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.
Breaking news: My contact in Washington, Dr. Anthony Harper says that President Biden is coming to Israel on June 22
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Israel's war for independence is far from over by Jonathan Pollard
I'm tired of this. I'm tired of seeing our so-called leaders taking our flag, washing out the blue and only leaving the white of surrender.
I am privileged this year to celebrate our Independence Day as a free person in the Land of Israel. After enduring 35 years of prison and house arrest due to my actions as an Israeli agent, my love for this country and its wonderful citizens has only increased with each and every day that passes. More than anything else, though, I am deeply grateful to God for all our brave soldiers, who in their devotion to the survival of our country allow the miracle of our national rebirth to reoccur every day of the year.
But at the same time, alongside my joy and gratitude, I can't forget, even for a moment, that the war for our independence is far from over.
During the 30 years I was in prison, I lived with incredible fear and concern for my life. I had to have eyes in the back of my head. I couldn't sleep at night, concerned that someone would enter my room and stab me or my roommate to death. I needed to always carry a knife and be prepared to use it without hesitation.
I constantly had to witness the horrible deaths of other people – especially my friends – that occurred suddenly and without warning. In prison, the most frustrating thing of all had to do with the fact that the officials in charge of protecting us were basically scared of the violent prisoners and accommodated them as much as possible.
Put plainly, our administrators wanted peace at any cost, even if it meant that innocent people were murdered without serious consequences to those who attacked them. We couldn't even rely upon the guards to protect us, because they didn't want an inmate injured by them taking them to court.
I quickly learned that we didn't have a right to self-defense under any circumstances. People can't believe me when I tell them that we were always wrong if we tried to defend ourselves. And those who did were always punished excessively in order to make the point that they were no better than their assailants. It was total insanity.
I prayed that when I came home, I wouldn't have to live this way. I was wrong. Indeed, given what I've seen over the past year, it's even worse now for me, because this time it's not about one or two people getting randomly killed, but about an entire nation being traumatized by an army of cold-blooded antisemitic psychopaths, who the authorities are afraid of provoking. I've seen this movie before, and it never ends well.
In prison, I had one or two good friends who watched my back and I watched theirs. I lived under God's grace and tried to remember that you fear no one but God, and to strike first. Here, incredibly, I'm living with a whole country that is either scared to death or in denial.
WE ARE all suffering on account of a group of intellectually challenged political and judicial elites, who have an infinite capacity to tolerate the suffering of our citizens, all the while insinuating that we are somehow responsible for all the violence we are experiencing.
I'm tired of this. I'm tired of seeing our so-called leaders taking our flag, washing out the blue and only leaving the white of surrender.
I'm waiting for somebody, a leader, a true Jewish leader, to come forward and put the blue stripes and the Magen David back on our flag.
I'm waiting for a leader that will put the fear of God into our enemies. Better yet, I'm waiting for a leader who will wipe our enemies off the face of the earth once and for all.
I'm waiting for a leader who will act without any concern about what anybody else outside our country thinks – whether it be the United States or the European Union, the UN, or anybody else who believes they can tell us where we can live or how we are to defend ourselves.
We know why we are here. God gave us this land, not the British Empire, the League of Nations, Washington or the UN. But despite this fact, it's sad for me to realize that our holy mission of reestablishing the Third Jewish Commonwealth is not even halfway done. And this is because of our own fear and trepidation, not the result of our enemies' actions.
We still don't have our land back. We don't have our self-respect back, we don't have our independence back the way we should have after 2,000 years of pogroms, crusades, inquisitions and genocidal attempts to eliminate our people.
I've spent 30 years in prison hoping and praying that I would come home to a state that would defend me. Was I wrong? It certainly feels that way.
A STORY my father z"l often told me comes to mind. He said that a soldier's principal duty is to protect the lives of his comrades, not to let them down because some high-ranking officer was too scared to order a necessary, but politically incorrect, action.
As I see it, our lives have essentially been reduced to such a battlefield, where our citizens, my brothers and sisters, are forced to defend themselves and those around them, not only from the enemy but from our own government, which is too scared to do what is required to eradicate the terrorist threat. This state of affairs is totally unacceptable!
We desperately need to get rid of this galut (exile) mentality that prioritizes the need to understand our enemies over the security of our people. We simply can't think like the ten spies, who attributed to others what they felt about themselves – namely, that they were like grasshoppers. Well, I'm not a grasshopper, and neither are my brothers or sisters in this country.
We are the descendants of proud and noble warriors, who feared only God and never hesitated to defend our land from some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. But over many years, our leaders have relentlessly tried to have us forget this fact in favor of our adopting a more liberal post-modernism, where we share our land with those who openly seek to destroy us. No more! We must reject this type of cynical defeatism before it kills us.
On this Independence Day, it's time for us to regain both our individual and collective self-respect. It's time for our nation to demand that our leaders care about us rather than their foreign masters. It's time for our elected representatives to finally eliminate once and for all those groups and countries who seek to destroy us.
Lastly, we want the army high command to wake up and stop pretending that managing the enemy is an acceptable strategic doctrine. It isn't. It's a form of appeasement that preserves our opponents while making us look weak and stupid.
I know we can enact these essential reforms – and if we actually want to be an independent country, we have no other choice. Indeed, these goals should be seen as sacred obligations we must embrace not only for our sake, but also for the sake of our future generations. May God grant us the wisdom and strength to do so.
Amen.
MK Ben Gvir, Not PM Bennett, Ascends Temple Mount on Jerusalem Liberation Day
MK Itamar Ben Gvir on his way to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem Liberation Day, May 29, 2022.
Once upon a time, an elderly Chaldean man brought his son there and erected an altar, probably right where the paved courtyard is stretching today, near the northern edge of this magnificent, flat mountaintop. Another time, a lad in his sixties fell asleep there dreaming about angels and ladders, and when he woke up in the middle of the night, he realized that this was not an ordinary place but The Place which puts everything else in a different perspective, including one's dreams, but mainly one's wakeful hours. Another time still, a redheaded Jewish king bought the place for all eternity from its Jebusite owner for 600 gold shekels. And one warm morning, on the fifty-fifth anniversary of its liberation from the gentiles who lived across the river Jordan, a rambunctious Jewish parliamentarian walked up to this holiest place on the planet, the Temple Mount, and claimed it once again for a nation that's slowly reawakening from a slumber of two millennia.
Otzma Yehudit Chairman MK Itamar Ben Gvir arrived Sunday morning, Iyar 28, at the Temple Mount under police security. The police allowed Ben Gvir to reach The Place despite fears of Arab violence. Last month, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett prevented Ben Gvir from reaching the Damascus Gate as part of a parade around the Old City, following a recommendation by the Shin Bet chief and the police commissioner. Both security officials were of the opinion that giving in to Arab threats of violence would only invite bigger threats.
When did Israeli security officials become so sensible?
Frankly, it should have been Prime Minister Naftali Bennett leading ten thousand Jews onto the Temple Mount. He could transition our nation from the dungeons of fear to the bright, open air, to our holy father's home. No one and nothing could stop him.
Ah, well. Maybe next year.
The police have completed their preparations for the events of Jerusalem Liberation Day, especially the traditional flag parade. 3,000 policemen were deployed in the Old City, mostly along the planned route of the flags parade.
English language reports have been using the terms flags parade and flags march interchangeably. I feel the appropriate word is parade. It's softer. Marches are for the military. Flags parades conjure the image of happy Jewish boys and girls filling up the streets with glee and a waving, blue and white sea. Check out George Carlin's bit on Baseball vs. Football.
Back on the sacred mountain, Police prevented PA Arab journalists from entering the Temple Mount. Some local police officer asked for the Waqf director's approval for their entry––proving that 55 years of a sniveling submission don't go away overnight––but even after the Waqf man approved, the journalists were not allowed to enter.
Hundreds of Jews ascended on Sunday morning in groups to the Temple Mount with police approval, and are under heavy police security. Hundreds of Arabs are screaming at them, and some have barricaded themselves inside the al-Aqsa Mosque and started throwing stones from there.
In response, police locked the mosque doors.
Again, sensible.
Police said masked Arabs fired fireworks from inside the mosque but noted that Jews' visits to the mountain continue as usual.
Late Prime Minister and former commander of the Lehi underground Yitzhak Shamir's favorite saying was, "The dogs bark, and the caravan moves on." It's a good saying.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum was quoted by Israeli media as declaring: "The campaign for Jerusalem and al-Aqsa is holy and open, we will not stop except in achieving our goals of liberating and establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
Like I said, dogs bark, caravan moves on, wrapped in a magnificent sea of blue and white. It's going to be exciting over here, do stay tuned.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE REFUGEE JOKES OF THE WEEK
What's the difference between a refugee and E.T? E.T learned English and wanted to go home.
I met a refugee on the bus today.
"What country are you from?" I asked.
"Iraq" he said.
"How did you escape?" I asked.
IRAN
An Afghan soldier called me earlier and told me he was in a refugee camp......but when he told it to me, he said he was caught between Iraq and a hard place.
Why are refugees so bad at baseball? Because they can't get home
How does Germany pay for all these refugees it's taken in ? Krautfunding.
A refugee who recently snuck over the border is sitting in the street in Mexico in the streets of Texas, bemoaning his life, when suddenly, a genie appears.
"I'm the socialist, liberal genie," says he, "and I'm here to grant you three wishes."
The refugee says "You see this gap in my teeth? I want it fixed." No sooner does he say that, that he gets a copy of a new law, decreeing that all refugees in the US will get free health and dental care, courtesy of the state. He ran to the dentist and got his teeth fixed for free.
He is ecstatic, and says "I want a fully furnished house, endless money and to be reunited with my family."
No sooner does he say this, that a new law is passed, guaranteeing all refugees to the USA a fully furnished new home, welfare, and reunification with their families. And in his hands were a deed to his new home, and refugee papers for his family.
The man is stunned. He had gotten everything he wanted, and still had a wish left. So he said "I want to be a US citizen. In fact, I want to be named Billy." And as soon as he said that, his teeth went back to having a gap, and his house and family disappeared.
"What happened?!" he yelled.
"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" replied the genie. "You're an American now. You should be ashamed, trying to live off of government money. Go get a job, Billy!
About a month ago, a man in Amsterdam felt that he needed to confess.
So he went to his priest, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. During WWII I hid a Jewish refugee in my attic."
"Well," answered the priest, "that's not a sin."
"But I made him agree to pay me 20 Guilders for every week he stayed."
"I admit that wasn't good, but you did it for a good cause."
"Oh, thank you, Father; that eases my mind. I have one more question..."
"What is that, my son?"
"Do I have to tell him the war is over?"
Sam Levinson, the famous Jewish comedian told this story: When his parents were immigrants, escaping the prejudice of war-torn Europe, they fell under the spell of the American dream that the streets were paved with gold.
"When pop got here, he found three things: First, the streets weren't paved with gold… Second, the streets were not even paved. And third, he was supposed to do the paving."
local Aliyah ambassador from the Israeli government was noticing that the response to his usual "pitch" about moving to Israel was having limited effect so he decided to change tactics.
"Instead of talking about Israel today, I am going to talk about nutrition and health." Said the Aliyah representative. "Here is a summary of the latest medical findings:
The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than do the British or Americans.
On the other hand the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
At the same time Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. As well the Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
My conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. Move to Israel and learn to speak Hebrew. Speaking English is apparently what kills you."
Israelis and non EU members (includes the US) will need travel permits to visit European states from May 2023
New travel authorization system, which will be largely automated, aims to counter security risks
Israelis will need to obtain travel authorization in order to visit European nations starting May 2023, due to the implementation of a new system that aims to limit risks posed by travelers from visa-exempt states.
Under the initiative, which is known as the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS), visitors must submit applications online for approval and pay a fee of around seven dollars to travel.
The largely automated system aims to counter security risks, identify irregular migration, and uncover high epidemic threats among visitors from visa-free countries, according to the European Commission.
The European Commission hopes that the rollout of ETIAS will cut down on bureaucracy, speed up border checks, help officials evaluate threats, and reduce the number of people refused entry at border crossing points.
While most travelers will be granted the permit minutes after submitting their applications, travel authorization could be delayed by up to 30 days in some instances where additional security checks are required.
With the implementation of ETIAS, international visitors from 63 countries - including Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and a number of other nations - will be required to obtain the mandatory authorization before traveling to the region.
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.
Flag Day is back on Yom Yershalim regardless of all the Arab threats and bluster
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
It has been over 30 days since the death of Esther Pollard, the beloved wife of Jonathan Pollard. I attended the shloshim at Yeshurun Synagogue in Jerusalem just a few weeks ago, and as leaders of the Jewish people in Israel praised the strengths of this remarkable woman, I was reminded of the past. Finally, after 31 years of hell, and then being saddled with inhumane parole restrictions, Jonathan Pollard was freed and came to Israel – only to face another tragedy in his life, the passing of his beloved wife Esther.
I am sadly reminded of the history of this story and the fight and tragedy of the life of Jonathan Pollard. It is a sad commentary on what happens to people who are motivated to do the right thing and then are punished so severely by people in power. The old adage of "power corrupts" is so evident in this case.
However, this treatment is not new for our people.
At the end of the 19th century there was a famous espionage case involving Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was an officer in the French army and was accused of treason. The entire incident was a "frame-up," but at the time of the charge he was found guilty and stripped of his rank and sent to jail. At a later date he was exonerated and the real culprits were found and punished. This case was a major example of the blatant antisemitism that was prevalent in France, and according to many historians was the seminal reason Theodore Herzl began his campaign to seek a homeland and refuge for the Jewish people – to ensure that this kind of antisemitism would not continue.
In the early 1900s, Mendel Beilis, a Jew, was placed under arrest for allegedly killing a Christian child and using his blood to bake matzot. It was the old "blood libel" accusation that began in the 12th century and over the years raised its ugly head to accuse Jews of this heinous crime. This claim is also written in the blasphemous book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and has repeatedly been used as proof by avid Jew-haters of the inhumanity of the Jews despite its absurdity and obvious falsity.
After a long and arduous trial and untold suffering endured by Beilis, the case was thrown out and Beilis was acquitted. He nearly died during his two years of incarceration as he waited for trial. The entire incident demonstrated the apparent antisemitism in Czarist Russia and the tremendous challenges that the Jews had to endure during those trying times.
One would think that in the United States, where one's freedom is protected by law, there is no need to worry about antisemitism. Certainly, Jews should feel comfortable that they could not be accused of a crime without having a fair trial, and that no Jew would be given an excessive punishment in comparison to a non-Jew who has committed a similar crime.
When Jonathan Pollard was accused of giving over classified information to a friendly country – Israel – most of the Jewish community were embarrassed. Many leaders disassociated themselves from him and the case, and hoped that he would get "what he deserved."
The case never came to trial. There was a plea bargain with Jonathan which included a promise that he would receive certain leniencies, among them that his wife at the time would be excluded from any punishment. The government at the last moment reneged on its promise, sending both Jonathan and his former wife, Anne, to prison. Jonathan was given the maximum life sentence with no chance of parole. Anne was thrown in jail and suffered greatly because of her medical condition, but was eventually freed after serving five years.
A great deal transpired during that time. Attempts were made to appeal the case and bring it to trial, to petition the president to commute his sentence, to organize a prisoner swap, to send in petitions with thousands of signatures – all to no avail. This, despite the fact that other people who had spied for unfriendly countries were all given much shorter prison terms of prison. Just one example of many: John Walker, who was found guilty of spying for the Soviet Union, an enemy country, was also given a life sentence, but after 18 years he was paroled.
Jonathan was never completely freed until Donald Trump became president. Despite all the influence that our Jewish leaders thought they had and despite the reversal of their opinion from what they believed in the early years of this sad episode – this time supporting Jonathan – they were unable to free him from his unfair imprisonment. It didn't matter that he had admitted his guilt and showed remorse – no one succeeded in giving this man the opportunity to see the light of day.
As I look back, I have great objections to the way the United States government treated this case. I am not excusing Pollard's crime or behavior, but his punishment was excessive and bordered on outright antisemitism. Why was Jonathan not given a "fair shake?" Why didn't he receive parole? What was the government hiding that it refused to allow this man who had suffered so much his freedom?
Equally important to me as a Jew is the question of the status of the Jew in the United States today. I am fearful that the influence and effect of Jews in this country is waning – that the same antisemitism that cropped up in the time of Beilis and Dreyfus is underlying here as well, and that for American Jews, their days are numbered.
Maybe we should all consider aliyah seriously, before it's too late!
Florida Gov. DeSantis Awards Prosecutor of Nuremberg Trials with Medal of Freedom
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis awards Benjamin Ferencz, the last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, with the Governor's Medal of Freedom on April 7, 2022.
A 103-year-old man was awarded the Governor's Medal of Freedom on Thursday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in recognition of his bravery and determination to see Nazis brought to justice.
The award was presented to Ben Ferencz, the last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, in recognition of his "valiant service during World War II to defeat Nazi Germany and then hold accountable the perpetrators of the Holocaust."
Advertisement
"Ben Ferencz held the Nazis accountable for the atrocities they committed in perpetrating the Holocaust, and it is because of his work as the chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials that we have the fortitude today to say never again will we let a tragedy like the Holocaust occur," said DeSantis. "As the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor, Ben Ferencz is a living legend, and we are proud that he is a Florida resident."
DeSantis said that in addition to presenting the award, he hoped that it would help "further the legacy of people like Ben. I want kids in our schools to be learning about him 10, 15, 20 years in the future … to make sure that people understand the evils of the Holocaust and the heroism that we see on this stage."
Speaking during the ceremony, Ferencz said that he had hoped by participating in the trials that there would be "a more humane and peaceful world, where no one would be killed or persecuted because of his race or religion or his political beliefs, and I made those statements in my closing arguments where we had 22 defendants convicted after two days of trial. … I tried to build on that to prevent it from happening again."
And yet, he stated, "we see it still happening today you see the pictures of people running with their infant children with hospitals being bombed and we have not yet learned the lesson from Nuremberg, despite the fact that we laid it out clear and unmistakable."
Ferencz implored the audience to talk to young people about the dangers of war and said that society must stop "glorifying war-making."
"We've got to have a change of heart and change in mind," he said. "I work all the time … because I am trying to change the way people think about war. If people don't think about it, their hearts won't change … you have to ask yourself is this how human beings behave?"
Ferencz corrected the governor about his age, saying he was 103, not 102, and also said that he has three words for people to keep in mind: "Law, not war" and "Never give up."
Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz moved to the United States with his parents before his first birthday. He was raised in New York's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army and received five battle stars during World War II for bravery on the battlefield.
In his own book, Planethood, Ferencz recounted seeing the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, writing, "Indelibly seared into my memory are the scenes I witnessed while liberating these centers of death and destruction. Camps like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau are vividly imprinted in my mind's eye. Even today, when I close my eyes, I witness a deadly vision I can never forget-the crematoria aglow with the fire of burning flesh, the mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. … I had peered into hell."
Last November, a bipartisan group of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Ferencz.
During the medal ceremony, which was held at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, DeSantis also honored two other Holocaust survivors, Samuel Ron, 97, and Norman Frajman, 92.
Felix Mendelssohn's Ambiguous Religious Identity: Jew, Christian, Or Both?
A page from Moses Mendelssohn's original handwritten manuscript of his translation of Jeremiah. (Note that G-d's name has been redacted from the document to prevent the creation of shemos.)
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1897) was a musical prodigy who went on to become one of the most gifted and influential musicians of the 19th century. A virtuoso pianist and organist and composer of Romantic music of great beauty, he is credited with restoring the oratorio and with changing the way music was composed, played and heard. The prolific composer created an amazing body of work, particularly given his untimely death at age 38, including four oratorios, symphonies, sacred music, piano compositions, and the beloved violin concerto, a perfect example of the fusion of the classical and romantic forms. His greatest work, however, is arguably Elijah (1846), which many music authorities consider to be the supreme oratorio of all time.
Mendelssohn also played a key role in advancing the fledgling art of conducting (among other things, he was among the first to use a baton) and he enjoyed great success as a conductor at music festivals throughout Europe. He was also polymath fluent in French, English, Italian and ancient Greek; a skilled and talented visual artist; a prolific writer; and an accomplished gymnast, swimmer, and equestrian.
Born into a family of means and privilege, Mendelssohn's own life might aptly serve as a metaphor for the conflicting social attitudes of his era. Understanding his life and work necessitates addressing the fundamental issues of his assimilation, conversion and dual religious identity, beginning with his grandfather, the renowned Moses Mendelssohn, and his father, Abraham.
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1826), the preeminent Jewish philosopher of the German Enlightenment, was a rabbinic scholar referred to as "the German Socrates." He became best known for his personification of the conflict of the modern Diaspora Jew seeking integration into broader secular society while maintaining a strong commitment to preserving his Jewish identity. The leading fighter for Jewish civil rights in Germany, he used his respect and renown to assist individual Jews and entire communities in disputes with the German authorities and he facilitated the revocation of many antisemitic laws. Though he was a great defender of traditional Judaism in the face of Christian challengers, he undermined it by applying the intense rationalism test of the Haskalah (the Jewish "Enlightenment").
Throughout his life, Felix exhibited great respect and affection for his grandfather, who died 23 years before he was born. Some of his earliest works were based upon Moses' biblical translations; he supported his uncle's efforts to publish a complete edition of Moses' work (albeit behind the scenes); he requested that a plaque be placed at his grandfather's Dessau home; and he was proud to be introduced as the "grandson of Moses Mendelssohn." Some commentators maintain that the themes of the two biblically-inspired oratorios that he composed in the year before his death – Elijah, in which he exhibits strong pride in his Jewish heritage and demonstrates his affection for the Jewish Bible and Jewish tradition, and Christus, in which he manifests his embrace of the New Testament and his affection for his family's Protestant faith – reflect his attempt, conscious or otherwise, to follow in Moses' steps in endeavoring to reconcile the spiritual and religious aspects of his dual identity.
Early Haskalah reformers found in Moses' radical ideas justification for secularism, emancipation and assimilation at the expense of their Judaism, which led to assimilation and to the loss of Jewish identity on a massive scale as Jews concluded that they could retain their Jewish ethnicity while accepting Christianity and adopting German culture. Among the assimilated and converted were four of Moses' six surviving children, two of whom converted to Catholicism and two – including Abraham, Felix's father – joined the Reformed Lutheran church.
After Abraham (1776-1835), a successful banker who founded the Mendelssohn Bank with his uncle, married Lea Salomon, the daughter of a wealthy and prominent German family, in a synagogue ceremony, the couple worked diligently to maintain a strictly secular household and to completely separate the Mendelssohn family from the Jewish community. Felix was not circumcised, there is no record of his ever being given a Hebrew name, and his birth was not listed in the Jewish register of Hamburg births.
Abraham was opposed to all faiths that postulated the existence of the supernatural and, as such, he likely chose Lutheranism because, as the least inflexible of all Christian denominations, it did not constitute a great leap from Reform Judaism, which is little more than Christianity without Jesus. He baptized Felix in the Lutheran Church on March 21, 1816 – ironically, Bach's birthday (Felix played a leading role in the revival of Bach's church music) – when the child was only seven years old but, notably, he did not do so until after his mother (Moses Mendelssohn's wife) died. Abraham and Lea did not themselves convert until six years later, when – manifesting some modicum of shame – they secretly ran off to Frankfurt to be baptized rather than undergoing the rite in Berlin, where they and their Jewish relatives lived. Abraham never advised his mother about his conversion and, when she found out about it, she disinherited him.
Rare postal cover, dated 1846, with return address signed "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy."
At the suggestion of Lea's brother, himself a Protestant convert, Abraham added the name "Bartholdy" to the centuries-old family name. He would later put tremendous pressure on Felix to cease entirely using the Mendelssohn name; as he explained to Felix in a letter, "There can no more be a Christian Mendelssohn than a Jewish Confucius; if your name is Mendelssohn, you are ipso facto a Jew, and that is of no benefit to you, because it is not even true." Nonetheless, Felix insisted on maintaining the Mendelssohn name and, walking the middle line between respect for his grandfather and obedience to his father, he signed his name as "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy." (Felix's siblings loathed the name "Bartholdy," his sister Rebekka even going so far as to write her name as "Rebekka Mendelssohn medem ("never" in Greek) Bartholdy."
Not only did Felix never receive any semblance of a Jewish education, he was raised in a family environment where his father disparaged Judaism as an "antiquated, distorted and self-defeating religion and an obstacle to their integration into the wider community" and where he was prohibited any contact with the Jewish community. More significantly, he was raised as a Christian. As Abraham later explained, "I had to choose for you. Given the scant value I place on all religious forms, it goes without saying that I felt no inner calling to choose for you the Jewish, the most obsolete, corrupt and pointless of them all. So I raised you in the Christian, the purer form accepted by the majority of civilized people." On the occasion of the baptism of Felix's sister, Abraham wrote to her that "we have educated you and your brothers and sister in the Christian faith because it is the creed of most civilized people." With that background, there can be little surprise that Felix intermarried with the daughter of a Reform Church clergyman.
The Mendelssohns lived in a very difficult time for Jews, and Abraham made the same "compromise" as many Jewish families did at the time: to convert to Christianity to gain citizenship and public acceptance. The situation was perhaps best described by the great poet, Heinrich Heine, also a Jewish convert, who characterized baptism as the "ticket of admission" into European culture.
However, as has always been true throughout Jewish history and as will undoubtedly be the case in the future until the Messianic era, Jews cannot escape their Jewishness and even baptism cannot remove the "taint" of Judaism; as the Nazis illustrated for all time, a Jew remains a Jew in the eyes of antisemites. As such, Felix's conversion protected neither him nor other "New Jewish Christians" from antisemitism, including that of his "friends" and teachers.
For example, after his baptism, Felix witnessed the 1819 "Hep-Hep" pogroms, in which Germans opposed to Jewish emancipation in the German Confederation murdered Jews and destroyed Jewish property while police stood idly by. A royal prince spat at his feet and exclaimed, "Hep, hep (the pogroms' rallying cry), Jew boy" and he was subjected to antisemitic taunts. Carl Zelter, Felix's early composition teacher, intimated that it would be rare indeed "were the son of a Jew to become a great artist," and his organ teacher, August Bach, responded to Felix's request to play a Bach fugue by testily admonishing "Why does the young Jew need to have everything? He already has enough!"
Old Mendelssohn cigarette card.
Nor did Mendelssohn's conversion benefit his legacy. Although he was idolized by his contemporaries during his lifetime, Richard Wagner effectively destroyed his public stature when, only a year after his death, he published Das Judenthum in Der Music ("Judaism in Music"), a racist and vitriolic essay directed primarily at Mendelssohn, whose work he maintained was derivative and lightweight because he was a Jew. He held Mendelssohn up as an archetype for how even a Jew with great talent and polish was incapable of creating great music, and he played a leading role in persuading the public that Mendelssohn was little more than a hack.
Mendelssohn's reputation was even further eroded by the Nazis, who banned his music and tore down all statues bearing his likeness. In one comical incident, Hitler ordered the removal of the Mendelssohn statue from the roof of the Prague opera house, but the workers mistakenly took down the statue of Richard Wagner, whom they believed to be Jewish because of the size of his nose. It was only after the Holocaust that music scholars began to recognize Mendelssohn's genius and to revive his oeuvre and popularity.
The question of the extent to which Mendelssohn identified with Judaism is still passionately debated, as authorities continue to argue about his self-identification as a Jew, as a Christian convert, or both. Most agree that he believed that Christianity "modernized" Judaism but did not replace it and that his conversion was one of convenience and adaptation rather than religious conviction, but there can be little doubt that he was a committed Christian with strong beliefs in his faith. Nonetheless, he was comfortable acknowledging his Jewish roots; he retained a real sense of his Jewish identity; and his works evidence a high regard for Jewish scripture. He barely mentioned Christianity in his 5,000 letters; in none of them does the name "Jesus" appear; and many of his letters to his family included Yiddish expressions.
Mendelssohn also manifested interest in some Jewish matters, including particularly the issue of Jewish civil rights, which he most likely absorbed from grandfather Moses. For example, after an 1833 visit to England where he observed a House of Commons debate about the adoption of a measure that would reduce remaining restrictions on British Jews (the proposed law was ultimately rejected by the House of Lords), he reported to his family that "a lot of Jew haters had spewed forth all kinds of drivel" but that, nevertheless, Jews were generally better off in England. In a correspondence to his sister, Fanny – herself a musical protégé who composed some 400 works – he condemned those who fought against Jewish civil rights as rohsche ("rasha" in Hebrew, or "evil person").
The commentators still argue about whether Mendelssohn's music may be properly described as "Jewish." He used the traditional melody for Yigdal arranged by Leon Singer, the cantor at the Great Synagogue in London, in one of his string symphonies, and some contend that many of his other works, including the allegro of the Violin Concerto, are distinctly Jewish. Other authorities propose that his Variations Serieuses were suggestive of a blessing sung by Jews during Passover and that the main motif of the chorus of Section 34 of Elijah ("Behold! [G-d] the [L-rd] has passed by!") uses a melody sung during Yom Kippur services when the Thirteen Attributes of G-d's Divine Mercy are recited and repeated. There is no evidence that he ever entered a synagogue, but some commentators hypothesize that he must have done so, given his apparent familiarity with some of the cantorial prayers.
Original artwork for 1959 Israel Musical Stamp Exhibition cover depicting Mendelssohn with a verse in Hebrew from the composer's Elijah oratorio (Psalms 121:4): "Behold, the Guardian of Israel neither dozes nor sleeps . . ."
Others see Mendelssohn's Psalm 114 ("When the Jews came out of Egypt . . .") as a re-affirmation of his Jewish roots and celebration of the triumph of his forefathers. Still others see in his choral music an attempt to bridge Judaism and Christianity as, particularly after his father's death, he commenced revision of the text of some Christian prayers to deemphasize their antisemitic passages; this is particularly so in the oratorio Elijah, which some see as Mendelssohn's "return to his Jewish roots."
The most clearly "Jewish" of Mendelssohn's works, however, is almost certainly his Die Erste Walpurgisnacht ("The First Walpurgis Night," published in 1843), a German celebration somewhat analogous to Halloween. It was based upon the famous poem of the same name by Goethe, who deeply admired Mendelssohn, had met him several times, and deeply admired his work and compared him to Mozart. Mendelssohn's theme in the piece is the triumph of a subjugated and oppressed people in their occupied land, an unmistakable metaphor for the Jewish condition through Jewish history. He also presents Christianity in a negative light, further underscoring the confusing duality of his religious identity.
Mendelssohn was asked in 1843 by the Jewish Neues Temple, a Reform temple in Hamburg, to set some Psalms to music to mark its 25th anniversary. Temple leaders, who apparently had at least some basis to believe that the composer might accept the project, advised him that it would be most appropriate for him to write music for various Psalms using his grandfather's German translations. Mendelssohn agreed to write a piece for Psalm 100 and he borrowed a copy of Isaac Nathan's Hebrew Melodies, which certainly suggests that he might be considering writing some music specifically on Jewish themes but, for reasons unknown, it never came to be. (Nathan wrote Hebrew Melodies, which used melodies from the synagogue service, for which Lord Byron enthusiastically wrote the lyrics.)
Mendelssohn stamp issued by Israel's postal authority (1996), which features a few bars from the composer's Elijah.
Even today, the public perception of Mendelssohn's faith as Jewish or Christian remains unclear, even to the likes of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, one of the greatest contemporary antisemites and the man who infamously called Judaism "a gutter religion"; Farrakhan played Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto at a music festival, unaware that the composer was Jewish.
At the end of his life, Mendelssohn was planning to compose an oratorio, Moses, which he unfortunately was unable to complete. His Christian funeral, attended by many admirers, featured a 600-strong chorus singing "Christ and the Resurrection." He was buried in the cemetery of Holy Cross Church in Berlin, and a huge cross marks his grave.
