(Reb Shmuel Walkin with Alte Mirrer in Shanghai)
I can't really blame the Snags for buying into this, since this was "information" that was placed right in their laps by so-called and "historians", "truth-seekers" and "history buffs," but what I can blame them for is taking the bait without thinking just a little bit. By "thinking" I mean about the can of worms that they open every time they say "Lubavitch did diddly squat," Und So Veiter. Then again, nobody ever accused them of being able to think, at least not the Snags of the last 60 years, the Litvishe Yidden of Amohl could think. I'm still in the midst of reading the biography of RMBW, and I'm intently reading the chapters pertaining to the holocaust and his rescue efforts. Truthfully the Zionist-bashing, directed mostly at the leadership in Palestine and its affiliates in the free world - although it shouldn't - bothers me somewhat. I guess that's what happens when you dislike some of the ways of the Satmar you dislike much of what they do. The author -a grandson of the protagonist - seems to be heavily influenced by the Satmars, but you've already heard that from me, no need to repeat it. Most of the book, and understandably so, deals with what the protagonist and his associates did to save Jews, but a lot also deals with him being frustrated at the fact that the Jews in the free world, in America, England, Switzerland, and Palestine, did little to help.
He blames the inaction of the Leftists-Zionists on the fact that they saw this as an opportunity to finally get their wish: the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. There's also the idea that they hated frum people so much that they mamesh didn't care that they'd all be exterminated, especially if it was going to get them a state. The fact that some of the people he worked with were also Zionists - although maybe not Leftists - may seem to cast doubts on that accusation, but this has become fact within Charedi circles, especially the anti-Zionist factions. The official excuse they gave was they didn't want to send money to the enemy, which is where the money would've ended up, since RMBW's plan was to "buy" lives by giving the Germans first money and later trucks and supplies, since by late 1944 the money couldn't buy much, so they needed supplies. IIRC the Allies weren't happy with that plan either, since all they wanted was to see the defeat of the German army. Then again; the fact that Kastner was assassinated before he could testify at the trial held in Israel in the '50s sure makes things look suspicious. This is not the point of the thread here, but will serve as a springboard to our relevant topic.
(Shlomo Wajsfeld, Belzer Chossid and refugee from Antwerp who escaped to Switzerland)
RMBW was quite frustrated at the lack of activity on the part of frum Jewry in the free world, and wanted answers - no, demanded answers. I had no real relatives here during WW2, so I can't ask them what they did, and the excuses are plenty. "We didn't know what was going on." "We couldn't believe that the GERMANS, the cultured people of the West, would do such a thing." I've read all the Artscroll books on the history of WW2, - although not recently - and about the Hatzoloh actions that were done by the Sternbuchs and the Griffels and the Sheinfelds etc. I also know about the march on Washington in 1943 by 300 Rabbis led by the venerable Rav Lazer Silver, and about the story how Reb Aron Kotler once took a train to Washington DC in order to save lives. Reb Avrohom Kalmanovitch's work for refugees is well-known, as is his work after the war in bringing in students from the Sefardic lands and integrating them into the Yeshivah and community. But in the greater scheme of things, when we speak of Hundreds upon Hundreds of Thousands that could've been saved, even after Polish and Russian Jewry (in the Nazi-occupied parts) were wiped out, those numbers don't seem like much. Then again, I wasn't there, but neither were any of you. Does it make sense for me to sit here Sixty some-odd years later and judge them for what they could've done? of course not.
However, since many of you out there, and you know who you are, see fit to decide what was and wasn't done by certain people you never liked anyway, and you decide whether or not others have the right to crtiticize, let's sit and examine the facts, shall we? Legend has it that the Ponovizher Rov z"l, who himself was not known to be very active in the Hatzoloh efforts, was quite unhappy with the Chazon Ish's lack of action during that time. A Quote that goes something like "M'hut GeTrunken Orange Juice in Eretz Yisroel BeSha'as Yidden hubben gebrent" is attributed to the PR about the leadership in the Holy Land. However, he himself was busy starting the esteemed Ponovizher Yeshivah while Europe was burning, and opened its doors in 5704, when there still was much to be done. That was the case in America as well, where the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe established a network of schools, Yeshivas, and educational organizations dedicated to strengthening Yiddishkeit in America and Canada. The book Ish Chamudos seems to think that not much was done as far as raising money for the rescue of Jews. They mention that in 1943, when Stephen Wise's rescue organization disbanded the religious Jews then began to mobilize somewhat. Until then their hands were supposedly tied, whatever that means.(That was the time of the march on Washington by the Rabbis.) Rabbi Kalmanovitch ran around collecting money, and managed to put together 100,000 Dollars, which was forwarded to Europe. Students from Yeshivos Torah VoDaas and RIETS remember getting a few days off to go and collect money. Other than that there doesn't seem to be much as far as major rescue efforts. IMHO the Artscroll books on the War rescue effort were BiBechinas Makdim Refuoh LeMakeh, beating the criticism to the punch, showing the world that "look, we saved lives!" When in reality, after the Mirrer and Kletzker Bochurim were fed and clothed there wasn't much to speak of. After the war lots of care packages were sent, sure, but most of that was done by the irreligious "Joint" anyway.
(Bochurimm at the Zeilsheim DP Camp)
Sorry if I offended anybody, and I welcome any and all relevant criticism.
(Photos courtesy of the USHMM)
28 comments:
You did not mention a yid named George Montello, who literally saved thousands of Jews and though he may not have been frum(I'm not quite sure)has a book written about him by Kranzler and published by Artscroll.
Your comment about Eretz Yisroel is laughable.A)Eretz Yisroel was almost run over by Rommel, so they were in bad shape themselves B)There was no money there to help with.As an aside thousands of Jews from Eretz Yisroel joined the British Army to fight the Nazis, though again I'm not sure how many of them were frum.
In America the Vaad Hatzolo did it's outmost by were a small group,the Heimishe world was not very well to do and not very large.
So again I'm sure more could have been done, but they youngsters from Zeirei, Mike Tress etc and R'Ahron Kotler were heculean.
R'Michel Ber went through hell and lost a wife and eight kids,this affected him greatly and may have made him very cynical.
While all this was taking place the Navy Yard procured a very bright employee.Veday lameyvinim.
>>Then again, nobody ever accused them of being able to think, at least not the Snags of the last 60 years, the Litvishe Yidden of Amohl could think.
Here you go again with your festering hate and garbage. Why don't you take out this motzei shem rah?
הירשל, זיי נישט א מאנטאג מארגען quarterback.
The subject of rescue and the activities of American Jewry in the years 1939-1945 has been written about . In terms of the work of Orthodox Jewry , much of what has been written is apologetics. Very few objective and serious articles about this subject ahve been undertaken. The bulk of the amterial on the subject has been sponsord by the leaders of the major Charedi communal org in the US. They sponsored it and paid for it , to glorify their work.Of course the man has a Ph.D but what does that mean, .
Much of their work was RELIEF work, not RESCUE work, sending packages to Jews in Shanghai may ahve been important, but it was not rescue work like getting Jews out of Poland.Sending money to North Africa was fine work, but what about getting Jews out of the Hell in Poland and later Hungary. The Vaad saved very few Jews bepoel, it provided relief to tens of thousands.
Other work concentrated on extracting Yeshiva students (and lets not forget the Roshe yeshiva themselves and their loved ones too) from Lithuania , but what about ordinary Jews (by the way not one rav , and dayan in Lithuania survived the war (thats how successful the Vaad was !!!with the exception of the rav of Ponoviesz who happened to be in South Afrcia when the war commenced.)
A quick glance at the ORTHODOX journals of the time reveals olam keminhago noheg vacations in Gartenberrgs hotel in the Catskills, melave lakas, weddings etc.fine eating in the then kosher restaurants,
The subject is far too complex to discuss on a blog and much much too painful for me to write about much longer . Food for thought. ---Yasher koach to the rabbis who marched in washington, but pray tell me why they did not march again ? Was the disaster not large enough to warrant a second march ?? Had Black America settled fro 1 march ?Perhaps its because the ruach hachaim of the march was not a rabbi or even a frum person but Hillel Kuk
In my opinion American jews and orthodox jews amongst them did very little real rescue work. I do not belittle the work of Rabbis kotler and kalmanowitz etc but as i noted most of it was relief work not rescue work.
From a "klei shlishi" I heard much from what Mr. Sigmund . Forst the noted commercial artist (brother of rav Jonah Forst) had to say(when he was blind in his home in W, to jews kind enough to keep him comapny) from what he heard from Reb Michel Ber and it was not pretty. Reb Michel Ber was a sui generis Jew not a party man.
To be fair, I don't recall the frum community being as wealthy when I was a kid as they are now; There are a lot more fancy buildings around Boro Park nowadays.
Please don't slander Gedolei Yisroel of any stripe in any forum whatsoever. Whatever gripes Gedolim had against each other, for several obvious reasons not a single figure on this blog is even remotely qualified to comment or pass judgement: 1)You weren't there 2)These people were far bigger and greater than we can even comprehend.
Simple points, but entirely true.
Saving the Jews from the Nazis?
How exactly?
Lets hear some ideas...
Btw, the story with R'Michoel Ber and the thousands of trucks for the Nazis sounded very far fetched.
I can't blame community leaders for being sceptical, though, again I don't have all the relevant info.
Btw,just bring up something that won't be popular with the frimmeh/frummies of the blog:Darfur! Was it stopped?No!So you think you could have stopped the shechitehs by the Nazis when everybody was happy to get rid of the nation that 'killed their getshkeh'???
Though the frimmeh have blaimed the Zionists and leftists for being happy that the 'backward' Orthodox were being eliminated, and there is probably a kernel of truth to it,I feel hard pressed to say that had it been the other way,namely Reform or Zionists persecuted,I'm quite sure the Satmar and the rest of the frimmeh would have done zero.
They are all big talkers, just like the Tzig.The only difference is that when 'rishes' is done out of ideological/frum reasons it's much scarier.
This by no means is meant as a blanket accusation of everyone frum or fry or even Chbsker, who by the way did next to nothing during the War, but that's a schmees for another time.
>>While all this was taking place the Navy Yard procured a very bright employee.Veday lameyvinim.
We don't even know if this is true. This is what THEY claim. Interestingly, why didn't the man ever learn or do something else important for Jews at the time? Veday lameyvinim.
If Rav Weismandel's grandson actually wrote that all the Roshei Yeshiva only looked out for themselves, he is a liar and a menuval.
Schneur,
Stop being a tease and tell us what he said.
I'm not very knowledgeable about this subject but my guess is that American Jews were unable to save Jews from Europe. Besides, they lacked the confidence to make a fuss in US.
As for the schnorers in Eretz Yizroel who lived on diaspora money, they definitely had (and have) no resources to save anyone.
It pains me to learn that Mr. Sigmund Frost was blind in his later years. I remember his work.
On the topic at hand I basically agree with the thrust of the post and Schneur's comments. Two accounts have left an impression on me. In the multi volume work on the Chazon ish there are these stories how the gedolim worked on the issue of the intl. date line and how to keep shabbas & yomim tovim in Shanghai...on and on, not a word about their efforts for or even cognizance of what was happening to European Jewry. Very difficult to rationalize.
I was impressed with Gerald Zuriff’s courageous, balanced and well documented book Response of Orthodox Jewry in the United States: The Activities of the Vaad Ha-Hatzala Rescue Committee, 1939-1945. There is a lot to learn about how the gedolim decided who got to go to Shanghai, as well as the efforts of Orthodox Jews in America.
These were terrible times. None of us were there. As a solace I say to myself we the Jewish people have learnt from our mistakes.
It's terrible that more yidden were not saved, and also terrible that some people were more worried about saving their collection of Sherlock Holmes books (and holy pots and pans) than saving people.
People in glass houses should not throw stones.
And even today, they waste untold time and money to "rescue" Conan Doyle's paperbacks.
I would hope that everyone (beside the diehard nonentities) would remember that Tzig's point is not that he believes anyone is to blame for not rescuing, but rather to point out the fallacy of blaming the FR.
It is becoming more concrete in my mind that to certain people words have no meaning, they merely exist to be tossed as weapons. Perhaps this has to do with being taught to be mefalpel al kotzo shel yod without descending to the amkus of the subject as well, creating pilpulim and gavras and cheftzas shel hevel, as opposed to the original talmidei chachamim who created these concepts and those that follow who can actually provide a final conclusion to their thoughts, let alone proof for each step along the way.
Is this is a certain style of learning Gemara? Instead of being taught that each word has meaning, and you struggle to find the meaning, you are taught that words are meaningless in and of themselves, it is up to you to set their meaning?
Guravitzer,
Stop with your pilulei hevel.The point being made by posters was that Lubavitch did nothing to save Jews,THOUGH,and this is important,maybe they could not do too much.HOWEVER,whatever the reason they did not do, HOW DARE THEY CRITICIZE OTHERS THAT DID?
See the point now?
(this is besides the queesy feeling one gets from seeing the efforts they did manage to do to save the Rebbe and try and save his library, and then see all the efforts die down once safe in America.Nobody is blaming the F.R, he was ailing and weak)
Look,
I think we all know that for whatever reason the the churban took place and the way it happened is miraculous. I am not chas v'sholom blaming that chashuver dor for anything but it was allowed to happen and a chain of events occurred allowing the Jews of Europe to be slaughtered. The ribbono shel olam has His cheshbonos.
What I'm getting at is that there are mammash koifrim all over the Internet. Koifrim skeptics, noe-maskillim whatever! We bicker while Jews are once again burning, this time spiritually. There is no chance of death al kiddush HAshem here, but rather quite the contrary.
What can we do to remedy the situation? I don't know but yirei shomayim engaging in pointless machloikes will not help. Of course I'm to blame but after spending the past few days in the blogesphere I'm floored at what's going on out there. A very good friend of mine just revealed his skepticism TODAY and he is literally ruining his life R"L. He told that his situation has been developing for about a year! A wasted life based on 1 year of Internet research and some books from the public library!
Lets not make the same mistakes as the last churban.
In order to understand the Leftist Zionist activities or lack thereof, "Perfidy" is required reading.
Perfidy is biased, one-sided, nonsense. The author himself comes close to admitting that.
What is pilulei hevel? Praises of nothing?
The point that has already been made in return previously, is that the FR did do. The other fact is, that not you nor the other commenters have bothered to investigate this. You shoot off words as weapons, without a second thought. Who educated you to do this? Who educated you that every rumor you hear that you like is believeable and repeatable? Who educated you to throw out words and render them meaningless? Who educated you to throw out opinion without investigating the facts to back them up?
In fact one does not need to be privy to Reb Sigmund Forst's sichos to know what Reb Michel Ber (and you can say Hayad after his name because he died from the War) thought about the rescue people in the Free world
.
It is related that once while giving a shiur, he needed a different mesichta and a bachur brought him the desired volume and R. Michel Ber opened it up and then threw it at the floor, -- it was the part of the Shaas printed by groups in the US during the War for the Shanghai people.
Reb Michel Ber called it the blutike shaas, for obvious reasons...
Obviously I did not know Reb Michel Ber, but from reading and talking to others it sems that he was a cultured man educated , a son in law.
of one of the greatest Ashkenazic rabbonim Rav Ungar of Nitra a man at home with secualr studies with political leaders etc ect. In other words a man far removed from the cloistered , narrow world of Satmar.
Perhaps in 50 years and certainly in 100 years American orthodoxy will be mature enough to demand to know what was done even if futiley to save the Jews of Europe, what did the rabbonim do ? And they will be amture enough to digest the true answers.
To those who say that nothing could have been done that is hardly an excuse for hishdatlus . For one's olem haze one has hishdatlus for shidduchim, for parnosse, for col mine shtussim , but to help save the Jews of Europe we have people here who say well nothing could ahve helped any way. All in order to white wash the gedolim of a certain organization.
By the way Mr. Geenberg of the left wing Zionist in NYC did as much as any rav to be meorrer daas hakaol to what was going on in Europe and Hilel Kuk (Peter Bergson) was the chief initiator of the rabbis March not people like Tress, Bunim and others. Just one alst comment Modern orthodoxy did almost nothing to help the Jews. Compared to the MO's the AI was like OG melech habashan mamash a giant..
My heart aches, I stop.
noshkees, i actually knew mr. mantello. he was also involved with the rescue of the belzer, and had a picture of him without a beard.
I've seen that picture. It was taken in Egypt (IIRC) with the Chief Rabbi Rav Herzog sitting next to him. It's painful to look at.
The picture was not taken in Egypt, the ruv arrived in Israel via Beirut and Syria from Turkey. The picture was taken in Beirut. I believe it was taken in aJewish hotel in Beirut. The son of the chief rabbi Reb Yankev Herzog is also there.
Hakol modim that it was Chief Rabbi Herzog, and reb Moshe Chaim Schapiro of the Mizrachi (they were both Litvishe Yidden) and other Mizrachi leaders who heelped the ruv from Hungary. The Aguda was busy with other maases. A book by Rabbi Noson Ortner reprints many of the relavant letters on this matter. The picture was published in Panim El Panim and in the Belzer Yizkor book as well. It is not rare at all.
Why so painful to see the pic, after all the beard was not shaved off in a concentration camp by goyim.It was done by the Rebbe to save his life?
Painful pictures?See the bodies of the dead and half dead at the liberation.
It is VERY painful as it is a painful reminder of the extreme tzores of Klal israel in this century. The tragedy that the rabban shel Kol Bnai Hagole had to remove his beard , flee Belz ,his shul and hoif destroyed lost his complete family lost 90% of his followers all besoch the immense tragrdy of Klal israel, it sure hurts me OUCH OUCH !
http://yizkor.nypl.org/index.php?id=1389
The link sends me to the front cover. Which page am I looking for?
Page 95 in the yizkor book and image 99 of 568 on the web page. The image is not extremely clear but it's there.
Then again:
That book was not published by the Belzer Mosdos, but rather by independent former residents of Belz. I don't think Belz today publishes that picture.
Any way to find a clearer copy?
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