Harvest-HaAsif 2006

Harvest-HaAsif- Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholomʼs Literary Anthology Third edition" " " 5767-2006

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Psalm 121

A Song for Ascents

I lift up my eyes to the mountains; What is the source of my help?My help derives from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.God will not allow your foot to slip; Your Guardian will not slumber. Behold, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. The Eternal is your Keeper, The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not harm you by day, Nor the moon by night. The Lord will guard you from all evil, He will protect your being. The Lord will guard you, Your going out and your coming in, From this time and forever.

Shared Stories

Sharing stories is a risky business. One may elicit a less enthusiastic or a more critical response than anticipated or even, for one reason or another, after the fact, regret the chutzpah that drove you to seek a public forum. And writers tell us of the frustrations and hazards of the writing process itself: stuck and lonesome in some convoluted storyline with no way out in sight, loath to quit and unable to push forward. Or find oneself in some area of the soul or heart one had no intention of entering. But it is also likely that these hazards are, potentially, among writing's rewards: the personal challenge met, the broadened horizon. In any case, the great wide world of storytelling thrives in Canada as never before. And we here at Temple have joined this expanding universe. The third edition of Harvest- Ha'Asif, Temple's anthology of new work by Temple members on Jewish themes, arrives at a time when being a Jew often feels a little like holding public office. This anthology offers one means to help us turn our thoughts back to the inner dimensions of our lives as Jews. I believe our third edition, with its mixture of poetry and memoir, will move you and surprise you and is an exciting and worthy successor to the earlier editions.

Zav Levinson,co-editor


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Mademoiselle Levy

Vivianne M. Schinasi-Silver The hospital lights were dimmed, the halls darkened. The day had been long. It was now time to leave my mother for a hopefully more restful night for her. All the drugs that were administered should work. Feeling weary, I signaled the night nurse to push the button and let me out of the high-care ward. She, however, motioned with her hand for me to come into the nursing station. She asked: "Tell me, in her younger years, was your mother known as Mademoiselle Levy? Was she a primary school teacher at the Convent du Bon Pasteur in Cairo, Egypt?” I replied: “Yes, indeed that was my mother.” Nurse Madeleine said: “This is the most incredible thing, I think your mother was my teacher. I still remember her so well. Could you bring me a picture of her when she was young, that will surely confirm it?" Somehow this brief encounter with nurse Madeleine lifted my weary spirits, made me feel hopeful, reminded me that before her illness, my mother had a life that was wholesome and productive. She may even have known moments of happiness. The very next day, I did bring a picture of my parents in their youth, when they had just met and were courting. My mother was so beautiful, so elegantly dressed. She seemed to have given attention to the smallest details of her appearance. A dashing hat, a lace-collared blouse, pearl earrings. When I showed it to nurse Madeleine she exclaimed: "That's her - it is definitely Mademoiselle Levy, just as I remembered her. I loved her so. She was so helpful to me with my reading and writing she would even come to my

house to make sure I progressed. I can't believe this coincidence! Almost fifty years later I am overwhelmed with joy, now I can be helpful to her." I was so moved by the knowledge that my mother had touched someone's life a long time ago, that this person would indeed recall her own youth. That interchange with nurse Madeleine lightened my own heart so heavied by my mother's illness, especially this last episode which had me so worried that I now had to grapple with the issue of long term care for her. The death of my father, five years earlier, was the biggest blow she had ever had to endure. The love of her life was irreplaceable. She now suffered from a broken heart as well. My two brothers and I tried to the best of our respective abilities to rally, to be loving and supportive. This was so profound, she never fully recovered. Her last sojourn in the hospital was the one, which seemed hopeless. When she said to me: "Ne prend pas trop a coeur, ce n'est que l'avant gout d'un adieu" (Don't take this too much to heart, it is only the preview of a farewell), I knew that my Mom was close to the end of her earthly days. On one of the days of my visits, I showed her that lovely picture of her and my father that I now kept with me at all times. Tears ran softly down her life-weathered cheeks: "Ton pere était si beau, nous nous aimions tellement" (Your father was so handsome, we loved each other so). That moment was an ephemeral and encouraging interlude in what seemed to be her numbness to all feelings and emotions. Looking at that priceless picture of my parents, I was able to reconnect with my mother's life, one that indeed had its many beautiful moments.

My mother Suzanne, also known as Sultana, was born in Cairo, the second child of seven. Her father, Moise Lévy, came to Egypt from Spain, via Turkey. He was of Sephardic origin and often spoke to my mother in Ladino. Her mother, Esther Abramovitz, came from Russia, also via Turkey, but being Ashkenazi, spoke to my mother in Yiddish. When my mother was about five years old, her parents divorced. That event had a great impact on her life that was marked by a yearning for her absent mother. The saving grace of her childhood was her attendance at Ie Couvent du Bon Pasteur in Choubra; a place where the sisters' kindness provided her with a safe haven from the turmoil and uncertainty of her family life. She grew up basking in the love of her surrogate mother, Mother Superior, la mère Marie Eustelle, who had a lifelong influence on her. Had my father not appeared at the time that he did, my mother might have converted to Catholicism, a religion whose rituals and liturgy appealed to her thirsty soul. After completing her education at the convent, my mother was trained to be a kindergarten teacher. What she loved most, however, was to sing. She often performed solo in the convent choir, as she had a most beautiful and limpid soprano voice. Had my mother been born in a different time and place, she might have become an opera singer. When I was a child, I remember so well her singing the beautiful arias of Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, Tosca, or La Bohème. It was in the safety of Le Bon Pasteur that my mother seems to have developed the wings, which allowed her to fly ever so briefly in her early adulthood. She worked as a secretary for the Chrysler Corporation, a job she was so grateful to have and a time in her life she spoke of with pride.


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It was a time when she discovered her love for the outdoors and for athletic activities. She often told us that at dawn, most mornings, as a member of a yachting team, she rowed on the river Nile. In her early twenties, my mother was living with her father and four siblings, separated still from her mother and two younger sisters whom she grew to adore. With long dark hair, beautiful brown eyes, and a shapely figure, Suzanne was a stunning young woman. Full of joie de vivre, a wonderful and much sought after dancer, she met my father at a Young Judea Social Club, a place where Jewish single young men and women gathered, in downtown Cairo. My parents fell in love instantly, a real coup de foudre. Their courtship was brief, passionate, and determined. My father, Joseph Schinasi, came from a family considered of higher social status. My paternal grandparents had greater ambitions for their first-born son and thus vehemently opposed the union. Undeterred, my parents were married on June 15th, 1941, at the Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue on the famous Rue Adli Pasha. Their blessed union was to last for 55 years and was to be a model of love and loyalty for the whole family. May they both rest in peace knowing that their daughter remembers and continues to be inspired by that love.

WHERE IS WAKA? by Ella Wiener The business part of the meeting was over and I found myself sitting beside Ann. I knew her only casually, but now I noticed the auburn hairs curling crisply from her forehead, the finely-grained white skin, the very good suit she was wearing, and her strong fingers around the Meissen tea cup. I also knew her as a generous member and as a very quiet person, even reticent. I remember thinking to myself, ‘I guess I'll have to carry the brunt of this conversation.’ I leaned forward and said, “Now that the winter is over, I am determined to do more walking.”

“Ah, determined, determined,” said Ann, seeming to cast her mind's eye back to some distant memory. “I was almost twenty years old before I learned to say that word properly. My parents had sent me to study piano at the Conservatory in Toronto and one of my teachers was aghast at my pronunciation. She had a hard time convincing me otherwise.” "How did you say it?" I asked. Ann replied, “I said de-ter-mined.” The first two syllables were flat. The accent was on the last syllable, and it rhymed with kind or find-- DE- TER-MINED. “Where did you leam to say it like that?” I asked. Ann replied, “In Waka, where I was born.” “Waka? Where is Waka?” “Waka is in Saskatchewan,” Ann answered. “It means Crooked Lake in the Indian language.” “Who taught you to say det-er-mined?" “My high school English teacher. He was a Pole named Dimitri Wasiliuk. He said det-er-mined; the whole high school said det-er-mined, and for all I know, the entire population of 600 in Waka said det-er-mined.” “What were you doing in Waka?” I asked. “What does a Jewish family do in a small town?" Ann countered. "My parents came there at the turn of the century. They had a general store, most of it ladies' clothing. My sister and I were born there and spent our childhood on the Prairies. Waka is equidistant to Saskatoon or Prince Albert or Humboldt. We were right in the middle of the Prairies.” “Were there other Jewish families in Waka?” I asked. “Yes, there were a few with whom we celebrated Chanukah and the other Jewish festivals, but we did not get along with all of


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Ann answered, “Why, the other children in Waka. They were Poles, Ukranians, Germans and Scandinavians. There were a few old country French and English, and a few settlers from Ontario and the United States. But mainly there were Ukranians; the mayor, the other store-owners were Polish or Russian; the city council was a mixture of all of them. Our maid was Ukranian and stayed with us for many years.” “What language did you speak at home?" I queried. "Did your maid leam to speak English?” “We spoke English at home, but I spoke Ukranian even better than I did English. You might call it my mother tongue.” “Did the maid learn to speak English?” “Oh, sure. After many years with us, when she answered the telephone, she held the card at arm's length and shouted into the mouthpiece the one English word she knew: HALLLOOOOOOOO.” “It was a glorious childhood” she continued. “We played with the Ukranian and Polish children. In the summer we climbed trees, went an picnics and swam in Lake Waka. We played games in the long, seemingly endless Prairie twilight. In the winter we skated and slid on the hard, frozen prairie ground. In the Fall we trouped together to school. Our childhood was an idyllic time.” “Did your parents get along with this mixture of people?” Ann answered. “It was peaceful enough. But there were incidents. One af them remember very well. My father had gone into the hardware store to buy kerosene for our lamps. Mike, the Ukranian storekeeper, served all his customers out of turn and kept my father waiting. There was laughter and disparaging remarks about the

Jew. Their meaning did not escape my father. Sharp words ensued. At one point Mike grabbed the weight from the scale and threw it at my father, narrowly missing his head. My father was a big and powerful man, a match for the husky shopkeeper. A fistfight ensued, and dispelling once and for all the image of the cowering Jew, my father gave Mike a mighty blow to the side of the head, and felled him." I gasped and stuttered, "Did he k-k-k..?" “No, he didn't kill him, but he hit him so hard that he broke Mike’s eardrum.” “Really, and...” “A lawsuit followed. To defend himself, my father hired a young lawyer who had just graduated trom the University of Saskatchewan and had opened an office in Waka. His name was Diefenbaker,” she added casually. Again I found myself stammering. “Diefenbaker,” I gasped, “Do you mean John Diefenbaker, the man who was to be our Prime Minister?” “Yes” Ann replied, “the very same. He had opened an office in Waka and became a good friend of my father's. He came into our house often to talk politics and to play cards.” “What in the world was John Diefenbaker doing in Waka?” “Well, he was a native of the prairies and when he graduated ftom the University of Saskatchewan, there weren't any jobs for young lawyers anywhere in the province. He decided to come here, a place that was within easy reach of many other towns. He was interested in litigation and there was plenty of that. Trappers were always attacking each other. Farmers disputed land limits and straying cattle. There were disagreements about mine claims, contracts and bankruptcies. He had lots of practice in litigation

and he stayed for ten years. He even served on the City Council and had a summer cottage on Lake Waka. If you are over in Waka,” Ann continued serenely, “you can see a replica of his original office reconstructed by the local Lion's Club.” I was anxious to return to the trial. “Did he win the case for your father?” “No, he lost. However, John had pleaded the case so brilliantly that the judge, although finding my father guilty, fined him the token amount of $ 1.00.” “Did your family stay on after this?” I asked. “Yes, they stayed. But my sister and I were sent East to meet Jewish friends. We each married and started to raise our families in Montreal. We later brought our parents to be near us.” Just then a friend of Ann's approached to offer her a ride home. Ann rose gracefully and shook my hand. She smiled and said “I enjoyed chatting with you.”


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Wednesday Poem (Furthest from Shabbat) Marcia Goldberg

During The Whale Rider, G. is lost in sleep,wrapped in my windbreaker, perhaps listeningto the tale of prophecy and triumph, deepin a dream where a beach and ocean glisten,roll on the ear as for eighty years soundscreep back to the mind afresh, the child of chiefsbeckoned to the Source.

FINDING SISTER CLARA

Eva Kuper

Life Before the War: My parents were born and raised in a beautiful medieval town in Poland, named Sandomierz, about 100 kilometers south of Warsaw. Jews in Sandomierz made up almost half the population of the city. My mother was trained as a teacher, but once again, being Jewish she was not able to work in her profession. She worked in a bank. My father, since he was a Jew, was ineligible for university education so his family pooled their scant resources and sent their oldest son to Liege in Belgium to study chemical engineering. Upon his return to Poland in 1936, my parents were married. They moved to Warsaw where my father eventually started a small fur dying business. At the beginning of 1940, in the midst of a very stormy political climate and with the Nazis poised to destroy Poland, they awaited the birth of their baby, in a brand new apartment in a lively suburb of Warsaw.

The Ghetto: Turbulent times were becoming more and more of a reality and it was not long before the Jews of Warsaw, numbering some 300,000 persons, were gathered in the newly established ghetto area which previously housed some 30,000 Poles who were unceremoniously ordered to vacate their homes. There were initially two ghettos, the large, in which could be found commercial establishments as well as living quarters; and the small ghetto where people lived. We were very fortunate as we were able to secure a room for our small family including my parents, me and two cousins (a mother and daughter) of

my mother’s. Regina Bankier, my mother’s cousin and close friend whose mother and sister shared our room, worked as a security guard in the prison in the large ghetto. In the cellar of our building there was a one way telephone which could be used only to make calls, not to receive them. My father arranged with Regina, that should there be any kind of emergency in which we needed her help, he would advise her immediately by phone. Conditions worsened daily in the ghetto as disease, starvation, and a lack of sanitation and clean water caused great hardship and increasing numbers of deaths. Life became increasingly unbearable. My father worked as a slave in Tebenz, the German factory which processed furs for the war effort. Because he was essential to the process, he enjoyed a somewhat privileged position. He was able to smuggle out skins which he sold on the black market to secure food for his family and as many neighbours as possible. People were dying by the thousands, and the organized Jewish “government” of the ghetto, established to force the Jews to do the dirty work of the Nazis, was trying to cope with the increased numbers of dead and dying. Corpses lined the streets until they could be collected by the “Chevra Kadisha” burial society. The Jewish “authorities were required to provide hundreds of people every few days for what was termed as “relocation”. Some people really believed that life would improve once they were “relocated” while others knew that “relocation” meant almost certain death. Evacuations of hundreds of people from the Warsaw ghetto began early in 1942. One day, all the men were ordered to report to the Tebenz yards where they were locked up for several hours. When he was released, my father headed straight for home where he found the entire area cleared of women and children…empty. All the


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women and children had been taken to “umschlagplatz” where they were loaded unto cattle cars destined for the Treblinka death camp. My father raced to the phone to alert Regina and then ran to the train yards. He was prevented from entering, but could see hundreds of women and children being loaded. Regina meanwhile also ran to see if she could help. Because she was a woman, or perhaps because she wore a guard’s uniform, she was able to come closer. She arrived at just the nick of time. A moment later she would not have seen my mother, holding me in her arms already in the cattle car. She began to scream that I was her child and that my mother was just minding me. By some miracle or twist of fate, my mother passed me hand to hand until I was literally thrown from the train, into Regina’s arms. My mother of course went on to die at Treblinka. Only as a mature woman, have I really considered what that moment must have meant to my mother. As a mother and grandmother I know that a mother’s instinct is to hold her child close at times of danger. How courageous, how quick witted she was to know that her sacrifice was my only, dim hope for life. When she had outlived her usefulness to the Nazis, Regina followed my mother to her death at Treblinka. My father and I were left in the ghetto. I became sick with dysentery which came very close to taking my life. Being a young child, I had quickly become dehydrated and the best efforts of my father’s friend, a doctor also in the ghetto, could be of no help without a re-hydrating solution. Dr. Kalinowski informed my father that without it I would be dead in a matter of hours. My father begged the director of Tebenz who, as a non-Jew, could come and go at will, to secure the essential medicine for me. Once again I was miraculously saved.

Each time there was a threatened roundup of more people destined for “relocation” my father had to find a place to hide. People desperately searched for a hole, a space, an attic, where they could secure their safety even for a moment. With a young child, who might cry and give them away, it was almost impossible to find a hiding place among other people. One day he and I gained entrance to a flooded cellar where a number of people were already hidden. He had to promise that he would suffocate me himself if I emitted a sound which could give everyone away. He was told in no uncertain terms that he should not seek to hide there again for he would not be admitted. He began to carry two cyanide pills in his pocket, one for me and one for himself. He was determined not to be taken alive. It became clear to my father that he had to escape with me from the ghetto. There was no sure way, but the safest was through the sewers. My father described this trip as a nightmare. Rats as big as cats, the stench, and the filth, made the escape an escape from horror through horror. We found temporary shelter with a friend of my family’s who was of German extraction and whom my father had helped before the War. Knowing that he could not hide and work to save the rest of the family if he had to care for a young child, my father pleaded with Dr. Lande, a friend and pediatrician who had looked after me from the time of my birth, to secure a hiding place where I would be cared for and relatively safe. Dr. Lande found Hanka Rembowska, an artist and illustrator of children’s books who agreed, at great risk to herself, to take me in. She was already caring for another child; a Polish, non-Jewish war orphan. Hanka was a wonderful human being, but she was sick with tuberculosis for which no antibiotics were available at that time. As she became too sick to care for her two little girls, we were moved to a

convent for blind children in Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains in the southern part of Poland.

Life in the Convent: My personal memories, although sketchy, begin while I was hidden at the convent. I have no recollection of specific people, but do remember the poverty. There was little food. The nuns grew potatoes which were the staple of our diet. I remember sitting in a large circle with all the other children, all of them blind boys, except for Zosia (the little girl who was with me when we were with Hanka) and me. The boys would peel the potatoes and then Zosia and I would “fix” them removing remaining peel, before throwing them into a large pot of water. I was three years old at the time. The convent had one cow. I loved that cow which was the source of the scant protein we had access to. A little milk and butter only for the priest was how the cow rewarded us for her care. At the end of each day I was sent to the pasture to fetch the cow home for milking. Imagine, a three-year-old tiny child holding the giant animal by the rope around her neck and walking through the pasture. It was my favourite time of the day. The convent was situated at the top of a hill and when the Nazis came to the village below, someone was always sent to alert the nuns of their proximity. At times like this, I, the only Jewish child among them was hidden in a hole in the ground covered in some way to conceal my presence. Amazingly I do not remember being frightened to be placed in a “grave-like” earthen space and told to be very still. I remained in the convent until the War ended and my aunt, using the large number of sources which were searching for various people in order to reconnect families, came to bring me back to my father. It was 1945. I was 5 years old.


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Interestingly I do not recall the first meeting with my father or my departure from the convent which had become my home and safe haven.

After the War: After the War, my father and I continued to live under my father’s assumed Aryan name, as non-Jews. My aunt lived with us in a city named Bielsko where my father was the director of a large Soviet-style fur dying plant. Having survived the horrors of the war, people were alternately desperately happy or desperately sad. There was damage everywhere: in our hearts, in our bodies, in society and in the environment. We were relatively well off as my father earned a good income. Problems arose again as he refused to join the communist party and was constantly under suspicion. I went to school and learned from my teachers to be anti-Semitic. My father remarried in 1947 and we emigrated to Canada in December of 1948. I was informed by my father aboard the luxury liner “Batory” which carried us to North America, that I was Jewish. I was appalled! It would be a long time before I was comfortable with my new identity. As a child, adolescent, or young adult, I was not very interested in the Holocaust, nor did I think a great deal about my mother. My father and stepmother tried to make our life in Canada as normal as possible and spoke seldom to me of their wartime experiences. It was not until I was a mature woman with grown children of my own and even a grand child that I began to focus on my past. I prepared to videotape “my story” for Stephen Spielberg’s “Shoah Foundation” using as a main source an audio tape which my father had recorded six months before his death. Since I was the principal of a Jewish Day School at the time, I began to tell my story to the children in our grade 6 classes. Of course, my own children were familiar with the story. My younger daughter,

who is named for my mother, had always had an interest and a need to explore that part of our history. It was not until August-September of 2005 that I was ready to return to Poland and retrace my family history. What follows is an amazing series of circumstances and coincidences which reinforces my belief that some things are “beshert”, meant to be. The night before my departure for a month in Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, I went to a meeting which I had not planned to attend, of the executive and board of the Auberge Shalom Pour Femmes, where I am an active member. I sat near a friend who told me that coincidentally, she too was going to Poland in October. She told me that a mutual acquaintance who had been on several “March of the Living” trips to Poland, had met an American genealogist living in Warsaw, Yale Reisner, director of the Jewish Historical Institute. This agency, funded by the Ronald Lauder Foundation, helps people reconnect after many years, or at least retrieve a trail of documents which tell the story of their perished family members. I took Yale’s phone number and promised to contact him when I reached Warsaw. I didn’t think that I needed his help since I had researched wartime convents in Zakopane, had found the most likely one, and had an appointment to meet with the Mother Superior. I telephoned Yale when we reached Warsaw and made an appointment to meet with him. He was very interested in my story and thought that he could be of help. He is a frantically busy man and we landed up waiting for him for over 4 hours, while we toured the excellent photo and film exhibit of life in the Warsaw Ghetto. At long last we met and sat down to share my story in his small cluttered office. He had access to millions of documents, books, papers and records, many of which were spilling out all over every surface of this office. I told

him that I had been hidden in a convent for blind children in Zakopane during the last years of the War. He jumped out of his chair and slalomed over to his extensive bookcase where he reached for one volume. It was the Polish counterpart of the English translation of a PhD thesis of Ewa Kurek, who wrote: “Your Life is Worth Mine”-- How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939 -1945Yale flipped through the pages while we sat in anxious anticipation. He was mumbling, “Jewish children saved in convents…..” At last he found what he was looking for: “Congregation of Franciscan Sisters Servants of the Cross: Polish orderestablished in 1918 for the purpose of caring for the blind. In 1939, 106 sisters worked in 18 homes. In Zakopane, Sister Klara Jaroszynska saved the life of a little Jewish girl” We were speechless! This had to be the one! Armed with the phone number which Yale had found, I tried to contact the Order the next day. After several tries I managed to connect with a nun in Laski (35 kms. outside Warsaw) where the Order has their main establishment. To my utter amazement I discovered that Sister Klara, now 95 years old and blind herself, was still alive and had a clarity of mind and memory of someone half her age. Of course my daughter, who had joined me in Warsaw, and I were at the convent that very day to meet Sister Klara. The meeting was so very emotional. Although I had no memory of her, Sister Klara remembered me in minute detail. She recalled how little I was and how I had a sense beyond my years. She remembered my excellent language skills and my sensitivity to the other children in the convent.


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She corroborated most of my memories and corrected others. She expressed her love for “her little Eva” of whom she thought often to this day, wondering what had befallen her in life. When asked why she took such a chance, risking her life and the lives of all the other children and adults for whom she was responsible, she simply said, “God sent you to me. I had no choice. Besides, I loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you.” I have no visual memory of Sister Klara from that time, but an emotional memory must have been there as we hung unto each other’s hands and stroked each other with love. The former deep connection had resurfaced. Today, Sister Klara is a very important part of my life. Through the services of Sister Rut who cares for her, Sister Klara and I communicate frequently via e-mail. I have tried to honour and thank her for her selfless courage by developing a project by which I am helping a child now in the care of the Order. Currently they care for 300 blind children at their amazing facility. Havig lost my own mother, Sister Klara is a mother-like figure to me. And finding her and hearing her speak of me as a three-year-old to five-year-old child with such love has made my life whole. Like the proverbial cat, I have had several lives. Each time, through a miracle, if you will, someone came along whose heart and courage gave me one more chance at life. I owe to to all those who were not as fortunate to tell this tale of human goodness in the midst of horror. This is truly a life-affirming story and one which gives us hope for humankind amid the many horrors which still continue in the world today. Have we really learned anything?

PERSISTENCEIrene Rheinwald

The Holy notes, quivering in darkness,Remain the same, are eternal,As heaven reaches down to embraceEarth ascending in love;Righteousness and pain forever lockedIn the dance of ages pastAnd generations yet unborn.

The Holy words, the TabletsUpon which is writtenA hundred wresting dreamsTime will never break;Tablets of gold and living wordsRocked in Creation's ache and throb,The universal pulse, a clarion blast. Time cannot alter the dreamsWe were rocked, nor shrill windsDiminish our obdurate cling;Stoic and unbending, no man shall mollify,Nor far flung landscapeWith scaling breath and dangerous scarsKeep us from our course.

We have endured winter fueled daysOf darkening despair andFlower strewn nights ofJoyous exaltation;We understand the Truth, the passionOf immortality unbound,And delight in death rebuking hope.


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Bat Yam harbour rock(photo by Tal Flanzman)

A Rock in the Waves

David Mizrahi

It was during the Suez crisis. We could hear the bombs reaching their targets in the distance. We knew that things in Egypt had changed forever. I was ten years old and I didn’t understand the implications of those far off rumblings. My brother, Henri, who was 15 years old, tried to explain

to me the heavy meaning of the headlines that we saw in the papers. For generations we had a very good and comfortable life in Cairo, in Heliopolis. Before the crisis, my brother and I attended French Lycee. We took the above ground metro to school and watched movies at the Roxy outdoor cinema from our balcony. Summers were blissfully spent in Alexandria with my mother. My father owned a packaging company in Cairo and he would visit us at the beach on weekends in the summer. We would walk the beach and enjoy grilled corn on the cob and flavoured shaved ice in paper cones. In Cairo, my mother organized our household with excellent help. My Nonna, my mother’s mother, was with us for most of my youngest years. She had a way of buffering us from the daily domestic activities though we also loved to help in the kitchen. Sometimes, we just preferred to sit with Nonna while she smoked her water pipe and we would listen to her stories. We had a wonderful circle of friends and my parents enjoyed going out to spend the evenings listening to music. All the best shows of the time made a stop in Cairo. On the radio played the popular Arabic music of the day. Then we began to see changes. Between 1949 and 1952, many members of our family left via Europe for Israel though at home we never talked of this. I would only find out much later how my family members made their way to Israel. Now, many years later, I have learned of their perilous journeys. Then, our community was never officially told to leave Egypt and we

know that Rabbi Nahum did all that could be done to negotiate with the new regime of the colonels for a peaceful, voluntary departure of the community. Yet we knew that eventually we would have to leave. For a year, my brother and I didn’t attend school. First the school was closed for months and then the doors were opened but all the teachers were replaced. There were only Arabic teachers. It was not a French Lycee anymore. By the time the British and the French nationals were required to leave by the new regime of colonels in 1956, we had only one cousin and her family still in Cairo. My cousin Yvette and her children came to live with us because her husband, Sammy, had been interned by the Egyptian government. His crime? Being a basketball player with the Maccabiah youth organization. Our neighbour Dayan was also taken away and we did not see him in our neighbourhood in Egypt ever again. Though Yvette was not able to see Sammy often while he was in prison, she knew that he had been beaten. Later in my life, I would have liked to ask him about that period, but he never talked about it. My mother had traveled to Israel many times in her life, including for my birth in 1947. She was fluent in Hebrew and had many family members in Israel with whom she kept in touch somehow. Though I did not grow up with an idea of Zionism, by the time we were preparing to leave Egypt, we referred to our soon-to-be homeland as “chez nous”. I didn’t really have a picture in my mind of what our lives in Israel would be like.


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My brother described to me a land where we would live on a farm and have animals to care for. I just wanted to know if I would have a dog. My parents were concerned with much more practical issues. My brother and I were brought to the tailor to be measured for new clothes. We ordered an entire cold weather wardrobe. We even had balaclavas, maybe because we would travel via Europe or maybe because my parents were trying to keep up the impression before the authorities that we were not headed for Israel. It is also possible that my mother was worried about how we would fare with the change in climate, having lost five of her own siblings in childhood to common infections. My father sold his company and our apartment to his insurance agent, Monsieur Edouard, who was staying in Egypt. As a Coptic Christian, he did not feel the need to leave. Because we were only allowed to take three Egyptian pounds each, on our exit from Egypt my parents tried as best as they could to buy everything they thought we would need for our new life. They crated all our new possessions for the trip by ship to Marseille. We watched at the dock as all our crates were loaded. As a child, I was not aware of all the concerns and worries my parents had. I don’t know if they had to pay additional fees to see that their possessions would arrive to our destination. I know that there were a lot of arrangements to be made. We spent a whole year preparing. We had furniture, household goods, dry goods, clothing and linens. We were not allowed to bring jewelry of value, though we did buy gold chains and bracelets. My mother

smuggled her diamond ring past the officials in a jar of thick grape jam. When our possessions were inspected, we saw them, stirring and stirring the jam, but they didn’t find her ring and they didn’t find the other jewels that she had hidden inside piles of woolen socks ready for the coming cold winter days. The day of our departure was one full of emotion. We had left our home and cherished items behind. Our servants cried and mourned to see us leave. We took one last look at our neighbourhood and drove past all the familiar sites of my young life. We left behind our Egyptian life. Our close friend Edouard saw us to the port. I somehow understood that there was nothing left for us in Egpyt and that we were not wanted there anymore. Though we were not chased out of the country, we saw that we were the last of our family there and it was time to go. Now when I think of our trip to Israel, I see it as a kind of ‘last hurrah’. We did not anticipate all of the hardship that we would know in the coming years. We had first class tickets on a ship to Marseille, stopping later in Genoa and then transferring to a Jewish Agency ship to arrive in Israel. Though in earlier years during the British Protectorate, my mother had taken the train and bus to Israel, by the time we left, there was no direct route. Israel did not exist for the Egyptian authorities. We had to pretend to be leaving for Europe. We did not have passports. We were leaving with Iranian travel documents that my father had managed to procure. For all those generations of my family that had lived in

Egypt, we had never been granted citizenship. Somehow for me, a child of 10 years old, leaving Egypt was an adventure. We arrived in Marseille and then in Genoa, where we spent several weeks. I acquired a taste for Italian gelato very young. We bought two new Bianchi bikes to bring to Israel. What a thrill! Little did we know how difficult it would be to maintain these Italian bikes in Israel. Then, the Jewish agency took us under their wing. I still feel great gratitude when I think of how well my family was cared for and how we were helped by such a young country. Now with the knowledge I have of the struggles of Israel as a fledgling nation, I realize what a feat it was to absorb our entire community and so many others. Through the eyes of a child everything looks different. I remember the food package that we received from the agency. It was amazing to look through the gifts and see what was there. Somehow I thought that these packages would arrive every week. I needn’t have worried. We wanted for nothing, not just because of the help that we received but also because my parents had been so forward thinking. With all their preparations, we were still living on the goods that they brought years after we arrived in Israel. Sure, I missed the wonderful variety of fruits in Egypt especially the mangoes, but my mother had made sure that we had it all in preserves and rice and dried beans of all kinds that would last years. And the crates that carried all those goods served to make beds and later shelves for my father’s dry goods store in Bat Yam.


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It is possible that some of those same skills in preparation stuck with me years later when my friends used to tease me for bringing my own pressure cooker, garlic press, pepper mill, spices and kitchen utensils on a beach vacation. I have photos of my car loaded down for a two week vacation on the east coast of the US, as if we were crossing the desert with no hope of provisions along the way. Our family who had arrived in Israel just a few years earlier told us of how they had first lived in tents without running water. We settled into our temporary housing, with running water and outdoor facilities, in Cesarea, now the choicest real estate in Israel. At the time we arrived, it was far from everything, an outpost. It was September and for the holidays we went from Cesarea to Ramle to be with family. My cousin Margot, whom I had not seen in years, came from the north to be with us. Today our journey to Ramle would take a few hours. Back then, it took a whole day. Suddenly, in Ramle for that short time, I was surrounded by family, a whole group of exciting young people my age. In those first weeks in Cesarea, my father was already not well. We were sent far from any of our kin. My brother was placed in a kibbutz for a while, and I wasn’t able to see him for what seemed like months. I remember those times with my father. We played backgammon and

my father, for the first time, cooked for me. There were no other French speaking families in our area. I met kids of the neighbourhood and I learned Polish and Russian before I could speak Hebrew. I stayed with my father while my mother went to look for work in Tel Aviv. She stayed with her cousin, Fortunee, until my father started to need tests at the hospital and she had to return to Cesarea. My father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and my mother became the primary earner in the family, as unskilled labour. She did have excellent skills as a seamstress but mostly she helped with domestic chores. We all had to learn how to help out. Then things improved for my family. We secured a place in Bat Yam a lovely beach town south of Tel Aviv. We were in a maabarah with other Egyptian families other families from all over the world. This is where I lived with my family. This is where I finally one day, saw our neighbour Dayan who had disappeared from Helipolis. We were all so happy to find each other. I found friends from my early years in school. Sometimes it took years but we were all emerging in this new life in Bat Yam. In our three room asbestos short term housing with kerosene for cooking, we were content. Later, we moved to a nice apartment just a short ride from the beach. Bat Yam continued to grow and we enjoyed many

years of seeing it develop. Most of my clearest memories in my youth come from this time in Bat Yam. There is a fabulous great rock that juts out from the waves near the coast at our local beach. It’s still there. I have visited Bat Yam on trips to Israel from Canada with my wife and children. I try to express to them what happy times that rock in the waves represent for me. Israel was a young country and facing many struggles. We lived through those challenges together and endured just like that great rock in the waves.


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Miami Beach 1939

Ale Yiddishe Tekhters (All the Jewish Daughters)

Sophia Wolkowicz

As I scurried down a corridor of a Miami hotelwith a stuffed beach bag slung over my shoulder,I overheard an emphatic call coming from a convention hall beckoning “Ale Yiddishe Tekhters”.

I deliberated my pace so the flap of my rubber flip-flops against the dilapidated carpetwould not distract the clad-in-black diminutive man who was addressing a sparse and elderly audience.

I strained to understand the Yiddish wordsbetween his punctuated “Ale Yiddishe Tekhters” refrain, only to concede that my comprehension over time had dwindled to but a few clichéd phrases.

And I could not tell if his tone was in praise for all the Jewish women of valourWho would fill his empty seats or in dismay over all the ones that didn’t.

His loudest supplication however was in the pause between his measured words.It is in silence that I could feel my heart beat.

I know that the world can come to a still halt just as the sun rises,

Even in the middle of a day’s frenzy and once more before I retire to sleep.

It is like the split pause of a dancer whose head moves in alignment a second before forthcoming turns in order to gain balance.

I continued my way unnoticed but summonedAnd outside the Art Deco lobby,I sought to find his prodigal daughter.


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Lord, sometimes I think

Ken Samberg

Lord, sometimes I think the starsconstellate the noonday blue:in such confusionI can only turn to You;beyond the circlein which I strive and hopeI trust the compass of Your infinite scope;and when I fear my cargo’s insecurelike cartage in a desperate landI consign my burdento Your strong, protective Hand.Lord, who is like You--what mortal or god--save him who would fear Your Word and Your rod?

Palomino Road, Ste. Agathe des Monts

Joseph Graham

Palomino Road runs between Route 329 and Route 117, joining Lac Brûlé to Lake Manitou in Ste. Agathe. It is a long gravel road fenced for some distance, and there is a lovely old farmhouse at one of its curves. There is no official information on the origin of the name, but many people remember the Palomino Lodge. For 40 years it was a busy hotel with riding and skiing, and was instrumental in bringing many families to the Laurentians. The property once belonged to Melasippe Giroux, one farmer among the many who eked out a living in the hills between the two big lakes. His farm bordered a smaller lake that bears his name today. The Giroux family hung on until 1908, fully 16 years into the real estate boom that began with the railroad and saw almost every farm in the area change hands. Giroux sold to Morris Ryan, the owner of a Montreal dry cleaning business. Ryan had no reason to believe that the land would ever be farmed viably. With open, stony fields rising from the shore of tiny Lac Giroux to treed hilltops, the farm had never been able to provide more than subsistence. The frost-free season is short, only reliable for about 80 days, and the evenings are generally cool. Ryan bought the property just to have a country retreat, a gentleman’s farm. Over the next 20 years, he sold off and bought back pieces, wanting to share his bucolic getaway but not quite sure how to do it. Little could he foresee the day his son-in-law Henry would come looking for a new start in life on this run-down rocky farm. Henry Kaufmann was a driven man who worked his way to a tidy fortune during his 20s and early 30s. One of nine children, he would not apply himself


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academically and so was apprenticed to learn carpentry. Having received payment in some shares for a carpentry job, he soon discovered that trading the shares could be much more lucrative than his own trade was, and he took to this new career with the determination of a skilled labourer. Despite his hard work, he was not prepared for what happened on that fateful Friday in October 1929 when his wealth simply ceased to exist. Henry was 34 years old and had to start over. His father-in-law received him at the farm and assigned him the challenge of using his carpentry skills to build a log house. He disappeared into the bush and built one. Ryan was probably thinking they could sell the house and Kaufmann could build another. They were trying to figure out some way to create a livelihood on the barren farm that Giroux had abandoned. All they had used it for until then was riding horses. But the Depression was not a good time for real estate. Instead, Kaufmann built a lodge, and Ryan and he arranged with the Rabiners of Montreal to run it for them. In those days, Montrealers who came to small lodges in the country for their holidays had the choice of many hotels and inns, each with a special feature. The ones on the shores of large lakes could offer boating, canoeing and swimming. Lac Giroux was not really large enough to do much boating, but the Ryans had horses and miles of trails. When Rabiner left to set up his own hotel, Kaufmann, undaunted, built an even larger lodge and a huge stable. He depended upon hardworking employees, and drove them hard. One who stood by him for many years was Arnold, a World War I British cavalryman. Arnold looked after the horses, and guests remember him as a character. He knew his horses and he loved his Dalmatians, which he

raised on his own, with no more than the detached interest a farmer might take in his farm dogs. In the early part of the century, riding was a major recreational activity in the Laurentians, predating skiing and water sports, and it only grudgingly gave way to skiing in the 1930s and ’40s. During that period, Arnold’s stables had over a dozen horses and the trails to go with them. Kaufmann had a particular love of palominos and so he named the hotel Palomino Lodge. Palomino horses are not a breed, but simply a distinct golden colour. Breeding two palominos will give you a white horse; a palomino and a sorrel will produce the palomino colt with the 14-carat gold colouring and the white mane and tail. The Lodge hosted many distinguished guests, including Lorne Greene, who later be-came famous as the father in the television series Bonanza, and Princess Elisabeth’s retinue in the early ’50s when she visited Canada prior to her coronation. Henry Kaufmann and his wife, the former Berenice Ryan, ran the lodge until 1956 when they sold it to one of their regular guests, Sam Steinberg. While the Kaufmanns never had children, in a sense the Lodge stayed in the family, as Henry’s nephew had married the daughter of the new owner. Henry, though, went back to the stock market. He and Berenice moved back to Montreal where they were involved in many charities, and left their estate to a foundation established in their names. Palomino Lodge became a retreat for Steinberg’s employees until the 1980s, at which time it was acquired by the Apostles of Infinite Love. The new owners let the property run down and over the years the fields and roads were abandoned to the woods. The building achieved some notoriety again in the 1990s when kids accidentally set fire to the

old lodge. With the road gone, local residents watched as water bombers skimmed the surface of nearby Lac Brûlé and doused the flames. It has changed hands several more times since. The buildings are now gone and the farm and horses are only fading memories whose sole vestige is the name Palomino Road.

Excerpted from Naming the Laurentians with permission from the author, Joseph Graham. Published by les Editions Main Street Inc. . Special thanks to Elliott Kaufmann and Robert Levine for sharing their memories and to Sheila Eskenazi.


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SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT*

Words there are and prayers, but justice there is not, nor yet peace.

The prophet said: In the end of days the Lord shall judge between nations; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks.Although we must wait for judgment, we may not wait for peace to fall like rain upon us.

The teacher said:Those who have made peace in their homes, it is as though they brought peace to all Israel, indeed, to all the world.

The psalmist said:Seek peace and pursue it.Be not content to make peace only in your own household;go forth and work for peace wherever men and women struggle in its cause.

May this peace yet come to beand may justice be its companion.

*adapted by Harry Rajchgot from Gates of Repentance- The New Union Prayerbookfor the Days of Awe©Central Conference of American Rabbis


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Editors:! Zav Levinson! Harry RajchgotAssistant Editors:! Cheryl Everett Rajchgot! Wendy ThomasIllustrations:

pg.1- photo, Moosalamoo Mountain, Lake Dunmore , Vermont, , ©2006 Cheryl Everett-Rajchgotpp.3, 4, 16- Succoth cornucopia. Harry Rajchgotp. 5- photo, Orthodox convent, Poland 1978, Antonin Kratochvil, from his collection Broken Dream, <www.photoarts.com/journal/SABA/kratochvil/page 2.html>p.8- Bat Yam Harbour rock, © Tal Flanzman!p.10- May It Be Your Will- © 2005, Sophia Wolkowiczp.11- photo, June in January, Miami Beach . Marion Post Walcott, 1939 (digital.library.miami.edu/fsa/Mia17.jpg) p.14- photo, Mountain Road, © 2005 Cheryl Everett-Rajchgot!p.15- Western (Wailing )Wall, 1896 etching

All copyrights remain the property of the authors.

Without the help and encouragement of Rabbi Leigh Lerner and Rhona Samsonavitch, this publication would still be a small and probably fading gleam in our eyes.

We wish to thank the following for their generosity in supporting the Harvest-Ha’Asif anthology:

David Abramson - for his very generous donation -Zav LevinsonHarry Rajchgot Vivianne Schinasi-Silver- and especially -The Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund

Submissions for the next edition of Harvest-Ha’Asif (expected for Succoth 5768) can be made at any time c/o Rhona Samsonovitch at the Temple office or by e-mail to:

[email protected]

A very small number of copies of the first and second edition of Harvest-Ha’Asif may still be available, for those who may have missed it. For anyone wishing to see a copy, please contact us at the same e-mail address and we will try to fulfil your request. As these may have to be reprinted in their entirety, a very small donation to the Rabbi’s Fund would very much be appreciated (If you choose to do so, please mention the connection to this publication).

http://www.photoarts.com/journal/SABA/kratochvil/page




mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


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Harvest-HaAsif 2006

Documents

Transcript of Harvest-HaAsif 2006