Synopsis

With the close of War II, 250,000 Jews languished in DP camps in Europe. In Palestine, turmoil reigned as British struggled to maintain order between Jews and Arabs even as they prevented Jews from entering the country. President Roosevelt promised the Arab Ibn Saud that the U.S. would not support a Jewish state, and the State Department was adamantly opposed to one. This was the gloomy picture in 1945. Then, in April of that year, Roosevelt suddenly died, and Harry Truman took his place.

Bible-believing Truman was sympathetic to a Jewish state, but not persuaded. He was worried about Arab oil, and he had legitimate fears of provoking a broader war in the Middle East. Plus, he was thoroughly alienated by “pushy New York Jews” and refused to meet any more Zionists.

Palestine was a powder keg, and a United Nations committee was formed to study the problem. It proposed “partition,” the creation of two states: Arab and Jewish. But would there be a two-thirds vote in the UN in favor? Would the State of Israel come into being?  Here is “the rest of the story.”

Pirkei Avos tells us that we should show respect for every person for “each one has his hour.” Sometimes, major events of history turn on the actions of seemingly insignificant individuals. If this is true in general, it is certainly true in the saga of the recognition of the new State of Israel by President Harry S Truman in 1948.  But to understand this very interesting chain of events, let us go back to the administration of the president who preceded Truman.

There was once a saying that American Jews believed in three worlds: “Di velt, yenner velt, and Roosevelt – this world, the next world, and Roosevelt.” The overwhelming majority of Jews voted for and loved Franklin D. Roosevelt. Years after the war, blame for not rescuing more Jews from Hitler’s clutches was laid at FDR’s feet. He could have done more, but he didn’t. Roosevelt regularly advised Jewish leaders to be patient, to put their demands on hold. He said that the best way to help Europe’s Jews was to win the war.

We are living in amazing times. Jews who have been scattered to the ends of the earth are returning home after 2,000 years of exile, and each one has a story. I want to share with you the story of an amazing young woman I met in Modiin, a neighbor of our daughter Penina Abramowitz. It shows that no matter how far away a Jew is, there is a spark, a Yiddishe neshama that can ignite a desire to return, both physically and emotionally to the Jewish people.

With the onset of the Corona pandemic, we have been served a bit of history. By now, everyone knows that almost exactly 100 years ago the infamous Spanish flu pandemic swept the globe, killing 50 million people worldwide. Less well known is the fact that outbreaks of disease cropped up in various localities in other years. Around 1915, my Uncle Joe, all alone in Troy, Alabama, came down with typhus.

As many of you know, our family’s American journey began in 1914, when Uncle Joe Weinstock got off the boat at Galveston, Texas. Like thousands of other young, Russian men brought over by the generosity of the financier Jacob Schiff, he was greeted at the port by Reform Rabbi Henry Cohen and taken to a hostel, where he was put up for the night, given a kosher meal, and then sent to a destination chosen by others. Their plan was to distribute the immigrants around the center of the country, away from the teeming slums of New York.

One of my father’s favorite sayings was “Al tistakel bekankan eila ma sheyeish bo – Don’t look at the barrel but at the wine in it.” In other words, don’t judge a book by its cover. One of the unfortunate traits of many people is to judge a person by his or her outward appearance, nationality, or ethnicity. Gypsies or “Roma,” as they prefer to be called, are often thought to be dishonest, uncouth, and utterly outside the norms of society. They are said to have originated in northern India, but they have wandered around Europe for around 1500 years. They live a nomadic lifestyle and have their own language and practices. But, we err if we prejudge people in that way. To quote Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, “…There are two races of men in this world, but only these two – the ‘race’ of the decent man and the ‘race’ of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people.”

We often hear the term mesiras nefesh. It means, of course, to invest one’s entire soul in something. Most of the time, we use it much too lightly. True mesiras nefesh, as we will see below, is above normal human capability and can accomplish what seems impossible.

My goal in this article is not to give a summary of the life of the great Rav, Rabbi Avrohom Kalmanowitz, zt”l. Rather, I will recount one episode that shows us what can be accomplished when great people are willing to be moser nefesh. My information is taken from a recently published ArtScroll biography, A Blazing Light in the Darkness by Avrohom Birnbaum.