Page 17 - HaMizrachi Chanukah 2021 - USA

1942 1943 1944
Kibbutz Be'erot Yitzchak is founded in memory of Rabbi Rabbi Meir Bar-I Ian arrives in Mizrachi activists Yehoshua Ungar and
Yitzchak Nissenbaum, hy"d, president of Mizrachi Poland, the United States to advocate Moshe Kraus lead efforts to save over
who was murdered by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto for Holocaust rescue efforts 40,000 Budapest Jews from deportation

bereft of their dearest relatives and any
possessions that they may have had."
But the final chapter had not yet been
written. He emphasized: "In the midst
of the sorrow and pain and tears, one
ideal sustained them, one hope gave
them indomitable faith. They were
chalutzim and now they are chalutzim
again. The tragic interruption notwith-
standing, they are taking up where
they left off. They can see a ray of light
again piercing the black and foreboding
clouds of despair. They see again the
road; hard and long as it may be, they
are nevertheless again on the road to
Eretz Yisrael."
Avraham Gottlieb, one of the core
group who founded Kibbutz Buchen-
wald, wrote with admiration at Rabbi
Schacter's approach in his visits to the Members of the Kibbutz Buchenwald hachshara are gathered beneath a banner bearing their name in
farm and his counsel to its members. Hebrew. (PHOTO: UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM, COURTESY OF EVA TUCHSZNAJDER LANG)
Gottlieb was struck by the fact that
instead of attempting to pressure the AMERICA. We must prove to them, to however, was still linked inextricably
young people to observe Jewish reli- the rest of the tragic remnants of our to Europe - they wanted to honor Enzo
gious tenets, the rabbi urged them to people and to all the world, that we, the Sereni, one of the Palestine Jewish par-
"not allow ideology to divide them, as it Jewish Youth of America, stand with achutists who gave their lives trying
had before the war, but instead become our chaverim who are still in the throes to aid the Jews in Europe. The Labor
one band with a place for each indi- of the Galut of Europe and share with government's "National Names Com-
vidual with a declared wish to live as a them a common hope for the establish- mittee" initially resisted, but the com-
Jew among Jews." (Gottlieb's account ment of a Jewish state. Our solidarity mittee relented after a lively public
is found in the 1997 book Kibbutz must be stronger than ever before. We debate.
Buchenwald: Survivors and Pioneers, by must join with them in building the
"Netzer Sereni" remains to this day
Judith Tydor Baumel.) The kitchen at hope of the Jewish people - a free dem- a living reminder of the kibbutz that
Kibbutz Buchenwald was kept kosher, ocratic Jewish Commonwealth."
arose from the ashes of Buchenwald
and Shabbat was treated as an official The first group of Kibbutz Buchen- and the state that emerged from the
day of rest, thus enabling the Ortho-
wald members reached Palestine in ashes of history to become - as Rabbi
dox minority to feel their wishes were
September 1945, eventually joining a Schacter so memorably put it - "the
being respected.
group of chalutzim who established a hope of the Jewish people."
Schacter concluded: "The message new settlement in central Israel called
these heroic chaverim asked me to bring Kibbutz Buchenwald. After a few years,
to our chaverim in America is one which the association of kibbutzim to which
should stir our hearts and inspire our Kibbutz Buchenwald belonged urged
Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director ofThe
minds. When I told them of the various a change of the name, both because of David 5. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Stud-
chalutziut movements in America, they the trend in Israel to Hebraicize "for- ies and author of more than 20 books about
were thrilled ... They are in desperate eign" names and the jarring sound of Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust,
need not merely of our financial and an Israeli town bearing the name of including The Rabbi of Buchenwald: The Life
political assistance, but even more, are a Nazi concentration camp. The new and Times of Herschel Schacter (Yeshiva Uni-
they clamoring for CHALUTZIM FROM name that the kibbutz members chose, versity Press, 2021).

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