Another day of mourning.
Today is the Memorial Day for fallen soldiers. Every Israeli family has lost relatives or friends in wars or on army duty. The price for independence has been high.
One of my best friends in Israel is a 95 year “young” woman. She fled Germany together with her husband in 1934 and arrived in Israel. Before they left Germany her mother made sure to have some clothes made for her. These clothes and other personal belongings were put in two boxes and brought with them on the journey. She came from an “upper class background” and was heading for a new life in a kibbutz.
The two boxes didn’t really fit in with her new home. There were no permanent buildings other than the children’s houses and she and her husband lived like all the other adults in a tent. She was happy the day the boxes were opened for whomever to take what they pleased. There were no occasions for her to wear the clothes inside but others had never seen tailor made clothes of such quality before so they grabbed whatever they could get hold on and left the boxes empty for her.
My friend told me that nobody believed that she would ever make it on a kibbutz, but “ I had everything I needed in life as long as my best friend and husband was there right beside me.” They had left everything behind and were facing the future holding on to one another.
The War of Independence left her with the memories and a grave.
A couple I got to know in another kibbutz were both Holocaust survivors. He managed to flee Nazi Germany and she was from Italy and had survived a concentration camp. They got three sons and were proud and happy parents until the Yom Kippur War.
Today they have one son left.
I shall never forget the week when one of my neighbors received the message that their son had been killed. A special team from the army came to deliver the heaviest of news to the parents one evening. The fear of such news lives like a ghost together with every Israeli family for as long as their children are serving in the army.
Soon the news spread to all the neighbors and it seemed like all the other mothers came out from their houses. Some of them were holding their face in their hands as if afraid of loosing it and others were folding their arms around their tummies and were kind of bending forward as they were walking.
When a person passes away in Israel the family sits at home and mourns for seven days. During this time they are visited by friends and people who want to show participation in their sorrow.
The following morning and throughout the day our street was full of soldiers. They were both inside and around the house. People were coming and going non stop.
My oldest girl was in kinder garden when this happened. Her group of children adopted this family and tried to be a comfort to them throughout the year on various occasions.
As I have been writing the day has turned to evening and the stars are visible. Soon the celebrations of 61 years independence will begin and fire works will light up the sky.
Elin Elkouby
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Today is the worst day of the year. It is Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Israeli year has two days that are extremely heavy to get through; one is today and the other one is in about a week from now and is the Memorial Day for fallen soldiers.
A new day starts at sun down and lasts until the next sun down. Last night had the lightening of candles and the memorial ceremonies at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem) and other places. Today all the schools have their ceremonies and there has been a moment of quiet to honor to the memory of those who perished during World War II.
The most chocking experience for me when I arrived in Israel the first time in 1976 was that the Holocaust didn’t only belong to the history books. I actually met people who had “walked through the valley of death” and I couldn’t really tell if they had come out alive.
A human being is some kind of a body, soul and spirit-trinity and it seems like it is possible to kill part of that while the person is still “walking among the living”.
According to the historians 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. According to me the number is much higher. I have seen dead people walking.
We still have some of them among us. Judah is an old friend of mine who originally came from Lodz in Poland. The Ghetto of Lodz had 230.000 Jews in it to begin with and another 25.000 were added later. By the end of the war only 877 Lodz Jews remained.
My friend was transported to a concentration camp together with his younger brother but they ended up in different barracks because of the age. One day his brother had managed to sneak over because he didn’t want to be on a transport leaving for some other place.
My friend told me, as tears were running down his face, that he took his brother by the hand and brought him over to one of the camp guards. He was afraid of being punished and was going to apologize on his brothers behalf and explain the situation to him. The next thing he knew was himself laying on the ground being beaten while his brother was carried away crying and screaming. That was the last he saw of his brother.
My friend is an old man by now but he never managed to get his life back on track. He collects whatever people throw away and fills up his house and garden with the junk. It is as if he does not allow himself to enjoy life and he is constantly blaming himself for existing. “He was younger than me but he understood what was going on. My brother was smarter than me.” Judah is the only one left from his family.
One of his neighbors told me that he was “a cute little blond girl” during the Holocaust. His mother dressed him up as a girl and let his hair grow so that the Nazis wouldn’t find out that he was Jewish.
I have met lots of people with numbers tattooed on their arms. Most of them do not feel comfortable wearing short sleeves.
---A group leader from England once asked me if the survivors saw themselves as heroes. I was shocked by the question and by the way it was asked and found it hard to answer.—In order to ask smart question there is a need for a certain base of knowledge. Some question reveals the “screaming “ lack of such. All the Holocaust survivors that I have met are still struggling to survive.
The Holocaust Museum in Israel is called Yad VaShem which means a “place and a name”. Isaiah: 56,4-5 sais:” To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths and choose what pleases Me, and hold fast My covenant, even to them I will give in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”
Elin Elkouby
The Israeli year has two days that are extremely heavy to get through; one is today and the other one is in about a week from now and is the Memorial Day for fallen soldiers.
A new day starts at sun down and lasts until the next sun down. Last night had the lightening of candles and the memorial ceremonies at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem) and other places. Today all the schools have their ceremonies and there has been a moment of quiet to honor to the memory of those who perished during World War II.
The most chocking experience for me when I arrived in Israel the first time in 1976 was that the Holocaust didn’t only belong to the history books. I actually met people who had “walked through the valley of death” and I couldn’t really tell if they had come out alive.
A human being is some kind of a body, soul and spirit-trinity and it seems like it is possible to kill part of that while the person is still “walking among the living”.
According to the historians 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. According to me the number is much higher. I have seen dead people walking.
We still have some of them among us. Judah is an old friend of mine who originally came from Lodz in Poland. The Ghetto of Lodz had 230.000 Jews in it to begin with and another 25.000 were added later. By the end of the war only 877 Lodz Jews remained.
My friend was transported to a concentration camp together with his younger brother but they ended up in different barracks because of the age. One day his brother had managed to sneak over because he didn’t want to be on a transport leaving for some other place.
My friend told me, as tears were running down his face, that he took his brother by the hand and brought him over to one of the camp guards. He was afraid of being punished and was going to apologize on his brothers behalf and explain the situation to him. The next thing he knew was himself laying on the ground being beaten while his brother was carried away crying and screaming. That was the last he saw of his brother.
My friend is an old man by now but he never managed to get his life back on track. He collects whatever people throw away and fills up his house and garden with the junk. It is as if he does not allow himself to enjoy life and he is constantly blaming himself for existing. “He was younger than me but he understood what was going on. My brother was smarter than me.” Judah is the only one left from his family.
One of his neighbors told me that he was “a cute little blond girl” during the Holocaust. His mother dressed him up as a girl and let his hair grow so that the Nazis wouldn’t find out that he was Jewish.
I have met lots of people with numbers tattooed on their arms. Most of them do not feel comfortable wearing short sleeves.
---A group leader from England once asked me if the survivors saw themselves as heroes. I was shocked by the question and by the way it was asked and found it hard to answer.—In order to ask smart question there is a need for a certain base of knowledge. Some question reveals the “screaming “ lack of such. All the Holocaust survivors that I have met are still struggling to survive.
The Holocaust Museum in Israel is called Yad VaShem which means a “place and a name”. Isaiah: 56,4-5 sais:” To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths and choose what pleases Me, and hold fast My covenant, even to them I will give in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”
Elin Elkouby
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The end of Passover and the Maroccan Jewish “Mimunah”.
We have come to the last day of Passover and every Jew with Moroccan background is looking forward to the sweets and the special pancakes (“ mufletta”) of the “Mimunah”.
I remember the first time I was introduced to this way of ending the Jewish holiday of “Pessach” (Passover). It was 1985 and I was a volunteer in a kibbutz called Alonim on the main road between Haifa and Nazareth. A friend of mine in the kibbutz told me that the Moroccan Jews were making sweets and that they opened up their homes to everybody who would enjoy the sweets with them. I was curious to check this out so we decided to go and visit some Moroccans that he knew of….
There were lots of Moroccan Jews living in a place called Migdal ha’Emek so we decided to go there. The car was parked and we heard cheerful noises from many places. Every Moroccan family had left the entrance door to their homes wide open for people to enter and enjoy their sweets with them. I had never experienced anything like this before. We entered a home and were well received. The house was packed with people standing around a table with home made sweets of kinds that were unfamiliar to me. I had never seen carrots completely soaked and dripping with honey and I had never tasted anything as sweet as that before.
There are a few theories concerning the reasons for celebrating “Mimunah”.
Some people say that it has to do with the redemption of the People of Israel in the future just as they were redeemed from Egypt in the past.
Some say that it has to do with a memorial day for the father of the famous Moroccan Maimonides as he passed away on this day.
Others again say that it has to do with some kind of a “New Year” celebration as it is close to the harvest and could be the beginning of a new financial year. The greetings for this celebration is “May you be prosperous and may you be happy!”
What I know the best is that my daughter loves the “muflettas” of this evening and that she is very disappointed if we don’t go to visit somebody who makes them.
A “mufletta” is a thin kind of pancake served with honey. It is so thin you can almost see through it.
What a lovely way to end the “Feast of the Unleavened Bread”.
Tomorrow the “Mimunah” is continued by having a barbeque in the park. Every Moroccan Jewish family will bring food enough for “an entire army” and spend the day under the trees while keeping the coal glowing from the morning on.
I am fortunate to have married a Moroccan…..
Elin Elkouby
We have come to the last day of Passover and every Jew with Moroccan background is looking forward to the sweets and the special pancakes (“ mufletta”) of the “Mimunah”.
I remember the first time I was introduced to this way of ending the Jewish holiday of “Pessach” (Passover). It was 1985 and I was a volunteer in a kibbutz called Alonim on the main road between Haifa and Nazareth. A friend of mine in the kibbutz told me that the Moroccan Jews were making sweets and that they opened up their homes to everybody who would enjoy the sweets with them. I was curious to check this out so we decided to go and visit some Moroccans that he knew of….
There were lots of Moroccan Jews living in a place called Migdal ha’Emek so we decided to go there. The car was parked and we heard cheerful noises from many places. Every Moroccan family had left the entrance door to their homes wide open for people to enter and enjoy their sweets with them. I had never experienced anything like this before. We entered a home and were well received. The house was packed with people standing around a table with home made sweets of kinds that were unfamiliar to me. I had never seen carrots completely soaked and dripping with honey and I had never tasted anything as sweet as that before.
There are a few theories concerning the reasons for celebrating “Mimunah”.
Some people say that it has to do with the redemption of the People of Israel in the future just as they were redeemed from Egypt in the past.
Some say that it has to do with a memorial day for the father of the famous Moroccan Maimonides as he passed away on this day.
Others again say that it has to do with some kind of a “New Year” celebration as it is close to the harvest and could be the beginning of a new financial year. The greetings for this celebration is “May you be prosperous and may you be happy!”
What I know the best is that my daughter loves the “muflettas” of this evening and that she is very disappointed if we don’t go to visit somebody who makes them.
A “mufletta” is a thin kind of pancake served with honey. It is so thin you can almost see through it.
What a lovely way to end the “Feast of the Unleavened Bread”.
Tomorrow the “Mimunah” is continued by having a barbeque in the park. Every Moroccan Jewish family will bring food enough for “an entire army” and spend the day under the trees while keeping the coal glowing from the morning on.
I am fortunate to have married a Moroccan…..
Elin Elkouby
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Tel Aviv celebrates 100 years.
When a small group of people gathered on the sand dunes close to Yaffo in 1909 their intentions were not to build a city but rather a suburb to Yaffo. The name of the place should be “Ahuzat Bayt” or “ Housing Property”.
Yaffo in those days had turned into a crowdy, noisy and busy place. It was the main entrance gate to the country from the sea and was connected to a well developed railroad system which could bring people to Haifa and further to Damascus, to Beersheba and southwards through the desert towards Egypt or up to Jerusalem. Yaffo was good for business but did not have any quality living conditions to offer.
The first house owners in this new neighborhood on the dunes did not want their living quarter to turn into a busy town. It took several years and many heated discussions for the first kiosk to be granted approval and even after it was built it was allowed to sell cold soft drinks only.
The name was later changed to Tel Aviv.
The word “Tel” in Hebrew refers both to a natural hill and to an archaeological hill of ancient remains. “Aviv” is the Hebrew word for the season of spring. On that back ground “Tel Aviv” can be translated to the “Spring Hill”.
The reason for choosing the name however has more to do with other factors. Theodor Herzl, who is known as the “father of political Zionism” wrote a book titled “Altneuland” (which translated from German means “new-old-land”) When his book was translated to Hebrew by Nachum Sokolov the title became “Tel Aviv”.
The first Jews to settle this land were more politically than religiously focused, but the Bible and the reading of the Bible has never been considered a part of religious peoples lives only but rather the “root” of every Jew. Tel Aviv is mentioned in the Bible as a city inhabited by Jews in Babylon. This together with the Hebrew “understanding” of the name made it an easy choice.
As such it “has it all”. Tel Aviv turns on the lights of “belonging”, “roots”, “Hebrew” as well as “religious freedom”. It was easy for the inhabitants back in those days to identify with such a name.
Only in 1924 did Tel Aviv officially turn into an independent city. It was the Arab riots that forced this reality into being and it resulted in the building of the Tel Aviv harbor. As banks, shops and offices were added the number of inhabitants grew quickly.
In the time of the Bible when the Land was divided between the various tribes this part of the coastal plain was the inheritance of Dan. In those days this area was not as much appreciated because of lack of water and problems with peoples who were superior in warfare on the plains. It was considered better and safer to live up in the mountains.
Today the situation is exactly the opposite. Very few Jews have settled the mountains while the majority of the people live on the coastal plains from Askelon in the south to Nahariya in the north. Two out of five million people have made Tel Aviv and the surrounding towns their home.
Tel Aviv is the symbol of Jewish success in this Land.
Congratulations!!
Elin Elkouby
When a small group of people gathered on the sand dunes close to Yaffo in 1909 their intentions were not to build a city but rather a suburb to Yaffo. The name of the place should be “Ahuzat Bayt” or “ Housing Property”.
Yaffo in those days had turned into a crowdy, noisy and busy place. It was the main entrance gate to the country from the sea and was connected to a well developed railroad system which could bring people to Haifa and further to Damascus, to Beersheba and southwards through the desert towards Egypt or up to Jerusalem. Yaffo was good for business but did not have any quality living conditions to offer.
The first house owners in this new neighborhood on the dunes did not want their living quarter to turn into a busy town. It took several years and many heated discussions for the first kiosk to be granted approval and even after it was built it was allowed to sell cold soft drinks only.
The name was later changed to Tel Aviv.
The word “Tel” in Hebrew refers both to a natural hill and to an archaeological hill of ancient remains. “Aviv” is the Hebrew word for the season of spring. On that back ground “Tel Aviv” can be translated to the “Spring Hill”.
The reason for choosing the name however has more to do with other factors. Theodor Herzl, who is known as the “father of political Zionism” wrote a book titled “Altneuland” (which translated from German means “new-old-land”) When his book was translated to Hebrew by Nachum Sokolov the title became “Tel Aviv”.
The first Jews to settle this land were more politically than religiously focused, but the Bible and the reading of the Bible has never been considered a part of religious peoples lives only but rather the “root” of every Jew. Tel Aviv is mentioned in the Bible as a city inhabited by Jews in Babylon. This together with the Hebrew “understanding” of the name made it an easy choice.
As such it “has it all”. Tel Aviv turns on the lights of “belonging”, “roots”, “Hebrew” as well as “religious freedom”. It was easy for the inhabitants back in those days to identify with such a name.
Only in 1924 did Tel Aviv officially turn into an independent city. It was the Arab riots that forced this reality into being and it resulted in the building of the Tel Aviv harbor. As banks, shops and offices were added the number of inhabitants grew quickly.
In the time of the Bible when the Land was divided between the various tribes this part of the coastal plain was the inheritance of Dan. In those days this area was not as much appreciated because of lack of water and problems with peoples who were superior in warfare on the plains. It was considered better and safer to live up in the mountains.
Today the situation is exactly the opposite. Very few Jews have settled the mountains while the majority of the people live on the coastal plains from Askelon in the south to Nahariya in the north. Two out of five million people have made Tel Aviv and the surrounding towns their home.
Tel Aviv is the symbol of Jewish success in this Land.
Congratulations!!
Elin Elkouby
Friday, April 3, 2009
A visit from Poland.
I have had the pleasure to host a beautiful Polish teenage girl for the last three days.
My oldest daughter is participating in the Rotary youth movement activities and they have visitors from Poland.
Last year a group of Israeli youth went the other way. My daughter was one out of fifteen who spent a week travelling in Poland.
The Israeli schools are on vacation until after the Jewish holiday of Passover. Usually the kids get up late during holidays, but these visitors have made a change to that. The bus leaves for days trip at 06.30 or 07.00 every morning. They have been to the north and to the center of Israel and by the time they return they can hardly keep their eyes open.
Today Jerusalem is on the itinerary. When I was told that they will start by visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, I felt a heaviness coming over me.
It was the German invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War 2 . Hitler didn’t have any high thoughts about the Polish people as they were not Aryans and really didn’t consider them as worthy to have their own land especially not when they came “in the way” for German access to Prussia.
Hitler related to Poland as a “war dump”. Many of the concentration camps were built on Polish ground and most of them were of a kind that could not be survived. Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Krakow, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Lodz and many more, were all in Poland. 6 million Polish were killed during the war and half of them were Jews.
No doubt the Polish people suffered from Hitler…..
What saddens me is to know that Poland has been known as one of the strongest anti Semitic countries in the world. The “pogroms” were a fact long before the Nazis were even invented and the anti Jewish attitudes were based on teachings from the Catholic Church. The Church has a strong grip on the people even today and it seems that they still present the Jews as the “ones that killed Jesus”.
Pope Paul II was from Poland. He was the one who expressed the need for the Catholic Church to reconcile with both the Jews and the State of Israel. I hope his countrymen are following in his footsteps…..
What that this have to do with Olga? Nothing else than the fact that she has grand parents…..
Elin Elkouby
I have had the pleasure to host a beautiful Polish teenage girl for the last three days.
My oldest daughter is participating in the Rotary youth movement activities and they have visitors from Poland.
Last year a group of Israeli youth went the other way. My daughter was one out of fifteen who spent a week travelling in Poland.
The Israeli schools are on vacation until after the Jewish holiday of Passover. Usually the kids get up late during holidays, but these visitors have made a change to that. The bus leaves for days trip at 06.30 or 07.00 every morning. They have been to the north and to the center of Israel and by the time they return they can hardly keep their eyes open.
Today Jerusalem is on the itinerary. When I was told that they will start by visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, I felt a heaviness coming over me.
It was the German invasion of Poland that marked the beginning of World War 2 . Hitler didn’t have any high thoughts about the Polish people as they were not Aryans and really didn’t consider them as worthy to have their own land especially not when they came “in the way” for German access to Prussia.
Hitler related to Poland as a “war dump”. Many of the concentration camps were built on Polish ground and most of them were of a kind that could not be survived. Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Krakow, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Lodz and many more, were all in Poland. 6 million Polish were killed during the war and half of them were Jews.
No doubt the Polish people suffered from Hitler…..
What saddens me is to know that Poland has been known as one of the strongest anti Semitic countries in the world. The “pogroms” were a fact long before the Nazis were even invented and the anti Jewish attitudes were based on teachings from the Catholic Church. The Church has a strong grip on the people even today and it seems that they still present the Jews as the “ones that killed Jesus”.
Pope Paul II was from Poland. He was the one who expressed the need for the Catholic Church to reconcile with both the Jews and the State of Israel. I hope his countrymen are following in his footsteps…..
What that this have to do with Olga? Nothing else than the fact that she has grand parents…..
Elin Elkouby
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