Seventeen
years ago, in late May of 2005, I was invited to join a rabbinic mission to
Germany. The invitation was extended by Zentralrat Der Juden (Central Council
of Jews) and was paid for by the German government. The stated purpose of the
visit was to see the positive growth of the Jewish communities in Germany 50
years after World War II. My dad, who had fought with the first American
infantry units to enter Germany in March of 1945 was still alive and well then.
When I told him that I was planning to go to Germany, his reaction was less
than positive. For my dad, and for many of his generation, anything associated
with Germany was extremely distasteful. I explained that I was going on behalf
of the Jews. Nevertheless, he had difficulty with any type of contact with
Germany.
There were numerous memorable
moments on that trip, and many times that I needed to pause in order to process
my emotions.
One of those times was our first Shabbos,
which was spent at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin. The hotel, just a half a block
away from the Reichstag (Germany’s equivalent of the U.S. Capitol), stands in
the shadow of the famous Brandenburg Gate. During WW II, the Adlon served as
the meeting place for top Nazi officials, including Bormann, Goebbels, Goring,
and Himmler (may their names be erased for eternity). They and other Nazi
officials often stayed there. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall on December
22, 1989, the hotel was elegantly restored to its pre-war appearance. From 1945
until 1989 the Adlon was in East Berlin, just a couple of hundred meters from
the West.
On Friday afternoon, our group
gathered in the hotel’s ornate lobby to walk together to the main synagogue
(built in 1866), which was listed as nondenominational but had a small Orthodox
minyan inside the large structure,
which also housed a museum. The beautiful shul survived the Kristallnacht pogrom
(November 9/10, 1938) due to the heroism of the local police chief, Wilhelm
Krutzfeld, who stood at the entrance and forcefully turned away the mobs.
During the war, the synagogue was used as a warehouse. Unfortunately, in 1943
an RAF bomb was dropped through the shul’s main dome causing great damage.
After the Soviet occupation of East Berlin ended, in 1989, the synagogue was
restored to its former glory.
As we rabbis left the hotel heading
to shul, having memorized the route for our 20-minute walk, we were met by four
heavily armed German police officers on motorcycles with lights flashing. The police
sergeant came to our group leader (a rabbi fluent in German) and said, “Herr
Rabbiner, we are here by order of the Chancellor to serve as your honor guard.
We will accompany you to and from the synagogue.”
As we walked, proudly as Jews, through
the streets of Berlin – two motorcycles slowly rolling in front of us and two
behind - the unspoken irony did not escape any of us. After davening, they
accompanied us back to the hotel, blocking traffic on busy thoroughfares to
allow us to cross unimpeded. What would have been a 20-minute walk was
completed in less than 15. As we walked, I thought about how, just a little
over 50 years earlier, the police would have been rounding us up for
deportation to death camps.
Arriving back at the hotel, we found
our Shabbos dinner set up in one of their private ballrooms. There were other “garden
level” ballrooms, and one of the hotel’s restaurants was also on that level.
Our kosher caterer and his staff, working under excellent mashgichim, had his own kitchen, since the Adlon was (by then) the
venue for numerous Jewish events and simchas. Once again, we pondered the
inescapable irony of a kosher kitchen in the Adlon Hotel.
At Shabbos dinner we were joined by
members of Berlin’s Jewish community. Some had survived the war and returned
after. Others came in the Sixties, and some were new residents from Russia and
Israel. We listened intently to the speeches of the elderly survivors (who have
since passed on) and the updates from the new “immigrants.” There was a lot of
energy in the room. We started singing zemiros
(Shabbos songs). Eventually, we became louder and louder, and people were
banging on the tables and clapping. A few of the older rabbis were
uncomfortable and tried to quiet the room. They said, “We need to be respectful
of the others in this area.”
No one wanted to be disrespectful,
but the energy in the room was unstoppable. I noticed as one of the waiters
exited the ballroom that there were people standing in the passageway
outside of our ballroom, trying to get a glimpse of us. So I walked out together with my
German-speaking colleague to greet the people in the hallway. Some had been at
other receptions; others had completed their dinners in the restaurant. They
all said, “The singing in here is beautiful; we wanted to listen.” I invited
them in. The waiters immediately set up chairs around the room and offered them
drinks. We continued singing with even more gusto. Our visitors were clapping
and smiling. One of the men lifted his glass and said, “Lechaim.” It was surreal.
After Birkat Hamazon, a rabbi from Chicago said, “It’s only 11:30, and
it’s a beautiful night; let’s go for a walk.” Some people in the group were
hesitant. It was late, and we were in Berlin, after all. Nevertheless, we all
walked out together only to discover that there were policemen stationed
outside of the hotel – to protect us. When the first officer spotted us, he
called for back up, and once again we had a motorcycle escort. We asked the
officer where would be a nice place to take a stroll. He said, “Just walk
through the Brandenburg Gate and turn right.” So, we did, as the motorcycles
kept pace. Less than five minutes later, we were standing directly in front of
the Reichstag. It was there, in that building that Hitler (may his name be
erased) gave his famous speech on January 30, 1939, making it clear that
annihilating the Jews was central to his agenda. Newsreels from that day show
the huge chamber emblazoned with swastikas.
With the permission of the police,
we climbed the Reichstag steps, reaching the spot where, a little over a half
century earlier, Hitler and his evil henchman had entered the building from its
mezzanine landing. We were silent. Then, spontaneously, we joined hands and
started singing “Am Yisrael chai…” (the
nation of Israel lives)! We sang with more intensity and danced with more
conviction than any of us ever had before. We Jews are still here! Israel lives
– and the Third Reich is gone, now part of the ash heap of our numerous
oppressors over the course of two millennia of inexplicable Jewish
history.
* * *
In mid June (just a couple of weeks
ago) I had the privilege of being one of the rabbis on a trip to Italy
organized by JLE (Jewish Learning Exchange) in London, one of the British
organizations where I serve as a visiting lecturer. The tour took us to Jewish
historical sites in Bologna, Ferrara, Cento, Florence, Padua, and Venice. A few
months ago, I wrote about my brilliant friend, Professor Gerald Schroeder. I’m
reminded of something he said to me many years ago: “The older I get, and the
more I learn, the more I realize that I know so very little.” I thought of that
as I was learning (close up) the history of the Jews in Italy. There was so
much I did not know! For instance, I found out that the very first Jews who came
to Rome, in 161 BCE, were representatives of Judah Maccabee. I did know that, after the destruction of
the Second Temple in Jerusalem, Titus took many Jewish prisoners and slaves
back to Rome.
Here are a few of the many things I
did not know: A synagogue was built, in 100 CE, in Ostia, a port city serving
Rome, to serve the local Jewish residents as well as Jewish sailors and
merchants. In 212 CE, Emperor Caracalla extended full citizenship to the Jews.
For over 200 years, the Jews prospered in Rome. Unfortunately, in 425 CE, as
has been often repeated throughout our history, Theodosius II placed
restrictions on where Jews could live and what clothing they could wear, and he decreed
their removal from all public offices. In addition, he placed extraordinary
taxes upon the Jewish community. By 1215, by order of the Fourth Lateran
Council (Christians), Jews were consigned to ghettos and forced to wear a
distinguishing Jewish symbol on their clothing.
In 1397, the city of Florence emancipated
their Jews and allowed them to become bankers and merchants. Florence and its
Jews flourished. (Ever notice that, when the Jews flourish, everyone benefits?!
Napoleon
actually understood that!) By 1473 Calabria, Pieva da Saca, Mantua, and Naples
had Hebrew printing presses. In the beginning of the 16th century,
Gershon Soncino (Soncino Press) became a major printing house for all types of
Jewish holy books. Venice became the capital of Jewish printing, continuing
well into the 18th century.
By tracing Jewish history in Italy
over centuries, I was able to see how, since the Churban (destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem), the Jews of Italy
are an example of 2,000 years of Jewish history. We have lived through two
millennia of feast and famine (mostly famine). Nevertheless, no matter what
circumstances were thrust upon us, our ancestors adapted in order to survive.
Notwithstanding the book burnings – in Rome, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice, and Mantua,
which destroyed thousands of volumes of Talmud and other holy books – in 1553, courtesy
of Pope Julius, the Jews picked up the pieces and rebuilt. There was much
rejoicing when Napoleon conquered northern Italy in 1796 and liberated the Jews
from the ghettos. In 1904, Rome’s great synagogue was built, to the displeasure
of Pope Pius X. In 1986, Pope John Paul II became the first Pope to visit a
synagogue (Central Synagogue in Rome) and apologize to the Jews on behalf of
the Church.
As we walked through the former
ghettos of Bologna, Ferrara, Padua, and Venice, and visited some of the oldest
(still operating) shuls in the world, I pondered the miracle of Jewish
survival. While sitting with a colleague outside the Gam Gam restaurant in
Venice, overlooking one of the canals, we observed children playing and people
laughing, enjoying the breeze while munching their delicious food. I couldn’t
help but think of the centuries of persecutions and edicts against the Jews of
Italy as I slowly ate my pasta, not far from the ghetto.
It seems to me that we Jews are
history’s “surfers.” We paddle into the murky water and hope for the best. We
see a great wave approaching and some of us are consumed by it, while others
figure out how to seize the moment, balance carefully, and ride atop the wave
all the way to the safety of the beach.
It was awesome and inspiring to daven
Mincha in a shul built in 1568 and used continuously (except from late 1943 to
1945). To sit in a pew once occupied by the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim
Luzzatto) whose original writings, in his own hand, are on display in the Cento
archives. To visit the villa of the woman known as the Queen Esther of the
Middle Ages, Dona Gracia Mendes, who saved countless Jewish refugees from the Inquisition.
To stand (as close as a kohen can) to
the graves of the Sforno (who, I learned, was a physician), the Shadal, Shmuel
Dovid Luzzatto, and Rabbi Meir Katznellenbogen (known as the Maharam of Padua),
one of the foremost Talmudists and scholars of the 16th century and
a close relative of the Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles). To learn about the
background of the rabbi and physician named Yitzchok Lampronti. In the early
seventeen hundreds Lampronti completed a comprehensive rabbinic encyclopedia
entitled Pachad Yitzchok. It is
interesting to note that while the Church was issuing edicts against the Jews,
limiting their activities and confining them to ghettos, the Popes often wanted
Jewish doctors like Lampronti to treat them! If you look at the contradictions,
lies, and hypocrisies of the current “woke” movement, you realize that honesty,
logic, and truth have no effect on clinically aberrant human behavior. So it
was, and so it is.
* * *
As our plane lifted off from Marco
Polo airport I was quiet and pensive. I was thinking about G-d’s promise to
Avraham in Bereishis 12:2/3: “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless
you. I will make your name great. I will bless those who bless you, and I will
curse those who curse you, and all of the families of the earth will
(ultimately) bless you.” I also thought about Bereishis 33:4, on which Rabbi
Shimon Bar Yochai comments, “It is a well-known principle that Esav hates
Yaakov.”
We Jews have always lived with the
hope of the complete fulfillment of the blessing given to Avraham, while
throughout history, the “Esavs” have relentlessly sought to destroy us. In 1899,
Mark Twain wrote an essay, “Concerning the Jews.” He noted that the Habsburg
Empire used the Jews as a convenient scapegoat to “unify” their diverse population.
In Twain’s essay he wrote:
[The Jew] has made a marvelous fight in this
world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He
could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian,
and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to
dream stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast
noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch
high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have
vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was,
exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, or weakening of his parts, no
slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All
things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is
the secret of his immortality?
On Mark Twain’s closing (seemingly
rhetorical) question there is an answer. The secret of our immortality is the
Torah which G-d gave to us in the desert of Sinai. May Hashem bless, keep, and
have mercy upon His children. May we merit the ultimate redemption and the
fulfillment of the promise made to Avraham.
