4505 Tanbark Street Bloomfield Hills 48302

Bloomfield Hills Schools.
Spacious 3763 sq. ft; 4 BR,
2 full baths, 2 lavs, library,
circular drive, daylight
basement , beautiful setting.
Priced to sell and reduced
to $499,900.

spirituality

1292 Davis Avenue Birmingham 48009

Birmingham Schools. 1237
sq. ft.; 2 BR, 2 full baths,
2 car garage, hot tub,
basement. Move-in ready
or add possible addition to
increase market value.
Priced to sell and reduced
to $295,000.

A Tisha B’Av
Remembrabce

MICHAEL WEISS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

I

Sheila R Morganroth
Associate Broker

Real Estate One/Max Broock Realtors

248-419-3214

ASSISTED LIVING I MEMORY CARE

OPENING FALL 2017 IN OAKLAND COUNTY!

Welcome to the lifestyle you seek, the care and
security you need and the dignity you deserve. Our
communities include The Village Square, 3 on-site
restaurants with Chef-prepared meals, a Concierge
approach to care and more. This is where life happens!

NOW ACCEPTING RESERVATIONS!

855-543-2636

WWW.FIRSTANDMAIN.US

3051 E WALTON BOULEVARD, AUBURN HILLS, MI 48326
100 W SQUARE LAKE ROAD, BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI 48302
2500 MARTIN PARKWAY, COMMERCE TOWNSHIP, MI 48390

24

July 27 • 2017

jn

n the Jewish calendar, we Jewish
people have many national days
when we remember our past and
retell our tragedies. On Passover,
we remember when the Pharaoh
enslaved the Jewish people and made
them build cities and the pyramids
thousands of years ago. They are still
standing. The Jewish slaves were the
first slaves in history.
Now we are in the Jewish month
of Av, and on the ninth day of the
month, what we call Tisha b’Av, we
remember the tragedy and mourn
the destruction of both our holy tem-
ples. The first and second temples
were burned and destroyed together
with our holy objects. Thousands of
men, women and children were mur-
dered just because they were Jews.
We were driven out from our
whole country, Israel; we were driven
out of the holy city of Jerusalem,
which God gave to our forefathers
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob … to His chil-
dren. This was about 3,000 years ago.
In this century, we have another
tragedy to remember. I am refer-
ring to what the world calls the
Holocaust.
Let’s summarize what happened
during the terrible years of the
Holocaust. We, the Jewish people
who lived in Europe for 800-900
years, obeyed the laws in what-
ever country we lived in. The Nazi
German government, with its people,
took us out of our homes, put us into
ghettoes, then into concentration
camps like Auschwitz, Majdanek,
Buna and many others, which were
equipped with gas chambers where
they murdered our families, our
people. Those camps had crematoria
where they burned millions of Jews
— including children.
All that was left of European
Jewish life were ashes and cemeter-
ies. Every inch of ground in Europe is
cursed because it is soaked in Jewish
blood. Every silent barrack in the

ABOVE: Author Michael Weiss at the memorial
stone in Hebrew Memorial Park.

hundreds of concentration camps
over Europe is crying with pain of
its victims. The wind blowing over
Europe will forever carry the smoke
and ashes of the 6 million innocent
people and 1.5 million children who
were murdered by the Nazis.
More than 70 years after the
Shoah, our ears still hear the cries
from the gas chambers. Our noses
can still smell the stench from the
crematoria. During the Holocaust
years, most of the countries in
Europe betrayed our people. Many
countries helped in the murder of 6
million of our people. Even western
countries closed their borders.
We survivors remember the righ-
teous gentiles forever. They put their
lives and the lives of their families
in jeopardy to hide and save Jewish
lives. There was Oscar Schindler,
who saved 1,200 Jewish lives and
Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish dip-
lomat who finished college at the
University of Michigan, who saved
tens of thousands of Jews.
But 70 years after liberation, for
us survivors, the tragedy of the
Holocaust is not just a part of his-
tory; it is a wound, a cancer in our
neshamot (souls) that continues to
hurt … it will never heal.
We all agree that everybody dies
sometime, but God forbid if a father
or mother or a family member dies,
there is a levayah ( funeral) and a
kaver (grave), but our six million
tzadikim, (innocent family members)
never had a funeral or a grave.
We survivors put down a memo-
rial stone with the names of our par-
ents and family members in Hebrew
Memorial Park. We Jews believe the
soul never dies and they have a rest-
ing place. This will be their resting
place. •

