In 2021, celebrated author, Dara Horn, released a collection of essays with the provocative title, People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. In those essays she made a compelling argument that, in many corners of the world, including here in Central Europe, there's a fascination, as the title suggests, with Dead Jews. Surely, respect for the dead is far from a negative thing, but what Horn points out is that it can become problematic when there's an acute lack of corresponding interest in LIVE Jews.
Consider our itinerary here in recent days. The Jewish quarter in Prague-- home to ancient synagogues, a large and famous Jewish cemetery, and stories of yesteryear--- it was packed with tourists. Though not packed during our visit, Terezin, also a place that honors, as Horn would say, "Dead Jews", is a site that, as I mentioned, every Czech student is required to visit. But what about Rabbi David Maxa's small synagogue in central Prague? How many non-Jewish Czech citizens ever visit there or attend services? Far (far) fewer. Horn suggests that this is because many people are much more comfortable with Dead Jews than Live Jews. We can honor, memorialize, and even romanticize the dead. But the living... somehow, especially when it comes to Jews, they can be an annoyance, an inconvenience, a quandry. For that reason, Live Jews can be easier to brush aside and ignore.
If Horn's argument leaves you unsettled and feeling that there's some truth to her observation, then you can find great solace and pride in knowing that our time in Prague, Bratislava (more on that in a moment), and Budapest (where we arrived this afternoon) has been full of deep and meaningful engagement with Live Jews. Rabbi Maxa you already know. But I should also mention that both of our local tour guides in Prague and Budapest are also Jewish. Yishay and Jeremy, our guides from Israel: Jewish. Even one of our security guards in Prague (we have new ones here in Budapest) was Jewish. Live Jews, real people, with real stories, real thoughts and feelings, real hopes and dreams. We've forged ties with all of these people. We've made lasting connections. We've brought to life the teaching, Kol Yisrael Arevin Zeh L'Zeh (All Jews are responsible for one another). Our time in Bratislava and in Budapest has made us feel that connection even more.
Even though it's the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava is the type of town that you only visit if you have a reason. That reason may be as simple as having a spare day while visiting nearby Vienna, or it may be, as was the case for us, an opportunity to meet a Live Jew who lives and works there.
Rabbi Misha Kapustin, a Live Jew, is the chief program officer of the Jewish Federation of Slovakia. Rabbi Misha isn't a native of Slovakia, but rather a Ukrainian who left Ukraine as a political refugee in 2014 when Russia invaded and occupied Crimea, where he was serving as a rabbi at the time. Due to his outspoken opposition to the Russian occupation he was forced to flee to ensure the safety of his family. Since Slovakia shares a border with Ukraine, it was a natural choice. 11 years later, Rabbi Misha is a Live Jew serving as a rabbi in Bratislava and tending to the approximately 1,500 other Live Jews who live in small pockets scattered across the country. Most memorably, he shared his experiences coordinating Jewish refugee resettlement during the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Rabbi Misha said three things that I hope the kids were able to hear and that I hope to always remember and associate with him. He said. 1) You always have a choice, you have agency. 2) Your future is in your hands. 3) Our children are our most important investment. Once a beautiful synagogue stood in the immediate shadow of the grand Catholic Cathedral of Bratislava. Now there stands a small Holocaust Memorial. The communists knocked down the synagogue to build a bridge across the Danube. But that sad story was not the focus of our visit to Bratislava.
We chose to visit Budapest not because (or in spite of) the fact that 600,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, but because Hungary (and Budapest in particular) is one of the places with the greatest renaissance of Jewish life in recent times. Instead of celebrating Shabbat at the Doheny Synagogue, the largest synagogue in all of Europe, we chose to celebrate Shabbat the much smaller Frankel Synagogue. Founded in 1888, the Frankel Synagogue is akin to a neighborhood synagogue in Atlanta. We chose to celebrate Shabbat there because they have many more young families and teens in their congregation than the iconic Doheny Synagogue. Shabbat isn't about seeing synagogues, Shabbat is about being with our community. The Frankel Synagogue offered us that and so much more.
At the Frankel Synagogue we were greeted by multiple security guards (themselves Live Jews) and ushered into the beautiful sanctuary. Somewhat incongruously we heard Israeli pop songs being played through a bluetooth speaker. The synagogue's education director, who also happens to be the National Director of BBYO for Hungary, launched right into explaining the icebreaker that she had prepared for our kids and the synagogue's teens. Before we knew it, everyone was mixing and mingling. Once the activity was over, the kids all disappeared to the synagogue's youth lounge for a snack before the start of Shabbat services. Meanwhile the adults in our group enjoyed watching the synagogue fill up with Live Jews of all ages who had come to celebrate Living Judaism with their Jewish community.
The Shabbat service began on an inauspicious note. But when the opening portion of the service concluded and the main section began, the community's chazzan (cantor) took the bimah. Jeremy, our guide, whispered to me, "Wait till you hear this voice." Within seconds of the chazzan uttering the words of the Barechu I was in tears. I literally cannot tell you the last time I felt such a rush of emotion in a prayer setting. As the chazzan sang, I looked at the faces of the people in the synagogue. I saw my grandfather. My grandmother. My great grandfathers and great grandmothers. I felt, and I know I am not alone, a complete collapse of time. Past, present, and future all merged. I felt the generations there, holding me. I felt the future imploring me to keep the chain of tradition alive. With every creak and thud of the wooden pews I felt a sense of sacred companionship. I have no Hungarian ancestry that I know of, but I felt completely at home. I felt as if I had been there before, not necessarily in this lifetime. And what made it even more incredible, is that I know many of our kids felt it. And I know the chazzan knew exactly the spirits he was conjuring. He was playful yet solemn, flashy yet humble. Every so often he would stop to listen to the voices of the congregation. Every so often he would turn around (the chazzan faces the same way as the congregation) and lock eyes with a fellow Living Jew. I'm the last person to tell you that death means the end of our story, but I can seldom recall ever feeling the dead, those I knew and loved and those I never met, feeling them so close. Feeling them right beside me. And of course, amidst that profound spiritual experience, an elderly gentleman waltzed across the room and started making small talk. Unsurprisingly, we have a common person (also a Living Jew) in Atlanta.
As I reflect on the day I am struck by the fact that two things can be true at once. It is undeniably true that there are still many tears that must and will be shed as we confront the devastation that Jewish life experienced in this region under the dual spectors of Nazism and Communism. The evidence, or lack there of, is unavoidable. At the same time, every member of our group has had a chance to meet, learn from, befriend, and shake hands with Live Jews. These Live Jews, whether teens at the Frankel Synagogue, rabbis working to rebuild Jewish life, chazzanim awakening deeply stored memories through their songs and prayers, security guards protecting Jewish souls, or the kinds of folks who come to synagogue not to pray but to schmooze--- these Jews make as much a claim on our heart and our soul, they are as much a part of our story and ours a part of theirs, as those whose time on this earth we seek to redeem by bearing witness and through the incredibly Jewish act of memory. It turns out that Live Jews are, in some way, a kind of pain, a kind of burden. But they are a joyful pain, a joyful burden. Now we all have to care about the Jews of Prague, of Bratislava, of Budapest, not just because they are our "brothers and sisters" in some abstract sense. But because they are our friends. They have touched us and we have created room in one anothers hearts to reside there.
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