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Hebron spokesman lays it on the line in S.F. talk
by lyn Davidson
There is no such thing as a “Palestinian people.” Conventional wisdom about the demographics of the Arab and Israeli birthrates in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza are wrong. And a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the best choice. David Wilder knew he’d be fighting an uphill battle in getting those statements accepted in San Francisco, but on May 18, that’s what he was saying in a talk at Congregation Adath Israel in the city’s Sunset District.
Wilder, since 1994 the official spokesman for the Jewish settler community of Hebron, located in the Judean Hills in the West Bank, addressed a sympathetic crowd of about 40 people. He was in the United States on a speaking tour sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America.
Wilder described the lengthy Jewish presence in Hebron, documented by archaeological evidence and filled with a rich collection of heroic figures of past, present and legend. The Torah describes Abraham’s purchase of the cave at Machpelah (the Cave of the Patriarchs) as the final resting place for himself and his wife, Sarah. King David was anointed in Hebron and ruled from there for years. In Hebron, said Wilder, are “the roots of Judaism and monotheism.”
He went on to tell of a group of Jewish exiles from Spain who re-established a small community in Hebron in the early 1500s, and described a “miracle” in 1619 when a mysterious figure, said to have been Abraham himself, appeared to complete a minyan. He spoke of the 1929 Hebron massacre, when Arab rioters killed 67 Jews and wounded 70 more. And he described a “another miracle” in 1967, when Israeli forces liberated Jerusalem from Arab control and the Israel Defense Forces’ chief military rabbi, Shlomo Goren, became the first Jew in generations to enter the Cave of Machpelah.
The Jewish community in Hebron today remains small and beleaguered, Wilder said, some 850 Jews living in the middle of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Wilder said the community warned the Netanyahu government in 1997, upon the signing of the Hebron agreement, which ceded control of most of the city to the Palestinians, that “they would be shooting at us from the hills.”
Newspaper coverage over the last few months has detailed a Jewish man killed by gunfire in his car on the way to a seder in Hebron, in an assault that wounded his pregnant wife and young son. In another incident, dozens of rioting Palestinians attacked an IDF outpost. Growth in the Jewish community is almost impossible, Wilder said, because the Israeli government restricts building permits and Arab leaders have made selling to Jews “a capital crime.” Muslim authorities control Jewish access to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and other holy sites. Youth from both sides throw rocks at one another.
“Our children are very honest,” Wilder said. “If someone throws a rock, they return it in the way it was given to them.”
Yet Wilder said he maintains cordial relations in a kind of rapprochement with the local sheikh, Farid al-Jabari. He said he respects Jabari for stopping incidents of Arab defacement of Jewish property and for his honesty in publicly denouncing a two-state solution as impracticable.
“The two-state solution is dead,” Wilder stated in his talk.
Wilder advocates a single Jewish state, with Arabs in the West Bank given the chance to apply for permanent resident status and possible full citizenship. He bases the argument partly on demographics. In an interview after his talk, Wilder said recent research debunks the high figures for Palestinian birthrates originally published by Palestinian statisticians in the 1990s and accepted by the international community. He cited Israeli columnist Caroline Glick’s writings on comparative Jewish-Arab demographics and the one-state solution, noting that they are gaining traction in the Jewish press.
“There are 6 million Jews and 2 million Arabs [in Israel today],” Wilder said. And perhaps another 1.5 million Arabs in “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank).
He said that, with high settler birthrates and influxes of new Jewish immigrants from the diaspora, the demographic time- bomb analogy used by advocates to demonstrate the urgency of a two-state solution has no basis in fact. A lowered Arab birthrate means “they’ll never catch up.”
Wilder is equally dismissive of the notion of a “Palestinian people,” which he said originated with Arab nationalists in the 1920s and ’30s based on the Roman name “Palestina” that was co-opted by British authorities. “My [Jewish] mother-in-law,” Wilder said, born in 1924 and with documents issued by British Mandate of Palestine, “could be considered a Palestinian.”
Almost every Jew in Hebron knows someone injured or killed by terrorism, Wilder said, which makes cordiality with Arabs neighbors almost nonexistent. The Jewish settlers “know what the situation is now, that there’s no rational, logical way things are going to change in the near future … There’s no love lost.
“Most would prefer to have more positive interactions with the Arabs in Hebron,” he said. “It’s a two-way street: You cannot have positive interactions with people not interested in having positive interactions with you.”
David Wilder writes “The Wilder Way” for the Jerusalem Post. He oversees the Hebron Jewish community’s YouTube channel and his writings are at http://www.davidwilderbooks.blogspot.com.
Article originally printed on JWeekly.com
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Celebrating Hebron Liberation Day
David Wilder
May 29, 2014
Forty eight years ago it couldn't have happened.
Dozens of Israeli men and women, in uniform, standing in formation, in the plaza outside Ma'arat HaMachpela.
Yesterday we celebrated Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the holiest city in the world, Jerusalem. Foreign occupation, beginning some 2,000 years ago finally ended. True, this sacred city was not (and still is not) 'complete' – but, Jews, as those who for hundreds of year gave their lives reciting the words "Next year in Jerusalem" could finally actualize this dream.
Today we celebrate Yom Hebron, Hebron Liberation Day. The following day, after liberation of Jerusalem, the Jewish people came home to Hebron.
This phrase, 'coming home,' cannot be taken for granted. I speak with hundreds of people from around the world who cannot grasp how or why Hebron is 'home' to the Jewish people, and who cannot fathom why people like myself would come to live here.
The story of our return is well known. Following the liberation of the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the then Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Rabbi Shlomo Goren zt"l, traveled from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion, about half-way between Hebron and Jerusalem. There he met up with the Israeli forces who had, that same day, freed that area too. Knowing that the next morning they would be leaving for Hebron, he made a short speech about the importance of Hebron, and lay down to rest for a few hours.
When he awoke, the site was empty of people. Rabbi Goren woke up his driver, saying, 'They left without us – get in the jeep, we'll catch up with them.'
So it was that a Rabbi and his driver, alone, drove from Gush Etzion south, towards Hebron. Driving into Hebron, Rabbi Goren quickly realized the Arab enemy had surrendered, viewing white sheets hanging from windows and rooftops. The city's Arab residents remembered all too well the 1929 massacre, when 67 Jews were slaughtered by their next-door neighbors in August of that year. Fearing retribution, the Arab men fled the city, with the women and children waiting for the liberating forces.
Rabbi Goren quickly made his way to Ma'arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, which had been totally off-limits to Jews for 700 years. This, the first Jewish possession in the first Jewish city in Israel, second in sanctity only to Temple Mount in Jerusalem, was finally back in Jewish hands.
Rabbi Goren ran up the western staircase, only to find the doors closed and locked. Unable to open them, he shot at the doors with his Uzi submachine gun. However, the doors remained locked. He backed his jeep up the stairs, attached chains to the jeep and the doors, and proceeded to pull then down. At last inside, he began to pray, thanking G-d for the miracles happening.
The Mufti of Hebron sent a messenger, wanting to surrender. Rabbi Goren sent him away, saying 'This place, Ma'arat HaMachpela, is a place of prayer and peace. Surrender elsewhere.' Which is what happened.
Rabbi Goren later explained: I have the rank of General. Why should I give them the honor to surrender to a General? Let them surrender to a lower ranking officer.' Which too happened.
However, when the Rabbi left in his jeep from Gush Etzion, his goal was to catch up to the army. Where were they?
What he didn't realize was that the IDF was unaware that Hebron's Arabs were about to surrender. They had made their way to the western side of Gush Etzion, to prepare the attack. They had also sent a contingent to enter the city from another direction.
In other words, Rabbi Goren liberated Hebron for the Jewish people, singlehandedly.
That's how we came back to Hebron.
Last night, we again reaffirmed our allegiance to this so holy a place.
For the past two years, Colonel Avi Bluth commanded the Judea Division, sometimes called the Hebron Division. Avi grew up in Israel. His parents made Aliyah, that is, came to live in Israel from the United States. Last night, at a unique and special ceremony, Avi transferred command to another young colonel, Yariv Ben Ezra. The ceremony took place in the plaza outside the huge structure, atop the caves of Machpela.
It is very difficult for me to express the emotions I sensed during the half-hour ceremony. I might call it pride, but actually it's much more than that.
First, about the commander. Avi Bluth is a military man. But he is also a religious Jew.
For many years, it was almost impossible for an orthodox Jew to reach such the rank and position of Colonel. And today, when it is possible, I'm asked about the 'religious people' 'taking over' the army.
When religious Jews didn't undertake military service, as did others, they were accused of 'not serving the country.' Now, when religious Jews do undertake to serve, and reach high-ranking positions, they are accused of 'taking over.' As one person described it to me, 'you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don’t.'
In any case, my personal feelings, seeing a man like Avi, serving with such distinction, in a place like Hebron, are overwhelming. At a short farewell meeting in our offices, I told him that not too many people have had the privilege and honor to serve where Abraham, the Jewish people's first General, and David, who became King of Israel in Hebron, lived and served.
The fact that Avi is religious didn't affect his decision-making. There were times when we agreed with his decisions and actions, and times when we didn't. We had many meetings with him and conducted an open line of communications. As has been the case with previous commanders, and as will continue with the new commander. His assessments determined his decisions, as should be.
What I didn't say to Avi was how much he reminded me of a previous Hebron commander, Col. Dror Weinberg, hy'd, who was killed in Hebron during a major terror attack over ten years ago. Both men are very similar. Both young, very determined, very loyal, very hard working, and also, both religious.
But Avi mentioned him during his outgoing speech last night, saying that Dror was his first commander, and that he was to him an example to be followed.
Avi also spoke of the honor and privilege to serve and command in Hebron.
And all of this, at this so special a site, the Tombs of the first Jews, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rivka, and Ya'akov and Lea. Liberated, exactly 47 years ago today.
What an experience!
Lately I've found some words, which perhaps, express in the most lucid way possible, our connection to Hebron.
"The Jews are the most tenacious people in history. Hebron is there to prove it.
It ties 20 miles south of Jerusalem, 3,000 feet up in the Judaean hills. There, in the Cave of Machpelah, are the Tombs of the Patriarchs. According to ancient tradition, one sepulchre, itself of great antiquity, contains the mortal remains of Abraham, founder of the Jewish religion and ancestor of the Jewish race. Paired with his tomb is that of his wife Sarah. Within the building are the twin tombs of his son Isaac and his wife Rebecca. Across the inner courtyard is another pair of tombs, of Abraham's grandson Jacob and his wife Leah...This is where the 4,000-year history of the Jews, in so far as it can be anchored in time and place, began.
Hebron has great and venerable beauty. It provides the peace and stillness often to be found in ancient sanctuaries. But its stones are mute witnesses to constant strife and four millennia of religious and political disputes. It has been in turn a Hebrew shrine, a synagogue, a Byzantine basilica, a mosque, a crusader church, and then a mosque again. Herod the Great enclosed it with a majestic wall, which still stands, soaring nearly 40 feet high, composed of massive hewn stones, some of them 23 feet long. Saladin adorned the shrine with a pulpit. Hebron reflects the long, tragic history of the Jews and their unrivalled capacity to survive their misfortunes. David was anointed king there, first of Judah (II Samuel 2:1-4), then of all Israel (II Samuel 5:1-3). When Jerusalem fell, the Jews were expelled and it was settled by Edom. It was conquered by Greece, then by Rome, converted, plundered by the Zealots, burned by the Romans, occupied in turn by Arabs, Franks and Mamluks. From 1266 the Jews were forbidden to enter the Cave to pray. They were permitted only to ascend seven steps by the side of the eastern wall. On the fourth step they inserted their petitions to God in a hole bored 6 feet 6 inches through the stone.
...The Jewish community, never very numerous, was ferociously attacked by the Arabs in 1929...When Israeli soldiers entered Hebron during the Six Day War in 1967, for a generation not one Jew had lived there. But a modest settlement was re-established in 1970. Despite much fear and uncertainty, it has flourished.
So when the historian visits Hebron today, he asks himself: where are all those peoples which once held the place? Where are the Canaanites? Where are the Edomites? Where are the ancient Hellenes and the Romans, the Byzantines, the Franks, the Mamluks and the Ottomans? They have vanished into time, irrevocably. But the Jews are still in Hebron.
Hebron is thus an example of Jewish obstinacy over 4,000 years."
These words where not authored by myself, rather by a Gentile historian, Paul Johnson, in a book called: A History of the Jews.
This is Hebron, this is Eretz Yisrael, this is Am Yisrael, this is Torat Yisrael.
All wrapped up in one.
As exemplified by Col Avi Bluth, by Col Yariv Ben Ezra, and by so many others.
Happy Hebron liberation day.
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Purim in Heborn
(published on March 16, 2014 in The Wilder Way, Jpost)
“I yearned and longed for the city of the Forefathers, I will come thru her gates with song and gratitude, Her elders and privileged, her blessed young and busy achievers”
“To Life to life, called out the townspeople, who greeted the guests. The beadle led them to the synagogue of the Chief Rabbi, assigned rooms, distributed food and also packages for Purim. The next morning they spread out through the city, drank with the residents, received ‘presents to the poor’ and as the sun turned towards the west, headed back in the direction of Jerusalem, to continue the holiday with their families.
Such was Purim in Hebron, as described in Sefer Hebron (page 371).
And today?
It is customary that on Rosh Hodesh Adar, the first day of the new month of Adar, two weeks prior to the great day, schoolchildren of almost all ages begin dressing up. Little girls with crowns and makeup, and boys looking like clowns.
Such fun continues, as large signs on sheets announcing the impending coronation of the Rav Purim (Purim Rabbi) adorn homes and street corners. That exciting event usually takes place the Saturday night before Purim, in an extravagant ceremony, sometimes with the chosen person brought before the crowds in an ambulance, police car or on a donkey. Or whatever the amazing, imaginative children can think of.
When Purim evening finally arrives, multitudes fill Ma’arat HaMachpela, some in Shabbat clothing, and others costumed. Serious men wearing orange hair, others masked, with children running between the adults with cap guns and magic wands.
Megilat Esther is joyously read, with the evil Haman being noisily deleted at every mention of his name.
The next morning some arise early to fulfill the days’ first mitzvah, again hearing the Megillah, and then preparing to bring food parcels to some, and money to the poor, to others.
At about eleven o’clock, with tangible electricity in the air, all gather at the top of the hill, at the entrance to the Admot Yishai-Tel Rumeida neighborhood. Children receive helium balloons, waiting for the annual Purim parade, the ‘Adeloyada’ to begin. A large, open wagon, pulled by a tractor invariably driven by Yisrael Zeev, starts to move. Above are huge clown dolls and loudspeakers, playing festive Purim music for the masses who have come to celebrateTraveling down the hill, on to Beit Hadassah and then the Avraham neighborhood, sometimes stopping for a few minutes of dancing and singing. Many dance with soldiers, and children hand out Purim parcels to the men and women in uniform. Finally, after about two hours, reaching Ma’arat HaMachpela. There, those still sober, and even those not so much, participate in an outdoors Mincha afternoon prayer service, before heading home for the festive Purim feast. Singing and dancing continue in the neighborhoods thru nightfall.
However, that is not the end of Purim in Hebron. The first question most people ask about Purim in Hebron is the date. Do we celebrate Purim as most others, on the first day, or as in Jerusalem, on the second day. According to ancient tradition, Hebron is considered to be a ‘city of doubt’ as to whether it was a walled city during the days of Joshua, and therefore, Purim is celebrated twice, and the Megillah is read four times. The first day, with a blessing and the second day, without.
Actually, at present there is no doubt that Hebron was a walled city during the days of Joshua, but other factors remain which create a doubt as to the day when the holiday should be held. So, two days it is.
The major difference between the first and second day is that on the second day, rather than have another Purim parade, the children conduct a ‘Shuk Purim,’ that is an outdoor ‘Purim fair.’ The older children prepare numerous games for the younger children, who can win prizes during outdoor events, when they, for example, throw wet sponges at volunteers’ faces, or try to shave balloons covered with shaving cream, without bursting the balloon.
This festival is topped off with a huge raffle for toys and games, donated to the community by friends around the world.
And then home for the another holiday meal, with as much wine as can be imbibed, for the second day in a row.
Of course, following two days of food, wine and merriment, a third day is necessary to sleep off the holy hangover.
Thank you to all our generous donors who contributed to the Simcha of Purim in Hebron!
To see pictures of Purim in Hebron visit our online albums:
'Adeloyada' Parade- http://hebronfund.org/multimedia/pictures?id=10151946133271227
Shuk Purim Carnival- http://hebronfund.org/multimedia/pictures?id=10151946155211227
For videos visit our Facebook page, Hebron- The Cave of Machpela https://www.facebook.com/hebronofficial
I did not survive – I was murdered at Auschwitz.
My name is Yechiel Michoel Friedman. I was "murdered" at Auschwitz. I did notdie at Auschwitz. I was "murdered" at Auschwitz.
None of you know me. None of the people in this room have ever met me; not even my own grandson, Ben Brafman, who many of you know, has ever met me. I have authorized my grandson to speak for me, because although I was murdered, I was not silenced. You must be reminded of my life and of my murder – not my death – my murder. The murder of my family – of your family – of so many families...
This is my story – a true story. A sad, horrific story.
My story, like so many of your stories, has a wonderful beginning, a very terrible middle and a tragic, horrible end that Baruch Hashem was not really the end, because although I and part of my family were brutalized and murdered, a part of my family miraculously survived – and because some did survive, my grandson is here to speak for me, to tell you "my" story, his grandfather's story, my life story and my death story. The story of a life that was brutally taken from me, from my beautiful wife, Malka, my beautiful, sweet daughter, Sima, her young, handsome husband, Yaakov and their baby, my granddaughter, my "first" granddaughter, Chaya Sarah, my little Chaya Sarah, who at two years old was ripped screaming from her mother's arms and thrown into an oven at Auschwitz as if she did not matter.
I speak to tell you that my little Chayala did matter, we all mattered.
Chaya Sarah was the only grandchild I ever knew and I loved her as only a grandfather can love a grandchild and Nazi killers murdered her, my Chayala and 1.5 million other Jewish children. They took our nachas – our life and our joy and our hope. They took our babies and turned them into ashes.
Today, I speak to you as a neshama, as a soul from heaven, where I and millions of my brothers and sisters sit in a special place of honor reserved for us, for those you call Kedoshim – holy ones – whose lives were taken only because we were Jews, brutally taken less than 70 years ago, when a whole country became dominated by savages, while a civilized world stood by and through its silence, said that it was "okay to smash the head of a two year old child and then, while she was still alive, throw her screaming in terror into a burning oven, that it was okay to gas and cremate – to murder her parents and grandparents." A civilized, cultured nation did this and a civilized world watched it happening and did nothing to stop our slaughter.
The world heard our screams but did not care, the world smelled our burning flesh but turned away – the world heard my Chayala screaming for her mother and did nothing, because Chayala was a Jewish child and at that time – the systematic murder of Jewish children – undertaken in an efficient, organized manner by monsters in government-issued uniforms -was okay. Indeed, it was encouraged, applauded. The murderers were honored with medals, applauded as heroes for killing our children – for killing my grandchild.
Smoke and Gas
How did this happen to us? When did our world turn so bitter and dark?
I remember our life before Auschwitz, a good life, a quiet, pious life, centered around my family, my wife, Malka, our daughters, Sima, Ruchele, Hencha, Hinda, my sweet little boy, Meir, Sima's husband, Yaakov, and their baby, myzeis little Chayala.
We lived in a small town in Czechoslovakia, Kiviash, right near the Hungarian border. I was a learned man, a Hebrew teacher. Our family was a good family. We were poor, but respected. We were honest, kind, sweet people who lived among other respected, soft-spoken, wonderful families. We had no enemies.
I never even raised my voice in anger, never, until that day in Auschwitz, when they murdered my grandchild, then the world heard me, but did not listen, when they tried so hard to destroy my family. I screamed so loud, I cried so hard and long, but the murder continued. The smoke and gas roared and now I am still angry. Now, I raise my voice again, not to complain, but so that you will remember – so that you can wake up, because what happened to my family can happen again, it is happening again!
Today, less than 70 years later, monsters are again threatening and murdering Jewish families, murdering our beautiful children – just last month in Israel, in Itamar, the Fogel family was massacred and again, beautiful, little, innocent children were butchered because they were Jews.
Udi and Ruth Fogel murdered because they were Jews! Their children, Yoav, age 11, Elad, age 4 and Hadas, age 3 months – slaughtered!! Their throats slit while they slept in their own beds.
So I need to tell you about my own murder. I need to relive for you my horror, my terrible loss, so that you will understand and remember, so that you will feel theShoah – what the world refers to as the Holocaust. It needs to be real for those of you who were not there. It is more than a word – Shoah. You must know the terror, not only to make you sad and angry, but to make you vigilant.
If I upset you tonight, good! If my frankness and the terrifying description of brutal murder gives you nightmares tonight – good. I want you to be afraid andsad and angry and bitter and aware – but I also want you to be proud, because the end of my own story, although sad, was not the end.
Be comforted in the knowledge that "they did not win." The Nazi murderers killed me and millions of Jews like me, but they did not win. They did not murder my whole family, or your whole family. The murderers and their army of monsters did not murder the Jewish people, they did not end Klal Yisrael – they made us stronger.
Alive Today
Jews are alive today. Israel is strong today, my family, your families, are here today, and we must keep reminding the world about our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and the children, who were gassed and cremated.
My family is alive today to help you understand the quality of hate that can allow a country to burn and gas and bludgeon newborns, infants and toddlers; to machine gun them and throw them into mass graves or onto trucks and then while still alive, toss them into large ovens, or used while conscious and awake – for vicious, cruel medical experiments.
So many children, small Kinderlach screaming for their Mommy and Tattie, for Bobbie and Zayde – can you hear them? Their screaming is so loud – I can still hear my Chayala, 70 years later. Can you hear them? Can you hear your family members? The families you never got to meet or know. Can you hear their screams?
When you are in bed waiting to fall asleep, listen hard. If you try, you will hear them in your head and in your heart.
Listen and you will also hear 12-year-old Tamar Fogel who, returning to her home in Itamar, after an Oneg Shabbat Friday night, only a few weeks ago, found her parents murdered, her three month old baby sister, Hadas, with her throat slit. Can you hear Tamar screaming? All of us, all the way up here in Heaven heard her screams; you should be able to hear her just across the ocean, her screams for her family, for every Jew whose child – whose life has been viciously taken just because they were Jewish.
The difficulty in speaking about such horror and about so much grief is that it is so hard. It is almost impossible for the mind to process so much terrible information, it is almost impossible to make someone understand something so bad, it is hard to even imagine so much murder and torture and starvation, but you must.
I will help you. I am going to be graphic and brutal, because it is the only way to make you get it, for you to really understand what it means when we say Holocaust – or Shoah – or talk about 6 million kedoshim.
I am standing in the gas chamber naked with hundreds of innocent Jews. My wife, Malka, whose terrified eyes were already dead, is next door holding our daughter, Sima. Sima's husband, Yaakov, is with me. We have already watched our Chayala cremated. We are already dead – the gas will just kill us again.
We know we are not in a shower. We know we are in a gas chamber. We know we are going to die and we all know that we did nothing wrong and we also know that a civilized world did this to us, that a civilized world abandoned us.
We are afraid to die, of the brutal, choking, burning death that is upon us, but we are so much more afraid that nobody will ever know that we lived, that nobody will ever know that we were a good family; that we had beautiful, good children and that we had a beautiful grandchild. I was so afraid that nobody would ever know; that nobody in my family or in anyone else's family would survive; that the "final solution" was really going to be final. Let me tell you something....
You think you know about prayer – you think you know about faith because you are religious or because you pray every day?
Let me tell you about real prayer, about real belief – in my gas chamber, as gas filled our lungs, as flames burned off our skin, we screamed "Ani Maamin,” we believe in you Hashem.
With our dying breath we screamed, "Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokenu Hashem Echad" – my last words screamed through gas filled lungs, as I died, so afraid that my entire family had been, or soon would be, murdered.
What wrenching sadness, what anger rose in my heart and raged through my mind – I pleaded to Hashem, not to be spared, but for nekama, for revenge! How, when, who would ever make this right, or get even for us, who would be alive to say Kaddish for us – to light a candle on our Yahrzeit – no graves, no headstones – no one alive to mourn our death – to even know of our life.
Well, I am not here tonight in person. Yechiel Michoel Friedman was murdered at Auschwitz, but we were not all murdered that day, or the next day and some of my children, some of your children did survive and today, our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren and now even our great-great-grandchildren are alive. We live in the United States and all over the world as proud Jews, and we have the Land of Israel – do you hear that, Nazi murderers? We have Israel, a nation built by survivors. We have a Jewish army and a Jewish state. Our people are strong. We have powerful, eloquent voices demanding to be heard.
My daughters, Hencha and Hinda, who were tortured for years, did not die and my daughter, Ruchele, who at age 15 escaped to America, married Shlomo Brafman, who also escaped – they did not die and their children and my grandchildren and great-grandchildren are growing up as Shomer Shabbos Jews and tonight, my grandson is speaking for me in a shul with 1,000 proud, strong Jews who came to remember all of us tonight.
So I do not have my life, but I have my revenge. In fact, my little boy, Meir, who they tried so hard to murder, he lived too. At age 16, he weighed 45 lbs. when found alive in a pile of corpses at Auschwitz.
When liberated, he went to Israel, to Israel, where for 50 years he was a soldier in Tzahal – Israel's army. A Jewish hero, he fought for 50 years in Israel's army. My son, my Kaddish, he did not die in Auschwitz either. How proud I was to watch as he put on the uniform of an Israeli soldier to fight for our country, a Jewish community.
They Will Not Win
I am very sad and very angry and bitter that I did not get to enjoy the world ofnachas that was mine, a world of nachas and pride and Yddishkeit that I had a right to live through and enjoy.
The Nazis hurt me beyond words, but they did not win.
Ladies and gentlemen, they only win if you forget – or now, if you allow the world to deny. They only win if we do not cry real tears when we hear about the slaughter of the Fogel family in Itamar.
They only win if you cannot hear my Chayala screaming or feel the terror of Tamar Fogel, or her grandparents who must now face a quality of grief so savage that it is hard for you to grasp.
Trust me – I know about the murder of a child and a grandchild and how that impacts on everything else. How everything else is forever shrouded in death and overwhelming sadness. The Fogel family will never recover but they cannot be forgotten.
Here we are in a beautiful shul, with so many Jews. Good Jews. Strong, proud people who have not forgotten us, me, my family, your families – the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, the children, the grandchildren – the babies who were murdered and gassed and buried alive.
It is okay to cry for what we lost, for what was taken from you, for the lives lost, the nachas of family we were deprived of.
Cry for us. We cry for you too, for what you lost, for the family you never met, for the millions of good, sweet Jews who did not live – for the students who never finished their studies, for the scientists and artists and musicians and teachers and Rebbes who never got the chance to excel, to perform, to teach, to cure, to live.
It's okay to cry for the children who never got to play, or sing, or laugh, who were put to death with such violence, with so much hatred that I cannot describe it in words as for certain levels of grief, there are no words. It is so bad that it cannot even be imagined by any decent human being, impossible to process rationally.
But you must, because today, people are already questioning whether the Holocaust really happened. World leaders and scholars are already denying the Holocaust; they are challenging even the integrity of a handful of survivors, the eyewitnesses who are still alive, those who saw the horror with their own eyes. Even these heroic survivors are being doubted and am so afraid that in coming years, vicious, anti-Semitic revisionists will tamper with history and the truth and we cannot – you cannot allow that to happen ever – never...
I had a granddaughter, a charming, beautiful little baby girl named Chaya Sarah and she was murdered in front of my eyes and although her neshama, her soul, is in heaven with me, her memory must be emblazoned in your hearts forever.
If our memory is really to be for a blessing, for our neshamos to really have thealiyah you ask for, an aliyah we have earned and paid so dearly for, then you must remember.
You must make certain that your children and their children understand what happened to their family, to your family, to all of our families, or it will happen again.
You think it cannot happen again? Why? Because you have good lives – you live in civilized times? We had a good life – we lived in civilized times. We were happy and complacent, but we were not vigilant and we walked right into a Holocaust.
Our neighbors, an entire nation of ordinary men and women of intelligence and breeding and culture turned into monstrous, murderous animals who withdrew from humanity and imposed a level of brutality on us that cannot now be described and could not then, ever have been predicted – but that is exactly what happened.
It was even worse than the worst true story that any survivor can report, because the brain is not capable of capturing so much grief without exploding, so even those who survived, who saw it all, cannot fully capture the full horrific ordeal, the vicious detail.
Only a victim like me, only someone who did not survive, can tell you the whole, bad, ugly, demented, terrible truth about our murder, of 6 million murders.
That, my friends, is why I chose to speak to you through my grandson from my seat in heaven and although Hashem does not permit me to tell you "why" these terrible things happened, I am commanded to discuss "what" happened.
To tell you "what" happened with clarity and force, so that hopefully some people in this room will never doubt the Shoah and you will take it upon yourself to confront anyone who dares to deny it and make them hear my story – your story, the sad but true stories of our families, whom we too often refer to as the "6 Million," but rarely if ever refer use their names.
We have names. Our lives were taken, but they cannot take our names.
My name is Yechiel Mechoel Friedman. I was murdered at Auschwitz with my wife, Malka and my daughter, Sima, her husband, Yaakov Weiss and my granddaughter, Chaya Sarah.
Can you see them? I see them and I also see Tamar Fogel and the bodies of her family being carried through Itamar for burial; not 70 years ago – last month. People with names and lives taken in the dark – only because they were Jews.
My name is Yechiel Michoel Friedman. I was murdered in Auschwitz. Don't you ever forget me.
Originally Published May 28, 2011 on aish.com
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