Where were you in July 2005? If you were reading Mishpacha during that long-ago summer, you might recall a story about a young girl from Los Angeles named Danielle Magady. What made Danielle’s story so special is not that she has Down syndrome, but that she had just graduated from L.A.’s Yeshiva Aharon Yaakov /
Ohr Eliyahu, where she had been a fully included member of her class since preschool. As she spoke about her hopes for the future, Danielle listed the dreams of any Bais Yaakov girl: seminary, a year in Israel, marriage.

Family First recently touched base with Danielle and her family to see where she — and her dreams — are today.

Welcome to DreamLand

There’s something about Los Angeles that encourages people to dream big. How else to explain how two down-to-earth transplanted Midwesterners dared to dream that their first child, born with Down syndrome in 1991, would grow up to be a happily married woman?

It took a while to get to that point, though. When Danielle’s parents, Holly and Terry Magady, first heard the news, they had to digest it. It was Pesach and Shabbos, just a few days after their new daughter’s birth, and they couldn’t reach out to family and friends or even speak to a social worker — there was no one on duty. They both remember feeling very alone.

“At first all I could see was her disability,” Holly recalls. “But she was my child. Little by little, as I got to know her, Down syndrome became just one of the parts of her. It wasn’t front and center anymore.”

Terry remembers walking through the halls of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center looking for someone to talk to. It was only after he returned to work that he received a first glimmer of hope — which came in the form of a phone call from Rav Noach Weinberg, founder of Aish HaTorah.

Terry, originally from Kansas City, Missouri, came to California to attend college. Holly, a Skokie, Illinois native, arrived there after finishing graduate school. They both ended up in L.A., and in the 1980s, they started attending classes at Aish HaTorah, which had only recently opened a branch in the city. They were one of the first couples to marry in the L.A. Aish community.

According to Terry, it wasn’t what Rav Weinberg said that gave him comfort; it was what he did: He put Terry in contact with Jeanne Warman. Mrs. Warman, who gave birth to a son with a severe disability in 1958, a time when there were few options for these children, had spearheaded a grassroots effort in the New York area to develop caring facilities for people with intellectual and developmental challenges. This became the basis for Makor Care and Services Network.

Terry says he still remembers the conversation very clearly. Mrs. Warman told him that one of Makor’s clients had just started a job as an aide in a kindergarten. Terry asked her, “Is it possible she could one day teach kindergarten?”

“I can honestly tell you I don’t know,” Mrs. Warman replied. “Because I thought this client couldn’t be a kindergarten aide.”

Wow. She doesn’t know, Terry recalls thinking. That means there’s potential.

Another early point of hope occurred when some friends told the Magadys that children with Down syndrome could be fully included in school — and eventually even get married.

The Magadys found this incredibly inspiring. “Danielle is also going to get married,” they told each other.

The post Dream Big, Be Real first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

“Who will live and who will die?”

During the Days of Awe, this question draws a shudder as we stand in shul and recite Unesaneh Tokef.

If we stand in a beis hachayim and gaze across the field of headstones, we reflect that for those buried here, that searing question has been answered.

Yet a closer examination of individual matzeivos answers other questions posed in this powerful prayer: Who will live to old age, and who will die young? Who will enjoy tranquility, and who will suffer? Who will be impoverished, and who will become rich? It’s all recorded — in the epitaphs carved into these stones, found in cemeteries around the world in the many places Jews have temporarily called home.

That is, when we can read them.

Many gravestones have disappeared over the years. Others still stand, but their inscriptions have been worn down by the snows and sandstorms of time. For professional historians, deciphering these sometimes cryptic and often incomplete messages from the past is part of a day’s work. For the amateur genealogist, restoring the memory of our long-gone ancestors for future generations is a labor of love that is its own reward.

Inscribed and Sealed

We don’t know details about the matzeivah Yaakov Avinu set up to mark the grave of his beloved wife Rachel. But we do know this is the first mention of marking an individual grave in the Torah. The Gemara gives a few reasons why this has since become a universal custom in the Jewish world. First, a gravestone alerts Kohanim that the resting place of a deceased person is nearby. A gravestone is also a way to honor and prolong the memory of those who have passed away.

During the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash, wealthy people began to be buried in sarcophagi (stone coffins) or ossuaries (chests where bones were reburied 12 months after the initial burial). Both were usually inscribed with the name of the deceased and engraved with floral or architectural designs, such as a vine or pillar. Sometimes the family or social status of the person was mentioned, such as “Dostos our father. Do not open,” found on an ossuary located on Har Hazeisim, or “Bones of the family of Nicanor the Alexandrian who made the gates [of the second Beis Hamikdash],” also found on Har Hazeisim and now part of the collection of the British Museum.

Of course, the more important or the wealthier the family was, the more elaborate the epitaphs and inscriptions. This prompted Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel to comment, “One does not build such in memory of the righteous, for their words are their memorial.”

The post Stones That Speak first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: Boys Town Jerusalem and Zwartendijk Family Archive

When Jan Zwartendijk heard the telephone ring in his office, he hesitated. It was almost six o’clock in the evening. He was already outside, ready to go home to his wife Erna and their three children. The treelined Laisves Aleja, Kovno’s widest boulevard, beckoned.

The telephone was still ringing.

He knew it couldn’t be a customer. Not on that day: May 29, 1940. Everyone in Kovno, then Lithuania’s capital, was too busy. They were either anxiously awaiting the arrival of the dreaded Soviet army or savoring the last few hours of Lithuania’s freedom.

Nor could it be his boss at Philips’s headquarters back in the Netherlands. International phone calls were too expensive even for one of the world’s largest manufacturers of radios and other electrical equipment.

The telephone was still ringing. Who was calling?

Zwartendijk reentered his office — and at that moment, the 43-year-old businessman from Holland entered Jewish history. For in just a few short months, “Mr. Radio Philips,” as Zwartendijk was known in Kovno, would be the catalyst for saving more than 2,000 Jewish lives, including the entire Mir Yeshivah, and receive a new moniker: the Angel of Curaçao.

Jan Zwartenkijk never knew if the thousands of Curacao visas he issued actually helped anyone survive, but his children learned the answer: Their father had saved over 2,000 Jews. Jan Zwartendijk Jr. enroute to Israel from New York with a grateful group of survivors

Calling Mr. Radio Philips

In September 1939, the Germans overran western Poland, while the Soviets occupied the eastern half. More than 10,000 Polish Jewish refugees fled to Lithuania, which at the time was a neutral country. (It would be occupied by the Soviets in June 1940 and then by the Germans a year later.) Among the refugees from Poland were thousands of rabbanim and yeshivah bochurim.

The Germans also invaded their neighbor to the west, the Netherlands, and occupied that country in May 1940. But Dutch queen Wilhelmina and the government didn’t resign; they went into exile in England. From there they still ruled over their territories in the East Indies, as well as in the Caribbean: Suriname, a small country on the northeastern coast of South America, and several islands in the West Indies, including Curaçao. And they still had envoys and consulates in many countries.

Ambassador L. P. J. de Decker was one of those envoys. Stationed in Riga, Latvia, his territory also included Estonia and Lithuania. It was the latter country that was giving him a headache. The Dutch consul stationed in Kovno, Herbert Tillmanns, whose wife was a suspected Nazi sympathizer, had resigned rather than be fired. De Decker needed to find a temporary replacement. He picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Philips manager in Kovno.

When he heard de Decker’s request, Jan Zwartendijk protested that he was a businessman, not a diplomat. That was fine, de Decker assured him. Envoys were diplomats. Consuls, who were on a lower rung in the diplomatic hierarchy, just had to renew a few passports and help Dutch citizens in other small ways.

Zwartendijk correctly guessed that in wartime, even a consul would have more serious, and possibly dangerous, work to do. But when he continued to protest, de Decker played his trump card: The Netherlands needed a loyal representative in Lithuania. Those who opposed Nazism and Communism couldn’t hide their heads in the sand and do nothing. Besides, de Decker assured Zwartendijk, he would give the new consul any help he needed.

Jan Zwartendijk accepted the job. He also agreed to house the consulate, which didn’t have a permanent home, in his office. He had to get permission from Philips for both, but he and de Decker knew that wouldn’t be a problem.

Until 1939, the CEO of the company was Anton Philips, who was descended from Jews who left Germany in the mid-1800s. Worried not only about the possibility of war, but also Germany’s virulent anti-Jewish sentiment, Anton Philips began transferring the company’s Jewish senior managers to safety in the Americas in the early 1930s. He also tried to keep the company free from Nazi sympathizers. Anton’s successor, Frits J. Philips, would continue to try to protect his Jewish employees even after the Germans occupied Holland. And when the Nazis tried to force the company to help with the German war effort, Frits Philips — who would later be named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem — did what he could to sabotage production.

Although Zwartendijk’s official appointment would only come a few weeks later, he unofficially became the new Dutch consul that evening. After he picked up the consular stamps and some official documents from Tillmanns, he was in business.

The post The Angel of Curacao first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Throughout history, tyrannical regimes have tried to crush us. While they may have had huge armies and sophisticated weapons, they ultimately failed because Hashem has blessed us with three crucial weapons of our own: brains, chutzpah, and hope. And so when Jewish life had to go underground, either partially or entirely, our ancestors were able to devise secret codes that helped ensure their — and our — survival.

Psst! Dovid Hamelech Lives!

The time: the early 1960s. The place: Barney Goodman Camp, a day camp for Jewish kids living in the Kansas City metro area. Or to be more specific, the bus that took us from the camp’s rural grounds to the horseback riding stables or the lake with the rowboats. While the bus driver maneuvered past potholes and the occasional squirrel dashing across the road, dozens of excited girls sang at the top of their lungs a song that was also inspiring refuseniks in Soviet Russia: Dovid Melech Yisrael chai v’kayam!

I can’t speak for the refuseniks, but I’m pretty sure none of us “camperniks” knew the source of this easy-to-remember lyric. In fact, if someone had told us the song’s five words were once a secret code used during the time when the Roman Empire ruled over Eretz Yisrael, we probably would have answered with a collective “Huh?”

Our ignorance can be explained by the fact that none of us were Talmudic scholars, and the story is found in Rosh Hashanah 25a: “Rebbi said to Rabi Chiya, ‘Go to Ein Tav and sanctify the moon — and send me a sign: Dovid Melech Yisrael chai v’kayam [Dovid, king of Israel, lives and endures].’ ”

Why was a coded message necessary and why those words? Why couldn’t Rabi Chiya have simply reported that he sanctified the moon?

To give a little background, after the churban of Bayis Sheini and the defeat of Bar Kochva and his troops, Roman emperor Hadrian banned the teaching of Torah and the Jewish calendar, among other cruel edicts. The punishment for disobeying was horrific.

After Hadrian’s death, conditions became better; during this period of relative tranquility, Rebbi (Rabi Yehudah Hanasi) headed the Sanhedrin and compiled the Mishnah. But the Temple was still destroyed, the Jews were still barred from Jerusalem, and the Romans were still ruling the roost. And even though Rebbi had friends in high places, he knew it only took the death of one emperor and the rise to power of another for a return to tragic times.

Therefore, relative calm wasn’t good enough. What was needed was the return of Jewish autonomy and the restoration of Malchus Beis Dovid, the Davidic dynasty. But how to keep the embers of hope burning within the hearts of the Jewish People?

The waxing and waning of the moon was a powerful metaphor for Dovid Hamelech — and the Jewish People’s changing fortunes. As it says in Midrash Shemos Rabbah 15, when the moon’s light returns after the molad, it’s a sign Malchus Beis Dovid will return to its former glory.

But why did Rebbi choose the words “Dovid Melech Yisrael chai v’kayam,” which are not found in Tanach, to convey this message of hope? Why not choose a phrase from Navi or Tehillim, such as this quote from II Shmuel 7:16: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before you; your throne will be established forever.”

Rav Yitzchak Eizik HaKohein of Koretz, author of the kabbalistic sefer Bris Kehunas Olam, perhaps provided an answer when he discovered an additional “secret” connection between Rebbi’s phrase and sanctifying the moon. The gematria of Dovid Melech Yisrael chai v’kayam and Rosh Chodesh are the same: 819.

The Yerushalmi in Sanhedrin confirms that Rebbi’s phrase became the secret sign used to announce the moon had been sanctified. And from Eretz Yisrael the words have traveled through time and space as a sometimes secret and sometimes openly expressed message of hope and renewal.

The post Jewish Secret Code      first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Project coordinator: Rachel Bachrach

Illustrations: Menachem Weinreb

"Brooklyn?”

I looked at my guest in surprise. It was a Sunday in the early 1990s.We were sitting in my apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, planning what to do. Usually, when I hosted visitors to New York City, the Sunday itinerary meant brunch at a restaurant followed by a trip to a museum or a theatre matinee. It did not include excursions to “out-of-town.”

But this was no ordinary guest. She was my best friend from high school in Kansas. Since then, our paths had taken several twists and turns, but we had managed to stay in touch. I knew her path had led to Eretz Yisrael, where she had become chareidi — whatever that meant.

My own path had taken me to New York, where I worked in theatre. I had become increasingly disenchanted with the state of the arts and so I too was taking steps toward mitzvah observance. To date, those steps hadn’t taken me further than the East River. But I was determined to be a good hostess, so when my friend asked if I would go with her to Crown Heights to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I said, “Sure!”

We made it to Crown Heights without incident and joined the long line of people waiting to get their brachah and dollar from the Rebbe. I had heard of the Rebbe, of course. Or, rather, I had seen his picture on the Chabad posters plastered on nearly every subway car. But I can’t say I was particularly excited to be there. And the meeting with the Rebbe happened so quickly that I have no idea what he said. All I remember is that after I was motioned away by one of the gabbaim, I had a dollar bill in my hand.

“What do I do with it?” I asked my friend.

“You’re supposed to give it to charity.”

I didn’t. For some reason, I put the dollar into my wallet and gave a different dollar bill to one of the many petitioners waiting outside.

A few years later, I was living in Jerusalem, a Torah-observant Jew. My first job, a part-time one, was teaching English to Bezeq’s telephone employees. But on this day in February 1996 no one was interested in learning English. Everyone was still in shock from what had happened that morning: A terrorist had blown up a Number 18 bus traveling in downtown Jerusalem, killing 26 people. A few years later, during the Second Intifada, bus bombings would become all too common. But in 1996, this horror was still new. And because there weren’t cell phones and WhatsApp groups or social media, people expressed their shock and grief to each other, face to face.

So my students and I talked and cried. When the class was over, I met another English teacher at the bus stop. After a few moments, she said, “Let’s take a taxi.” I glanced at her pale face and knew we were thinking the same thing: Probably the terror was over, at least for that day. But why take a chance?

At the end of the ride, I reached into my purse to pay for my share of the fare. My wallet wasn’t there. I looked again. I dumped everything out of my purse. The wallet was definitely missing.

“Don’t worry. I’ll pay,” said the other teacher.

“I’ll pay you back,” I replied. “But can you also lend me money for a bus fare? I have to go back to the school.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Maybe.”

It was too hard to explain. It wasn’t about the wallet being stolen or thrown out by mistake and losing some money or having to replace some credit cards. It was that the Rebbe’s dollar was in that wallet. The Rebbe had passed away. That dollar couldn’t be replaced. And I couldn’t explain even to myself why that mattered so much.

But I went back. The wallet was sitting on the floor, near my desk, with all its contents untouched. I thrust it into my purse and took two grimly silent buses home.

Twenty-five years later, the Rebbe’s dollar is still sitting in my wallet. Why? It’s not just a memento from my brief encounter with the Rebbe. It’s not even a segulah to protect me from danger (I carry a sefer Raziel for that). Instead, I keep it because of something I later learned about the Rebbe’s custom of handing out a dollar, which was based on a saying of his father-in-law, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe:

When two people come together, they should bring blessing to a third.

They shouldn’t be a suicide bomber and blow people up. They shouldn’t use the encounter to insult others or harm them in any way. When two people meet, they should bring blessing to the world.

That is a reminder I want to always carry with me. Along with the Rebbe’s dollar.

Libi Astaire is the author of the Jewish Regency Mystery Series.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 860)

The post The Rebbe’s Dollar        first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

The longing for the peace and beauty a garden can provide has taken many forms throughout the years

It’s summer in Eretz Yisrael. The flowers have burst into gaudy bloom in cozy clusters, blissfully unaware of the rules of social distancing we humans have had to endure these past few months. Indeed, gardens — whether cultivated for the pleasure of kings, or for more humble uses and people — have always been prized for their ability to take us away from our concerns and connect us with something eternal.

But recreating a bit of Eden has meant different things in different times and places. Join us for a stroll down the path as we take a look at gardens throughout the ages.

In the Beginning

And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and G-d saw that it was good. —Bereishis 1:12

Adam Harishon was tasked with tending the garden on the very day he was created. And ever since, man has been caring for the land.

In the post-Eden world, cultivating food — producing vines, trees, and shrubs — continued, using a type of gardening that historians call forest gardening. The term “forest” is used because the vegetation was grown close together in an enclosed area. This made it easier to harvest the bounty — and protect the precious food source from wandering animals and marauders.

As people became more expert at irrigation (and defense) techniques, the variety and layout expanded. An average gardener living in ancient Israel might cultivate the Seven Species — wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates — and also cucumbers, melons and gourds, onions and garlic, and spices such as cumin, coriander, and mustard.

A king’s garden would be even more varied and elaborate, as we know from Shir Hashirim. Shlomo Hamelech describes such a garden in 4:12–16. In this walled garden, there’s a pomegranate orchard, fragrant spices such as cinnamon, frankincense, and myrrh, as well as a fountain. A garden like this would both produce food for the royal palace and provide a shaded space to relax in, where the royals could enjoy the many colors and fragrances.

Oasis in the Ancient World

A myrtle that stands among thorns is still a myrtle. —Sanhedrin 44a

Of course, the Jews weren’t the only ones to cultivate gardens in the ancient world. Ancient Egypt had its fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, which were irrigated with water from the Nile. Wealthy Egyptians had pleasure gardens filled with shade trees and flowers, as well as ponds stocked with fish and waterfowl. Some even recreated their gardens either as a painting or a miniature model in their tombs, to enjoy in the afterlife.

In Mesopotamia — home to the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians — the “power garden” became popular, as kings vied to show off their wealth and even their military prowess through horticulture. In a sculpture depicting the enclosed Courtyard Garden constructed by Assurbanipal, a seventh-century BCE Assyrian king, he and his queen are shown dining in a vine-covered arbor whose “decorations” include the severed head of the king of Elam.

An earlier Assyrian monarch, Ashurnasirpal II, was among the first to develop the concept of the City Garden, where river water was diverted into a large-scale landscaped garden located within a city’s walls. According to a historical account, Ashurnasirpal’s garden was filled with an impressive variety of trees and vines — pine, cypress, juniper, almond, date, ebony, rosewood, olive, oak, tamarisk, walnut, terebinth, ash, fir, pomegranate, pear, quince, fig, and grapevines — and irrigated by “streams of water as numerous as the stars of heaven.” This led the happy monarch to proclaim, “Like a squirrel, I pick fruit in the garden of delights.”

A century later, another Assyrian king, Sancheriv — who famously failed to capture Jerusalem when a plague decimated his army — claimed to have outdone his predecessors with the city garden he built in Nineveh, using the latest in irrigation technology. “A wonder for all peoples,” is how he modestly described his achievement.

The post An Eden of One’s Own first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

There’s a popular myth in the secular world that the best artists are tormented souls who had miserable childhoods — and that angst-filled, outcast experiences become the gist for the brilliant works they create in their equally tormented adult years.

“That’s not me,” says Ahuva Manes, laughing. “I grew up in Har Nof, a typical Bais Yaakov girl.”

What, then, is the fuel that ignites the explosion of color and energy in this 27-year-old artist’s paintings — an already impressive body of work that has landed her display space at one of Jerusalem’s most prestigious art galleries?

In a word: miracles. Kri’as Yam Suf. Davening at the Kosel. Being a Jew. While many of us take the miracle of Jewish existence for granted, Ahuva has the gift of continually seeing it with fresh eyes — and the desire to share her vision and excitement with others through her art.

“It’s sort of a shame that we learn about the miracles that happened to Am Yisrael when we’re in kindergarten,” Ahuva explains. “We learn that at Kri’as Yam Suf the water split into two. Okay, we later think, why shouldn’t it split into two? We get used to the miracles. It’s no longer a ‘Wow!’ It’s just a fact. I’m trying to put back in the ‘Wow!’ ”

Be Yourself

Ahuva always loved art, but she had to be convinced her talent was something special. Like many kids, her interests were diverse. It was her father, Yonah Berzon, who saw the potential and encouraged her to concentrate on her art.

“He kept pushing me to move forward and develop my own style,” Ahuva recalls, when we meet at her Ramat Beit Shemesh studio.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her, when she balked at having to learn the rules for how to make a realistic portrait or landscape painting. “Later, you can do what you love. You’ll do your own thing.”

From her mother, Karen (née Zemel), she received an additional lesson in the value of persistence and believing in one’s unique path. “My mother came to Eretz Yisrael when she was 18 and stayed,” says Ahuva. “She had real mesirus nefesh to live here. Her family lived in the States, but Israel was where she wanted to be.”

With these role models to guide her, Ahuva was able to take the reactions to her first efforts in abstract styles in stride. “I’d get comments like, ‘What is that? It doesn’t look like anything.’ Sometimes I wondered how I could continue to paint if people didn’t appreciate my art. And I decided, yes, I would.

“I wasn’t concerned about whether people were going to come and buy it. I kept on going, because I loved it. Now I get compliments and, baruch Hashem, I sell my art.”

Living Inspired

While some artists like to take their canvas and paints to some beautiful spot and find ideas in nature, Ahuva says she doesn’t have to look far to find inspiration: It’s all in her head.

The source for the idea can be a song, her son’s parshah sheet, or even a story she herself heard in kindergarten. For instance, one of her favorite paintings depicts an incident from the life of Rabi Akiva — the moment when he saw drops of water boring a hole in a rock.

“When I heard this story, as a six-year-old, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ When he saw the water dripping on the stone, it showed him that no matter what you want to do, if you keep on doing it, even if it’s one drop at a time, you’ll make a hole in the stone. That story changed my life.”

Another inspiration came from the Selichos prayers. “One morning I woke up and I said, ‘So what am I painting today?’ I’d heard Selichos the day before, and had been struck by the tefillah ‘Ki baisi, bais tefillah,’ and I thought: a shul! And then I began thinking that Am Yisrael is so colorful, so varied, and Hashem accepts all our tefillos. Hashem loves all of us.”

The result is a soaring, multicolored canvas where you can feel the tefillos flying upward. It’s what we might see if we could look through the solid mass of a shul’s walls and the tallis-wrapped figures bent in prayer and see the pure energy of the moment.

What happens when she wakes up and her mind is blank? “If I don’t have an idea, I go back to sleep for a little bit,” she says, laughing. But she doesn’t always have to start with a blank canvas. She explains that she never works on just one painting at a time. Usually there are several unfinished paintings in her studio, waiting for her attention. Sometimes she’ll start the morning by sitting on the couch and looking at a canvas and deciding what needs to be changed before she gets to work.

One constant is Ahuva’s love of oil paints, her preferred medium. “I throw tons of paint on the canvas,” she says. “There are certain colors that I like combining, which I use in almost all my paintings. I’m fascinated by how much you can do with the same colors.

“When I start painting, I just see the paint and canvas,” she continues. “I only paint subjects that I have a very strong feeling towards—things that mean something very big. My paintings show the bright side of being a Jew; there are so many beautiful moments in our life. I show this with all the colors, with all the dots, all the splashes—it’s all positive energy.”

Pointing to one of her paintings of the walls of Jerusalem, she excitedly exclaims: “Can you compare anything to Yerushalayim? The Kosel isn’t just stones. On Tishah B’Av we cry over stones? Of course not. The Shechinah is there! You’re painting the spot where all of Am Yisrael goes to daven and connect to Hashem.”

Turning to a painting of Kri’as Yam Suf, she continues, “The sea didn’t just divide into two neat halves. It made a big splash when it split. Something was happening. There was movement!”

Family Portrait

Ahuva comments that she tries to paint three times a week — although inspiration can strike at any time. “Sometimes on Motzaei Shabbos I’ll still be in my Shabbos clothes and I’ll tell my husband, ‘I have to paint now.’ Baruch Hashem, my husband understands when I say I need to paint.”

Her husband is David Manes, a professional musician, and he joined us for part of the interview. He tells me he’s totally supportive of his wife’s work, even when it gets messy.

“Sometimes I use my fingers, instead of a brush, if there is a certain shape I want to create,” says Ahuva. “People told me to wear gloves, but that’s not for me. I like to feel the paint. But once you touch the colors, they’re everywhere. So my husband helps me keep the house clean.”

Just as David will include their two sons — Shaya, age four and a half, and two-year-old Natan — in impromptu jamming sessions on the keyboard, the kids will sometimes be given a canvas and paints and the opportunity to create the family’s next masterpiece.

“It’s a whole family project,” says Ahuva. “We’re all in this together.”

However, she does admit, “Sometimes Shaya will look at  one of my canvases and say, ‘It’s just scribbles.’ And I’ll say, ‘Look again. It’s Kri’as Yam Suf.’ ”

Both Ahuva and David agree that they don’t mind if the kids get messy while they paint. They also believe that, whether it’s art or music, young kids should be given a chance to explore, rather than be told a lot of rules.

Ahuva, who also teaches art to women and high school girls, tries to at least partially implement that philosophy in her classes. While she’ll teach her students the basic tools they’ll need to create art — how to use color, brush techniques, perspective and composition, portrait painting, abstract painting, and the like — she says, “I don’t tell my students what style to paint in; that’s for each person to decide. And I always tell parents that their daughter isn’t making something for their wall. She’s doing what she loves, so don’t say it’s just scribbles.

“I teach my students to follow their heart, to do what they love. I get so much satisfaction when I see a student walk out of a class feeling proud of her painting.”

Great Moments

Although Ahuva only began painting in her own style in 2012, in seven short years she has already developed an artistic “vocabulary” that’s uniquely hers.

For instance, she never paints just one solitary person. When there are people in her paintings, they’re in a group.

“To me, Am Yisrael is endless. And if you’ll notice, I never show the end of them. That’s because Am Yisrael are like the stars in heaven, like the grains of sand. It’s an expression of hope.”

Ahuva also points out that very often the people in her paintings are tiny, while the miracle happening around them is huge. Returning to one of her favorite subjects, Kri’as Yam Suf, she comments, “When the sea split, it made a lot of noise. So making the waves big, in comparison to the people, conveys the power of the miracle.

“Right before last Pesach I sold my first painting of Kri’as Yam Suf. The people who bought it later told me that during their Seder, when they saw the painting hanging on their wall, they said, ‘Here’s Kri’as Yam Suf!’ They were so excited.”

Even in her depictions of a chassan and kallah standing under the chuppah, the young couple are small in comparison to the burst of colors swirling around them.

“Standing under the chuppah is a very special moment,” says Ahuva. “They say the Shechinah is there. And the Shechinah is happy. It’s a huge moment in Jewish life, when a young couple starts to build their bayis ne’eman. So you could say that the chuppah is the moment of the kallah and chassan. But there’s so much more going on. We’re small in comparison to the moment.”

Another interesting aspect of Ahuva’s artistic world is that we never see the faces of the people. We glimpse only their backs — the kallah’s flowing white gown, the men wrapped in their talleisim.

“It’s true. I don’t do faces,” she says, although she herself can’t explain why. “But the tallis is something I connect to very strongly. I love seeing my husband come home in the morning wrapped in his tallis. A hat and jacket are nice, but other people also wear them. The tallis is a Jewish look. There’s something very moving about a tallis; you get buried in one.”

Our conversation, which until now has been punctuated with lots of laughter, has suddenly turned serious. As we look at two very different paintings of the Kosel, Ahuva comments, “Sometimes you go, and you feel so happy, so connected to Hashem. And sometimes you go, and you want to cry. Every time it’s something different.

“Even when you’re looking at an object, like stone, you’re seeing something different every day. You view the world differently. So sometimes I might paint the Kosel so you feel like you’re walking right up to it, while other times it’s a view from the outside.”

Thus, while she’ll often return to the same subject, each painting has a different mood. Yet there’s always that exuberant energy — a quality that brought her artwork to the attention of Lucien Krief, one of the foremost art dealers in Jerusalem.

Before Ahuva had her interview with Mr. Krief, whose gallery is located next to the tony King David Hotel, Ahuva was warned that he could be blunt; if he doesn’t like an artist’s work, he’ll say so. But he was so excited by Ahuva’s work that he immediately put one of her paintings in the gallery’s window.

“What he told me was he likes my art because it’s a style he’s never seen before.”

The Never-ending Painting

Ahuva only paints Jewish subjects, but there are interesting omissions. For instance, she doesn’t paint women lighting their Shabbos candles or making challah — popular subjects for Jewish artists.

“Making challos is a beautiful thing, and maybe someday I’ll do it. But most of all, I love miracles,” Ahuva says. “It’s a way of Hashem showing us: Here I am. It’s a reminder that He is taking care of us all the way.

“Also, miracles are a way to let your imagination work, and one of my favorite things in the world is to use my imagination to create things. For instance, I never saw Kri’as Yam Suf. But when I heard the story for the first time, as a small child, I was amazed. I try to paint that feeling.

“Some people say painting is just chomer, but it’s not. There are so many meanings and emotions in a painting. That’s the idea of an abstract painting. You look at it — and you can look at it for hours — and you imagine things. Whatever you see, that’s what it is.”

And Ahuva doesn’t mind when someone sees something entirely different from what she intended. For instance, there was the potential customer who stood in front of one of her paintings of a chasunah and said, “That chuppah looks like a ladder.” She replied, “Great. You’ll get a chuppah and a ladder for the same price.” She made the sale.

In a rare moment of doubt, Ahuva asked her rav whether or not she should continue to paint. He encouraged her to continue. “He said it was a good thing to do, because you could really move someone. It’s bringing Judaism into your home, bringing the beautiful parts of our life into your home.”

Of course, life isn’t only about beautiful moments. There are challenges, disappointments, and frustrations. How does she stay positive, so her art will be imbued with positive energy?

“I have a very positive great-grandmother,” Ahuva explains. “She’s 95. You can put her anywhere and she’s happy. But she says she’s always working on it — and from her I’ve learned to work on myself every day too. I’m not perfect. I get upset. But hopefully you grow; hopefully you’re not staying in the same place you were yesterday.”

But while we are supposed to continually work on ourselves, the same cannot be said about a work of art. At some point, the artist has to say: Enough! How does Ahuva know when it’s time to put down the paintbrush?

“There’s a quote from the artist Paul Gardner that says, ‘A painting is never finished — it simply stops in interesting places.’ I stop when my feelings tell me to stop. There comes a point where you have to let it go. If you want to become better, become better in your next painting.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 675)

The post The Color of Miracles first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab & Lior Mizrahi

They began as humble oil containers made out of clay. But as the centuries passed, expert craftsmen turned the Chanukah menorah into a stunning work of art. During a recent visit to the home of Judaica collector Yaakov Hoffman, Mishpacha got a glimpse at intriguing menorahs that you probably won’t find in your local Judaica store.

Silent Bidder

Yaakov Hoffman doesn’t want to talk about himself — not even about when and why he became a collector of Judaica. We’re here to talk about Chanukah menorahs, he tells me. Period. Full stop. So don’t expect a story rich with Jewish geography: who married whom, who learned with whom, who went into business with whom, who has grandchildren who married the grandchildren of whom. The only yichus we’re going to talk about is the yichus of the stunning 14-karat gold Chanukah menorah sitting on his dining table, as well as a few other pieces in his collection.

Along the way, I will learn that Mr. Hoffman collects Judaica because he enjoys nice things — some of which are on display on the walls of his Jerusalem apartment, and some of which are sitting in the breakfront. (Needless to say, he employs various security systems.) For several decades he has been a visitor to world-class auction houses such as Sotheby’s, although private art dealers come to him too. And what perhaps delights him most is not to outbid every other bidder in the auction room, but to run across an item that is in some way unusual — perhaps even unique.

But again, we’re not here to talk about Mr. Hoffman. We’re here to talk about menorahs that are unusual. And one made from gold surely qualifies.

The Ruzhiner Rebbe’s Menorah

“The Rebbe of Ruzhin lit this,” says Mr. Hoffman, gesturing toward this exquisite menorah crafted from spun gold in 1836. The lacework technique is known as “filigree,” and it’s a hallmark of what’s known as the Baal Shem Tov style of menorahs.

Despite the name, this is not necessarily the type of menorah the Baal Shem Tov used to kindle his Chanukah lights. Rather, the style takes its name from where it first appeared, which was the region in the Ukraine where the Baal Shem Tov lived. The ornamentation used to decorate the back panel of a Baal Shem Tov menorah will vary, although there are a few standard motifs: columns representing Yachin and Boaz, the two pillars that stood in Bayis Rishon; an aron kodesh; and a large Torah crown, often flanked by birds, griffins, or lions.

This particular menorah has a few surprises, which Mr. Hoffman is happy to display. Open the doors to the aron kodesh and you’re greeted by three engravings: on the inside of the left-hand door is an image of the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash, in the center are the two cheruvim on top of the ark, and on the inside of the right-hand door is the Lechem Hapanim.

The menorah’s connection to Chanukah is obvious, but what about the other two? Mr. Hoffman points out that he Lechem Hapanim stayed fresh for eight days, corresponding to the eight days of the holiday. And the cheruvim? He discovered the connection two years after he bought this menorah, when he bought an aliyah for Zos Chanukah. Look in the Torah reading for the eighth day, and you’ll discover the connection too.

While there are many examples of silver Baal Shem Tov menorahs, according to Mr. Hoffman, this is the only known menorah crafted from gold. The reason is simple: Not many Jews could afford one.

“Even a silver menorah was expensive,” Mr. Hoffman says, commenting that people would work all winter for just a few rubles. “Only someone like the Ruzhiner Rebbe could afford a menorah made from gold.”

Garden of Delights

It’s a long way from the simple clay oil lamps of Talmudic times to this ultra-ornate silver menorah crafted in Russia in 1810. It’s thought that the form we are all familiar with — a “bench” for the row of oil receptacles that is attached to a backplate — only came into use during the Middle Ages. While some were meant to be attached to an outside wall to publicize the miracle, others were designed to sit in the window, for those who lived on an upper floor. The latter design included a new addition: feet for the menorah to stand on.

Chanukah menorahs shaped liked a candelabrum also appeared during the Middle Ages, but it’s thought this style was reserved for synagogue use. It was also during this time that Ashkenazim began to incorporate the shamash into the design, while Sephardim retained the custom of keeping the shamash separate.

The concept of beautifying the mitzvah was enthusiastically applied to the Chanukah menorah, with the seven-branched menorah found in the Beis Hamikdash being one of the most popular decorative motifs. The seven-branched menorah is often flanked by lions rampant (see glossary sidebar). The lion, of course, is the symbol of Shevet Yehudah, the tribe of Dovid Hamelech. That brings us to a connection to the Beis Hamikdash — and Chanukah.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 791)

The post A Menagerie of Menorahs first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

Photos: Pinchas Emanuel, JDC Archives

WESTERN UNION CABLEGRAM
August 31, 1914

Jacob Schiff

New York

Palestinian Jews facing terrible crisis. Belligerent countries stopping their assistance. … Fifty thousand dollars needed. … Conditions certainly justify American help. Will you undertake matter?

Morgenthau

When World War I broke out in early August of 1914, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., was the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, one of the few Jews serving at the highest levels of the American government. From his “front-row seat,” he saw a disaster unfolding before his eyes. The Jews of Eretz Yisrael’s Old Yishuv had always lived a precarious existence. Although their needs were few, they depended upon contributions from abroad to buy what little they did need — food, medicine, and other basic provisions.

“Abroad” in those days meant, for the most part, the Jewish communities of Europe. But when war broke out on the Continent, the borders closed. Just as people could no longer freely pass from one country to another, neither could money. Overnight, the tzedakah pipeline was shut down.

The result, in Ambassador Morgenthau’s words, was a “terrible crisis.” And that was after just one month of war.

Although American Jewry hadn’t forgotten their less fortunate brethren, it now became clear they would have to shoulder a larger burden. To some it also became clear that the old way of communal giving — a plethora of small organizations, each giving to its own — wouldn’t be effective during wartime, when the usual channels of transferring money were blocked, and new ones had to be found. What was needed was something new, something bold, something seemingly impossible. In two words, what was needed was Jewish unity.

Would American Jews set aside their religious and political differences to help?

We have to work together. That was the call of the day.

On a September day 105 years after Henry Morgenthau sent off his now-famous cablegram, I’m sitting in the Jerusalem Archives of Joint Distribution Committee with historian Ori Kraushar. On his desk is a photograph taken in 1918 that captures a meeting in the office of American banker and philanthropist Felix Warburg. Among the more than two dozen people seated around a long table — a group that includes Orthodox rabbis, socialist firebrands, and a few millionaire capitalists — is Jacob Schiff, the recipient of Morgenthau’s cablegram. Not only did Schiff, one of the wealthiest and most influential American Jews of the time, succeed in raising the $50,000 in lightning speed — over $1,200,000 in today’s money — the fundraising campaign resulted in the establishment of one of America’s largest and most effective Jewish relief organizations: the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, commonly known as JDC, or the Joint.

“The Joint was formed from three organizations, representing three diverse segments of American Jewry,” Ori explains. “They said, ‘We have to unite and work together. All Am Yisrael are brothers.’ ”

The three organizations were the American Jewish Relief Committee, established by the American Jewish Committee and favored by wealthy businessmen — many of whom were Reform Jews who had immigrated to the US from Germany, such as Jacob Schiff; the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews, established by the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America (today’s OU); and the labor-socialist Jewish People’s Relief Committee.

Fine words about the need for unity were nice. But how was it possible, in reality, for Jews with such different worldviews to sit at the same table?

The fact that Warburg, Schiff, and other members of the American Jewish Committee were acting as individuals, and not as representatives of Reform institutions, enabled the OU’s Albert Lucas, for example, to serve as secretary of the Joint. In contrast, Lucas refused to join forces with Reform clergymen at other organizations, even when he believed in the cause.

While the impetus for establishing the Joint was the dire situation in Ottoman-ruled Eretz Yisrael, the war in Europe soon created devastation in Europe’s Jewish communities too. Appeals for donations to help “Jewish War Sufferers” became part of an American Jew’s daily life. There were Yom Kippur appeals, Pesach appeals, and charity bazaars. Money was even raised at chasunahs. Each organization continued to target its own group of supporters for contributions, but they agreed to give the money to the Joint for distribution, which promised to allocate the money in an equitable fashion. Because the Joint had the support of wealthy bankers and businessmen such as Schiff and Warburg, prominent lawyer Louis Marshall, and other influential members of the Jewish community, they could parley their influence into assistance from the US government for the transfer of money and desperately needed food supplies even after America entered the war in 1917.

After the war ended in 1918, it was assumed that the world would return to normal, the Joint would break up, and the organizations would go their separate ways. But the rise to power of the communist regime in Russia and Hitler, yimach shemo, in Germany, the Holocaust that followed, and the refugee crisis of the post-war years meant that, if anything, as the century progressed, the need for a united relief effort had become even more urgent.

The story of the Joint’s work to help fund soup kitchens, orphanages, schools, medical clinics, and old age homes serving war-ravaged communities is well known. But there is a lesser-known chapter in the Joint’s history worth remembering too: the support the Joint gave to the Torah world both in Europe and Eretz Yisrael, whether it was to yeshivos and their near-starving bochurim, broken-hearted agunos, or European rabbanim left penniless and bereft of their kehillos after the Holocaust.

It is this story that I’ve come to hear and Ori, an enthusiastic storyteller, gives me a glimpse into a few of the treasures hidden away in JDC Israel’s archives. For a few hours we put our computers and cellphones aside and turn our attention to typewritten letters written on fragile, super-thin paper, mimeographed reports with their faded purple ink, black-and-white photos where smiles of hope can be seen amidst the destruction and despair.

“The Joint’s purpose was never to change or impose an agenda on the people who received its aid,” Ori clarifies. “It always wants to learn what a kehillah needs. What’s needed in Poland might not be right for Lita, which might not be right for Eretz Yisrael.” Adding that the Joint is still very active in Israel, among other parts of the world, he comments, “We’re there to help.”

Help was certainly needed for the Jews living in communist Russia.

January 28, 1930

To the Leaders of Israel, Members of the Joint Distribution Committee

Greetings: The terrifying news about our unfortunate brethren in Russia are unequaled in the history of the Jews. Hordes of savages and wild beasts thrust themselves on Israel and his religion …and about three million Jews are being robbed and persecuted… all because they cling to the Jewish beliefs and religion. The human pen cannot describe how bad and how bitter is the plight of those who fear the word of God… LET NOT THE EARTH COVER THEIR BLOOD!

The letter continues with a fervent plea for assistance — at least $300,000 is the requested amount. That’s about $4,400,000 in today’s money. But what’s most interesting about the letter are the signatures found at the end: the Chofetz Chaim, the Gerrer Rebbe, the Alexander Rebbe, Rabbi Shlomo David Kahane, president of the Warsaw Rabbinate, and Rabbi Yechezkel Lifshitz, president of the Agudath HaRabbanim of Poland. A previous appeal by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the Rebbe Rayatz of Lubavitch, is mentioned in the letter as well, making it a truly joint effort of the leading rabbanim of the time.

The Joint wasn’t exactly a stranger to the situation in Russia. After World War I, in conjunction with the American Relief Administration, it sent convoys of trucks loaded with food, medicine, and clothing to impoverished Jewish communities. The JDC-created Russian Matzah Fund Committee helped to ensure that major cities, at least, had matzos for Pesach. It also worked closely with the Russian OZE Committee, an organization dedicated to the promotion of health, hygiene, and childcare, among other activities. So why this urgent plea now? What had changed to turn the situation in Russia from awful to terrifying?

The year 1929 was a disastrous one for Russia’s Torah-observant Jews. In April of that year, a law was put into effect that gave the state absolute control over the country’s religious institutions and religious leaders. The culmination of a decade-long program to wipe out Torah observance on Russian soil, the new edict meant that rabbanim and Torah-observant communal leaders were forbidden to conduct any financial, educational, or charitable activities.

Of course, yeshivos and chadarim had already been operating underground for many years; many survived thanks to financial support from the Joint. But the new law imposed even harsher punishments on any rav caught committing the crime of teaching Torah. Distributing funds from organizations such as the Joint also became a crime.

But 1929 was disastrous for another reason as well. On October 24, 1929, Wall Street crashed. People who the day before were millionaires on paper woke up to discover they were now practically penniless. Businesses and factories closed, turning the working poor into just poor. With so many American Jews needing assistance, some philanthropic organizations reduced their contributions to communities in Europe and Eretz Yisrael.

The letter from the Chofetz Chaim, the Gerrer Rebbe, and the others therefore wasn’t an exaggeration. Those were indeed terrifying times.

In our era of WhatsApp and Instagram, it’s sometimes hard to remember that there was once a time when people couldn’t know what was happening on the other side of the world in real time. Felix Warburg could therefore perhaps be forgiven for being puzzled when the Joint received a frantic letter from someone named D. R. Travis from Tulsa, Oklahoma, concerning the desperate situation of the yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael. He therefore wrote to Judah L. Magnes, a Reform clergyman and member of the Joint, who was then in Eretz Yisrael:

May 29, 1937

Magnes

Jerusalem

Travis of Oklahoma just back from Palestine. Reports yeshiva conditions bad. Pople [sic] starving. Stop. Have misgivings correctness his statements. … Would like information …

Warburg

The letter is puzzling. The Joint had been working in Eretz Yisrael since 1914. Why didn’t Warburg know about the condition of the yeshivos? Was it Travis who was misinformed?

The misunderstanding, says Ori, was due to a few factors. For one thing, the economic situation in Eretz Yisrael, which had been disastrous during the World War I years, had improved during the 1920s and 1930s. But during the same period, the situation in Europe had gone from bad to worse, claiming more of the Jewish world’s money and attention.

“During the 1930’s, several yeshivos left Europe,” Ori explains. “The United States was mainly closed to Jewish immigration, so the yeshivos went to Eretz Yisrael. While the Joint’s budget for yeshivos might have been enough to support ten of them, it wasn’t enough to support twenty.”

Warburg asked an investigative team already in Eretz Yisrael to find out the true situation. Their findings? Mr. Travis was right. The situation of the yeshivos was terrible.

That conclusion was confirmed by Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, who had become the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Eretz Yisrael in 1936. On September 17, 1939, he penned a letter to the Joint, in which he wrote:

You can hardly form an idea of the actual position. … The revenue from abroad has all of a sudden stopped and the institutions as such as well as the large numbers of Fellows, scholars and students dependent upon them are literally on the verge of starvation. For G-d’s sake cable a few thousand pounds for the saving of the Torah in the whole of Eretz Yisrael.

The reason, of course, for why revenue from abroad had stopped “all of a sudden” was the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939. Once again, borders closed.

The irony, comments Ori, is that by the time the Joint fully understood the extent of the problem in Eretz Yisrael and agreed to increase its support for the yeshivos, the new war in Europe changed everything. Faced with limited financial resources, rescuing Jews trapped in Nazi-occupied Europe became the Joint’s number one priority.

No one would have argued about the importance of rescuing Europe’s Jews. But Rabbi Herzog saw clearly what many others didn’t yet see. The days when Europe was the center of Torah learning were over. If something wasn’t done to save the yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael from collapse, “the last burning light of Torah” would be extinguished from the world.

On May 7, 1941, during a visit to New York, Rabbi Herzog sent the Joint another letter. A previous request for additional funding for yeshivos had been denied. But Rabbi Herzog refused to take no for an answer. He stated his demands: $120,000 to transport 300 yeshivah students from Europe to Eretz Yisrael and maintain them for at least a year; double the Joint’s monthly allocation for supporting Eretz Yisrael’s yeshivos; and raise the monthly allowance allocated to helping rabbanim forced to leave Europe, who were now living in Eretz Yisrael.

Rabbi Herzog concludes his letter by writing:

I would feel sad in the extreme, if I would have to tell my people on my return to the Holy Land, P. G. [Please G-d], that the spiritual head of Palestine Jewry had pleaded in person for the first time in the history of American Jewry before the J.D.C., and that his requests on behalf of the Torah were simply “turned down”.

I refuse to believe that this will be the message that I will have to bring back to Zion!

Fortunately, it wasn’t. This time, says Ori, the Joint responded: “We’ll find a way to help.”

One of the terrible strikes of the war is the ruined family life.

In a November 1940 letter to the Joint from the office of Rabbi Shlomo David Kahane, the plight of women left agunos by the war is discussed. During World War I, Rabbi Kahane, then head of the Warsaw Beis Din, had worked tirelessly to free some 50,000 women who had been left in limbo — yet another casualty of war.

… we were able to get enough information about the Fate of a large number of men, and release the women from everlasting abandonment.

When war in Europe broke out a second time, it was only natural for the women to turn to Rabbi Kahane for help. By 1940, though, Rabbi Kahane was the chief rabbi of Jerusalem’s Old City. But despite the distance and the difficulty of establishing lines of communication, Rabbi Kahane took on the task.

“He sent people to interview survivors in Europe and people who had made it to Eretz Yisrael, to question them about their families,” Ori explains. “From this information, he was able to build profiles and help the agunos. The Joint helped Rav Kahane both with money and with gathering the needed information.”

Another casualty of war was seforim.

“Most of the seforim were destroyed by the Germans,” says Ori, “which made it difficult for rabbanim who had survived the war to pasken — they didn’t have seforim to refer to. So the Joint sent seforim.”

The Joint also helped fund the historic Survivors’ Talmud. With hundreds of thousands of survivors still languishing in DP camps after the war, a group of rabbis approached the US Army with a request: Print 3,000 full-sized copies of the Talmud as a gesture symbolizing the survival of the Jewish people despite attempts to annihilate us.

The army agreed to supervise the production of the Talmud, along with the Joint — no easy task considering the post-war shortages of paper and ink. And, of course, finding a complete set of the Talmud to use as a prototype was a seemingly impossible task too. Even in the United States, a complete set was hard to find, because American Jews had relied on the printing presses of Europe, which had all been destroyed.

In the end, two complete sets were found in New York. But by this time, the US Army was balking at the scope of the project. The print run was therefore reduced to just 50 complete sets, with the Joint and the German government shouldering the costs. The Joint managed to print a few additional sets, and today they are a collector’s item.

After the Second World War, funding social and educational projects in Eretz Yisrael became one of the Joint’s top priorities.

Among the many survivors who were trying to rebuild their lives were rabbanim who had formerly held respected posts back in Europe. “In Eretz Yisrael they no longer had a kehillah, they no longer had a salary,” explains Ori. “It was difficult for someone who had always earned his living to now accept charity.”

It was Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan, with the support of Rav Herzog, who came up with an idea for how to give these rabbanim kavod and money to live. He suggested the establishment of two projects. The first was the Encyclopedia Talmudit, a summary, in alphabetical order, of halachic topics found in the Talmud. The second was Otzar HaPoskim, a collection of halachah and responsa literature organized according to the order of the Shulchan Aruch.

The Joint agreed to partially fund the two projects but, Ori comments, there was never enough money for all the challenges facing the postwar community. Still, the Joint responded as well as it could. Money from the Joint helped to construct the building of several yeshivos, including Kol Torah in Bayit Vegan and Ponevezh in Bnei Brak.

In 1955, the Joint opened a department in Eretz Yisrael that dealt exclusively with the challenges facing the yeshivah world — including the physical ones.

“There was a great need for this,” says Ori. “Yeshivah students didn’t eat well. Their health was awful. They weren’t always members of kupat cholim, so when they got sick, they wouldn’t get treatment there. The Joint therefore brought in a professional nutritionist to help improve the diet of the bochurim and established a clinic for bnei yeshivos so they could have access to doctors and dentists.”

These few examples of assistance are really just the tip of the iceberg, says Ori, who proceeds to give me a tour of the archive.

Many of the documents recording the Joint’s postwar work with the yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael are stored in archival-quality boxes at JDC’s Jerusalem office in Givat Ram, which is where Ori and I have been talking. There is also an archive in Givat Shaul, Ori explains, as well as the JDC Archives in New York, which contains material dating back to the Joint’s establishment in 1914.

The JDC Archives in New York began to digitalize its collection of text documents, photos, and artifacts about a decade ago, and the work continues. According to Ori, there are millions of items in the archives and more than 500 boxes of material are still waiting to be scanned. That includes more than 50 boxes — some 800 documents — pertaining to the yeshivos the Joint helped support. The goal is to make the material more easily accessible for scholars, as well as individuals who might want to research their family history.

For instance, the archive has boxes and boxes of index cards detailing information about people the Joint helped rescue during and after World War II — including the card for Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Steinman and his wife, who were brought from Switzerland to Eretz Yisrael, thanks to a loan from the Joint.

“The Joint’s history tells the story of Am Yisrael during the past 100 years,” Ori comments. “The Joint has done a lot, but they don’t publicize it. Some of what’s stored in the archive is material that hasn’t seen the light of day for decades. It’s never been published. Now, we’d like to share this story with the public.”  —

The Second 100 Years

The end of World War II didn’t mean there was no longer a need for a relief organization such as the Joint. Eastern Europe’s Jews continued to require assistance, both during the communist years and after the fall of the former USSR. The collapse of Argentina’s economy and, later, that of Venezuela, demanded a call to action for those communities too. Helping Ethiopian and Iranian Jews… the list goes on and on.

But according to Ruben Gorbatt, the JDC’s director of programs for chareidim, and Yitzchak Trachtengott, manager of chareidi programs, the Joint has also continued its work of helping to support Israel’s chareidi community.

“Aid to yeshivos is designed to help the community according to its needs,” says Mr. Gorbatt. “Just as in the past the Joint worked with rabbanim and heads of kehillos to help out with whatever was necessary, in accordance with the values and principles of the community, the Joint still assists the chareidi community in various needs, in full cooperation and partnership with the rabbanim and roshei yeshivos.”

Harav Yitzchak Trachtengott adds, “We’re currently running several programs and initiatives in yeshivos, with the full approval of gedolai Yisrael, in order to promote the best future for the boys. The Joint sees it as a big zechus.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 781)

The post Joint Venture first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.

A

h, the excitement of renovating your home! It’s all sweet dreams — until the moment your interior designer starts to ask those fateful questions: Knobs or pulls? Blinds or shades? Tiles or wood? As the questions pile up and you start to panic, you might have a query of your own: Was it always so overwhelming?

When it comes to interior design, there’s never been an era with so many choices.. But before you find yourself longing for a simpler place and time — tent living, anyone? — consider the challenges our ancestors faced when creating a homey, livable space.

When One Door Closes…

We all know the quote: When one door closes, another opens. But closed doors weren’t a problem for our early ancestors for one simple reason: The door hadn’t yet been invented. Living in door-less caves or tents, their problem was finding a way to keep out unwelcome intruders, whether it be wild animals or dangerous marauders.

An early solution was rigging an animal hide or a woven cloth curtain over the home’s opening, which might not have been very secure, but at least you didn’t have to worry about what sort of doorknob would go with it.

Wealthy ancient Egyptians began making doors from wooden slats about 5,000 years ago, and some of the doors even had simple locks. In fact, ancient craftsmen were quite skilled at making bronze locks and hinges.

But the hardware was expensive — mass production was still thousands of years away — which is why most people continued to make do with a long cloth for the front door. Another curtain separated the public space used to receive visitors from the private area where a family spent much of their time.

Metal locks and hinges remained prohibitively expensive during the Middle Ages; you got them from the local blacksmith, along with your horseshoes. It was therefore common to equip the front door with a low-tech security system involving a bar across the door that could be lifted or lowered with a latch string. Valuables — if you had any — were stored in a wooden chest, which would be “locked” with heavy leather straps.

The idea of creating a variety of distinct and private interior rooms didn’t become popular in England and northern Europe until the late 1500s, when chimneys — a dwelling’s principal source of heating — became more common. As usual, it was the wealthy who started the trend. With time, wooden doors began to replace textile hangings and the doorknob made its debut.

A doorknob could function in one of three ways: it could be a simple pull, which doesn’t turn but does open and close a door; it could have a latch, which is operated by turning the knob and keeps a door securely closed, but not locked; or it could have a lock mechanism. During the Industrial Revolution, advances in steel production and tooling equipment turned production of any kind of doorknob into an art form.

Cut glass, ceramic, brass, wood, even doorknobs made from potter’s clay — suddenly people could not only afford to securely close their doors, they could do it in style. We can too, because manufacturers continue to turn out a dazzling array of doorknobs in different styles and materials.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 658)

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