something nice for Chanuka, published a few years ago in Breslovworld.com

Chanuka is a celebration of strength – Jewish strength. Not the commonly pictured concept of martial superiority, but the unique strength that typifies the Jewish people – the quiet, inner strength to overcome the tests we encounter and guard that  precious pitcher of undefiled oil – our Jewish soul.   For many non-religious Jews, lighting the colorful candles of the menora is one of their few, tenuous connections with Judaism. For many, as well, it is this inner strength exemplified by Chanuka that gives them the capacity to kindle their dormant link to their Jewish heritage.   PROUD TO BE JEWISH   Devora Shtein* grew up in Ontario, Canada. Although her family was Jewish, and even lit the Chanuka menora, their main holiday was celebrated on December 25.   “Every year,” says Devora, “we would hang stockings up by the fireplace on the eve of December 25, and the next morning we would find a pile of gifts awaiting us.”   One year, when Devora was all of six-years-old, she indignantly told her parents that she does not want anymore presents on that day.   “We are Jewish,” she said, “and Jews don’t celebrate December 25.”   Devora still remembers, almost 40 years later, how she felt that first year. “December 25th felt empty,” she said. “All my friends were showing off their new bicycles and dolls, and I had nothing. I felt as though I was missing something.   “But I still remember that proud feeling of lighting the Chanuka candles a few days later, and knowing that I was following in the footsteps of the Macabees. My parents allowed me to recite the blessing, in both English and Hebrew, and then light the Chanuka menora. And then, for eight full days, I received many Chanuka presents.   “As young as I was, I realized that I was unique because I was a Jew, and that I had to behave just a bit better than my non-Jewish classmates. Even though I knew almost nothing of my religion, I was very proud of my Jewish roots.   “As a child, I would love to sit and watch the flickering candles, and feel that strong connection with my Jewish ancestors. It was only many years later, however, that I took that feeling one step farther and became a Torah observant Jew.”   A DIFFICULT LESSON   Early one morning, while Chani Fuerst * was still sound asleep, her three young children decided to light Chanuka candles – all by themselves. With incredible ingenuity, they placed a chair on top of a table, and then, with the help of a long broomstick, secreted the box of candles and matches from their “safe” place in the closet.   Very, very quietly, so as not to wake up their mother, they lit an impromptu menora on the shelf that stood high above the crib where their baby brother was peacefully sleeping.   Chani was rudely awakened by her children’s terrified screams. The lit menora had fallen into the baby’s crib, and the down quilt had burst into flames. “I ran into the room and saw fire everywhere,” said Chani.   Chani intuitively knew what she must do. She grabbed her burning baby and wrapped the rug around him to extinguish the flames. “Thank God,” she said, “I had just bought non-flammable pajamas the previous day. The doctors later told me that that had saved my baby’s life.”   Even so, Chani’s child suffered third decree burns on a large portion of his body.   Chani spent the most of that Chanuka hovering over a hospital bed. “Finally, a very warm and loving relative offered to stay with my baby so I could go home,” she said. “At first I didn’t want to leave, but this relative insisted that I get a little rest and try to cheer myself up a bit.”   When Chani unexpected arrived home, she discovered that her husband had taken the older three children to visit their great aunt. She was all alone in an empty apartment.   “The first thing I did,” said Chani, “was to walk into the children’s room, where the fire had taken place. There was nothing left of the baby’s crib and blankets, and everything else in the room was black and sooty.   “I, too, felt black and miserable,” continued Chani. “Here it was, Chanuka –a time of family and rejoicing - and I was all alone in my depressing burnt-out home. We didn’t have a phone at the time, so I couldn’t even cheer myself up by calling a friend.”   Chani just couldn’t face the loneliness and decided to visit one of her friendly neighbors. “But before I could knock on my neighbor’s door,” she said, “I heard the entire family singing Chanuka songs together. It just did not feel right to intrude on their family time.”   Chani returned to her dark apartment.   “As painful as that experience was for me,” said Chani, “I learned just how important it is for us to extend hospitality to lonely people. We shouldn’t wait for them to turn to us. No Jew should ever have to spend a holiday alone.”   FAMILY TIME IN MOSCOW   Leah Levin* is originally from Moscow and moved to Eretz Yisroel almost 35 years ago. Her family was one of the few who kept Torah and mitzvot in the spiritual wasteland of the Soviet Union.   Leah’s family did not own a real menora. Instead, they used hallowed out potato halves and filled them with olive oil. The homemade menora was lit next to the closed front door and the family was careful to guard it from the eyes of strangers.   Chanuka was a special, family time. Leah’s mother made donuts, called “putchikas,” and her father “farhered” (tested their Torah learning) all the children of the small religious community.   “Every year my parents made a little party for the few orthodox families that lived in Moscow,” said Leah. “After my father tested the children on what they had learned, he handed out plenty of prizes. Even though we did not study in a religious school, all the children studied privately.”   ONE YEAR TO WAIT   Sara Roth* converted to Judaism several years ago.  She had been raised as a devoted Christian, and later studied in a post high-school theological seminary. Sara was different from the other students, however, for she was truly searching for the truth. She asked her teachers many penetrating questions. Most were left unanswered.   Sara eventually married another seminary student and moved to a rural mountain area in the southern United States. There, Sara and her husband raised their almost dozen children far away from the secular influences of television, radio and popular magazines.   It was during this time that Sara began to have serious doubts about her own beliefs and started to explore the many different world religions. Eventually, she began to see the truth inherent in the Torah.   Sara’s husband and parents sternly warned her that she would be severely punished for her lack of faith.   Sara’s two older boys were also searching for truth and found their way to Jerusalem. They converted to Judaism and began to learn in a yeshiva for beginners.   The boys’ first visit home coincided with Chanuka. When Sara saw them light the Chanuka menorah and heard of the self-sacrifice and purity that they represented, she decided to act on her newly discovered beliefs and convert to Judaism.   Sara was told that she must wait a full year before becoming a member of the Jewish nation.  It was a difficult year for Sara, but she knew that she must persevere and prove to others – and herself – that she truly wanted to be Jewish.   And by the following Chanuka, Sara – together with her entire family - was able to recite the brachot and light the Chanuka menora as full-fledged members of the Jewish Nation.   A MYSTERIOUS MIRACLE   When nine-year-old Rafi Levi* refused to get out of bed in the morning, Naomi* was not overly concerned. It was Chanuka vacation and the children had stayed up very late the night before.   But when she saw Rafi crawl to the bathroom, she began to feel uneasy.   “Rafi was an extremely mischievous child, and I was sure that he was just playing another game,” said Naomi, “so I told him to please stop being so silly and get up. After all, it was after 10 o’clock in the morning.”   But Rafi told his mother that it was too painful to stand on his legs. When Naomi looked down, she noticed that both ankles were slightly swollen.   “His temperature was slightly elevated, so I decided to call pediatrician,” said Naomi. “He did not seem overly concerned and told me to bring Rafi into his office later on that afternoon.”   Naomi was surprised when, a couple of hours later, the doctor appeared at her front door. “He told us that he felt uneasy about waiting.”   The doctor told Naomi to take Rafi straight to the local hospital.   Naomi’s husband came home from work and brought Rafi to the hospital, while Naomi was charged with lighting the Chanuka lights.    “I felt very lonely lighting the menora without my husband,” said Naomi. “The other children were also subdued, and since we light in a common courtyard, everyone realized that something had happened.”   That evening, Rafi was admitted to the hospital “for observation.” Since everything seemed fine, Naomi’s husband returned home for the night.   When Naomi arrived at the hospital the next morning, she found Rafi lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. She tried to hand him asiddur to pray, but Rafi told her that he was not able to move his hands.   Rafi’s hands and arms had turned blue and were swollen to over twice their normal size.   At that moment, everything seemed to happen very fast. Within minutes a team of doctors had hustled the child out of the room, and placed him in an isolation ward. Blood was taken and specialists were called, but no one seemed to have even the slightest inkling of what had happened to Rafi.   By that afternoon, Rafi’s feet had returned to normal, but his upper legs and abdomen had ballooned out to enormous proportions and he was unable to move his monstrous body.   A specialist from another hospital came to examine the young boy, and after a series of difficult tests came to the conclusion that Rafi was suffering from an unusual form of a rare autoimmune disorder.   But no seemed to know when – and if - Rafi would recover.   By the next day, Rafi lower abdomen had returned to normal, but his chest was now over twice its normal size.   Over the eight days of Chanuka, the strange disease passed through Rafi’s entire body, beginning at his toes and ending with his head. When Rafi’s neck became swollen, the doctors, afraid that he would not be able to breathe, were about to perform tracheotomy. But the swelling moved higher and the neck returned to its normal size. Now, however, the doctors were worried that Rafi would lose his eyesight. Once again, the swelling moved up and the medical staff gave a sigh of relief.   On the last day of Chanuka, the swelling had gone complete up – and out the top of Rafi’s head. It left Rafi’s body just as mysteriously as had begun.   “I guess it was just something we had to go through” Naomi said. “God wanted us to spend that Chanuka with Rafi in the hospital. We consider it a true miracle that our beloved son recovered.”   THE LIGHT OF MARITAL HARMONY   Leah Prager* grew up in a totally assimilated home. “I did not know who the Macabees were,” she said, “and the only blessing that I knew how to say was the blessing for lighting the Chanuka menora.”   Leah graduated university with a degree in psychology and later began to work as a full-time therapist. One winter, she went to a professional conference and found herself fascinated as an orthodox rabbi gave a speech peppered with Jewish anecdotes and stories.   The next day, another rabbi gave a speech about the importance of sincerity. “Serving God must be real,” he said, “and not fake.”   “At that moment,” said Leah, “I realized that if God had meaning to me, I would have to get in touch with my own religion.”   Leah moved to Eretz Yisroel and studied in a yeshiva for newly religious women. A few years later she married another returnee to Judaism.   Leah and her husband, however, found that they had serious problems, and it did not look as though their marriage would last. One day, Leah packed her bags and told her husband that she was going to take a month off to reevaluate her life - and marriage.   Leah went back to New York and arranged to speak the Lubovitcher Rebbe. When she told the Rebbe her story, he did not advise her to give up. Instead, he told her to read every book possible on marital harmony.   “He promised me,” said Leah, “that if I would do that, I would see a real improvement in my own marriage."   Leah returned home right before Chanuka. She knew that she, too, had an important light to kindle – the light of true marital harmony – and devoted herself fully to her new endeavor.   Aside from building a beautiful Jewish home, Leah became such an expert in marital problems that that eventually she became a much-sought-after marriage counselor.   Leah and her husband moved to Modiin, located near the graves of the Macabees. “Every year, on Chanuka,” said Leah, “my family makes a ‘thanksgiving feast.’ After all, it was the light of Chanuka that brought me home – to my heritage and to my family.”

Save the Date Mishpacha Magazine 2010

Save the Date

Debbie Shapiro

The pain was unbearable. Excruciating. It encroached on every fiber of her being and left her exhausted, a shadow of herself.

Quiet. She wanted silence. Instead, the machine, the little blue monster, constantly beeped. It sounded like a scream as it monitored the amount of medicine entering her bloodstream. And then, whenever she managed to ignore the constant beeping and fall into a restless sleep, after taking a pill to calm the pain, a doctor, nurse, or technician would appear and with a forced smile say, “Good morning [or good evening, or good afternoon], Mrs. Kohn. We’re here to check your pulse [or take your blood, or bring you to another test].”

Batya Kohn would open her eyes, take a deep breath, choke on her own lack of lung capacity, and try to smile. She had to smile. It was her tenuous hold on normalcy, to the world that had once been.

The nightmare had begun four weeks ago, on a Friday afternoon. Well actually, it began months before that, but Batya had just thought that she was under the weather or, that at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, she was feeling the first pangs of middle age. The doctors kept telling her it was nothing, that she was under too much stress and far too lonely. They said that she needed to be married, that being a single mother was overwhelming her, and that she desperately needed a vacation.

Everyone pitied her. One of the local tzedakah ladies had arranged for Batya to spend a week at a fancy hotel in the North. Another one arranged for families to take care of Batya’s children while she was away “regaining her strength.” So to keep everyone but herself happy, Batya had spent a week trying to rest, eating more than she should, and gabbing about absolutely nothing with the other ladies, all the while worrying about her children, and wishing she was strong enough to be home taking care of them, instead of pretending to enjoy herself at a hotel.

But when Batya returned home, she was just as exhausted and drained as she had been before the vacation. She was unable to cope with anything. She could barely prepare herself a cup of coffee, let alone take care of her children.

Batya spent that Friday morning wondering how she would possibly manage to get Shabbos together. Actually, there wasn’t very much to do. The neighbors were sending in meals, and a local seminary girl had come that morning to clean the apartment. Still, she had to iron the boys’ white shirts and make sure they had matching socks. And the shoes had to be polished.

At three o’clock, Batya realized she’d better start doing something. After all, how long could a healthy woman (at least that’s what everyone said she was) remain in bed? She quickly donned a robe and threw a white tablecloth on the dining room table. She set up the Shabbos candles and started organizing the children’s clothes. For the first time in a week, she was moving around instead of lying in bed staring at a book she was incapable of reading.

It happened when she was in the middle of ironing her younger son’s Shabbos shirt. Her head exploded, shattering into a million, billion pieces of agony. Her entire body went into spasms as every muscle contracted. And then she started vomiting. She couldn’t stop. She vomited until there was nothing left, and then she continued vomiting ugly specks of putrid green bile, over and over again.

Batya somehow managed to fling herself onto the sofa. She saw everything in triplicate. Tables and chairs and toys, they were floating everywhere, intermingled with overwhelming waves of pain and a deep abyss of fear that threatened to engulf her in its wide tentacles.

Batya lifted her hand and brought it up to her face. She saw three hands — fifteen perfectly formed fingers — dancing grotesquely in front of her eyes. Her hand went limp as she closed her eyes and vomited again.

When the neighbor came in half an hour later, she found Batya curled up on the sofa, her eyes closed, a puddle of vomit on the floor. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Batya gasped, “Everything hurts.” 

She was in so much pain that she couldn’t lift her head off the pillow, so the neighbor lit the Shabbos candles for her. She was too weak to even say thank you. She felt as if a million hammers — no, heavy iron anvils — were whipping relentlessly at her brain.

The neighborhood doctor came that evening on his way to shul. “A bad case of the stomach flu” was his diagnosis, at least that’s what he told her. To the neighbors he quietly clucked his tongue and said that he didn’t see anything wrong; the stress and loneliness must be getting to her.

While her children ate their Shabbos seudah with the neighbors that evening, Batya managed to crawl, vomiting the entire way, to the bathroom. When the neighbor appeared a few hours later to see how Batya was feeling, she found her lying in a pool of vomit and blood.

Batya spent the next four days in the hospital. After endless tests (which, although abnormal, did not point to anything definite), the hospital staff was unable to come up with a diagnosis. They concluded that Batya’s symptoms were psychosomatic; she was under too much stress.

Batya returned home to piece her life together. She wanted to, she really did. But she couldn’t. She was just too exhausted. Problems that she had always viewed as challenges to be dealt with were now impossible tzuris that threatened to overwhelm and engulf her. So she returned to her bed in a vain attempt to get her strength back, until it was Erev Shabbos again.

This time, Batya managed to call a friend the moment she felt the explosion as her world turned black. “I’m dying,” she gasped, before dropping the phone on the table and collapsing on the sofa.

Batya has no memory of how she managed to get to her friend’s house. She thinks she was carried to the car. She does have vague memories of lying on the sofa during the Shabbos meal, wishing that everyone would be silent. Her head felt as if it were on fire. And she wished that she could stop vomiting. She bit her lips to stop herself from screaming.

“Batya,” her friend’s husband gently told her, “Sometimes when we’re overwhelmed by emotions and unable to cope, our bodies react this way. You must start giving yourself positive messages. If you think positive, you’ll feel better.”

Batya wanted to explain that she really, truly, wanted to think positive, but it was impossible for her to think. The pain engulfed her, leaving no room for such a luxury. Instead, she was overwhelmed by another wave of nausea and shut her eyes to escape the dizzying triple visions spinning around her.

When Batya started coughing up blood several days later, she didn’t even bother to tell anyone. She was sure it must be just be another figment of her imagination, and that she had not yet perfected the fine art of positive thinking. After all, everyone insisted that she was perfectly healthy.

When Batya saw a specialist a few days later, everyone was positive the doctor would confirm their suspicions that Batya was having a nervous breakdown. “I’ll park the car, and meet you in his office,” Batya’s friend said as she dropped her in front of the hospital. Using strength she never knew she possessed, Batya managed to get out of the car. She was learning to see reality through the thick haze of growing blackness and to know which of the three images dancing in front of her were real.

When the doctor asked Batya to describe what was bothering her, all she could answer was, “Everything.” She was afraid of listing all her complaints, and besides, it took all her energy to just continue breathing. Why bother talking when no one believes me? she wondered.

So she handed him the hospital report instead. The doctor spent a few minutes reading it. “Mrs. Kohn,” he said, “you are a very healthy young woman.”

“Baruch Hashem,” she managed to gasp. She certainly didn’t feel like one.

But within seconds of starting the examination, the doctor put down his stethoscope and, with a very serious expression on his face said, “Mrs. Kohn, you are an extremely sick young woman. We’re hospitalizing you immediately.”

“How wonderful,” was all Batya could answer. Finally, someone believed her. She felt like dancing for joy that she was sick, and not insane.

That was two weeks ago. For two weeks, Batya had felt herself fading in and out of reality. The world around her seemed to dance grotesquely, turning light, and then dark, and then light again. The doctors told her that her situation was extremely precarious. Blood clots were pulsating throughout her body. Some had entered her brain, others had paralyzed an eye muscle, and several hundred had lodged in her lungs. Statistically, she should go into cardiac arrest. If she was very, very lucky, she wouldn’t.

$$$SEPARATOR$$$

The miracle began a few days before Chanukah. Batya was lying perfectly motionless — so as not to place any additional strain on her heart — while wiggling her toes to prevent additional clots from forming in her legs, and staring into soupy blackness. A man entered the room, playing a Chanukah melody on his violin.

“Chanukah?!” Batya turned in the direction of the friend who was visiting. The nightmare had started before Rosh HaShanah.

“It’s the twentieth of Kislev. Chanukah begins in another few days,” her friend answered.

“The twentieth of Kislev,” Batya repeated. “Next year, on the twentieth of Kislev, I’m going to celebrate! I’ll make a party to rejoice that I’m still alive, and that I’m healthy to boot!”

When Batya left the hospital two weeks later, she’d lost forty pounds. She barely had the strength to walk from the taxi to her apartment. The next few months were in some ways even more challenging than the weeks she had spent fading in and out of consciousness. She wanted to return to normal life, but the doctors warned that she must rest. Neighbors and seminary students took turns helping with the children while cleaning ladies took over the housework. But Batya was happy; people finally believed her. She was not insane, and she couldn’t wait to return to her former, vibrant self.

Whenever Batya saw the friend, the one who’d been visiting her when the musician entered the room playing a Chanukah melody, she would smile and whisper, “We’re going to have a party. Remember? The twentieth of Kislev.”

A few days before Rosh HaShanah, when one of the neighbors suggested a shidduch, Batya laughed. She couldn’t imagine getting married again. Her children were too young, and she was much too busy living, and enjoying, life. She’d gone through too much pain and had invested too much energy in creating a warm and loving home. “No,” she firmly told the neighbor, “I’m not interested. I’m very happy with my life.”

But the day after Succos Batya found herself carefully applying lipstick and brushing her sheitel as she got ready to meet a young widower with small five children. Although she kept telling herself that she would politely find a reason to leave at the first opportunity, she found herself strangely excited at the prospect of going out on a date.

When, after close to two months of dating, Batya found herself beginning every second sentence with, “If I decide to marry you then …” she concluded that she’d better decide whether or not to marry Avraham.

And so, late on the nineteenth of Kislev, Batya and Avraham decided to build their lives together. They were so wrapped up in the joy of finding their soul mates that they did not notice the date.

The following morning, Batya and Avraham informed their friends of their momentous decision. That evening, the neighbors made a small engagement party. Everyone sang, danced, and cried. In the middle of the festivities, some of the ladies began started talking about everything that Batya had gone through that year.

That was when Batya remembered — the party! “What’s the date?” she asked one of the ladies.

“The twentieth of Kislev,” was the reply.

Echoes of the Past Mishpacha magazine 2010

Echoes of the Past

By Debbie Shapiro

"It all started out when my nearly deaf uncle, Karl Shapiro, learned how to use email. It opened up a whole new world to him -- and to me." I was sitting across the supper table from my husband, Dovid Shapiro, listening to him describe the amazing chain of events that was to culminate in our traveling to Berlin, where we were to attend an official reception to honor five German gentiles.

My husband, Dovid, is, among many other things, an amateur genealogist. He has succeeded in tracing one branch of his family tree back to the year 1620. Whereas other people relax with the latest copy of the Mishpacha, Dovid unwinds by piecing together the many different puzzles of his family history.

Dovid continues, "Although my paternal grandmother, Henrietta nee Shulman, was a third generation American, she was extremely proud of her German-Jewish roots. She spoke a fluent German and stayed in close contact with her extended family in Germany. After the Nazis rose to power, she succeeded in bringing several distant cousins to the United States, and they were much more familiar with our family history. Many years later, a distant cousin informed me that the names of my grandmother's great-grandparents (my great-great-great-grandparents) were Yosef Loeb and Pessl (daughter of Bessl) Shulman (nee Winter).

"But that's as much as I knew, until my uncle Karl informed me (via email, of course) that the Shulmans had lived in Wassertruedingen –a town in Middle Franconia, which, for those of us not familiar with German geography, is a section of Northern Bavaria and has a prominent spot on the Jewish map. Known by the Jews as Wassertrilling, the Chida even mentioned it in some of his books. Although the puzzle was beginning to take form, huge chunks were still missing.

"Several years later, I saw a notice that the Nuremberg Genealogical Society had prepared a CD of the Jewish metrical (census) records of Middle Franconia. Although Yosef Loeb, was not listed for Wassertruedingen, he was listed in the nearby village of Moenchsroth (I later learned that his wife was born in Wasssertuedingen). All the pieces fit; he was the approximate age of my great-great-great grandfather and he had two sons, Heinlein and Lazarus who immigrated to America. Heinlein, my great-great-grandfather, Americanized his name to Henry, and Lazarus, great-great-uncle used the name Louis. With more research I learned that the Jews of Moenchsroth, together with the Jews of Wittelshofen, Feuchtwangen and Dinkelsbuehl all buried their dead in the Schopfloch Cemetery.

"Close to a decade later, a colleague told me about Angelika Brosig, a German woman living in Schopfloch, who was posting the German inscriptions from the tombstones on her website. Tombstones contain a wealth of information – date of birth and death, name of father, and, very often, names of spouse and children - so for me this was like finding a goldmine! I contacted Angelika and offered to transcribe and translate the tombstones' Hebrew inscriptions, assuming (and correctly so) that the Hebrew would contain additional information that would help me to piece the puzzle together as well as tell me about my family's positions in the Jewish community.

"Angelika sent me photos of over one hundred tombstones. In addition, another German gentile, Mr. Rolf Hofmann, who is researching the Jewish communities of Schwabia, including Wallerstein, where part of my family had once lived, shared crucial information that helped me figure out how many of the people whose tombstones I was deciphering were related to me.  Although I have yet to find my great-great-great-grandparents graves, Angelika has yet to renovate the old part of the cemetery, which is the section where they are probably buried.

"I was – and still am - amazed at how this gentile woman basically adopted the Schopfloch Jewish cemetery. She paid for the stones that were completely covered with lichen to be professionally cleaned and repaired. Those stones that were beyond repair, she hired a stonemason to create new ones. She researched family trees and posted the results on her website. She contacted survivors from Schopfloch, as well as their descendents, to tell them about the results of her research. In addition, she gives guided tours of the cemetery and lectures to the local population about the once thriving Jewish community of upper Bavaria. She even built a model of the Schopfloch Shul that was exhibited in the museum in Cronheim."

Dovid's excitement is contagious. It's amazing to him—and to me—that a German woman would give so much of herself to make sure that the Jews of her home town – my husband's ancestors -- are not forgotten.  "And that's exactly why I nominated her for the prestigious Obermayer Award; to encourage her to continue. It's my way of showing kavod hameis."

What is the Obermayer Award?

It all began in 1997, when Dr. Arthur Obermayer, a well-known philanthropist who made his fortune in high-tech, made a pilgrimage to Southern Germany to research his family's roots. In almost every town he visited, he was assisted by citizens researching local Jewish history. In Fuerth, for example, he met Gisela Blume (who later converted to Judaism and is shomer Torah and mitzvos) who devoted eight years of her life to restoring the Jewish cemetery. On Obermayer's previous visit to Fuerth, thirteen years before, the tombstones had been piled to one side of the cemetery, unconnected to their gravesites. Blume used pre-Holocaust photographs and plot plans to figure out where each stone belonged. She even interviewed families and learned Hebrew so that she could read the tombstones herself.

When Obermayer told fellow genealogists about his experience, he discovered that it was not unique. "I was amazed at what these people were doing. They were giving so much of themselves, yet no one was doing anything to pay tribute to their contribution, which is why, in the year 2000, I established the awards."

Over the last ten years, The Obermayer Foundation has awarded fifty German gentiles with the Obermayer German History Award for their work in preserving local Jewish history. In addition to official recognition and a framed certificate, each of the awardees receive a cash prize. Almost all of the recipients have used the money to further their work for the Jewish community.

Nominating Angelika

Rabbi Shapiro continues: "I realized that nominating Angelika would be a wonderful way to express my appreciation for all she had done for my family. So I contacted several other people who had also been helped by her research, as well as Germans, both Jewish and gentile, who had worked together with her, and asked if they would be willing to support her nomination, which they were all more than happy to do.

"One of the people I contacted put me in touch with Mr. Phillip Urwin-Smith of England, who, thanks to Angelika's research, discovered that he was Jewish. Although he is not yet religious, today he identifies himself as a Jew and is very proud of it. For me, this really underscores the importance of Angelika's work and of this type of research in general."

Dovid explains the nomination process: "After answering a lengthy questionnaire and collecting newspaper articles describing Angelika's work, I forwarded everything to the Obermayer Foundation and waited to hear the results. Two months later, the seven judges, all experts in Jewish-German history, notified Angelika that she was one of the awardees.

"On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, Angelike sent me the following email: '…it was Mr. Obermeyer calling me personally to congratulate me as the first to get the Obermeyer-Prize and that they were all impressed about my work -not only for the cemetery but for the people!  YIPPIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE:-))))))))))) So our work in the cemetery will be secured for 2010!!!!'"

Berlin

That's how, several months later, my husband and I ended up in -- of all places -- Berlin. Berlin! It was there that the leaders of the ”Enlightenment” embraced a foreign culture; it was there that Hitler announced his plans for the Final Solution. It was one city – one country – that I had always said I would never tread on its blood-stained soil. Yet, as I descended the commuter plane's steep staircase and gingerly maneuvered my way across the icy tarmac to the airport shuttle, the enormity of the moment was lost to me.  I could only focus on the mechanics of leaving the airport. I was numb with exhaustion -- we had spent the last eight hours trying to see as much of Prague (where we had a lengthy layover) as we possibly could – and desperately in need of the hot meal and the comfortable beds that were waiting for us at the Berlin Chabad Center.

Forty-five minutes later, as our car parked in front of Berlin's Chabad Center, reality hit me. The large, imposing building, with its concrete posts strategically spaced to stop a car from plowing into the structure, and its high chain-linked fence to prevent trespassers from entering, appeared more like a fortress than a synagogue. The small booth marked "Polizei" placed in front of the entrance and the two guards, stamping their feet and rubbing their gloved hands to keep from freezing, confirmed my suspicion that this could not be something as innocuous as a Jewish center. But the wonderful Jewish couple who had met us at the airport and drove us to the Center just laughed at my shocked expression and said, "Get used to it. This is Germany. There are policemen posted in front of every synagogue."

Despite its forbidding exterior, the Chabad House was warm and inviting. We spent the next few days alternating between luxuriating in its warm Yiddisheh cocoon and shaking our head in amazement at Chabad's many incredible accomplishments. Shabbos was truly an international celebration. At Rabbi Teichtal, the head shaliach's regal, prewar home, we shared the Friday night Shabbos seuda with a multi-billionaire from Florida, a factory owner from Montreal, two kashrus supervisors from Antwerp (who had come from Poland to spend Shabbos in the nearest frum community – Berlin), a teacher from Brazil, another teacher from Israel, a few Jewish students from the day school and Rabbi Teichtal's wonderful family. When Rabbi Teichtal's thirteen year old son was asked to give over a dvar Torah, he looked around at the many guests and asked, "But Tatty, which language should I say it in?"

The city of Berlin is cold and impersonal, yet –like the Chabad House – it is also bustling with activity. Everything is precisely organized, keeping to a perfectly synchronized timetable. Even the buses arrive exactly – and I mean exactly! -- on time! Although I was too busy to think beyond the polished, stainless steel veneer, every once in a while, when someone ever-too-politely opened a door for me or gallantly ushered me into a waiting taxi, I'd feel a chill of recognition. It was with this same exaggerated civility that the Jews of Germany were whisked away into black limousines, never to be heard of again. Danke schoen, bitte schoen; the words grated in my ears like a double edged sword.

With the Awardees

Sunday evening we took the UBahn, Berlin's incredibly clean and efficient subway, across town to the ultra modern Abion Spreebogen Hotel built on the edge of the Spree River, to meet Angelika for the first time. The moment we entered the hotel, frozen and dazed the walk from the subway station to the hotel, Angelika magically appeared and introduced herself. After a flurry of hugs (from me), nods (from my husband) and exclamations (from all of us) of “I can’t believe we’re actually speaking to each other!” she introduced us to Birgit Haehnlein-Haeberlein, the female stonemason who works together with her in erecting new stones. Haehnlein-Haeberlein's great grandfather worked as the cemetery’s previous mason until the Nazis forbade him from serving the Jews.

That night we also met the other four awardees:

Helmut Gabeli of Haigerloch: After discovering that the local supermarket had once been a synagogue, Gabeli succeeded – despite fierce local opposition -- in purchasing the building and restoring it as a National Monument and museum to educate young Germans about Haigerloch's Jews.

Barbara Greve of Gilserberg: In researching local Jewish history, Greve pieced together family trees, many of them going back to the seventeenth century as well as teaching her local community that, despite their desire to believe otherwise, a thriving Jewish community once lived in their midst.

Heidemarie Kugler-Weiemann of Luebeck: Kugler-Weiemann has spent the last 18 years researching Luebeck’s Holocaust history and then spread her knowledge through teaching, tours, exhibitions, forums, memorials, articles and books. In addition to impacting her community, she has developed very strong personal relationships with survivors from Luebeck.

Walter Ott of Muensingen-Buttenhausen: As a teenager Ott belonged to Hitler's Youth; today, he has spent the last three decades of his life telling local Germans – most who would prefer to forget this chapter of their past -- about the village's once-thriving Jewish community. In addition to establishing a Jewish museum, he has restored the town’s abandoned cemetery and made close contact with descendants of Buttenhausen’s Jews.

Our visit with Angelika was short; all the awardees, together with their nominators, were leaving on a chartered bus to attend a banquet. But although the organizers had offered to provide us with separate, kosher meals, we did not attend. The Jews who had lived in these small villages were frum, G-d fearing Yidden; their lives revolved around the community shul and we did not think it appropriate to sit at a table watching their descendants eat foods that they would have found abhorrent.

The following morning, Monday, we once again met the group at the hotel, this time to join them on a four hour bus tour of Berlin.   As the Israeli born guide pointed out the points of interest: the National Opera Building, Checkpoint Charlie, the Reichstag, the Schossplatz, the Rathaus, the Victory Column, I stifled a yawn. The city of Berlin does not interest me; it's not part of me, it has nothing to do with who I am or where I came from. I did, however, feel a tinge of excitement as we approached the Brandenberg Gate, symbol of German's military might. This last Chanukah, at this historical site where Hitler celebrated the triumphs of his new regime, Chabad lit the menorah and thousands of Jews rejoiced in Am Yisrael's survival. Later on, when the guide pointed out Berlin's central train station, he added, "Each morning at exactly six o'clock a train full of Jews departed this station to Theresienstadt." I envisioned the long lines of Berlin Jews, numbed by the swift change of events, trudging along the ice en route to the train station. Tragically, many of them were still holding on to their belief that their ties to Berlin were stronger than their ties to Jerusalem.

The highlight of our tour was Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind, where we heard the touching story of how Weidt had saved his workers from deportation. Our final destination (no pun intended) was Berlin's famous Holocaust Memorial, which consists of 2,711 concrete slabs arranged like tombstones over 4.7 acres of prime real estate. The somber black stones are coated with a substance to make them silky-smooth. The company that created this substance made their fortune from the gold teeth pulled from Jewish corpses. One of the company's subsidiaries manufactured the gas that was used in the gas chamber. To me, these somber black stones did not commemorate anything, other than ultra-modern architecture.

Our next stop was a press conference that the Obermayer Foundation had organized to give the German Press an opportunity to meet the awardees and their nominators. It began at exactly one o'clock (I was watching that second hand very carefully!) and, other than Dr. Obermayer's speech, was conducted almost completely in German! After the conference, my husband and I returned to our lodgings to get some rest before the award ceremony that was to take place later on that evening.

The Award Ceremony

The ceremony took place in the Plenary Chamber of Berlin's historical Abgeordnetenhaus, the present Berlin Parliament building. It was in this elegant building -- constructed in the style of the Italian High Renaissance – that, in 1933, the National Socialists – the Nazis – emerged as Germany's strongest party, signaling the beginning of the Nazi regime. In 1934, the building was used to house Hitler's kangaroo style "people's Court," and later on, from 1936 to 1945, Hermann Goring converted it into an elite officer's club. After the War, it became the seat of the East German government. Today, after the reunification of Germany, it houses Berlin's House of Representatives.

Speakers at the ceremony included Dr. Walter Momper President of Berlin's House of Representatives; Dr. Arthur Obermayer, President of the Obermayer Foundation; Sara Nachama, executive director of Touro College, Berlin, who read a letter of greeting from Charlotte Knoblach, president of the Central Committee of Jews in Germany; and Prof. Dr. Jutta Limbach former vice-president of the Constitutional Court of Germany and president of the Goethe-Institute. The speakers all stressed that the key to preventing future anti-Semitism lies in remembering Germany's past mistakes.  

Interspersed between the speeches, musicians entertained us with classical German music. The reception following the ceremony was extremely elegant, yet, as with the actual award ceremony, it lacked Jewish content.

We returned to our lodgings that evening with mixed emotions. Yes, we were grateful to Dr. Obermayer for giving us the opportunity to express our gratitude to Angelika, yet I felt as if the evening was commemorating dusty relics, mere "echoes of the past" (Journeys I).

The very next morning my husband delivered a shiur to a group of rabbinical students at Berlin's Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary (part of the Lauder Yeshurun Yeshiva), a living commemoration of the prewar seminary with the same name, and I sang Torah Tziva lanu Moshe with a group of energetic kindergarten children, vibrant flowering saplings with strong, eternal roots.

END OF ARTICLE

SideBar

A retired social worker living on a disability pension, Angelika Brosig grew up in Ansbach, not far from Schopfloch. Her father was wounded during World War II while serving in the Wehrmacht.

Angelika became interested in the Jewish cemetery after accompanying a friend there. When her friend saw the state of disrepair, she began to cry, saying, "It's terrible, the stones aren't readable, the plants and trees are all overgrown." Angelika was surprised. It seemed natural for a cemetery to decay, but her friend argued that it's not good for the descendants. After that, Angelika started systematically documenting and photographing the worn tombstones, and then posting her findings on a website.

Why would a German woman devote herself to preserving a Jewish cemetery? Dr. Arthur Obermayer, founder of the Obermayer German Jewish History Award points out that many Germans born after the Holocaust resent being made to feel guilty for their parents' mistakes. They want to be judged individually on their own values and action, not by those of their ancestors. On the other hand, as German citizens they feel an obligation to preserve the history of the Jews who once lived there.

Angelika has made renovating the Schopfloch Cemetery her mission in life. Recently, she withdrew her life's savings from the bank and invested it in repairing and replacing worn tombstones. When we mentioned something to her about it, she wrote back, "I never married and I never had any children. The Schopfloch Cemetery is my life; this is what I am living for."

Becoming a New Me Shaah Tovah 2010

Becoming a New Me

Debbie Shapiro interviews Esther-Shira

After a flurry of emails in which I discovered that she's a cappuccino gal while I love iced coffee, Esther-Shira and I finally arranged to meet at an upscale outdoor café downtown. I arrived few minutes early and called her cell phone to let her know that I was waiting for her near the main entrance. "I'm almost there," she began, followed by, "Oh, and now I can see you." Looking up, I saw a very chic put-together woman briskly walking toward me. After our initial helloes, Esther-Shira began, "Today's Pesach sheni, and that's a special day for me. On Pesach, I was not yet Jewish; today, I am Jewish and therefore today I am able to eat my matzos as a Jew."

Esther-Shira and I found a quiet corner of the coffee shop where we could converse. As I set up my computer, we ordered – of course – cappuccino (extra strong, please) for her, and ice coffee for me. Even before the coffee arrived, she began telling me about her life.

Esther-Shira: I grew up in a secular non-Jewish home in London. Yes, of course we went to church once or twice a year for the non-Jewish equivalent of the "High Holidays," but religion was never a major influence on my life. For some reason, I always felt different from my family. I loved books and I had lots and lots of questions, but I never received answers. When I was small, I was told that I was too young to understand, and when I got older, well, I never did get satisfactory answers.

Our neighborhood was predominantly Jewish – we had our corner synagogue, rather than church. Many of my school friends were children of survivors. Although their parents kept kosher homes and observed the Shabbos, they wanted their children to assimilate into the surrounding culture. But although in school they were like everyone else, their homes were special. They focused on family and education, a rarity in a world where so many people spent their days glued to the TV screen. I hoped to incorporate these values into my own future home.

Debbie: Looking back, was there anything in your family which gave you the strength to eventually make the enormous changes that you made in your life?

Esther-Shira: My father was a real entrepreneur. Even in his late eighties he would get involved in new projects. In the nineteen fifties, although everyone, including my mother tried to dissuade him, my father started a new business -- importing Juke boxes from America. He believed that they would be a big hit in England. He was right, and as a result he was very successful. Just like my father, if I strongly believe that something is right, I ignore my detractors and develop an unwavering inner strength and drive to see it through to completion. Baruch Hashem! I now have His inner strength to sustain me.  

But getting back to my story, eventually I married and had three daughters. I worked full time as a fashion buyer for a major department store chain, a job that I loved, and a job that kept me in constant contact with the Jewish community since most of the clothes manufacturers that I was in contact with were Jewish. I felt comfortable in their culture and even picked up a few Yiddish words while at it!

Once my children were older, I went back to University where I majored in sociology, specializing in drug and alcohol abuse among women. After I graduated, I was hired by a non-profit organization, the Meta House, a substance abuse treatment program dedicated to helping women through the progression of recovery. Most of the women were forced to give up their children and were referred to us by the court, so in addition to helping our clients recover from substance abuse, we taught them parenting skills and provided them with job training. Eventually I became head of the organization and implemented many new programs including supervised residential homes where the recovering addict could live with their children until they were able to make it on their own. But the higher I climbed in my professional life, the less I had to do with the actual client group. My days were spent participating in government panels and acting as an adviser to foreign governments, notably Russia I had made it, I was a bigshot – but that's not what I wanted to be doing!

Eventually I quit and made a complete U-turn to enter the world of commerce. This was in the 1990s when everyone was worried about the 2000 bug. I opened a high-tech company to combat it, and traveled around the world setting up international distribution for my product. The product was approved by the British and American government, and was extremely successful. I had a great time meeting people and lecturing about our software. Eventually, however, I had enough. High tech was changing so rapidly that new programs became obsolete within months. It had become a cut throat pressurized business environment and I couldn't keep up with it. I decided to sell the company and return to my home in Bournemouth, an upscale area on the southern coast of England.

Debbie: What about your family life?

Esther-Shira: I had gotten divorced when my daughters were small, so I was a single mother coping with raising three children. Interestingly enough, whereas all my children's friends were experimenting with drugs and alcohol, my daughters refused to touch the stuff, and even tried to convince their friends to stay away from it. As they were growing up, I often spoke with them about my work, and they would visit the centre and meet many of my clients, so being a part of women's recovery really impacted them in a positive way. I worked really hard to make our house into a home, and my children's friends as well as my clients, were warmly welcomed.

I've always encouraged my children to be non-judgmental, to accept people for whom they are, which is one of the reasons they were so supportive of my decision to convert. They realized that it was important to me, and that it was what I wanted. Of course I never forced my religiosity on them. When I'd come to visit, for example, I'd bring my own pots and announce that I was cooking for the entire family --- which, of course, my daughters just loved. After all, who wouldn't want a week of Mom's homemade goodies? Last year when I went back to England to spend four weeks with my children, I arranged to spend Shabbos with friends in my Jewish community in Bournemouth. But then I went and broke my toe and was unable to drive, so I ended spending those Shabbos with my children. I explained to them what I could and could not do, and they accepted it. As a matter of fact, everyone ended up coming to my daughter's house to be with me, and we ended up having a lovely time within the confines of halacha.

Debbie: It sounds like you really succeeded in raising a beautiful family. I'm amazed that they are so accepting of you, and that you are so accepting of them. But let's get back to what led you to convert.

Esther-Shira: Around the same time that I had decided to sell the company and return to Bournemouth, Carl, my thirty-two year old nephew was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given but six months to live. He wanted to spend the last six months of his life with me, and his grandparents who lived nearby. This was such a humbling experience. We had an amazing time together. On one hand, we had lots of fun– he had a fantastic sense of humor and even when he was in the hospice the nurses would naturally gravitate to his bed  --  but on the other hand we had plenty of deep conversations about the meaning of life and what happens to a person after death. As we talked, I realized that everything that I had been taught was hollow; I had been fed fluff, the answers I had been given were not real. I had no answers to his questions.

After Carl died, I took a break and went to Thailand.  I spent hours sitting on the beach, contemplating the meaning of life and just thinking. I knew that I couldn't throw myself back into emptiness – running after more money and prestige -- and began exploring religion. I started reading the Bible and the more I read, the more questions I had. Then I began reading the New Testament, and for the first time I noticed the many contradictions between that and the Old Testament.

Every time I encountered a question or saw a contradiction, I'd do a Google search and, more often than not, one of the Jewish websites would address it. The more I read on these websites, the more my interest was piqued, until eventually I phoned the orthodox synagogue in Bournemouth and asked if I could come to services Saturday morning. The secretary promised to call me back with an answer, but she never did, so I tried the next week, and then the week after that. The third time I called I told her, "If you don't ring me back, I'll assume that it's okay and I'll just appear." That time the secretary did call me back to tell me that she had arranged for the gabbai's wife to sit with me and explain what was going on.  Later on, in one of her letters to the rabbinate, the gabai's wife wrote that when I came that first Shabbos, she was amazed at how comfortable I appeared, and that it looked as if I had been going to synagogue my entire life.

After that first Shabbos I attended synagogue regularly; I just felt so at home there. Several weeks later, the gabai's wife invited me for Shabbos lunch and then spent the entire afternoon showing me her kitchen and explaining what's involved in keeping kosher. I remember thinking that I would never, ever, be able to do all that, there's so much involved. But on the other hand, Judaism felt so natural, as though I had come home.

But a person can't change his religion just because it feels comfortable! The more I learned about Judaism, the more I realized how empty many people's lives are. The classy restaurants, the sophistication, it's hollow. So many people chase an illusion of happiness while refusing to face anything that's uncomfortable.  I had to really look deep within myself, face who I am, and basically turn myself inside out and understand and absorb how life would be as a Jew, with all the commitments of keeping the mitzvoth, before coming to the decision that I really want to convert. It was challenging and frightening, yet exhilarating! Eventually I reached a point where I realized that there was no way that I could possibly return to my former, non-Jewish lifestyle.

Once I made a decision to convert, someone suggested that I spend some time in Israel learning more about Judaism. That was a totally new direction for me, but after giving it some serious thought and discussing it with my children, I realized that it was doable. After all, I was at a point in my life when I didn't have major responsibilities holding me back! I initially came for three months, and after spending a few weeks with friends in Hertziliya, I rented an apartment in Jerusalem. Two years later, I'm still here, and I'm not going back. I’m presently in the process of making Aliyah.

When I moved to Jerusalem, I didn't know a soul, but Hashem was very kind to me and I ended up living in Rechavia, a wonderfully friendly neighborhood with a large percentage of English speaking religious Jews. One of the first things I did after moving in was to appear at the rabbinate – who in their right mind just shows up at the rabbinate? - and tell them that I want to convert. The secretary respectfully informed me that the rabbi in charge of conversion will be able to see me in another six weeks. But I was extremely persistent (after all, we are a stiff necked people) and told her that I will not leave without first speaking with a rabbi. I was told to return the following day.

The rabbi in charge of conversions spent over two hours with me. He asked me about my background, why I wanted to convert, and what I knew about Judaism. He then said he would open my file immediately, which apparently is quite unusual. Two months later, I began my course of study in the rabbinate conversion program. I graduated the eighteen month course in November. Then, two days before Pesach, a bais din was convened to make the final decision if I could join the Jewish People. The three judges were very polite and friendly, yet as they spoke with me it was impossible to know what they were thinking. They asked me questions about my life, and knowledge of Torah and Halacha. They spoke with people in the community who knew me well and felt that I'd be an asset to the Jewish People. Finally, after over an hour, all three of them broke into big smiles and said, "Welcome." When I told them that I didn't understand, as I wasn’t aware they had finished the interview, they continued, "Welcome to the Jewish People!"

"You've taken me out of my personal Egypt so that I can join the Jewish People as they leave Egypt," I said; it was just four days to Pesach, when the Jewish nation left Egypt, and now I was leaving my personal Egypt. I was dazed and ecstatic. My friends and I were hugging each other in delight!

Shortly after Pesach I immersed in the mikveh and became a Jew. Interestingly enough, the day before my scheduled appointment at the mikveh everything, but everything, went wrong. I suddenly realized that I was feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of the huge responsibility I was now accepting on myself; becoming a Jew was a decision that would change my life forever, and there was no going back. From this point on, every aspect of my life would be within the confines of halacha. The only other time I had ever felt that way was the day before I gave birth to my first child. As much as I wanted my baby, I knew that after I'd give birth my life would never be the same. I spent the day before my appointment at the mikveh working through this realization and acknowledging it.

The actual mikveh experience was amazing. I deliberately chose to go alone; I had come into This World alone and now I wanted to be reborn as a Jew alone. The rabbonim and the attendant were warm and friendly, and they certainly made me feel very welcome. After immersing, I drove to Hertziliya and took a long walk along the beach, speaking to my Creator and thanking Him for the tremendous privilege of belonging to the Chosen People. As I was walking, it suddenly hit me; the world looked different. I sensed Hashem in everything.

After a while, I decided to go to the Marina to have a cup of coffee. The promenade was crowded with secular Israelis filling their time while emptying their pocketbooks. Yet not a single restaurant had kosher supervision! I was very glad to return to Jerusalem!

Converting is not the end of a journey; it's the beginning. Now that I am a Jew, I have the difficult task of discovering my distinct contribution to the Jewish People Yisrael. Moshe's father in law, Yitro, joined the Jewish people while they were traveling in the desert on their way to Israel. Because he had come from afar – from a totally different culture – he was able to perceive things that others didn't notice, and as a result he completely revised the judicial system.  I don't yet know how I can help my people, but as a Jew it is my obligation to use my talents for the good of our nation, which is something I intend on doing, with G-d's help.