Sadly, as time goes by and I think back to the people who played a role in my life, I don’t know if I really appreciated all of them. This article is a way to show hakaras hatov to someone who was significant in my early years.
In the 1960s, ehen
I came up north from Montgomery, Alabama, for yeshiva, I learned, for the first
time, that a large share of my fellow students were children of Holocaust
survivors. Indeed, the renaissance of Orthodox Jewry is, to a very great
extent, due to the impact of those survivors.
In the town where
I grew up, there were hardly any Holocaust survivors. I recall Eric Knurr, who
came from Germany. He was actually a relative of the Kranzlers of Baltimore.
Mrs. Kranzler, a”h, told me he was a
physician in Germany and came from a distinguished family. But aside from
knowing his two children, Werner and Evelyn, I do not recall him being active
in the shul, due to his owning a small grocery store. There may have been one
or two other people who came because of the war, but I do not recall them.
As far as actual
survivors of the Holocaust, I only knew of the Merensteins. When I was young,
we knew him as Mr. Merenstein; later, he was called Reverend Merenstein, and
now, in memorials is recalled as Rabbi Merenstein. I will explain how this came
about shortly, but first, how did he ever get to the “Heart of Dixie”?
He told me that
when he came to the United States after the war, he was advised that there was
an Orthodox shul in Montgomery and that the community needed a shochet.
This may
have been true in the 1940s, but the shul did not stay Orthodox. As I recall, in
the old shul, the men sat separately from the women in the side sections, but
the middle section was mixed seating. When the shul moved to a new location,
there were no longer any demands for separate seating. The Orthodox rabbi,
Rabbi Seymour Atlas, an alumnus of Torah Vodaath, was not rehired. Why? He was
quoted in Life magazine as saying
that the Black people deserved to be treated better. This scared the big
shots of the shul, and he was no longer welcome.
Growing up, there
was only one individual in Montgomery who wore a big woolen tallis with silver adornment, Rev. Leib
Merenstein. He was the baal korah, he taught bar mitzva boys and
Hebrew School, and he operated a kosher butcher shop. I was a kid who actually
went to shul a lot. He was mekarev
me, although I didn’t think of it that way at the time. As time went on, our
shul rabbis came and went. Some stayed three years, some five, but no one
stayed long term. Mr. Merenstein, as he was then known, decided that he knew
more than any of the “rabbis,” and since he was a synagogue functionary, he
became known as Reverend Merenstein.
*
* *
I recall, as a
little boy, maybe 10 years old, being at his house and studying some Hebrew
with him. I don’t recall exactly how that came about, but I remember sitting on
his front porch studying with him. Later, in the new neighborhood where the
shul had relocated, he invited me for Shabbos or Yom Tov meals from time to
time. I admit that I did not fully appreciate it at the time, but it definitely
had an impact.
Sometimes, when we
didn’t have a rabbi, he actually got to speak before the congregation. When I
was maybe 12 years old, he asked me to be his audience, and he got up in the
empty shul to give a speech. I realized that he wanted me to critique his
speech and give him suggestions. Rev. Merenstein was my very first student in a
career of teaching public speaking.
Every so often, Christian
groups would come to visit the shul and supposedly learn about their Jewish
neighbors. At least that is how they expressed it to us. I was often the one
who led them around and answered their questions. At 12, I was already the “junior
rabbi.”
*
* *
Around this time, our
Conservative rabbi, Rabbi Joseph Reich, came into the Hebrew school class and
told me that he had just figured out that my bar mitzvah haftarah was, in his words, a “monster.” I was born on Shabbos, parshas Zachor, and the haftarah is pretty long. Reading the
Torah portion was not even an option. It took a year to learn the maftir, the haftarah, and how to lead Mussaf.
The rabbi said they would have to change my bar mitzvah date, but I told
him to give me a chance and I would master the haftarah. We got a record, and we listened to it and practiced with
Reverend Merenstein. He had more confidence in me than the rabbi. By the way, in
those bygone days of the 1950s, there were no bat mitzvas in our Conservative
shul. That began much later.
The year
before my bar mitzvah meant more involvement with the Reverend. Besides classes
for the group, there was individual tutoring. In the 1950s, our shul had a bar mitzvah
most months. The Hebrew school had over 100 kids, and the congregation had over
200 families. Today, the numbers are not even close to that. Many communities
have suffered the same fate as Montgomery. Few of my contemporaries live in
Montgomery, and the Jewish families with children of Hebrew school age is a
fraction of what it once was.
In
Montgomery, sometimes, there were not enough men to make a minyan Shabbos
morning. My Uncle Joe Weinstock was the only shomer Shabbos layman in
town. On those occasions, they would ask a bar mitzva boy to daven Mussaf from
the amud, to practice for his big
day. I learned how to do the first line, “Yekum
purkan min shmaya...” and then wait a while and conclude “Veyishlach bracha....” I wonder how many
people in the shul, besides Uncle Joe, actually said the words in between.
Everything I
learned was from Reverend Merenstein, the trop
and the nusach. The idea that parshas Zachor is special was totally unknown in our town. The rabbi
was not my biggest cheerleader. It seems that I didn’t do something right one
Shabbos, when I was “leading” the service, and he actually told me words that
sting to this day, 65 years later: “You are a hopeless case.” I told my father,
Meyer Oberstein, what the rabbi said. Wow, he did not like that at all. He
called up the rabbi and gave it to him: “Why did you tell my boy he was a
hopeless case?”
The rabbi backed
down and said that all he meant was that I should study harder. Yeh, sure. Many
years later, I was in Atlanta, Georgia, in Congregation Beth Jacob and, by
coincidence, that rabbi was there because his grandson was celebrating his bar mitzva.
He told me that he had heard about me, and he was proud of me but that he didn’t
think he had anything to do with it. I heartily agree.
*
* *
That Conservative
rabbi left for another pulpit shortly after my bar mitzva, and Congregation
Agudath Israel hired our next rabbi from Yeshiva University, not from the
Jewish Theological Seminary. That decision may be the reason I am writing this
article. This was the first time that I ever even knew that Orthodox Judaism
was a viable option. Rabbi Aaron Borow came to Montgomery, and that began a new
chapter in my life. But I want to focus on Reverend Merenstein for the
present.
Because of what
she went through in the war, Mrs. Merenstein could not have children. But she
had a sister in Israel who had two daughters and a son. The Merensteins offered
to adopt one of their daughters and raise her as their own. I got to know the sister’s
family when I was a student at Kerem B’Yavne. They lived in Gedera and were not
religious. They were by no means rich, and this offer would enable their
daughter Yaffa to get an American education and a life of greater
opportunity. Yaffa came over from Israel, and my family told me that it
was my duty to be friendly with her. After all, I was close with the
Merensteins, and Yaffa had a big adjustment. I do remember taking her to a
movie and ice cream when I was 14 or so.
In
hindsight, think of what it meant – to not have a child and to ask your sister
to give you one of hers. How many of us would have agreed to this arrangement?
I got to know Yaffa’s parents very well as Gedera is not that far from Kerem B’Yavne,
and I visited them occasionally. I never went for Shabbos, even though Mr.
Menaker told me that if I came he would go to shul with me and make Shabbos. I
learned a lot from him. He survived the war by “marrying” a Polish woman who
protected him. As soon as the war was over, he left her and rejoined the Jewish
people. That story was very hard for me to fathom, but who am I to judge those
who went through that awful time. So one sister in Montgomery was frum, and her sister in Israel was like
everyone else. I say it that way, because they weren’t opposed to the religion,
just lax. The children went to secular public schools but she assured me the
house was strictly kosher.
*
* *
Around the age of
15, my life changed. I was no longer the only young person who kept Shabbos and
kashrus in Montgomery. Rabbi Borow
helped me get accepted to Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan.
I started in the 10th grade in the class of Rabbi Yitzchok
Sladowsky. Many years later, his grandson married Isaac Klein’s daughter, and
we met again.
By this point,
Rabbi Merenstein was his preferred title. He told me that there was a teacher
in YU who had been his student in Berlin after the war. Rabbi Abba Bronspigel
claimed he did not remember him. Rabbi Merenstein told me that after the war,
he had been some kind of rabbi in Berlin. I never questioned him as to the
specifics. He certainly did know more than any of the Conservative rabbis who
came before and after Rabbi Aaron Borow.
*
* *
Rev. Merenstein
made one visit to Israel in those years and told me that he had gone to see the
Gerrer Rebbe. I cannot begin to understand the trials and tribulations that any
Holocaust survivor went through. Over the years I have met many survivors who
came from quite observant homes but who did not keep it up after the war. I
have met some who had very religious siblings. I always wondered why some
survivors went one way and others from similar backgrounds went the other way.
Two answers that I have received and observed are: whom they married and where
they lived. Reverend Merenstein was never a Conservative Jew; he was an Orthodox
Jew with a job in that community. There were quite a few like him.
As a side remark,
I was once told this “humorous” joke by a very frum person who was “justifying” the many Orthodox rabbis who took
Conservative pulpits. He said that there is a “befeirishe heter” an explicit permission. What is it? Heter meah rabbonim. Over 100 Orthodox
yeshiva guys have taken Conservative pulpits. This was not meant seriously, but
it does describe my community and the era I grew up in.
How many Jews kept
kosher homes when I was growing up? Twenty families bought kosher meat. Rev.
Merenstein shechted one cow every two
weeks. The Merensteins had a very nicely fixed-up store, and they did get some
support from others. Mrs Merenstein used to cook lunch, and there were men in
the area who came to eat there.
In later years,
there was kosher shechita in
Montgomery. A group of Israeli shochtim
came to town and their meat was exported. These men had absolutely no contact
whatsoever with the local Jewish community. They didn’t daven in the shul. The
one time I saw them was when my father passed away. Reuven Miller, my landsman
from Montgomery, contacted the shochtim,
and they all came to the burial. There was a large crowd, as Meyer Oberstein
was a highly respected member of the community, and then there were these
Israeli guys. I appreciated Reuven’s desire that these men come to participate
in the mitzva of kevuras hameis.
*
* *
What motivated me
to write this article now? I feel guilty and wish I had made a different
decision. It was the mid-1970s, and I was in Jewish education in Birmingham,
Alabama. I got a call from someone that the shul was making a dinner in honor
of Rabbi Merenstein. He very much wanted me to come and be the speaker.
Stupidly and in hindsight unjustifiably, I said I couldn’t come because I had
planned an adult education event for that evening. Now, years later, I realize
that I could have cancelled that event or rescheduled it. I did not fully grasp
how important my being there would have meant to my old teacher and friend.
I wondered why the
shul had decided to make a dinner in his honor. Such events were not common in
Montgomery. I wrote to some of my friends in Montgomery and got this response
from Jake Aronov. The Aronov family was very supportive of the Merensteins
and had a very close bond with them.
Jake Aronov
replied, “I know that Reverend (Rabbi)
Merenstein wanted to be buried in Israel, and I vaguely remember that he was
buried there. I don’t know whether he was ill before the dinner in his honor. I
do know that, at a certain point, he told me he was not going to live much
longer. In some way I questioned how he would know such a thing, and he just
responded quietly that he knew. He died pretty soon thereafter.
“I may have told you that near the end of his life, he invited my
family to his house for dinner. Maybe it was Shabbos. He took us over to a
cabinet behind the head of his dinner table, opened a drawer, and lifted out a
photograph of a very religious looking Jew in black garb. He teared up and said
it was his Rebbe. I guess you know he was a Gerrer chasid, so I assume the photo was of the Gerrer Rebbe. At another
time, he mentioned to me that he learned at several yeshivas in Poland. I had
the impression that he was being moved around (sort of promoted) to places that
were increasingly distinguished (and challenging), with higher quality students
at each successive stop. I think I recognized the name of the final one, a
famous place where only very strong learners were accepted. I also think he
mentioned that he slept on the benches in yeshivas most of the time. You will
know more about this part of his personal history than I do.
“I have no way of knowing it, even in retrospect, but it is possible
that we had a very learned Jew (a talmid chacham)
in our midst, one who was not acknowledged as such and not honored in the way
he deserved to be as a man of learning and one who labored mightily to train
young, disrespectful kids to lein a
bit of Torah (Maftir), lead Mussaf and “Friday night services,” and recite a
Haftorah with trop. I wish we had
known more about him. I look forward to reading what your research reveals.”
* * *
Reverend Leib Merenstein survived the war, came to Montgomery, and
found there one little boy who had a greater interest in the shul than some of
the others. He took an interest in me and tutored me, he invited me to his home
and showed appreciation for my speaking long before anyone else. I owed it to
him to speak at that dinner, but half a century has passed, and this is the
best I can do. How much of my blessed life as a frum Yid do I owe to him, I cannot evaluate. But he was someone who
came from the Old Country and did not discard his big woolen tallis with silver. He was a good person
who made a positive impression – I will call that a kiddush Hashem – on one little boy in that far away town in those
long, bygone years. Thank you, Reverend Merenstein.
