AUGUST 22 • 2024 | 43
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BOOK REVIEW
T
hough Nehama Stampfer grew up in
Portland, Oregon, her family spent a
year in Israel three times, whenever her
father had a sabbatical from his service as a
synagogue rabbi. Especially during those years,
she got to know her parents’ wide circle of
relatives, including her great-uncle Avraham
Frank (Dod Avram).
At family celebrations, Dod Avram was a
center of attention — he led songs, told jokes
and recounted family history intertwined
with national history. He rejoiced with people
ebulliently on happy occasions and comforted
people wisely on sad ones. He had practical
advice when asked, and quietly helped when
the situation called for assistance. During a
visit, he would repair whatever needed fixing.
Unlike many raconteurs, he had a reputation
for strict veracity, departing from strict
accuracy only to credit others generously and
minimize his own role.
When he reached an advanced age, Avraham
Frank’s children convinced him to write his
memoir. The Hebrew original of Goodness
and Mercy Shall Follow Me appeared in 2007.
He explains in the preface that he wrote this
work “to give my children and grandchildren
a glimpse into the Jerusalem of my youth, and
the Tel Aviv of my adolescence and adulthood.
My generation was destined to have the honor
and merit to be part of establishing a renewed
Jewish state in the land of Israel; my personal
experience coincided with the historical and
national events of that era.”
Avraham Frank was born more than a
century ago, the 12th of the 14 children
of Rabbanit Gitah-Malkah Frank and her
husband, Rabbi Zvi Pesach Frank. Rabbi
Frank, at that time a beloved and respected
judge on the rabbinical court of Jerusalem,
later became the chief rabbi of Jerusalem.
Avraham recorded the history of earlier
generations of their illustrious families. He
said his family would joke that Avraham
“remembered events that happened even
before I was born.”
Later generations of the family, in Avraham
Frank’s estimation, “ … spread out through
the entire spectrum of society — Charedim,
religious Zionists (including outstanding
scholars), as well as members of the general
society who are not identifiable by a kippah.
His grandchildren and great-grandchildren
included fearless fighters who died in defense
of the homeland, as well as public figures of
various types — if you like, in the synagogue
and in the Parliament (beit ha-knesset and the
Knesset).”
The incidents recorded in Goodness and
Mercy Shall Follow Me give us powerful
insights into the Jewish community of pre-
state Israel, the birth pangs of the new State of
Israel and the challenges of the next decades.
Former Ann Arbor resident Nehama
Stampfer Glogower, when she received her
copy of the Hebrew edition, immediately
“wanted to translate it into English so my
children and American nieces and nephews
could understand it.”
Her translation (with added historical
and personal notes) should have value for
others besides her children and their cousins.
It can enlighten other English readers to
the “resilience, ingenuity, courage and
determination” of the Jewish community of
Israel. The book seems especially needed now,
when one can easily access ugly, distorted
narratives about the Jewish presence in Israel.
Among the dramatic events recorded by
Avraham Frank: His father held American
citizenship, although he had never lived in
the United States. The Ottoman Turks fought
against the Americans in World War I and
decided to deport any American citizens from
Jerusalem to Damascus. Rabbi Frank went into
hiding, so the Turkish authorities arrested his
wife, Gitah-Malkah, to pressure him to turn
himself in. Her daughters brought Avraham,
then 7 months old, to the prison each day,
for the baby to nurse. One day, Gitah-Malkah
told her 17-year-old daughter Nehama, “Don’t
bring the baby to the prison tomorrow. I’m
planning to escape, and you must run away
from the house because they will look for me
there.”
The next morning, a group of women
prisoners walked up to the prison guard and
confidently explained they had a car waiting
for them. He must have believed they had
been released because he did not object. When
the women got past the guard, they ran in
Review of
Goodness and Mercy Shall Follow Me:
A Memoir of Old Jerusalem
continued on page 44
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER