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March 13, 2008
Past, Present, Future, and Prayer
I’m going to take a moment here out of my busy elitist philosophical schedule to make a reference that, for the most part, only my younger cohorts will understand. Do you all remember the scene from the neo-classic “Euro-Trip,” where the gang unwittingly lands itself in Bratislava? Despite their initial misgivings, the protagonists soon realize that the meager sum of money that they have in their possession, amounting to only a few dollars, will actually suffice for them to receive the royal treatment at a five star (albeit Bratislavan) hotel. The hilarity, of course, is based upon American misconceptions of Eastern Europe and the inherent backwardness of countries like Slovakia. However, I feel compelled to inform all of you that this scene does not take place anywhere near Bohemian lands. In fact, the closest example out there is most assuredly the Ukraine.
A member of my program, Vira, has lived in America for the past 8 years and attends Central Michigan University. However, she was born in Lviv, Ukraine, about a 9-hour bus ride from Warsaw. Vira still has many family and friends in Lviv, and encouraged us all to visit. Sensing a unique opportunity, my friends and I packed together our suitcases and optimism and preconceived notions and hopped on to a highly uncomfortable bus ride to the unknown.
After an extended border visit where we were graced by our initial encounter with Ukranians, we were absolutely awestruck by what we saw. My roommate Sean once remarked to me that his problem with pictures is that they are only able to capture a small part of a moment. His greatest wish, he confided, was that in those truly unique moments, someone else could actually see the world through his own eyes. I truly understood his sentiment in those first few hours driving through the Ukranian countryside, watching the sun slowly rise over miles of pastures and small enclaves of humanity dispersed along the truly vast landscape. It felt like some description out of a Dostoyevsky novel, the first glimpse a soldier gets of his home after returning from battle. I wish you had all been able to see it, through mine own eyes, because there is no way I am doing it justice.
My arrival in Lviv, in some strange paradox, met, exceeded, and undershot my expectations in one fell swoop. I knew it was different than an American city, even different than a Polish city, (although, for centuries, Lviv was, in fact, a part of Poland and was known as Lvov, a fact many Poles have not readily forgotten) but I assumed, after 6 weeks in Warsaw, that I was prepared for anything. I was wrong. The outskirts of the city seemed like the backdrop to a 60’s era American film attempting to depict the Soviet Union, combined with awkward lighting, crumbling archetype communist architecture, and extremely gruff-looking individuals. The inner city looked like, for lack of a better description, a smaller, poorer, and more eastern version of Krakow, aesthetically pleasing to look at but laden with traces of Soviet rule. My biggest shock, however, definitely occurred when four of the guys on the trip, along with myself, decided to grab some breakfast while the girls (and Dave) decided to take a nap. After filling up our trays at a cafeteria style restaurant with food ranging from chicken with cheese and beef rolls (for my friends) and some fish and raspberry tort (for me) we proceeded to the checkout counter, along with our long-desired cups of coffee, expecting to shell out big bucks for our big appetites. The result? About 70 Ukrainian Grivna, or fourteen good ol’ American greenbacks. The falling dollar has immunity in this part of the world.
What definitely made the trip, however, was the tremendous hospitality shown to us by Vira, or, in the words of my roommate, “our little Ukrainian princess.” Vira had a full day of activities planned for us, including a trip to an authentic Ukrainian bazaar and a stroll round Lviv’s center square. We also took a breathtaking hike up the tallest hill in Lviv that yielded a truly breathtaking view of the whole city as well as its surroundings, miles upon miles of pure picturesqueness. (Full Disclosure: I forgot to charge my camera beforehand.) The best part of Vira’s hospitality, however, came from her family and friends. Vira’s aunt and grandmother prepared for us an authentic Ukrainian dinner, complete with the most delicious borscht (red beet soup) I have ever tasted as well as mashed potatoes, chicken, and, for their little kosher guest, fish. The food was only surpassed by the kindness of her family.
Later on that night, after attending a very interesting Ukrainian ballet, Vira informed us that we were going to meet up with her best friend and her best friend’s fiancée. After a short walk, Vira led us down a very dark alleyway into a dimly lit courtyard, only to disappear for about ten minutes. The scene eerily reminded me of something out of the movie, “Hostel,” and I was half-expecting a chainsaw-wielding psychotic killer to jump out of the shadows at any moment. Even though I survived that endeavour, I was still ill prepared for what was about to occur. Vira descended from the darkness followed by her friends, who were wielding plates of food and bottles of vodka. Apparently, it is a Ukrainian tradition to get extremely drunk upon being introduced to new friends. Not wanting to insult our hospitable hosts, 15 minutes and 4 bottles later every member of our ragged and tired entourage was completely destroyed. The next night was no different, but rather much, much more of the same. For a meager 100 Griva (20 dollars) we had an all you could eat, all you could dance, and ALL you could drink Ukrainian fiesta. Pierogis and fish kept our bellies full, a live band gave us a taste of true Ukrainian culture, and nearly a dozen bottles of Ukrainian vodka…well, you can fill in the rest. My nights in Lviv are certainly something I won’t soon forget.
Not to minimize the great time I had, the most interesting part of my trip, by far, involved my sojourn to the Lviv synagogue with my friend Dave. The service was unlike any I had ever experienced. It consisted of a small room of about 15 men, over half of whom were well over the age of 70. Yet unlike most elderly Jews, these men seemed to be lacking a certain religious swagger, at times almost appearing uncertain of what to do next. It was only later that day, during lunch at the Rabbi’s house, that I learned that many of these men did not even know the prayers until he arrived in Ukraine 14 years prior.
This tiny Minyan, this tiny service occurring in this town in the middle of the Ukraine, did not immediately imbue me with the same feelings of pride and the same uplifting hope that I experienced that first weekend in Warsaw’s Nozyk synagogue. Rather, it was a feeling of near despair and utter confusion. Why were these people still here? Why would this Rabbi transplant himself and his family from Brooklyn? What was his purpose/? What was his payoff? It wasn’t until days later, during a conversation with the mother of a dear friend, (thanks, Marian), that I truly realized what was on my mind: Why are we continuing to promote Jewish life on the graveyards of our ancestors? To put it more broadly, is there a future for the Jews of Europe?
It is certainly a debate I have heard before, and definitely more frequently since my infamous decision to go to Poland. European Jewry is dead. Anti-Semitism, if now dormant in some places, will again arise with fervor. All Jews should move to America or Israel, end the Diaspora, stop this nonsense, close the book, Amen.
Rabbi Mordechai Bald, the Rabbi of Lviv, has certainly heard these arguments before, as well. He came to Lviv 14 years ago, he said, because there were Jews left in Lviv and they needed a Rabbi. Lviv has a very sordid Jewish history. Before the war, anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 Jews lived in this sometimes Polish, sometimes Ukrainian city, out of a total population of 300,000. The Jewish community practiced self-governance, operated much of the city’s commercial businesses, and had one of the most functional social service systems that existed in Europe at that time. In fact, the Jewish cemetery in Lviv was seen as one of the most prestigious in all of Europe, and until it’s closing in 1845, Rabbis and Scholars from all over were buried there. Then the Nazis came, and everything changed.
The people of Lviv have the dubious honor of being one of the worst Nazi collaborators during the War. Over 100,000 Jews of Lviv were killed, many of them never even making it to concentration camp but rather being mowed down in a grassy plane just outside the city, probably those same ones that I had found so beautiful, so visually moving. The great cemetery was bulldozed over by the Nazis, the tombstones turned into cobblestones to make way for a shopping bazaar, the same one I had been on just the day before. The Rabbi also informed me that after the war, since the city’s population had been so depleted, the communists shipped in people from the countryside to the city, telling them to move into any vacant apartment they found. The synagogue’s current non-Jewish secretary recently divulged that when she moved into her apartment 60 years before, a mezuzah, the mark of a Jewish household, lay nailed to her doorpost.
Rabbi Bald informed me that Jews today probably number close to 5,000 but less than 1,000 of those people, if that much, have any connection to the community. Lviv is a center of European anti-Semitism and Neo-Nazism, and many Jews are still afraid to come out of the woodworks. Beyond the usual graffiti and vandalism, a few years ago some people lit the Rabbi’s door on fire while he was sleeping, his entire family inside. Thank God the wooden exterior was guarded by a metal interior, or else the outcome may have been very different. Due to this and other factors, Bald said he tries to keep a “low profile.” He tries to help the Jews he can as much as he can, and, whenever he encounters a youth who truly wishes to learn about their Judaism, when they are old enough and when he can get the funds he sends them to the U.S., Israel, or Canada. Rabbi Bald is trying to nurture Jews more so than he is trying to nurture a community.
This is such a contrast to what I had been experiencing in Warsaw, where this tiny community was giving its all to recreate something, not to relocate something. In Warsaw there exists a group of committed people devoted to restoring a sense of Jewishness to their home country, their home town. Are their efforts futile? Is Warsaw really any different than Lviv? Is there any hope?
Last week, Sean, Elyse, and I took a day trip to Bialowieza, a Bison reserve on the border with Belarus. The trip to get to the park was long and at some points extremely laborious. What was particularly interesting was the bus ride we took from Hajnowka, where the train ended, to Bialowieza, where the park began. Rather than taking the tourist train, we took the one more often frequented by the locals. The route we traveled was unlike any we had ever seen. We passed through villages (if you could call them that) that seemed entirely separate from the world around them. Hajnowka and Bialowieza were small towns void of an Internet café, but they were hardly void of technology, of telephone wires, of satellite dishes, of communication with the outside world. They have markets and bars, restaurants and hotels. Yet these strips of houses sitting alone in the midst of nothingness and nowhere seemed to be from a different place, of a different time. For hundreds of years, my ancestors lived in Shtetls like these, separate from the world, their own little macrocosm of society. But those places were dead, and those people were dead. So wasn’t Judaism dead with it?
But do we really believe that an end to the Diaspora is the answer? Is that really the saving grace for Jews? The number one issue plaguing U.S. Jewry today is intermarriage. Up to 50% of American Jews today are finding spouses outside of the faith, a trend that shows no signs of changing. Religion worldwide is on the decline, and people are shoving aside past communal and ethnic ties in search of a more globally focused mindset. Poland, like the rest of the world, is seeing shifts in the religiosity of its people. Yet in every conversation I have had with young Jews in Poland, the one thing they have stressed is how important it is to them to marry Jewish. So many of these youth came from intermarried households, so many of them struggled with their split or hidden identities and were forced to study and learn and occasionally convert in order to become whole again. These people have such a strong desire to continue their heritage, to continue it in Poland. Who are we to stomp out their flame?
Do we really know what the future holds for American Jewry? In 1820, Jews were excluded from holding public office in states like Maryland, which required an oath of obedience to Jesus Christ before becoming an elected official. The Jews of Warsaw, and the Jews of Lviv, meanwhile, had their own governing councils, their own social service systems, and were given autonomy to make whatever decisions they saw fit for their own communities. Do we really have the audacity to believe that at that time, we could clearly see what was coming, the horrors that existed just over a century away?
I firmly believe that the Diaspora is vital to the continuation of the Jewish people. So often, when we become too comfortable in our surroundings we forget our roots. We forget the sacrifices of our ancestors, what they gave up for us and what they hoped we would one day give up for our own children. We do not know what the future of the world holds for the Jewish people. Things could get better. Things could get worse. Terrorism, Nuclear War, Intermarriage, Anti-Semitism, all hang over our heads, threatening to destroy all that we have worked so hard to create, that our grandparents worked so hard to create. So why should we destroy our insurance policy? Why should we try and decimate a community that has already been so decimated, end the hopes of a small group of people who are so very hopeful. Why shouldn’t we help them, encourage them, try and see if once again we can thrive in the lands where our ancestors did for so long? Since when did Judaism mean taking the easy way out?
After my lunch with Rabbi Bald, his wife Sara took me on a tour of the synagogue of Lviv, the only one still standing. Only 75% restored, they are waiting patiently for the funds to continue their work. The building was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. Around the walls depicted scenes from the Talmud and the Torah, void of individuals that could be deemed idolatrous but rather pictures of the Wailing Wall, of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, of Noah’s Dove and David’s lion. Stars of David adorned the ceiling and wreaths of peace protected the walls. It was unlike any synagogue I had ever seen, and it killed me that no one could pray in it, not yet. As I stood there admiring this holy place, Sara answered the most pressing question in my head. “We are here,” she said, “because of the hope and the prayer that one day, in some time, this can become a house of worship, a house of God once again.”
Wherever I am, wherever I go, I think I’m going to start praying for that, too.
Posted by borovitz at March 13, 2008 07:38 AM