Recha Freier— Let the Children Come

Yura-Glickman Vows
to Be Spoken. in August

Founder of Youth Aliyah Recalls It Started With a Dream

By CHARLOTTE HYAMS
"It was a big sheet in a black
frame---I can still see it: "Entrance
Forbidden to Dogs and Jews."
Recha Freier leans forward in
the plush armchair, and her deep-
set hazel eyes mirror the remem-
brance. "I was 4 at the time, and
my father—he was a schoolmaster
in the little North German town—
took us to the park an Shabbat."
The sign, penciled in large, black
letters, was no different from many
that would one day appear in Ger-
many. But even then it was too

RECHA FREIER

much for Menasseh Schweitzer,
writer and schoolmaster, to take.
His family could not live in such
a town.
So, Recha, age 4, began to know
the loneliness of a people with no
home. There would be other
towns, with other taunts for the
Jew strangers. That the Schweit-
zers, some say, trace their family
tree back to 4th Century Germany
made no difference.
Recha retreated to a world of
her own making. "I dreamed; I
was homesick. But for what
_home? I didn't know. My home
became the Hebrew prayerbook
and the Hebrew language. I
think". — she smiles — "I think
I spoke to God."
One day, God spoke back
through a light brown pamphlet
with dark brown letters.
The booklet was by Ber Boro-
chov, the founder of the Social
Zionist movement. Zionism, he
wrote, is the revolution of the
Jewish people. Economically and
socially, the Jews are on the out-
skirts of a nation, and when it is
beset with a crisis, the Jews are
the first to be attacked.
Palestine, said the little brown
pamphlet, offers the Jews the
chance to set the foundation of an
economic organism by a return to
the earth.
Recha, now a young _woman, was
overwhelmed. "Now my dreams
were of bringing Jewish youth out
from Europe to Palestine, to settle
them on kibbutzim." Hitler had not
yet begun his haranguing, but un-
employment was taking its toll.
"Five or six children came to me;
they had been pushed out of their
jobs because they were Jews. This
was the hour for me to act."
Adults refused to listen, but her

Fifty Years Ago ...

Solomon Schechter died ...

, message was for the youth. One
I teacher let her speak; and 60 chil-
dren signed up.
Resistance was great on all
sides; however, in October 1932,
a dozen of those 60 children set
off for Palestine. Youth Aliyah
was born.
Today, there are some 125,000
persons in Israel — many now
grown — who owe their life to
Recha Freier's vision. A year after
the first group left Germany, the
Nazis came to full power; several
thousand children were saved be-
fore the gates were closed. Many
more were saved when Israel's
opened.
Youth Aliyah is a favorite pro-
ject of Hadassah, the women's
Zionist organization, and it was
the Montreal chapter of Hadassah-
WIZO that brought Mrs. Freier to
this continent, honoring her at a
testimonial luncheon Feb. 2.
On her first visit to the United
States, she was staying with her
son, Andrew, and his family on
Bell Rd.
A professor of gynecology at
Wayne State, Andrew shares much
distinction with his brothers and
sister. The eldest, Shalhevet (He-
brew for "flame") is a physicist at
Weizmann Institute; Zerem
("stream"), a physician, is direc-
tor of the Shaarey Zedek children's
hospital in Jerusalem; Maayan
("well spring"), the only daughter,
is a teacher and, now that her
children are in school, is studying
pedagogy and literature at the
university.
(Andrew's Hebrew name, inci-
dentally, is Ahmud, or column.)
Mrs. Freier's husband, who was
a rabbi of some note in Berlin until
the Nazis forced him to escape,
lives in Switzerland, where he does
scientific writing.
She is stopping there on her
way back to Israel, including on
her itinerary a visit with the pro-
ducer of a surrealistic drama she
wrote on Orpheus and Euridyce.
Some of her poems and short
prose are also being published in
Switzerland.
Before coming to this hemi-

Dance Will Benefit
Youth Aliyah Program

A benefit dance for Youth Aliyah
will be held by the Southfield
Group of Hadassah 8:30 p.m.,
March 5 at Cong. Shaarey Zedek.
Because of the unprecedented
flow of youngsters into the Youth
Aliyah program, Mrs. Stanley
Aaron, Southfield's Youth Aliyah
chairman, has urged full participa-
tion in the "Thunder Ball," to help
meet the evergrowing needs.
The party will begin with a
cocktail hour and dancing to the
music of the Hal Gordon orchestra.
Continental supper will be served,
and there will be entertainment by
Mr. and Mrs. Jack Barnes.
Prizes, including my s t e r y
bonuses, will be awarded during
the evening. For tickets, call Mrs.
Al Stein, ticket chairman, EL
6-4631.

sphere, Mrs. Freier was in Vienna
conferring with the avant garde
composer Raman Haubenstock,
with whom she is writing an ora-
torio on "The Passion of the Jew-
ish people under the Cross."
Only documentary texts dating
back to the First Century are to be
used, and the sufferings of the
Jews up until modern times will
be related in the 15-part work, for
which some of the world's top
composers are to be commissioned.
Philip Rothschild has formed a
committee in Paris to help support
the undertaking, and Mrs. Freier
hopes to set up a similar group in
this country, establishing a $100,000
foundation for the commissioning
of the work.
She is a woman of many mis-
sions, and like such women —
Golda Meir, for example, whose
resemblance to her is striking —
has an enthusiasm that fibs about
her age, whatever it may be.
("I never occupy myself with
age," she says with a musical
giggle that could belong to any
one of her six grandchildren,
"I'm timeless.")
And Mrs. Freier proceeds to
prove it by relating a few of her
many interests — her writing, her
reading ("What a pity, during the
war, I had no time for it"), the
piano, the five balconies of flowers
that grow outside her Jerusalem
home, her grandchildren.
But it is the latter—or, rather,
all children — who have been her
greatest love and will remain her
greatest testimonial.
"I went after the 12 children to
visit Palestine in 1932, and I heard
someone say the words 'Youth
Aliyah' on a bus. It was like a
dream to me."
But the reception was not al-
ways warm. Palestine had no
budget for settling refugee chil-
dren on its kibbutzim. Henrietta
Szold, already at work in Palestine
in her great humanitarian activi-
ties for Hadassah, said she could
not support new children when
there were no funds to support
those already there.
"It was natural for her to say it,"
Mrs. Freier admits.
"You know, Henrietta and I were
not at all alike. She was very
responsible, very thorough; she
wanted to check first. But when
I feel something is urgent, I want
to do it right away. In her eyes
I must have seemed irresponsible.
"But how could she know what
I knew? She was in Palestine, I
was in Germany. She didn't see
what was coming, but few did."
Even in 1935, two years after
the Zionist Congress set up a
Youth Aliyah office for the set-
tlement of German Jewish chil-
dren in Palestine, Henrietta
Szold, its director, expressed her
doubts about the scheme to Mrs.
Freier.
They came out in dribbles to the
Homeland — first one group, then
two, eventually 10.
In 1941, they ceased. "I was
forced to leave Germany," Mrs.
Freier recalls. "I didn't want to
go; there were thousands of chil-

The name of this outstanding tified a fragment from the "Geni-
scholar, who became the second zah" as part of the lost Hebrew or-
President of the Jewish Theological iginal of the "Wisdom of Ben Sira"
Seminary of America, and the belonging to the literature of the
Founder of the Conservative Move- Apocrypha. Subsequently, Schech-
ment in American Judaism, re- ter journeyed tcitairo and acquired
mains linked with the story of the -for the University of Cambridge,
"Genizah" in Cairo — that store- England, about 100,000 leaves,
house of treasures of Hebrew liter- containing priceless manuscripts of
ature throughout the centuries.
Hebrew literature in antiquity and
It was Schechter who first iden- the middle ages.

dren left." When she finally did
escape with her daughter (the
boys were safe at school in Eng-
land), she brought out 120 young-
sters with her.
Their experience is recounted
in a book by Mrs. Freier, "Let the
Children Come," the story of Youth
Aliyah's beginnings.
Smuggled across the border into
Yugoslavia, Mrs. Freier worked
out a deal with the two men who
helped her. They would go back
and bring out small groups of
children; if they were stopped
at the border, the smugglers
were to disappear and bear no
responsibility.
This did, in fact, happen to a
group of girls, but officers took
pity on them and delivered them
to the Jewish community in Yugo-
slavia. The girls remained there
until they could emigrate.
It was no easy task to get
Palestine entry permits in those
chaotic times; with pressure,
though, the consular authorities
stationed in I st a n b u 1 came
through.
Only 80 of the children received
certificates, however. The remain-
der evaded the Nazis by wander-
ing from eastern to western Yugo-
slavia, to Italy and up into Switzer-
land. Eventually, they r ea c h e d
Palestine.
Mrs. Freier, who had majored in
modern languages and English lit-
erature at the Breslau and Munich
universities, was neither teacher
nor social worker. But somehow a
school was set up in Zagreb for the
children in transit.
The journey home was a long
one, and the perilous crossings, the
smuggled landings of many refu-
gee children like them would
become well known to the world.
Yet, once in Palestine, Mrs.
Freier discovered her work was
not over.
"Now I saw the problem Hen-
rietta faced. It was now my duty
to organize the work for the rescue
and rehabilitation of children born
in the land." She called it Agricul-
tural Training for Israel Children,
a program for young people age
6-18 from disrupted homes, many
of them orphans. There are today
600 such kibbutz programs.
Twenty five years after com-
ing home, Recha Freier's chil-
dren are spread throughout the
country — they are Israel's
builders, its kibbutz leaders,
officers in the army and in every
sector of Israel's life.
"Maybe now I'll retire," she
concedes, and sits back in her arm-
chair to illustrate the point. But
then she grins again, and the eyes
say, "Don't you believe it."

.

MISS RHODA YURA

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Yura of
Greenwald Dr., Southfield, an-
nounce the engagement of their
daughter Rhoda Joyce to Daniel
Robert Glickman, son of Mr. and
Mrs. Milton Glickman of Wichita,
Kan.
Miss Yura is a senior in speech
at the University of Michigan, and
is affiliated with Delta Phi Epsilon
Sorority. Mr. Glickman is presi-
dent of the graduating class of the
university's liberal arts college.
He is a member of Sigma Alpha
Mu Fraternity and Druids Honor-
ary Fraternity.
An Aug. 21 wedding is planned.

Alpha Omega Cancels

Detroit Alumni Chapter, Alpha
Omega Fraternity, has canceled its
meeting schedule for 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday at Cong. Shaarey Zedek.
The program was to have been a
dialogue between Rabbi Morris Ad-
ler and Israel Counsul General
Jacob Barmore.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

24—Friday, February 18, 1966

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I

Are Pleased to Announce That

At the New and Beautiful

Schechter assorting in Cambridge
fragments from the Cairo "Genizah"

4

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