#51: Behind the Bima - Special Guest: Mrs. Ruth Lichtenstein

from boca raton florida rabbi's ephraim goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbi's schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going welcome to behind the bema good evening ladies and gentlemen wednesday night at 9 00 p.m and after taking last week off for hola muy pesach my name is rabbi from goldberg your host joined by my dear colleagues and friends robert phillip moscow turned by josh brody and we're here to take you behind the beam i want to thank our sponsor tonight anonymously for the refuse name of rafal aranakoin ben rivka alex krauss with his cousin and wishing for shleiman dr david dombeck is the colonel of raqqa thank you to our anonymous sponsor greatly appreciate a reminder if you want to sponsor a future episode there are some open slots contact lee l-e-e at brsonline.org rabbis how are you this evening oh so that's a don beck from elizabeth i just want to point out um okay it always comes back to elizabeth always uh rabbis how are you on this evening yo mashoah yamashawada the eve of holocaust memorial day where we think about the kidosham the martyrs who gave their lives as well as the survivors who have rebuilt judaism and to whom we owe beyond the greatest debt of gratitude and inspired by we had a moving uh program earlier this evening had the privilege of interviewing judge coleman samuel coleman who um had a really really extraordinary story of being taken from poland to russia siberia and uh during the war after the war yeah he was emotional this evening he's probably 90. what struck you the most from the program from his words well for me it was really um again i'll let you address his words directly but for me it was really also the opportunity to be able to hear mr martin judith a member of our community beforehand um and you know oftentimes i'm the one who's in the room for yisker with him when he does the kel mali for the martyrs of the holocaust and it's always i don't say a highlight because you don't use that in that context but it's it definitely contributes enormously to the experience and obviously i've been missing it over the last year and the recordings are not the same so to be able to see mr judowitz baruch hashem healthy and well and also doing the cal mali for obviously his relatives and for so many others was was particularly moving i agree yeah every year we take we take the names of his family members and today we would have read them right outside the crematorium auschwitz you know that's what he asks us to do he tells the the teenagers of our community that that join us uh today we would have been there yesterday you know we would have uh been touring auschwitz-birkenau today would have been the march of the living so this is the second year in a row the march second year in a row it's it's and it's tough you know people say okay so you'll go next year but remember the way it works is that you only go as a senior for the most part that means there's a whole generation now with seniors last year and this year that are never going to get that experience and even if they get a chance one day let's say you go on birthright get a free trip to israel but you're not going to see that other half of the story which was poland and um it's really really uh it's really sad how many years have you been to marshall living robert so we did it since 2003. we did it together in 2003 right and you did it even before that you did it right as uh yeah i've been i've been i think three or four times to poland you've been many more than that so you have any thoughts on what have you seen because now you've been doing it long enough to know the seniors and i'm not talking about the day school yeshiva kids who hopefully we're on a trajectory and a path towards marrying a jew living a richly observant life but public school kids kids who easily could be part of the statistics of the 70 who are intermarrying what have you seen the long-term impact of the kids have gone on the march in terms of forging their jewish identity their jewish pride and their commitment to a jewish continuity jewish future yeah it's a good question and you know there are obviously a lot that we don't get a chance to follow up with personally but there are many that we do i can tell you there's nothing greater than walking down um or seeing one of them walk down the aisle at their their jewish wedding it's something which we've witnessed a number of times and uh i think when you when you start and and you listen to to to what they don't know about the holocaust you know i guess there's a there's an assumption that there's almost like a baseline this is what we all understand about the holocaust and now we're going to go and see it but when you when you really talk to them before they even start taking the classes before we go on the trip you find that they really don't know anything there's a very very limited knowledge base of of what actually happened pre-war 1939 and then during the war um and then of course post-war which is the opportunity for us to travel to israel which is a very very exhilarating experience but you know it's amazing you mentioned being able to walk down at the the jewish weddings i remember one of the most powerful post-march living experiences i think we ever had a brs was a child on the program got up at charlottesville's afterwards we always have the students from brs come and share their reflections and a student got up there very honestly in a very raw fashion described how he was on trajectory he honestly didn't feel a connection to judaism he wasn't on trajectory to marry jewish or to even see the value in marrying jewish um and after the march of living it totally opened his eyes to the importance of jewish continuity right to the importance of maintaining and sustaining what so many sacrificed for and he did not schedule that speech with his parents let's put it that way that was uh you know that was off the cuff and the parents were as shocked as we were about the entire nature of the conversation but it was really powerful to see the impact that one trip could have on a child and really send them on a totally different trajectory in life it's hard it's hard to walk through the camps and you know everybody talks about my donek being so intact almost able to be opened and up and running again um it's hard to walk through and to see barracks filled with shoes and to be at the cream of the the um pile of ash at the end of my donek or to walk through treblinka even though there's nothing there but to know what happened there it's hard you can't walk out and be the same person the challenge is that many adults children alike they come out and they pledge that they're going to transform their life and what they're committed to and how they're changed and and their their trauma there's almost like i don't want to call ptsd we throw that those that term around too easily these days but i know the school struggle kids come back from march of the living and then they don't want to focus on taking finals or ap because they're like what does that matter six million died lost their lives anti-semitism we could be gone tomorrow what does it matter so it's hard to recalibrate and refocus and and come back but the challenge on us is to keep that going long-term to keep that fire that passion that commitment and to keep that inspiration of what one learned about themselves learned about the jewish people and a commitment to a jewish future if you remember by brody once on on one of our trips on not the adult group that we took but um the teens martial living i vividly remember was in the warsaw cemetery and standing around a mass grave right and we rotated the adults the chaperones the rabbis who addressed the teens in different locations and i was asked to speak there and in that in that spot very powerful very powerful place i took advantage a group of as i say mostly public school kids who are going to be going off to secular college and i spoke about and and i don't know looking back if i regret the harsh terms i put it in um but i spoke about the fact that if you go back to america and even with the best and kindest intentions you allow yourself to intermarry and you become the end of of the chain then you become an accomplice to hitler you help him finish what he had started that's a very very strong or powerful or accusatory or you know it's especially um especially today because you're talking to a bus where eighty percent of their parents are intermarried yeah it's complicated the whole question right i i struggle to think about yo masha and not think about into marriage because as much as the physical threats the jewish people remain today and anti-semitism is is on the rise and it's a real challenge and we have to confront it we have to call it out but we are making ourselves disappear at a much much much faster pace and clip than anti-semites ever could over 70 of jews in america are intermarrying and again obviously it's the difference between the woman or the man who's intermarrying but that is the end of a line and the answer is not simply to change our definition of what it means to be a jew or to say we're expanding the jewish people to jewish reach if someone you know our arms are open for converts someone who genuinely authentically converts they're not welcome it's the most often repeated mitzvah from the whole torah is to love the convert to treat them with sensitivity and love to embrace them to be respectful to welcome them to make it a path that they can that they can conclude that journey towards so of course people are welcome to join but if they're not converting to simply try to validate or acknowledge or or change the definitions or move the goal posts because we don't want to deal with this crushing statistic of the hemorrhaging of the jewish people it's very very painful and yeomashima we're looking at survivors who lost everyone and who are so committed to a continuity of the jewish people and i i think that has to be part of the message of yamashita i think it has to be part of the lesson so we got back on the bus and none of the kids had any problem with what i said in fact i got wonderful feedback from the students who became determined when they would go to college campus that they were going to marry jewish that was so important to them but one of the adults was absolutely livid and very very angry at me for using such inflammatory terminology to describe and accomplish how dare you to hitler and admittedly it's a very uh inflammatory and admittedly it's very harsh to describe it in that fashion and of course i don't mean it hitler was an evil yamashima zakharov just the lowest forfeited his humanity the absolute worst human being if you could call him a human being in all of history so to describe anyone as an accomplice is is unfair and and perhaps too harsh but the point remains valid nonetheless which is continuity and what today is the biggest threat to that content woody you know it's interesting i spoke i'm in khamarov and i used um like probably many other rabbis around the country i did a chuva from charles chuvas me mama mac and mervocery in the covenant ghetto and one of the things i spoke about is how you know you read the questions and they're almost they're actually unbelievable i mean in the most literal word they are unbelievable and for us the answers are almost less important than the question what makes it so incredible is the question the religious fortitude and sacrifice the jews even in the darkest of times but what i spoke about is that you know you're not just reading history when you're reading these shubas when you're reading these responsa it's an obligation every single one of us when you think about what people went through to sacrifice for judaism um it's it's an obligation for all of us because you and i are living in the freest religious time period ever in jewish history right we have more religious freedom we have more religious opportunity than ever before in world history and so i look at all these chuvas and i look at the history of the past 75 years and i think it paints an enorm puts an enormous mirror in our face and it obligates us of saying what are you doing with it what are you doing with this gift that god gave us called religious freedom called religious opportunity things that 75 years ago people couldn't have dreamt of or imagined has come to fruition in our day and age and i think it really puts the burden on us to take advantage of that yeah so rabbi brodie how do you navigate that today how do you navigate it's a sensitive conversation about into marriage because on the one hand there's a reality of so many people coming from intermarriage driving into marriage in their family we have to be sensitive but on the other hand we also be sensitive to hashem god is feeling so to say too so i'll tell you that at the end of the trip the last thing we do usually it's either treblink or madonna depending on the way the the weak is is laid out but there's always this this ending that takes place at treblinka around what they call the roast it was a place where there were many many many of the jews of the camp were were burned and everyone stands around and you can imagine it's about 150 people we also meet at that point with the adult buses so we have two adult buses that will go or one adult bus along with our three or four team buses so there's a lot of people 150 200 people depending on the year we're standing around there and this is ready after a complete week of touring every one of the camps understanding what it means and listening to the stories of the survivors and the place that they survived and so i get a chance to speak and i guess the speech that's developed over the years is a speech about continuity and it's about don't intermarry that's the whole thing so at the end of the day are we still telling that story absolutely but it's one of those those those situations where i know i'm going to get back on the bus with with people that are going to be looking at me and they're going to you know it's it's hard that we thought you were you know more understanding i had more understanding but this is this is a problem this is something we got to deal with and like you said people want to convert there's a there's a there's a path to conversion everyone has it but but uh it it it is hard and and and you know what it's funny like there are going to be people i think this this they'll have the reaction that that woman did to you but there are many that will come over and they'll whisper in your ear and they say you know thank you for saying that you know i'm happy that my kid heard that from you because no one else has said it everyone else is saying if we don't say it nobody else will right i just want to pivot for a second you've been on trips with both adults and teens obviously right a few years ago you took a group a bus from our shoal of of adults um for you personally which was a more enriching experience in what ways were they different how is it different to be in poland with teenagers seeing it with a fresh set of eyes kind of going through that exploratory stage versus seeing it with adults many of whom were a little bit older um some of whom had been there prior they all had history in poland they understood and appreciated that history in poland how is that experience different and almost like which one did you find more transformative for yourself and they're all orthodox which is important and the adult boss yeah and the adult case they were um first of all we're going to welcome mrs ruth lichtenstein shortly founder project witness editor-in-chief of amodia great granddaughter of the guerrera and obviously on this yamaha evening and if you're listening later on our podcasts are watching later it's obviously uh hopefully relevant all year round these conversations are important not just uh tonight but to answer that question they're they're moving in their very different ways to be with young people young people on the one hand have a not a fully developed maturity or sophistication which can be challenging in some ways but also very refreshing in others they're not hardened by this world there's no inhibition they're not coming in with certain biases but they're really very raw they're feeling what's happening in a very very raw way and you're feeling it with them and through them and the ability to also try to mold and shape and take the experience and make it inspirational for them is very very powerful going with young people i would say with young people um the march of living i found them the more powerful part not even in poland but to transition from poland to israel yeah and you know roberto could describe that show when you said that yeah when that plane lands in israel a week of this emotional roller coaster a week of this raw confronting evil in its worst form a week of having to contemplate the unanswerable questions of the world of the universe and then when you land in israel you say but now we have a jewish state those jewish soldiers there's jewish protection and now there's a jewish destiny there's a jewish future and we're gonna go to the hotel and we're gonna see this we're gonna see that those kids they exhale this relief on the on the plane and then it's a week of you know not an inappropriate way of partying although sometimes but it's a week of celebrating what it means to be a jew it's celebrating jewish survival it's celebrating jewish continuity it's celebrating jewish values it's celebrating the jewish capacity to rebuild the jewish capacity to continue and and to experience that live that feel that with the young people is extraordinary extraordinary and with survivors um i don't know how much longer please god we should have the opportunity but martial living takes survivors to poland then to israel so to experience that transition with survivors is is just breathtaking adults very different very very different the adult trip that we took were mostly almost all second generation and that was a very different way almost everyone on the trip had not been to poland before and now they were confronting what their parents went through that they never fully appreciated understood or even maybe spoke about someone in our shul i don't have this permission to say now but you know well who came on this trip at one point you know just like with the kids after dinner we went around and reflections on the bus in the hotel equally important to process for whatever age you are and one of these adults broke down and he said he said my father worked in the post office he's a very very successful hasidisha man he said my father worked in the post office i thought he was a nebucha i thought he was a loser but it turns out i lived with a malach i lived with an angel and i never knew and i'm going to get choked up even telling you this what you saw them all go through these adults is a new appreciation of their parents but their parents are no longer here for them to show it to them so they were riddled and racked with guilt and remorse and regret for not asking talking showing love and but that particular one he said my father worked in the post office and i thought like he's a nebuch and i made it it's like my father made it and i'm a nobody i lived those words words he said i lived to the malach that he had a muna after the war after what he went through you know when we walked through auschwitz his father had been in auschwitz he said my father was a malach and i never knew it so they were mostly second generation they were able to process it differently um and it was it was really really powerful to go with that group too so interesting you just said that because ellie ellie wiesel's son alicia wiesel spoke to my son's grade this year this week they just finished reading night and the teacher brought in alicia wiesel and i asked my son what he primarily spoke about he said it was interesting he didn't speak as much about his father experiences he said he spoke a lot about guilt he said he has 25 000 reasons to feel guilty he said his entire childhood everyone else was going around my father's a doctor my father's a lawyer and he'd come to me he'd be like yeah my dad speaks like he had no appreciation for what his father was and he said now he goes to auschwitz he goes to these places and he says the the list of questions that he wishes he could ask his father what happened here and where did this take place he said he he's traumatized that he will never once again have that opportunity and it ended up being a really powerful conversation between me and my son about guilt about not missing those opportunities between fathers and sons and stuff like that so it's so funny that you mentioned that or interesting that you mentioned that that was the experience that all those second generation individuals had that was definitely a very very real feeling that they had um and and that they processed and they processed it together and and we started out that trip i mean i could talk about i want to bring mrs lichtenstein on she's obviously our main our main conversation or interview with her tonight but we started that trip and the first dinner we went with a bunch of different cliques right there was a certain age group then there was the more heimisha group who come to our community wonderful who've moved and come to boca and connected with brs there was the more modern the more middle age the more you know and i'll tell you what's amazing adults are no different than kids they just they migrate to their clique they separate into their comfort zone and i got up at dinner we had just flown to poland we were passing out everyone's plots and in their soup and i got up and i said chevra this is the last night we sit like this on the way into the gas chamber on the way on the selection line on the trains nobody was divided by their click by the type of yamaka by their background by the nusadehdavend this is the last night we sit like this and by the end of that trip the tables were all mingled and mixed the best of friends relationships formed that you'd never ever believe people who still drive on shabbos or people wear shrimla best friends ever and seeing that from the trip alone was dayenu i'll give a shameless little plug but if you want to see some some video of some of the most moving moments on this trip we brought a videographer with us the great salami boxer and we recorded some of those moments inspirational talks in those different venues and again whether it's tonight on yamaha proper or some other time you can feel free you can you can check it out and you can you can take those and i think you'll be moved by them but i don't want to take any longer i want to take advantage of the very special opportunity that we have to be able to welcome on mrs ruth liechtenstein we have the great honor and privilege this evening of welcoming mrs ruthlessness ii behind the bhima and on this very poignant evening of yomashawa what a significant guest to have who has dedicated her life in so many different ways particularly with project witness keeping alive and paying witness and honor to some of the untold stories and angles of the shoah of the holocaust in addition to so many of the other leadership positions that she holds the founder of the english language hamodiya editor-in-chief here in america distinguished eucharist and lineage descending from the gareba connection to the dynasty and so much more it's truly an honor and a privilege to welcome you we thank you for giving of your time with us this evening thank you so you to edit uh some of the schmaltz absolutely no problem so so maybe we can begin and tell us a little bit about yourself your background what it must have been to grow up in in your home i know that you're a father and his leadership in bringing hamodia in arizona your grandfather obviously in eastern europe and poland before that the connection to to gair and the gary rebbe if you could share with us a little bit about your background and about your childhood your upbringing how it empowered and inspired you to all the leadership and all the efforts and all the difference that you're making today so i was born in israel to a family which was in jewish public leadership for over 200 years over 3 million jews were murdered in poland during the holocaust and i am a proud child of two holocaust survivors from poland i grew up with a very strong sense of mission and with a clear knowledge that what matters in life is not the echoes the lineage but the self-esteem and so i try to build my life according to that that's amazing could you share with us a little bit about um the values that you saw the leadership the messiest nephesh that witnessed that that clearly uh embedded itself in you i think that i grew up with my sisters i have two sisters and we spend a lot of time by my grandparents the one who survived the holocaust um bobby chermeyer as he was known and is rabbits model who was known for her wisdom and leadership and they really were the self examples that they gave it was not a matter of living in an elegant home it was not a matter of having you know a high standard in life it was what do you do with your life and they were when i look back unbelievable couple who had a tremendous ex respect for each other and they really show us a sample of what we need to do in life did they did they talk about their experience in the showa or was it unspoken no um my mother spoke about her experiences my father wrote and his silence spoke volumes so he really was the one who i'll talk about it soon about uh how much he he wrote about they spoke about pauline about pre-war pollen and when they spoke you're the feeling of walking in warsaw and seeing you know uh hundreds of thousands of eden walking around and you know from all walks of life and about the relationships that were within the community the relationships that were you know with the uh with the government the different approaches about it the building of a good assistant the sacrifice to build a goddess as well to build the siakov movement to build publications literature everything was wiped out but everything that we take today for granted was established then and this was all under the leadership of the ms of bear and of course some other you know uh rabbanim but he was very very very uh involved in in in building yiddish kite in poland and this is of course you know in the background of all the isms around in europe and especially in poland and lithuania in russia something else that i learned was we all learned was about the relationship between the doiling then and how they build it together which means that when there was uh exercise the slaughter decree in poland um in 1936 to 37 represents sent all his people to help in warsaw what to do and the same were you know a daily cartoons went between warsaw and vilna in order to coordinate and to do whatever you know was needed for the orthodox jury uh did they ever speak about the showa or the holocaust in a religious context do they talk about sadiq varala why bad people suffered tragedy the existence of evil by dom our they lost they lost so many and they lost so much and and everything was wiped out so uh never ever the only thing that they said is we have to continue we have to rebuild and that's what we grew up on rebuild rebuild the spirituality rebuild what happened you know before the holocaust to rebuild the literatures that we had the kedusa torah the rebuild it and you know we cannot leave it as is so that's exactly what it was that's what they shared with us it's truly extraordinary that not only did they not pull back or did they not only see themselves as victims or struggle but to actually double down and rebuild as you say it really is an extraordinary message for us particularly we live in a time and we had a difficult year but we lack a context or scope many people will complain about what we call first world problems that relative or comparative to what people survivors endured what they went through and they didn't uh they didn't complain but rather they doubled down which is really really amazing so maybe we can transition to your work in project witness uh the amazing conferences the films the books the literature all that you've produced that you initiated where did that come from why did you think that was important what was the vacuum that you were trying to fill specifically in a different way from the other holocaust efforts institutions what role specifically does project witness phil uh the sudden tear of my father rabbi you the label evans made it very clear to me that i have to continue he was the one who um who had the mission he had a vision an ayatollah the mission he had a vision about the english hamadiyah and in addition to that he was a brilliant published author he was the founding editor of the hebrew language and he wrote more than 30 for him and books about the history of poland and about fiduciatora etc and when he passed away suddenly it was clear to me that somebody needs to continue so i was very very close to my father and i felt that whatever i do i have to do leila nishmas and that's exactly what i did can you tell us a little bit about project witness yes um so project witness is a holocaust resource educational center um when it was uh established maybe when i was you know a young girl at the time of eichmann trial in israel when uh a survivor who was together with my mother the last part of the of the war i mean the last part of the war for them in uh in warsaw was warsaw was destroyed we are talking about uh the end of 1944 um the russians were on one end of the vistula river and they just waited for the poles and the germans to kill each other and my mother was in a bunker with her brother who saved their numerous times from certain death and another eid who found this bonker so we are talking about being for six months in a place of course with nothing with no um you know they slept on the on the floor as they uh they didn't have of course what to eat um let me share with you one story so you'll get the sense of what went on um he or um the men his name was libel binnenfeld he was the older one so he was about around 25 my mother was 15 her brother was 17 and he went every few nights to find a food one night he came and he brought with him rotten onions so my mother looked at it and she said what else do you want us to eat so he said i don't understand we will clean it and we will eat every week one piece le covered shabbos koidesh so at a time that nodules were left in warsaw and maybe some of them in hiding like my mother and my brother and live opinion felt at a time as this was the end of after five years of of the holocaust labor benefit was busy what they are going to eat le kovet chavez koidesh and they stayed there till january 18th when the russians crossed the river and came in and they woke up and they realized that somebody discovered the opening and they ran out and it took a few minutes and one hand grenade was flown in and another hand grenade and their bunker was blown up in the air and my uncle said i can't anymore i must know if these are still the german or these are the russians and he made himself be seen and libel was screaming come in in in you know wherever they were hiding another place they're going to kill you bottom line was that these were the russians and when they saw my mother who was all of 15 and looked like she said suramar when they saw her and the russian commandant or the soviet commandant had tears in his eyes how could it be that the jewish child survived two hours later another unit of the soviet uh army arrested my uncles they suspected him on collaboration with the uh with the germans that he was a volca deutsche and they arrested him i will save you the aggravation they were reunited in at israel two and a half years later well my mother was stayed alone and she saw that she cannot stay in poland she could not stay in poland and she decided that she is going to her sister she was trying to go back to her hometown the men who became the successor of the huge estate claims that she never lived there etc and so she went so she arrived to bucharest waiting for certificate to take her to a testrol of course he took a few months and one day she got the certificate and she said you know on the steps to the office you can imagine the fancy office in bucharest and uh she cried and a woman passed by and wanted to know made the life of us vines too why are you crying girl but the girl went through too much in life so she refused to answer again and again until she told her because they wanted me to travel on shabbos the woman was rebecca miriam shulman the wife of the daughter of isaac sher and the granddaughter of the zeida of slobodka and she just survived you know from lita and she told us when we reached my mother's age then which was you know fifteen and a half and she said i looked up and i said reborn shalom how could it be one child survived from poland and she is crying over shabbos so she took her to the people you know who were responsible and she told them you want to build in israel and no june and no country everything you know even no museum needs ancient artifacts take her as the symbol of the shabbos which they did and the rest is history wow so project witness tells those stories so project weakness tells the story yes and project witness is is a different i would say from other shore organizations who are doing a tremendous work by emphasizing the focus on spiritual heroism and unlike highlighting and drawing attention to the religious experience we find that these messages bear importance and give meaning not only to the jewish orthodox community but to the jewish secular community and to the non-jewish community let's remember that the orthodox community suffered greatly during the holocaust and moreover religious jews were distinct in their dress and manner thus they were of course usually targeted first by the nazis you know for persecution and murder we feel that their story must be part of holocaust narrative and this was not done enough till today so that's what we work on thank you so much and i want to thank you obviously for being on um i want to uh pivot a little bit and talk about holocaust studies in america and so much of so many of the articles that we read and the youth the younger people that we speak to um will oftentimes articulate that they don't want their judaism so connected to the holocaust um obviously we believe that it should be in that we should be emphasized in the shoah do you encounter that type of mentality and that type of friction when it comes to holocaust studies particularly amongst the younger population and especially now that we're losing survivors and the survivors are getting older and they're not able to communicate their stories as much do you find a disconnect with the younger population when it comes to speaking to him about the holocaust so let me share with you our experience we find that the younger generation even among non-religious want a stronger connection to their pests now more than ever especially when the generation of survivors is passing on any descended descendant of the holocaust generation is more attuned and has greater appreciation for the experiences that their grandparents or great great parents went through or even if they don't have a direct you know connection to survivors let's remember as that we just celebrated the holiday of passover and we are commanded to tell the story of liberation to the next generation we feel that since this is our history our history forms us so we are obligated to teach the younger generation so they cannot only learn their history but they know and responsible to pass it to the next generation we are very much aware of what you mentioned but we feel that with the right approach and the right language uh you can bring the younger generation it's it's a lot of work but we believe that it could be done and regarding the losing uh survivors um we are desperately trying to collect as more and more interviews than ever before we try to do it you know if these are live sessions of this these are zoom presentations i want to share with you that we have done it you know with a public schools with that we work with uh zoom presentations with holocaust survivors and it was really unbelievable to watch and see how they what kind of respect they have for survivors so i think that the contact between the survivors and the younger generation if these are you know uh jewish students if these are um legion students or if these are non-religious students the the connection between the survivors and the youngsters it does something it does something to them all that we can ask is for the second the next generation the children of survivors what we call fuji please please please try to get the message of your you know parents and try and try to transmit your family's testimonies this is our obligation now and that's what we are trying to do and any helps that anyone can give us with names with addresses with introducing us will be more than happy thank you and thank you again for joining us tonight uh the question that i'm just wondering when you encounter and speak to the the leadership of different yeshivas and schools do you think that they could be doing more is there more that they could be doing in terms of educating their students and also what what age do you think it's appropriate to start teaching the holocaust so regarding doing more um definitely everyone can do more especially when time is running against us because we are losing survivors and unfortunately we lost so many of them in this past year um i think that it again here it's not israel when you have you know ministry of education and you have you know curriculum but let's acknowledge that there are today a federal education uh law um mandatory law and uh there is no reason and not to do it it used to be like seven eight states who obligate themselves but not anymore today it's a it's a new story it depends very much on the school it depends very much on the principles and uh i think that if they will try more it could be done more and you know it doesn't matter if this are yeshiva so we are talking about these schools or whatever we are talking about uh it's a lot of work no question about it but what was the second question that you asked what age would you start teaching about the holocaust when's it too younger so we believe that sixth seventh grade seventh grade definitely six depends where and what is the right age to start seventh and eighth grade is also as i mentioned you know public school programs let me tell you that public school principles claims that seventh and eighth grade are a very good age to start because ninth grades everybody is already opinionated and they have you know what uh what they want what they don't want seven and eight they're more open i know that in israel the age start earlier but i i personally do not believe in it thank you okay mr looking see first of all thank you again for giving us your time particularly meaningful as we're focused on on the holocaust and our survivors but if we could move over to the the english hamodia which you are the editor-in-chief founding editor-in-chief amazingly impressive all that you're accomplishing which in itself is you and i have had a conversation about time management and multitasking and how it's even possible to get done what you get done in a day i'm in awe of it so editor-in-chief hamodia this isn't new in your family your father began the hebrew language hamadi and your grandfather yiddish i believe what led you what motivated you wha what vacuum did you see in america that needed the english how is hamodiyya different there are so many today uh jewish yeshivish kharadi magazines newspapers there is literature that is available hamadiya has a large subscription and a following um i've been enjoying reading it and and i'm honored to have have been in it recently and thank you for that um how is hamodia differently and what what inspired you what motivated you to continue what your family had done before so let me tell you first the history of media didn't start in in 1950 in israel it started in 1910 when it was um the hamadiya which was in latin kurdish was established by the owner of frame oyster godzinski the imams of gir and lagaon rafael they felt that they must have a tool they must have a voice at the times that they were so many you know secular and assimilated movements uh spread all over europe and they felt that there is no voice to the orthodox community after the destruction of the holocaust again you know they understood that they must do something and thus uh they started you know if you'll ask me who participated some survivors some people who managed to get there at the soil before you know the holocaust and as they started um what what i felt i felt it for many years is that we need we need uh um hamodiya in english language and um i believe that i believe that what makes ahmadiyya different is ahmadiyya is its objective is to provide its readership is comprehensive reporting of the news in a responsible and careful manner ahmadiyya keeps to the highest standard of mainstream journalism in my eyes it's a different category it's a real newspaper which comes with its magazines but what what's the most important is the responsibility is that we feel very much and it doesn't matter if you're talking to me on tuesday night and you don't want to know what happened and now two minutes before we went uh you know to print and what uh you know what a very responsible managing editor caught by the last minute so it's it's um we feel is that we are doing the right thing for the club we feel that we are doing the right things for the community we are family newspaper and we are trying we have a lot of seated ishmael no question about it and more than one uh ness or nissim uh and we continue what's the subscription like could you describe the the readership of ahmadiyya it's very interesting it's really from right to left and in the middle even though the middle you know is shrinking uh but it's interesting we have jewish of course juris subscribers but we do have non-jewish subscribers and it's very interesting we have readers you know in different unfortunately in different facilities in different jails uh it's amazing to get you know letters from them they have to get free subscriber from the publisher which they do uh and uh it's amazing to see and i can get a letter dear publisher i'm an anjou but i am here and my jewish friend left so can you please continue of course we continue uh of course you know we have different uh connections with uh elected officials in different states in different uh uh if this is local if this is on state level if this is federal uh a lot of work i would say is it is it delivered and is it available all over the united states yes yes so it's uh either there are ups groups or there are you know shipments that are going let's say leaving tonight and going to major communities home deliveries in different places there's always room to grow more and more but we are really getting reaching out to many places and don't forget that we have international editions so we have in europe and we have in israel and we have a small addition in in australia so and the papers are traveling to south africa to are different in south africa and so yes we are i would say very busy so there's a question on my mind and i'm sure many of our listeners also which is it's probably not the normal trajectory in the world that you grew up in a great granddaughter of the gerareba your father i believe was the one who who who compiled the khidushyarim i give a partial share of the week i think i quoted three rims this week so with tremendous gratitude to your father and of course the harim so a great granddaughter of the gareba growing up in a haredi khasidisha family to emerge with the leadership to be an editor-in-chief of a major jewish newspaper without a journalism background you'll correct me if i'm wrong i don't know if you had a vast journalism background um how do you see yourself in terms of obvious you did yeah okay so you'll correct me there but how did you how do you see yourself as a a female leader expressing your feminine leadership not not with any agenda but meaning uncompromising in your tradition your hashkafa uncompromising in your commitment to misora and to the world you came from and yet realizing your voice your leadership as a woman how do you balance how do you see all of that coming together so okay let's do let's start with the balance i think that uh to the balance it's not the first time that i'm being asked this question so the answer is that uh it's a pretty simple recipe uh you have to have a good husband a supported family a very devoted staff otherwise you cannot survive in hamadiya and we are very lucky to have one and a very strong sense of mission and this is the answer to everything this is not a career and this is not here is you know the woman who is this is a mission and i am here on a mission and i believe that hashem planted me here 45 years ago because he knows that what i left to do here and that's what i do so it's pretty simple does it does it get complicated by as an editor-in-chief you must overlap or um you must connect with leadership of other newspapers jewish and secular do you ever find your um challenged as a as a firm woman as a from jew to maintain your balance we are we are in uh best terms with uh dole haradanim and with the spiritual leadership of the generation if this is here if this is in israel and it doesn't matter where else and when we have uh questions of ashkafa and of uh you know looking into a topic should we do shouldn't we do um we ask and we accept answers and more than once we pulled out articles and we did not put ads i have a special um bank account which i do not exchange with anyone and over there you have a tremendous amount of money that ahmadiyya sacrificed for ads that we did not put due to principles and i can add to it two that we did not put this week so we really keep what we do and uh otherwise we are not us so we want to stay us i'll get in trouble for asking you i'll get in trouble if i don't ask you and you certainly don't have to answer but you know one of the big conversations today are the issues of of women's pictures in magazines newspapers on the one hand you're editor-in-chief you write opinion columns you're making you have the final say to the entire staff who reports to you on the other hand your own picture doesn't appear in your own newspaper uh this is the first time we've had the opportunity to ask it to a woman how do you how do you feel about that do you feel compromised in any way by that or how could our leadership better understand why you're okay with it okay so i really think that when you are really occupied with the right priorities in life you realize that what could be considered as an epitome of achievement in some circles have no meaning to me so it doesn't take any um there is no question that's what we do and that's what we do so when my side at the minute that he came from the knesset he sat down to one thing to learn you should see his marrows i brought it here to america i have it here okay it's almost torn it's not torn because of anything just from you know the extra use my side there i'm not talking now about you know somebody who was the old day you know in learning i'm talking about you know somebody who was first in the government and then in the knesset and so many issues and building you know new life in existence then then over a thousand times he said that he revealed the hover salavardos this one you know in his pocket that's what we saw that i hear i still hear he's governing when he was already in his older age and he was a security when he down migrated i still hear the crying we're talking about you know eden who really gave their life for you know for editing so it touches the heart okay okay mrs ruthlessness thank you so much for your time for sharing with us both about your work with the showa the holocaust keeping it alive your work in hamadiya insight and hashem should continue to bless you with strength and health and wisdom to continue as you said your mission and life and the difference that you're making and we thank you very very much and we look forward to continuing these conversations thank you all right we are back so uh what'd you think of that what was the takeaway what uh what struck you the most about her words um i think rabbi brodie's still muted he's still muted he's trying to talk i'm sorry thanks for catching that i was having a whole conversation or anything i made my point now just saying i think it's amazing how the holocaust survivors how they just came and they wanted to build and just keep building and make things happen it's very very impressive we know many many of them like uh mr sam halpern a builder darkness and hope yeah i also thought it was interesting the way she described the nature of project witness which is not just telling the stories of the holocaust but telling the stories of of spiritual defiance during the holocaust and how she felt that that story sometimes oftentimes gets overlooked and how it's equally if not more important than just the stories of pre you know war europe and post-war europe and but to really tell the stories of how religion and how relationship with hashem and how hasidos and how all those movements um continue were able to rebuild even after the holocaust yeah she's she's an extraordinary person accomplished whether you agree or disagree with everything that she's involved with or does or relate to or connect with but she's accomplishing an amazing amazing she's very educated and she's a leader and she's initiated many projects and she's getting things done all while balancing raising a large family and she does it from a very traditional point of view she reminds me a lot of judge rookie fryer when we had on the sense that they don't view themselves as having any agenda in particular but they're proud of the uh energy creativity leadership they bring and they don't see anything as holding them back despite their hasidic backgrounds and commitment to continue the traditional upbringing doesn't hold them back without any agenda or any other motive or goal it was so interesting she had that was her most terse answer was when you asked her about the picture and she shrugged her shoulder it really clearly does not bother her so much and she has other things on her mind and other things that she wants to accomplish i would say that behind the bema has had three or four billionaires we've had a couple of judges two or three judges we've had some fascinating groupings we've also probably we are the podcast that has asked the most people about the question of these pictures i never thought that that would be part of some historian is going to write an article and an academic article about this not because we're obsessed with this in any notion it's not our uh issue in an extreme sense in either direction it's just presented itself by some of the people that we've that we've had but she's very very impressive person involved in a lot of things project witness i've had the chance to look through some of the materials and you should check out their website there's a lot it's very very valuable and complementing the other holocaust resources that are out there not in lieu or in place of them but complementing them it adds an important voice it's really worth checking out amazing that's amazing we're in sphere boys no we're gonna we're gonna transition a little bit now we are in spira it's obviously we've discussed in the past the challenges the difficulties um of a rabbi how are you all doing robert goldberg have you had that freeze panic moment yet in shul where you wonder what night it was last night and one night of my counting tonight i saw one of our good friends rabbi josh grazier tweeted the other night how every united sphere right before the rabbi counts he panics and he wonders did i remember to count last night how does he think the rabbis but that's exactly what i wanted to answer them online is you panic wondering whether you counted the right night how about all the rabbis who panic that in front of the whole room they might not get the right so i i will admit i will confess here i have about seven backup systems every night so we have the page turner in the front of the shule is not changing numbered based on the pages right now but that's one then i asked stewart silverman what night we're up to then i look on the luach on the sitter app then i get a text message telling me what night it is so i have like 14 different fail proof systems before i you know say the night that night to help me try to get through i can't i love shavuot i can't wait to finish spirit's home it's rough i have a joke with that person in chill i don't even have to say anything to me i look over to him he goes rabbi last night was he knows he knows already what i'm asking he helps you out he helps yeah so i want to tell you one intermarriage story not not a negative story a positive story not about an intermarriage to leave our listeners thinking about this coming full circle to what we what we began with tonight got me uh my wife got me four pesach gift i think i was supposed to get her a gift but she got me a gift for pesach the new book that came out about rabbi grossman the disco rabbi the rabbi of mig de la emec founder of migdal ore he's been to boca we should have him on behind the bema he is he's great he he's beyond belief what what a special person it's really it's very unusual if you remember surely besser when he was on referenced it this did not get picked up by the jta but surely bessa referenced that this was a departure for art scroll that's written a biography about a living rabbi solzain gazun stark he should live for a long time so he tells his story and i'm not gonna take the rest of our podcast to tell the story though if you're listening please take a moment to rate and review some of the other new podcasts have challenged us online and we need some rate and review if you take a five-star review and rate you will help us climb that ladder back to the number one spot so rabbi grossman grew up in meisharam hardcore khasid heart of yerushalayim hardcore hussed and six day war he's newly married he's got a young baby one child and they're hiding in a bunker because the shell is happening on youtube but he's it's stuffy it's uncomfortable he's not abandoning his family but he takes breaks to go to a shul next door to sit and learn for a little bit just to get some fresh air so he's going to sit and learning and he's sitting in that basement next door the shoe and next door and it occurs to him and this tells you what a special person right grossman is it occurs them that these soldiers they're risking their lives there's an army base and they're on the roof of this building the tallest building in that area if they're shelling they're the most vulnerable susceptible he says you know i gotta show them some of my cars so too i gotta show some gratitude so he goes out and he buys a bunch of cartons of cigarettes at the time people were smoking and he goes to the roof of the building and he distributes them and just as he's distributing on the roof of the building there's a shell that hits the shule that he had been sitting in to learn hits the seat that he had been sitting in wow it most certainly would have killed him wow so he says god saved me he goes to the coattail right in six day war they they liberate the kotel he's among the first that shavuous they open the gates they're able to go to the kotel and he's dominating to hashem and he says i got to thank hashem somewhere what am i going to do so he pledges this hostage from a hardcore mayor and he says i'm going to leave yerushalayim for a year i'm basically going on within israel i'm going to find some community and go there so he goes to his rebbe and asks him where should i go and the rebbe says migdala amec now migdalemic is one of the poorest cities in israel crime ridden no religion at all and he goes to check it out it takes like four buses to get there fast board i want to tell you the whole book it's already late into the night but i just wanted to tell you this startled me when i was reading this on pesach this story itself shook me it startled me it really challenged me so he is entering he ends up moving his family and again get the book it's really worthwhile moves his family and magdalene he's working with the youth he's trying to turn them around that's why he's the disco rabbi because he goes into the disco that's where he finds the youth that's like the first shul just in the disco he starts talking to them and he notices in the street one night they're all these really expensive fancy luxury cars so he asks one of he calls them his sadique who are these criminal addict youth that he's working with his tadika he asked one of the sadiq who owns these luxury cars where they coming from these expensive cars he said oh that's an arab neighborhood nearby the arabs come in to magdala amec they meet the jewish girls the jewish girls see their money and these arabs take the jewish girls home with them they marry them the girls are taken by them so he says how do they come in the threat to the jewish future who would let arabs in taking our daughters our girls said oh they pay for protection they pay rafi he's like the mafia boss here and at mcdonald's make they pay him he gives them protection under that company coming right says where does he live they tell him he goes okay goes to the house goes the apartment knocks in the dory he's wearing his beckasha his hat and this mobster you know whatever opens the door gives someone look what do you want so he says i moved here i hear you're a leader in town i came to drink lahayan so rafi's totally disarmed caught off guard rabbi grossman comes in they sit they drink l'chaim so finally ruby grossman raises with him and he says look what's the deal arabs are coming in they're taking our daughters and i understand you're giving them protection they're paying you it just it can't be cannot be allowed to continue these are jewish girls princesses these are precious souls it cannot continue that's what he's telling this mafia criminal john gotti the guy so the guy looks really gross and says okay i hear you i understand why it bothers you but guys got to make a living so sorry no can do so he says well would you make a living some other way because i said if i could make the living some other way then i wouldn't do this he says okay i know a guy who owns a factory i can get you a job there's no i'm not working on a factory i'm not working behind a desk so regrossman says okay so what would you do in your ideal world what's the job you want he says honestly i wish i owned my own truck and i would love to truck and transport goods then i could get a fleet of trucks and i can work on my own schedule my own time when i want choose the merchandise i want to transport i'd love to i've always dreamt i want to own my own truck it's very expensive i can't afford it so i'm sticking with this regressor says thank you nice to meet you have a good night the next morning wakes up early takes four buses back to you shalom now if you're hosting me asharam today still in that community when you get married parents-in-law split you buy an apartment they set you up with an apartment goes with marriage it's the only asset he has the only money he has it's all he has in the whole world the next morning he wakes up takes four buses back to shalom sells his apartment goes to a truck dealership buys a truck comes back to magdalemic that night goes to rafi's house knocks on the door hands him the key says mazel tov here's your truck no more with the arabs coming rafi says fine done tells the arabs they lost their protection the arabs try to come in anyway he has his sadiq and beat the arabs up arabs never come back to make the amex the arab neighbors nearby won't come in or talk to jewish girls and magdalen so i read that story and write ps fast forward takes a little bit more to rehabilitate rafi rafi becomes robbie grossman's driver becomes about shuva and right he's he's all in fine great rabbi grossman story i read this story and i say to myself what are we willing to do to stop your marriage ruby grossman took the one asset the only money he had his apartment i'd like to think he spoke to his wife first he sold it he sold the thought of into marriage the thought of arabs coming taking jewish girls he took his apartment he sold it to stop it what are we willing to do what are you doing rabbi brodie rabbi moscow people watching people listening after you rate and review ask yourself what are you doing to stop inter-marriage are you willing to give up a dollar a hundred a thousand sell an apartment what are you willing to do invite a neighbor to outreach partners in torah shabbos project what are we willing to that's what it was just like another story in the book you just keep reading and the stories and the stories are all amazing stories and i read the story and i'm like wow i feel totally like i am an absolute nothing garnished and now i feel challenged so neither of you i hate speechless i agree it really is full circle and it comes back to what we were speaking about earlier which is what i think you know you're talking about the the um the connection between the holocaust and intermarriage and we were talking about how you know the holocaust isn't just a historical event for us but it's an opportunity to challenge ourselves right and to say okay great we have unbelievable religious freedom we have unbelievable affluence we have things that couldn't have been imagined 50 100 years ago and i agree with you 100 it's a great question and it's a great night to challenge all of us and to say what are we doing with all the privileges we've been gotten you're channeling it in terms of a conversation of intermarriage and i agree well hardly i think it's first of all it's an amazing story amazing story but uh but also it's always a great question yeah no by the way that was like we're at an hour eight minutes nobody's still listening anyway exactly you're good you're good you can say i once heard on a podcast the following story and i'd like to tell it to you so that's why we should we should pre-tape these uh shows now we could you could have edited that out that's an amazing story sure robin moscow it's you and i had a j f event last night and who do we run into who's the family that loves behind the bema more than any other who's the family that loves behind the beat more than what come on when we did our global campaign oh the shriyers the schreyers those wow uh spotting there was a shrine spotting let's end with this last week was the first behind the bema we took off maybe ever maybe we've done a couple i don't remember but it was hollomoid we took off for home but you can't work a homoid we just work on yante yes we took a lot of work did anyone contact you saying hey where's the behind yeah what do you mean there's no behind the buma yeah my people they were trying to tune in and they couldn't find it yeah no my kids it's like a big deal in our house first of all everyone always comments how do i keep my house so quiet at this hour because i have a lot of cooperation for my kids and uh and they were they were like looking around they say wait a second it's almost nine o'clock wednesday night daddy's not getting ready for behind the bema and it was like a part of our family was missing that week it was uh it wasn't the same right i agree in fact last night you know what happened was yanta for the second days where shabbos sunday so yonder ended sunday night i don't know if you feel this way your whole week is off then you basically don't know what day it is so last night at 9 10 somebody texts me like frantic what happened behind the bema i wrote back it's tuesday night oh they have like no idea you just don't know but i will say i will say this about kolomoi and i don't know if you guys had a similar experience but um i chose not to teach any classes over holomowid um just the way it worked out and we took off it was the first week since covid started that i did not teach on zoom that i did not teach a formal class on zoom and it didn't occur to me afterwards but i felt very mixed emotions about it on the one hand i've gotten so used to teaching on zoom you've gotten so used to being in front of the camera on the other hand it's the first time in a year that all the teaching that i did and all the torah learning that i did was in person whether it was sheer mature whether it was russia's at shoal whether it was kavrus with kids home from it whatever it was it was all in person and it was the first time that i wasn't sitting in front of a computer in front of me i had serious emotions about it did you really know what's mixed up first it was great to have to have a week off from we with the omaha program tonight we had a major technology glitch stressful anxiety written the person being interviewed couldn't connect there goes the program people the link how do i get on i mean the old-fashioned way of people energy being exchanged being in a room being you i don't know anything's going on i should say very exciting things going on at brs the email's gonna go out tomorrow but effective uh starting tomorrow vaccinated people at brs if you're dominating for the ahmad laning or giving advartora speaking you can take your mask off while leading if you're vaccinated fully vaccinated 14 days two weeks out after your complete vaccination dosage and significant other changes at brs all with the consent and approval and uh done safely and carefully strategically and with compliance but it represents some steps forward that we're taking very excited about it can't wait yeah very exciting get in there baby steps to get there yeah keep everyone feeling safe and keep everyone's trust and show and coming back and you know pesach i don't know if you felt this also i know robert you and i spoke about this um with the number of guests and obviously the number of people that were there it was a real energy in the room on pesach yeah that he hadn't felt in a very long time and it was really beautiful like when when i don't know if you have this rabbi no when you get up to give the drusha it was really the first time you felt that energy that you and i used to feel all the time like in the winter when we had those patches and it was nice it was a really nice feeling to see everyone together again it was and there were people back who hadn't been the whole year but for whatever reason they're vaccinated now the time was right pesach they came back yisker paystuck in particular brought people back and it was great to see them and it's it's back to but now on the topic of ysker if i can am i allowed to go there rabbi can i go there rabbi goldberg go for it we're going to bury a conversation this is where to bury it rabbi gober you stayed in friezker this year even after you you always stay in for the first three cow mollies then you usually depart um this year you chose to stay in do you want to explain why you and i have not discussed this yet well he didn't stay in for the second one just for the record i didn't stay in because i had didn't stand for anything i had already dobbin that wasn't my mind um and i stayed in because you were right next to me and i know how much it means to you and i doesn't mean i'm ready to say that every year for yes girl i'm staying in for now on because i you know i don't want to say we disagree because i don't feel entitled to the same opinion that you have on this um but i'm not prepared to say i'm gonna stay in all the time but this was a year where i announced we announced you know obviously it's still complicated if everybody were to leave it's hard to maintain distancing uh we had another minion that had to happen afterwards we didn't have the time to take a long break for people to leave so we'd announce those who want to leave we're going to continue immediately with these girl those who want to leave please do so please do so quietly please maintain distancing i think some state who don't normally stay and i chose to be among them particularly because i know how much it means to you well i would like to acknowledge publicly that i appreciate that very much and when i did see you afterwards um i we did not talk about it but i did give both of your parents a bracha for our rehas on him and uh please god you should have the opportunity to walk out many many times for many years to come i mean i appreciate that bracha i actually did think that if god forbid a billion times you guys would not be friends anymore that's over this would be a complicated topic going forward but i don't believe it good job rabbit mosquitoes i don't believe god to be clear on this issue and all the inhere stuff i just refused to believe in a god who would strike down good people who deserve and merit to live because someone stayed in because they showed sensitivity to their friends i just i don't you know oblivious like a bradyca someone once came to him who said i don't believe in god was a heretic he said what are your issues so he listed all the issues about god and obliviously said to him the god you don't believe in i don't believe in him either and i love that story because right a lot of people have that hang up the god you don't believe in i don't believe in either so i don't believe in that god it just that doesn't speak to me so i'm not afraid about that oh i noticed and i appreciated it that note this ended up being a very stimulating conversation hopefully an important one hopefully a meaningful yo mashoa whether you're listening live tonight yo masha or you're listening in the next coming days or weeks um but uh we'll hope it stimulates some thinking about what you're going to do to fight anti-semitism to fight into marriage to help and support jewish continuity take a moment and subscribe to our youtube channel be notified in real time every time we go live to be able to learn and uh rate and review and every every podcast every rabbi in the country is going to be telling a story about rabbi grossman this year on shibuya square now the book is really fantastic i don't get any royalties but buy it it's a great book i'm not even done with it yet and and there's a hundred stories in it can i just say something you know i'm sure there's some people that tuned in tonight we weren't even aware that it was young showa yeah yeah yeah so hopefully they were motivated and inspired alright until next time everyone stay happy stay healthy stay holy