YOM KIPPUR

This week, I am posting Friday rather than early Sunday, because I want to get this up before Yom Kippur. On the other hand, I will likely have what to say afterwards, so please tune back again Sunday for my additional comments.

Last year, after the holidays, I was having a conversation with Dan, a younger fellow (maybe forty-two?) in my shul, about the holiday service. He often serves as hazzan for musaf on one of the two days of Rosh Hashanah and I generally read the Torah.

On Rosh Hashanah, we crown Hashem as King and I always liked that as a powerful service, fitting for a Divine Coronation. It has been awhile since I have participated in a service in that spirit, as the folks in our shul seem to prefer a soft and sweet service, arms waving in the air, etc etc.

And I said to Dan that one of my great regrets is that none of my sons has ever heard what I always considered the really great High Holiday service that I first heard forty-five years previous. Bits and pieces of that service.used to show up here and there and from time to time, but it was usually as a poor imitation - due both to the limits of the hazzan and the limits of the smaller congregations.

Dan asked me  what great service I was referring to and I told him that it was at the yeshiva in Kerem beYavne. I was not a student there, but the first year I was here, I was on a work-study program on neighboring Kevutzat Yavne.

The afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, one of my friends in the yeshiva came over and told me that I really must come the next day, as the service there was remarkable. So I did.

And I went again for Yom Kippur and again the next year for both holidays.

The hazzan was only a few years older than I, but he had a remarkable set of melodies, designed for a large,  participating congregation, which came across as extremely powerful. The hazzan himself never repeated any words, but the rest of he yeshiva seemed well rehearsed and provided a wonderful background. There were parts when it felt like the roof would lift up.

And Dan said "Do you know who that hazzan is?" When I said I didn't he continued "That's Emanuel's father and he is still there every year." Emanuel is a thirty-ish fellow in our shul and I  asked him if his father is really the hazzan I had heard so many years before. I did a few of his

tunes and he shook his head in recognition. Yes, his father, who lives here in Jerusalem, goes

back to Kerem beYavne every year for the holidays and it's just like it always was.

"So is there a way I can go for Yom Kippur next year" I asked him, "with Devir?" Emanuel said this was probably easy enough to arrange - I mean it's not like we need to be fed or anything.  (My wife does not fast well and stays in bed the whole day, so she doesn't really care where we are. Not like Rosh Hashanah, which might be a problem if Devir and I were to go away.)

So it's set. Forty-six years later, we are going. It's less than an hour's drive and we haven't decided if we will eat here or there, but we are actually going ahead with it. They'll give us couple of beds in the dormitory, which will be fine, as long as both are not top bunks. (I have never done "top bunk" and do not care to start now.)

Check back here Sunday, as I plan to add a section about what actually happens.

In the meantime, I want to thank all my readers for looking in over the past year - even if no one comments. And please forgive me if anything in this blog warrants it. I have probably gotten a fact wrong here or there, misspelled a few names, misquoted or perhaps even given more serious offense.

Gemar hatima tovah.

So, you ask, what actually happened?

Forty-five years later, the actual facility is pretty much what it was. The iron beds, which were old then, are still there, in the same rooms. Yes, the rooms have air conditioning, but you still have to go outside to get to the bathrooms.

We ate at home, but that was more than an hour earlier, so we had a bit more in the dining room. The kind of institutional setting that even the army no longer has.

To be sure, I say all this with the greatest respect, both for the institution which values simplicity and the largely overseas student body which finds it adequate.

In the evening we went from six-something until about ten-thirty, with a talk by the Rosh Yeshiva for the better part of an hour. We started at 6:45 in the morning and went until 2:45, then reconvened at 4:15 until probably a quarter to eight.

The service was, of course, not exactly as it was then. There are melodies that hadn't been written back then which were incorporated into the service – even a bit of Carlebach. And even in this old, traditional place, there were some melodies whose chief value was that people knew them from some other traditional use. But these were used just once, not over and over.

Speaking of "over and over," we were reminded that even though some prayers appear multiple times in the course of the day, there are some melodies which belong in certain places but not in others. So many places do too much homogenization for my taste.

It was a pleasure to hear certain things done right after so often hearing them done wrong.

The whole congregation, the several hundred voices, all know how it is supposed to be done and everyone unabashedly plays his part. That's where the power comes from.

The high points that I remembered were all there, pretty much as I have remembered them. I had a bit of a scare on "vechol maaminim," a long piece which is often done with a series of tunes. The one I specifically remembered only showed up at the very end, after Devir had decided that it wasn't going to come.

He has a really nice bit of "vechol maaminim" on the words "Hamamlich melachim velo hameluch" (He crowns kings but retains sovereignty) where he (with the whole congregation) quite suddenly switches briefly to the high part of Hatikvah, to make the point that our own government must remember at whose pleasure it serves.

Am I glad we went? Absolutely. Will I go again? I don't know. The itch has been scratched.

MORE ON THE SKALAT MEMORIAL

Last week, I told you about the annual Skalat memorial that was to be held last Monday at the cemetery in Holon. So let me tell you a bit about how it went.

There were more people there than last year. Shammai's son Zvi was there with his kids, so we were fine for a minyan.

David, the son of the late Chaim Braunstein - the leader of the Skalaters for many years - was there for, I think, the first time.

Henia showed me a book about her mother, Tonia Kaczor Winter, which had been ghost-written for her, including a large collection of photographs from Skalat. Her uncle had been a professional photographer in Skalat, so this is not a trivial collection. You can page through the book here. Tonia herself was there as well, with an aide, who comes from Poland, but walking and looking well.

Zvika Sarid, Yocheved's son, has been leading the program since Chaim Braunstein fell ill a few years ago. He spoke of the visit that a group of them - about twenty people, many from the Sarid family - made last year. He gave a very detailed report on the state of the two monuments, how they are being maintained, what money is needed, etc.

Chaim and Shammai had a fund for maintenance of the monuments and Zvika recently authorized the release of  about half of it for immediate needs. The fund needs replenished and anyone who wishes to contribute can send a check to Zvi Sarid (on his name), Kevutzat Yavne, DN Evtach, 79233 ISRAEL.

The mayor of Skalat spoke of refurbishing the shul and making into some kind of museum, but Zvika told them that the amounts of money involved were far beyond any possible benefit to anyone. It's not as though Skalat has much in the way of tourists or other visitors. The physical shul building is deteriorating, much graffiti etc, but we must all accept that this is the way of things. Perhaps the condition of the building can best be seen as a mark of shame for the local Ukranians.

We said more Psalms than usual and everyone said kaddish. Motel said the memorial prayer.

Zvika also told the story of his uncle Herschel Weissman, the older brother of Motel and Yocheved. Herschel had been in a work camp and after Skalat was liberated by the Red Army, he decided to forgo making aliya and instead joined the Russians, as a guard for German prisoners. "I want to find opportunities for revenge," he told the others.

He ended up working in a prison camp near Sverdlov and for a few years the family had some kind of contact. Apparently he took too many liberties with his revenge plans and found himself in prison. After  awhile they never heard again. Yocheved's late husband Yitzhak decided that Zvika was to be named for him.

Recently, Yocheved retired from her job on the kibbutz and used her new free time to go through all kinds of things that she and Yitzhak had collected over the years. In the process, she found a letter she had never seen before. A Jewish woman who worked in the prison had written that Herschel had died. No one but Yitzhak had ever seen this letter and no one had ever known the details contained in it.

Now the Sarids are talking about going to see his grave in Sverdlov and perhaps bringing Herschel back for burial here.

The group that made the trip last year published a book with photographs and narrative from their trip. Lots of Skalat of course, but also other places on their itinerary. Oddly enough, there was a section on Podkamen. My great-grandfather was almost certainly born there, to his mother who was from Skalat. Turns out, Yocheved's husband Yitzhak was from Podkamen, hence the Sarid family's interest. I asked them how I can get a copy and they said they'd let me know.

Next year will be seventy years.

Also please note, I will be speaking - in Hebrew - on Sunday, 10 June, 20 Sivan at 7 PM - at the Israel Genealogical Society's Giv'atayim branch, on the subject

BEYOND A DOUBT

What We Know vs. What We Can Prove

at the Shazar Center, 30 Yavnieli Street, Giv'atyaim. There is a small charge for non-members.