Dear Reader,
During the lunch recess of the trial of 93-year-old Nazi Oskar Groening, Eva Kor introduced herself.
INTERNATIONAL
Survivor Confronts Nazi Guard At Trial
Indiana’s Eva Kor, face to face with Oskar Groening during recess in German court.
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
It happened during the lunch recess Tuesday, the first day of the trial in Germany of the former Auschwitz guard being tried on 300,000 counts of complicity in the murder of Hungarian Jews who were sent to the gas chambers in the summer of 1944.
Eva Kor, a 4-foot, 10-inch 81-year-old woman, walked up to the former SS officer, Oskar Groening, 93, as he sat at the defense table.
“I was curious to see how he would react to me,” she later told The Jewish Week by phone from Germany. “I walked up to him and introduced myself. I said I am a survivor of Auschwitz. He grabbed my hand and tried to get up. He had a warm, strong hand. Suddenly, he fainted and fell back.
“The chair was no longer under him and his head was falling to the ground. At that moment, he was not a Nazi but an old man who was going to fall to the ground, and I was an old woman trying to save him.
“But I’m too small and too old to save him, so I screamed, ‘He is falling and I can’t stop him.’ It happened so fast and nobody was paying attention. But then two guys grabbed his chair and lifted him into it.”
Groening, who had shuffled into the courtroom using a walker, must have fainted from standing up “too fast,” Kor surmised. “I remember that his feet were like mush — he couldn’t hold them on the ground — and couldn’t even hold his body up.”
Kor of Terre Haute, Ind., one of 67 Auschwitz survivors who are co-plaintiffs in the case, had a chance to address Groening the next day. It came after he had testified for many hours and requested an adjournment for the day. The panel of five judges deciding his fate agreed, but Groening said he first wanted to hear the testimony of Eva Kor.
“He seemed to know something about me personally,” she said later. “I believe he knew I forgave the Nazis and that therefore I am not a threat.”
She was referring to the letter she famously wrote in 1995 to a former Nazi doctor, Hans Munch, saying she had decided to forgive all Nazis.
She mentioned that letter in the statement she read to the court, explaining that it was her way of thanking Munch for agreeing to accompany her to Auschwitz on the 50th anniversary of its liberation and for signing a statement at the ruins of its gas chambers to attest to their existence.
“For me, it was a life-changing experience,” Kor said in her statement. “I realized I had power over my life. I had the power to heal the pain imposed on me in Auschwitz by forgiving the people who imposed that pain.”
And then, addressing Groening, Kor said: “It is true, but sad, that we cannot change what happened in Auschwitz. I am hoping that you and I, as former adversaries, can meet as people who respect one another as human beings and can relate to one another to understand, to heal, and to express thoughts that would not be possible any other way. …
“I am probably the only survivor who has forgiven all the Nazis, including you, in my name alone. My forgiveness does not absolve the perpetrators from taking responsibility for their actions, nor does it diminish my need and right to ask questions about what happened at Auschwitz.”
She said that although her parents and two older sisters were murdered at Auschwitz, she and her 10-year-old twin sister, Miriam, survived because Dr. Josef Mengele used them as guinea pigs for his experiments. Kor then asked Groening why only Auschwitzinmates were tattooed, whether he knew Mengele, knew of his experiments, what happened to Mengele’s files, and what he injected into her body that nearly killed her.
Groening did not answer her questions that day, but Kor said she hopes he will during the course of what is expected to be a three-month trial. If convicted, Groening faces up to 15 years in prison.
Of the approximately 6,500 members of the SS who worked at Auschwitz, only 49 have been convicted of war crimes. Groening himself had been previously cleared of war crimes by a German court, but these new charges were filed after a former guard at the Sobibor death camp, John Demjanjuk, was tried and convicted in 2011 for his involvement in the murder of 28,000 people there. He died in 2012.
That conviction led German prosecutors to change their policy when dealing with suspected Nazi war criminals, according to Efraim Zuroff, founder and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem and its chief Nazi hunter.
“Prior to that, prosecutors had to prove [the defendant] had committed a specific crime against a specific person,” he told The Jewish Week by phone from Israel. “It applied to those who served in the six camps in Poland that had the ability for mass extermination, and to those who served in mobile killing units that were used in the Soviet Union.”
Demjanjuk had been an “armed SS guard who took people off trains at Sobibor and pushed them into the assembly line of mass annihilation,” Zuroff said.
Groening, on the other hand, was “not someone who pulled the trigger,” he noted. Rather, he was known as the accountant of Auschwitz because he “was in charge of making sure that the money brought by deportees was used for the benefit of the Reich. He was among those who facilitated the mass murder; he made it possible to happen.”
But unlike other accused Nazis, Zuroff said, Groening has not only admitted what he did but has spoken openly of the atrocities he witnessed at Auschwitz.
“In the 35 years I have been doing this, I can’t think of someone else openly speaking critically of the crimes committed where they were,” Zuroff observed.
Groening first spoke about it in 1985 when he was handed a book written by a Holocaust denier. He returned it after writing in it: “I saw everything. The gas chambers, the cremations, the selection process. … I was there.”
He later wrote a memoir for his family and gave interviews to a German news magazine and the BBC.
On the first day of his trial in the northern German city of Lueneburg near Hamburg, Groening, speaking in a firm voice, reportedly told the court: “It is beyond question that I am morally complicit. This moral guilt I acknowledge here, before the victims, with regret and humility. I ask for forgiveness. You have to decide on my legal culpability.”
Asked if there is a difference between being morally complicit and legally culpable, Zuroff said a person is guilty either because of his “physical participation or administrative participation.”
“He is hoping to get off on a technicality,” he said. “Without these people, the whole system could not have worked.”
Asked about the thinking of the German legal system that refused to prosecute such people until 2011, Zuroff said, “People had said why should they [SS officers] be punished when those who had more important jobs were not prosecuted, acquitted or given light sentences. But if you have a gang that carries out a series of murders and the top people get away, the others may not be as guilty as the leaders but that is beside the point. They must be tried as accessories to murder.”
Prosecutor Jens Lehmann acknowledgement as much when he told the court that Groening had made “at least a low-level contribution” to the “smooth operation” of Auschwitz.
Although this is the first trial of a Nazi guard since Damjanjuk changed the policy for prosecution, Zuroff said trials of other former Nazis are expected. He said German authorities in the last few years have found 38 former Auschwitz guards who are still alive, 31 of whom live in Germany. In addition, another 12 Nazi guards who served at the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp in Germany were also located.
Barring death or illness, Zuroff said, he expects them all to also stand trial. He said two of the 31 have already been indicted. And he said that if convicted they should be sent to jail, no matter what their age.
“The fact Groening admitted his crime is a factor in his favor in terms of punishment,” Zuroff said. “But it is important that he be punished even if it is only symbolic — he has to be given at least some jail time.”
Groening testified that shortly after being assigned to Auschwitz in 1942, he saw drunken guards speak of “getting rid” of prisoners. He said he witnessed that himself in December of that year when he was awakened to chase down inmates who were attempting to escape. In the process, he saw prisoners herded into a building and gas poured into an opening on the side of the building. Then he heard screams from those inside.
The cries, he said, “grew louder and more desperate, until they fell silent. … That was the only time I saw a complete gassing. I did not take part.”
An estimated 1.1 million people — primarily European Jews — were murdered between 1940 and January 1945 at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
And Groening recounted seeing an SS guard kill an apparently abandoned baby who was found lying amid some trash. To stop the child from crying, he smashed its head against a truck.
Groening said he complained to a superior but that no action was taken. And he said that on three separate occasions he asked to be transferred from Auschwitz but that his requests were denied.
“What kind of hatred was behind it?” he asked rhetorically about the Holocaust. “I just can’t understand it.”
During May and July 1944 — the period for which Groening is being tried — about 425,000 Hungarian Jews were sent by train to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex; most were gassed immediately. Groening testified that there were so many trains arriving that they often piled up and would have to wait with their doors closed until the one in the station was “processed.”
“The capacity of the gas chambers and the capacity of the crematoria were quite limited,” he was quoted as saying. “Someone said that 5,000 people were processed in 24 hours, but I didn’t verify this. I didn’t know. For the sake of order, we waited until train one was entirely processed and finished.”
He later said that it was clear to him that none of the arriving Jews were expected to leave the camp alive.
“I couldn’t imagine that” happening, he said.
Kor said the “value of his testimony” is the impact it might have on neo-Nazi groups and young people who don’t believe the Holocaust existed.
“For a Nazi to admit in court what happened sends an important message,” she said.
Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein, one of the giants of Modern Orthodoxy, died this week. Our website is full of testimonials to his scholarship and character.
EDITORIAL & OPINION | OPINION
On Israel’s 67th Anniversary, Some Suggestions on How to Heal the US-Israel Relationship04/23/2015 | JEREMY BEN-AMI | Opinion
This week, Israel marks 67 years of independence and 67 years of a vibrant relationship with the United States.
My Rebbe: A Unique Blend Of Intellect, Piety And Humility04/22/2015 | RABBI MOSHE TARAGIN | Opinion
In Hebrew we refer to a great spiritual giant as a gadol. Too often, especially in the modern era of hagiography, the word is too broadly applied and thereby diluted. However, to those who have encountered a gadol, the definition seems intuitive. Having been privileged with a relationship with a gadol, your life is forever personally inspired, morally challenged and religiously refined. I had the privilege of spending more than 30 years in the presence of a gadol of our generation, Harav Aharon Lichtenstein, who inalterably shaped my life and the lives of tens of thousands of hisstudents across the globe.
Why Birthright Is The Real Game Changer for Israel04/21/2015 | IDO AHARONI | SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH WEEK | Opinion
For the first time in Israel’s 67 years of existence, the conversation surrounding the Jewish state has changed. Rather than seeing Israel as a place of conflict, young people are now looking at it as a place of opportunity. For their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, Israel was perceived as needy, as a place solely of war, of turmoil, as a place defined by its existential threats. Not since the earliest days of the Zionist movement has there been such incredible positive energy and enthusiasm for Israel as there is now.
Rav Aharon Lichtenstein: The Impassioned Moderate04/21/2015 | CHAIM SAIMAN | Opinion
Since the passing at the age of 81 of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, or Rav Aharon, as he was known, on April 20, there has been a steady stream of tributes and obituaries. The facts of his life are readily available with a few keystrokes, and his Talmudic prowess is both well-known and nearly impossible to describe to the uninitiated. Therefore, someone who neither lives in Israel, nor studies Talmud, or who is not Jewish may legitimately ask: Why should I care? What does this Talmudic genius have to do with me?
Caring For Holocaust Survivors At Life’s End04/21/2015 | TOBY WEISS | SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH WEEK | Opinion
As a child of Holocaust survivors, I experienced two dramatically different end-of-life scenarios with my parents. My father’s passing was extremely painful physically, emotionally and spiritually, and while he died 34 years ago, the memories andirreconcilable conditions around his death linger. That was before hospice was readily available in the U.S.
An Appreciation04/21/2015 | MAURY KELMAN | Opinion
“Va-yidom Aharon” – “And Aharon was silent” (Vayikra 10:3). While these words, read this past Shabbat, describe the biblical Aharon’s reaction to the death of his two sons and remains the consummate response to the mystery of death and tragedy, they take on an additional and somber meaning in mourning the passing of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zecher tzaddik li’vracha (may the memory of the righteous be a blessing).
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last »A Lower East Side shtiebel wins a round in its court fight against a developer. Think carefully about crossing Delancey. Jonathan Mark has the story.
NEW YORK
LES Shtiebel Wins Round In Court Fight
As real estate turns ‘toxic,’ AG reverses course on sale to developer.
Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor
Some people like to hear concerts in football stadiums, and some like to prayin vast cathedrals. However, aficionados are often minimalists, preferring jazz in clubs, or hockey on frozen ponds. Lower East Side tourists follow guidebooks to the Eldridge Street Synagogue, now a museum, or the Bialystoker Synagogue, still in daily use, but the shtiebel — a vest-pocket shul, not much larger than a living room or a two-car garage — was once the shul of choice on the Lower East Side.
One block, East Broadway between Montgomery and Clinton streets, once housed more than a dozen shtiebels; “Shtiebel Row,” they called it. One shtiebel, at the Home of the Sages of Israel on Willett Street, is known for sending out thousands of calendars of elderly Jews every Rosh HaShanah, a fundraiser that regularly pulls in $800,000, such is the sentimental appeal.
That’s a lot of money for a shul that is fighting for its life, not from a lack of money but from too much of it.
The streets are paved with gold, after all. Real estate developers are waving $13 million at the shtiebel, to sell. But who was getting the money? Who was authorized to sell? The shtiebel’s congregants won an unlikely victory in court this week, stopping the sale, when the attorney general’s office, whose approval is required for the sale of nonprofit charitable institutions, suddenly revoked its approval.
A spokesman for the AG’s office told us, “Some of the new information from people objecting to the sale conflicts with the statements in the petition” to sell the building. “So we are withdrawing our ‘no objection’ pending our review of the new information.” That led the judge to issue an adjournment until May 7. Will the sale be stopped? No one is claiming victory. The story is hardly over. In some ways, it’s hardly begun.
A Jew in the neighborhood said, “The people who daven [in the Sages] are sweet, down to earth, ehrlicher Yidden,” meaning they are “refined,” with integrity and dignity. Yidden who came to daven, not to care about shul business. Did the shul have a board of directors? No one quite knew. Did the shul have members, bylaws or elections of officers? Well, maybe, once upon a time, but when?
The shtiebel, founded in 1939, is housed in a room belonging to an old-age residence originally intended for elderly rabbis, teachers and scholars, but most died long ago. There may be an elderly Jew in the four-story building, but no sages remain. David Jaraslowicz, a lawyer for the congregants, said, the residents of the home “are a mixed population, African Americans, Hispanics; there are no ‘sages of Israel.’ If I walked in there,” said Jaraslowicz, “I’d be the sage.”
When the nursing facility was sub-leased to a non-Jewish operator, it was promised at a court hearing that the shtiebel would remain fully operative for the full duration of its lease, until 2025.
Last year, with no notice to the congregation and without an announced election, the board of the shtiebel suddenly became entirely comprised of nine Gerer chasidim, none of whom daven there or even live in Manhattan. Dr. Aaron From, who told The Jewish Week that he’d been davening at the Sages for more than 25 years, said, “I didn’t know anyone on the board, not one.”
Also at the top of the shtiebel leadership was Shmuel Aschkenazi, the Sages president for many years, who lives in Queens, and is connected to Ger, as well. According to New York State law, when a nonprofit, such as a synagogue, is sold, the money must go to similar nonprofits. But when Aschkenazi sold the shtiebel to Peter Fine, the developer, the Gerer board designated $10 million from the sale to build a new Gerer shul in Israel, even though the Third Temple itself would likely cost less than $10 million to build.
Another $3 million was designated for Congregation Tifereth Shmuel, a synagogue whose address just happens to be Aschkenazi’s private home in Queens. Then, Aschkenazi signed a lease to pay at least $4,000 a month, or $240,000 over five years, for the shtiebel to sublet space from Tifereth Shmuel, the shul in Aschkenazi’s home.
In the court papers, Aschkenazi said he was simply moving the shtiebel to Queens “for the use and benefit of the current congregants of the Home of the Sages.” Of course, none of the shtiebel’s congregants would be able to walk from the Lower East Side to Kew Gardens on Shabbos, nor could they reasonably commute there for daily services.
The $240,000 lease was signed by Aschkenazi, on behalf of the shtiebel, and by his wife on behalf of Tifereth Shmuel in his home. Aschkenazi did not return phone calls to either his personal residence or to the Home of the Sages.
Fine, the developer, also purchased the air rights of the neighboring Bialystoker shul and adjacent lots. Fine was a friend of William Rapfogel for more than 30 years. Rapfogel, who had been executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, is now in prison for embezzling several hundred thousand dollars in an insurance scam. Although he was, before prison, a leading member of the Bialystoker Synagogue whose air rights were sold to his friend, Fine, Rapfogel was appointed by the attorney general’s office to serve on the AG’s advisory panel overseeing the sale.
There was speculation in the neighborhood that Rapfogel’s appointment by the attorney general was engineered by then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was arrested in January for taking more than $4 million in bribes and kickbacks. (Silver denies the charges.) In the small world of Lower East Side politics, Rapfogel and Silver were seen as joined at the hip. If Silver was famously known as the second-most important Democrat in the state (after the governor), he was certainly the most powerful man on the Lower East Side, with influence in the attorney general’s office, and with two state judges sitting with him in the Bialystoker pews.
Said one Jewish professional this week, “The [Jewish] Lower East Side has become just toxic politically.” That Rapfogel was conveniently appointed by the attorney general’s office to oversee and approve the Sages sale, according to the New York Observer, which first reported the mess at Home of the Sages, was “a wolf-guarding-the-henhouse situation.” One lawyer told the Observer, “Two years ago, [Rapfogel] was the prince. Whatever he said was golden. No one looked, no one checked. When he went to jail, a lot of things he did began to blow up, and this is one of them.”
In a curious development for what started out as a routine charitable transaction, Aschkenazi is being represented by the powerhouse law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, raising eyebrows. The firm did not return phone calls about the case.
Jaraslowicz, working pro-bono for the shtiebel’s congregants, told us, “I think [Aschkenazi] and the Gerer chasidim got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. One guy, according to tax returns, is the head of Friends of Ger. Suddenly he shows up on the board and votes to give Ger $10 million.”
The Home of the Sages, said Jaraslowicz, “still sends out a calendar with a mailing soliciting money. My sister says she has the calendar on her refrigerator. One of the old rabbis [supposedly from the Sages] on the calendar reminds her of our grandfather, so every year she sends them a check. They ask for money for Passover for the old rabbis,” and offer to say Kaddish for people. “The whole thing was a sham.”
Jaraslowicz is continuing to discover further curiosities, if not illegalities, in the Home of Sages portfolio. For example, he said, Aschkenazi is president of a second facility using the Home of the Sages name, the Belle Harbor Home of the Sages, Inc., which does business as Belle Harbor Manor. They also have a board that was not properly elected, said Jaraslowicz. “According to my calculations, Belle Harbor [Sages] has donated over $2 million to charities operated by [Gerer chasidim].” And another half-million to some of the “196 Jewish charities that share the same address in Brooklyn.”
editor@jewishweek.org
Best,
Helen Chernikoff
Web Director
The nonagenarian fashion icon is the subject of a new documentary by the recently deceased Albert Maysles.
George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week
These days, calling Iris Apfel for a telephone interview is like crossing the main level of Grand Central Station at rush hour. The subject of a new documentary by the late Albert Maysles, Apfel has been rendered by his recent death the primary source for comment on the film, “Iris,” which opens April 29 at Film Forum (209 W. Houston St.; [212] 727-8110) and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema (Broadway and 62nd Street; [212] 757-0359).
The 94-year-old Apfel is more than up to the challenge — indeed, it is hard to imagine a challenge she can’t handle. But the profusion of callers and visitors with movieand video cameras makes for a peculiar kind of controlled chaos in her Palm Beach winter home, especially when experienced from the New York end of the conversation.
Apfel is one of the icons of the world of style, an interior designer whose work has graced the White House, whose textiles firm Old World Weavers was renowned for its museum restoration work, and whose personal style is a delightful riot of accessories, mix-and-match outfits that combine haute couture and thrift-shop chic. As she says in the film, “I like to improvise.”
It is a skill that stands her in good stead in both her personal appearance and her day-to-day activities, as does her no-nonsense approach to life itself.
Like Maysles, Apfel is a New York Jew (she grew up in Queens) who lived through the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. She is also an icon in a field dominated by Jews.
Asked about her Jewish identity, she demurs.
“I don’t like talking about religion too much,” Apfel says. “I try to avoid [discussing] politics and religion. There are enough controversial things I say anyway.”
The genesis of “Iris” the film was as off-the-cuff as anything Apfel has done.
“[Maysles] heard about me from a mutual friend,” Apfel recalls. “I was doing a program for the University of Texas at Austin where I take 15 of their best and brightest from their fashion and merchandising department and they come to New York. They stay for a week at the Waldorf and I try to show these children that fashion is a big umbrella. If they can’t get a job as designers, there are many rewarding facets of the business that people don’t know about — licensing, style forecasting, museum work, making perfume, all kinds of off-beat things they wouldn’t think of.”
Maysles called her and she turned him down flat.
“I wasn’t interested,” she says. “I had nothing to sell and no ego problems.”
A close friend in the industry told her she was crazy to say no. So she got back in touch and said yes. She hasn’t regretted the change of heart.
“We got on very well,” she says of the filmmaker.
The doorbell rings and she says, “Maybe someone will answer the door.”
Someone does and the visitors turn out to be a video crew. Apfel greets them and then returns to the phone.
“Everybody thinks we knew each other forever,” she says of Maysles. “We never laid eyes on each other until we started to work. He didn’t work like everybody else; he said he would just follow me around.”
The end product is a pure dizzying delight. In short, it is a perfect reflection of Iris.
editor@jewishweek.org
The Feedback LoopThe concept of metzora, an affliction usually likened to leprosy that can affect both skin and houses, is a difficult one...
Beth Kissileff
Special To The Jewish Week
Candlelighting, Readings:
Torah: Lev. 12:1-15:31
Haftorah: II Kings 7:3-20
Havdalah: 8:29 p.m
The concept of metzora, an affliction usually likened to leprosy that can affect both skin and houses, is a difficult one [Leviticus 14:2-57]. What is it really? The classical Midrashic warning is that it afflicts those who are “motzei shem ra,” bringing forth an evil report [B.T. Arakhin 15b]. The Torah is creating its own “feedback loop,” a “measure for measure”: if a person gossips, bringing something unpleasant into the public for all to hear or see, it is matched by an appearance on the skin of the gossiping person for all to see, or there will be a blemish to a home that houses uncharitable, miserly opinions of others.
In a recent book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,” BritishJewish journalist Jon Ronson discusses a variety of cases of those who have criticized or shamed others online, only to have the person doing the shaming receive a mass shaming himself by thousands or even millions of strangers due to publicity from the event. Ronson suggests that those who have the most to hide are the ones who feel the most shame, and the most lasting shame.
Sometimes a feedback loop simply gives “feedback” regarding behavior, says Ronson, such as the electric highway signs, “Your Speed is __.” The man who invented this was looking for a way to get people to slow down in school zones, and other such places. He realized that if you actually show people what they are doing, such as showing them the evidence of speeding, it will teach them not only to slow down but also to bemindful of their velocity afterwards.
Metzora should be similarly understood as a way for someone to get feedback about their behavior. Too stingy? All one’s possessions will be laid out publicly to cleanse the house of the virus. Too cruel when speaking of others? One’s skin will whiten and blanch in a way that anyone can see the evidence of unkindness.
Good people, such as Moses and his sister Miriam, could have moments that bring on metzora. And, of course, evil people, such as Pharaoh experienced metzora, too. Pharaoh, explains Exodus Rabbah, was a metzora according to the verse, “The king of Egypt died” [Exodus 2:23], because “a metzora is as one who is dead.”
If we think about metzora and feedback loops, we see Pharaoh as the perfect example. Nine plagues, each analogous to the crimes of Egypt, nine chances for Pharaoh to change his ways, came and went until the tenth finally made a difference to him, albeit temporarily. Pharaoh is one of our strongest biblical examples of someone subjected to public rebuke.
One of the people Ronson writes about is Mike Daisy, a man who performed a show about the abuses in Apple computer factories in China, something he claimed to have witnessed. Except that though Daisy used facts, he did not witness all that he claimed to have seen, thus destroying his credibility and integrity.
Daisy told Ronson, “I feel that a really public shaming or humiliation is a conflict between the person trying to write his own narrative and society trying to write a different narrative for the person. One story tries to overwrite the other. And so to survive you have to own your [honest] story,” something Pharaoh never could.
The concept of the metzora is one we can all apply in a metaphorical way. We need to be aware of what we are thinking about internally and try to only bring to the external that which can have positive impact on the world. The stories we can hope to create in that way will be ones not of shaming and humiliation but an impetus for good. Let us hope our stories, when told, can create positive feedback loops.
Beth Kissileff is the editor of the anthology Reading Genesis (Continuum 2016) and author of the novel “Questioning Return” (Mandel Vilar Press).
Letter From IsraelMarch’s Lesson Remains Powerful
An academic’s critique of March of the Living misses the mark.
Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Torah: Lev. 12:1-15:31
Haftorah: II Kings 7:3-20
Havdalah: 8:29 p.m
The concept of metzora, an affliction usually likened to leprosy that can affect both skin and houses, is a difficult one [Leviticus 14:2-57]. What is it really? The classical Midrashic warning is that it afflicts those who are “motzei shem ra,” bringing forth an evil report [B.T. Arakhin 15b]. The Torah is creating its own “feedback loop,” a “measure for measure”: if a person gossips, bringing something unpleasant into the public for all to hear or see, it is matched by an appearance on the skin of the gossiping person for all to see, or there will be a blemish to a home that houses uncharitable, miserly opinions of others.
In a recent book, “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,” BritishJewish journalist Jon Ronson discusses a variety of cases of those who have criticized or shamed others online, only to have the person doing the shaming receive a mass shaming himself by thousands or even millions of strangers due to publicity from the event. Ronson suggests that those who have the most to hide are the ones who feel the most shame, and the most lasting shame.
Sometimes a feedback loop simply gives “feedback” regarding behavior, says Ronson, such as the electric highway signs, “Your Speed is __.” The man who invented this was looking for a way to get people to slow down in school zones, and other such places. He realized that if you actually show people what they are doing, such as showing them the evidence of speeding, it will teach them not only to slow down but also to bemindful of their velocity afterwards.
Metzora should be similarly understood as a way for someone to get feedback about their behavior. Too stingy? All one’s possessions will be laid out publicly to cleanse the house of the virus. Too cruel when speaking of others? One’s skin will whiten and blanch in a way that anyone can see the evidence of unkindness.
Good people, such as Moses and his sister Miriam, could have moments that bring on metzora. And, of course, evil people, such as Pharaoh experienced metzora, too. Pharaoh, explains Exodus Rabbah, was a metzora according to the verse, “The king of Egypt died” [Exodus 2:23], because “a metzora is as one who is dead.”
If we think about metzora and feedback loops, we see Pharaoh as the perfect example. Nine plagues, each analogous to the crimes of Egypt, nine chances for Pharaoh to change his ways, came and went until the tenth finally made a difference to him, albeit temporarily. Pharaoh is one of our strongest biblical examples of someone subjected to public rebuke.
One of the people Ronson writes about is Mike Daisy, a man who performed a show about the abuses in Apple computer factories in China, something he claimed to have witnessed. Except that though Daisy used facts, he did not witness all that he claimed to have seen, thus destroying his credibility and integrity.
Daisy told Ronson, “I feel that a really public shaming or humiliation is a conflict between the person trying to write his own narrative and society trying to write a different narrative for the person. One story tries to overwrite the other. And so to survive you have to own your [honest] story,” something Pharaoh never could.
The concept of the metzora is one we can all apply in a metaphorical way. We need to be aware of what we are thinking about internally and try to only bring to the external that which can have positive impact on the world. The stories we can hope to create in that way will be ones not of shaming and humiliation but an impetus for good. Let us hope our stories, when told, can create positive feedback loops.
Beth Kissileff is the editor of the anthology Reading Genesis (Continuum 2016) and author of the novel “Questioning Return” (Mandel Vilar Press).
An academic’s critique of March of the Living misses the mark.Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor
Brzezinka, Poland — A group of Polish soldiers, in full uniform and with their national flag, stood pensive as Hebrew music blared onloudspeakers across Birkenau. “May peace be within your walls,” sang the sweet female voice.
Taken from the Book of Psalms, the lyric echoed across the massive space between Birkenau’s walls — walls that were constructed to keep members of our people captive and ready for gassing, and keep rescuers out. And as it did, there was peace between these walls.
A few yards from the Polish soldiers, a woman held a German flag, sewn to an Israeli flag. It was a moving sight — the flag of the country that perpetrated the Holocaust (albeit a different flag to the one flown in those dark times), held proudly in Birkenau, brought in solidarity with the Jewish people.
Andrea Barwkig, a 47-year-old social worker from Frankfurt and a practicing Christian, clutched one side of the flag. “Our German relatives were involved in so many things here with the Nazis so it’s important to take part in this event against racism and anti-Semitism,” she told me. “As anti-Semitism rises again, it’s particularly important.”
This was last Thursday, Yom HaShoah, and there were some 11,000 people in Birkenau participating in March of the Living — around a third of them non-Jewish. For most, the day’s ceremony was the conclusion of several days in Poland, touring sites related to the pre-war Jewish communities and to their destruction.
Within Birkenau’s walls, Jews and non-Jews were at peace with each other. People from countries that fought in World War II with the Allies were at peace with people from countries that fought on the other side. And Jews of different religious and ideological stripes were at peace with each other.
It was difficult to recognize this as belonging to an ilk of Holocaust trips that “fail the objective of Holocaust remembrance itself” and “eliminate the diversity of voices essential to ensure that the imperative of remembrance is broadly observed.” Yet these are claims raised by a New York academic in an article titled “What’s Wrong with March of the Living.”
Jessica Lang, associate professor of English at Baruch College and the Newman director of the college’s Wasserman Jewish Studies Center, wrote about an undergraduate trip to Poland that she runs. It takes place as part of her course, “The Holocaust and Historical Memory,” a rigorous academic syllabus which aims — according to its prospectus — “to introduce students to a range of Holocaust documents: historical, artistic, literary, religious, and philosophical and then talk about these texts both in the abstract and in the shadow of the actual event.”
In her piece for JTA she described how she runs her Poland trip in line with her course’s high academic standards, which is laudable. But she then proceeded from this to disparage trips like March of the Living. “Typical Jewish teen tours hold themselves to a poorer standard,” she wrote, before unleashing her comments about eliminating diversity and failing the objective of remembrance.
March of the Living doesn’t hold itself to the same academic standards, but so what? It is an open-for-all trip for the mainstream, not a study field trip for undergraduates. Its participants are mostly younger than Lang’s, and in need of far more basic educational content. It is a program that pitches correctly to its audience — and why should it be looked down upon for doing that?
Rather, it should be applauded for getting so many young people involved and for turning itself into such a mass event. Talking to the young people on March of the Living I was left wondering how many other serious-themed trips for teenagers anywhere in the world have so much appeal, and get people of this age choosing to see so much history, and becoming so engaged in it.
It fails the objective of remembrance because it engages in “sheer simplification,” Lang writes, “making the genocide of European Jewry a subject to be explored among friends rather than the profound wrestling with history and its consequences.”
March of the Living tours simplify to suit the audience, but so do all tours. Within the context of the short tour, their limited background and the simplification, I found participants’ reflectiveness highly impressive. And since when is exploring something among friends mutually exclusive from “wrestling with history and its consequences?”
In fact, it is the social element that has made March of the Living so popular in attracting many youngsters who would never normally sign up for a Holocaust tour, and there is a certain poetry in seeing so many young Jews, full of energy and even flirtation, convening in places that were meant to ensure the end of Jewry. One Birkenau survivor, Ziggy Shipper, told me that the massive crowd of youngsters made attending March of the Living “one of the greatest things” that he ever did.
While the Jewish youngsters travel in Jewish groups, March of the Living does not “eliminate” diversity in commemoration, as Lang suggests. Yes, it openly promotes Jewish identity, but it also places value on universal commemoration and, as mentioned, welcomes many non-Jews.
As a theology postgraduate at the University of Cambridge, in my work since then as a journalist, and in various other contexts, I have studied Jewish life and death inprograms run to the standards that Lang prescribes. And I have also attended numerous teen programs like March of the Living, where strong identity, social and emotional elements mix with a more relaxed educational approach. Both of these approaches play a valid and important part in Holocaust commemoration.
The call of our times is to “never forget,” and to ensure that everybody knows about the Holocaust. But not everybody is an undergraduate in a Western academy or suited to the kind of study that such an institution expects. Most people aren’t.
As survivors die out, the role of Holocaust sites in communicating what the Nazis perpetrated against their victims will become more and more important. Precisely by developing tours that suit everyone, not just an intellectual elite — tours that can serve as a model for people from all countries involved in the surge in Holocaust-related tourism in the coming years — March of the Living has done hugely important work in helping to prepare for this era.
Nathan Jeffay’s column appears twice a month.
THE NEW NORMAL
From The Roots We Build
Alana Kessler
Participants at Elwyn. Courtesy of LOTEM
Editor's Note: As we think about Earth Day this week, we are happy to share this blog from a young woman interning in Israel's LOTEM program that supports bringing nature to people of all abilities.
Last February, I visited three of the ninety nature clubs that LOTEM runs around Israel. LOTEM's mission statement came to life as I watched Noa, a nature club guide, run her activity and lesson for adults with severe disabilities. Nature was brought to life in front of them and I was able to see the direct impact that it had on them, whether it was a large smile or scream of joy!
Each LOTEM nature club I visited is part of Israel Elwyn, an agency that serves 3,000 children and adults with developmental and other disabilities. The LOTEM clubs are part of Elwyn's day programs and each contain eight to eleven adults who have severe disabilities. A majority of them are non-verbal and some are unable to walk. As the club participants would come in and out of the program room, each received individual attention from Noa, who ran a program about Tu B'Shvat. She incorporated a lesson on the parts of trees, an interactive activity which allowed the participants to decorate and plant a seed in a pot. She taught the story of the holiday and played a song on her flute.
The program included a lesson with visuals, an opportunity to feel and smell parts of trees, music, and a hands-on activity. Noa made sure everyone was involved. As we went from club to club, the participants' abilities varied. The program remained the same but was executed differently. For example, when decorating the flower pots, the members of the first club were able to place stickers on their own pot with assistance and draw with markers. The next two groups had more difficulties when placing stickers and holding a marker to decorate the flower pots. With the help of the staff, Noa and I filled the pots with soil and together with each participant, planted a seed. I was amazed to see how interactive the programming was.
Although the room was filled with many unpredictable distractions, the club activitiesremained engaging and exciting. The staff at Elwyn was incredible. Although the club can be used as a time for the staff to have a short break, most of them stayed in the room and continued to provide assistance as Noa ran her program. They too gain a lot of joy from seeing the participants happy and engaged. Some even participated! I was able to see the gratitude they have for LOTEM and all it brings into their community. Being part of this connection between the LOTEM facilitators, Elwyn staff and the participants for just one afternoon (and hopefully more in the future) was an uplifting, empowering opportunity.
Attending the LOTEM nature clubs was filled with small moments I will never forget. The programming and clubs set up by LOTEM create a community for these individuals where they live. Each week as they are engaged in a new program, something inside each of them is developing. LOTEM is helping them form a connection with nature through an engaging educational outlet. After experiencing a small piece of what LOTEM does, it reminded me of the importance of nature and of being aware of my surroundings. Making nature available to those with disabilities at an engaging and need-based level is what makes LOTEM so inspiring.Alana Kessler is from Long Island, NY. She is spending a gap-year in Israel on the Kivunim program. She is doing her community service hours with LOTEM.
POLITICAL INSIDER
WELL VERSED
Remembering Gottex
Gloria Kestenbaum
“What’s Under Your Pareo?" at the JCC in Manhattan. Photo by Koon
Long, long ago, appearing partially unclad occasioned no greater agita in my mind than appearing fully dressed. At that time, wearing a bathing suit was a fashion opportunity rather than a moment of shame. But Gottex bathing suits were on a list of items well beyond my price range.
My bathing suits were mostly wilting eyesores left over from years of all-girlssummer camps; designer clothes were wayout of my reach. Fortuitously, as I reached my mid-twenties, still unmarried, my father was more than happy to spring for clothing items which might enhance my eligibility, an investment in my future, you might say. And so I headed down to the Lower East Side, then a rather run-down bargain district, to get my bathing suit at discount.
I walked in and there was the bathing suit of dreams — a spanking white Gottex maillot with a bright green palm leaf emblazoned across the front, a palm stem for shoulder strap —and a matching sarong. If not quite what Gauguin had in mind, it was certainly appropriate for hotel lobbies and poolside flirting, and the made-in-Israel label gave it almost a religious imprimatur.
Which is all by way of introduction to the charming exhibit on Gottex now on display at the JCC in Manhattan. Lea Gottlieb, the founder of the iconic beachwear company (Gottex is a combination of two words: Gottlieb and textiles), arrived in Israel in 1949, having miraculously survived the Holocaust with her husband and family. Her husband Armin had owned a raincoat factory in Hungary, and at first they tried to revive that business. But Lea came to understand that they needed a different idea: “We used to look at the sky and pray for rain. That’s when we decided to make swimsuits.”
Gottlieb’s genius lay in changing the nature of swimwear from just practical garments for the water to glamorous, luxury-market fashion with street-worthy matching tops, dresses and sarongs. As the exhibit makes clear, Gottlieb took her inspiration from many sources ranging from innocent embroidered florals to exotic Pakistani motifs and even the occasional homage to such Modern masters as Chagall and Monet.
A highlight of the exhibitis the “Jerusalem of Gold” collection from 1992: varied white garments, laden with gold and turquoise beading, conjuring up “oriental clothing shapes such as caftans, galabias, harem pants and shalwars while the exquisite ornaments embedded in the clothes are drawn from Jewish symbolism and include the Star of David, the menorah, and the priestly breastplate…representing the tribes of Israel.” With its glued on jewels, the collection was never meant to be worn in the water but was created solely for the runway and the delight of its creator. After Gottlieb’s death, a trove of 30 “Jerusalem of Gold” creations were found in her bedroom cabinet, wrapped alongside a siddur.
Decades later, I unwrapped my precious Gottex ensemble, thinking that my daughter, who was off for a week of fun in the sun, would love to wear this extraordinary workof art. She gave me a kind but pitying glance, and went off to find the wilting eyesores left over from her camp days, topped by an old shirt.
“What’s Under Your Pareo? Unraveling the Work of Lea Gottlieb” is on view in the Laurie M. Tisch Gallery at the JCC in Manhattan at 334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th Street until August 2.
Gloria Kestenbaum is corporate communications consultant and freelance writer.
The Jewish Week
Taken from the Book of Psalms, the lyric echoed across the massive space between Birkenau’s walls — walls that were constructed to keep members of our people captive and ready for gassing, and keep rescuers out. And as it did, there was peace between these walls.
A few yards from the Polish soldiers, a woman held a German flag, sewn to an Israeli flag. It was a moving sight — the flag of the country that perpetrated the Holocaust (albeit a different flag to the one flown in those dark times), held proudly in Birkenau, brought in solidarity with the Jewish people.
Andrea Barwkig, a 47-year-old social worker from Frankfurt and a practicing Christian, clutched one side of the flag. “Our German relatives were involved in so many things here with the Nazis so it’s important to take part in this event against racism and anti-Semitism,” she told me. “As anti-Semitism rises again, it’s particularly important.”
This was last Thursday, Yom HaShoah, and there were some 11,000 people in Birkenau participating in March of the Living — around a third of them non-Jewish. For most, the day’s ceremony was the conclusion of several days in Poland, touring sites related to the pre-war Jewish communities and to their destruction.
Within Birkenau’s walls, Jews and non-Jews were at peace with each other. People from countries that fought in World War II with the Allies were at peace with people from countries that fought on the other side. And Jews of different religious and ideological stripes were at peace with each other.
It was difficult to recognize this as belonging to an ilk of Holocaust trips that “fail the objective of Holocaust remembrance itself” and “eliminate the diversity of voices essential to ensure that the imperative of remembrance is broadly observed.” Yet these are claims raised by a New York academic in an article titled “What’s Wrong with March of the Living.”
Jessica Lang, associate professor of English at Baruch College and the Newman director of the college’s Wasserman Jewish Studies Center, wrote about an undergraduate trip to Poland that she runs. It takes place as part of her course, “The Holocaust and Historical Memory,” a rigorous academic syllabus which aims — according to its prospectus — “to introduce students to a range of Holocaust documents: historical, artistic, literary, religious, and philosophical and then talk about these texts both in the abstract and in the shadow of the actual event.”
In her piece for JTA she described how she runs her Poland trip in line with her course’s high academic standards, which is laudable. But she then proceeded from this to disparage trips like March of the Living. “Typical Jewish teen tours hold themselves to a poorer standard,” she wrote, before unleashing her comments about eliminating diversity and failing the objective of remembrance.
March of the Living doesn’t hold itself to the same academic standards, but so what? It is an open-for-all trip for the mainstream, not a study field trip for undergraduates. Its participants are mostly younger than Lang’s, and in need of far more basic educational content. It is a program that pitches correctly to its audience — and why should it be looked down upon for doing that?
Rather, it should be applauded for getting so many young people involved and for turning itself into such a mass event. Talking to the young people on March of the Living I was left wondering how many other serious-themed trips for teenagers anywhere in the world have so much appeal, and get people of this age choosing to see so much history, and becoming so engaged in it.
It fails the objective of remembrance because it engages in “sheer simplification,” Lang writes, “making the genocide of European Jewry a subject to be explored among friends rather than the profound wrestling with history and its consequences.”
March of the Living tours simplify to suit the audience, but so do all tours. Within the context of the short tour, their limited background and the simplification, I found participants’ reflectiveness highly impressive. And since when is exploring something among friends mutually exclusive from “wrestling with history and its consequences?”
In fact, it is the social element that has made March of the Living so popular in attracting many youngsters who would never normally sign up for a Holocaust tour, and there is a certain poetry in seeing so many young Jews, full of energy and even flirtation, convening in places that were meant to ensure the end of Jewry. One Birkenau survivor, Ziggy Shipper, told me that the massive crowd of youngsters made attending March of the Living “one of the greatest things” that he ever did.
While the Jewish youngsters travel in Jewish groups, March of the Living does not “eliminate” diversity in commemoration, as Lang suggests. Yes, it openly promotes Jewish identity, but it also places value on universal commemoration and, as mentioned, welcomes many non-Jews.
As a theology postgraduate at the University of Cambridge, in my work since then as a journalist, and in various other contexts, I have studied Jewish life and death inprograms run to the standards that Lang prescribes. And I have also attended numerous teen programs like March of the Living, where strong identity, social and emotional elements mix with a more relaxed educational approach. Both of these approaches play a valid and important part in Holocaust commemoration.
The call of our times is to “never forget,” and to ensure that everybody knows about the Holocaust. But not everybody is an undergraduate in a Western academy or suited to the kind of study that such an institution expects. Most people aren’t.
As survivors die out, the role of Holocaust sites in communicating what the Nazis perpetrated against their victims will become more and more important. Precisely by developing tours that suit everyone, not just an intellectual elite — tours that can serve as a model for people from all countries involved in the surge in Holocaust-related tourism in the coming years — March of the Living has done hugely important work in helping to prepare for this era.
Nathan Jeffay’s column appears twice a month.
From The Roots We Build
Alana Kessler
Editor's Note: As we think about Earth Day this week, we are happy to share this blog from a young woman interning in Israel's LOTEM program that supports bringing nature to people of all abilities.
Last February, I visited three of the ninety nature clubs that LOTEM runs around Israel. LOTEM's mission statement came to life as I watched Noa, a nature club guide, run her activity and lesson for adults with severe disabilities. Nature was brought to life in front of them and I was able to see the direct impact that it had on them, whether it was a large smile or scream of joy!
Each LOTEM nature club I visited is part of Israel Elwyn, an agency that serves 3,000 children and adults with developmental and other disabilities. The LOTEM clubs are part of Elwyn's day programs and each contain eight to eleven adults who have severe disabilities. A majority of them are non-verbal and some are unable to walk. As the club participants would come in and out of the program room, each received individual attention from Noa, who ran a program about Tu B'Shvat. She incorporated a lesson on the parts of trees, an interactive activity which allowed the participants to decorate and plant a seed in a pot. She taught the story of the holiday and played a song on her flute.
The program included a lesson with visuals, an opportunity to feel and smell parts of trees, music, and a hands-on activity. Noa made sure everyone was involved. As we went from club to club, the participants' abilities varied. The program remained the same but was executed differently. For example, when decorating the flower pots, the members of the first club were able to place stickers on their own pot with assistance and draw with markers. The next two groups had more difficulties when placing stickers and holding a marker to decorate the flower pots. With the help of the staff, Noa and I filled the pots with soil and together with each participant, planted a seed. I was amazed to see how interactive the programming was.
Although the room was filled with many unpredictable distractions, the club activitiesremained engaging and exciting. The staff at Elwyn was incredible. Although the club can be used as a time for the staff to have a short break, most of them stayed in the room and continued to provide assistance as Noa ran her program. They too gain a lot of joy from seeing the participants happy and engaged. Some even participated! I was able to see the gratitude they have for LOTEM and all it brings into their community. Being part of this connection between the LOTEM facilitators, Elwyn staff and the participants for just one afternoon (and hopefully more in the future) was an uplifting, empowering opportunity.
Attending the LOTEM nature clubs was filled with small moments I will never forget. The programming and clubs set up by LOTEM create a community for these individuals where they live. Each week as they are engaged in a new program, something inside each of them is developing. LOTEM is helping them form a connection with nature through an engaging educational outlet. After experiencing a small piece of what LOTEM does, it reminded me of the importance of nature and of being aware of my surroundings. Making nature available to those with disabilities at an engaging and need-based level is what makes LOTEM so inspiring.Alana Kessler is from Long Island, NY. She is spending a gap-year in Israel on the Kivunim program. She is doing her community service hours with LOTEM.
POLITICAL INSIDER
WELL VERSED
Remembering Gottex
Gloria Kestenbaum
Long, long ago, appearing partially unclad occasioned no greater agita in my mind than appearing fully dressed. At that time, wearing a bathing suit was a fashion opportunity rather than a moment of shame. But Gottex bathing suits were on a list of items well beyond my price range.
My bathing suits were mostly wilting eyesores left over from years of all-girlssummer camps; designer clothes were wayout of my reach. Fortuitously, as I reached my mid-twenties, still unmarried, my father was more than happy to spring for clothing items which might enhance my eligibility, an investment in my future, you might say. And so I headed down to the Lower East Side, then a rather run-down bargain district, to get my bathing suit at discount.
I walked in and there was the bathing suit of dreams — a spanking white Gottex maillot with a bright green palm leaf emblazoned across the front, a palm stem for shoulder strap —and a matching sarong. If not quite what Gauguin had in mind, it was certainly appropriate for hotel lobbies and poolside flirting, and the made-in-Israel label gave it almost a religious imprimatur.
Which is all by way of introduction to the charming exhibit on Gottex now on display at the JCC in Manhattan. Lea Gottlieb, the founder of the iconic beachwear company (Gottex is a combination of two words: Gottlieb and textiles), arrived in Israel in 1949, having miraculously survived the Holocaust with her husband and family. Her husband Armin had owned a raincoat factory in Hungary, and at first they tried to revive that business. But Lea came to understand that they needed a different idea: “We used to look at the sky and pray for rain. That’s when we decided to make swimsuits.”
Gottlieb’s genius lay in changing the nature of swimwear from just practical garments for the water to glamorous, luxury-market fashion with street-worthy matching tops, dresses and sarongs. As the exhibit makes clear, Gottlieb took her inspiration from many sources ranging from innocent embroidered florals to exotic Pakistani motifs and even the occasional homage to such Modern masters as Chagall and Monet.
A highlight of the exhibitis the “Jerusalem of Gold” collection from 1992: varied white garments, laden with gold and turquoise beading, conjuring up “oriental clothing shapes such as caftans, galabias, harem pants and shalwars while the exquisite ornaments embedded in the clothes are drawn from Jewish symbolism and include the Star of David, the menorah, and the priestly breastplate…representing the tribes of Israel.” With its glued on jewels, the collection was never meant to be worn in the water but was created solely for the runway and the delight of its creator. After Gottlieb’s death, a trove of 30 “Jerusalem of Gold” creations were found in her bedroom cabinet, wrapped alongside a siddur.
Decades later, I unwrapped my precious Gottex ensemble, thinking that my daughter, who was off for a week of fun in the sun, would love to wear this extraordinary workof art. She gave me a kind but pitying glance, and went off to find the wilting eyesores left over from her camp days, topped by an old shirt.
“What’s Under Your Pareo? Unraveling the Work of Lea Gottlieb” is on view in the Laurie M. Tisch Gallery at the JCC in Manhattan at 334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th Street until August 2.
Gloria Kestenbaum is corporate communications consultant and freelance writer.
The Jewish Week
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