8 | The Jewish Press | May 6, 2022
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Margie Gutnik President Annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor Richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive Lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Gabby Blair Sam Kricsfeld Staff Writers Mary Bachteler Accounting Jewish Press Board Margie Gutnik, President; Abigail Kutler, Ex-Officio; Danni Christensen; David Finkelstein; Bracha Goldsweig; Mary Sue Grossman; Les Kay; Natasha Kraft; Chuck Lucoff; Joseph Pinson; Andy Shefsky and Amy Tipp. The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish Life, Jewish Social Services, and the Jewish Press. Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: www.jewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’ Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content. The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment. Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha.org. Letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jewishomaha.org. Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view. Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf. Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de KampWright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450. Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422. Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha.org.
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European history lessons
ANNETTE VAN DE KAMP-WRIGHT Jewish Press Editor “The number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the Netherlands,” Cnaan Liphshiz wrote for the JTA, “reached a 10-year high of 183 cases in 2021, a Dutch Jewish watchdog group said. The 2021 tally was a 35-percent increase over the previous year, said the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI. At least 72 of the incidents happened in what the CIDI, called “reallife” conditions, meaning in physical spaces and not online. Of those, 21 were acts of vandalism and three incidents were violent assaults.” While that may sound serious, the number 183 is nothing. This is a country of over 17 million people—so my first thought when I read the headline was: they probably only included reported acts of physical violence. But no, it includes graffiti, which pops up in shopping centers, on train cars and abandoned buildings and mailboxes and trashcans and electrical boxes and anywhere else where the spraypaint will stick. There is a Star of David combined with a swastika on a trashcan at the dog park right by my mother’s house. There is another one a street over by the nursing home. There is a third one on the street by my childhood home, on an electrical box. Granted, I haven’t been home in almost two-anda-half years, but I would bet good money they are all still there. Nobody bothers cleaning that stuff up. From growing up there, I know there are thousands of antisemitic slogans, scribbles and drawings. We’ve just learned to accept them as a fact of
life. Also, there is a whole second language of soc- Dutch first, and Jewish is not even a close second. cer-related symbolism, which is hard to explain in There was so little Jewish life while I was growing one op-ed. In short, fans of the Amsterdam club use up, it only began shaping my identity in marginal the Mogen David as a symbol, so sometimes that ways when I was in high school, and only through star shows up on the stories from family bus stop as a way to members. There was claim territory for little left, so it felt like your club. Weird, I there was little to proknow, but that’s what tect, perhaps. it is. Other times, it’s a Simultaneously, redeclaration of hate. minders of the HoloThe question is, caust are everywhere. when is an ‘antiseCamps, tombstones, mitic incident’ somememorials, and endthing you just put up less plaques. Two with, and when is it minutes of silence on cause for concern? May 4th, Liberation Here in Omaha, I Day on May 5th. The would answer that Credit: Daniel Lobo, licensed under the Creative Commons Holocaust education question very differ- Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. my generation reently than when I’m in the Netherlands. And I’ve ceived, starting in first grade, was robust. Eurotried to think of a way to explain that to non-Euro- peans should know better than to plaster these peans. Why is it, that when I see a swastika at a images everywhere, but we don’t. Perhaps it serves Dutch bus stop, I feel irritated but I don’t report it? as a reminder that the way we deal with our history, Why does it make me fearful here, but not there? right or wrong, is our decision, and not anyone Is it just because I grew up there, my family is there, else’s. There is not one answer. It is messy, because and I feel safe because the place is familiar? But I’ve the war was messy—as is its aftermath. been in America for 25 years, half my life, certainly At the end of the day, we really do not know how this is just as familiar as the place I stubbornly keep to process our own recent history. As Europeans, calling ‘home,’ even though it is no longer that. we continue to stumble and make mistakes. PerMaybe familliarity breeds passivity. Maybe, it is haps, as long as we don’t let it stop us from growing, because when I’m here, I’m Jewish first, and Oma- accepting our imperfections in this regard is the han second. But when I’m in the Netherlands, I am best thing we can do.
Mariupol, one of Putin’s main targets in Ukraine, once sheltered a great yeshiva HENRY ABRAMSON JTA Barring a miracle, Mariupol, the beleaguered industrial center in eastern Ukraine, may henceforth be known only as the city that bore the brunt of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine’s independence and its people. But the city also has a rich and often tragic Jewish history, shaped by conflict and the efforts of previous generations to preserve their lives, faith and culture in the face of brutality. One such story starts at the beginning of the 20th century, not in Ukraine but in Lithuania. Perched on the western edge of the Russian Empire, the Lithuanian town of Panevezys (pronounced Ponevezh or Ponevich) was home to some 7,000 Jews, roughly half the total population. The town boasted few amenities, but chief among them was the yeshiva established in 1909 by Liba Miriam Gavronskii, widowed daughter of the wealthy tea magnate Kalonymus Wissotsky. Rabbi Yitshak Yaakov Rabinovich (known as Reb Itsele Ponevezher, 1854-1919) was its first head, or rosh yeshiva. The yeshiva flourished, but it faced an early threat to its existence with the outbreak of World War I. Seeking to undermine the Russian war effort, the Germans directed a Yiddish-language proclamation to the Jews of the Russian Empire, promising them full emancipation and equal rights once the Romanov dynasty was toppled. Already distrustful of his large Jewish population, the notoriously antisemitic Tsar Nicholas II ordered a brutal expulsion of Jews from the borderlands region to the interior of the Russian Empire. The Yeshiva of Ponevezh was forced to relocate, first to Ludza in nearby Latvia, and then once again to Mariupol. Before returning to reestablish itself in independent Lithuania in 1919, the yeshiva would spend the remainder of the war years in Mariupol. Why Mariupol? The great distance from the front lines certainly factored in the thinking of the rosh yeshiva, but Mariupol had developed a reputation as a haven for Jewish settlement. In 1791, the port city was added to the Pale of Settlement, the region
of the Russian Empire designated for Jews. By 1847 After the Holocaust, Jews slowly trickled back just over a hundred Jews had established homes in into Mariupol, which in 1948 was renamed ZhMariupol, participating in the Black Sea trade. It danov by the Soviets after the sudden death of Anbecame a destination for Jews looking for eco- drei Zhdanov (1896-1948), long rumored to be nomic opportunity and those fleeing the over- Joseph Stalin’s presumed successor (his son also crowded regions of Lithuania and Belarus. By the married the Soviet dictator’s daughter). By 1959 end of the 19th century, the city was home to over over 2,000 Jews lived in the city, but only consti5,000 Jews, constituting 16% of the population; the tuted about 1% of the total population. 1926 census records 7,332 Jews in Mariupol, or 18% of the city. The expanding, dynamic Jewish community of Mariupol — disturbed only by riots associated with the 1905 revolution — came to an abrupt end with the Nazi invasion. Mariupol’s Jews were rounded up and shot by Einsatzgruppen on a single dark day — Oct. 18, 1941 — as part of the horrific “Holocaust by Bullets.” As for the Lithuanian yeshiva that was sheltered by Mariupol in World Since the 1990s, when its roof collapsed under heavy snow, all that War I, it went on to establish itself remains of the The Choral Synagogue in Mariupol, Ukraine, is the as one of the greatest institutions of brick facade and foundations. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Talmudic study during the interwar years. In 1939, With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city rehowever, war came to Panevezys again, with both claimed its original name of Mariupol in 1989, and the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invading became part of newly independent Ukraine shortly Lithuania. Under the leadership of Rabbi Yosef thereafter. The heroic presence of the ChabadShlomo Kahaneman (1888-1969), the yeshiva con- Lubavitch movement in Mariupol, as in many fortinued to function under Communist rule despite merly Soviet communities, supported the tiny the fact that he was trapped outside the country, Jewish population that remained after most of with students moving from one synagogue to an- them emigrated to Israel in Operation Exodus — other until the Nazis took over in June 1941 and when Jews escaped the crumbling Soviet Union murdered them all, together with most of Rabbi more than three decades ago — and continued to Kahaneman’s family. serve even through the Russian invasions of 2014 In 1944, Rabbi Kahaneman reestablished the Pon- and 2018. Now, in the midst of the invasion of 2022, evezh Yeshiva once again — this time in B’nai Brak, Chabad and others are working to evacuate as in what would become Israel — with seven students. many of them as possible. Amazingly, it has grown to reclaim its reputation Henry Abramson is a specialist in Jewish hisamong the most prominent institutions of higher tory and thought who currently serves as a dean Talmudic education in the world; at 98, its current of Touro College in Brooklyn, New York. rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, is regarded The views and opinions expressed in this article are by many as the spiritual leader of the “Lithuanian” those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the non-Hasidic stream of haredi Orthodoxy. views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.
