Thememorygame
Digital recording of the ARI’s historical membership register
Heritage and History (H&H) and the Associação Religiosa Israelita do Rio de Janeiro (ARI) are collaborating to digitally record the historical membership register of the German-Jewish community of Rio de Janeiro from the 1940s. The digitization of this index creates a collection of information about a specific group whose history has not yet been adequately evaluated and researched in the context of the immigration movements of the Jewish population in the 20th century. The data collection of individuals and the resulting creation of their biographies enable a better understanding of their own fate and that of their family members, but at the same time also knowledge about the fate of certain population groups.
Women in solidarity: a network woven by many hands
Froien Farain’s 100 years tell several stories. Recording these stories in a commemorative publication is also recording the memory of the Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. The bilingual publication (Portuguese and English), launched on August 25, 2024, shows that Froien Farain activists are today, individually and collectively, an important link in the Jewish heritage and tradition of solidarity and women’s participation. Brazil had just celebrated its 100 years of independence and the young Republic, free from slavery, reorganized its society, with more integration and religious freedom. In the federal capital, new public and private buildings transformed Rio into the Marvelous City and the migratory flow intensified, with the arrival of ships bringing immigrants from all over the world, including a considerable number of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In this context, immigrant Jewish women, gathered for the first time in 1923, organized themselves into a society and...
Women in solidarity: a network woven by many hands
Froien Farain’s 100 years tell several stories. Recording these stories in a commemorative publication is also recording the memory of the Jewish community in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. The bilingual publication (Portuguese and English), launched on August 25, 2024, shows that Froien Farain activists are today, individually and collectively, an important link in the Jewish heritage and tradition of solidarity and women’s participation. Brazil had just celebrated its 100 years of independence and the young Republic, free from slavery, reorganized its society, with more integration and religious freedom. In the federal capital, new public and private buildings transformed Rio into the Marvelous City and the migratory flow intensified, with the arrival of ships bringing immigrants from all over the world, including a considerable number of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In this context, immigrant Jewish women, gathered for the first time in 1923, organized themselves into a society and...
Integrity and integration: Jews in Brazilian society
Significant, although imprecise, are the years of Jewish presence in Brazil. They can vary according to the chosen count: whether since the period of the Great Navigations, or because of the Inquisition in the Iberian Peninsula, or Moroccan immigration, or because of the tsarist, Nazi, communist persecutions… or when they left in search of a prosperous and secure future for themselves and their descendants. Jews, who always moved through the Old World, also found their way to the New World. The presence of Jews in Brazil was often undesired and, in a way, invalidated, for reasons beyond the way in which they pragmatically related to the country: raising their children, learning the language, incorporating habits, founding institutions for the common good and companies, enabling the present and sowing the future. From the Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig (Vienna, 1881 – Petrópolis, 1942) is the expression “Brazil, Country of the future”....
The Haberers: an example of continuity
Originally from the Offenburg region, the Haberer family settled in Konstanz, in southern Germany, in the 19th century. There, Leo Haberer, started his shoe business at Bodanstrasse 22-26. Today, just as at the beginning of the century, Konstanz (Germany) and Kreuzlingen (Switzerland) are border cities and, in the daily lives of their inhabitants, there is, in fact, no barrier: Swiss and Germans share bus lines, cultural and sports centers and move from one place to the other for leisure and business. This situation was only suspended twice: first, during the years of the National Socialist regime, with the installation of a physical border that interrupted this exchange and recently during the COVID19-pandemic. During and after World War I, several Jewish families migrated from Konstanz to Kreuzlingen in search of better business opportunities and, probably, Switzerland’s wartime neutrality. This migration grew from 1933 with the installation of the Nazi regime, increased...
Jews in Brazil: immigration and diversity
Given the importance of expanding museum collections that represent the different facettes of the Brazilian historical experience, the project “Jews in Brazil: immigration and diversity” aims to develop a critical look at the collection of the National Historical Museum (MHN, Museu Histórico Nacional) from the point of view of the history of Jews in Brazil and build a collection of three-dimensional objects, valuing the material culture of the immigration experience and construction processes of Jewish communities in Brazil. These communities, due to their ethnic diversity and origin, mark culturally and historically the Brazilian society, being an important element of “brasilinidade” (Brazilianness) little represented in the current MHN collection. The National Historical Museum was created in 1922 as part of the celebrations of the centenary of Brazilian Independence. Its first collections indicated a way of reading history that praised military, religious, and national state achievements and those of its government agents....
Family destinies: the letters to Ruth Springer
Gerhard Springer was born on March 22, 1889 in Culmsee, today’s Poland (Chełmża). His family represented a standard German Jewish family that, in the 19th century as a result of Hazkala (Jewish Enlightenment), was included in German society, assimilated its cultural and social values and enjoyed full citizenship in its cities. The engagement of German Jews in World War I reflected this movement. In his letters from the front to his family and his sister Ruth, Gerhard dealt with everyday matters, such as on March 16, 1915: “Dear parents! I would like to draw your attention that yesterday on a night march I had to stay behind because of my backpack, which was very heavy. The next day, I fell ill due to tachycardia and now I was prescribed rest. Within 10 days, I received 40 packages from you and another forty from I don’t know who, that makes 80...
A righteous man, blameless was Noah in his generation
Genesis is pure poetry. It is to be read countless times and, with each reading, a new layer, a new meaning, is revealed. The density of the book of Genesis is a challenge to matter and physics. As liberal Jews, we extract from the text that takes us beyond what is written there. We take off from literality and take the flight of comprehension and understanding with contemporary times as a backdrop. Parasha Noah is full of important matrices that have both inspired Hollywood epics and are indispensable symbols in our contemporary world. Everything happens in Noah: the regenerating flood on an Earth given over to injustice and corruption; the ruin of the Tower of Babel that generates confusion and misunderstanding; the mention of Abram and Sarai even before they became the patriarch Abraham and the matriarch Sarah; the dove with the olive branch – symbol of Peace on Earth...
The drama of the museums and the duality of Memory
The spiritual aspect of our existence is based on an ancestral connection, through a shared past and an immaterial present, invoked and bestowed by a supernatural being. The expression “our God and God of our patriarchs and our matriarchs” reveals this timeless and continuous connection, with origin and without end. Spirituality, as known or desired by human beings, is independent of our ingenuity. The material world, however, is the elementary manifestation of the human ability to create and experience, to express oneself and relate to one’s surroundings and fellow human beings. The production of a screw or a painting is a result of our particular ability to observe, understand and interact. Objects of ceremonial or ritual use are found at the tangent of these two worlds, the spiritual and the material. They are our reminders of an untouchable layer of existence. In Judaism, these objects are not intrinsically sacred. They are definitely...
The Kiddush Cup
The presence of the cup among the objects of Judaica is due solely to the fact that it is the container in which wine is located. Wine was first mentioned in the Talmud in a lengthy discussion about the order of blessing over the fruits of the vine, and from that time the custom of drinking it after prayers remained. It was only under the influence of Hellenism that wine was used in religious services in the Temple of Jerusalem. Until then it was only poured onto the altars of the sanctuary as a libation ritual. The fact that the (Kiddush) cup contained one of the most famous and popular drinks made it necessary to pay special attention to it. From the simplest to the most sophisticated materials and techniques were used, from the Far East to Western countries. The ceremonial cup is always on the Jewish table and ritual:...
The night of broken hearts and scattered glass
Only from the 19th century onwards did Jews begin to enjoy civil rights in some duchies and counties and principalities that constituted the Union of German Nations. At the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte brought to the territories he conquered in this conglomerate of states a set of equal rights for all, which were maintained with German unification in 1871 and ratified with the Weimar Republic in 1918. To understand the mindset, the mentality of many of the Jews who lived in Germany, and the process that culminated in the Night of Broken Glass (or Night of Shards), Kristallnacht, it is important to elucidate some concepts about the way of life in Germany, and recap events of the ARI community and its members, relating them to historical events. The advantages of belonging to a nation were many for those Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The...
Jews in Brazil: immigration and diversity
Given the importance of expanding museum collections that represent the different facettes of the Brazilian historical experience, the project “Jews in Brazil: immigration and diversity” aims to develop a critical look at the collection of the National Historical Museum (MHN, Museu Histórico Nacional) from the point of view of the history of Jews in Brazil and build a collection of three-dimensional objects, valuing the material culture of the immigration experience and construction processes of Jewish communities in Brazil. These communities, due to their ethnic diversity and origin, mark culturally and historically the Brazilian society, being an important element of “brasilinidade” (Brazilianness) little represented in the current MHN collection. The National Historical Museum was created in 1922 as part of the celebrations of the centenary of Brazilian Independence. Its first collections indicated a way of reading history that praised military, religious, and national state achievements and those of its government agents....
Love is in the air. The choice between what we attract and what we reject
Our Rio, Brazil, the world, we have changed in recent years. Our family relationships have expanded, our relationships have transformed, our environment has transfigured. (Western) humanity allows itself a more tolerant and welcoming outlook towards minorities, customs and cultures. We want to include everyone, sometimes challenging our beliefs and our knowledge about our society, which have crystallized over decades, centuries or millennia. But are we really that open today, in contrast to the world that was bequeathed to us? Our experience of the past is the historians’ reading of what was once reality and what we filter through our current perspective. Thus, we constitute ourselves as free men and women (Weltmensch), conscious citizens (Freidenker), liberal Jews. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment forced us to see the world through the eyes of reason. The veil of sensations, magic, superstitions and beliefs was lifted by the new and sunny attitude of facing...
Rabbi Dr. Lemle’s life and work
Rabbi Dr. Lemle started his career as a Rabbi in Mannheim, Germany, on April 1st, 1933 – the day of the boycott of Jewish establishments, businesses, doctors and lawyers’ practices. His uncle, father of his future wife Margot, was one of the first victims of Nazi persecution during a pogrom in Creglingen at the end of March of 1933. Hired by the Liberal Congregation in Frankfurt am Main in 1934, Lemle was the first ever Rabbi for the Youth in Germany and worked there until his deportation to the KZ Buchenwald as a consequence of the pogrom in the night from 9th to 10th of November, known as Reichspogromnacht, mostly referred as Kristallnacht. He could be saved from Buchenwald through the intervention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (London) and could escape to England, where he later again was interned as „enemy alien“ in a camp after the outburst of the...
The Haberers: an example of continuity
Originally from the Offenburg region, the Haberer family settled in Konstanz, in southern Germany, in the 19th century. There, Leo Haberer, started his shoe business at Bodanstrasse 22-26. Today, just as at the beginning of the century, Konstanz (Germany) and Kreuzlingen (Switzerland) are border cities and, in the daily lives of their inhabitants, there is, in fact, no barrier: Swiss and Germans share bus lines, cultural and sports centers and move from one place to the other for leisure and business. This situation was only suspended twice: first, during the years of the National Socialist regime, with the installation of a physical border that interrupted this exchange and recently during the COVID19-pandemic. During and after World War I, several Jewish families migrated from Konstanz to Kreuzlingen in search of better business opportunities and, probably, Switzerland’s wartime neutrality. This migration grew from 1933 with the installation of the Nazi regime, increased...
Love is in the air. The choice between what we attract and what we reject
Our Rio, Brazil, the world, we have changed in recent years. Our family relationships have expanded, our relationships have transformed, our environment has transfigured. (Western) humanity allows itself a more tolerant and welcoming outlook towards minorities, customs and cultures. We want to include everyone, sometimes challenging our beliefs and our knowledge about our society, which have crystallized over decades, centuries or millennia. But are we really that open today, in contrast to the world that was bequeathed to us? Our experience of the past is the historians’ reading of what was once reality and what we filter through our current perspective. Thus, we constitute ourselves as free men and women (Weltmensch), conscious citizens (Freidenker), liberal Jews. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment forced us to see the world through the eyes of reason. The veil of sensations, magic, superstitions and beliefs was lifted by the new and sunny attitude of facing...
We were ourselves foreigners in the land of Egypt
The text of this parasha puts me in a slightly delicate situation, as it brings laws, rules – mishpatim. Not that I don’t appreciate them and don’t like order and discipline. It’s no surprise that I studied to be a graphic designer, putting texts, colors and images in order. But I am generally bothered by certain applications of laws as commanded in the Torah, either by their rigor dating back centuries or millennia, or by their lack of contemporaneity or context. Therefore, I am a faithful defender of the approach appropriate to our time and moment. But especially this excerpt from the Torah brings something not only very current, but also fundamental for the formation of the ethical conduct of the Jewish people at any time: dealing with others who are in a less privileged situation than you, either because they are so, or because this situation was caused by...
Who are we in this moment?
This week’s reading of the parasha, Pinchas, drew my attention to the moral and circumstantial duality of our judgment: Pinchas is rewarded with the honor of eternal priesthood for his family for a murder. In today’s world, we cannot relate to this fact. The daughters of Tzelofchad are benefited with their father’s inheritance. They seek Moses who goes to God for consultation. And God finds it fair that they, in the absence of a male heir, receive the inheritance. God thus establishes this law with which we can relate very well today. A sign that our approach to the text of the Torah is tied to our time and our space. A Jew who read this parasha in the year 230, in a closed and macho culture, might have thought the opposite of what we think here today: the rights of the daughters of Tselofchad is an affront and Pinchas got...
We were ourselves foreigners in the land of Egypt
The text of this parasha puts me in a slightly delicate situation, as it brings laws, rules – mishpatim. Not that I don’t appreciate them and don’t like order and discipline. It’s no surprise that I studied to be a graphic designer, putting texts, colors and images in order. But I am generally bothered by certain applications of laws as commanded in the Torah, either by their rigor dating back centuries or millennia, or by their lack of contemporaneity or context. Therefore, I am a faithful defender of the approach appropriate to our time and moment. But especially this excerpt from the Torah brings something not only very current, but also fundamental for the formation of the ethical conduct of the Jewish people at any time: dealing with others who are in a less privileged situation than you, either because they are so, or because this situation was caused by...
Digital recording of the ARI’s historical membership register
Heritage and History (H&H) and the Associação Religiosa Israelita do Rio de Janeiro (ARI) are collaborating to digitally record the historical membership register of the German-Jewish community of Rio de Janeiro from the 1940s. The digitization of this index creates a collection of information about a specific group whose history has not yet been adequately evaluated and researched in the context of the immigration movements of the Jewish population in the 20th century. The data collection of individuals and the resulting creation of their biographies enable a better understanding of their own fate and that of their family members, but at the same time also knowledge about the fate of certain population groups.
The Torah carries the crown
“Nachamu, nachamu ami…” I still haven’t forgotten that melody. It is from this coming Shabbat’s Haftarah, Shabbat Nachamu. The Shabbat on which, 39 years ago, I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah. You don’t need to do much math: I turned 52 – 4 times Bar Mitzvah this week. This melody and these first three words of Isaiah, which begs that his people be comforted by the tragedy of the destruction of the Temple, I may never forget. In the book of Devarim – words, the words that Moses addressed to the people – the saga of the Israelites is repeated, the laws of God are remembered, ratified and extended, and in this parsha Vaet’chanan the peculiar foundation of this nation among other peoples is emphasized: the Israelites have a single God and are, with this single God, partners in Creation, responsible for each other and for everything that inhabits the Earth....
Rabbi Dr. Lemle’s life and work
Rabbi Dr. Lemle started his career as a Rabbi in Mannheim, Germany, on April 1st, 1933 – the day of the boycott of Jewish establishments, businesses, doctors and lawyers’ practices. His uncle, father of his future wife Margot, was one of the first victims of Nazi persecution during a pogrom in Creglingen at the end of March of 1933. Hired by the Liberal Congregation in Frankfurt am Main in 1934, Lemle was the first ever Rabbi for the Youth in Germany and worked there until his deportation to the KZ Buchenwald as a consequence of the pogrom in the night from 9th to 10th of November, known as Reichspogromnacht, mostly referred as Kristallnacht. He could be saved from Buchenwald through the intervention of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (London) and could escape to England, where he later again was interned as „enemy alien“ in a camp after the outburst of the...
The first moments of German Jewish immigrants in Rio de Janeiro
The history of the União Associação Beneficente Israelita (Jewish Beneficent Society) goes back before its foundation in 1937 and has its origins in the mid 1930’s, with the arrival of the first Jewish refugees from Germany to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. They are assisted and accommodated by a group of activists of different origins, especially from Eastern Europe, already domiciled in Brazil, in the old headquarter of the Relief Society, at Joaquim Palhares street, in the former Jewish neighbourhood Praça XI. Over 100 refugees are housed there, while others are put up in inns and private homes. In 1933, a small group of German Jewish immigrants gets together into a club they name “Centro 33” in the Marques de Paraná street, to exchange experience and information, but also to revive cultural e religious habits of the lost homeland. In the year to follow they organize by their own...
The drama of the museums and the duality of Memory
The spiritual aspect of our existence is based on an ancestral connection, through a shared past and an immaterial present, invoked and bestowed by a supernatural being. The expression “our God and God of our patriarchs and our matriarchs” reveals this timeless and continuous connection, with origin and without end. Spirituality, as known or desired by human beings, is independent of our ingenuity. The material world, however, is the elementary manifestation of the human ability to create and experience, to express oneself and relate to one’s surroundings and fellow human beings. The production of a screw or a painting is a result of our particular ability to observe, understand and interact. Objects of ceremonial or ritual use are found at the tangent of these two worlds, the spiritual and the material. They are our reminders of an untouchable layer of existence. In Judaism, these objects are not intrinsically sacred. They are definitely...
Integrity and integration: Jews in Brazilian society
Significant, although imprecise, are the years of Jewish presence in Brazil. They can vary according to the chosen count: whether since the period of the Great Navigations, or because of the Inquisition in the Iberian Peninsula, or Moroccan immigration, or because of the tsarist, Nazi, communist persecutions… or when they left in search of a prosperous and secure future for themselves and their descendants. Jews, who always moved through the Old World, also found their way to the New World. The presence of Jews in Brazil was often undesired and, in a way, invalidated, for reasons beyond the way in which they pragmatically related to the country: raising their children, learning the language, incorporating habits, founding institutions for the common good and companies, enabling the present and sowing the future. From the Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig (Vienna, 1881 – Petrópolis, 1942) is the expression “Brazil, Country of the future”....
My friend, Rabbi Dr. Henrique Lemle
I didn’t meet Dr. Lemle. I was eight years old when he passed away in 1978, and my family did not attend the ARI synagogue. I was a student at a leftwing school, learned Yiddish there, and attended Shomer Hatzair. I knew the stories from the Bible as historical accounts and folklore events. The parties were opportunities to get together with the family and eat delicacies from recipes inherited from a remote past in Eastern Europe. God or religion has never been a big issue. But Dr. Lemle – this is how I would have addressed him, like everyone else who enjoyed his acquaintance – changed my life! Having access to the philosophy and ideals of Reform Judaism through its spiritual and secular leaders, congregants and activities, when I approached ARI in the 1980s, enchanted me. Lemle’s legacy – Lemle is what I call him intimately in my research –...
Family destinies: the letters to Ruth Springer
Gerhard Springer was born on March 22, 1889 in Culmsee, today’s Poland (Chełmża). His family represented a standard German Jewish family that, in the 19th century as a result of Hazkala (Jewish Enlightenment), was included in German society, assimilated its cultural and social values and enjoyed full citizenship in its cities. The engagement of German Jews in World War I reflected this movement. In his letters from the front to his family and his sister Ruth, Gerhard dealt with everyday matters, such as on March 16, 1915: “Dear parents! I would like to draw your attention that yesterday on a night march I had to stay behind because of my backpack, which was very heavy. The next day, I fell ill due to tachycardia and now I was prescribed rest. Within 10 days, I received 40 packages from you and another forty from I don’t know who, that makes 80...
The Torah carries the crown
“Nachamu, nachamu ami…” I still haven’t forgotten that melody. It is from this coming Shabbat’s Haftarah, Shabbat Nachamu. The Shabbat on which, 39 years ago, I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah. You don’t need to do much math: I turned 52 – 4 times Bar Mitzvah this week. This melody and these first three words of Isaiah, which begs that his people be comforted by the tragedy of the destruction of the Temple, I may never forget. In the book of Devarim – words, the words that Moses addressed to the people – the saga of the Israelites is repeated, the laws of God are remembered, ratified and extended, and in this parsha Vaet’chanan the peculiar foundation of this nation among other peoples is emphasized: the Israelites have a single God and are, with this single God, partners in Creation, responsible for each other and for everything that inhabits the Earth....
The Kiddush Cup
The presence of the cup among the objects of Judaica is due solely to the fact that it is the container in which wine is located. Wine was first mentioned in the Talmud in a lengthy discussion about the order of blessing over the fruits of the vine, and from that time the custom of drinking it after prayers remained. It was only under the influence of Hellenism that wine was used in religious services in the Temple of Jerusalem. Until then it was only poured onto the altars of the sanctuary as a libation ritual. The fact that the (Kiddush) cup contained one of the most famous and popular drinks made it necessary to pay special attention to it. From the simplest to the most sophisticated materials and techniques were used, from the Far East to Western countries. The ceremonial cup is always on the Jewish table and ritual:...
My friend, Rabbi Dr. Henrique Lemle
I didn’t meet Dr. Lemle. I was eight years old when he passed away in 1978, and my family did not attend the ARI synagogue. I was a student at a leftwing school, learned Yiddish there, and attended Shomer Hatzair. I knew the stories from the Bible as historical accounts and folklore events. The parties were opportunities to get together with the family and eat delicacies from recipes inherited from a remote past in Eastern Europe. God or religion has never been a big issue. But Dr. Lemle – this is how I would have addressed him, like everyone else who enjoyed his acquaintance – changed my life! Having access to the philosophy and ideals of Reform Judaism through its spiritual and secular leaders, congregants and activities, when I approached ARI in the 1980s, enchanted me. Lemle’s legacy – Lemle is what I call him intimately in my research –...
The first moments of German Jewish immigrants in Rio de Janeiro
The history of the União Associação Beneficente Israelita (Jewish Beneficent Society) goes back before its foundation in 1937 and has its origins in the mid 1930’s, with the arrival of the first Jewish refugees from Germany to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. They are assisted and accommodated by a group of activists of different origins, especially from Eastern Europe, already domiciled in Brazil, in the old headquarter of the Relief Society, at Joaquim Palhares street, in the former Jewish neighbourhood Praça XI. Over 100 refugees are housed there, while others are put up in inns and private homes. In 1933, a small group of German Jewish immigrants gets together into a club they name “Centro 33” in the Marques de Paraná street, to exchange experience and information, but also to revive cultural e religious habits of the lost homeland. In the year to follow they organize by their own...
The night of broken hearts and scattered glass
Only from the 19th century onwards did Jews begin to enjoy civil rights in some duchies and counties and principalities that constituted the Union of German Nations. At the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte brought to the territories he conquered in this conglomerate of states a set of equal rights for all, which were maintained with German unification in 1871 and ratified with the Weimar Republic in 1918. To understand the mindset, the mentality of many of the Jews who lived in Germany, and the process that culminated in the Night of Broken Glass (or Night of Shards), Kristallnacht, it is important to elucidate some concepts about the way of life in Germany, and recap events of the ARI community and its members, relating them to historical events. The advantages of belonging to a nation were many for those Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The...
When horror turns to terror
The Reichspogromnacht, also naively called Kristallnacht – The Night of Broken Glass – marks for German Jews the transformation of horror into terror and the beginning of overt and systematic physical violence. Until then, the persecution of Jews generally took the form of coercion and exclusion through racist and segregationist laws. From then on, the physical integrity of the Jewish population was officially threatened, and both the desire and the need for emigration reached a level of desperation: the race out of Germany became an urgent question of survival. This night symbolizes the end of German Judaism as it was known until then – synagogues are burned, thousands of Jewish men are arrested and taken to concentration camps, their resources for survival are extinguished, their social environment is suppressed. Those who can, due to knowledge or financial possibilities, take refuge in nearby or distant countries, such as Brazil. Those who...
Our Duty towards Remembrance and Our Commitment to Memory
You can gather people around a table on Erev (Eve of) Pessach, you can place a plate with all the symbolic foods in the center of the table, read from the Haggadah (narrative), perform all the ritual, recite the prayers and even have the festive foods for dinner. If there aren’t any Jews sitting at this table, this not a Seder (ritual meal), but a staged act. This is true to most rituals or commemorations within the Israelite nation: it is through the person or the community that these events acquire their fundamental meaning. The Shoah was, by definition, the systematic annihilation of Jews. There is no other denomination. There are other victims, there are! But there is only one Holocaust. The establishment of the date on which the Holocaust should be remembered in Israel generated heated discussion in the Knesset (Parliament) in 1951. Until then, in 1949 and 1950,...
A righteous man, blameless was Noah in his generation
Genesis is pure poetry. It is to be read countless times and, with each reading, a new layer, a new meaning, is revealed. The density of the book of Genesis is a challenge to matter and physics. As liberal Jews, we extract from the text that takes us beyond what is written there. We take off from literality and take the flight of comprehension and understanding with contemporary times as a backdrop. Parasha Noah is full of important matrices that have both inspired Hollywood epics and are indispensable symbols in our contemporary world. Everything happens in Noah: the regenerating flood on an Earth given over to injustice and corruption; the ruin of the Tower of Babel that generates confusion and misunderstanding; the mention of Abram and Sarai even before they became the patriarch Abraham and the matriarch Sarah; the dove with the olive branch – symbol of Peace on Earth...
Our Duty towards Remembrance and Our Commitment to Memory
You can gather people around a table on Erev (Eve of) Pessach, you can place a plate with all the symbolic foods in the center of the table, read from the Haggadah (narrative), perform all the ritual, recite the prayers and even have the festive foods for dinner. If there aren’t any Jews sitting at this table, this not a Seder (ritual meal), but a staged act. This is true to most rituals or commemorations within the Israelite nation: it is through the person or the community that these events acquire their fundamental meaning. The Shoah was, by definition, the systematic annihilation of Jews. There is no other denomination. There are other victims, there are! But there is only one Holocaust. The establishment of the date on which the Holocaust should be remembered in Israel generated heated discussion in the Knesset (Parliament) in 1951. Until then, in 1949 and 1950,...
When horror turns to terror
The Reichspogromnacht, also naively called Kristallnacht – The Night of Broken Glass – marks for German Jews the transformation of horror into terror and the beginning of overt and systematic physical violence. Until then, the persecution of Jews generally took the form of coercion and exclusion through racist and segregationist laws. From then on, the physical integrity of the Jewish population was officially threatened, and both the desire and the need for emigration reached a level of desperation: the race out of Germany became an urgent question of survival. This night symbolizes the end of German Judaism as it was known until then – synagogues are burned, thousands of Jewish men are arrested and taken to concentration camps, their resources for survival are extinguished, their social environment is suppressed. Those who can, due to knowledge or financial possibilities, take refuge in nearby or distant countries, such as Brazil. Those who...
Who are we in this moment?
This week’s reading of the parasha, Pinchas, drew my attention to the moral and circumstantial duality of our judgment: Pinchas is rewarded with the honor of eternal priesthood for his family for a murder. In today’s world, we cannot relate to this fact. The daughters of Tzelofchad are benefited with their father’s inheritance. They seek Moses who goes to God for consultation. And God finds it fair that they, in the absence of a male heir, receive the inheritance. God thus establishes this law with which we can relate very well today. A sign that our approach to the text of the Torah is tied to our time and our space. A Jew who read this parasha in the year 230, in a closed and macho culture, might have thought the opposite of what we think here today: the rights of the daughters of Tselofchad is an affront and Pinchas got...