Hadassah Magazine https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/ Tue, 26 Mar 2024 19:15:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Holocaust Survivor Receives Germany’s Highest Honor https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/26/holocaust-survivor-receives-germanys-highest-honor/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/26/holocaust-survivor-receives-germanys-highest-honor/#respond Tue, 26 Mar 2024 19:14:20 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41299 Hadassah life member Marion Blumenthal Lazan says she could never imagine that Germany 'would someday give so prestigious an award to a Jewish woman.'

The post Holocaust Survivor Receives Germany’s Highest Honor appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
Lazan with German Consul General in New York David Gill.

Two days after Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan received the German Order of Merit in January, she spoke to students at Covert Elementary School in South Hempstead, N.Y. A few days later she held a virtual visit with students in Sioux Falls, S.D. It’s a rigorous pace, but at 89, Lazan is a woman on a mission.

“This is the last generation that will hear first-hand from a Holocaust survivor, so we are running as fast as we can to reach young people,” said Lazan, a life member of Hadassah and one-time president of the Hewlett, N.Y., chapter. According to a comprehensive new report released by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, fewer than 250,000 survivors are alive today, 18 percent of whom reside in the United States.

Lazan was nearly 6 when she, her parents and brother escaped Nazi Germany for Holland. Eventually, they were caught and spent six years in various concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen. All four survived, but her father died of typhus after liberation. In 1948, the remaining family immigrated to America and settled in Peoria, Ill. There she met her husband of more than 70 years, Nathaniel. They raised three children and now dote on nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Related: The ABCs of Holocaust Education

Lazan started speaking publicly about her experiences in 1979, but it wasn’t until her memoir, Four Perfect Pebbles, was published in 1996 that she began zigzagging the globe to speak with students. 

She has received many awards, and there’s even a high school in Germany named in her honor. But it’s the Order of Merit—Germany’s highest civilian honor—that she says feels the most personal and poignant. Given the history of 80 years ago, Lazan said, she could never imagine that Germany “would someday give so prestigious an award to a Jewish woman.”

As she sees it, the award, which comes at a time of surging antisemitism, illustrates Germany’s commitment to spread the lessons of the Holocaust, which Lazan said boil down to “kindness and empathy. How we treat each other is entirely up to us.”


Cathryn J. Prince

The post Holocaust Survivor Receives Germany’s Highest Honor appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/26/holocaust-survivor-receives-germanys-highest-honor/feed/ 0
A Mission Like No Other https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/26/a-mission-like-no-other/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/26/a-mission-like-no-other/#respond Tue, 26 Mar 2024 18:35:42 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41290 Hadassah members support Israelis and bear witness to their pain.

The post A Mission Like No Other appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
The delegation lights candles at the site of the Nova music festival.

Nearly 50 Hadassah members and supporters traveled to Israel for a solidarity mission in January to “bear witness,” said Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz. Schwartz and other organizational leaders hand-delivered a petition to the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Tel Aviv office, demanding the humanitarian organization visit Israeli hostages.

The delegation also met with hostage families and Israeli officials, including President Isaac Herzog (in photo with Schwartz, left, and First Lady Michal Herzog), and they visited communities in the South devastated by the Hamas terror attack as well as the site of the Nova music festival, where they lit candles.

Carol Ann Schwartz (left) meets with President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog (right). 

The post A Mission Like No Other appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/26/a-mission-like-no-other/feed/ 0
One Book, One Hadassah: Live With Rosa Lowinger, ‘Dwell Time’ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/22/one-book-one-hadassah-live-with-dwell-time-author-rosa-lowinger/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/22/one-book-one-hadassah-live-with-dwell-time-author-rosa-lowinger/#respond Fri, 22 Mar 2024 14:00:59 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=40931 April 18 @ 7 PM ET

The post One Book, One Hadassah: Live With Rosa Lowinger, ‘Dwell Time’ appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
 

Join us on Thursday, April 18 at 7 PM ET for a live interview with writer and prominent art conservator Rosa Lowinger about her book, Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile and Repair.

In her remarkable memoir, the Cuban-born Lowinger, whose family fled rising antisemitism in Europe for Cuba then escaped to Miami after Castro’s revolution, expertly weaves her personal history with her decades of conservation experience, contending with generational trauma, the struggles of exile and the challenges of caring for aging parents.

Free and open to all. Zoom captioning provided. This event will be recorded.

Register Now

The post One Book, One Hadassah: Live With Rosa Lowinger, ‘Dwell Time’ appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/22/one-book-one-hadassah-live-with-dwell-time-author-rosa-lowinger/feed/ 0
Magazine Discussion: Living in and Covering Israel at War https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/21/behind-the-headlines-living-in-and-covering-israel-at-war/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/21/behind-the-headlines-living-in-and-covering-israel-at-war/#respond Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:37:59 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41269 May 23 @ 12:30 PM ET

The post Magazine Discussion: Living in and Covering Israel at War appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>

Join us on Thursday, May 23 at 12:30 PM ET when Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein leads a panel of top English-language journalists in Israel who, since October 7, have been reporting on the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks, from the plight of the hostages and their families to the war in Gaza and the North and the repercussions for Israeli civilians and soldiers. Ruth Marks Eglash (Jewish Insider), Uriel Heilman (JTA) and Jessica Steinberg (The Times of Israel), all regular contributors to Hadassah Magazine, will share their experiences living in and covering Israel post-October 7.

This event is free and open to all. Zoom captioning will be provided, and the event will be recorded.

Register Now

The post Magazine Discussion: Living in and Covering Israel at War appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/21/behind-the-headlines-living-in-and-covering-israel-at-war/feed/ 0
‘Remembering Gene Wilder’ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/15/remembering-gene-wilder/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/15/remembering-gene-wilder/#respond Fri, 15 Mar 2024 19:07:45 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41176 The comedic genius spent his career following an early piece of advice: ‘Don’t argue with your mother. Try to make her laugh.’

The post ‘Remembering Gene Wilder’ appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>

Remembering Gene Wilder is a heart-warming, heimishe tribute to one of Hollywood’s great comedic Jewish actors of the 20th century.

In the documentary, veteran director Ron Frank weaves together archival footage from Wilder’s numerous talk show appearances, audio recordings made by the actor and fresh interviews with Mel Brooks, Carol Kane, Alan Alda and Wilder’s wife, Karen, among others. Through this collage, Frank creates a moving, nostalgia-tinged portrait of a multitalented funnyman who accomplished a great deal while remaining a mensch.

Before I watched the documentary, I thought I “knew” Wilder, who died eight years ago, but mainly as an actor in this film or that one. This documentary is a reminder of the totality of his work, which included comic masterpieces with Mel Brooks (The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein) and Richard Pryor (Silver Streak; Stir Crazy; See No Evil, Hear No Evil). And then there is the now-classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which was considered a box office failure when it premiered back in 1971. Frank’s film also points out that, beyond his film and stage acting, Wilder was a gifted writer and director.

He co-wrote, with Brooks, the screenplay for Young Frankenstein (for which they received an Oscar nomination) as well as several other films, and published three novels, a short-story collection and a memoir.

Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, he grew up in strongly identified though not especially Jewish home. The documentary quotes Wilder, via audio recorded in 2005, as saying that his was not a “particularly religious family in terms of prayer other than going to my grandparents for seders on Passover and synagogue on the High Holidays.”

While not religious—in his memoir he wrote that he didn’t even believe in God—he strongly identified as a Jew. In fact, in another voiceover in the documentary, he calls his role as Avram Belinski, a Polish rabbi guided through the Wild West by a bank robber (Harrison Ford) in The Frisco Kid, “closest to my life than any other role” he played.

Among the movie sequences included in the documentary is one of the funniest, laugh-out-loud-till-your-kishkas-hurt scenes from that film: Rabbi Belinski encountering several Mennonites dressed in conservative black garb and confusing them with fellow Hasidim.

Wilder became interested in acting at age 8, after his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. In a voiceover in the documentary, he relates how a doctor “whispered in my ear…don’t argue with your mother. Try to make her laugh.” So, viewers hear him say, “I made her laugh.” To do so, he practiced Yiddish accents with her.

His interest in acting, if not humor, was further stimulated by an older sister who studied acting. He went on to pursue it in college and even attended the prestigious HB School in Manhattan, though that was not mentioned in the film.

Mel Brooks (left) and Carol Kane.

The film begins with Wilder being cast on Broadway as the chaplain in Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and the Children, opposite Anne Bancroft. In an interview, Mel Brooks explains how Bancroft, his then-girlfriend, later wife, “kept telling about this weird, strange character”—Wilder. Brooks, who was working on The Producers, attended the show and found his Leo Bloom. Though he almost lost him. 

Brooks’s producers wanted to cast someone more famous in The Producers, but Brooks ignored them. And the rest is history. Sort of. If you don’t read Wilder’s memoir. The film leaves out a lot of his personal story, and I asked Frank if there were any restrictions placed on him when creating the documentary.

“Not really,” he replied. “We weren’t looking to dig up dirt on Gene; this was not an exposé. We looked at Karen Wilder as our guiding force. We didn’t do anything without her approval. Gene had been married a few times before Karen and we were sensitive to that. We certainly needed to acknowledge his marriage to Gilda Radner, but we pretty much kept it at that.”

Wilder was married twice before his short-lived marriage to comedian and actor Radner, who died of ovarian cancer. I understand Frank’s reluctance to note the previous marriages, as Frank was working so closely with Wilder’s widow. The film was also originally going to spend more time focusing on Wilder’s diagnosis and death in 2016 from Alzheimer’s disease at age 83. 

But that isn’t all that was left out. According to his memoir, Wilder’s mom sent him to a private high school in California where he was subject to both antisemitic bullying and sexual assault.

“We had that in in one version, but then decided to drop it,” explained Frank. “It’s a complicated issue. Because you don’t want to just report about the sexual assault, you want to investigate how it influenced his life and career. I frankly don’t know the answer to that. So just reporting it in its own, along writer Glenn Kirschbaum, I didn’t feel that was enough.”

Remembering Gene Wilder is slowly opening in theaters around the country (check Kino Lorber for more information) and making the Jewish film festival circuit. It’s a really good look at a comedic genius—if you don’t mind watching a film through rose-colored glasses.

The post ‘Remembering Gene Wilder’ appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/15/remembering-gene-wilder/feed/ 0
Purim and Passover Post-October 7 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/11/purim-and-passover-post-october-7/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/11/purim-and-passover-post-october-7/#comments Mon, 11 Mar 2024 17:15:13 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41193 Just as we look at the approaching holidays as occasions for communal bonding, we experience anew the solidarity that is the strongest thread of Jewish continuity.

The post Purim and Passover Post-October 7 appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>

By definition, the calendar is an everyday item. But the Jewish calendar in particular is more than just an arrangement of dates. It is a map of our history and a guide to linking that history to our values and our survival. And we do not have to stare at the calendar for long to recall that it is more than a reminder to celebrate or commemorate. It is also a record of the trials, and sometimes horrors, that preceded our emergence from adversity.

Traumatic moments are often highlighted by the routine events that follow, like the first Thanksgiving after 9/11 or the first dinner out with friends after the lockdowns of Covid. October 7, 2023—and the war it unleashed—is one of those watershed dates. We are coming up on the first Purim and Passover since that newest day of infamy. And just as we look at the approaching holidays as occasions for communal bonding, we experience anew the solidarity that is the strongest thread of Jewish continuity.

In Purim, we see Queen Esther as a hero for millennia, the embodiment of Jewish self-defense. A woman who at first hid her Hebrew name before revealing her identity when Jewish lives depended on it.

There is a second female role model from the Purim story—Vashti—whose courageous example has only in recent years gained recognition for her defiance, empowering herself by refusing an order to display herself at a royal banquet.

From its beginning, Hadassah has carried Esther’s Hebrew name as a symbol of empowered Zionist women. Israel would not be what it is today without this organization. We built the Jewish state’s early health care infrastructure, and the Hadassah Medical Organization remains a standard bearer of healing. In the war with Hamas, our hospitals have been treating wounded soldiers and civilians, and our Youth Aliyah villages have housed displaced Israelis.

Hadassah has been outspoken in Israel’s defense, calling out the United Nations and UN Women for months of indefensible silence after Israeli women were mutilated, raped and murdered on October 7, and launching a global campaign, End the Silence, to raise awareness and demand justice. Please help spread the word.

Our work matters. “your support for Israel’s health care and solidarity with the Israeli people is a great strength,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told us during Hadassah’s Solidarity Mission to Israel in January, a transformative experience. (The next one is set to begin March 17.)

In America, Hadassah not only provides its members, Associates and supporters the opportunity to be involved in sustaining Israel, it also attracts those who are newly motivated to stand up.

Among all the consequential moments of the past few months, there is a fleeting image that stays with me. In November, when a number of hostages were released from Gaza, some of them were ferried into Egypt and then to Israel, as if symbolically retracing the Sinai crossing of our forebears.

Every year during Passover, we are charged to remember the Exodus from Egypt as if we ourselves were part of it. In the same way, it’s as if we all experienced captivity by Hamas. Our empowerment grew out of the experience of slavery and is reinforced by the suffering of our own time.

There is a light-hearted complaint about the Jewish calendar—that it is so overloaded with holidays that it leaves little time to work or go to school. But a crowded agenda with a long list of obligations encourages more than it precludes Jewish overachievement.

Our children learn as much, if not more, from the seder experience as they do in school. Just as our calendar is expansive, so are Jewish tables, normally seating a family of four or five, then suddenly accommodating 25 or more, ensuring that some who would not otherwise experience the Exodus can also symbolically walk to freedom. This year, it seems especially important that we invite others to join us.

We have a lot of work before us. It’s a good thing our calendar is full. A happy, healthy and meaningful holiday season to all.  

The post Purim and Passover Post-October 7 appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/11/purim-and-passover-post-october-7/feed/ 2
Asking ‘What Would Bella Do?’ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/08/asking-what-would-bella-do/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/08/asking-what-would-bella-do/#respond Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:48:06 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41173 The activist lawyer-turned-politician and Zionist Bella Abzug is the subject of a documentary now making the rounds at film festivals.

The post Asking ‘What Would Bella Do?’ appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
Courtesy of Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress (bottom left); Courtesy of Marion S. Trikosko, Library of Congress (top left); Courtesy of Re-Emerging Films.

Back in the 1970s, Bella Abzug, the feisty Jewish lawyer-turned-politician nicknamed “Battling Bella,” was a force to be reckoned with.

“She was one of the most recognizable faces in Congress, due in part to her trademark branding—her iconic hats,” said documentary filmmaker Jeff L. Lieberman. His recent film, Bella! This Woman’s Place Is in the House, explores the life and legacy of the influential Jewish activist, from her early days growing up in an Orthodox Jewish household in the Bronx to her work as a civil rights lawyer to her career as an activist for progressive causes and politician. She was elected at age 50 to Congress, where she fought for gay rights and women’s rights; her campaign slogan, referenced in the title of the documentary, was “This woman’s place is in the House—the House of Representatives.”

It is hardly surprising that Lieberman was drawn to creating Bella!. The 45-year-old writer and director was raised “in a community filled with strong Jewish women,” he said, part of a strongly affiliated Conservative family in Vancouver, Canada. Growing up, Abzug’s name was not unfamiliar to him, as the American politician’s “orbit filled my 1980s home,” said Lieberman, who now lives in New York. “The books of Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Anita Diamant lined our bookshelves; we sang the songs of Debbie Friedman and were proud to see Gloria Steinem appear on the evening news.”  

Barbra Streisand (left) and Hilary Clinton; Courtesy of Re-Emerging Films.

Both Pogrebin and Steinem were interviewed for the film. And so were many other friends of Abzug who talk about her impact on their lives and careers. Included are politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Hilary Clinton and David Dinkins and actors such as Barbra Streisand, Lily Tomlin (who quipped about Abzug “that under the hat was a lot of brain tissue”), Shirley MacLaine and Marlo Thomas. Also among the interviewees are Eve and Liz, Abzug’s daughters with her husband, Martin, who share personal stories from their parents’ lives. The interviews are interspersed with news video and audio clips of Abzug in action as well as newly unearthed home movies and audio diaries.

For all her groundbreaking achievements and influence, Lieberman said, “how is it that so few people know her name, her story or her contributions to the betterment of the world?”

Throughout the filmmaking process, Lieberman said that he was astonished that her legacy is not better known, “not just in the wider world, but even in the Jewish, LGBTQ+ and feminist communities who should be crowning her as a hero. It’s one of the many reasons I set out to make this film—that and a suggestion from my mother.”

Bella! This Woman’s Place Is in the House, which was recently nominated for a 2024 Writers Guild of America award, is making the round of film festivals throughout the United States; for information about local screenings, go to bella1970.com. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Why is a documentary about Abzug important now?

A documentary about her has always been important. However, at this moment in our country’s history, when the great experiment of democracy is being given its biggest stress test, Abzug is a timely figure. Throughout her many decades, Bella advocated against corruption and the misuse of power. She spoke out against gender inequality and marched for reproductive freedom. She fought for protections for LGBTQ people, defended those wrongfully accused and she felt nobody’s rights were secure until everybody’s rights were achieved.

People used to ask, “What would Bella do?” One only has to watch the documentary to know the answer. She would be organizing daily marches and protests to ensure that these issues do not fade from our attention. She would be working her kitchen telephone encouraging good people to run for office and others to protest and support. These are lessons and values that we hope audiences will receive through watching the film.

By the age of 13, Abzug, who was raised in an Orthodox household, was already giving her first speeches and defying convention at her family’s synagogue when she recited Kaddish for her father. What were her Jewish influences when she was young?

Abzug spoke about being very impacted by her maternal grandfather, an Orthodox Russian Jewish immigrant who spent a great deal of time with her when she was a child. He would bring her to synagogue and teach her Jewish prayers and the Hebrew language. This early influence led to Bella strongly connecting with the Zionist youth organization, Hashomer Hatzair.

She became an active member advocating for the idea of a Jewish state. Bella eventually took courses at the Jewish Theological Seminary and briefly entertained the idea of becoming a rabbi. All of this led to a lifetime of a strong connection to Judaism and Zionism.

Why was she such a strong advocate for Israel?

From an early age, Abzug learned of the importance of a Jewish state as a place of refuge for Jews all around the world. This is not only critical, given the Jewish people’s long history of persecution, but also for the cultural importance of unifying Jewish people in common culture.

As the film points out, Abzug was a huge advocate for Israel but also a huge peace advocate. As Israel continued to militarize in the 1960s and 1970s, Bella felt she had an important role speaking out about the important values of Israel maintaining their independence, but also maintaining a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors. She felt the same way about the United States, speaking out against the Vietnam War and nuclear proliferation. For her, peace was the starting point on all issues.

As you cover in your film, Abzug connected naturally with elderly Jewish voters in New York City’s Lower East Side when the area was added to her congressional district. What did they like about her?

The Jewish voters of the Lower East Side saw Bella as their own daughter. She was familiar to them, and so different from the buttoned-up male politicians of that era. Bella learned the issues that affected them and spent time in the streets and apartment buildings discussing those problems. She spoke Yiddish to them and joked and charmed, and also spoke passionately if someone presented an opposing viewpoint. Bella conveyed to them that she genuinely cared, like a daughter would care about her own family.

Among her many accomplishments, Abzug founded the National Women’s Political Caucus with other leading feminists such as Steinem and Betty Friedan. Why was feminism so important to her?

Abzug saw a huge injustice in the world based on gender lines. She knew that women unifying, organizing and demanding equality was the only way change would take place. Not just for her generation, but for future generations. She learned that through the lessons of the Suffragist movement, and through the power achieved through Women’s Strike for Peace (an activist group that demonstrated against the testing of nuclear weapons). Feminism showed women that they were equal, valuable and deserving of every right available to men. This extended to jobs, housing, mobility and all the freedoms one would associate with being a free person, living in the United States or anywhere else in the world.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Abzug was a regular attendee of the all-women Feminist Seders with her so-called Seder Sisters, Steinem, Pogrebin and others. What do you know about those events?

Feminist Seders were born out of a desire for Jewish women to be able to discuss Jewish history from a female perspective and have a different approach to often male-dominated narratives of Jewish history. Feminist Seders [which are still held in New York] created a relaxed space for women to be able to equally participate, using the Haggadah as lessons for discussing modern-day issues. It created a free place to bring up nontraditional viewpoints, stories, symbols and discussions that might’ve been absent from traditional seders.

The story of Miriam, for example, is one of celebration and is affirming to all people, but often gets overlooked or overshadowed by the story of Moses. Bella enjoyed this ability to unify her feminism and her Jewishness in a space with other like-minded Jewish women. Feminist Seders have led to other seders being more inclusive, more exploratory, more discussion-based, and have shown Jews all around the world that the seder can be a really meaningful contemporary experience that can address current issues.

In the documentary, Barbra Streisand talks about their relationship, calling Abzug “way ahead of the curve. The rest of us had to catch up.” She joined Abzug’s protests against the Vietnam War. Can you tell us about Streisand’s connection to Abzug?

In the 1960s, Streisand was very much against the Vietnam War but found very few politicians speaking out against it. When she heard a woman named Bella Abzug, who was running for Congress in 1970, saying that the war was immoral, she felt an immediate connection. By chance, the two women met in a restaurant, and she told Bella that she would like to do whatever she could to help Bella’s campaign.

That led to Streisand appearing at a campaign event, where the two women rode down Broadway on a flatbed truck through the Lower East Side, informing voters of Bella’s candidacy for Congress that year. Streisand also headlined a concert for the campaign called “Broadway for Bella.” It was held at the smaller theater at Madison Square Garden and featured several performances by Broadway actors. Both women also spoke about the connection that they felt to each other as Jewish women from New York who had much to say about political issues in New York’s male-dominated political world.

Your previous film also had a Jewish focus, can you talk about it?

Re-emerging: The Jews of Nigeria is a documentary about the Igbo people of Nigeria, specifically the community who are practicing Judaism. The film explores their origins, their beliefs around their connections to Judaism, and shows their amazing commitment to practicing Judaism in a country with very few Jewish resources.

The film follows one particular young man named Shmuel on his difficult journey toward embracing Judaism in the face of much opposition from his family and community.


Susan L. Hornik is a veteran entertainment and lifestyle journalist.

The post Asking ‘What Would Bella Do?’ appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/08/asking-what-would-bella-do/feed/ 0
Barbados and Its Jews https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/07/barbados-and-its-jews/ https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/07/barbados-and-its-jews/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2024 21:06:47 +0000 https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/?p=41154 Discover the laid-back island's singular Jewish history that stretches back to the 17th century.

The post Barbados and Its Jews appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
Nidhe Israel’s coral-pink exterior and adjacent cemetery. Alamy; Wikimedia Commons

I am lying on a sunbed in the courtyard of a delightful pink-and-white hotel sipping a delicious cocktail and watching the sun go down over the west coast of Barbados. I could easily relax here for months amid the pristine white-sand beaches and clear blue waters of this easternmost Caribbean island. But there are places to explore and stories to be told. And one of the most compelling is that of the Jews of Barbados, who over the centuries met with impressive economic success despite occasional anti-Jewish sentiment.

Indeed, this laid-back island has a singular Jewish history that stretches back to the 17th century. It’s a legacy that Britain’s King Charles, then still the Prince of Wales, highlighted in 2019 when he toured Barbados and visited Nidhe Israel Synagogue, a moment now memorialized by a plaque hanging in the historic house of worship.

In 1628, a group of 300 Dutch Sephardi Jews left Recife, Brazil, then under Dutch rule, and settled in Barbados, which had been claimed by the English only three years earlier. This was the first wave of Jewish settlement on the island.

Almost 30 years later, a second group of Jews left Brazil. This time, they went first to Amsterdam and then to London, seeking official clearance to immigrate to Barbados from Britain’s lord protector, Oliver Cromwell. In 1654, he granted the petitioning Jews a letter of safe passage.

The man bearing that precious letter on the sea journey was Dr. Abraham de Mercado. His son, David Rafael de Mercado, who traveled with him, brought pioneering sugar-milling technology first developed in Recife that would revolutionize the Barbados sugar industry.

Neal Rechtman, a native New Yorker who now lives on the island and offers tours of local Jewish sights, explained the importance of de Mercado’s machine to me. “David Rafael de Mercado invented a new device to be put inside a Dutch windmill,” he said, “a mechanism that turned the windmill itself into a sugar factory.” Sugar cane already was grown on Barbados, but crushing it was a laborious process—until, Rechtman said, the Jews arrived.

One might assume, given the Jewish contribution to the sugar trade, that Jews would have become powerful plantation owners, too. But a 1688 law prohibited Jews from owning more than three acres of land—and, crucially, from having more than three slaves.

No sooner had the Jews arrived in Barbados than they built two synagogues: a small one in Speightstown, in the northern part of the island, which no longer exists, and Nidhe Israel, opened in 1654 along with a cemetery and mikveh. At the time of its construction, Nidhe Israel was the first synagogue building in the Western hemisphere. Following extensive restoration over the last few decades, it now stands at the heart of the Synagogue Historic District in central Bridgetown, Barbados’s lively capital on its western coast.

Some of the island’s wealthiest Jews of the 17th and 18th centuries are buried in the cemetery adjacent to Nidhe Israel, along with the celebrated rabbi Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal. An itinerant teacher and Sephardi Jew, Carregal was born in Hebron in 1733, then in the Ottoman Empire, and is thought to have been the most-traveled rabbi in history before the invention of railroads. He died in Barbados in 1777.

At its peak in 1750, census data shows a distinct Jewish population of 800, out of 18,000 white islanders. Around the same time, a number of Jews opted to marry into the local English community in an effort to assimilate. As a result, many Barbadians today claim to have Sephardi ancestors somewhere in their family tree.

The fortunes of the Jewish community paralleled that of the local sugar industry. When a hurricane hit Barbados in 1831, devastating the sugar business, it likewise set in motion the decline of the island’s Jewry. The storm, which killed some 1,500 in Barbados and flattened much of the island, also destroyed the original Nidhe Israel; 90 worshipers raised funds for its reconstruction, which was completed in 1833.

But by 1929, most Jews had left the island. The synagogue was sold and subsequently used as commercial offices and a law library until the Jewish community reclaimed the site in the 1980s.

In the early 1930s, a new wave of Jews arrived, this time Ashkenazim fleeing persecution in Nazi Europe. Today, the island is home to descendants of those Jews as well as a handful of transplants from Britain and the United States—altogether, about 100 Jews. The Nidhe Israel congregation, which is affiliated with the Conservative movement and holds regular Friday night services, brings in a rabbi from the United States for major festivals. In winter, the population swells as tourists arrive; some years, more than 150 people attend Hanukkah festivities.

Now, the community is promoting Nidhe Israel as a destination for weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs. Think of them as simchas in the sun. You might even try a cocktail or two. 

Read about Barbados’s Jewish history and plan your visit at synagoguehistoricdistrict.com. Learn more about the island’s contemporary Jewish community at Jewishbarbados.org.

Make the Synagogue Historic District in Bridgetown your first stop. Built in 1750, the onetime Jewish school has been transformed into a state-of-the-art museum that explores Jewish life in Barbados through interactive exhibits, videos and hands-on installations.

Nidhe Israel Synagogue. Canva

Next door, Nidhe Israel Synagogue’s coral-pink exterior is a tropical counterpoint to the typical Dutch Sephardi design of its interior. The light-filled sanctuary features stark white walls, arched windows and a central bimah surrounded by wooden benches. Columns support the women’s balcony above and large brass chandeliers hang from the double-height ceiling.

In the adjacent cemetery, stroll among rows of tombstones with epitaphs written in Hebrew, Portuguese and English and be on the lookout for the resting place of sugar pioneer David Rafael de Mercado. His distinctive 1658 triangle-shaped marker—the oldest in the cemetery—was carved in Italy.

Chabad of Barbados, which offers kosher takeout as well as Shabbat morning services and meals, is situated along the island’s west coast within walking distance of a range of accommodations.

In 1751, George Washington and his older half-brother, Lawrence, lived for two months at Bush Hill House, a small plantation home just outside Bridgetown that is today open to tourists as George Washington House and Museum. Barbados was the only country outside America visited by Washington.

Mount Gay Rum, one of the island’s biggest employers, runs 45-minute-long tours at its factory. Screen the short film explaining the process of rum production and then enjoy a tasting session of different kinds of rum—some, but not all, are kosher.


Jenni Frazer is a veteran Jewish journalist and former assistant editor of The Jewish Chronicle. Now a freelancer, she writes for many publications in Britain, the United States and Israel.

The post Barbados and Its Jews appeared first on Hadassah Magazine.

]]>
https://www.hadassahmagazine.org/2024/03/07/barbados-and-its-jews/feed/ 2