You'll Laugh
You'll Cry
Reb Moshe Waldoks
The child of Holocaust
While much attention is given to
documenting the architecture of the
destruction, Waldoks chooses to focus
on Jewish life in light of the experience.
He recently contributed one of 88 essays
in the just-released God, Faith & Identity
survivors discusses the
future — with humor.
from the Ashes: Reflections of Children
and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors
Contributing Writer
(Jewish Lights Publishing), edited by
Menachem Z. Rosensaft.
umor and the Holocaust have
"I want to recover some of the rich
something in common to Reb
cultural life that was lost, to recover that
Moshe Waldoks. Neither is a
vibrancy which I think we can really use,"
laughing matter.
he says. Some was recovered
Waldoks, rabbi at Temple
through klezmer music, but
Beth Zion in Boston and
he hopes for a more "high-
co-author of the longstand-
brow" renaissance. "[Our
ing favorite The Big Book
parents and grandparents]
of Jewish Humor, will be in
had more of it than we have
25TH ANNIVERSARY
Detroit on Sunday, April 26,
today and they did it without
WILLIAM NOVAK & MOSHE WALDOKS
to speak to other descen-
money" Waldoks says.
iFOI NEW 1 1:4 A
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dants of Holocaust survi-
Ordained and active in the
vors. He says he discovered
Jewish Renewal movement,
r
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the power of comedy in his
it is no surprise that Waldoks
= MOM=
family's Toledo, Ohio, living
is looking to infuse that spirit
room, and he's taken it seri-
in today's Jewish life. "I'm not
ously ever since.
looking to recreate [what they had], but
"In the late '50s and early '60s, I noticed
resurrect it by being renewalist," he says.
how much pleasure my parents got from
"We need to talk about what will come
the comedians on The Ed Sullivan Show:'
after us" he says of the second and third
he says. "I figured that there was some-
generations of Holocaust survivors. "What
thing there.
role do we play in this generation and
"My father was not a talker, but my
transferring it to the next? What do we
mother was" Waldoks says of hearing
want to remember and transfer? What is
about the Holocaust growing up. "There
most important?"
is no way I could get away from the con-
One answer is the importance of family.
sciousness of the Holocaust"
"I found that [survivors] who remained
Most of his mother's family was mur-
functional [after the war] and wanted to
dered at Auschwitz, and his father's family
raise families had grown up with wonder-
was in the path of the mobile killing units
ful and rich family lives" he says. "I think
that followed Nazi troops into Russia.
it is important to tell about the resilience of
"The overall response to the Holocaust is the survivors:'
Charles Silow, director of CHAIM
of a tremendous loss, a sort of a phantom
limb, like something was amputated" he
(Children of Holocaust-Survivors
says. "You have choices as a child, whether
Association in Michigan), which is hosting
to cry or whether to laugh; I chose to
Waldoks' talk, first heard him speak at the
laugh.
World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors
"No matter what I do academically or
of the Holocaust and Descendants
spiritually, I always try to do it with humor. Conference in Boston in 2009.
Once you get people to laugh, you open
"He has an incredible gift" Slow says,
their hearts and then you can put some-
"He's very wise, very funny and very spiri-
thing in it.
tual. He's coming to talk about the future.
"Humor is a very important kind of
What is our role? Who will carry the torch
release he adds, referencing his doctoral
after we are gone, and what will be the
studies in Jewish intellectual history from
message?"
Brandeis University. "Often it is said that
the Jewish experience is laughter through
Reb Moshe Waldoks talks about
tears, but I found the roots went back to
"Memory and Hope for the Future,"
ancient times. There you find a model
3 p.m. Sunday, April 26, at Adat
of the parody. What we saw in The Show
Shalom Synagogue, Farmington
of Shows, Saturday Night Live and Mel
Brooks' films, we found in the Book of
Hills. $18. Chaim2g.org .
Esther."
I
Don Cohen
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