericho. Since 2007, prayer services have been allowed once a week.

* * *

By 12:15 p.m., we were at the tel (hill, or mound), which some journalists climbed. Opposite is a building with restaurants, snacks and a kind of enclosed mall. Israeli soldiers patrol the entire area. Outside, a man was giving rides to people atop a camel, and soldiers sat around and chatted.

The archeological site is about 2.5 kilometres north of modern-day Jericho, on the site of the ancient city, 258 metres below sea level. It was inhabited from the 10th century BCE. Excavations began in 1868 and settlements are known to date from 10000 BCE.

photo - Photographer Barry Kaplan rests by Jericho’s oldest city wall. Tel Jericho can be seen in the background — Photographer Barry Kaplan rests by Jericho’s oldest city wall. Tel Jericho can be seen in the background. *(photo by Barry Kaplan)*

The story in the Book of Joshua relates that, when the Israelites were encamped in the Jordan Valley, ready to cross the river, Joshua, as a final preparation, sent out two spies to investigate the military strength of Jericho. The spies stayed in Rahab’s house, which was built into the city wall. The soldiers sent to capture the spies asked Rahab to bring out the spies; instead, she hid them.

After escaping, the spies promised to spare Rahab and her family after taking the city, if she would mark her house by hanging a red cord out the window. When Jericho fell, Rahab and her whole family were saved, becoming part of the Jewish people.

The biblical battle of Jericho was the first battle that was fought by the Israelites. According to Joshua 6:1-27, the walls of Jericho fell after Joshua’s army marched around the city and blew their trumpets.

* * *

Our second-last stop was Moshav Naama, which is about 45 minutes from the centre of Jerusalem and one-and-a-half hours from Tel Aviv. About 50 families live there. We arrived at 2 p.m.

On the moshav, they grow grapes, dates and organic vegetables. Inon, one of the farmers, grows herbs in greenhouses. In the warehouse, sweet basil and tarragon are packaged for shipping all over the world to supermarkets.

Inon said 95% of the dates grown there are Medjoul and 5% are other kinds. Medjoul dates originated in the Middle East and North Africa, and are one of the most famous varieties. They are well-known for their large size and delicious flavour. The dates from the moshav will be harvested in September and October.

* * *

At 4:30 p.m., above Qasr al-Yahud, the baptismal site, chairs have been set up for the approximately 900 people who will listen to speeches commemorating the Israelites arrival in the Promised Land. However, since most of the journalists do not understand the Hebrew, the GPO bus boards at 5:20 p.m. and travels back to the GPO offices, arriving just over an hour later. Even though we didn’t stay for the whole proceedings, I am still excited to have been a witness to the ceremony.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

[For more on this press trip to the Jordan River and Jericho, see “Celebrating our history.”]

Last Letters online exhibit

Susan-Zsuzsa and Lili Klein (photo from Yad Vashem via Ashernet)

photo - letter Susan-Zsuzsa and Lili Klein to their father — *(photo from Yad Vashem via Ashernet)*

On April 13, 1944, sisters Susan-Zsuzsa and Lili Klein (in photo) wrote their father Hugo a short letter: “Dear Daddy, We are well – goodbye.” Hugo had been drafted into a forced labour battalion in 1943; his wife Matild had stayed with their two daughters in their hometown of Hencida in the Bihar district of Hungary. Hugo survived the war, but Matild, Susan-Zsuzsa, 9, and Lili, 7, were deported to Auschwitz on May 24, 1944, and murdered shortly after their arrival.

Exactly 75 years later, Susan-Zsuzsa and Lili’s letter is among a dozen last letters included in Yad Vashem’s latest online exhibition, Last Letters from the Holocaust: 1944, presented to mark Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. Many of the documents included in the exhibition (yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/last-letters/1944/index.asp), as well as the photographs, were donated to Yad Vashem as part of its national Gathering the Fragments campaign. Together with the tens of thousands of Holocaust-era artifacts and artworks in Yad Vashem’s collections, these historical testimonies are due to be conserved and stored in the new Shoah Heritage Collections Centre, part of a new campus being built on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem.

Mystery photo … April 19/19

Two unidentified women hold a White Elephant sign for Hadassah Bazaar collection, 1953. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.10545)

If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected] or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.

Historic cemetery full of life

Victoria’s historic Jewish Cemetery. (photo from Amber Woods)

Who could imagine that a book about a cemetery would be so full of life? But then, the people who populate Amber Woods’ Guide to Victoria’s Historic Jewish Cemetery (Old Cemeteries Society, 2018) were among the most vivacious of sorts, starting with the daring, westward-bound pioneers eager to start a new life on a new frontier, to those who went on to be well-known judges (Samuel Schultz), politicians (David Oppenheimer) and artists (Reuven Spiers). Written on the cemetery’s gateway, the phrase Beit HaChayim (House of the Living) welcomes visitors.

The cemetery has had a storied existence. There have been fires, upkeep challenges, pleas to the public to locate graves of prominent individuals and, sadly, in recent times, the desecration of five gravesites in late 2011.

photo - Amber Woods — Amber Woods *(photo from Amber Woods)*

The discovery of gold along the Fraser River in 1858 brought an influx of people to the region, mostly from California, Jews among them. Jews arrived largely as merchants and proved adept at figuring out what was needed in the community. Having already developed trading networks, they did not need to rely on the Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) for supplies or for getting their goods to other markets, and “could move quickly from one business to another.”

On May 29, 1859, a group met to create the basis of a Jewish community, including a synagogue and a cemetery, in Victoria. A cemetery committee was formed and, on Oct. 1 that year, 1.7 acres of land was purchased from Roderick Finlayson, the chief factor of the HBC. In February 1860, the cemetery was consecrated, making it the first Jewish cemetery – and the oldest non-indigenous cemetery – in continuous use in Western Canada.

The first funeral at the cemetery, on March 20, 1861, was the result of a most unsavoury encounter. Businessman Morris Price, an immigrant from Prussia, was in his shop in Cayoosh, what is now Lillooet, on Feb. 1, 1861, when three men entered. He was found dead the next day. All the perpetrators were found guilty; two were executed, the third convicted of manslaughter and given a shorter 12-month sentence for his cooperation with officials. As Victoria’s was the only Jewish cemetery at the time in the region, Price’s remains were sent from the mainland.

Herein, too, are remembered several who were prominent in Victoria’s early commercial hub – liquor salesman, saloon operator and real estate tycoon Max Leiser; clothier Frederick Landsberg, who learned Chinook to trade with First Nations people and who would later go into curios, real estate and, finally, philanthropy; and restaurateur H.E. (Henry Emanuel) Levy, who opened the first gourmet establishment in the Pacific Northwest, the very “unkosher” sounding Levy’s Arcade Oyster Saloon, which became a local hangout. Levy’s son, Arthur, followed in the family business, setting up various popular diners, such as the Poodle Dog Café. Once retired from the restaurant business, Arthur Levy began a mission of world peace, which saw him correspond with many a noted statesman of his time, including Nikita Khrushchev, David Ben-Gurion and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Many of those buried at Victoria’s historic Jewish Cemetery lived the sort of life that could have been turned into a novel or film – tales of shipwrecks, of bankruptcies turned into successes.

There are fascinating biographies, such as that of Samuel Schultz, who, despite living to be a mere 51 years of age, did more in those years than most do in a lot longer. Schultz was a musician, athlete, activist and lawyer. He is credited with pitching the first no-hitter in British Columbia, played flute and clarinet for the Victoria Symphony, composed music, served as a correspondent for several newspapers and was a founding member of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith and became the first Jewish judge in Canada.

Then there is Lewis Lewis, who served twice, in non-consecutive terms, as one of the first presidents of Victoria’s Temple Emanu-El (now Congregation Emanu-El). His is a story shrouded in questions. “Much of the information available about Lewis Lewis is contradictory, incomplete or, in some instances, false,” Woods writes. Many myths and mysteries exist about this early Jewish settler, from his place of birth in Eastern Europe to how he changed his name, from the story of his arrival in Victoria, to his legacy within the local community.

The historic Jewish Cemetery is situated four kilometres from downtown Victoria, where Fernwood Road meets Cedar Hill Road. Visitors enter through the pedestrian gate of the main entrance.

Woods’ book is part of the Stories in Stone series organized by the Old Cemeteries Society. Copies can be purchased at the Jewish Community Centre of Victoria, Congregation Emanu-El, area bookstores (Bolen, Munro’s and Ivy’s) and online at jewishvictoria.wordpress.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Reflecting on my Jewish hero

The writer with her grandfather, George Wertman. (photo from Becca Wertman)

I believe it was in Grade 6 at Vancouver Talmud Torah that we had to do a project about a “Jewish hero.” I remember other students wrote about Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism; Golda Meir, the first female Israeli prime minister; and Hannah Senesh, the Palmach paratrooper who was executed by Nazis while attempting to save Hungarian Jews. I wrote about my zaida.

My zaida, George Wertman, was born on May 17, 1921, in Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), and passed away on March 25, 2019, in Vancouver. He was a Holocaust survivor, yet that alone is not why I consider him my hero – it is because of how he survived and what he managed to accomplish in his life.

In fall 1941, Zaida was taken to a forced labour camp, Camp Winniki, where he became an assistant steamroll engineer, enslaved to build roads for the Nazis.

Zaida always marched in the first group of three during the 12-to-14-kilometre trek from the camp to the work site. One day, he lined up in the third group and, on that same day, two individuals escaped the camp. As was the “camp policy,” three people were shot for every person who escaped. The SS officer selected the first two rows and took them into the forest to their deaths. Zaida survived by sheer luck.

On other occasions, it was more than just luck that saved his life – it was his reputation as being a hard worker. In his second year in the camp, Zaida became ill with typhoid and was taken to the camp’s infirmary. An SS officer and a Ukrainian policeman came to the infirmary to select sick Jews to be shot for, as Zaida explained to me, why would Nazis spend scarce resources on healing sick Jews? The SS officer yelled to my zaida, “Out!” but the Ukrainian insisted that Zaida was his best worker and to save him.

In July 1943, Zaida’s determination to live motivated him to run when an SS officer came to his barracks in the middle of the night and told him to get dressed and, again, “Out!” Zaida preferred dying on his own terms – while doing everything he could to survive – and, therefore, jumped out of the window and ran. He ran through puddles to trick the scent dogs and eventually outsmarted the Nazis, managing to escape to “safety.” The rest of the camp was liquidated and sent to their deaths.

“Safety” meant reuniting with my great-grandfather in his hiding spot in a secret room located in a building where German officers lived. For one year, Zaida spoke in whispers and did not see the sun.

Zaida was liberated in summer 1944, but his story of survival by no means ended there. He met my grandmother (my baba, who I call Babi), and she, Zaida and my great-grandfather began a “business” of necessity – smuggling goods across one European border and the next. They would hollow out suitcases, fill the frames with gold and give them to my 20-year-old grandmother to carry across the border.

They eventually made enough money to get visas to Canada and, in July 1949, arrived in Vancouver.

The money they had made in Europe was invested in property, including a piece of land bought from the Canadian Pacific Railway that became my dad’s childhood (and current) house and a property that housed George Wertman Ltd., Zaida’s coat hanger factory.

Zaida worked extremely hard to succeed in Canada, making wire coat hangers and doing everything to ensure that his three children and eight grandchildren would never have to suffer.

His retirement largely consisted of wining, dining and drinking coffee throughout Vancouver. From the age of 91 to 96, he could be found daily at the Hotel Georgia’s Bel Café sharing a grilled cheese sandwich with Babi.

As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, I have unique childhood memories. I remember my family parking at least a 15-minute walk away, usually more, from the best restaurants in Vancouver in order to not pay for parking and to “save a buck”; of eating chicken soup in bowls of gold-rimmed china that my grandparents brought from Allied-occupied Germany; and of always asking Zaida to tell me stories, like the ones above.

In Zaida’s Holocaust survivor testimony to the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, he explains that his philosophy is that you “have to work to get somewhere” and that he believes in “honesty, hard work and, once in awhile, if you can do a mitzvah,” do it. Indeed, hard work saved his life and being an honest businessman in Canada allowed him to give his family everything they needed.

As Zaida also instructs in his testimony, “Try to make a better world. If you cannot make a better world, do not make it worse.”

This is why he was, is, and will always be, my hero and my inspiration for how I live. I hope his story, summarized here, will inspire others as well. May his memory be a blessing.

Becca Wertman grew up in Vancouver and currently lives and works in Jerusalem.

Siblings return to Kochi

The interior of Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, India. (photo by Lauren Kramer)

Dec. 6 marked an emotional homecoming for Canadian siblings Linda Hertzman and Kenny Salem. The pair were among some 180 Jews who returned to their birthplace in Kochi, India, to mark the 450th anniversary of the Paradesi Synagogue in the neighbourhood known as Jew Town. Three generations of families gathered from Israel, Australia, Canada and England to celebrate the milestone. They walked the ancient stone pathway of Synagogue Lane, spoke their native tongue of Malayalam and congregated in the synagogue for a festive celebration of the Jewish life that once flourished in this corner of southern India.

The festivities were tinged with sadness, however. For many, it would be their final visit to the beautiful Paradesi Synagogue. The shul is unique for its colourful oil lamps and a Torah scroll decked in a gold crown that was gifted to the community in 1802 by the maharaj of Cochin. (Kochi is the preferred term for the city formerly called Cochin.) The handpainted Chinese tiles on the synagogue floor have long since emptied of worshippers and the Jewish community of Jew Town now numbers just five – the oldest of them age 96. It’s tourists that stand beneath the oil lamps these days, visiting from dawn to dusk to marvel at the ancient Jewish history and try to comprehend its relevance. Opportunities for congregational prayer have been rare since most of the community left for other parts of the world from 1948 onwards.

On the Shabbat following the 450th anniversary, however, tourists were turned away from the Paradesi Synagogue and the sanctuary again echoed with Jewish prayer. The pews were filled with women in colourful dresses, reaching out to touch the ancient Torah scrolls as they were lifted joyfully from the aron hakodesh (holy ark) for morning prayers. Tears streamed down the faces of Jews for whom the synagogue was filled with rich memories. There were children who were seeing their families’ history for the first time and elders who were stepping into the synagogue for the last time. Adults in their 60s recalled their childhood memories of watching their parents pray in the synagogue, of riding their bicycles around the narrow roads of Mattancherry and of the warm, deeply religious and meaningful Jewish life that existed in Jew Town.

photo - Paradesi Synagogue, also known as Mattancherry Synagogue, is the building in the back — Paradesi Synagogue, also known as Mattancherry Synagogue, is the building in the back. *(photo by Lauren Kramer)*

The vibrant hub of Jewish life in Kochi, Jew Town was home to three synagogues, each serving different segments of the community. The “synagogue in the middle,” with a star of David still etched in its concrete, is now a repurposed building, while the southernmost shul is a ramshackle 900-year-old structure, its rafters occupied by nesting pigeons. Indentations on the side of many of the doors of homes and businesses in Jew Town mark the spot where mezuzot used to announce a Jewish home and the large Jewish cemetery a few minutes’ walk from the shul is unlikely to be filled with many more graves as the years roll by. The Jewish life that flourished here has become a lucrative business for antique dealers and souvenir shops selling scarves and trinkets, retailers loitering outside and using all their powers of persuasion to bring shoppers in.

Hertzman, who lives in Richmond, B.C., and Salem, from Richmond Hill, Ont., were the first guests to check into what was their family home, recently transformed into a boutique hotel called A.B. Salem House. It was named for their late grandfather, Abraham Barak Salem, an attorney known as the “Jewish Gandhi” for his negotiations with Israel that enabled the Jews of Kochi to make aliyah.

Kenny Salem left Kochi at age 25 in 1987 and returns to the city annually to see his childhood friends. “It was good to have everyone back here in Jew Town,” he said. “Friends and family were walking in and out of our house all day long, just like old times, when my mother had her door open to everyone. But the sad part is that, in the aftermath of the celebrations, Jew Town is silent once again.”

There are plans to fill that silence in the near future. David Hallegua, a spokesperson for the Cochin Synagogue Trust, announced plans to build a museum dedicated to the history of the Kochi Jews in the hall above the synagogue.

“It’s a dwindling community,” admitted Salem. “So, when there are no longer any Jews living here, we will hand the management of the synagogue and cemetery over to the Archeological Department of India. We need to tell the story of the Jewish community that once lived here and pass on this message to future generations.”

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Miriam’s legacy of drumming

Female hand drummers from the Iron Age II (eighth to seventh century BCE), found at the site of what was Achzib, on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel. From the Israel Museum collection. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

In February, an Israeli ultra-Orthodox bride got lots of media attention for playing drums before a mixed (male and female) crowd of wedding guests. Putting aside issues of religious modesty and political clout, does Jewish law restrict females from playing drums?

Significantly, there is a biblical precedent for female drum playing. It dates back to Miriam the Prophetess. Having just crossed a miraculously dry channel in the Red Sea, Miriam felt compelled to celebrate. She and the other Israelite women who had just experienced the Exodus play drums, referred to in Hebrew as tof miryam. (See Exodus 15:20.)

In a 2009 article in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Prof. Carol Meyers notes, “The Bible mentions … only one percussion instrument … the tof, or hand drum, even though other kinds of drums were known elsewhere in the biblical world. Whenever this word is found, it is quite likely that the presence of female instrumentalists is implied.”

Meyers explains that this hand drum consisted of an animal skin stretched over a hollow body of any shape or size. Moreover, although tof miryam is sometimes rendered in English as a tambourine, it is not, given that it has no rattle or bells. Meyers further reports that the tambourine was not authenticated before the 13th century CE.

Additionally, Meyers points out that female figures predominate in unearthed Iron Age terracotta statutes, holding what appear to be hand drums. These women are plainly dressed, hence they appear to be ordinary people, rather than gods or members of the elite.

Few terracotta statues have been discovered in Palestine or Israel. Yet, from the biblical references of Exodus, Judges 11:34, I Samuel 18:6 and Jeremiah 31:4, we are left to understand that there was a tradition of female hand drum players.

Moreover, citing I Samuel 18:6-7, S.D. Goitein states in a 1988 article in Prooftexts, that a woman’s duty was to welcome the returning fighters and to praise them.

Of what importance were these female drums? Meyers elaborates that female public performance would (1) assume a level of competence based upon practice, (2) indicate that, in ancient Israel, there were groups of women performers and (3) imply that leaders and other members of the community acknowledged and appreciated the expertise of these women performers.

Not only that, but, in the book Miriam’s Tambourine: Jewish Folktales from Around the World (1988), edited by Prof. Howard Schwartz, Miriam’s drum had magical abilities. Relying on a 19th-century Eastern European folktale, Schwartz writes that the music from Miriam’s drum drove off serpents and kept Miriam herself in eternal life.

According to Rabbi Allen Maller’s interpretation of the Mechilta and Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, while in Egypt, Miriam taught all the Israelite women how to play the drum. Moreover, he writes on blogs.timesofisrael.com, once the plagues started, Miriam repeatedly reminded the women of all that she had taught them and that, as a sign of their faith in G-d, they should all take at least one drum per family with them when it was time to leave.

Still it is not clear from whom Miriam learned to play. Did Miriam’s mother, Yocheved, teach her to play the hand drum? Or did Miriam learn from Egyptian women?

Broadcaster and writer Eva Dadrian states in her 2010 article “Let there be music!” that ancient Egyptian musicians realized percussion was basic to their orchestras. Thus, they played drums of different sizes. Drums were particularly associated with sacred ceremonial events, but they were also used during battles to rally the troops or to spread panic among the enemy forces.

Dadrian adds that, in spite of the richness of the documentation, our knowledge of pharaonic music remains limited: without theoretical treaty or musical score, it is particularly difficult to do an archeology of music. The two main membranophones used by ancient Egyptians were the single membrane drum mounted on a frame and the barrel-shaped drum with two membranes.

In the University of California, Los Angeles Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Music and Musicians (2013), Egyptologist Sibylle Emerit claims the single membrane drum is documented in Egypt’s Old Kingdom (2575 BCE to 2150 BCE) in a scene carved in the solar temple of Niuserra in Abu Ghurab. She relates that the non-epigraphic material from the East Cemetery of Deir el-Medina, dating to the 18th dynasty, indicates that the owners of the musical instruments buried in this tomb belonged to a modest social class attached to the service of local noblemen. Thus, Emerit confirms Meyers’ assertion about the plain appearance of female Iron Age II drummer statues.

Music researcher, lecturer and performer Veronica Doubleday notes in a 1999 Ethnomusicology article that plentiful evidence shows women played the frame drum in the Egyptian New Kingdom (1570-947 BCE) dynasties. There were musical troupes in temple rituals, as well as solo drum players.

Over the centuries, Islam, Christianity and Judaism marginalized woman’s public drum playing. In a PhD dissertation (2006), Mauricio Molina writes that early leaders of the Christian religion, for example, condemned the frame drums because of their connection with the fertility cults, which the Church was struggling to banish.

Aside from Miriam, Jewish (and non-Jewish) females might have been told that it is not lady-like to play drums, as drummers need to sit with their legs spread apart and drummers sometimes “let loose” to play.

Nonetheless, today, the number of female drummers – including Jewish female drummers – is growing. As the recent bride story reveals, the numbers are increasing even within the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox community. In Jerusalem, for example, the school Mayever LaMusica (Beyond Music) offers separate drum lessons for girls and women.

Among those who grew up Orthodox are Temim Fruchter, former drummer in the Shondes, and Dalia Shusterman, who drummed in an all-female Chassidic alternative rock group. Elaine Hoffman-Watts, who died two-and-a-half years ago at the age of 85, was a klezmer drummer – many klezmer bands refused her talents because she was a woman; it wasn’t until her father (also a klezmer musician) intervened that she got work as a drummer.

Other notable Jewish female drummers with Israeli backgrounds are Meytal Cohen, Mindy Abovitz (who is also founder and editor-in-chief of the drum magazine Tom Tom), Iris Portugali and Yael Cohen.

So, the beat goes on and, after a long respite, women are again helping to produce it.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

The great matzah ball debate

What food eaten during Pesach causes the most debates? If you guessed matzah balls, you’re right. Should they be hard or light? Big or small? What secret ingredient should be added to them?

From where did matzah balls, or kneidlach, originate? German Jews had a dumpling that they put into their soup called knodel. From this came the Yiddish term kneydl, singular, or kneydlach, in the plural. In Czech, it is known as knedliky. Dumplings have been in Central European cookery since the Middle Ages and then they came to Germany and Eastern Europe later.

So, just how many ways are there to make matzah balls?

Joan Nathan, a friend of mine, who has written a number of cookbooks and is considered a maven of American Jewish cooking, proposes adding chicken fat or vegetable oil plus seltzer, club soda or chicken broth, to make them light and airy. In Jewish Cooking in America, she also relates that some matzah balls, originating in Lithuania, use chicken fat or vegetable shortening and contain a filling made of onion, oil or chicken fat, matzah meal, egg yolk, salt, pepper and cinnamon. The filling is then placed in the middle of the matzah ball before they are cooked in salt water. After cooking in salt water, they are baked 30 minutes then placed in the soup for serving. Joan also has a recipe for matzah balls made in the southern United States, using pecans. In my research, I discovered that some Louisiana Jews add green onions and cayenne pepper.

In her cookbook Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France, Joan explains that, in France, matzah balls are called boulettes de paque, krepfle or kneipflich. They are the size of walnuts and not fluffy. They are made from stale bread or matzah soaked in water and dried, and they contain rendered goose fat, vegetable oil or beef marrow, eggs, water or chicken broth, matzah meal, salt, pepper, ginger and nutmeg.

In The New York Times Passover Cookbook, edited by Linda Amster, among the recipes for matzah balls is one by Mimi Sheraton, Times food critic at the time, who used chicken fat and cold water. Another is from Joan’s cookbook Jewish Holiday Kitchen, and she uses ginger and nutmeg. The winning recipe for the first Matzah Bowl contest in New York at the time the Times cookbook was published used vodka and club soda. A low-fat, low-salt version is made with egg whites and vegetable oil. Another style, which is airy, is made with beef marrow, instead of chicken fat, plus nutmeg.

Refrigeration and the temperature of the liquid seem to be key common denominators in many recipes.

Nina Rousso, an Israeli, in her book The Passover Gourmet, uses beaten egg yolks, lukewarm water, melted margarine, salt, parsley, matzah meal and stiffly beaten egg whites folded in. The mixture is refrigerated two hours before making.

In Passover Lite, Gail Ashkenazi-Hankin, an American, combines egg yolks, onion powder, salt, pepper, matzah meal, water and beaten egg whites and chills the mixture 30 minutes.

Zell Schulman, the American author of Let My People Eat, says the key to making light, melt-in-your-mouth, floating matzah balls is to beat egg whites until stiff then fold into the yolks with salt, pepper, cinnamon, matzah meal and optional parsley and refrigerate 15 minutes. A second version combines matzah meal with only the beaten egg whites until they hold peaks, plus parsley, cinnamon, grated carrot and oil, but no egg yolks.

Susan Friedland, the American author of The Passover Table, combines whole eggs with seltzer, salt, pepper, matzah meal and schmaltz, which she refrigerates for one hour. The schmaltz adds the flavour.

Marlene Sorosky, American author of Fast and Festive Meals for the Jewish Holidays, provides a recipe using ground almonds, ginger and chopped parsley. She chills the matzah balls for one hour.

Edda Servi Machlin, whose family has 2,000-year-old roots in Italy, says her family serves a mix between Italian Passover soup and Ashkenazi chicken soup. Her matzah balls are made of chopped chicken, egg, broth, olive oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg and matzah meal. The batter is refrigerated one hour before making.

Other Italian Jews, who call the matzah balls gnocchi di azzaima, add onions or mashed potatoes to the dough or grated lemon rind.

An aside: In 2001, Ariel Toaff, a professor at Bar-Ilan University, who is the son of Rome’s chief rabbi, came out with a book called Mangiare alla Giudia (Eating the Jewish Way). He devotes a chapter to Passover traditions, and writes that matzah was so popular that the Catholic authorities banned Jews from selling matzah to non-Jews and banned Christians from eating it.

Italian bakers also baked different kinds of matzah: plain for intermediate days, shmurah matzah for the sederim, and matzah made with white wine, eggs, sugar, anise and goose fat for those with more rich tastes.

Jews of Italy even developed sfoglietti or foglietti, a kosher-for-Passover pasta made with flour and eggs, which was then quickly dried and baked in a hot oven and served in soup or with a sauce.

Joyce Goldstein, an American fascinated by Italian Jewish cuisine, describes, in Cucina Ebraica, a combination of ground chicken, egg, matzah meal, salt, pepper and cinnamon, which she refrigerates before cooking in soup, but she does not say for how long.

Sonia Levy, a native of Zimbabwe, wrote a cookbook of her community, called Traditions. She describes luft kneidlach, light matzah balls, made with matzah meal, water, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon or ginger, eggs and oil. These must be refrigerated at least half a day. She adds that you can also make a pit with a finger and insert chopped meat that has been mixed with fried onions and spices. Another Zimbabwe version uses egg, cold water, chicken fat, salt, pepper, ginger and matzah meal.

Ruth Sirkis, an Israeli, in A Taste of Tradition, says “air” matzah balls have eggs, matzah meal, salt, chicken soup and chicken fat and are refrigerated two hours.

Another version, by Anya von Bemzen and John Welchman in Please to the Table: A Russian Cookbook, has walnut balls for soup, which are made by the Georgian Jews using ground walnuts, onion, egg, matzah meal, oregano, salt, pepper and a froth egg white.

A couple of last pieces of matzah ball trivia. In 2008, a New York kosher delicatessen held its annual matzah ball-eating competition to raise money for a shelter for the homeless. The winner ate 78 matzah balls in eight minutes. Although not in the Guinness Book of World Records, a few years ago, the largest matzah ball was measured at 17.75 inches across and weighed more than 33 pounds.

And, lastly, among some ultra-Orthodox Jews, matzah balls are not eaten because they expand when they cook, and they consider this reaction a form of leavening.

Regardless of the style of matzah balls you prefer, just make plenty for your guests!