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6/4

1999

40 Detroit Jewish News

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glorifying God's name) and lit candles. I
felt a peaceful joy at finally touching the
lives of my grandparents. I could see the
beautiful, mountainous countryside
where they had lived. There was also
tremendous sadness in knowing that my
visit could be one of the last made to
these graves.
We returned to the larger city of
Cluj, where six large and 25 small syna-
gogues had existed for 18,000 Jews
prior to World War II. One synagogue
used on the High Holidays and one
small daily synagogue remain for the
320 Jews who still live here. Agnes
Muller, a lovely Jewish woman who
spoke perfect English, interpreted for
her father-in-law, Benyimin Muller, a
native of Cluj. He had known some of
the Fenichel family, many of whom had
been born and lived in Cluj.
We learned about the dismal con-
ditions of life in Romania, where
crime is high and so is the unemploy-
ment. What the war didn't destroy,
the Communists did. While religion
has been allowed to return and anti-
Semitism is not a serious problem, life
is difficult for ethnic Hungarians.
Jewish children are excused from reli-
gious classes in Romania and can attend/
Talmud-Torah classes. In Cluj, an 80-
year-old woman teaches Hebrew to
Agnes Muller's 9-year-old daughter.
We felt grateful to the American
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
for connecting us to the Jewish com-
munity in Cluj. Before leaving home,
we were in touch with JDC personnel
in New York and Israel. The Joint
does wonderful work with small or
struggling communities in the diaspo-
ra (Jews living outside Israel). For
many such communities, it is the only
lifeline they have. At least now the
elderly Jews in Cluj receive German
reparations, which was not allowed
previously under the Communists.
I continue to wish that I had known
my grandparents, uncles and aunts, bum
I am grateful that I had the opportunity ,
to remember them in this veiy personal
way. I wish I could have shared this visit
with my father, but I know he would be
delighted that I was able to catch a
glimpse of what life was like for him at
the time when the Austro-Hungarian
Empire was at the end of its golden
years. A "roots" trip such as this gave me
the opportunity to honor my grand-
parents and great-grandparents, to
renew my sense of gratitude that I wa
born and live in America and to bet-
ter understand the birthplace of many
of the previous generations of my
family. Fl