Excitement is in the air as plans are underway for Memphis Jewish Federation’s Women’s Impact Luncheon featuring OPI Nail Lacquer co-founder and brand ambassador Suzi Weiss-Fischmann.
This donor appreciation event comes on the heels of two
recent Memphis Jewish Federation (MJF) women’s mission trips to Israel. These
emotionally fulfilling trips inspired lay leaders and staff to think of ways to
connect more intimately with all women in our community and bring meaningful
programs to connect them with the Memphis and global Jewish community.
Twenty-three-plus host committee members are in the midst of
planning this inspiring Women’s IMPACT luncheon, which will be hosted by MJF on
January 16, 2020, in the MJCC Belz Social Hall. Sponsors include Goulds Salon •
SPA, Robert Irwin Jewelers, and Roadshow BMW.
“Forty-five women representing a cross-section of the Memphis
Jewish community recently participated in an emotionally fulfilling women’s
spiritual journey to Israel, and another 13 in a MOMentum mission for mom’s whose
children under the age of 18 are still living at home,” said Laura Linder,
Jewish Community Partner (JCP) President and CEO. JCP is the operating
organization of Memphis Jewish Federation and Jewish Foundation of Memphis.
“Memphis women of all ages are seeking meaningful
involvement with organizations that share their values.” said Cindy Finestone, Memphis
Jewish Federation chair and event co-chair alongside Jill Steinberg.
“Federation provides many opportunities for that interaction. With the powerful
and meaningful story of Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, Federation’s Women’s Impact
Luncheon will be the place to be on January 16.”
The committee members who have begun setting the stage for
an impactful event include: Deena
Arnold, Hallie Charney,
Erin Dragutsky, Janis Finan, Cindy Finestone, Karen Franklin, Shayna Giles, Margo Gruen, Laurie Karchmer, Karen Karmel, Barb Lansky,
Jami Lazarov, Sharon
Lubin, Jaclyn Marshall, Jeri Moskovitz, Brooke Ortman, Stephanie Petersen,
Shelley Robbins, Debbie Rosenthal, Jody Shutzberg, Stacy Siegler, Lisa Silver,
Jill Steinberg, Jana Weiskopf, and Shaina Zakalik.
“Suzi
Weiss-Fischmann has such an incredible story about her parents being Holocaust
survivors, escaping Communist Hungary, and building a fashion empire,” said
Abbey Cowens, Memphis Jewish Federation Manager, Campaign & Corporate Development. “She is also very passionate
about empowering young Jewish professional women.”
In addition to the
luncheon, which is open to all women donors who make a minimum household gift
of $180 to Federation’s 2020 Annual Community Campaign, young women
professionals will have an opportunity to meet with Suzi for a closed-door
session about the importance of having vision and perseverance in business.
One of the many ways we help the
Memphis Jewish community thrive is by creating opportunities for community
members to find meaningful involvement in Jewish experiences. In 2016, we
helped launch a program designed to help engage college students, the Jewish
Community Fellowship at Rhodes College.
In support of strengthening both
Jewish campus life in Memphis and the greater Memphis Jewish community, a
prestigious college fellowship opportunity is available for students
participating in Jewish life in their communities who elect to attend Rhodes College.
The Jewish Community Fellowship created by Rhodes College has made available five $10,000 merit-based fellowships, each renewable for 3 years for a total of $40,000 per student.
“Students come to Rhodes from all
over the world. Some are here for those four years before embarking on their
careers or graduate programs elsewhere, while others choose to make Memphis
their home. Some have lived in Memphis their whole lives. But whether they are
here for a short period or are permanent Memphians, Jewish Rhodes students
should feel like they are part of our Memphis Jewish community,” said Bluma
Zuckerbrot-Finkelstein, Chief Strategy Officer at Jewish Community Partners
(JCP).
“These fellowships are the beginning of the process of connecting Jewish students to the Memphis community,” said Zuckerbrot-Finkelstein. “Once they have been awarded the fellowship, we expect them to become involved in the Rhodes Hillel’s leadership, we invite them to interact with community leaders, and offer other meaningful ways for them to become woven into the fabric of Jewish Memphis.”
Students must apply to Rhodes
College as either Early Decision or Early Action applicants by November 15, or
as Regular Decision Applicants by January 15. Students must then be offered
admission for the Fall 2020 semester, and choose to enroll at Rhodes. Details
on the application process can be found in the Fact Sheet below.
An
evaluation committee for the Fellowship, established by JCP, will review all
applications and make recommendations to Rhodes. Recommended students will be considered
for admission and the fellowship by Rhodes on a competitive basis. Students
winning recognition will receive a Jewish Community Fellowship from Rhodes of
$10,000, renewable for up to three years.
Rhodes may award competitive students an academic
scholarship in a larger amount. In that case, the scholarships may not be
combined and the larger scholarship will be awarded. However, students will
still receive the other benefits of being named a Rhodes Jewish Community
Fellow.
Rhodes College Jewish Community
Fellowship-2020-2021
Fact Sheet
Deadline to apply for admission for
Fall 2020 semester
Early Decision: November 1, 2019
Early Action: November 15, 2019
Regular Decision: January 15, 2020
Deadline to apply for Fellowship
For Early Decision and Early Action Applicants: November 15, 2019
For Regular Decision Applicants: January 15, 2020
Scholarship description and
requirements
Rhodes College is pleased to make
available five $10,000 merit scholarships to students who participate in Jewish
life in their communities across the United States. Eligible students must
apply for admission to Rhodes by January 15th for the Fall 2020
semester, be offered admission and choose to enroll at Rhodes. Fellowship
applications will be reviewed by Memphis Jewish Federation (MJF) and MJF will
recommend applicants to Rhodes. A complete application includes a cover letter,
a resume of current participation in Jewish life, and a 500-word essay. The
essay prompt can be found below.
Fellowship awardees are expected to
become active in Jewish life at Rhodes and to fulfill the following
requirements:
Attend a minimum of 10 Rhodes
Hillel events/programs each school year;
Plan one Rhodes Hillel
event/program per year;
Attend monthly leadership meetings
with other Fellows and Rhodes Hillel Director;
Write an article about Jewish life
at Rhodes for print and electronic distribution;
Make a presentation about Jewish
life at Rhodes at a Memphis Jewish Federation board meeting;
Complete an annual Fellowship
Recertification Form.
In addition, Fellows are strongly
encouraged to consider an elected leadership position on the Rhodes Hillel
Student Board.
Essay prompt
We live in an increasingly
complicated world. How does your involvement in Jewish life influence the way
you foresee accomplishing Rhodes’ vision of “graduating students with a
life-long passion for learning, a compassion for others, and the ability to
translate academic study and personal concern into effective leadership and
action in their communities and the world?”
Hillels of Memphis serves Jewish students throughout the
Memphis community, from all Memphis campuses. The Rhodes College chapter was
launched in 2017, building on the previous work of the Jewish Student Union.
Rhodes Hillel is operated by a student board in cooperation with Hillels of
Memphis Director Sophie Bloch and a lay-led Advisory Council. Rhodes Hillel
focuses on cultural, religious, educational, and social programming and is open
to all students regardless of background. Rhodes Hillel is operated by Memphis
Jewish Federation and endowed through the generosity of an anonymous donor.
Background on Memphis Jewish Community
The Memphis Jewish community is a full-service, vibrant community with seven
synagogues, a beautiful and first-rate Jewish Community Center, engaging
programming for youth and young adults, outstanding Jewish preschools, day
schools and religious schools, an active Jewish Federation and Jewish
Foundation, kosher food options, award-winning residential nursing home and
rehabilitation facility and more. For more information about Jewish life
in Memphis, please go to www.jcpmemphis.org
Questions/Additional information
At Rhodes College, please contact
Ali Hamilton, Senior Assistant Director of Admissions: 901-843-3706/hamiltona@rhodes.edu
Part of Memphis Jewish Federation’s ongoing efforts to connect Memphis and Israel, the 70 Faces of Memphis and Shoham project was designed to form real connections between the people of Jewish Memphis and the people of Shoham, Israel, Memphis’s partner city through the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership 2Gether program. The project serves as a way to connect Jewish Memphians to each other by showcasing their unique character and contributions to the community.
By Lynnie Mirvis
“When my son was very
young, I wove my first prayer shawl in anticipation of his Bar Mitzvah. After
my husband and I moved to Memphis in 2000, we discovered Temple Israel. I
studied with (Rabbi) Micah and converted; I taught Sunday School and made a
prayer for shawl for everyone in the family but me, and then after my
daughter’s Bat mitzvah, she said to me, ‘You’re the only person in the family
who has not had a Bar or Bat mitzvah.’ So Micah got together a B’nei Mitzvah
class for adults. We bonded and learned together—it was a great experience, and
we had an actual ceremony. I was so happy I did that. I had a commission and
made prayer shawls for Micah and all the clergy.”
Felicitas means
happiness in Latin, a name her mother gave her after they arrived in the
Netherlands where she was born. “They were able to be free after such difficult
times.” Her parents were World War II refugees from the Dutch East Indies,
which is now Indonesia. Her mother went into hiding during the Japanese
occupation there, and her father was an allied Dutch soldier and later a
Prisoner of War. “They lost everything.
It was a difficult time, and in Indonesia after the war, the people wanted to
get rid of everyone who was Dutch.”
The family eventually
immigrated to America and Felicitas grew up in Boston. She took a weaving class
when she studied occupational therapy. “I loved it, and after my first show, I
was weaving, showing, selling and teaching ever since, for the last 40 years.”
Her prayer shawls
have been exhibited nationally and have been featured in publications on Jewish
textiles. “Weaving is a metaphor for me, and has helped connect different parts
of my life. I love to use traditional fabrics like batik that reflect where I
am from. Textiles live forever.”
“In worship, there is the concept of hiddur mitzvah – it needs to be beautiful. Having a beautiful piece is to channel that beauty to our connection to God. It’s part of my legacy.” And she’s thinking about making her own prayer shawl soon.
Part of Memphis Jewish Federation’s ongoing efforts to connect Memphis and Israel, the 70 Faces of Memphis and Shoham project was designed to form real connections between the people of Jewish Memphis and the people of Shoham, Israel, Memphis’s partner city through the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership 2Gether program. The project serves as a way to connect Jewish Memphians to each other by showcasing their unique character and contributions to the community.
By Chany Fleischhacker
Dorothy Goldwin
began the “holocaust lecture circuit” with her mother, Paula Beranstadt Kelman,
who was a survivor that spoke at many venues, including high schools, to ensure
that what happened is not forgotten and must be prevented from happening again.
She remembers her mother as a wonderful and highly positive person who always
wore red lipstick.
Leo was given to
her by a friend. As soon as she met him, she knew that his sweet, gentle and
patient nature would lend itself for pet therapy. After intense training, they
regularly visit Le Bonheur and the West Clinic, where patients look forward to
his visits with great anticipation.
When her mother
passed away, Dorothy began and continues to spread her mother’s message.
Dorothy still has her mother’s lipstick collection, and a framed note written
in her mother’s handwriting that says, “Do not hate. It will destroy you. You
must live together in peace.”
Through your donations to our Annual Community Campaign, Memphis Jewish Federation provides scholarships and other support to Jewish summer camps, Jewish schools, and MJCC’s day camp for hundreds of young Jewish Memphians each year, connecting our next generation to meaningful Jewish experiences that shape their future.
Aaron is our summer marketing intern. Learn more about him here, and enjoy his Polaroids featuring his and his fellow counselors’ summer camp shenanigans, published in this piece.
In the summer of 2009, my parents finally caved and let me go to sleepaway camp for the first time. I was eleven years old, and I was in awe of everything around me. I have spent at least part of every single summer since then at camp, as a camper until I was 16, then as a CIT, and as a counselor in later years.
I could not have understood at eleven years old how important camp was going to become for me or the reasons that it would become so important in the first place, but over the course of the past ten years I have begun to understand.
When approaching the topic of summer camp, it is easy to think of long-lost twins or slasher films, and be done with it. When looking at the public perception of summer camp, this is understandable. When this is your starting point it is easy to see why the next logical question would be, “What’s the point of this? Why do we keep doing this?”
The Jewish summer camp experience is recreated and improved every year with no small amount of effort expended. With a growing southern Jewish community it only follows that the growing number of Jewish youth need a growing and developing community to keep themselves plugged into.
Growing up in Memphis, TN, it was easy for me to completely gloss over the fact that many southern cities in America do not have such an abundant Jewish community as Memphis. Whereas Memphis has enough synagogues that it is easy to accidentally forget one off the top of your head, there are many smaller towns and cities nearby with only a single synagogue or none at all.
When the children from these single-synagogue towns arrive at camp for the first time there is every possibility that they are walking into the largest Jewish community that they have ever had the chance to be a part of. All of the sudden, the camp has become more than a camp. It is a petri dish that just so happens to be shaping the region’s Jewish community for the next few decades.
Seen this way, these summer programs become much more crucial in a sense. How do we impress the values of our community upon campers and share the knowledge that is traditionally passed down from one generation to the next before the session is over?
The knowledge that staff at Jewish summer camps have the power and responsibility to shape the minds of younger generations results in two main conclusions:
All of the sudden, the Jewish education and community that these staff members had access to as children becomes very relevant and can become evident through their work ethic and skill sets as a Jewish camp counselor.
The work ethic and quality of the current counselors are going to directly affect the work ethic and quality of the future counselors, who are often the very campers that the current counselors are supervising. (L’dor vador)
With so much potential and responsibility resting on the shoulders of – let’s face it – camp directors and their loyal armies of college-aged counselors, what are the winning results that we are hoping for? Are we hoping that for every camper that comes through a Jewish summer camp there is another Jewish young adult who will begin attending Shabbat services every Saturday morning? Are we trying to ensure that future Jewish community members will speak fluent Hebrew? Or are we trying to ensure the existence of our future Jewish community?
Maybe it’s all of these or maybe it’s only a handful of these reasons for any given camper who finds themselves at camp.
When you walk into a Jewish summer camp, the sense of community can be overwhelming. The sense of community may even overlap and confuse your understanding of the differences between community and family. With such sparse and remote Jewish populations spread so widely around the South, it becomes more important than ever that the communities that are developed and grown in this area be maintained and nurtured.
The campers arriving through the gates during the summer of 2019 definitely look, talk, and act a lot differently from the campers who arrived at camp during the summer of 1970. However, this is not the only change; camp itself has developed and grown, as well as its staff members. It is the responsibility of camp to maintain this steady growth in order to provide campers with a modern framework of Judaism for them to see themselves inside of and begin to live within.
It is for this reason that even the educational content presented by these camps has changed quite a bit. During recent summers, many Jewish summer camps have shifted focus towards the many aspects of social justice and social action.
Jewish topics of conversation can include the conflicts occuring in Israel, the growing LGBTQIA+ populations within Jewish youth, gun control, the prevalence of drugs and alcohol in younger and younger social circles, environmental issues, etc.
Kids taking a break from cell phones and technology for the sake of participating in camp are unable to completely erase their knowledge of the outside world; instead, they are able to use their social and societal context to participate in the programming developed by camp staff members. They are taught to form their own opinions and participate in discussions about topics that many adults might be nervous to breach with them in a more formal setting.
The community that is grown at camp is taught to take care of itself. Campers learn to talk with each other, live with each other, love each other, and take care of each other. In the process, they are given the opportunity to learn about the Torah, to meet Israeli staff members who bring the beauty of Israel to camp with them, to look at the normal summer activities they are a part of through a Jewish lens, and to meet new people their age who are going through the same experiences.
Aaron Salomon, 20, is a rising Junior at the University of Alabama. He is a Creative Advertising major in the College of Communications. This summer he is interning at Jewish Community Partners, contribution articles for the JCPConnect blog. He spends most of his free time reading, drawing, and listening to music. He’s a certified lifeguard, his favorite color is blue, and he’s read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 32 times.
Part of Memphis Jewish Federation’s ongoing efforts to connect Memphis and Israel, the 70 Faces of Memphis and Shoham project was designed to form real connections between the people of Jewish Memphis and the people of Shoham, Israel, Memphis’s partner city through the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership 2Gether program. The project serves as a way to connect Jewish Memphians to each other by showcasing their unique character and contributions to the community.
By Gali Du
Dessie grew up in the small community
of Cager Island, Missouri and attended Washington University. A friend in her
dorm room introduced her to Lester Sewell, and they married a year later on
June 19, 1949. After graduating, the two moved to Memphis, TN. “I’ve been here
going on 67 years.”
In July 2018, Dessie celebrated her 89th
birthday, but her age does not keep her from being an active member of the
community!
“I am a joiner, an attender and a
supporter to the best of my ability.”
She goes to Baron Hirsh most every
Saturday and attends the Torah Portion class weekly. She is still an active
supporter of both the Federation and Hadassah. “I began supporting the United
Jewish Appeal Women’s Division (Federation) during college in 1946. I remember
taking from my allowance— it was $25 for a year.”
In the 60s, she was the vice chairman
for the Federation. “I called people and visited people at their homes to
collect money. My mother-in-law was national vice president, and my daughter
just finished serving as regional president.” She is a part of the Hadassah
book club, in which the members select books to read and meet monthly to
discuss their thoughts. Another group that she supports is Soul to Sole for
Breast Cancer. “I try to support most everything.”
At Baron Hirsch, she was awarded the
Louis Turetsky Chesed Award in recognition of her achievements and dedication
to chesed (acts of kindness) in our community.
“This is what you do, you help other
Jewish people.”
Despair and depression hang on the guarded gates, while the beating wind often knocks the people down into the muddied waters of tears.
More people should have helped fight for the Jews’ freedom.
These impassioned words are taken from poems written by young students in Memphis who learned about the Holocaust in school— and from someone who experienced the atrocities firsthand.
Karen Cooperman, a teacher at Riverwood Elementary, reached out to Jewish Community Partners for help connecting with a Holocaust survivor who could speak to her students. We arranged for 99-year-old survivor Sam Weinreich to come to the school to share his story.
“Sam Weinreich at 99 touched the souls of 10 and 11 year
olds in a way that they will never forget,” said Ms. Cooperman. “He inspired
deep thoughts about the true meaning of the Holocaust and the mark that it left
on our world.”
The impact of Sam’s personal interaction with the students can be seen from the poetry they chose to write in response, as they struggled to make sense of the tragedy of the Holocaust.
It makes me feel like my life’s lowest times cannot compare to this unthinkable memory.
The students illustrated their poems with poignant imagery, including fire, smoke, and ash; tombstones; and yellow stars.
More student artwork was on display last week at the MJCC in
advance of Memphis Jewish Federation’s 57th Annual Yom HaShoah
Commemoration. MJF’s annual Holocaust Art and Essay Competition drew entries
from a diverse array of schools in the Mid-South. Students responded to the
theme “Sustaining Culture and Community: The Many Faces of Resistance in the
Warsaw Ghetto,” drawing from historical source materials to create thoughtful,
evocative artwork and essays. Over 500 people viewed the art exhibit, heard 12th
grade Nashville student Jake Bengelsdorf read his first-place essay, and
listened to the firsthand story of another survivor, 86-year-old Rachel Goldman
Miller, who came in from St. Louis for the observance.
JCP has organized speaking engagements like the one at Riverwood for other schools in the past, and continues to serve as a resource for local teachers interested in bringing Holocaust education to their students in a dynamic way. Survivors and second-generation survivors are available to speak; in one instance, JCP arranged for a second-generation survivor to speak over Skype to students in a Gulf Coast area school. The annual Holocaust Art and Essay Competition is another way for teachers to engage students in intensive study of the Holocaust.
“I find this contest such a great teaching opportunity,”
enthused Hal Harmon, a teacher at Snowden School whose students participate in
the contest annually. “I am honored to know we have had winners for the past
two years!” This year, one of his 8th graders, London Ibrahim, took
home the 3rd place award for her painting, while Snowden student
Noah Broadway won 1st place in last year’s contest.
For more information about the Holocaust Art and Essay
Contest, or to arrange for a survivor to speak to students about the Holocaust,
contact Gila Golder at ggolder@jcpmemphis.org.
Pictured above: Jewish Family Service staff members Mary Elizabeth Jones, Bill Monroe, Teresa Hughes, Audrey May, Rashki Osina, Miriam Cauley-Crisp, and Dale Steele pose for a photo in the JFS Kosher Food Pantry. With the MJCC managing JFS and Memphis Jewish Federation securing the funding through donations from community members, JFS staff can focus on meeting needs in the Memphis Jewish community.
This is a story about a partnership that may not exist in any other community. It’s about two agencies coming together to solve problems that no single agency could tackle alone.
This story isn’t only about Memphis Jewish Federation (MJF)
fundraising or a vital service provided by the Memphis Jewish Community Center
(MJCC). It’s about a commitment that the two largest agencies in our Jewish
community made together five and a half years ago to serve the most vulnerable
people in our community.
Memphis Jewish Federation’s (MJF) 2014 Needs Assessment
Study was an eye-opener, revealing realities across our community that have led
to important changes across multiple agencies. One stark fact emerged about JFS:
the needs of the Jewish community weren’t being fully met. More families were
living in poverty than we knew. Food insecurity was more significant than we
thought. Jewish families didn’t know where to turn for help, special needs
families had no services. We had underestimated the extent of the need.
When JFS approached our organizations looking to partner on
solutions we acted quickly, assembling a task force from professional and lay
leadership at the MJCC, MJF, and JFS. A core partnership coalesced and a new operating
model was hatched. MJCC would operate JFS, and Federation would provide the
funding.
We started rebuilding JFS from scratch, and in year one served
450 Jewish clients. Four years into the partnership we’ve seen remarkable
successes, with record numbers of Jewish families being served. Now, as JFS
evolves to stay ahead of changing needs in a changing community it’s vital that
we rally the Memphis Jewish community to ensure the organization has the
resources it needs to serve families for generations to come.
JFS must find a way to be self-sustainable while remaining
positioned to adapt to shifting needs. We think often of the next generation of
seniors. Today we serve most clients in partnership with local family members but
data hints that in 15 years a disproportionate number of seniors without local
caregivers will rely on the safety net JFS provides on a daily basis. Special
needs adults are also at risk as their parents and siblings age and lose the
ability to provide care. These vulnerable members of our community can’t be set
adrift.
Through our partnership, we can help the community live up
to our obligation as Jews to take care of the needy among us. Because of MJCC’s
management and MJF’s fundraising, 100% of JFS staff is focused on delivering services.
They don’t worry about accounting, HR, marketing, keeping the lights on. We
took all of that out so the team can laser-focus on what they excel at and are
passionate about, which is making sure our Jewish community gets the care
that’s needed.
Because of the careful structure of this partnership, overhead
costs are exceptionally low allowing our senior administrative professional,
Mary Elizabeth Jones, to be hands-on, doing what she does best. As the Director
of JFS, Mary Elizabeth is fully integrated into the senior management team at
the MJCC. Because of this integration we now have eyes and ears with access to
an entire community through the microcosm of the Center and are better able to
offer early interventions to people, preventing small problems from becoming
big crises. It’s now a matter of a phone call and in five minutes someone from
JFS is helping that family.
Our Jewish values teach us that people shouldn’t have to
come and ask for help. Help should be given without having to ask for it. The
talented staff hired to run the new JFS keeps client self-respect at the
forefront. It’s a group of professionals that represent our Jewish community
values, and the spirit of who they are and how they work shows through.
Going forward the key is to position JFS to be self-sufficient, ensuring that we are able to evolve as the needs of the community evolve. We worked hard together to carefully craft a plan that works. We’ll continue to leverage the deep talent at both the MJCC and MJF to empower the expert JFS team to help every Jewish need be met.
This year’s winning entry in Memphis Jewish Federation’s 10th Annual Holocaust Essay contest was written by Nashville resident and Franklin High School 12th Grader Jake Bengelsdorf. He traveled to Memphis to read this essay at Yom HaShoah, which took place Thursday evening.
There is one course of action so powerful that it can defeat any aggressor. Stronger than hatred, and stronger than violence. Stronger than all the hostility and egregious acts the world has to offer. Stronger than the Schutzstaffel, stronger than the Einsatzgruppen. Stronger than the 2100 soldiers, 13 heavy machine guns, 69 handheld machine guns, 135 submachine guns, multiple howitzers, and 1,358 rifles used to destroy the Warsaw Ghetto.
It provides a key to hope and to life in one of the most destitute and savage places on Earth, the Warsaw Ghetto. It sparks hope in the masses and strikes fear in the oppressor. While barrages of Nazi bullets may rain down on the remaining Jewish citizens of the Warsaw Ghetto, their one secret weapon is in their indomitable and inviolable power of resistance. Resistance was not death – but a choice of how to live in the moments before one died.
Resistance had a myriad of faces in the ghetto, constituting not only of those who fought but those who inspired others to do the same. While the Warsaw sky burned red, underneath the rubble the nascent Jewish Combat Organization was born into the most gruesome conditions imaginable. The fighters, led by commander Mordecai Anielwicz, took out 12 Nazi soldiers, initiating the largest and first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe by the most poor, barren, unequipped, emaciated, and bereft populace in Warsaw – David had defeated Goliath once again. These actions inspired Jews in more than 100 ghettos to form underground movements with the goal of escaping the ghetto and revolting. A spark of hope spread like wildfire, a veritable Ner Tamid for the Jewish people in their darkest hour.
When the Nazis seemed
resolute in killing the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jews fought back in
resistance. After weeks of onslaught and aggression, the Jews still fought back
in resistance. And when the Nazis wanted to rid the world of the Jewish religion,
the Jews defied them and celebrated life and tradition in resistance and
resilience. The face of resistance can come from the rugged countenance of a
ZOB fighter, or the gaunt profile of a child studying Torah underground. In
spite of the Nazi’s, Jews taught children, had seders, used raisins and beets
to make wine, and kept kashrut. The practicing Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were
clinging onto their heritage as tightly as they could, and in doing so,
resisted the Final Solution with bravery and fervor.
Seventy-five years later, on a Poland trip
with my summer camp, I was reminded of the Warsaw Ghetto’s unexplainable vigor
at Shabbat services in Warsaw’s Nożyk synagogue, the only surviving prewar shul
in the city. As I took my seat, an aging but spry man with a thick New York
accent sat next to me and asked for a siddur – he was a Warsaw Ghetto survivor
who escaped as a child to the Aryan side of the city. I sat in awe as he got up
later to lead Musaf with a profound energy that could have come from an Olympic
athlete. His kavanah and ruach dumbfounded me, as I knew he was praying for
every one of his peers who didn’t get the chance to pray. Praying for the souls
that were lost on this very ground. Praying, in resistance.
To understand the Holocaust, to
understand the survivors, and to understand their memories carried on by this
man, one must not only analyze the tribulations of the Jewish people – but how
they resisted, and how they lived with vitality in the moments before they
died.
95-year-old Warren Kramer, pictured above in his youth with his parents and grandparents, spends the colder half of each year in Memphis with his daughter, Adina Samberg, and her family, living in New York City with his other daughter Evelyn Moskowitz for the spring and summer months.
Jewish Community
Partners recently had the privilege to sit with Warren and his friends in the
Senior Lunch Bunch, who gather on weekdays at the Memphis Jewish Community
Center for the Memphis Jewish Federation-funded Scheidt-Hohenberg Hot Meal
Program.
With Federation’s Yom HaShoah Commemoration coming up on May 2, we wanted to talk with Warren before he left Memphis for New York, to hear first-hand his story that begins with escaping the Holocaust by way of the Kindertransport. Here is his story in his words.
I was born in Nuremberg, Germany June 9, 1924. Luckily, I
got out on the Kindertransport, to England five weeks before the war. When I
got to England, I didn’t know where to go. I had two years of high school English
and I had a pocket dictionary. Any word I didn’t know I would look up.
There was a refugee committee representative at the railroad
station who called a cab from a cabstand, put a tag on me, and told the driver
“take this boy to this address. The lady there will pay his fare.”
I didn’t know the people, a Jewish family. I was 15. This
was five weeks before the war and two days before Germany invaded Poland. Soon,
all the schools were evacuated from London. They expected bombing. So all the
schools closed, and I was evacuated again.
It was English kids too, not just refugees. So, we went to
the countryside, didn’t know where we were going, on a train. They took about a
million and a half children that day. All the cities, big cities, a big
operation. The train station was full of parents and kids, like summer camp.
We ended up in a place called Ealy, fifteen miles from Cambridge.
They took us around the little town of 10,000. No Jews living there. When I got
to the house, I remember it was a Friday, I said right away to the lady of the
house: “I want you to know I’m Jewish.” I knew nobody was Jewish living there.
She said: “As long as you believe in God, I have no problem.” Wonderful people.
They were very poor. They were very kind. So, they were my
family. After the war we stayed in touch. My wife and I visited their children,
because the parents passed away. But they took care of me. One of their
daughters wrote my parents a letter. She said she considered me like their
brother. I was accepted in the family. I stayed in England 8 years, without my
parents.
I learned printing at the school there, and when I learned
that I liked that, it became my occupation. I got a job in Cambridge, for two
years I worked in the printing press. First I commuted by train, a twenty
minute train ride. Then I wanted to take some night classes in Cambridge so I
moved there, staying with a man and wife. That was okay, but my English family
was still back in Ealy. So, sometimes weekends I would go and spend with them.
That was my family.
Then after working two years I joined the British Army, in
1943. I was 19 years old. As I was still a German citizen, the British Army did
not make us citizens. They did not send me out of England, because I was a
danger, I was still a German citizen.
I was in the English Army four years. For two years, I
worked in vehicle maintenance. When they came from the factory they were stored
in a big park, 2,000 vehicles, all kinds of makes. They would requisition
fifteen of these trucks, they needed this or that. Before they went out, my job
was to change the oil, check the tires.
In October, we had to go around and drain the water from the
radiators, so they wouldn’t freeze. Some of the taps had rusted and water
wouldn’t come out, so we had to poke a wire. And then in the spring, we had to
fill them up again. I did that for two years.
Then for two years I worked in the office and did the
payroll. Three hundred men I had to pay every week in cash. It felt good to
contribute to the war effort. That’s all I wanted to do.
The war ended in 1945 but we weren’t discharged at the same
time. They went according to two criteria; age and service. The older ones got
out first, and the ones who served the longest got out. I had to stay two more
years. In the meantime the war ended, my parents were released and they wanted
to come to America.
My parents had been sent to Theresienstadt, in
Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) which wasn’t an extermination camp. It was
like a work camp. My grandmother went with them and she was too old to work and
was sent to Auschwitz. My father worked in the office, my mother in the
kitchen.
When they were released, there were 37 survivors from
Nuremberg in that camp. A friend of mine that was there got himself to
Nuremberg where we used to live and he arranged for a Jewish nursing home there
to be made into apartments for those survivors. My parents lived there for
about a year. They had their own apartment, their home. It was not bad, but it
wasn’t great.
My father had an interesting job in the American Zone for an
organization that was called Denazification. Any German that wanted to work for
the Americans, they investigated their background to see how bad they were and
if they were bad they were rejected because the Americans didn’t want them.
Meanwhile, somebody from headquarters came to inspect my
books and said I was doing a good job and asked if I would consider staying in
the army. I applied for British citizenship, but never heard anything and forgot
about it. All of a sudden they said: “We want you in London about your
citizenship.” I didn’t want it anymore.
I got there, and met five or six guys, all officers sitting
and dressed properly, very official. And I wanted to tell them before they
started that I don’t want it anymore, I want to go to America. So I said: “May
I say something?”
“You speak when we tell you to speak!” That’s the army. Okay, whatever. So they went through the whole thing and they said: “Do you promise to stay in the country with all your possessions for at least six months” and I said no. “We worked so hard. We invested in your background for months,” and everything. They really got mad.
A stock photo of typical British Army officers of the era.
I was in touch with my parents who had come to America
already, and when I was discharged from the army in 1947, I went to America. New
York.
The British government had a policy. Any non-citizen who
serves in the military, they arrange free transportation to any country they
want to go to. Not only was it free, it was arranged. I got a letter I have to
report to a boat near London in uniform. Upstairs was first class, downstairs
we slept in hammocks. There were a lot of Canadians, going back home. This boat
went to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It took five days. A British Army officer came on
board and handed me a railroad ticket to New York. Arranged, paid for, and
everything.
I reunited with my family in New York, and as my parents
were talking to me they thought I was still 15, because of the years that had
passed. As we’re talking, I say “I’m not 15 anymore.”
So, we live there for seven years and then at age 30 I get married and my wife and I live in New York. I got a job in printing in New York. Incidentally, because of working in Cambridge for two years, I get a pension from them. A government pension. I still get it, with a cost of living increase. Not that much.
Warren married Elsbeth seven years after arriving in New York.
I live in Memphis only six months out of the year. Eight or
nine years ago I started coming to Memphis for six months. I like the JCC very
much here. The lunches, the people. In New York, completely different. No JCC I
go to. But, I like in New York getting around by public transportation. Visit my
friends. I don’t have that in Memphis. Here, they don’t walk. They walk to the
car here.
