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JO1995-V28-N04.Pdf ~~ are eordiatfj- invited to attendan evening q/'rememlranee: ASHES TO RENEWAL A MULTI-FACETED EVENT COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OFTHE END OF WORLD WAR II AND THE END .OF CHURBAN EUROPE. TO TAKE PIACE AT THE 73rdrfflitnuaf~'nner q/' np·..,~;:i ~.,'121, Jlii~ dl{ju£rt£ ~raefq/' rfftineriea MAY TW'ENTY :ERST, NINETEEN HUNDRED NINETY FIVE i111)\!J!1 )))N N"'.:> FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING NEW YORK HILTON 54TH STREET AND AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS NEW YORK CITY ren<owal that follciwed,,seen through the For dedication opportunities Vantage points Of the_se proiriiherit fiimilies: and for dinner reservations, RASlltN.\V. DESSL'ER please contact: Bf,NJAMJN c. FISH'oFJ:, ST.EPH£N KtmN, Z"L AGUDATH ISRAEL OF AMERICA RABBI LEll> G'fLIE'BTER} Z"L PrNC'Ht1s KLEIN 84 William Street PHILTl' Hom:mFELD FRED S, LANG EFltAlM KLEIN, Z"L THE RIEDE:ft FAMILY New York, NY 10038 212-797-9000 "Ashes to Renewal" will also include a Family Album section depicting the heroic stories of individual fumilies plus a Megillas Zikoron listing the names of friends and relatives who perished during World War II. THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN) 0021-6615 is published monthly except July and August by the Agudath Israel of America, 84 William Street, New York, N.Y. 10038. Second class postage paid in New York, N.Y. Subscription$24.00 per year; two years, $44.00; three years, $60.00. Outside of the United States (US funds drawn on a US bank only) $12.00 surcharge per year. FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE END OF WORLD wAR JI Single copy $3.50; foreign $4.50. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: 4 The Jewish Observer, 84 William Street, N.Y., N.Y.10038. Tel: (212) 797-9000. Overlooking the Obvious: Printed in the U.S.A. The Continuity/Catastrophe Nexus Rabbi Avi Shafran RABBI NISSON WOLPIN, EDITOR 8 EDITORIAL BOARD OR. ERNST L. BODENHEIMER The Glory That Was Eastern Europe - Chairman As Appreciated Through Western Eyes (1931) RABBI JOSEPH ELIAS Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carleba.ch ~">;i, JOSEPH FRIEDENSON translated by Joseph Wechsler RABBI NOSSON SCHERMAN MANAGEMENT BOARD AVIFISHOF "Not Totally and Not Forever... " NAFTOLI HIRSCH Yosef Friedenson ISAAC KIAZNER RABBI SHLOMO LESIN NACHUM STEIN The View of a Child of Survivors RABBI YOSEF C. GOLDING Rabbi Avraham Ausband Business Manager Published by Agudath Israel of America Return Flight to Cracow - a letter and a poem RABBI MOSHE SHERER Bas Kedoshim PRESIDENT SOLE U.S. TRADE DISTRIBUTOR EUROPEAN REPRESENTATIVE Life Feldhelm Publishers M.T. Bibelman A Glimpse at the of a Giant in Our Times: 200 Airport Executive Park Grosvenor Works Harav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach :i·?pm Spring Valley, N.Y. 10977 Mount Pleasant Hill London ES 9NE, ENGLAND Rabbi Yerachmiel Fried ISRAELI DISTRIBUTOR AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR Nechemla Rosenberg Gold's Book & GIH Co. Kiryat Telshe Stone, 108A 36 William Street O.N. Harei Yehuda, ISRAEL Balaclava 3183, Vic_, AUSTRALIA The Man Who Fled From Honor - And His Entourage of 300,000 Mourners THE JEWISH OBSERVER does not Sarah Shapiro assume responsibility for the Kashrus of any product, publication, or service advertised in its pages Letters to the Editor ©Copyright 1995 MAY 1995 Photo credit. cover: Shaul Morgenstern VOLUME XXVlll /NO. 4 FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II RabbiAvi Shafran Overlooking the Obvious: THE CONTINUITY/CATASTROPHE NEXUS n this fiftieth year since the end of ever having pronounced the words Churban Europe, there has been The only honest and truly "Shema YtsroeL" without ever hav­ I much discussion about reflection ing seen a Siddur, knowing nothing and commemoration, about how best effective memorializing about Shabbos or Jewish holidays­ to honor the memory of the six mil­ who cannot even recognize a He­ lion precious Jewish souls who per­ brew letter, or know in which direc­ of the Jewish martyrs of tion the language Is read. ished in the Holocaust. 1bis has been a year, too, during Churban Europe must It is heartening that the challenge which a large segment of American that lies in those decades-old words Jewry has voiced serious concern mourn not only the lost has finally been endorsed by a larger over Jewish continuity, about how Jewish world that has, to its great best to ensure an identifiably, mean­ Jewish lives but the lost credit, come to recognize and em­ ingfully Jewish future. brace the mission of creating Jewish It is puzzling how the two topics Jewish life, the timeless continuity. Unfortunately, however, have remained unlinked in the Jew­ the means thus far discussed for ish public's collective mind, how the ideals and principles of reaching that laudable end have been latter concern's pertinence to the sadly inadequate to the task. former has somehow escaped the pre-Holocaust Jewish A free trip to Israel for every Jew­ arena of public discourse. ish teenager is a positive gesture, no Sometimes, though, the obvious is Europe - and not only doubt; there is much to be said for overlooked, and needs to be stated experiencing a society of identifiably clearly, even bluntly. mourn them but re­ Jewish Jews-and much more, of course, to be said for the sublime im­ OF ORPHANS AND ARSONISTS establish them. pact that the Holy Land-and its To­ rah communities and institutions­ he Ponovezher Rav, Rabbi can leave on a young person. But a eratiDn, though, is a generation with­ Yoseif Kahaneman, ?"~. once travel-campaign, in the end, entirely said something that would out children." begs the essential question of conti­ T In an essay in B'shtei Einayim, serve well as a motto for the Jewish nuity. What holds the key to the Jew­ world's "Continuity Commissions." Rabbi Moshe Sherer, Agudath Israel ish future is not the State of Israel, "An orphan," he remarked, "is a per­ of America's president, writes: nor even-at least in the short run­ son without parents; an orphan-gen- Hitler, V"\ made us all orphans, Eretz Yisroet what can unlock the but we Jews ourselves, sadly, bear Jewish future is what created the Rabbi Shafran. who serves as the Director of Pub­ the responsibility for turning our generation into an "orphan genera­ Jewish people in the first place and lic Affairs for Agudath Israel of America, is a fre­ what sustained-and sustains-us quent conbibutor to these pages, most recently tion." ... Across the Jewish map. with 'They're Still Saying Those 1hings: A Journal­ hundreds of thousands of Jewish forever thereafter, throughout our ex­ ism Outrage Update.. {Mar. '95). children are growing up without periences in the countless crucibles 4 The Jewish Observer. May 1995 and continents that have held us over the ages. "Our nation is only a nation," as Rav Saadiah Gaon wrote, "by virtue of its Torah." The assured inefficacy of so many of the efforts to preserve the Jewish identity of the younger generation is all too painfully signalled by the play­ ers enlisted to craft the continuity ini­ tiatives. As Rabbi Sherer noted a year ago in his pointed letter to the chair­ men of the Commission on Jewish Identity and Continuity, it is hard to imagine how "an Orthodox-Conser­ va tive-Reform-Reconstru ctionist - Secular Jewish body" can possibly "combat the plagues of assimilation, ignorance and intermaniage" in the Jewish world today. The arsonist, he who recently spent several months went on to note, does not a good fire­ watching the comings and goings at By doing more than man make. Auschwitz has incorporated a truly shocking modern-day Auschwitz remembering the Jewish THE LIMITATIONS OF SYMBOLS photograph into one of his exhibits. It portrays a tourist-family. fully loss of the war years, by e other Jewish question of the dressed the part, smiling for the cam­ ear, how to properly com­ era in almost Disneylandesque fash­ actually overcoming its Timemorate the Holocaust's ion-tight beneath the "Arbeit Macht kedoshim, has brought a multitude of Frei" -gate at the death camp. effects, at least on the responses. Monuments and muse­ No one. of course, condones the ums abound, testimony to the deter­ cheapening of history's horrors. But spiritual stratum, the mination of survivors and their chil­ it happens. dren to preserve. through symbols. Thus, the Jewish people finds itself Jewish world not only scholarship and artifacts. the details squarely faced with the challenge of and horrors of the indesclibable de­ faithfully remembeling the Jewish reconnects to its struction Jewish Europe endured. past and, at the same time. of produc­ Oflate, it has become almost com­ tively facing the Jewish future. illustrious past- but monplace for Jews to make pilgrim­ And what is both obvious and yet ages to Poland, to pay homage to the so often missed by so many is that the reassures its shining memoties of the Nazis' Jewish victims two challenges are tightly, profoundly future. on the very soil that absorbed their intertwined. blood, to breath the air that once ear­ ned their ashes. NOT "HOW" BUT "WHAT" ciples of pre-Holocaust Jewish Eu­ The trips and ceremonies are, rope-and not only mourn them but without question, inspiring; the emissinglinkhere, the nexus re-establish them. When Torah Jews monuments and museums, thought­ f the Jewish world's catastro­ mount a campaign to remember the provoking and soul-wrenching. But Tiphe and continuity, is embod­ kedoshei ChurbWl Europe, the effort they have their limits, especially as ied in a simple but, to many, still must revolve around the study of the histolical vividness of the Holo­ unfaced fact Europe's Jews didn't Mishnayos l'zeicher their neshrunos, caust has begun to fade, when de­ just die; they lived, too.
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