Anat Hoffman, Yad Vashem, Machaneh Yehudah, and the Wall Tunnels

            Our day began with a short ride (actually 4 people walked with Jan and arrived a lot earlier) around the corner from the hotel to Beit Shimshon, part of the complex of Reform Judaism in Israel, which is attached to the Hebrew Union College.  There is also a hostel/hotel, many offices of different Reform institutions, a theater and great hall that is often transformed into a synagogue. We were met by Anat Hoffman, the director of IRAC (the Israel Religious Action Center). 

            Anat had been in Rochester a little more than a month ago and many in our group heard her speak then so were excited to hear her again.  She is a bright, articulate voice of civil rights in Israel for all.  She is also the chairperson of Women of the Wall.   Besides describing that truggle for equal access to the Wall, she spoke of other issues such as payment for non-Orthodox rabbis commensurate with what Orthodox rabbis receive.  Of course she mentioned that Rabbi Miri Gold finally received her first payment which was won through an IRAC petition on her behalf.  The case only took over 8 years.  She mentioned the groundswell t defeat a candidate for the chief rabbinate who is a self-declared racist and has incited discrimination and perhaps violence against Arabs.

            Liz Ornstein presented her with a picture of the plaque we have hanging at Temple Sinai when over 100 women wore a special WoW tallit and held a Torah in support of WoW’s struggle here.  At the end many in our group bought the special WoW tallit to wear proudly during prayer and to support their cause.

 

We then went to the Israeli Holocaust Museum, Yad V'shem. It is an incredibly powerful memorial, museum and research center. The majority of the group first learned about the origin of the name, yad for hand, and shem for a name. The message is that the Holocaust may have been six million Jews but each one had a name, so a hand, and a name, and a name, and...

We entered the complex by walking down the "path of the righteous" dedicated to over 18000 non-Jewish people who took it upon themselves to help the Jews while risking themselves and their families to do so. Think Schindler’s list.... And the 18000 mentioned are only the documented ones, there were likely many more...

Uri then took the majority of the group on a journey that followed the plight of the European Jews starting in the 1930’s, and taught us about just how methodical and thoughtful the intended dehumanization and condemnation was, leading to the destruction of the Jews, starting with restrictions that affected their ability to earn a living, dictating where they could live, with whom they could do business, and with whom they could interact. The Third Reich then followed that by corralling the Jews into overcrowded ghettos such that food, housing, and work would be in short supply as well as limited medical care. Over time malnutrition and disease caused large numbers to die, after which they were deported to concentration camps in Central Europe because so many other countries had closed their borders to Jews. In these camps they were forced to dig their own graves before being shot in cold blood. Ultimately the Germans found individual killing to be too costly and inefficient, and in order to meet strict deadlines they devised and built the death camps like Auschwitz. Again it was clear that the process was finely engineered for a single outcome. The story was told by the museum through pictures, artifacts, and testimonials from survivors, and left many of us feeling quite taken, empty, yet realizing that "there but for the grace of God go we." Had Hitler been more successful we may not be here today.

The memorial also emphasized that 1.5 million children were among those slaughtered that made up 25% of those exterminated in a separate exhibit. It was a walk through a dark hall that appeared to have a star against a dark sky for each of those children. It is actually a reflection of many mirrors and a few candles that seem to be as numerous as the stars. The sounds of names and ages as a backdrop played continuously. Upon exit was a sculpture of a Januz Korczak, a physician who dedicated his life to the Jewish children, ultimatelychoosing not to abandon them for his own safety and going to the death camps with them.

 The architecture of Yad Vashem combined with such impactful presentation overloaded the senses with the power of the atrocity, and left an indelible print on us all.

A small group of us who had been to Yad Vashem had another guide, Hazy, who took us to a few other areas. 

Hazy had led our teens this past summer in Poland on the Journey For identity trip with their partners from Modi’in. We had a whirlwind visit to the art museum, learning the story of only a few artists. Then we went into the Learning Center, saw a short film on the plight of children who were given to non-Jews to be saved and how they left their parents.  Later after the war some even left these new adopted families in the few cases when a parent survived.  We walked down to the Valley of the Communities

and walked a little way through a maze like hewn stone open are area that represented the map of Europe and all the communities that were brutalized by the Nazis. The entire group gathered outside the Children’s memorial for a short memorial service.

Our shift was then to move from Yad Vashem to life in Israel.  We drove to the Machaneh Yehuda market, the shuk, to have some lunch and explore the wonderful sensory stimulation of sight, sound and smell in the open air market.  Machaneh Yehuda has been changing over the years from almost entirely open air market stalls of all types of produce and food stuff, to more places to sit, eat and congregate.  It is now a mixture of the old and new.  Our group tried to empty the market of halva as numerous kilos of the delicious sweet sesame treat in all flavors was purchased.  There were also a few kilos of chocolate ruggeleh and some spices that went with us.

Back to the hotel for a short rest before we headed to the Old City of Jerusalem to enter the Wall plaza (The Kotel) and explore the Wall Tunnels.  A few people went down to the Wall and prayed or left notes in its cracks or simply had a close up look.  We entered the tunnel area where Uri once again explained what we were seeing in greater context.  What people think of as the Wall is actually only about 60 meters of a 480 retaining wall built to support the mount on which the Temple was constructed. 

By the end of the visit most of us were exhausted when we headed back to the hotel and went for our late evening dinners.  Some walked through the Mamilla Mall and others up towards Ben Yehuda Street, to eat and perhaps to shop.

(Special thanks to Ann Leonard and Michael Algase for their contributions ot this post)