How Jews Spent New Years Eve in Berlin, 1936

 

How Jews Spent New Years Eve in Berlin, 1936

 For video:https://youtu.be/mC0TtG9ZXmg?si=tjVseNOeiThAtw2E

 

 

I am proud to announce that there is an exhibit that opened this week in Frankfurt, Germany, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the reestablishing of the Jewish community after the Holocaust.

 

As  you may know, my father, Rabbi Dr William, or Wilhelm at that time, served as the first State Rabbi of the region of Hesse, the environs of Frankfurt, when the community was reincorporated. This followed his service establishing adult education programs for the survivors in the Displaced Persons Camps in the Salzburg area of Austria.

Here is the invitation, which I share with you:

It’s running from Dec 20 through May 26 of next year.

 

My father is featured prominently in the opening panels of the exhibit, that refer to the founding years ( and I get “honorable mention” for providing some of that material.

Exhibit Displays

 New Beginnings Exhibit

 

My father with the great Chief Rabbi of Germany through the Holocaust, Rabbi Leo Baeck.

 

At the dedication of the Westend Synagog

 

 

 

Here is the recording , broadcast over German radio, as my father lights the Eternal Lamp for the first time in the reconstructed Westend Synagog:

 

 

At the dedication of the synagogue

 

 

 

I want to shift the tenor of my talk today, though, away from the heavy lifting that my father was engaged in at that time, to a reflection of a lighter mood in the decade preceding, before anyone could know the severity of the tragedy to unfold.  This last quarter of 2023, or the first quarter of 5784, has been very heavy for us all, especially for our families in Israel, but for us here as well. So, I thought of an unusual document that had been sent me by a researcher in Germany, one that opened a little light in an otherwise already gloomy time.

 

.

 

 

My father, who had been leader of the Jewish Student Zionist organization in Vienna and then leader of the Jewish student’s organizatiuon in Berlin, had been in studies in Rabbinical school at the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums in the early 1930’s. However, family funding for his studies had been running out, so he left Berlin for Zurich to earn extra money as a tutor. While there, he basically was caught in a scheme that was intended to bring him back to Berlin and  his studies, but instead, landed him in prison, first in one called Moabit, then later in Brandeburg Prison.

I am surprised what good record keepers the Germans are, till today- I was sent his entire dossier!

 

 

 Berlin Kangaroo Court Indictement

 

 

          The archivist at Brandenburg found, among the legal documents, a personal letter to my father from a friend of his, Oskar Gellman, dated January 17, 1936, with an extra note by Erna, whom I assume to be his wife.

 

          His friend not only decided to appraise him of the mundane events of his acquaintances during the time her was in prison, but also to entertain him and keep his spirit up. Why the wardens would have kept just this letter, I have no clue, but the writer is so very vivid and ascerbic in his wit, that perhaps they kept it as an example of how funny these Jews could be. His writing verges on the Rabelaisian and he pokes sharply at his friends and acquaintances.

 

          It is a window on the mood of Jews in the early years of  the Hitler reign, as the Nuremberg laws were taking effect while the ultimate horror  awaiting them was something as yet unimagineable. Clearly, the author says nothing at all about the Nazi regime, since he is aware that the letter will be read by the authorities and understands the potential impact on my father’s pending appeal of anything at all material to his incarceration. He can only make reference to it as a one –time moment of stupidity that does not match my father’s fine personality and sterling character, which he pointedly emphasizes ( as does Erna). In light of the fun he pokes at his circle of friends, one can see how highly he regards my father in contrast. There is no reference to the status of Jews, per se, but clear references to the general difficulties in finding secure employment or economic security for some of the people involved and a general sense of wishing to leave. The one reference to politics is to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and the fear of war between the British and French against the Italians in the Mediterranean.

          His language is full of idioms and verbal hyperboles that are sometimes hard to understand ( and hard to read). The text of the letter was transcribed for my by Omer Van Voorden.

         

           

 

 

My dear Willi,

...

          In the meantime, since Christmas, there  were only two days that were worthy of note: New Years and my birthday. I didn’t want to celebrate Sylvester [Ed.- New Years] in the way one could understand celebrate. I tell myself- if Willi is not here, but instead he is in B [ Brandenburg Prison], then there is no way to celebrate anything. It was clear that for your sake I could think of no reason I could celebrate. You know that when my sprit is lousy I am against any celebrating. I told to Roman that he and Moehrchen should come and reminisce over a glass of tea. However, I wanted to make Erma happy, so I bought Roman, Morchen, Erma and myself tickets to the Comic Opera at 0.75 ! [ Ed.- 75 pfennig, worth, in todays US dollar, about $5, or about twice the cost of a “Dreigroschenoper”, (Three Penny Opera). I do not know if his “!” is because was so cheap-or so expensive at the time] . However, it worked out differently than I had planned. On New Years eve, at 6 PM, Erna’s ex- husband and his current wife suggested that following the opera they would come to spend New Years with me.

 

          Out of politeness rather than out of joy about this implausible event, I said yes. Hardly had they come here, than there also appeared a couple from the outskirts of Berlin (whom I myself this summer more or less had befriended) with the same suggestion.

Again I explained the plan, but also gave notice that I would provide no alcohol and for that everyone would need to fend for him. Finally, they also bought tickets for the Comic Opera (at 0.75!). After completion of the cultural event, the whole social gathering took place in my apartment where a table was set. Served were: sausages and potato salad and again sausages and potato salad and for dessert  a salad made with peas and beans was passed around, with what afterwards turned out to have as bad consequences as could be. To my greatest shock I noticed that in addition to other bottles, the provincial couple had brought 2 bottles of whisky, 2 bottles of wine + 3 bottles of champagne to make us foggy.

 

          Everything naturally fell apart as I take note of my weakness for alcohol.

 

          Roman tried to get me drunk with downright sadistic pleasure. He cheered me with “prosit” constantly and I had to respond willy-nilly every time with another drink. Erna was soon very tipsy and glowed like a red bulb. (You might think this was due to an intensive sunlamp cure!). I don’t believe it. And you?  Around midnight, the company was already half wobbly and looking for me to systematically finish everything. Lion Braun was pale as a corpse and Roman began to target the wall with pancakes as for a mural. (The traces can still be seen). Here come true the old adage "who digs a pit for others...”

 

Roman had become totally wasted in the course of the evening. Afterwards, as the senior member here, I went first went for the toilet and, as a decent man, locked the door. I heard an urgent knock from the outside and opened the door.

 

Who rushed forward to me with a mouth full of seltzer water? The fat Roman! I have never seen anyone so pale... As he lay there, the poor guy and provided me with highly varied companionship. After some time, he gave himself to philosophical considerations about  comparison of human life with the famous “Huehnerleiter” [Ed.- There is a book by Alan Dundes ,Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder , which explains this popular German saying that life is like a chicken coop ladder, full of filth] Is it still the bleakest? The Huehnerleiter got rid of his ruined shirt and ran again as half dull madman by the long corridor, until he fell tired and exhausted on shaking knees at the other end and with his gigantic chest covered the ice cold floor.

…

…In this mixture of human nourishment and blessed drunkenness, we other weak-kneed creatures let the Colossus sleep up to 4 o’clock in the morning.

 

Despite our muddled senses, and perhaps because of our heavy mass, we thought of you and communicate with you from a distance as the card that you've certainly received proves.

 

          We were drinking to your health and our card's contents clearly expressed our deep feelings. I hope our wishes have arrived. In addition, Willi, I personally have found myself completely out of balance since your fall and I must confess that only the idea that still keeps me going, you get the feeling, is that you still have an old friend in Berlin.

          I know that this is illogical, but I hope that my stay here can give you a little bit of calm. If not for you I would have left after Baby was engaged, but I will stay here and wait until you have finished your sentence for this one time nonsense. As I've known you as a constitutionally sound and logical man, I hope to God that you will well weather this difficult time, especially since I was able to convince myself that the institution you are in is very humane and you receive decent treatment. I am convinced that after your release a few weeks of nursing by your mother will be enough to get you afloat again. And I think that your professors and colleagues will forgive this inexplicable and unexpectable prank of yours.

 

          You are known as a fine and decent human being and I hope that we later will see your act as I see it, as the derailment by unusual circumstances of one fundamentally decent person.

 

          Now back to the Sylvester. Later on Erna’s sister-in-law and husband and another family known to you came by.

 

          After having brought Lion in a fully apathetic state to his home, we remained together until the New Year’s morning. The only ones who stayed sober were the provincial couple. They cooked us over stitch and thread and let no one sleep. On the New Year’s morning at 8, we went together to Erna’s in-laws to enjoy a decent breakfast.

 

          So, the 1^st of January was spent in good chit-chat until the evening and then we moved on to our own homes to go to bed as soon as possible.

 

          One should not plan things; it comes out differently from what is planned.

[The letter goes on with some chit-chat about various and sundry common friends.]

           

           

                   

          …

          The world in general is continuing its old routine. Up till the military conflict between Italy and Abyssinia, the world events continue on the same old tune. The members of the League of Nations are striving to resolve the dispute by means of economic sanctions. There are some dark clouds on the political horizon.

One can only hope that after some dramatic moves, considered objectively, a “happy end” will finally be achieved. I personally can hardly believe that there is a serious basis to the threatening portent of a transfer of the conflict to Europe, in which England and France are one side, Italy on the other side coming to blows in the Mediterranean. I believe every European Government would be able to deny a material interest in this.

Italy could act out of desperation in the event that all other ways to back off, but that is not a foregone conclusion.

 

          ..Now, my dear Willy, don’t let your head hang down, everything will be over and I hope I can soon get from a letter from you. I will visit you again at the next possible opportunity. Goodbye, my good young man! Oskar.

 

My father was released from prison after hist initial sentence was cut to two years, on the condition that he leave Germany forever. Ironically, because Brandenburg, in this years was a prison focused on rehabilitation, he had relatively easy conditions, and was able to finish his Rabbinical studies by correspondence.  He made his way to Austria, published three essays on the dangers of facing contemporary civilization ( psychological, biological, and economic determinism) , escaped to Czechoslovakia with the Anschluss, and was again caught with the German takeover of Czechoslovakia, and this time, thrown into a notorious prison for subversives, the Spielberg castle of Brno, and then, sent on one of Eichmann’s first trains out to Poland, and form there, escape to the Soviet Union.

The Unkindest Cut of All Part III --On Jews and other enablers of Hamas with a lookback 75 years

 

The Unkindest Cut of All-Part III 

On Jews and other enablers of Hamas with a lookback 75 years

 

This last Thursday and Friday November 8th and 9th marked 85 years since the dreaded Kristallnacht or as it is often translated into English,The Night of Broken Glass. I don't need to belabor details as to what it signified. I do have in my own family records a note that my grandmother in Vienna was among those attacked at that time and then shortly afterwards my grandparents were able to escape to Switzerland and my father and uncle headed off to Czechoslovakia.

It has been 85 years since ,and I know that we Jews around the world had felt much more safe and secure since the rise of the state of Israel. We had been accustomed to saving Jews in the middle of the hijacking to in Entebbe or the airlifting of Jews to safety throughout the Middle East and Africa in the intervening years. After the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and more recently, with the potential alliances with various Arab countries, we could allow ourselves into a dream of security.

None of us could have imagined the horror of something worse than a Kristallnacht or  something worse than the worst pogroms of the past but, that did happen on October 7. We have marked the shloshim the 30 days of mourning for those who are dead yet we know that our mourning,  both in Israel, and out, is not ended.

Last week, I allowed myself to vent on those who tried to pin the blame on Israel, or create some kind of equivalency, whether by international authorities or even local media.

I turn now to my central gripe: history repeats itself, or, déjà vu all over again.

 I have been  in the midst of looking for material from my father’s documents for a special exhibit to be opened in December in Frankfurt, Germany, on the 75th anniversary of the re-establishing of the Jewish community after the Holocaust. As you may know, my father, Rabbi Dr William Weinberg, served as the first State Rabbi of Hesse, but before that, he worked with the DP camps in Austria.I published a book about his years up through Soviet exile and, I hope, one day, to follow up with an account of the years helping survivors rebuild their lives. In the process I found three articles of his, from the very first years after the Holocaust, to be eerily relevant to what we are seeing today,

 First, you can hear, very loudly, the justification that the Palestinians are, after all, suffering at the hands of Jews, qua Zionists, for 56, then 75, and, yes 100 years. We should not be surprised if they raped, beheaded, tortured, and kidnapped. It’s “ distributive justice.”

Student groups at Harvard decried Israel as “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ attack; groups at the University of Virginia went a step further in saying that “colonized people can resist occupation of their land by whatever means they deem necessary”; and groups at Tufts took the cake by praising Hamas’ ingenious creativity.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/hamas-slaughtered-wokeness

Now, Jewish students are being physically attacked on campuses at Tulane and elsewhere.

Sadly, for us, the protests by the pro-Palestinian camp are very rough and aggressive, and a local Jewish pro-Israel protestor , Paul Kessler, was knocked to the ground and killed by a pro-Palestinian protestor just this past Sunday. Violence by the pro-Palestinian side is not knew—we saw similar attacks on Jews here just two years ago by the “fellow travelers” and “useful idiots” of Hamas.

 

All of this anger, against Israel, and by extension, against Jews, has been , as we have seen, “justified” by apologists for murder. As I said, déjà vu, just this “ blame the victim” tactic was used against Jews even while we were still mourning our dead and licking our wounds after the greatest and almost completely successful attempt at erasing us physically from this planet.

So here is how the same apologists for murder blamed us after the Holocaust in the same tones:

 

Not mine, but your fault! Dec 1946, in a German journal, Der Neue Weg.

Now the silence is broken, and people are speaking lately also to non-Jews about what had happened to us in the Hitler era. It is therefore not without interest for us to note that what the Austrian accomplices have to say about the causes . The final sentences of this article by a. D. Hornbostel: “Anti-Semitism and Jewish problem" are significant for us.

We quote the same verbatim:

“Another prerequisite for a peaceful and prosperous coexistence with the Jewish elements in Europe is of course the determination of the Jews themselves to get rid of all the fatal mistakes and weaknesses that anti-Semitism wants to attack and incited him to such brutal activity as we have unfortunately had to witness in the recent past.”

 In other words, you Jews deserved it!

Thus, my father summed up the implication:

 “The murder of 6 million Jews in Europe and their plundering were ultimately the expression of the righteous people's anger. At least that's what it must sound like to the ears of the average anti-Semitic reader.”…

“If we're talking about mistakes, why not talk about your own mistakes at the same time! Is this the Austrian way of looking for the splinter in your neighbor's eye and overlooking the beam in your own? …

Were Hitler, Seyss-Inquart, Kaltenbrunner, and countless of their accomplices notAustrian? “

 

Hence, the opposite of a Catholic confession: I have not sinned, rather, you have sinned.!

 This after the Holocaust. This same tone was sounded by political and academic figures here, after the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of 2023!

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib: after a full day of silence, finally said:

"I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day," "As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue."

Yes, she cries, but it all Israel’s fault ( with US backing, of course).She also had her original interpretation of “ From the River to the Sea”, saying it was merely “aspirational.” So was Endlösung der Judenfrage-The final solution of the Jewish problem, merely “asprational”.

Now, we have had actual physical attacks on Jews on campuses at Tulane and , closer to home, a UC Davis professor tweeting a call to violence: 

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article280938278.html#storylink=cpy

 So, Non Mea—its not my fault- its your fault, déjà vu!

 Then, we have those among our Jews, who are very complacent, living lives of comparative luxury and privilege, who would disconnect from the entire Jewish affair. Just so in December of 1945, when the rubbles of war had finally settled in Vienna :

Wir Sind Quitt: We are even! Are we really!( Der Neue Weg)

Here is a summary of the verbal fight as it appeared in a journal of Austrian literature (Friedrich Torberg und Hans Weigel — Zwei Jüdische Schriftsteller im Nachkriegsösterreich :Evelyn Adunka,Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 27, No. 3/4, Special Issue: The Jewish Presence in Contemporary Austrian Literature (1994), pp. 213-237 (25 pages) “ Two Jewish writers in post-War Austria”.)

Hans Weigel was a noted Austrian Jewish playwright and theater critic, who survived the Holocaust in relative comfort in Switzerland.

 

In October 1945 Weigel wrote in an article in the American-published Wiener Kurier:

 "We have nothing to blame each other. No one can bring his dead alive.

With you many are dead and with us too. But we're even! We don't think too much about yesterday."

             Wilhelm Weinberg, the later chief rabbi of Frankfurt am Main, commented on               this     article in the Vienna Jewish Der Neue Weg magazine:

  "Perhaps Mr. Weigel is even - we, the majority of Jews around the world and here too, Not." Weinberg's disgust was joined by a second one: Imagine the indignation when Weigel ,"in the exuberance of "Joy of reunion", was not content with "receipts of over six and a half million dead," but "also to differentiate those Jews who do not want to return home," with the equally problematic sentence: "Because no one is ever forced to return home, only those who come here will come back, who are the most 'Austrian' elements.”

 

My father went on to contrast this Jewish writer, who had lived comfortably in Switzerland, and was only too happy to return to Austria, with the greatest modern German writer, Thomas Mann, who made the US his new home.

 

Of the same ilk, as some of you may recall, a Jewish Chancellor of Austria, Bruno Kreisky,  in the 1970’s, of the same stripe as this writer, who turned the Socialist movements against Israel, said:

 Wenn die Juden ein Volk sind, so ist es ein mieses Volk.« Quoted by his press secretary:

If Jews are indeed a people, then they are a “mieses volk”, an ugly people!

( Der Spiegel, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/kreisky-die-juden-ein-mieses-volk-a-4c081012-0002-0001-0000-000041376698)

 Surely, though, the most painful of all , has been the rush to blame Israel by our very own, the very heirs to a Bruno Kreisky, or a Hans Wiegel, or their intellectual ancestor, the very great antisemite, the intellectual father of all anti-semitism, Karl Marx.

 Here too, we have the case of those who, in the Talmudic statement, “ act like Zimri ( who betrayed Israel in the Sinai) “but demand the reward of Zimri”, who saved the Israelites from Zimri’s sin.

 We might prefer to  use a line from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, about Brutus, his closest friend, who stabbed Caesar

“ For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all”.

 This is a summary of key points in my father’s essay, “Regarding the Problem of Jewish Quislings”. It was published in a special edition of the journal, “ Mosty and Opinin”, in May of 1947 ,as the Jewish communities in Austria and Germany were trying to organize themselves while still in pain from the wounds of Nazi murder.

  

(The full translation and the text can be found here:

http://www.courageofspirit.com/2023/11/regarding-problem-of-jewish-quislings.html)

“In all European states that had the misfortune to experience the bloody rule of the Germans, the concept of Quislings is known, those people who are criminally inclined, by fear or opportunism, or political immaturity, or for money, without dignity, or for the sake of supposed national interests, in the moral sense or factual sense, to have made themselves accomplices of the Nazi tyrants.

“In antiquity we had our Josephus Flavius, who abandoned his comrades in arms in the most difficult hour of our people and went over to the throne, and who, while his comrades were dragged behind the triumphant’ s chariot, enjoyed himself at the court of the same triumphant by writing hymns in his honor. In the same tragic epoch …Tiberius Alexander( nephew of the great 1st Jewish philosopher) , …governor in Judea, and later as governor in Egypt, who let his legions of blood-hungry and rapacious soldiers, like wild animals and beasts, loose on the quarters of the Jews in Alexandria , and then took part     under Titus in the conquest of Jerusalem as the actual head …”

“As is well known, history repeats itself. During Hitler's time, many Jews helped in the enslavement and deportation of the Jews to the labor concentration and extermination camps. Many have committed guilt in their capacity as Judenrate( Jewish council member) by compiling and signing lists of those destined for destruction or by assisting in the confiscation of Jewish assets for the benefit of the Germans; many have committed guilt in their capacity as Jupos (Jewish police) by enlisting Jews for destruction or deportation ; some took part directly in the atrocities and devilries of the Germans as kapos.”

“Times of emergency are known to be the best ground for political adventurers and our time of need is not yet over. While most Jews returned home wandering, lost, groping, grieving, disappointed, uprooted, desperate and tired of life, our Quislings looked in a good mood, were impeccably dressed and stood out from all the others because of their well-fed nature.”

Such people have forfeited, according to all written and unwritten laws in all liberated countries, the right to play any leading role in social life, …

“Where they still try to push themselves into the foreground, it is the inevitable duty of every Jew to push them into the background.”

 

Now, after the knowledge of the horrid pillage, rape, torture, murder, infanticide, and kidnapping, I reserve my greatest revulsion, after the officers and soldiers of Hamas, who carried it out, next onto those of our own, who thought it was “cool” or “hip” or “progressive” to take over the Capital Rotunda ywo weeks ago and Grand Central Station this week, in the name of Jewish Voices For Peace, threatening to shut down the emblem of American democracy, all the while draped in Talit and kippah.They repeated the grand-standing a week later in Grand Central Station.

Here is a group of younger Jews who use this as a flag of distinction, something possible only for children of privileged Jewish elites.

Here is their shameless proclamation:

“We converged in historic numbers in D.C. with unprecedented heart, power, and ferocity, to say: Ceasefire now. Not in our names, not with our money.

This was the largest Jewish protest in solidarity with Palestinians ever.

A staggering 5,000 people from around the country descended on the National Mall in a “Jews against Genocide” rally — with only a couple days notice, in the middle of a Wednesday workday. We were proud to be joined by Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, as well as author and activist Naomi Klein and actor Mo Amer, as well as our friends at IfNotNow, who had led us in an impressive shut-down of all 13 entrances of the White House on Monday.

Then two dozen rabbis led almost 500 Jews in a sit-in in the rotunda of a key Capitol building. As rabbis blew shofars and shared testimonials from Palestinians in Gaza, the thousands outside the building chanted “Ceasefire now!” and “Let Gaza live!” We shut down the street outside the offices of members of congress for three hours, elected officials and staffers watching from their windows as capitol police arrested the hundreds inside the building.

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/10/19/thousands-of-jews-and-allies-shut-down-capitol-hill/

 

This happened as the organization accepted, like all other progressive groups, the Hamas ministry lie of the hospital bombing.The blood of the massacred of October 7 was still wet on the ground and these Quislings mourned the murderers. It is the” most unkindest cut of all”, as it is so convenient, for enemies of the Jews to trot out their token Jew, and use it against us. Jewish students have been harrassed and physically attacked on campus across the country, in part, due to such protestations.

I will now apply my father’s recommendations about the Jewish Quislings and suggest that the Jewish community close out jobs for these fellow travelers. I know that I am being ungenerous, but when the Middle East has been taken over by the dogs of Khomeini, the Hezbollahs, the Hamases, the Houthis, there is no room for generosity of spirit. These are the fellow travelers of Al Qaeda and ISIS. 

Remember that the Communists, too, were split into Stalinists and Trotskyites ,Maoists and Viet-Kongists- often, deadly enemies, yet united in the same goal of ideological domination.

Think carefully when posing for the under trodden.There was one Jew who rose to the highest pinnacle of success in the fight for revolutionary Justice, “the genius of the revolution”, the founder of the Red Army , and the proponent of perpetual revolution, Leon Trotsky:

This is what he received from his colleague and comrade in arms when he was getting his hair cut in Mexico City, exiled from his country, an axe to the head:

 One last thought of warning

 The Jew was the canary in the coal mine in World War II. The Jew, as Israeli, or Zionist, is still the canary in the coal mine. It's not my words, it is , as the Arabs themselves have said” First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”

 

 

Purim 2023

V Nahafoch Hu- It is upside down , Mityahadim, --Becoming Jews—and LaAmod al Nafsham-Standing in Defense of their lives.

 Video of discussion:

https://youtu.be/O3xjgJUQLW8?t=7034

 

This past Wednesday was Shushan Purim, the date Purim was celebrated, according to the Megillah, in Susa, Shushan, the capital, and therefore, by extension , in Jerusalem as well.

I always try to tie in my theme with something from my father’s teachings and experiences, as that is also his Yahrzeit. As many of you know, my father, Rabbi William, or Wilhelm, as he was in the old country, served as the first State Rabbi of Hesse, the American held western zone of Germany, following the Shoah and worked with the survivors, the American military government, and the newly emerging West German government. I wrote of his upbringing and his experiences during the War in my book, The Courage of the Spirit. I am slowly coming around to next working on his documents from the period of reconstruction of Jewish life after the horrors of the Holocaust.

I want to tie in my presentation with three quotes from the Megillah of Esther, actually in reverse order of their appearance in the text:

The first from the Megillah 9:1

וּבִשְׁנֵים֩ עָשָׂ֨ר חֹ֜דֶשׁ הוּא־חֹ֣דֶשׁ אֲדָ֗ר בִּשְׁלוֹשָׁ֨ה עָשָׂ֥ר יוֹם֙ בּ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֨ר הִגִּ֧יעַ דְּבַר־הַמֶּ֛לֶךְ וְדָת֖וֹ לְהֵעָשׂ֑וֹת בַּיּ֗וֹם אֲשֶׁ֨ר שִׂבְּר֜וּ אֹיְבֵ֤י הַיְּהוּדִים֙ לִשְׁל֣וֹט בָּהֶ֔ם וְנַהֲפ֣וֹךְ ה֔וּא אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִשְׁלְט֧וּ הַיְּהוּדִ֛ים הֵ֖מָּה בְּשֹׂנְאֵיהֶֽם׃

 

And so, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—that is, the month of Adar—when the king’s command and decree were to be executed, the very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened, and the Jews got their enemies in their power.

 

The phrase, Nahafoch hu, the opposite happened, comes to describe the entire nature of Purim, hafoch-upside down-Instead of being histories eternal victims, we were, at  least at that moment, histories winner.

 

Fast forward some three years from the end of the Holocaust, and, despite the uprising of the Palestinian Arabs, backed by 6 powerful Arab armies, and, behind the scenes, assisted by the British, “venahafoch hu”

 

“very day on which the enemies of the Jews had expected to get them in their power, the opposite happened, and the Jews got their enemies in their power.”

 

In this theme, I have a recording of a Purim celebration in a DP ( displaced persons) camp sometime after the war, with a Cantor and my father. It was recorded and broadcast on German radio.

 

I will play a few excerpts from it:

C:\Users\norof\OneDrive\The Weinberg Zadok Family Tree\Rabbi Dr William Weinberg\Audio Tapes

 

Or

https://soundcloud.com/norbertweinberg/puirm-in-dp-camp?si=6bed604264f6435fab91546df35bd2b4&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

Cantor to 1:55

Rabbi 1:55

The parallel between the two festivals- in both, there is a despotic figure, in both the despotic figure can not tolerate a people who choose to be different.Thus in common with all despots, who seek to make all the world uniform in their regime.Both have a happy end.

Cantor continues. Rabbi picks up at 8:52 Distinctions; The Macabees- for word Hammer- strike out against the empire and the Jewish people are reinvigorated. Thus , a parallel for his day.

 

 

 

The second verse I have in mind comes just before the first one mentioned:

 

8:17

וּבְכׇל־מְדִינָ֨ה וּמְדִינָ֜ה וּבְכׇל־עִ֣יר וָעִ֗יר מְקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֨ר דְּבַר־הַמֶּ֤לֶךְ וְדָתוֹ֙ מַגִּ֔יעַ שִׂמְחָ֤ה וְשָׂשׂוֹן֙ לַיְּהוּדִ֔ים מִשְׁתֶּ֖ה וְי֣וֹם ט֑וֹב וְרַבִּ֞ים מֵֽעַמֵּ֤י הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ מִֽתְיַהֲדִ֔ים כִּֽי־נָפַ֥ל פַּֽחַד־הַיְּהוּדִ֖ים עֲלֵיהֶֽם׃

 

And in every province and in every city, when the king’s command and decree arrived, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a feast and a holiday. And many of the people of the land professed to be Jews, for the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.

Now, Mityahed- the reflexive form of being Jewish, so to say, self-identify as Jew. It is later on taken to convey the sense of “conversion”.

 

I use this as a starting point for a new discovery I am on and I am letting you in on the ground floor. A few years ago, I was in touch with the archivist of the Jewish Museum of Berlin, one that had been rebuilt by the famous architect, Daniel Liebeskind. He notified me that he had found a large folder of documents from my father’s period of service in Frankfurt, and that most of them dealt with conversion. Until then, I thought I had in my possession all of my father’s documents, which I had donated to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, but I had copies of all the originals. Here were completely new documents. I had no way to get to Berlin, but the archivist eventually had the scanned and sent me the scanned copies. Now, I am finally getting around to reviewing theme. I want to answer the question: why would someone German choose to join a people who had almost been erased form the earth by his or her own people. For some, it was  matter of having a Jewish parent or grandparent, and completing the connection. For some, it came out of falling in love with someone Jewish, and deciding to make their fate jointly, often, in search of a new life in the new land of Israel, with all its danger and poverty.For some, however, it came, as if, out of the clear blue sky.

So, I wan to share a description by one of these converts. I have blocked out names and identifiers by request of the Museum to respect privacy concerns( which, by the way, are much stricter in Europe than USA).

So, here is  one document:

 

“I was born … 1925 in Cologne. …April, 1939, went for my year of national service[ 8 months farm work for Hitler Youth]. Thereafter, ten months in mandatory national labor service … 1940 -1942, I attended the Preparatory School for Nursing in Cologne. At the conclusion, I served  for a half year in Wartime Support Service as auxiliary nurse in a hospital in Erfurt. To my great joy, I was finally accepted as NS ( National Socialist?) Teaching Nurse in Cologne, where I stayed in this capacity till the end of the war.

“I worked under very difficult, almost unbearable conditions, but with the conviction that I was doing something good for my fatherland. To my great regret, in May of 1945 the regime of which I was an admirer fell. … I couldn't quickly find a position as a nurse at home given the conditions at the time, but was dependent on work and no with no wages …,  without thinking about it, accepted an offer for a position with a Jewish family .

 

“Up until then I knew very little about Jews, the Jewish question as such was very foreign and what I knew was a pale memory of the destruction of Jewish businesses  in 1938. Suddenly I saw myself under one roof  with the sons of the people, of whom 6 million --I could not believe at first- men and women and children had been annihilated in a cruel manner by my fellow countrymen. It was only then that I began to concern myself with the so-called Jewish question. I spent a lot of sleeplessness over it in order to understand what could have caused my sisters and brothers to be so cruel. Systematically, my sympathy rose on behalf of  the persecuted people, and I increasingly became a stranger to my people from day to day.  I carried a  share of the serious crimes on my shoulders and I had no other choice but to see the reality in my people. I began to penetrate into the Jewish lfe and become familiar with the Hebrew and Jewish languages and customs-which was not very easy.After a certain time,  all the threads that connected me to my people were broken and all the bridges burned.

Yet by Jews I would be seen as stranger, a German. A heavy revolt played in my heart and, with my sympathy to the Jewish people ,there grew an affection to one of their sons. Nevertheless between him and myself there stood a large wall . I knew that the Jewish people do not eagerly seek new members, I nevertheless did not want to abandon my affection to him nor to the Jewish religion. To put things in there appropriate order, I had also not yet the appropriate intention.Therefore I also I have now come into a situation where I no longer belong to the German people, but to the Jewish people whom I confess myself, but only very few will see me as a Jew. “

She eventually learned to read Hebrew and learn Jewish practice, and finally, as a Jew, made Aliyah to Israel.

*****************************

 

Finally, Purim, like Chanukah, has a militant aspect to it,

8:11

אֲשֶׁר֩ נָתַ֨ן הַמֶּ֜לֶךְ לַיְּהוּדִ֣ים ׀ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּכׇל־עִיר־וָעִ֗יר לְהִקָּהֵל֮ וְלַעֲמֹ֣ד עַל־נַפְשָׁם֒ לְהַשְׁמִיד֩ וְלַהֲרֹ֨ג וּלְאַבֵּ֜ד אֶת־כׇּל־חֵ֨יל עַ֧ם וּמְדִינָ֛ה הַצָּרִ֥ים אֹתָ֖ם טַ֣ף וְנָשִׁ֑ים וּשְׁלָלָ֖ם לָבֽוֹז׃

The king has permitted the Jews of every city to assemble and fight for their lives; if any people or province attacks them, they may destroy, massacre, and exterminate its armed force together with women and children, and plunder their possessions—

 

( By the way, the Megillah explicitly points out that the Jews did not take plunder, a direct reference to the failure of Saul and the people, in their war against Agag and Amalaek, who did take plunder, despite prohibition).

 

It raises the question—to what extent do we use overwhelming force in our defense. This question was raised as Jews looked at what had been done to our people because they lacked a home land and a military force to prevent our wholesale slaughter. This is a question that the Israel Defense Forces has had to face since the rise of the State of Israel, with the concept of “Tohar Haneshek” ,The Purity of the Weapon”, and there are implications for us in what is unfolding even now.

 

 

So, I close with an essay from my father, about what Jewish courage means .

[This is what Yiddish looks like when there is no Hebrew font available, so a Polish transliteration is used].

 

Gibojr oder Cadik-

גבור אודער צדיק)  )

 Hero or Saint

A rough translation of Yiddish text, in Polish transliteration, of a German essay

on Purim for the Survivors by Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg

Friday ,28 Feb, 1947   Aufgang  Dr W Weinberg ( from German original in Neue Weg)

The content of the Megilat Esther which is the theme of Purim is surely well known by all, since it is one of the most popular creations in the Biblical literature. Nevertheless, I allow myself to present you a summary of the events.

            … but he[ Ahashverosh] would give the Jews a free hand to defend themselves by all means necessary against whoever would attack them. Why this is the only solution offered, we do not have an explanation, but the author is suddenly short on words. We only know that the Jews liquidated thousands of their enemies.[ such as the line I referenced above].

The modern reader…would just at this point expect a description of how the Jews could plan and carry out their struggle for survival and a description of the participating heroes. But just here, there is not a word! ….

However, one who understands Judaism would not be surprised that the Megillah dedicates so little attention to the details of the Jews struggle against their opponents.  ….

In a similar vein… about the Maccabean uprising. As is well known, the historical background of the Chanukah festival is the military event: the uprising against Antiochus and the victory of Judah Maccabee at Emmaus and Tzur.  The heroism of the Maccabees, who struggled to absolute victory against the overwhelming forces of the Syrian army, with such courage, comparable to the heroism of the Greeks at Salamis and Thermopylae, was for the Jews almost completely forgotten till the revival of Jewish nationalism in the 19^th century. ….

In the same manner: … Masada, the last Jewish fortress after the fall of the Temple (70 CE). Tacitus and Dio Cassius report on this in great detail and amazement. Just the Jews give scant attention in their literature to these heroes. Six decades later, Bar Cochba, with the remnants of the Judeans, arose against Rome, and only after a prolonged struggle, could the Romans, with their overwhelming power, put down the rebellion. But the Jewish tradition makes no to-do about all these heroic struggles.

            So to Moses, who is by all accounts, considered a great military leader, lives on in the Jewish imagination as our teacher (Rabenu) and law-giver. Even King David, under whose government, the Jewish state expanded its borders for the first time by military success, is only remembered in the Jewish tradition as poet and singer, as author of the Psalms, as prototype for the Prince of Peace, of the Messiah, in which the military and the weapons will be set aside and the world will be ruled in social justice.

Even so we see this in more recent times. In Mainz (Mayence), the Jews held off the Crusaders, but we know only of Kinos” (lamentations). In 1648, the Jews of Prague stunned the world with their heroism

[Side note: In 1648 the Jews of Prague distinguished themselves in the defense of the city against the invading Swedes. … the emperor presented them with a special flag, which is still preserved in the Altneuschul. Its design, with a Swedish cap in the center of the Star of David, became the official emblem of the Prague Jewish community--

  ]

 in just that same year, the Jews of Lemberg ( Lwow) fought together with the Poles against Chmielnitzki, and in the slaughter at Beresteczko, in which Chmielnitzki folded, there was a Jewish division of 1000 soldiers, a huge number for its time. In the same way, at the Polish slaughter at Sadowa-Wisznia In the 17^th century, the Jews were praised as great heroes.

But the Jewish literature of the time tells only of the cruelty of Chmielnitzki and of the destruction of Jewish communities, but nothing of the heroes of the resistance.

Is there anything new in our day?

Even till today[ 1947, before Yad Vashem, before historians and filmmakers], we have no organization that is collecting information on our Partisans, not yet any central institute that gathers the reporting of the struggle and to save the information about the Jewish partisan movement in all lands of Europe. How many Jews know the name of the young partisan Moritz Zigmunt, who destroyed a bridge in Budapest on the Danube by strapping dynamite around his own body, in order to block the retreat route for the Germans? 140 German soldiers went down with him. The Hungarians have their famous “Horthy Promenade” but in Jewish circles, his name is unknown.

Few know the name of Hannah Szenes, the young attractive student from Eretz Israel, who parachuted down to the Yugoslav partisans   and made her way to Hungary where she was captured by the Germans and executed.

Furthermore, we can give the example of the Eretz Yisrael Brigade, which sent into battle 30,000 Jewish volunteer combatants. Or the 40,000 casualties that the American Jews suffered in the war, a number far beyond their proportion in the population.  So too it is exceptional that Jews participated in high numbers in the Soviet armed forces and who  earned in unusually high numbers the medal of “Hero of the Soviet Union. “We also note the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, an exemplary stand of 6 weeks duration against a concentrated force of aerial bombardment, tank and artillery shelling. Or the Jews who rose up in the Treblinka concentration camp?

Yet we rarely speak or write of all these, so little that future generations will know even less.

The glorification of power does not belong to the realm of Judaism, even when used in the service of such a just cause as oppression and edicts against us. The man of power, the war hero stands in our tradition in an unhonored place, no crown placed by later generations, who thought only of the saintly, only if the miracles were attributed to a Tsaddik, and then it was remembered for eternity.

Our historic account intentionally left out the heroic element. We do not belong to those people for whom the hero is the ultimate. The cult of the great hero is foreign to us, as it goes hand in hand with the sanctification of physical power. Our national religious ethic is unmiltaristic. The war hero gets no honors. The ideal for us is the pacifistic, the Tsaddik, the man of righteousness. We did not see our fortune in physical conflict. Even where force was essential, as in the freeing of the slaves form Egypt, we did not see it as a virtue. Even today, on the last six days of Pesach, we only say the half-Hillel. The Agadah says in God’s name: My creation is drowning and you want to sing praises?”

This is not to say that Judaism denies self-defense. “ Haba lehargecha”- who come to kill, rise and kill him first.”

We consider a hero not to be the one who defeats the enemy, but the one who defeats himself. (Pirke Avot IV) This far greater than conquering foreign lands and shedding blood. For this reason, our historic teachings have elevated our personalities beyond the heroic cult, to the level of “Rabenu” teacher or “Tzadik, righteous. We cannot allow ourselves, especially after these years, to define our values by those of the other nations. Nothing is as dangerous to a nation as to have its values dictated by its enemies. I deny that we are bound to reject everything new because of “ Atoh bochartanu, but we can absorb that which is good from other nations, but not the Hero-cult. That which has come to us from Prussian Germany is neither  good nor new. It is as ancient as Hellas.

Thus, Heinrich Heine, when he was young, adored all that related to the Greeks. He then later declared.” I see now that the Greeks were merely handsome striplings. The Jews, however, have always been men, strenuous and full of power,..who have given to the world one God and a moral law, and have fought and suffered in all the battle-fields of thought." 

We cannot allow ourselves to adopt this way of thinking. We cannot allow ourselves to be overrun by murderous impulses. When it comes to our rights, our freedom, our life, we can take up arms as cannot other people.  But the anti-militarism is so deeply ingrained in the Jew, that even when he is in uniform, he is civilized, While the German, in uniform, was not civilized. Our inner drive is towards peace, and our dream is a very different dream than that of the Teutonic Knights.

The greatest of all is Peace, and the Torah was given in order to promote peace in the world, as it says, “Derachecha darchei noam vchol neitivoteha shalom.” Her paths are pleasant and all her ways, Peace.”