New Starts and Fresh Beginnings

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can't get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you're doing, but what you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
-Alan Alda

A few short years ago, I graduated from high school. I don’t remember the exact date, but the graduation ceremony was somewhere in the two weeks between Passover and Israel's Independence Day (Yom HaAzmaut). I went to a Jewish High School, back in the Old Country, where we learned Bible, Jewish Law, Jewish History, a smattering of Hebrew, and a great deal of Zionism. We graduated in the early spring (there was probably still snow on the ground) so that my class could travel to Israel and spend five months working on a Kibbutz and travel the country.

I don’t remember all the details of that graduation. I do remember that I was the first in the line of graduates to march into the school synagogue – where the ceremony took place – because I was the shortest one (though I was led to believe it was because I was the cutest and smartest...). I remember who the valedictorian was (today, if I’m not mistaken, he’s a professor in a prestigious Old Country University). I remember the guest speaker, a Rabbi I much admired and respected, and who, several years later, as life would have it, became my cousin’s father-in-law. (By then, I was already living in Israel, and was not privileged to get to know him better.) I even remember the really awful dress that my mother had made for me for the event. It was truly hideous.

The Old Country School with Snow

What I remember most clearly, however, was my apprehension.

Well, it wasn’t quite apprehension. More like disquiet. Worry. Dread. Terror.

Because, not only had I finished high school and my future now lay before me without an iota of an idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, but, to make matter worse, I had opted out of going on the Israel program with my class. I had decided that if I was going to spend time in Israel, I was going to go by myself, and not with 20 people I had known all my life. A new country and a new experience required a new start, a fresh beginning, and independence.

Therefore, I, at the ripe old age of 17, made my first adult decision of NOT going to Israel with my class, and instead, to go by myself the following autumn.

All through that graduation, and for months after, I wondered and worried whether I had made the right decision. I was leaving the extreme comfort of the life well-known and the road well-traveled (and not doing what was expected of a good Jewish girl), and leaping into an abyss of the completely and utterly unfamiliar, unexplored, unknown.

My parents (may their memories be blessed) were NOT happy with this decision, to put it mildly.

That graduation ceremony was the last time I saw many of my classmates, who had been classmates, friends, and family just about all my life. I honestly didn't know anyone or anything else.

Shortly after graduation, and the departure of the participants of the Israel program, the Jewish community of my hometown organized its annual ‘Yom HaAzmaut March for Israel', something I had participated in every year for many years. That year was a significant anniversary (as it is this year). I made my way to the center of town to take part, as I had done many times before. Israeli flags were flying, Hebrew songs were being sung.  I walked with the rest of the crowd, but without my friends, who were, for the most part, in Israel. There were a few other classmates who had not gone with the class, but I don’t remember seeing them at the March.

I left the March for Israel early, before the end.

And have not been back since.

I remember going home on the bus from that March, tears in my eyes, lonely, afraid, unsure of the future. Was the first decision I had made as an adult a wrong one? Fresh beginnings and independence weren't looking so appealing at that point.

I spent most of that summer alone.

I did come to Israel that autumn after my spring graduation as planned. I traveled alone, though I met an acquaintance on the plane. We parted in Tel Aviv, and I saw her again about 5 years later. She had left Israel after a few months. It hadn’t worked out for her.

Since that Old Country March for Israel, I have been blessed to celebrate every Yom HaAzmaut but one, here, in Israel, marking it in the traditional Israeli way: hanging flags on our car, eating falafel, watching fireworks, hiking, barbecuing, pretending I know an answer from the Bible Contest, and spending the day with family and friends. For me, it seems to have worked out.

Every day is a new beginning, a fresh start.
Every day is a challenge.
Every day is a wonder and a miracle.

And here I am now, these few years, one husband, five children, two grandchildren, four cars, and seven washing machines later.

Still marching for Israel.
(and still not knowing what I want to be when I grow up.)

That first decision as an adult turned out to be the right decision. I was not so lucky in all my subsequent decisions – sometimes yes, and sometimes no – but I have never regreted that first one, even when missiles, or the shekel, were falling.

And certainly not when there are fireworks.

אָבִינוּ שֶׁבַּשָּׁמַיִם, צוּר יִשְׂרָאֵל וְגוֹאֲלוֹ, בָּרֵךְ אֶת מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, רֵאשִׁית צְמִיחַת גְּאֻלָּתֵנוּ.

הָגֵן עָלֶיהָ בְּאֶבְרַת חַסְדֶּךָ, וּפְרֹשׁ עָלֶיהָ סֻכַּת שְׁלוֹמֶךָ, וּשְׁלַח אוֹרְךָ וַאֲמִתְּךָ לְרָאשֶׁיהָ, שָׂרֶיהָ וְיוֹעֲצֶיהָ, וְתַקְּנֵם בְּעֵצָה טוֹבָה מִלְּפָנֶיךָ.

חַזֵּק אֶת יְדֵי מְגִנֵּי אֶרֶץ קָדְשֵׁנוּ, וְהַנְחִילֵם אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְשׁוּעָה וַעֲטֶרֶת נִצָּחוֹן תְּעַטְּרֵם, וְנָתַתָּ שָׁלוֹם בָּאָרֶץוְשִׂמְחַת עוֹלָם לְיוֹשְׁבֶיהָ.

וְאֶת אַחֵינוּ כָּל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל פְּקָד־נָאבְּכָל אַרְצוֹת פְּזוּרֵיהֶם, וְתוֹלִיכֵם מְהֵרָה קוֹמְמִיּוּת לְצִיּוֹן עִירֶךָ וְלִירוּשָׁלַיִם מִשְׁכַּן שְׁמֶךָ, כַּכָּתוּב בְּתוֹרַת משֶׁה עַבְדֶּךָ: ”אִם יִהְיֶה נִדַּחֲךָ בִּקְצֵה הַשָּׁמַיִם, מִשָּׁם יְקַבֶּצְךָ ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ וּמִשָּׁם יִקָּחֶךָ. וֶהֱבִיאֲךָ ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶל הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יָרְשׁוּ אֲבֹתֶיךָוִירִשְׁתָּהּ, וְהֵיטִבְךָ וְהִרְבְּךָ מֵאֲבֹתֶיךָ.“(דברים ל:ד-ה)

וְיַחֵד לְבָבֵנוּ לְאַהֲבָה וּלְיִרְאָה אֶת שְׁמֶךָ, וְלִשְׁמֹר אֶת כָּל דִּבְרֵי תּוֹרָתֶךָ. וּשְׁלַח לָנוּ מְהֵרָה בֶּן דָּוִד מְשִׁיחַ צִדְקֶךָ, לִפְדּות מְחַכֵּי קֵץ יְשׁוּעָתֶךָ. הוֹפַע בַּהֲדַר גְּאוֹן עֻזֶּךָ עַל כָּל יוֹשְׁבֵי תֵּבֵל אַרְצֶךָ, וְיֹאמַר כֹּל אֲשֶׁר נְשָׁמָה בְּאַפּוֹ: יהוה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֶלֶךְ,”וּ֝מַלְכוּת֗וֹ בַּכֹּ֥ל מָשָֽׁלָה.“(תהלים קג:יט) אָמֵן סֶלָה.

Our Father who is in heaven, Protector and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel, the dawn of our deliverance. Shield it beneath the wings of Your love; spread over it Your canopy of peace; send Your light and Your truth to its leaders, officers, and counselors, and direct them with Your good counsel.

Strengthen the defenders of our Holy Land; grant them, our God, salvation and crown them with victory. Establish peace in the land, and everlasting joy for its inhabitants. Remember our brethren, the whole house of Israel, in all the lands of their dispersion. Speedily bring them to Zion, Your city, to Jerusalem Your dwelling-place, as it is written in the  of Your servant Moses:

“Even if you are dispersed in the uttermost parts of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather and fetch you. The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your ancestors possessed, and you shall possess it; and God will make you more prosperous and more numerous than your ancestors.”

Unite our hearts to love and revere Your name, and to observe all the precepts of Your Torah. Speedily send us Your righteous Messiah of the House of David, to redeem those waiting for Your salvation. Shine forth in Your glorious majesty over all the inhabitants of Your world. Let everything that breathes proclaim: “The Lord God of Israel is King; His majesty rules over all.” Amen. Selah.

Rawa Ruska

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
― Elie Wiesel

Over the past half a dozen or so years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the internet researching the history and demise of the town of Rawa Ruska (pronounced Rava Rushka), the birthplace of my mother.

My mother and her parents and brother left Europe and came to Canada long before World War Two, and were, therefore, not subject to its horrors. All my mother was left with were some old dishes, grainy photographs of people whose names she was unsure of (“I think that was Hershel. He died in the War”), and child memories, which later proved to be somewhat inaccurate.

She did not often speak of the town, though I can’t remember a time when I did not know its name. On Passover, she would tell me how her family made all the preparations for the holiday on the day of the seder; that her mother would pluck and cook a chicken only late in the afternoon after the house had been cleaned of chametz; that they would sit down for the meal only after midnight, because it took that long to get ready. Even as a child, I realized that the story couldn’t be right – it just seemed like midnight to my then six-year-old mother. She once told me that theirs was one of the few houses that had a tin roof (I suppose the other roofs were wooden or thatched) and she could remember the thundering of the rain on the tin. She would sometimes, though infrequently, mention a relative – an aunt or uncle or cousin – and then say “They died in the War”. I am embarrassed to say that I was in my teens before I understood that ‘They died in the War’ did not mean these long-dead cousins had been soldiers, or that their house had been bombed, but, rather, that they had been murdered by the Nazis and their helpers; my mother’s family – MY family – were part of the six million.

I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t familiar with that magic number, six million.

6,000,000. Six zero zero zero zero zero zero.

All those zeroes. The very magnitude of the number makes it almost meaningless; a number so vast that it is next to impossible to imagine.

As a teenager, I was morbidly interested in the subject. I read Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus’ at age 12, and from there went on to read other, and much better books, dozens and dozens of them. By the time I graduated high school, I had read, not only Uris's Exodus, QBVII, and Mila 18 (which was the only book in my life that scared me so much that I found myself afraid to leave my room late at night and go to the bathroom, in case Nazis would find me),  but also books on the Nuremberg trials, Spandau, by Albert Speer, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, by Giorgio Bassani, The House on Garibaldi Street by Isser Harel, The Diary of Anne Frank, and most of Eli Wiesel’s books. I heard both Wiesel and Simon Wiesenthal speak and I received 100% in the Grade 12 Holocaust course I took, a class I could have given.

This was at a time when it was still not cool to talk about the Holocaust except in hushed whispers and euphemisms (‘they died in the War’); when there were many many survivors who would not, or could not, speak of their experiences; when so many facts and details were unknown and  most people did not want to know.

Rawa Ruska is a town in south-east Galicia, sometimes in Poland, and sometimes in the Ukraine. Founded around 1455, Jews were invited to live there shortly after its establishment to help with its economy. The history of Rawa mirrors that of other Galician/Polish/Ukrainian/European towns. Princes/Dukes/Lords rose and fell; the Jewish community was alternately protected and slaughtered. By the early 20th century, Rawa was a busy, relatively prosperous, railway town, and its population was approximately 12,000 people, of whom 5000 were Jews—about 40 percent.

Again, the experiences of the Jews of Rawa between the years 1941 and 1943 mirror those of Jews across the Baltic and in much of Europe. The Jews of the town were first rounded up and herded into the old market area, which became the ghetto. There, they were starved and worked to death. Those who survived were either taken to be shot in fields surrounding the town, or taken by train to the nearby extermination camp of Belzec and murdered there. 

Until only a few years ago, it was difficult to find any information on what happened at Rawa Rushka. This was partly because there were almost no survivors of the horrors and partly because the rest of the town never spoke of what they saw and/or did.

It is only in recent years that a French Catholic priest, Father Patrick Dubois, took it upon himself to discover the fate of Jewish communities across the former USSR and uncover the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mass graves, where up to a million Jews lie strewn in the ground.  He has located eye witnesses in dozens of towns and villages, who at the time were children, and seem to have waited for the end of their lives to tell what they saw. They told him that the ground around Rawa Ruska moved for three days. 

It takes three days for a mass grave to die. 

Today Rawa Ruska is no longer prosperous. There are about 8000 inhabitants, which means that it never regained its pre-war conditions.

There are no Jews now in Rawa Rushka, almost none in all of Galicia.

The only Jews left in Galicia

Until 2015, there was no memorial, no memory, no indication of the lives once lived and brutally taken. It was only due to the efforts of Father Dubois that a memorial was put up on one of the killing fields. It is made up of Jewish gravestones.

The memorial at Rawa

The ghetto of Rawa Ruska, and the eradication of its Jewish community, was just one of over 40,000 Nazi camps and ghettos across Europe.

40,000. Fourty Thousand. Four zero zero zero zero.

Each of these camps had Nazi guards and commanders. Each one was situated either within or very close to a town or village, where the locals were witnesses to what was happening. 

The sheer numbers defy belief. Indeed, more and more people don't/won't/can't believe it happened. 

The importance of learning the facts and details and understanding the magnitude of the horror is greater now than ever. We are on the cusp of forgetting. 

The generation who lived through World War Two – the perpetrators, the victims, the witnesses, the bystanders – is almost gone. 

If my generation, the second generation, does not pass on the stories, the biographies, the descriptions, the names, the identities, the places, and the histories to the next generation, it will be lost.

As Eli Wiesel said: to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.