Uncategorized
U.N. exhibit remembers when the world turned its back on stateless Jewish refugees
(New York Jewish Week) — In 2017, Deborah Veach went back to Germany, looking for the site of the displaced persons camp where she and her parents had been housed after World War II. They were in suspension, between the lives her parents led in Belarus before they were shattered by the Nazis, and the unknown fate awaiting them as refugees without a country.
To her dismay, and despite the fact that Foehrenwald was one of the largest Jewish DP centers in the American-controlled zone of Germany, she found barely a trace. A complex that once included a yeshiva, a police force, a fire brigade, a youth home, a theater, a post office and a hospital was remembered by almost no one except a local woman who ran a museum in a former bath house.
“It was sort of an accident of history that we were there in that particular camp in Germany, of all places, with no ties, no extended family, no place to call home,” said Veach, who was born at Foehrenwald in 1949 and lives in New Jersey. Now, “they renamed it. They changed the names of all the streets. There is nothing recognizable about the fact that it had been a DP camp.”
Veach is part of a now-aging cohort of children born or raised in the DP camps, the last with a first-hand connection to the experience of some 250,000 Jewish survivors who passed through them at the end of the war. To make sure memories of the camps survive them, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the United Nations Department of Global Communications have staged a short-term exhibit, “After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps.”
On display at U.N. headquarters in New York City Jan. 10 through Feb. 23, it is intended to illuminate “how the impact of the Holocaust continued to be felt after the Second World War ended and the courage and resilience of those that survived in their efforts to rebuild their lives despite having lost everything,” according to a press release.
Residents of a displaced persons camp in Salzburg, Austria. Undated, post-Second World War. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
Among the artifacts on display are dolls created by Jewish children and copies of some of the 70-odd newspapers published by residents, as well as photographs of weddings, theatrical performances, sporting events and classroom lessons.
The exhibit is “about the displaced persons themselves, about their lives and their hopes and their dreams, their ambitions, their initiatives,” said Debórah Dwork, who directs the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center-CUNY, who served as the scholar adviser for the exhibition.
“There’s no point where the residents of these DP camps were just sitting around waiting for other people to do things for them,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “They took initiative and developed a whole range of cultural and educational programs.”
As early as 1943, as the war displaced millions of people, dozens of nations came to Washington and signed onto the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Authority. (Despite its name, it preceded the founding of the U.N.) After the war, the British and U.S. military were in charge of supplying food, protection and medical care in hundreds of camps throughout Germany and Austria, and UNRRA administered the camps on a day-to-day basis.
Early on, Jewish Holocaust survivors — some who suffered in concentration camps, others who had escaped into the Soviet Union — were put in DP camps alongside their former tormentors, until the U.S. agreed to place them in separate compounds. Unable or unwilling to return to the countries where they had lost relatives, property and any semblance of a normal life, they began a waiting game, as few countries, including the United States, were willing to take them in, and Palestine was being blockaded by the British.
Abiding antisemitism was not the only reason they remained stateless. “Jews were [accused of being] subversives, communists, rebels, troublemakers, and the world war quickly gave way to cold war, and with it the notion that Hitler had been defeated and what we have to worry about is the communists,” David Nasaw, author of “The Last Million,” a history of the displaced persons, told the New York Jewish week in 2020.
In 1948 and 1950, Congress grudgingly passed legislation that allowed 50,000 Jewish survivors and their children to come to the United States. The rest were eventually able to go to Israel, after its independence in 1948.
The U.N. exhibit focuses less on this macro history — which includes what became another refugee crisis for the Palestinians displaced by Israel’s War for Independence — than on life in the DP camps.
“The exhibition illustrates how the displaced persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said Jonathan Brent, chief executive officer at YIVO, in a statement.
Among those rebuilding their lives were Max Gitter and his parents, Polish Jews who had the perverse good luck of being exiled to Siberia during the war. The family made its way to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, where Gitter was born in 1943. After the war ended, his parents returned to Poland, but repelled by antisemitism sought refuge in the American zone in Germany. They spent time in the Ainring DP camp, a former Luftwaffe base on the Austrian border, and at a small camp called Lechfeld, about 25 miles west of Munich.
Dolls made by stateless Jewish children residing in a DP camp near Florence, Italy, known as “Kibbutz HaOved.” The dolls are attired in local costumes based on the districts of the Tuscan city of Sienna. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“I was there until we came to the United States when I was six and a half, so I have some very distinct memories and some hazy memories,” said Gitter, emeritus director and vice chair of the YIVO board. One story he hasn’t forgotten is how his father and a friend were walking through the camp when they came upon a long line of people. “They were from the Soviet Union, so they knew that when there’s a line that it might be of interest.” It turned out to be a line for the lottery that would allow them to get into the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.
The family came to the United States in 1950, to “pretty shabby lodgings” in the Bronx, before his father bought a candy store and moved to Queens. Max went on to attend Harvard College and Yale Law School, and became a corporate litigator.
Gitter’s brother was born in one of the camps, and the exhibit includes a poster depicting the population increase between 1946 and 1947 at the Jewish DP center Bad Reichenhall. The birthrate in the camps has often been described as evidence of the optimism and defiance of the survivors, but Dwork said the truth is somewhat more complicated.
“There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. This is the age group of reproductive age, at 20 to 40,” she said. “However, this image of fecundity hides what was rumored to be a significant abortion rate, too. And women had experienced years of starvation. Menstruation had only recently recommenced. So many women, in fact, miscarried or had trouble conceiving to begin with.”
A chart by artist O. Lec depicts the natural population increase of the Jewish Center Bad Reichenhall, Germany, 1946-1947. There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“There is no silver lining here,” she added. “People live life on many levels. On the one hand, DPs look to the future and look with hope; at the same time, they carry tremendous burdens of pain and suffering and trauma and trepidations about the future.”
Veach, a member of the YIVO board, hopes visitors to the exhibit understand that such trauma is hardly a thing of the past.
“I think the real lesson is that history keeps repeating itself,” said Veach, growing emotional. “Basically we have DPs on our border with Mexico, you have DPs from Ukraine. I don’t think people realize the repercussions for these people who are trying to find a place to live. These are good people who are just placed where they are by history.”
Gitter, who like Veach will speak at an event Jan. 24 at the U.N. marking the exhibit, also hopes “After the End of the World” prods the consciences of visitors.
“A lot of the countries, a lot of places, including the United States, would not accept Jews after the war,” he said. “The issue of memory, the issue of statelessness, the issue of finally there was some hope for the Jews in their immigration to Israel and the United States — that part of the story also needs to be told.”
“After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps” is on view from Jan. 10-Feb. 23, 2023, at the United Nations Headquarters, 405 E 42nd St, New York, Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Entrance to the United Nations Visitor Centre in New York is free, but there are requirements for all visitors. See the United Nations Visitor Centre entry guidelines.
—
The post U.N. exhibit remembers when the world turned its back on stateless Jewish refugees appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Shower, shelter, swipe: Israel’s ‘startup nation’ meets Iran war with a wave of apps
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — Smartphones have become as essential as shelters for Israelis riding out Iran’s missile attacks, with internet traffic up 25% since the war began on Saturday. From the screaming alerts of the military’s official app that, as one comedian put it, sound like a “baby dragon giving birth,” to bomb-shelter Tinder to multiple apps that tell you when it’s safe to shower, the startup nation is trying to digitize the panic into something more manageable.
At the serious end of the wartime app stack is Home Front Command, the Israeli army’s app available in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. It uses GPS to figure out where you are and only pings you when your area is at risk, with separate alerts for rockets, missiles and terror incidents. In this war, Iran’s long-range fire has come with an extra layer of notice, a warning-before-the-warning that can buy people a few more minutes. The shorter-range threats from Hezbollah, which joined the fray on Tuesday, do not come with that same courtesy.
Bomb Shelter Locator turns shelter-seeking into a map exercise, listing around 20,000 official sites, offering offline city maps and walking routes, and estimating the time it will take to reach the nearest protected space.
For anyone who cannot sprint, Purple Vest tries to close the gap. People with disabilities or older residents can register in advance and request help during alerts, with volunteers using the app to locate them and assist with shelter access or urgent supplies.
For others, shelters are turning into accidental social spaces where people can meet-cute on a mattress. The Hooked app, originally built for speed-dating at events, now doubles as a bomb-shelter icebreaker. Shelter-goers post a QR code at the entrance, and singles who scan it can see who else in the same bunker has the same relationship status. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee — who has not been single since high school — shared it on X alongside the caption: “Someday they will tell their kids ‘we met on a dating app in a shelter while dodging ballastic [sic] missiles.’”
But for some, even showering has become its own risk calculation. Martine Berkowitz was one of many who vented after her attempts to scrub up were interrupted by missiles no less than five times on the second day of the war.
For software developer Ben Greenberg, a father of teenagers, Berkowitz’s complaint was familiar, so he built an app called Best Shower Time that spits out a percentage risk score on whether a shower is likely to be interrupted by an alert.
Posts about it spread on social media and what began as a tool for his family is now drawing about 5,000 visitors a day. Greenberg, a California native who immigrated to Israel from New York in 2018, insists it’s “not a joke app.”
“Sirens are just the ultimate example of lack of control in one’s life,” he said, describing the app as a way to “restore some level of control and predictability … in a time when that feels most vulnerable and most taken away from us.”
The app uses real-time alert data from the Home Front Command, and the score is based on four inputs: how long it has been since the last alert, the average gap between alerts over a six-hour window, whether the frequency is trending up or down, and the total alert count over the past 24 hours. Those are weighted into a single score that appears when you open the app.
Users can then set their own parameters, including how long a shower typically takes and how much buffer time they want afterward to dry off and reach shelter.
And for those who have a penchant for extended bathroom breaks, Greenberg added a separate option that relies on the same logic.
It’s not the only app homing on issues of basic cleanliness to emerge this week. Another app, Can I Shower Now?, has developed a following of its own.
Berkowitz said she was “grateful” for apps to help her navigate the question of whether to jump in the shower. After checking and seeing a 13% chance of a missile alert on Wednesday afternoon, she decided to risk it.
“I took a full 20-minute hot shower and washed my hair. It was lovely. And the next warning only came when I was finished and getting dressed,” she said.
Greenberg is piloting a new app, called Best Walking Time, based on the same principle and prompted by his wife, who regularly walks around the neighborhood during work calls but has been afraid to stray from home lest a missile head their way.
The post Shower, shelter, swipe: Israel’s ‘startup nation’ meets Iran war with a wave of apps appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Gavin Newsom says some ‘appropriately’ call Israel an ‘apartheid state’ while questioning US military aid
(JTA) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom provided sharp criticism of the Israeli government during an interview this week, suggesting that he agreed with claims that it is an “apartheid state” and questioning U.S. military aid to the country.
Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential candidate, offered his rebuke of the Israeli government during an event on Tuesday with the hosts of “Pod Save America,” a political podcast, while promoting his new memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery.”
During the conversation, while suggesting that Israel’s alleged influence over the United State’s strikes in Iran was “pretty damn self-evident,” Newsom took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The issue of Bibi is interesting because he’s got his own domestic issues. He’s trying to stay out of jail, he’s got an election coming up, he’s potentially on the ropes, he’s got folks, the hard line, that want to annex the West Bank,” said Newsom, adding that “others are talking about it appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.”
When a host of the podcast asked Newsom whether he believed the United States should consider “rethinking our military support for Israel,” the California governor replied, “It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in Israel is walking us down that path where I don’t think you have a choice.”
Newsom’s comments come shortly after the politician vowed he would “never” accept AIPAC funding, a stance that has increasingly become a litmus test for Democratic candidates amid record low support for Israel among its base.
While Newsom has been vocal in his critiques of Netanyahu in the past, saying earlier this year that he is “crystal clear in my love for Israel — and my condemnation of Bibi,” his latest comments signal a notable shift in tone as he adopts a more openly critical stance on Israel amid growing pressure from the Democratic party.
“I didn’t expect to be in that place, you know, a few years ago, let alone, you know, where we are today, and it’s accelerating in real time in a deeply, deeply alarming way,” said Newsom.
Calls to strip U.S. military aid from Israel have gained traction among progressive Democrats in recent months, with a record number of Senate Democrats voting to block weapons sales to Israel in July.
In January, Netanyahu said for the first time that he wanted to “taper off” U.S. military aid to Israel over the next decade, a goal that was quickly welcomed by South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham as pockets of the Republican party have grown increasingly skeptical of U.S. aid to Israel.
The post Gavin Newsom says some ‘appropriately’ call Israel an ‘apartheid state’ while questioning US military aid appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Andrea Weiss, trailblazing Reform rabbi who merged scholarship and activism, dies at 60
(JTA) — Rabbi Andrea Weiss, a former provost of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who made history as the first woman to ordain rabbis in the Reform movement, has died.
Weiss died on Tuesday surrounded by family at her home in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, following a year-long battle with cancer. She was 60.
“Andrea brought lev shalem — a whole heart to everything she did,” Cantor Jill Abramson, HUC’s interim head of seminary and director of its Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, said in a statement. “Whether in a classroom or a hallway discussion, she has always been a model of what it means to live a life guided by scholarship and sacred purpose. We will miss her presence in these halls and hold her family in our prayers.”
Weiss’ death strikes another blow for the leadership of the Reform movement, which has also buried two leaders of HUC who died prematurely while Weiss worked there — Rabbi Aaron Panken, then the seminary’s president, in 2018, and Rabbi David Ellenson, its past president, in 2023. The school of sacred music, meanwhile, is named for another luminary of the movement who died prematurely at 59 in 2011.
Born on Sept. 9, 1965, Weiss was raised in San Diego where her family belonged to Temple Emanu-El. In 1987, Weiss received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and was ordained as a rabbi at HUC in 1993.
Weiss joined the HUC faculty in 2000 alongside Rabbi Lisa Grant, who served as the director of the school’s rabbinical program.
“There was actually four of us, four women, who started at the same time, and we really changed the whole gender balance of the faculty, which was very exciting and thinking about, long term potential of what that would mean for the culture of the school,” Grant told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
During her tenure at the school, Weiss led multiple initiatives including a curricular redesign, the launch of the Virtual Pathway for Rabbinical students and the creation of the Seminary Hebrew Program.
Weiss taught several courses at the school, including “The Poetry and Power of the Psalms,” “Literary Artistry of the Bible” and “Teaching Bible to Adult Learners,” a course she co-taught with Grant beginning in 2003.
“Rabbi Weiss has been a transformative presence at Hebrew Union College for more than two decades,” said the school’s current president, Andrew Rehfeld, in a statement. “Her scholarship, vision, and fierce commitment to the formation of Jewish clergy have shaped this institution in ways that will endure for generations. We are grateful beyond measure for her service and hold her and her loved ones in our hearts.”
Weiss received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, where her research centered on metaphor and biblical poetry, scholarship that informed her later work including her 2006 book, “Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel.”
In 2008, Weiss won the National Jewish Book Awards Book of the Year as the associate editor of “The Torah: A Women’s Commentary,” the first comprehensive collection of Torah commentary written entirely by female scholars. Sen. Elissa Slotkin chose the text to be sworn in on last year.
In 2016 and 2020, Weiss led a nonpartisan, interfaith initiative titled “American Values, Religious Voices” that brought together 100 faith leaders to write letters to former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump as well as Congress during the first 100 days of their administrations. The letters were later published as two books.
Weiss described the initiative at the time as “a national, nonpartisan campaign created from the conviction that scholars who study and teach our diverse religious traditions have something important to say about our shared American values.”
Grant said Weiss offered a model of Jewish engagement that was validated by the ancient rabbis.
“There’s a great Talmudic debate about which is more important, which is greater, study or action, and the rabbis have this back and forth about it, and in the end, they conclude study because it leads to action,” Grant said. “She certainly lived that, that her study and her teaching led her to be an activist as well.”
In 2018, Weiss was appointed as HUC’s provost, becoming the first female rabbi to ordain rabbis in the Reform movement.
Grant said the honor was “extraordinarily meaningful and very heavy” for Weiss.
“She would make the time every year to meet individually for an hour with every single student, to hear about their story, their journey, their learning,” said Grant. “And she would craft that into a short blessing upon ordination.”
As news of Weiss’ death spread on Tuesday, many of her former students and rabbis whom she ordained eulogized her on social media.
“Rabbi Andrea Weiss helped me to grasp and appreciate biblical poetry in a way that nobody else could,” wrote Evan Schultz, the senior rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in a post on Facebook. “Her wisdom helped shape me as a rabbi and a writer. She was brilliant, kind, and genuine.”
Rabbi Binyamin Minich, the leader of Kehilat Daniel in Tel Aviv, recalled in a post on Facebook being a part of Weiss’ first ordination cohort.
“I remember this feeling of awe, understanding that our 2019 cohort of Israeli Rabbinical Program alumni would be the first ordained by a woman,” wrote Minich. “That meant the idea of women being rabbis settled fully in the Jewish contemporary life and ascended to a next level. It was the real proof of [lalmud velelemed leshmor vela’ashot] – ‘to study and to teach, to preserve and to act.’”
Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein, the executive director of Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation, recalled connecting with Weiss in 2019 in Jerusalem and hearing about a bar mitzvah project Weiss had helped organize for her son. The project brought his baseball team to Cuba, where they donated equipment and met with locals.
“It was a big project that they did that was really inspirational; it inspired my son, Ami, to do a baseball-related mitzvah project for his bar mitzvah,” said Epstein. “Definitely not as ambitious as theirs, but Rabbi Weiss really taught me both Torah and the living Torah, of how to turn what you care about and your interests into tzedakah and action in the world.”
Weiss is survived by her husband Alan; her two children, Rebecca and Ilan; her father, Marty; her siblings, Mitch, Laura and Roger; her sister-in-law Catherine; and her nieces, nephews and cousins.
The post Andrea Weiss, trailblazing Reform rabbi who merged scholarship and activism, dies at 60 appeared first on The Forward.