Israel and the Jewish People . . . From My Perspective
By Erika Schwartz
After Cantor Ron led a group of VOS
members on an amazing 10-day tour of Israel, a few of us were granted
the privilege of speaking at the May services. We were asked to talk
about any aspect of the trip or about our perspective of Israel in
general. Following is the text of my presentation.
About 43 years ago, shortly after Bill and I were married, I was having
a conversation with his Mom. We were talking about World War II. To put
what I’m about to tell you into perspective, you have to know that I first met Bill’s
mother when I was 4 years old. She and my mother met on the day that my
mother and I arrived in the USA and moved into the building in the
Bronx where Bill’s family lived. We were refugees . . . the sole Holocaust survivors of my mother’s entire family. No one else survived . . . not even my father. Bill’s
mom (who spoke only English and Yiddish) and my mom (who spoke only
Hungarian and Yiddish) became instant best friends and the rest, as
they say, is history.
So here we were chatting many years later. This wonderful, sensitive,
caring woman had become my beloved mother-in-law. I adored her.
So we were talking about World War II and what it was like here in the United States. Suddenly, she said,
“You have no idea how hard it was for us. Everything was rationed. We couldn’t even get sugar.”
Suddenly she stopped in horror. She realized what she had just said and to whom she had said it.
What does this story have to do with the defining moment of my recent trip to Israel? Everything . . .
I recently did some research on the history of the Jews. Not that I
really needed to do this particular research but I wanted to confirm my
perspective that, throughout history, Jews have never been truly safe
for very long no matter where we lived. It didn’t matter how well behaved we were. It didn’t matter how much we had conformed. It didn’t
matter how much we had assimilated. Eventually, when something bad
happened to the general populace of our host country, it was the Jews
who were turned on, scapegoated, driven out or massacred.
Is this a harsh perspective? Of course it is! But I’m
cursed with the burden of a logical mind. My brain always wants to
connect the dots. And, no matter how I connected the dots of Jewish
history, the same picture always emerged.
So I was reading the May Outreach and the following words jumped out at me from Jack Bielan’s column: “Turns out that in three short days she’ll be going back home to a 2008 Belgium where it’s no longer safe to be openly Jewish. Judith’s mother has even resorted to changing her child’s last name to help ensure her safety.”
Then, on the very next page in the Outreach was the plea from our Aid
To Israel chairman, Rick Rice. The tone of his column tells me that our
Congregation’s support for Israel leaves much to be desired.
And I listen to my friends talk about the current Presidential
candidates. Who will provide health care? Who will save social
security? Who will fix the educational system? The economy? Just as our
Jewish brothers and sisters in pre-war
Germany believed with all their hearts that they were German above all
else . . . . just like my beloved mother-in-law had become so
comfortable with her own American existence that the absence of sugar
was her worst memory of World War II . . . . American Jews today are
sublimely secure in our American identity and the belief that the
United States will ALWAYS be there for us and for Israel. I hear very
few conversations about which presidential candidate is most supportive
of the continued existence of Israel. Which one of them is firmly
committed to stopping Iran from annihilating Israel?
So, MY defining moment in Israel was at Yad Vashem.
As I stood in that great hall surrounded by thousands of binders
containing the names of 6 million slaughtered Jews (among them, my
entire family), I couldn’t help asking myself the question:
“What if Israel had existed in 1939? Would this building . . . . would Yad Vashem . . . . even exist?”
For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, I beg you to
consider the possibility that perhaps nothing is more important to our
people than to ensure the safety of the only country on this planet
that is dedicated to ensuring the safety of our people.
