A Fable for Yom HaShoah

There are many stories we tell to ensure that the Holocaust will never be forgotten. Some are dark, like Elie Wiesel's Night, and some are stories of hope, like Lois Lowry's Number the Stars. This spring, we are proud to offer a book that shows the power of bravery and the importance of never forgetting.

An old man, known as the Wren, plays his hurdy-gurdy, and with the help of his student, the Sparrow, brings hope and inspiration to the people of a small Polish town during the Holocaust. This beautifully illustrated fable by US Children's Poet Laureate (2011-2013) J. Patrick Lewis weaves a lyrical and elegant tale of a mysterious musician and the trusted young friend who rescues the hurdy-gurdy and hides it from its intended fate at the hands of the Nazis. The richly colored illustrations are by award-winning Russian painter and stage designer Yevgenia Nayberg.

This story is a work of imagination inspired by the street performers of the Lodz Ghetto. In the city of Lodz, as in Jewish communities throughout Europe, the Jews were rounded up and packed into a fenced section of Lodz, which became known as the Lodz Ghetto.

In 1940, the Lodz Ghetto, one of the largest ghettos in Europe, held 230,000 people. Six years later, in 1945, when the Soviet Army liberated the city, fewer than 1000 of Lodz’s Jewish community had survived the Nazi horrors.

Music was part of the life of the ghettos, helping to sustain the spirits of the Jewish community in those dark days. Street performers, including children, sang or played music in exchange for a coin, a bit of food, or often nothing at all. Like the Wren, these performers resisted the Nazis with their songs, offering a glimmer of a better world.

As in this story, some of the musical instruments played in the ghettos and concentration camps survived the Holocaust; most of their owners did not. But their music inspired both adults and children to believe that, even in the bleak world of the Shoah, beauty and hope for humanity still lived.

The Story Behind the Patchwork Torah

Our October book of the month is The Patchwork Torah, by Allison Ofanansky. There are so many things we love about this book! It has warm, beautiful illustrations that accompany a touching and unique intergenerational story. Books for Simchat Torah aren't that easy to come by, but this is a great one, as it features two celebrations of the holiday. A message about recycling means that this book is a good fit for the spring and Earth Day as well. Below, watch the book trailer and read a guest post from author Allison Ofanansky about her inspiration for this very special story!

"The story of the Patchwork Torah was inspired by a real Torah put together from rescued and repaired remnants of old and damaged scrolls. Like the scroll that David puts together in the story, this Torah contains sections that were written by a number of soferim (scribes) that lived in different times and places. We don’t know the stories behind the sections in this Torah. The stories of the scrolls that David collects in the book are made up, though some are based on real historic events (the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina).

A real patchwork Torah was purchased by my community in Tzfat, Israel in 2009. There are many Torah scrolls in synagogues in the city of Tzfat, but these are strictly Orthodox and women can’t come up for an aliyah or read from the Torah or dance with it on holidays. So a group of friends decided to buy a Torah to which women could have access.

We held an auction to raise money. People donated things to be auctioned off. (I donated some of the books in the Nature in Israel series.) Then we bid to buy each others’ donations (I bought a funny wax sculpture). We raised a fair amount of money at the auction, but not enough for a new Torah scroll, which costs between $15,000 and $30,000. Then we heard about a ‘recycled’ Torah which had been put together with parts of several damaged scrolls to make a whole, kosher Torah. We had enough money to buy it!

Once we got this Torah, we realized how special and beautiful it is. Throughout the year, as we read through the scroll, we can see the distinctive calligraphy of seven soferim who wrote various parts (three large sections and four small ones). Some wrote simple letters, others added fancy decorations. Even though there are strict laws for writing a kosher Torah, and each letter must be perfect, there is still room for soferim to express their individual styles. This Torah suits our community, because we also come from many different places, with our own individual styles, and together make something new.

We have enjoyed celebrating with this Torah over the past few years. My daughter Aravah (whose pictures you may have seen in my Nature in Israel books) read from it at her bat mitzvah. All four of her grandparents came up for an aliyah. On Simchat Torah, women and girls dance with the scroll. I’ve seen women who never had a chance before to touch a Torah scroll cradling it like a baby, with tears in their eyes.

I’d like to imagine that David’s granddaughter, who gives him the idea to make the recycled Torah, will read from their patchwork Torah at her bat mitzvah—maybe even become a sofer herself! (On women scribes-- soferot -- see http://www.womenstorah.com/)"

Aravah reading from the real ‘patchwork Torah’ at her bat mitzvah, with both her grandmothers beside her.

Aravah holding the Torah at her bat mitzvah.

Photographs by Eliyhu Alpern, 2012

 

 

 

Jewish Ties to Black History Month

February is Black History Month and we would like to highlight two unique stories that have ties to African Americans and Jewish Americans.

Carolivia Herron (author of the acclaimed Nappy Hair) based her book Always an Olivia on her unique ancestry. In the story, an elderly black grandmother passes on the story of her family's Jewish origins to her young granddaughter, Carol Olivia. As family members flee the Spanish Inquisition, are kidnapped by pirates, and eventually sail to America, one daughter in each generation is given the name Olivia, from the Hebrew Shulamit, meaning "peace," to honor the Jewish part of their ancestry.


Always an Olivia reminds us that Jewish people have a variety of backgrounds. It's a great introduction to tracing your family's lineage, or doing a classroom project on family trees and ancestry. Many times, what makes us different can actually bring us closer together.

Dr. Herron is an acclaimed storyteller, professor, and tikkun olam activist based in Washington, D.C. To learn more about Dr. Herron, including her creative process and her thoughts on being an African American Jew, here is a fascinating interview from emPOWER Magazine.

In their new book Hot Pursuit, authors Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon re-imagine the fateful car ride of three Civil Rights workers in 1964 Mississippi. Mickey Schwermer and Andrew Goodman were young Jewish men who came from New York to Mississippi during the Freedom Summer, when many organizations worked to register black voters and establish better schools during a time of segregation and inequality. There they met James Cheney, another worker. While riding together on June 21, 1964, the three men were stopped for a false traffic violation and taken to jail. They were released later that night, only to go missing before they could make it back home. Their bodies were found weeks later; they had been brutally beaten and shot.

Hot Pursuit tells an important story and reminds us of the value of tikkun olam. James, Mickey, and Andrew devoted their lives to fighting segregation and improving the lives of others. We remember them during Black History Month as we look back at how far we've come, and think about what we can do in our own communities to educate others about tolerance.