I was born in 1920, in a city called Aachen, also known as Aix-la Chapelle. It was one of the most tumultuous and significant periods in world history. World War One, "the war to end all wars" had just ended. It took less than twenty years for another war to ravage Europe and plaid havoc with the entire world. In this memoir, I have researched the origins of my family, dating back to the early 17th century in the German/Dutch region of Europe. I have examined how their lives, as Jews, were influenced by their times and how their experiences set the stage for the catastrophe that befell Europe in the 1940s. I discuss my personal experiences and how these tragic events turned my life upside down and how my outlook and my future were influenced. ZACHOR, let us remember together Kurt Rosendahl
Discusses the nature of Jewish historical memory which traditionally concentrated on the religious meaning of history rather than on the events themselves. Medieval Jewish historians focused either on the ancient past or on recent persecutions, tending to identify them with biblical patterns of oppression. For example, the Hebrew chronicles of the Crusader massacres show awareness of a deterioration in Christian-Jewish relations, using the "binding of Isaac" as a pattern for Jewish martyrdom. Although the chronicles were forgotten, the memory of the persecutions was preserved in halakhic and liturgical works. The expulsion from Spain in 1492 stimulated a minor resurgence in Jewish historiography. However, the kabbalistic myth proved more influential than history. Modern Jewish historiography is based on the secular concept of historical science and, especially since the Holocaust, cannot take the place of group memory.--Publisher description.
In his highly readable, educational and inspiring memoir, Holocaust Survivor Ben Lesser’s warm, grandfatherly tone invites the reader to do more than just visit a time when the world went mad. He also shows how this madness came to be—and the lessons that the world still needs to learn. In this true story, the reader will see how an ordinary human being—an innocent child—not only survived the Nazi Nightmare, but achieved the American Dream.
We are all born into a story, each with its own plot, characters and settings. For the children of Holocaust survivors, that story is tinged by the fact that their mere existence is a miracle: after all, their parents weren't supposed to live much less procreate.Many second-generation survivors grew up with a stifled and mysterious background. Others grew up with an overflow of traumatic information. Some grew up emotionally and psychologically scarred. Others felt overwhelmed with and by their parents' stories. And yet others again developed coping skills not just from their parents' experiences but also from how those experiences were conveyed to them.Vera Freidin's daughters fall into the latter category. Never hiding the realities of her Holocaust experience, Kathy and Sue's mother conveyed her stories with sensitivity, dignity and, at times, with humour. She instilled in them her positive outlook, her passion for life and learning, and her determination not to just survive but to strive to thrive.In the year leading up to her eighty-fifth birthday, Vera Freidin sat down with her daughters to compile her memoir. Kathy and Sue carefully and lovingly transcribed her stories as she told them: the familiar stories with which they grew up and some new stories they had not previously heard. That exercise, frequently punctuated by awe, tears and laughter led to this book.Vera Freidin and her daughters hope that you will feel, as you read Zachor, I remember. Will you? that she is sitting with you, perhaps enjoying a cup of coffee and a slice of cake, as she personally tells you these stories.Zachor, I remember. Will you? is a collection of memories which describe a determined woman, a kind woman, a highly intelligent woman, an inspirational woman, a woman with a remarkable memory and a woman who, despite having good reason to hate and be bitter, does not know how to hate or be bitter. The woman who is Zachor, I remember. Will you? is a good person: you will like her.
How do you talk about and make sense of your life when you grew up with parents who survived the most unimaginable horrors of family separation, systematic murder and unending encounters of inhumanity? Sixteen authors reveal the challenges and gifts of living with the aftermath of their parents’ inconceivable experiences during the Holocaust. The Ones Who Remember: Second-Generation Voices of the Holocaust provides a window into the lived experience of sixteen different families grappling with the legacy of genocide. Each author reveals the many ways their parents’ Holocaust traumas and survival seeped into their souls and then affected their subsequent family lives – whether they knew the bulk of their parents’ stories or nothing at all. Several of the contributors’ children share interpretations of the continuing effects of this legacy with their own poems and creative prose. Despite the diversity of each family's history and journey of discovery, the intimacy of the collective narratives reveals a common arc from suffering to resilience, across the three generations. This book offers a vision of a shared humanity against the background of inherited trauma that is relatable to anyone who grew up in the shadow of their parents’ pain.
Part travelogue, part social history, and part family saga, this book investigates the politics of heritage tourism and collective memory. Acclaimed historian Daniel J. Walkowitz visits key Jewish heritage sites from Berlin to Belgrade to Warsaw to New York to discover which stories of the Jewish experience get told and which get silenced.
A Probing and Powerful Look at the Role You Play in Shaping Your Relationship with God “No matter how hard we look, the God of Israel cannot be seen. Looking is not seeing, and seeing God is not like seeing an apple. It is much more like making a medical diagnosis on the basis of looking at a complex set of symptoms. Each of the symptoms is a dot. We can look at the dots and still miss the pattern.” —from Part I The Torah is replete with references to hearing God but precious few references to seeing God. Seeing is complicated. What we look for and see are traces of God’s presence in the world and in history, but not God. In order to identify those traces as reflections of divine presence, we need to re-examine how we see, what we see, and how we interpret that information. In this challenging and inspiring look at the dynamics of the religious experience, award-winning author and theologian Neil Gillman guides you into a new way of seeing the complex patterns in the Bible, history, and everyday experiences and helps you interpret what those patterns mean to you and your relationship with God. Examining faith and doubt, revelation and law, suffering and redemption, Gillman candidly deconstructs familiar biblical moments in order to help you develop and refine your own spiritual vision, so that you are able to discern the presence of God in unanticipated ways.
Called “enriching” and “profoundly moving” by Elie Wiesel, The Jewish Way is a comprehensive and inspiring presentation of Judaism as revealed through its holy days. In thoughtful and engaging prose, Rabbi Irving Greenberg explains and interprets the origin, background, interconnections, ceremonial rituals, and religious significance of all the Jewish holidays, including Passover, Yom Kippur, Purim, Hanukkah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Israeli Independence Day. Giving detailed instructions for observance—the rituals, prayers, foods, and songs—he shows how celebrating the holy days of the Jewish calendar not only relives Jewish history but puts one in touch with the basic ideals of Judaism and the fundamental experience of life. Insightful, original, and engrossing, The Jewish Way is an essential volume that should be in every Jewish home, library, and synagogue.
