Lazer Beams

Reb Shlomo Carlebach: The Last Seder in the Warsaw Ghetto

Thanks to Neshama in California for sending us the following clip, which is capable of making a stone shed tears. Remember that our return to Hashem in the holy Land of Israel is the only guarantee that there'll never again be a Warsaw Ghetto. Have a wonderful Shabbat and new month of Iyar.

Come on Home!

Holocaust Day this year falls on Monday Night and Tuesday, 20-21 April, 2009.

Many people are asking if there could be another holocaust, G-d forbid, and particularly in the "Land of the Free." For the last three weeks, people have been sending me a steady stream of emails asking for my opinion on Nava's post (Dreaming of Moshiach, one of the most popular Jewish blogs on the web) from April 7 entitled American Jews: Leave Now!, where she brings a number of sources that urge US Jews to leave write away.

Not long ago, Rabbi Shalom Arush said, “Those who don't come to Israel while they still can may be lucky to escape from the USA with a plastic bag and a pair of pajamas in the not so distant future.” Unlike some of the sources Nava brings, Rabbi Shalom says that they shouldn't feel like a gun is pointing at their head, but that all the Jews of the Diaspora - not just America - have an obligation to do their utmost to Come on Home to Israel as soon as they can.  

Rabbi Shalom Arush discusses the root cause of the Holocaust in One Infamous Night, our feature article in this week's Breslev Israel web magazine.

Were it not for a tragedy that happened to my own mother in Grodno, Poland (now Belarus) right before WWII broke out, your friend Lazer wouldn't be here. Read how even tragedies are all for the best in The Pin Cushion, this week's absolutely must-read.

Read about the Death Train and a dozen more gripping original Holocaust Day articles in this week's issue.

Rabbi Erez Moshe Doron says that if one really wants the truth, he or she will find it in Keep Searching.

Rivka Levy talks about what it feels like when all your neighbors are having babies and you're not in Maybe Baby.

Oded Mizrachi tells part 2 of Girl of Sinai and Shlomo Brunell tells us part 6 of his personal odyssey from Presbyterian Minister to Orthodox Jew in Strangers No More.

Alice Jonsson asks a tough question in Who are You to Judge? Sara Azulai writes about this year's Blessing in the Curse. Breslev Kids get more Perek Shira for kids.

This week's Torah portion is Tazria - Metzora. Here's wishing you a week of blessings and success.

Come on Home

The Mass Graves of Yanov, Ukraine

Today is Holocaust Rememberance Day

My father's family comes from the town of Yanov, which is half way between Breslev and Berditchev in the central Ukraine.

There are two mass graves in Yanov. The first, pictured directly below, is where 2500 Jews from the Carpathian area were loaded on cattle cars and shipped north. The Nazis decided to spare the fuel that the continued journey to the concentration camps would require, and pulled the Jews off the train at this crossroads, made them dig a tremendous pit where the memorial is behind the white wall in the background, and machine gunned them.

Mass Grave #1 - Yanov junction, 2500 Jews

The second mass grave (photo below), in Yanov township amidst the old Jewish cemetary, holds the 1000 Jews of Yanov that were killed in a house-to-house extermination by SS stormtroops. They were then thrown in a mass pit. Among these Jews are my father's aunts, uncles, and cousins. Today, I'm involved in caring for this site. If I don't, then the Ukranians will turn it into a potato field.

We'll never forget. Ever.

A Baby in Front of a Firing Squad

Today is Holocaust Rememberance Day. This is a guest post by holocaust survivor Uri Edelman via our good friend Akiva Kotler from Ashdod.

The nook in which we lived in the ghetto was narrow and suffocating. My mother managed to drag in a broken piece of furniture that in its better days had served as an armchair. Now, all that remained of it was a charred wooden skeleton, saved from a fire, and a row of metal springs that the flames could not overcome. That was where my mother would set me, a 3-year-old boy, every time the hobnailed boots were heard outside and immediately afterward the pounding on the door. She would cover me with filthy rags and sit on top. That is how I got used to lying, keeping my mouth shut, immobile. It was explained to me that if I made a sound, and the troopers discovered me, they would rip me to shreds instantly with their bayonets. I went through this experience countless times in mute heroism. One day, my luck gave out. A woman was caught stealing and the sentries' rage knew no bounds. One of them struck my mother with his rife butt and kicked my armchair shelter. It overturned, and I was found out. The soldier cocked his rifle, but his commander stopped him: "It's better to put him in front of a firing squad," he said, smiling. "A baby put to death in front of everyone will certainly have a deterrent effect."

Terror and trembling, fear and dread took hold of my whole body when I looked down the barrel of the machine gun on its stand. There was no place on my body that had not been attacked by uncontrollable shivering. I tried to call up every source of courage, physical and emotional strength, to firm up my poor limbs, but I could not. Every one of my cells, which He who dwells on high had placed in my body to create it in His image, was dancing as if in a frenetic fit. I felt that in a few seconds my limbs would separate from the skeleton that still deigned to hold on to them. My heart was pounding, both from the powerful shaking of my limbs and the fear that they would soon be scattered all around. I looked at the soldier behind the black hole of the weapon; I could not take my eyes off him. The flakes of snow on his helmet reminded me how very cold it was. For a moment our eyes met, and it seemed to me that I saw surprise in his, as if they were saying that a baby was standing before him for the first time. The order to fire came like a scream that split the air. My last memory of the world of the living was the deafening noise of the machine gun.

I do not know how much time passed, but it was certainly night when I heard, from the depths of the netherworld, the voice of my mother, weeping bitterly. I shouted with all the strength I had left. I could not move; frozen bodies covered me on all sides. My mother heard my voice, and began moving aside the dead, who lay atop me like shrouds too heavy to bear. The machine gun stand, which was level with my head, had saved my life. Except for a bleeding scratch left by the grazing bullet that had tossed me into the mass grave, my body was whole. Perhaps, it was so I could to stand up for the children who did not live and be their voice.

The writer is a lecturer in education at Bar-Ilan University.