Shushan Purim-Why Jerusalem celebrates a day later By Naftali Silberberg and The Portion of Tzav tomorrow and Vienna Calling BY EDIE JAROLIM- getting an Austrian or German Passport and Rich People jokes and Rabbi Binyamin Kahane-WHEN WILL WE STOP EATING GRASS??????
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Guarding Against Chametz in the Remains of the Meal Offering
The meal offering is brought while taking a fistful of the meal and placing it on the altar.
The meal offering was brought with matzot and not chametz and the remainder was also eaten by the kohanim as matzah and not chametz.
(Leviticus 6;10) "It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of My offerings made by fire".
The Talmud (Tractate Menachot 55) teaches us this law as derived from this verse.
The unique curved letter "pei" in the word "teiafeh" (baked) teaches us that the remainder of the offering is to be eaten by the kohanim is matzah and not chametz. (Remazei Yoel)
(I've also highlighted other curved "peis" in the portion.)
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Shushan Purim Why Jerusalem celebrates a day later By Naftali Silberberg
The battles fought between the Jews and their enemies throughout the Persian empire took place on 13 Adar. Around the world, the Jews rested and celebrated on the following day—14 Adar. In the capital city of Shushan, however, where there were a greater number of Jew-haters, the fighting continued for two days, 13 and 14 Adar. The victory celebrations in Shushan were thus held on the 15th.
When the holiday of Purim was set for the 14th of Adar, the sages instituted that Shushan residents perpetually observe Purim on the 15th of Adar—the day when the Shushanite Jews celebrated. The 15th of Adar is hence known as "Shushan Purim."
Along with Shushan (which is located in modern-day southwestern Iran), all cities that were walled at the time when the Israelites, under the leadership of Joshua, entered Canaan, observe Purim on the 15th.1
Today, the only city that we are certain had walls in Joshua's times is Jerusalem
.2 And indeed, in the holy city, Purim is festively celebrated one day after all other cities.
3 There are a number of other ancient cities in Israel, such as Jaffa and Tiberias, regarding which there is a reasonable doubt whether they were walled in Joshua's times. These cities observe two days of Purim.
Three-Day Purim
The 14th of Adar—the "regular Purim"—can never fall on Shabbat, but the 15th of Adar can. For the residents of Jerusalem, this results in the unique phenomenon of a "triple" or three-day Purim. Because a number of the Purim mitzvot cannot be performed on Shabbat, the observances are spread over a period of three days.
Friday:
Megillah reading,4 night and day. Gifts to the poor during the daylight hours of Friday.5
Shabbat:
The Purim VeAl HaNissim is added to all the day's prayers and Grace After Meals. The maftir of the day is the Torah reading for Purim, and for the haftorah we repeat the story of Saul and Amalek—that was read last week on Parshat Zachor.
Sunday:
We send mishloach manot,6 and enjoy the Purim feast7 during the daylight hours of Sunday.
Solidarity with Jerusalem
"It would therefore be fitting and good, very good, that on this Sunday [when Jerusalemites celebrate the 'third day of Purim'] Jews everywhere should add in joyful activities: words of Torah (which 'gladden the heart'), gladdening other Jews with a feeling of love, and, if fitting or necessary, through sending mishloach manot and giving gifts to the poor . . .
"And through this all to further unite with Jerusalem, to which we turn daily during the course of every prayer: 'And they will pray to G‑d by way of the city that You chose'8—chosen and given to each and every Jew forever, an eternal inheritance."9
"Why did the [sages] make it contingent on Joshua's time? In order to give honor to Israel, which was in ruins at the time [of the Purim miracle]. So that they [in cities of Israel] shall read [the megillah] as do the residents of Shushan . . . and there will be some symbolic connection to the Land of Israel in the miracle" (Maimonides, Laws of Megillah 1:5).
Purim is also observed on the 15th in all locales that are adjacent to a walled city—such as all the Jerusalem neighborhoods that are outside the walled old city.
The megillah is not read on Shabbat, for the same reason that we don't blow the shofar or take the Four Kinds on Shabbat: for fear that a person will carry the megillah/shofar/Four Kinds in the public domain. And Sunday is not an option, because the Talmud derives from the book of Esther that the 15th of Adar is the latest date for the megillah reading.
This mitzvah is performed on Friday because "the eyes of the poor are lifted at the reading of the megillah [to receive charity]" (Talmud, Megillah 4b).
One of the reasons for mishloach manot is to ensure that all have food for the Purim feast. As such, the food packages are sent on the same day as the feast.
We cannot have the Purim feast on Shabbat, because it would be indistinguishable from the regular Shabbat meals. We therefore do a "makeup" feast on a later date.
Rabbi Naftali Silberberg is a writer, editor and director of the curriculum department at the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. Rabbi Silberberg resides in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Chaya Mushka, and their three children
Shushan Purim
The celebration of Shushan Purim is the celebration of Purim a day later in the city of Jerusalem. The festival of Purim finds its roots in the biblical accounts in the book of Esther. In many ways, the holiday is unusual. The holiday began as a minor celebration and over time, because of the changing culture and circumstances, developed into a major expression of joy.
The story of the holiday is found in Esther, an unusual book in the Bible because of the name of God is never mentioned. Like Hanukkah, the holiday has taken new meaning because of the experience of the Jews over the years.
Today the holiday represents the story of anti-Semitism in every land, every culture, and every century. Purim is the celebration of the story of Jewish survival throughout the centuries in the worst of circumstances.
History
Esther, one of the books of the Ketuvim or writings section of the Bible, tells the setting of the celebration of Purim. The story is set in Persia, present day Iran, during the latter part of the captivity years. The Persian king at the time was Ahashverosh who had thrown a banquet and ordered the queen, Vashti, to appear and dance before his guests. She refused and was relieved of her royal duties.
His friends and political colleagues advised Ahashverosh to hold a pageant to choose a new queen. Mordechai, a Jew living in Persia's capital city of Shushan, convinced his cousin, Esther, to enroll in the competition. Esther's beauty was stunning and she was declared the winner, though she did not reveal her race.
Mordechai had the habit of sitting near the main gates of the King's palace. One day he happened to hear two men talking about a plot they were hatching. Bigthan and Teresh were scheming a plan to kill the king. Mordechai reported the news to Esther, who in turn told the king. The plot was foiled, the men put to death, and Mordechai was honored and the incident recorded in the king's diary.
Shortly after this event, the king's head adviser, Haman, would walk through the streets with much pomp and circumstance. He demanded all to bow down as he waked by. Mordechai refused to bow, claiming that only God was worthy of such honor and praise. Haman discovered that Mordechai was Jewish and decided that all Jews needed to be put to death. He convinced the king to go along with the plan and cast purim – lots – to determine the day when he would execute his evil. The lot fell to the 13th day of Adar.
Mordechai alerted Esther of the plot. At great personal risk, Esther received an audience to the king and told him of the plan and convinced him to save the Jews. Haman was hanged, Mordechai was given his property and elevated to a political position. The Jews celebrated the next day, the 14th of Adar, the day following their planned annihilation.
In Jerusalem Purim is celebrated the following day. The passage in Esther goes on to say that the Jews were not able to defeat their enemies in the walled city of Shushan until the fourteenth. Therefore, any city that was enclosed with walls and gates at the time of Joshua do not celebrate until the 15th of Adar. Jerusalem, then, celebrates the day on Shushan Purim.
Customs and Rituals
Purim is one of the most festive celebrations of the Jewish calendar year. Even the reading of the story from the book of Esther takes on a flavor of joy and excitement. When the name Haman is mentioned, the crowd will respond with chants and booing.
Everyone dresses in festive costumes, attend parties and parades, and are gracious, sending gifts of food to friends and offerings to the poor.
In the synagogue, the book of Esther is read at both the evening and morning services. At home, the holiday has become one that stresses social justice and celebrates the many obstacles that the Jewish nation has overcome.
Funerals and Mourning during Shushan Purim
Jewish teaching provides specific guidelines for how the deceased should be properly mourned by the family through defined Periods of Mourning in Judaism.
The Jewish burial usually takes place within a couple of days after the death. It is usually a time of stress and busyness for the family, as many decisions and details surrounding the funeral must be considered. A telephone call relaying personal condolences would be welcomed.
Public viewing of the body is against Jewish law and tradition. There is no equivalent to the wake or funeral visitation. Today Jewish funerals are held at a funeral home, synagogue, cemetery building or graveside. Attending a funeral is a demonstration of care and concern for the surviving family and respect for the deceased. Invitations to a funeral are rarely offered, but friends are always encouraged to attend. In Judaism accompanying the family to the gravesite is one of the highest forms of kindness.
After the burial, the first period of mourning begins. Shiva (meaning "seven") consists of seven days of mourning during which family members remain in their home. During shiva the family would stay home from work, refrain from public appearances, and not conduct any business transactions. Friends and family members would reach out to the bereaved by visiting the home to offer comfort and support.
The festive nature of Purim would disrupt the mourning traditions of shiva. While it might be e permissible for the family to attend congregational services during Purim, prudence might suggest that the mourning family remain at home during the feast.
Because of the sensitive nature of the time of loss, a Rabbi should be consulted for proper procedures for mourning during the holiday, particularly in complicated situations. The rabbi will take into account the circumstances, traditions and Scripture and offer guidance.
Remembering Loved Ones during Shushan Purim
Even in the midst of celebration, Shushan Purim is a festival of remembering. During these moments, there is a prescribed time to honor and reflect upon life and loved ones. Special prayers, the lighting of candles, and moments of reflection serve as the perfect time to honor and commemorate deceased family members. Lasting tributes such as contributions to charities, hospitals or hospices, synagogues or other organizations provide meaningful memorials for departed loved ones.
The tradition of inscribing one's name in the book of life is a common occurrence in the Jewish faith. Families may light a yizkor candle, plant a tree in Israel, or dedicate a name plaque. Other meaningful and appropriate ways to memorialize a loved one include the creation of a Plaque and Memory page online through the National Jewish Memorial Wall (NJMW.org). The inclusion on a memorial or yahrzeit wall is a meaningful way to show honor and respect for the deceased.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE RICH PEOPLE JOKES OF THE WEEK
Yankel bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for her birthday. After hearing about this extravagant gift, his friend Berel said to him, "I thought she wanted one of those sporty four-wheel-drive vehicles."
"She did," he replies. "But where was I going to find a fake Jeep?"
What do rich people and poor people have in common? They both love to talk about money
It doesn't matter if you're tall, short, rich, poor, at the end of the day...It's night.
What do you call a rich Chinese man? Ching Ching
What do you call a rich Mexican? Jeff Pesos
Yentl a newly rich woman once bought an expensive fur coat, which didn't sit well with her 14-year-old daughter. "Mom, do you realize that some poor, dumb beast had to suffer so you could get that?" she said. The woman, infuriated by her daughter's comment said 'how dare you to speak about your father like that!'
What do a fat American and rich Englishman have in common? Lots of pounds.
When I was young, I thought rich people bought Bose products and the rest of us had to settle for Sony. Turns out — that was just a stereotype.
I have many jokes about rich kids. Sadly, none of them work.
100 years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars. Today everyone owns cars and only the rich own horses. The stables have turned.
A kid finds a magical lamp. He rubs the lamp, and a genie appears and says, "What is your first wish?" The kid says, "I wish I were rich!"
The genie replies, "It is done! What is your second wish, Rich?"
How do you know if a fisherman is rich? Check his net income.
Why is it so hard to talk to rich criminals? Because they never finish their sentences.
"Man, if I had listened to my father when I was 8, I could've been rich today"
Friend: What did he say?
Me: I dunno, I didn't listen
Carolyn, a rich blonde, buys a new automatic Jaguar XKR Sport. She drives the car perfectly well during the day, but at night, the car just won't move at all...After trying to drive the car at night for a week (but without any luck), she furiously calls the Jaguar dealers and they send out a technician to her. The technician examines the car and finds nothing wrong with it.
So he turns to the blonde and asks, "Ma'am, are you sure you are using the right gears?"
Full of anger, the blonde replies, "How on earth you could ask such a question!? I'm not stupid you know! Of course, I am using the right gears; I use D during the day and N at night."
Rich Goyim have colon cleanses. Poor Jews have Prune Juice
So Moishie the new greener was schmoozing with this wealthy friend Yankel and he asked how he got rich. Yankel told him that when he first came to this country he bought one unwashed apple in the market for a dollar, washed it and sold it for 2, then bought 2 unwashed apples, washed it, and sold it for 4. So Moishie asked "And so gradually you got rich?
"No," Yankel said "after 2 years, my great uncle Berel died and left me a legacy of 4 billion dollars, and I stopped doing nonsense "
The son of a rich Saudi sheik arrives in Germany for his University studies. He soon writes home to his father. "Dear Dad, Berlin is wonderful, the people are nice and I really like it here, but Dad I am a little ashamed to be riding to class every day in my 24k gold Ferrari 599GTB when my professors, friends, and many fellow students all travel by train. Your son, Ahmed"
Promptly, his father writes back. "My Dear son Ahmed, $20 Million has just been transferred to your account. Please stop embarrassing our family. Go and get yourself a train too. Love, your dad
Binyamin Kahane- Parshat Pekudei
WHEN WILL WE STOP EATING GRASS??????
Parshiyot VaYakhel and Pekudei are basically repetitions of Parshiyot Terumah and Tetzaveh. This naturally gives rise to the often-asked question: How can the Torah, which we know is never redundant, go ahead and "waste" so much space with all these extra verses? Why not simply state, as the Torah frequently does, "And the Children of Israel did as Moses commanded them"?
Interestingly, when the Torah devotes a lot of space to the details of other mitzvot, no one finds it strange. On the contrary, many people feel that MORE space should be devoted to various mitzvot. Why? Because everyone understands that without the mitzvot, there is no Torah.
And therein lies the answer to our question. For just like there is no Judaism without the mitzvot we fulfill today, so too there is no Judaism without the Temple and the sacrifices, which account for over one-third of the 613 mitzvot! In other words, our sense of proportion regarding what Judaism considers truly important is warped. It's true that many of us feel completely disconnected from the Temple and the sacrifices, but the fact that the Torah is uncharacteristically verbose in describing them should tell us something about their centrality in Judaism.
With this in mind, let us address our obligation to rebuild the Temple and renew the sacrifices. In general, this idea is met with immediate opposition. There are no shortage of excuses, each camp offering its own explanation why we can't build the Temple today. Some say, "The Temple will fall from the sky, and it is none of our business." Others argue, "The Temple is a project for the Messiah." And then there is this gem: "We are on too low a level to deal with such a lofty topic."
For all these excuses, there are clear and powerful answers. In this limited space, we cannot cite them, but there really is no need to do so since rebuilding the Temple is one of the 613 commandments. Case closed. Have you ever heard anyone suggest that eating matzah on Passover is a task for the Messiah? Has anyone ever said, "Family purity - what for? Family purity will descend from heaven!" Or how about, "Study Torah? A lowly sinner like me should study the holy Torah?!"
Of course these excuses are absurd. We do not seek ways to avoid performing mitzvot, all the more so a mitzvah which literally causes the Divine Presence to dwell amongst us. (Dear friends, did G-d allow us to conquer the Temple Mount 30 years ago so that the Arabs could continue to desecrate His Name on our holiest site, only now under Jewish sovereignty? Shouldn't we feel that this is the very last mitzvah to ignore?)
Many say that since there were mitzvot in the Exile which served as substitutes for the Temple service, it is not so terrible if we make do with these substitutes in Israel as well. But in the Exile, WE HAD NO CHOICE, and G-d will forgive us for neglecting the mitzvot pertaining to the Temple. But now, when we control our own fate, how can we possibly make do with substitutes?
This is similar to a man who eats grass instead of food. People ask him, "What are you doing?" He answers, "Look, I was once struck in the wilderness without food. I found some grass and ate it to survive." They tell him, "Fool!!! Then, you had no choice; you were FORCED to eat grass. BUT NOW?? You have REAL FOOD, so why are you still eating grass????"
And we? WHEN WILL WE STOP EATING GRASS???
Darka Shel Torah, 1999
Vienna Calling
I finally got citizenship from the country that persecuted my parents—just as things started feeling less secure in the country that offered them refuge
In late January—less than a week after the Colleyville synagogue standoff—I got a call from the Austrian Consulate in Los Angeles. My application for dual citizenship with Austria had been approved. What surprised me more than the personal phone outreach was my reaction to the news. After more than a year of deeply mixed feelings, I was elated.
Not that I'd worried about getting rejected. After September 2020, anyone with a "persecuted ancestor" from Austria was eligible to apply for restored citizenship. I knew I had a slam dunk case. Both my parents fled Vienna in 1939, forced to leave their families behind. Navigating a perilous new world on their own, Rita Rosenbaum and Paul Jarolim met in Brighton Beach, in an English language class for refugees. My mother liked to say that my father was attracted to her Viennese accent. She sounded like home to him.
It was a meet cute, only with Nazis.
Of their immediate family members, only one of my father's brothers survived the war. All the rest—my maternal grandparents, my father's sister and his other brother—had been deported and killed.
My parents rarely had anything nice to say about Austria, if they said anything at all. When my mother did refer to the country and its residents, it was generally with vituperative outbursts. She loathed the sudden celebrity in the 1970s of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the embodiment of muscular Austrian Aryanism. And she couldn't stand the outpouring of praise for The Sound of Music. "With all that alpine schmaltz, you'd hardly know that the Nazis in the film were Austrians or that any Jews were being murdered," she griped. My mother often swore that the Austrians were worse antisemites than the Germans, and claimed that Kurt Waldheim, the secretary general of the United Nations and, eventually, Austria's president, was a Nazi.
Growing up, I didn't really believe her. My mother was a nervous, cup-half-empty kind of person and, I thought, a bit paranoid. Everyone knew that the Austrians were victims, too, and that the Germans were responsible for …everything.
Happily, my mother lived long enough to see the world—and me—learn that Waldheim had voluntarily signed up for the Nazi party's paramilitary wing and continued to take part in Hitler's war efforts until 1945.
And she died before Schwarzenegger became governor of California.
But my mother kept a pressed edelweiss, that peculiar furry flower, among her belongings. And there was one detail of happier times in Vienna that she was fond of retelling: that one of her uncles had been Sigmund Freud's butcher.
After a lifetime of aversion therapy against the country and its language—in spite of it being spoken in my home as a "secret" code, German sieves out of my brain when I try to learn it—I had no desire to visit Austria. Still, the Freud connection was intriguing. And when I discovered that my great uncle Siegmund Kornmehl's butcher shop had been in 19 Berggasse, sharing that address with Freud for 44 years, I started digging into my family history.
It helps to have links to a famous person, if only by proximity, to access good archival records. A catalog for the "Freud's Lost Neighbors" exhibition of Vienna's Sigmund Freud Museum had a section devoted to Siegmund Kornmehl, detailing the exorbitant taxes levied on, and Aryanization of, his butcher shop, and Austria's postwar obstruction of the return of their property at every juncture.
This was just the tip of the iceberg, I realized. My grandmother had six siblings in addition to her brother Siegmund and I knew next to nothing about most of them. There were other Austrian Jewish archives, other family landmarks, that I wanted to investigate firsthand.
In 2014, I donned my travel writer's hat and headed for Vienna. I could use work as an excuse for the trip, and it would be tax deductible. I thought I had the perfect story hook: I would cover Vienna's commemorations of the 75th anniversary of Freud's death.
Astonishingly, I found a city that barely acknowledged its most famous Jewish resident. There was a larger-than-life statue in the heart of town of Karl Lueger, the antisemitic mayor whom Hitler cited as an inspiration for Mein Kampf, but not a single one of Freud. No major streets were named for the founder of psychoanalysis. Even Vienna's kitsch was Freud-free: While Mozart tchotchkes, including a white-wigged rubber duck, were everywhere, I didn't spot a single bearded sage with round glasses.
Shoah Wall of Names MemorialCOURTESY THE AUTHOR
Eeriest of all, even his namesake museum was practically devoid of Freud. Except for the bookshop and the waiting room for which Anna Freud sent back a few of the original furnishings from London, where the family was forced to flee in 1938, the rooms of the Sigmund Freud Museum were largely empty. The museum's planned commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Freud's death—the only one I found in Vienna—was similarly minimalist: A "Hidden Freud" exhibition would post 16 pictures in biographically significant public places throughout the city, but the text accompanying them would only be in German and only accessible via a QR code reader. Any foreign visitor without translation or QR scanning apps—or, heaven forfend, without a smartphone—would be out of luck.
A city that could erase—or as Freud's biographer, Peter Gay, put it, repress—such an internationally renowned Jew clearly had not come to terms with its Nazi past.
Still, I continued my personal-history-oriented visits to Vienna. And I started noticing changes in Austria's attitude toward Freud and, more significantly, to its less renowned Jewish ex-residents. On June 4, 2018, exactly 80 years after Freud and his family left Vienna, the first full-size statue of Sigmund Freud, by Jewish sculptor Oskar Nemon, was dedicated outside the Medical University of Vienna. The Freud Museum underwent a major renovation that made its namesake more of a living presence. I began to see a proliferation of Freud dolls, keychains, and even a miniature plush couch alongside Mozart memorabilia.
Those larger changes? Along with Austria's offer of citizenship to ancestors of persecuted individuals in 2020, the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial was dedicated in Vienna on Nov. 9, 2021, the 83rd anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom. Similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., in its simplicity, it is very explicit about Austria's complicity.
When the possibility of Austrian citizenship arose, I thought long and hard about applying. I had no practical reason to seek a legal connection to the country. I don't have children, I don't need an EU passport—though I like the idea of getting through immigration lines more quickly—and, in spite of my roots and pleasant recent visits, I never warmed up to Vienna. I prefer more vibrant, grittier cities like Paris or my hometown, New York. And ones that didn't send my relatives off to be murdered.
Freud and Mozart memorabilia, side by sideCOURTESY THE AUTHOR
But if revenge is a dish best served cold, I was ready to dine. Wasn't the restoration of what was stolen from my parents, a declaration that they couldn't get rid of us so easily, reason enough to apply?
Apparently not, said my subconscious (thanks, Freud).
I filled out the preliminary application in October 2019 and waited so long to follow up that I forgot I had already emailed it to the Austrian Consulate several months earlier. So long that I let my hair go pandemic gray and then started obsessing about putting gray-tressed images on my new Austrian passport (which I was nowhere close to getting). So long that I read at least four more books about the Holocaust in Austria that confirmed my mother's claims about the country's antisemitism.
And when I finally did start working on the forms, I subverted their progress. This was around the time of the 2020 election, and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had started messing with the mail. Expensive sorting machines were being taken offline, mailboxes were being physically removed … and yet I dropped my original birth certificate, required for proof of identity and relationship to my persecuted ancestor, into a mailbox that looked weather-beaten and abandoned, possibly unattended by a human postal person for years.
But slowly, slowly, I gathered all the necessary documentation. I learned terms like "apostille," a form of document verification. And, after having my fingerprints run through a U.S. government database, I confirmed that I was not wanted by the FBI.
In October 2021, I submitted the completed application.
At around the same time that I started visiting Vienna, I became aware of the increase of antisemitism in the U.S. In addition to the right-wing kind I'd been most familiar with—the scrawled graffiti swastikas, the demonization of George Soros, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018—I started noticing antisemitism among progressives, my political cohort. On college campuses, in leftist groups, and in the nonpolitical professional organizations I belonged to, everything to do with American Jews seemed to be filtered through the lens of Israel and Zionism. Suddenly, I was no longer part of a persecuted minority, but a white colonialist. Every statement in support of diaspora Jews had to be caveated by an addendum to the effect of "this doesn't mean we don't support Palestinians, too."
Gaslighting, especially instead of expected allyship, felt more threatening than overt Jew-hatred. It meant I couldn't discuss my fears with progressive non-Jewish friends, or even with several Jewish ones, lest I appear overwrought, paranoid—all the traits I attributed to my mother for so many years. Karma is a bitch, isn't it?
The hostage standoff in the Colleyville synagogue was a tipping point for me. I was shocked at how an obvious hate crime against Jews was underplayed or explained away. By the FBI. By the press that didn't emphasize that the rabbi saved the day, or that Jewish clergy now need to be trained for precisely these situations. By the "nobody died," "it could have been a church," "we hate all gun violence" crowd.
And this is why, I realized, the call from the Austrian Consulate a week later felt so satisfying. It wasn't revenge I craved after all, but clarity. I'd needed simple, direct acknowledgment of being wronged and the offer of a remedy, however toothless and belated.
It's distressing to feel more seen by the country that persecuted my family than I do by the one where they found sanctuary. I can only hope that it's not too late for the tide to turn, and that future generations of American Jews won't have to be grateful for restored citizenship and a memorial wall.
Edie Jarolim writes about food and travel for a variety of national publications, and blogs about genealogy, psychology, and meat on FreudsButcher.com.
Editior's note. One of the reasons I included the story about the Lady above who got her Austrian Passport is as a boy born of a German Jewish mother, I had the same opportunity to get my German passport as the Author got her Austrian Passport. I married a Czech girl who flies to Czech to see her parents frequently and the mitzvah of honoring your Mother and Father applies to your Mother and Father in Law as well. During Covid many countries in Europe were restricted to those holding EU passports and because of my German EU Passport, I was able to help fill the mitzvah. G-d works in mysterious ways.
See you Sunday bli neder- Shabbat Shalom and Shushan Purim Samach today
