Rohr Prize [2]: Warsaw and Cairo - Distant Echoes of Two Decimated Communities

edited May 5th 6:26 a.m.

At the Rohr Prize ceremony I was asked to speak on behalf of the judges. The following are excerpts from my remarks.

Tonight we gather to celebrate, honor, and commemorate. We celebrate the fact that tonight is Pesach, zeman simchatanu, the time of our rejoicing.

We celebrate that this important event takes place in Jerusalem.

We honor one family’s remarkable generosity and commitment to enhance the writing of Jewish books.

We celebrate Lucette Lagnado’s book, The Man in the Sharkskin Suit, a book that is in and of itself an act of commemoration of a community that is no more.

We also gather to honor the work of two other authors, Eric Goldstein, author of The Price of Whiteness, a meticulous and important book on Jewish integration into the American mainstream, and Elana Blumberg, author of In the House of Study, a fascinating memoir on the author’s sometimes troubled path in discovering her way in the world of traditional Jewish texts and her own identity as a Jewish woman.

But there are other things that it behooves us to commemorate: On these very nights of Pesach 65 years ago two groups of Jews were fighting to preserve Jewish dignity and memory.

One, of course, was the group of young, wildly inexperienced Warsaw ghetto fighters, who managed, despite having no military training whatsoever, to hold off the Germans for over three weeks. Their bravery, meseerat nefesh, and commitment are the stuff of legends… legends that are true.

But they did not fight alone. In the ghetto there was another group which fought to preserve Jewish history and dignity. And their contribution and commitment – while less dramatic than that of Anilevitch and his colleagues ---- is no less important and, in fact, may be as important.

I speak, of course, of the work of Oyneg Shabbes, the group gathered by the historian Emanuel Ringelblum. They took it upon themselves to preserve in an unbelievably comprehensive fashion the history and day to day life of the ghetto and its inhabitants.

In a magisterial new book, Who Will Write Our History? historian Samuel Kassow [a review of which I have posted on this blog] tells the story of how Oyneg Shabbes recorded every aspect of the ghetto’s existence.... No detail was too small or considered too “unimportant” to be included in their efforts.

[I previously posted about their commitment to getting the record of what was being done to them precisely right. I shall, therefore, skip over that part of my talk.]

They worked with military precision. Though over 300 people were involved in the effort no person knew some one else’s identity unless it was necessary for the project.

And none of those involved knew which three people had been entrusted with burying the archives. That way, if one was caught, he or she could not be forced to reveal the other’s identity.

This was an operation worthy of elite army. What is remarkable is that it was done, not to save lives, but to save documents, to preserve the history of a community which faced an enemy that was committed – to paraphrase the Haggadah – l’akore et hakol, to destroy them all.

They so desperately wanted – in a way that is guaranteed to break the heart of even the most rigorously exacting historian – to be remembered. Let us hear it in their own voices:

Israel Lichtenstein, one of those assigned to bury the Oyneg Shabbes archival collection wrote the following as he was burying them:

I do not ask for any thanks, for any memorial, for any praise. I only wish to be remembered.

I wish my wife to be remembered, Gele Sekstein. She has worked during the war years with children as an educator and teacher, has prepared stage sets, costumes of children’s theatre… both of us get ready to meet and receive death.

I wish my little daughter to be remembered. Margalit is 20 months old today. She has fully mastered the Yiddish language and speaks it perfectly… I don’t lament my own life or that of my wife. I pity only this little nice and talented girl. She too deserves to be remembered.

With Lichtenstein was Nahum Grzywacz, 18 years old. When they were burying the archives he heard his parents’ building was being blockaded. He wrote.

I am going to run to my parents and if they are all right. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Remember my name is Nahum Grzywacz. [emphasis in original]

Also helping was David Graber, age 19. As they buried the archives Graber wrote:

What we were unable to cry and shriek out to the world we buried in the ground. … I would love to see the moment in which this great treasure will be dug up and scream the truth to the world. So the world may know all. So the ones who did not live through it may be glad and we may feel like veterans with medals on our chest. We would be the fathers, the teachers, the educators. Of the future…. But no, we shall certainly not live to see it, and therefore I write my last will: May the treasure fall into good hands, may it last into better times, may it alarm and alert the world to what happened… in the twentieth century. We now die in peace. We fulfilled our mission. May history attest for us. [emphasis added]

Tonight we come to honor Lucette Lagnado. Her book captures the sounds, emotions, smells, tastes of a community that was also prematurely uprooted, a life that is no more.

That community’s end did not occur in as brutal and murderous a fashion as that of the Warsaw ghetto. However, it was destruction none the less, a destruction that too many people have accepted in a matter of fact fashion.

Lucette has described how, since her book’s publication, the Syrian and Egyptian Jewish communities worldwide have embraced her and profusely thanked her for ensuring that their history shall not go quietly into the night.

Wanting to be remembered is a normal human emotion. But it takes on tremendous poignancy when we remember those – whether in Warsaw or in Cairo – whose communities came to a premature end.

So tonight we come to celebrate and to commemorate and to pay tribute to those non-fiction authors who ensure that the history of those who came before us will not be forgotten.

Let us hope that in generations to come others will gather, as we do tonight, in Jerusalem to celebrate non-fiction authors.

And let us pray that there will be no additional uprooted communities whose history needs preserving so those authors of the future can turn their attention to documenting Jewish communities which are living vigorously creative Jewish lives, communities which are thriving.

And, we will gather to celebrate, in the spirit of the Rohr Prize and the work of the Jewish Book Council, communities in whose midst authors are writing and people are reading Jewish books, books of the superbly high caliber that we honor tonight.

Rohr Prize Ceremony, Jerusalem, 24 April 2008

The Sami Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature: Reflections on The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit

One of the reasons I have been lax in blogging is that I was in Israel for the awarding of the Sami Rohr Prize in nonfiction. This prize has been established by the Rohr family to honor their father, who incidently escaped from German shortly after Kristalnacht, on his 80th birthday.

The amazing generosity of this family and their desire to further Jewish literature and culture through this generous award [$100,000 to the winner] speaks to their willingness to think "way outside the box."

The award is given to an emerging writer in the field of Jewish literature. I am one of the judges in the non-fiction category. This year's winner was Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit. I was asked to write something about the book for the program. These are my thoughts on this book:

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit is a stunningly beautiful book. It addresses epic and age old themes: exile, loss, and rootlessness. It is both a tragic family saga and the story of a compelling man, a bon vivant, who managed to mesh his love of sensual pleasures with his deep commitment to Jewish tradition. Above all it is the story of a world and a community that did not die a natural death. It was uprooted and destroyed by those who rejected its love and fealty.

Lucette Lagnado traces the story the twentieth century Cairo Jewish community by telling the story of her father who was the ultimate man about Cairo. He moved as easily in the synagogue as he did in Cairo’s most elaborate and elegant night spots. She is the child born in his later years and the one who becomes the apple of his eye. It is through her eyes that we watch him make his way through the city and establish bonds with both Muslim and expatriates of every variety.

The Rohr prize judges were swept away by the beauty of the book. It was not, however, only the graceful and luscious prose of Lagnado’s “stunning” [New York Times] memoir which caught our attention.

Starting in the late 1940s and continuing until the 1960s Jewish communities which had lived in relative harmony with their Muslim neighbors were decimated. It was a wholesale destruction, one that was designed to humiliate Jews who had loved their homelands with a deep seated passion. The Egyptians stripped Lagnado’s family of virtually all their possessions prior to their departure. In a final act of degradation, they forcibly removed her mother’s wedding band from her finger as the family boarded the boat. Despite this humiliation as the ship sailed away her father cried out: “Ragaouna Masr,” Take us back to Cairo.

What was this love affair? Who were these Jewish communities? What was the culture they so adored? Jewish tradition and culture is rooted in its history. Lagnado has a painted a brilliant portrait of a world that will never be again. In describing a small piece of that history she has given a great gift to those who were part of that world and to their descendants. She has also given a gift – possibly even greater -- to those who never knew that world.

Ultimately, however, this book transcends ethnic, national, and religious divides. Any reader whose family has ever known exile and immigration will be touched by this book. It will help them understand the sacrifices that have been made on their behalf. And those readers whose families have not been forcibly uprooted will understand how blessed they are.