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On Tisha b’Av, Remember Th e Holocaust

W

e are in
the Jewish
month of Av,
a month of mourning
for Jewish people. In
the month of Av, we
remember the many
tragedies that have
Michael Weiss
happened to us. More
Special to the
than 2,000 years ago
Jewish News
on the ninth of Av,
the first and second
Beit HaMikdash, our
holy temples, were
destroyed, burned with
the holy objects to the ground. Tens of
thousands of men, women and children
were killed by the Romans. We were
driven from our holy country, Israel,
which God Himself gave to our forefa-
thers Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

He gave it to us, the Jewish people.
Then we were driven out from our
holy city, from Jerusalem. More than
2,000 years ago, King David built
Jerusalem, establishing it as the capital
of Israel. His son, King Solomon, built
the first Beit HaMikdash, the holy tem-
ple, on Mount Moriah.
Today, we have another time to
remember and to mourn what hap-
pened in our generation, what the world
calls the Holocaust; the survivors call
it Churban Shlishi. Just as we teach
and remember the destruction of the
Holy Temples on Tisha b’Av, we must
teach and remember the Holocaust, the
Shoah, the Churban Shlishi.
The Holocaust was no less a national
Jewish tragedy than the destruction of
the Holy Temples. Thousands of Jewish
communities and thousands upon thou-

sands of synagogues and shtiebel (small
religious prayer rooms) were destroyed
and burned in the Holocaust. Hundreds
of thousands of Torah scrolls were
burned. Six million people, including 1.5
million children, were murdered in gas
chambers and then burned in the cre-
matoria. The 6 million kedoshim, mar-
tyrs, never had a funeral or a grave. They
were our fathers, mothers and children:
our future generations. Nobody said the
Kaddish prayer for them; nobody sat
shivah for them. There are tens of thou-
sands of families from which no family
members survived to remember them.
That’s why the 6 million holy nesham-
ot (souls) of the Shoah must be remem-
bered by Jewish communities. For this,
we need the continued support and
attendance at our Yizkor services from
generations around the world.

We want to say thank you to God for
helping us to come to this country. It
felt like coming from hell to heaven.
America gave us a home when had
none, when we were homeless and had
nothing and nobody. America embraced
us when we were rejected by the whole
world. It gave us a feeling that we
belonged.
We the Jewish people, we the
Holocaust survivors, will remember the
Shoah forever. We hope and pray that
God’s justice will someday punish each
and every one of those responsible for
murdering his holy people. •

Michael Weiss, a Holocaust survivor, is a speaker at
the Holocaust Memorial Cente in Farmington Hills
and author of the book Chimneys and Chambers.

commentary

It’s Time To Return To Civility

T

Yiddish Limerick

Tisha b’Av

Mir Hobn farlorn undzer Bais HaMikdash, even
di tzvay
So mir vel gedaykn un fastn un Lamentations
we will say.
On the floor mir vel zitzn
Mir dertzayln nisht vitzn
Dos is Tisha b’Av, so sad is the day.

Mir hobn farlorn: we have lost
Undzer Bais HaMikdash: our Temple
Di tzvay: the two
Mir vel gedaynkn: we will remember
Un fastn: and fast
Mir vel zitzn: we will sit
Mir dertzayln nisht vitzn: we don’t tell jokes
Dos is Tisha b’Av: it’s the 9th of Av

By Rachel Kapen

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8

July 19 • 2018

jn

he toxic level of
divisiveness in
American politi-
cal life today is driving
families and friends
apart and hurting our
country. The hateful-
ness and intolerance
Robert Schostak that fuel it must be
called out wherever
they appear. Let’s stop
looking for someone
to blame and start
looking in the mirror!
It showed up in our own commu-
nity when the board of the Franklin
Hills Country Club voted to cancel a
scheduled fundraiser for Lena Epstein,
a Jewish woman running for the open
seat in Michigan’s 11th Congressional
District, indicating that they did so
because she openly supports President
Trump.
Many of us were appalled when we
learned that the country club canceled
Lena’s fundraiser at the last minute in
reaction to hateful comments and the
threat of protests by a non-member
living outside the community. We have
hosted political fundraisers at Franklin
and other country clubs over many
years supporting conservative political
thinking and never had an experience
like this.
Franklin Hills Country Club was
founded in the 1920s by Jews who no
doubt experienced discrimination
against Jews by employers, universities,
clubs and other organizations that was

common at that time. It is shocking
that this type of political bias against
Lena (who along with her family are
longtime members of Franklin Hills)
was supported by the current board.
This incident was widely reported
in the national media. It is embarrass-
ing for the club, our community and
our state. More to the point, it accom-
plished nothing except to increase the
negative activity going on in politics.
We have entered a sobering period
of the Jewish calendar — the three
weeks leading up to Tisha b’Av, the day
of destruction and desolation for the
Jewish people. The sages of the Talmud
say the Temple was destroyed because
of sinat chinam, baseless hatred.
When friends and neighbors turn
on one another and engage in hateful
rhetoric and name-calling, we all must
pause and think. We cannot let anger,
hate and intolerance drive the day. I
worry that if our community leaders
and our political leaders endorse this
kind of behavior, the damage done to
our country will be severe and multi-
generational.
It’s time to return to civility, to seeing
the humanity of the people we disagree
with, to acting like grownups — let’s
look in the mirror and remember who
we are — and to showing respect for
our fellow Americans and the amazing
country we are all privileged to share. •

Robert Schostak serves on the Board of Directors
of the Republican Jewish Coalition and is a for-
mer chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.