CARETAKERS OF THE RESISTANCE Kol Nidre 5779 (2018) Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead

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1 1 CARETAKERS OF THE RESISTANCE Kol Nidre 5779 (2018) Temple Emanu-El, Marblehead RABBI DAVID J. MEYER The year was probably around I was a young rabbinical student in Los Angeles, during a time when the Freedom for Soviet Jewry Movement was in its heyday. I received an unexpected phone call from the Israeli Embassy, asking if I would be willing to travel to the Soviet Union for the purpose of smuggling in Jewish ritual objects prayerbooks, tallitot, Hebrew text books, and mezuzzot - for the refuseniks, the Jews of the former Soviet Union who had applied to emigrate to Israel. Typically, they would enter an extended period of limbo. They lost their jobs. They lost their civil rights as the authorities processed their applications an ordeal that could drag out over the course of several years. The Israeli official also thought that my Jewish music skills would be meaningful to these Jews as they sought to connect with their heritage. I gave the matter serious consideration, but when they told me that the American Embassy would not be informed of my travels, I decided that my opportunity to engage in the movement would have to wait. What movement, you might ask? The movement of resistance. Fast forward some forty-five years, as this past May, as Claudia recalled for us, I had led a group of some fifteen Temple members to visit Jewish communities beginning to revive in the aftermath of the Holocaust -- in particular, our sister synagogue, Bet Simcha in Minsk. As you heard, the congregation s Rabbi Grisha Abramovich, became unavailable just prior to a scheduled Bar Mitzvah, so I conducted much of the service that morning, including the presentation of a beautiful Tallit to the Bar Mitzvah boy as a gift from our congregation here in Marblehead. Several lovely photographs captured that moment, but when someone innocently posted that photo on social media, I had to call our travel companion at midnight in her hotel room. I urged her to take the post down or at least to re-edit the post. She had indicated on Facebook, with pride and delight, that I had officiated at the Bar Mitzvah. But in fact, that post could have gotten me and our host congregation into a lot of trouble. As I explained quietly to the group the next morning, the government had not duly licensed me to officiate religious services in Belarus. Therefore, it would have been against the

2 2 law for me to do so. Yes, over the course of five days, I led a Hebrew naming ceremony, officiated at the Bar Mitzvah service, even addressed the Bride and Groom and chanted the Seven Wedding Blessings under a chuppah. But as far as the government would know I wasn t leading worship. I was merely sharing Jewish cultural education! No praying going on here! Nope, nope, nope! I quietly felt as if my modest opportunity for Jewish resistance had finally arrived! Upon our return home, one of our companions wrote and published a beautiful retrospective of our trip in the local Jewish Journal, and a full version of her travelogue appeared on our website. The first memory: Vilnius, or Vilna, which our ancestors knew as the Jerusalem of the North for its vibrant Jewish life and learning. We traveled to the Ponary Forest. There, the Nazis marched more than one hundred thousand Jews to their deaths, forced them to dig their own graves and murdered them. The forest monuments identify several dozen such sites, and we had plans to visit a few to pay our respects. But when we arrived at the gates of the forest, a procession, known as March of the Living was about to set off, and even though it would be conducted in Lithuanian, we decided to join in the ceremonial commemoration. At the end of the proceedings, after we had laid wreaths, and recited the prayers, and recognized the dignitaries, the ceremony concluded with some 3 or 4 dozen Lithuanian school children, waving both Israeli and Lithuanian flags, singing in their own native tongue, Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, Jerusalem of Gold. To hear those young children singing that song, in that place, in that language -- no words could sufficiently describe that moment. But, a question began to gnaw at my mind. Why, in that country in Lithuania -- of all places, would parents choose to send their children to a Jewish school? It s not as if the history of the previous generation happened in some distant place or was merely part of historical memory. It was all around them. The annihilation of the Jewish community was obvious walking the streets of the former Jewish ghetto, seeing the memorials, plaques large and small on buildings and sidewalks. Even the statue of the great, Vilna Gaon testified to what once had been and all that was now lost. Why would parents living right there make the choice to send their children to a Jewish school? Why would they choose Judaism for their children?

3 3 A second memory: Belarus. Soon after our arrival in the town of Lida, once home to a magnificent Jewish community of learning, we went on a tour which brought us to a monument made in memory of the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto, to the very spot of the killing pits that were filled with human corpses. A local member of the Jewish community spoke in hushed tones, translated into English for us, detailing the days of the forced march, the digging, and the machine-gun massacres. The Nazi s smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey as their weapons burned red against the night. He barely raised his voice in recalling the horror. He barely even raised his eyes. Later that evening, imagine my surprise to learn that he was none other than the father of the young girl, Sofia, who was receiving her Hebrew name! It was a wonderfully joyful, freilach celebration. I had the honor of reading Torah, offering a blessing, and pronouncing her new, Hebrew name, Hannah. But still, I wondered to myself: Why would he possibly wish for his child to have a Jewish identity? After all that had happened? Finally, on the last evening of our trip, I co-officiated at a wedding of a young couple in Minsk. What I hadn t fully realized until sitting with them to sign their ketubah, their Jewish wedding contract, was that they had already been married for ten years, and already had three young children. Why did they now need a Jewish wedding ceremony? Because they had recently converted to Judaism the entire family -- all five of them and so they wanted to have a Jewish wedding to mark their 10 th anniversary. Once again, it was a thoroughly joyful celebration for the family and for the entire community, as well as for the visitors from Marblehead. But, again I had to wonder: knowing what they must have known about the Jewish past that had unfolded in that place, why would they make that choice? Why would they choose that path for their children? With all reminders, physically and emotionally all around them of the Holocaust and the slaughter of the Jewish community right there, why would they say: The Jewish people: now there s the club I want to join!? I later learned that one of the congregation s service leaders, a lovely, bright and artistically gifted young woman named Vika, had only completed her conversion to Judaism a few weeks after we had met.

4 4 And the hip, inked and very talented guitar-player who accompanied many of the prayers also a Jew by Choice! As a rabbi, I believe very deeply so deeply as to devote my entire life -- that Jewish observance, learning and spirituality is good for people, beneficial to families, and is a most viable path to repairing our world. But even that conviction, that faith, didn t seem sufficient to satisfy my bewilderment at the conscious choices that these people in Eastern Europe had made the choice to be Jews. I wrote to Rabbi Abramovich to ask for his insight: Why are so many people choosing to convert to Judaism, despite all that they know? So he put me back in touch with the wedding couple, as well as the service leader, Vika, to ask them directly that very question. They all wrote back to me, telling me long stories detailing their journeys into Jewish life. Our own conversion candidates could have written some of those reflections. Those Jews in eastern Europe wrote about discovering in Judaism beauty, meaning, connection to community, belonging through Judaism. In the words of the bride and groom, Natalia and Vladamir Soloviev: Almost 11 years ago we created a family and since then had three wonderful children. And this year we had Chuppah, which was held in our community Simcha with relatives, friends, dear guests from USA, rabbis Abramovich and Meyer. Could we imagine 10 years ago that it will be so? Of course not! But it was then when our spiritual quest for answers to many questions about life and family started. We began to get acquainted with the history of Jewish people, their traditions, defeats and victories, began to study the Torah. So gradually we began to feel part of the Jewish people. It was great and interesting...but we understood that our knowledge was superficial. So we began to study at the school for conversion led by Rabbi Abramovich. This path was not easy... When we realized that the community was our second home and we wanted to become part of the Simha community, we moved to Minsk. We changed our place of residence, work, way of life, but the main thing is that we have found a large Jewish family in the name of the Simha community, where we learn, we pray on Shabbat, rejoice, celebrate Jewish holidays, remember and develop. In the correspondence, I learned something more. I read that they had Jewish roots which the generations had covered up or forgotten -- before the war, and during the days of the Soviet regime. Here s an excerpt from what Vika wrote me:

5 5 I asked my mother about the historical facts of our family, and as it turned out, my mother's father was Jewish. But this is not documented anywhere, because his mother, my greatgrandmother, changed all their documents in order to become "Russians" in because of the War! All I know about the documents is that the birth certificates and passports of all the above mentioned have been changed several times. My great-grandmother in these documents has different surnames and different nationalities - Russian and Belarusian. My Grandfather has two dates of birth. Now they are dead. But during life, great-grandparents told us that they had to hide a lot from "unnecessary" eyes. Then I still did not understand what was going on. Vika concluded her notes to me with a most telling statement: We live in the territory where talking about our origins and our blood was inadmissible under pain of death. Now, in memory of all the victims who were deprived of the right to stand up, we must be stronger and strive to speak more and more, do a lot of things for ourselves and in honor of them. This is the truth. When you are honest with yourself, it makes you stronger from within. Especially when you're not alone. All power is in honesty and our unity. In the weeks which have passed since our visit to Lithuania and Belarus, I ve come to understand what I believe might be the best answer to my question about why people we met were choosing to become Jewish, to remain Jewish, and to pass Judaism on to their children -- even as they lived among the monuments, the remains and the living proof of the Holocaust. I believe that it is nothing less than a new chapter in the story of Jewish resistance! I find myself remembering the movie, Defiance. It tells the story of the Bielski partisans, who for more than four years, created a resistance movement from their hideout deep in the Belarusian forest. Their continuous efforts inspired Jews to escape from the ghettos and into the forest in hopes of finding the Bielski Brothers refuge. Due to the brother s innovation, fearless courage, and perseverance, over 1,200 Jews - young and old, strong and weak would survive WWII. i The Bielski family came from the town of Navogrudak. Our tour group visited Navagrudak, and we entered what had been the barracks that the Nazis used to house the Jewish slave laborers, the remnants of the liquidated Jewish ghetto. Realizing that their only future was death, over the period of weeks, the Jews dug a tunnel beneath the barracks reaching some 200 meters and beyond the ghetto walls. One night, at the urging of their brave and determined

6 6 leaders, every surviving Jew shimmied through that narrow tunnel, and escaped to the forests, where they joined up with the partisans. Every one of them survived the war and lived to tell the tale. Today, those barracks have become the Museum of Jewish Resistance. As Jews, resistance is in our blood. Resistance is part of our DNA. It is why our people has survived. In our sacred texts, our history, our holiday celebrations and our collective memory, we share a record of refusing to give in to hatred, refusing to wither in the face of oppression, demonization, and destruction, and flourishing even in the aftermath of calamity. We tell the story of Hanukkah how the Maccabees fought for religious freedom against the forces of Antiochus. It is the story of resistance. We tell the story of Purim, how Esther and Mordecai defeated Haman s genocidal plans. It is the story of resistance. We tell the story of the Bar Kochba rebellion against the mighty Roman Empire. We tell the stories of ghetto uprisings during the Holocaust. We tell the story of the strength and determination of the partisan fighters in the forests of Belarus. We tell the story of the unlikely emergence of a modern, Jewish state in our ancient homeland. These are all stories of resistance. And what of our own time? Our own communities? Last month, the Anti-Defamation League released an interactive map detailing incidents of anti-semitism, racism and extremist acts that have taken place across the state and across the country over the past several years. The so-called HEAT map (standing for Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitism and Terrorism) and its accompanying report pinpoint more than 4,500 nationwide examples, ranging from anti-semitic incidents to white supremacist rallies to terror attacks. Across the globe, the world s oldest hatred is resurfacing. Public discourse on the far left, the far right, and among Islamist extremists what unites them all? Their hatred for the Jewish people and the Jewish state. One year ago, we heard chants of Jews will not replace us on the streets of Charlottesville. We ve seen jihadists attack and murder Jews in Europe. Anti- Semitism wears the Purim costume of anti-zionism -- from American college campuses to the British Labor Party. ii In the face of rising anti-semitism, we cannot diminish our instinctive ability to stand firm and resolute. This, too, is a time of Jewish resistance! That is why, when we continue to

7 7 build and support our local Jewish institutions; when we nurture bi-partisan support for the security of Israel; when we send our children to Jewish summer camps and youth groups; when we create an inclusive and welcoming community for all; and even when we choose to gather tonight, on this sacred day for worship, study and celebration we renew and we invigorate that proud tradition of Jewish self-determination, of Jewish resistance. Allow me to share one final recollection, an image with which I would conclude my message here tonight. At the end of our group s visit to the Museum of Jewish Resistance in Navogrudak, we took a walk along the length of the tunnel that those prisoners dug the tunnel through which they escaped to freedom and to life. And then we returned to the barracks. And there we took out the ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract which we would use only a few hours later at the wedding of Natalia and Vladomir, the young couple who had chosen to bring their family into the Jewish people and faith. Rabbi Abramovich had brought it with him just for that moment. Our friend, Vika had done the calligraphy in Hebrew and Belarusian, but the ketubah was not complete we still needed to fill in about twenty Hebrew letters before we could use it for the wedding. There was a small table alongside the bunk -- beneath which was the entryway to the escape tunnel. One by one, every member of our Temple group took a seat at the table, and adding one letter at a time, there we completed the ketubah. It was our way of honoring the partisans. It was our way of reaching to them across the decades. It was our way of assuring them that we knew -- that the resistance was not over. It endures today: Am Yisrael Chai. The people of Israel lives! And it is we all of us -- who are now the caretakers of the resistance. i See Alexis DeVries, Jerusalem in the Woods: The Resistance of the Bielski Brothers. ii Quoted from a correspondence with David Harris, CED of the American Jewish Committee.