They planned your bachelorette party, brought you soup when you were sick, baby-sat your kids, rescued you from a bad date and jump-started your car when you got stuck. Thank the remarkable friends in your life with a unique, personal gift.
Despite what your zayde or bubbe told you, your family name was not changed at Ellis Island. “The last names had to match the manifest when people arrived in the United States,” says Jan Meisels Allen, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Conejo Valley and Ventura County (JGSCV). Name changes are just one of many roadblocks an amateur Jewish genealogist might encounter while researching a family’s past. Political upheavals, border changes and the Holocaust all contribute to the difficulties American Jews often encounter when trying to research their family histories.
Dr. David B. Goldstein from Duke\’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy talks about tracking the genetic history of the ancient Jewish priesthood (kohanim) and the Lost Tribe of Israel, the focus of his new book, \”Jacob\’s Legacy\”.
The leader of our small group told us many history book-type facts that for me went in one ear and out the other. I was concentrating on the camp. However, one of the last things he said stopped me in my tracks. He said, \”Remember guys, the Holocaust didn\’t happen in black and white, it happened in full Technicolor.\” Oh.
This was by far the most spiritual moment in my life. I gazed up at the stars as I chanted the V\’Ahavta prayer with amazing new friends, standing around the same rocks that our people had wandered past thousands of years before. My eyes couldn\’t help but tear up as we moved on to the Mi Chamocha, the song of freedom. At that moment I felt as though God truly was with us.
I have grown up listening to my grandparents\’ stories, studying the history, reading the literature and seeing the pictures. I have become familiar with the atrocities and images of the Holocaust. But I cannot describe the way I felt seeing the infamous sign, \”Arbeit Macht Frei\” on the gate of Auschwitz in color and from inside the gate, instead of outside of it.
Being raised Orthodox in the United States, I am often aware that my peers and I do things differently than others: We go to shul on Saturday instead of to the mall, we go to private schools, we dress differently and we recognize that there is a higher being above us. But we do not realize until a much later age, when we leave our sheltered community, just how different we really are and how these differences truly affect us.
Judaism is a simple religion containing many complexities. No one could realistically hope to understand everything. It is important to question and to learn. But when we don\’t understand something, or don\’t agree with something, we need to remember that it doesn\’t give us license to not follow halacha or to not keep the Torah.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.