By Kim Goldov , Special to JTNews
March 29, 2010
Dear Hanah,
This year marks the first time in your 19 years of life that you are missing from our seder table. Instead, you are celebrating with your fellow students at Lewis & Clark. You there, and we here, will as in every year past recount the story of how we were once slaves in Egypt, but are now free. We will eat our favorite Passover foods and sing our favorite Passover songs. This year though I want to recount what Passover is to me and our family.
You know that I did not grow up in a religious home. Grandma Lori and Grandpa Karl rejected Jewish religious practice soon after they were married. Wendy and I did not go to Hebrew school. Our family never went to synagogue all the years of my childhood. My dad described himself as “agnostic.” We didn’t celebrate the cycle of Jewish holidays and hardly even knew they existed, save one: Passover. Every year of my life, we celebrated this holiday with our family; Wendy and I, our parents, Uncle Bob, Aunt Hedwig, Mutti and Vatti, Grandma and Grandpa, and many non-Jewish friends with whom my parents found special meaning in sharing our Passover tradition. After our grandparents were gone, we continued to celebrate together until I moved away.
So why did an agnostic family, completely disconnected from the religious Jewish world, keep an unwavering observance of Passover?
Good question, Hanah. I have a two-part answer for you tonight. To sum it up, I could use two words: Hitler and justice. That just begs more questions, so let me try to explain. Better yet, I’ll let Vatti explain. This letter was written 65 years ago today, on March 29, 1945, less than 12 years after Mutti, Vatti, Uncle Bob and Grandpa Karl escaped the impending Holocaust, crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the S.S. Volendam, just two months after Auschwitz was liberated, but before Buchenvald, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau were liberated.
3/29/1945.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You are assembled tonight to celebrate the salvation of Israel some 3,000 years ago. I want you to fix in your memories for all the years you are going to live, the following.
Few times in the history of mankind have mortals been allowed to witness the big events which changed the destiny of the human race. Considering the unfortunate role the Jews played in our present tragedy it is worthwhile to remember on this very seder that we are in the same position as our ancestors were when they saw the floods of the Red Sea closing in on Pharaoh.
I doubt that all the infamous oppressors in our Jewish history, starting with the Egyptians, then Haman, then the persecutors of the Jews in the early Middle ages as a result of the Black Plague and finally the Spanish Inquisition could be compared in fiendishness, scope and calculated destructions with the cruelty of Hitler and his lieutenants.
This time, relatively few of our people made the crossing of a modern Red Sea and as I say — on this very day of Pesach you are witnessing the waves of retribution smashing to bits the sinister man and his people. Write down this year in your memories to be passed on to future generations.
For the ones who did not survive will you please rise in their memory… but we who are witnessing the triumph of justice let us say:
Boruch ateh ii eluhenu melech ho-oulom sheche-onu vekimonu vehigianu lassman haseh.
S.G.
Grandpa Karl’s little family was lucky. They escaped with their lives, and even managed to bring over many of their possessions, some of which will grace our seder table tonight. They escaped with something else that is not as plain to see. Despite firsthand knowledge of the horrors that had befallen his relatives, community and people, my father was not hateful, vengeful or self-righteous. His moral compass led him to care about all injustice and all peoples, pollution of the planet, and life in general.
My parents fought for rights and freedoms of black people (the politically correct term of their day). At our seder table, we sang Negro spirituals. They protested the Vietnam war. I was 11 years old when the Israel Six-Day War broke out. Later, I remember my father being upset when settlements were made in the recently occupied territories. To him, this too was injustice.
My life is different from that of my father’s. We celebrate a full cycle of Jewish holidays, perform Jewish music, and belong to a synagogue. We sent you to a Jewish primary school and gave you Hebrew lessons so you could read from the Torah at your Bat Mitzvah. I have personally moved to where I can appreciate religion and even ponder the meaning of God. As far as my moral compass goes, though, I am still solidly in my father’s camp. My Jewish identity and desire for peace and justice in the world makes Israel an important focus. Like my father, I believe that the building of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories was a mistake; from when I was 11 to the present day. I believe that Israel must find a way to bring the settlers back into Israel proper and end the occupation.
Hanah, in several months, you are hoping to go on a trip to Israel. I’m not sure what experiences you will have there, but I hope you make it an opportunity to learn more about Israel, its people, the occupation and the Palestinian people. I hope you start thinking about what you can do to help bring peace and justice to that part of the world.
Eight years ago, a community seder was held for 250 guests at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel. A 25-year-old suicide bomber came into the dining room and blew himself up, killing or wounding over 100 people. Most of the victims were seniors. Several were Holocaust survivors. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. What could make people like this so crazy and so cruel? Many Palestinians supported the attack. What were they thinking? A little over a year ago, the IDF attacked Gaza killing over 1,400 people. Many more were left homeless. Did this have to happen? Many American Jews, including the Conservative movement, stated at the time that it was unavoidable. How can that be? What are the fundamental steps that must be taken to end the hatred and bloodshed?
Well, I’ve written enough. I hope I didn’t bring you down or scare you. But we do need to taste the bitter herbs while we celebrate our freedom from slavery, and we must know that none of us are completely free until we are all free.
Love,
Dad