Yad Vashem, Har Herzl, Machanei Yehuda shuk, Shira Hadashah

On our third day in Jerusalem, Friday, Dcember 9, 2011, we began our visit to Yad Vashem with a walk through the children's memorial, inspired and funded by a Hungarian couple Abe and Edita Spiegel who survived Auschwitz and reunited after the war.  They donated the memorial in memory of their son Uziel who was murdered at Auschwitz along with his grandmother.  I was struck by how much the photos of Uziel looked like my husband Alex's baby pictures, and of course his youngest granddaughter Lena Jane who looks just like him.   They obviously have a similar Eastern European heritage.   Inside the memorial designed by architect Moseh Safdie, it is dark except for five candles which are reflected by multiple mirrors into a million spots of light representing the 1.5 million children who were murdered.  They died not because of anything they did, but because of who they were, the accident of their Jewish birth.

The museum itself had been redesigned during the last couple of years to be a triangular tunnel through which you can see light at the end. However, you could not pass straight through. You have to zigzag through all the exhibition rooms to reach the end. It was an emotionally and physically exhausting experience. I felt embarrassed about my fatigue.  After all, I was riding in a comfortable coach bus, staying in luxury hotels, and eating sumptuous meals every day.  It was absurd to compare my strength and stamina to that of the victims who did everything in their power to keep their families together, and, failing that, everything to keep their body and soul together, who watched each day as their fellow Jews were systematically murdered.  

Ronny did a masterful job of guiding us through the maze, pointing out many of the most poignant photographs and videos. One photograph showed a group of women holding babies, with their hands extended toward the camera, begging for their lives just before being shot.  He told us that 90% of the photographs were taken by SS officers in an effort to document the "wonderful" work they were doing for the world by eliminating Jews.  A famous Dachau album was found that documented one transport being processed into the camp.  One of the survivors was able to indentify many of the people in the album as neighbors in her town.

One video was the testimony of a man who had been a young man in Dachau. He and others were punished by having to stand outdoors in a thin shirt in sub-freezing weather between two electrified wires for many hours. He said other boys eventually fell against the wires in exhaustion and despair, ending their torment. He worked to distract himself with thoughts of his childhood and, after a while, with efforts to control his full bladder. When he finally had to release his urine, he experienced a moment of warmth from the urine running down his legs before it froze into ice on his legs.

He said that with all the fantastical images and memories he had used to distract himself, he was no longer sure if he was alive or dead, dreaming or awake. The SS officer who eventually released him from this torture was furious that he had survived and began slapping him over and over across the face. He said that's when he was sure that he was still alive.

From Yad Vashem, we went to Har Herzl, the Israeli military cemetery, equivalent of Arlington cemetery in Washington. Herzl's tomb was marked with HERZL and no other words. Herzl was a Hungarian Jew who was the father of modern political Zionism and, in effect, the State of Israel.   We saw graves of presidents and generals of Israel who chose to be buried there. Teddy Kollek is buried there.  Others are buried on Mount Zion or with their families.  

When we moved closer to the graves for young soldiers recently killed, we saw more elaborations and decorations on the graves.  At one grave, two women sat keeping watch.   Ronny asked them if it was their relative's memorial day.  They answered that they, the mother and the aunt, come “Kol yom hashishi,” every Friday, for five years.

At lunchtime, we went to the shuk near Ben Yehuda Street. It was so crowded, Leslie and I walked around without buying anything and came back to the room, had some snacks and got ready for Shabbat.

Myra and I walked with Rabbi Weiner down to the German colony to a new congregation called Shira Hadashah, made up of a combination of traditional Conservative men and some feminist Orthodox women. They have a special interest in renewing the music of the liturgy. The harmonies of the liturgical tunes were magnificent, with men's and women's voices blending in four or five voices, complete with descants.  I was happy to have my “pocket” Sim Shalom siddur with English translations, although some of the songs were not a part of my siddur.  I was able to follow the service about half the time, the rest sitting immersed in the music with my eyes closed.  Myra and I helped each other find our place in our siddurim.

This minyan functions as an orthodox congregation, with all the accompanying restrictions.  At the same time, they include men and women in the worship experience as much as possible.  The mehitza was a translucent curtain down the center of the room.  Rabbi Weiner sat on the men's side, Myra and I on the women's.  The lectern was located in the center of the room, divided by the curtain which was cut to fit over it.  The leadership of the Kabbalat Shabbat service on Friday night is always assigned to a woman, the following maariv service to a man.  When the woman was leading, she stood at the lectern, a few inches from the curtain that divided the room.  When the man was leading, he stood at the same lectern where the woman had previously stood, on the other side of the curtain.  During the dvar torah, the speaker stood at the front of the room and the curtain was pulled all the way back, so that the congregation was one unit.  I found this creative use of rules very interesting.  My previous experience with orthodox congregations is that women's voices are not heard.  This was clearly quite different.

Women and men both sang in full voice in impressively harmonic arrangements, obviously the result of much artistic attention and practice.  Rabbi Weiner is acquainted with some of the leaders of the group, who are willing to share what they have developed with us, possibly with an on-site consultation in Pittsfield.