Writing is Remembering
This blog post, originally published December 26, 2018, is being reposted in memory of Professor Irene Eber, who passed away in Jerusalem on April 10, 2019. May her memory be for a blessing. Beth Ben-Avraham by the grave of Jakob Leimann, her great-great-uncle. New Cemetery, Kraków. We have an abundance of documentation concerning what life … Continue reading Poland: Epilogue
The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street contains over 250,000 graves that are marked. The cemetery, founded in 1806, is huge. It occupies over 80 acres in Warsaw. The day before our visit to the cemetery, Beth accesses the database maintained by the Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland. Her search for the … Continue reading Warsaw: Final Leiman Hunt
Mausoleum of three Yiddish writers: Ansky, Dinezon, and Peretz. Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw. Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Bob Dylan won it most recently, in 2016. I still remember the first time I heard one of Dylan’s songs. It was “Lay Lady Lay.” I was riding in my car, listening to … Continue reading A Wise and Humble Language
Detail from grave of Szymon Datner, Okopowa Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw, Poland. Wednesday, October 24, 2018 (continued): This is the second installment describing our visit to the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. In this installment, we visit the grave of the distinguished Polish-Jewish historian Szymon Datner and trace the connection from Jakob Leiman to Szymon Datner. … Continue reading Warsaw: Leiman to Datner
Janusz Korczak Monument, Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw. There are several places in Jewish writings—biblical, and extra-biblical—where we are reminded of our obligations to strangers, widows, and orphans. Often these reminders address our duty to provide for the physical needs of these three special groups, their food, clothing, and shelter. But there are, of course, other needs … Continue reading Warsaw: Children and Fidelity
Thursday, October 18, 2018 (continued): Israel Ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name), deemed the founder of Chasidic Judaism, died on May 22, 1760. The day he died, Naftali Zvi Horowitz, also known as Rabbi Naftali Tzvi of Ropczyce, was born in Leshnev, in eastern Galicia. He was to leave a … Continue reading Poland: Ropczyce to Łańcut
Thursday, October 18, 2018 (continued): One of our goals in Mielec (Me-ell-its) is to visit its two Jewish cemeteries—the old one on Jadernych Street and the new one on Traugutta Street. When a Jewish community’s cemetery runs out of space to bury its dead, they close it and open a new one. They often refer to the … Continue reading Poland: Mielec
Thursday, October 18, 2018 (continued): In the early 1980s, I worked near a bookshop in Philadelphia. I spent many of my lunch hours and too much of my money in the bookshop. One day, I purchased a book of photographs, A Vanished World, by the Russian-American photographer, Roman Vishniac. I had some time left before I … Continue reading Poland: Dobrynin to Rzochów
Thursday, October 18, 2018 (continued): We leave Tarnów. Our destination is the Jewish cemetery in Pilzno. The highway passes through fertile farmland that reminds me of Amish farms in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. About half an hour out of Tarnów, we leave the highway and turn into a country road which will take us to where … Continue reading Poland: Pilzno to Dąbie
It's October 16, 2018. I am walking behind Beth on a path covered with fallen leaves. The midmorning air is cool and damp. On our right is a high red brick wall, on our left, what looks like a forest full of gravestones. We are in the New Jewish Cemetery in Kraków. The cemetery, which opened … Continue reading Kraków: New Jewish Cemetery
