That fateful generation of human history is departing and though memory remains, the actual eyewitnesses and survivors of that time and those events are irrevocably gone. Such is the nature of the human condition of mortality. In the United States and perhaps in the United Kingdom and its then dominions as well, that wartime generation was and is viewed as being perhaps the most exemplary one of many other generations.

 

It was a generation of sacrifice and honor, loyalty and victory. It may truly deserve being viewed as the “finest hour” of Western democracy. I was and am a child of that generation. I remember the war vividly though it hardly affected me physically or even comfort-wise. Yet the mood in our house was tense and foreboding because a portion of my father’s family that did not yet leave for the Land of Israel in the 1930’s, when most of the rest of the family did so, remained in Lithuania. In our hearts we knew that they were doomed to destruction. And immediately after the war ended, our worst forebodings and fears were confirmed.

 

The Jewish world seventy years ago was a disaster, a spiritual wasteland in the main and a physically, emotionally and nationally challenged society. The survivors of the Holocaust were refugees and displaced persons. The doors to Palestine were barred to them by British intransigence and Arab violence. The Torah infrastructure laboriously constructed in Eastern Europe and in the Sephardic Middle East, over a millennia of study and creativity, was permanently eradicated.

 

Semi-official anti-Semitism in American businesses, universities and governmental agencies was pervasive. Jewry the world over thrashed about to find moorings and to somehow rebuild itself. The Cold War was upon us and millions of Jews now found themselves caged behind Stalin’s Iron Curtain. In short, it certainly was not a happy time nor was there a positive prognosis for the future of the Jewish people or for the resurgence of Torah in its midst.

 

And yet all of this pessimism – then it was really realism – was confounded by the Jewish nation. Israel came into being and has flourished against all odds, implacable foes and a hostile world. Torah study has achieved unimaginable popularity and numbers in our time. Jews became more confident and rightfully self-assertive, rising to high achievements in finance and commerce, academia and scholarship of all kinds, as well as government and politics.

 

And, to a great extent all of this was due to the efforts and drive and talents of the broken remnants of Israel, the survivors of the Holocaust and the mellahs who rebuilt themselves and thereby the House of Israel as well. 

 

I am reminded of all of this by the passing of my friend and congregant, Rabbi Dr. Armin Friedman this past week. A survivor of the Holocaust, left alone and bereft, he rebuilt his life with purpose and family, Torah and public service. He devoted his life to educating Jewish children in Torah and tradition and to give them the necessary tools for success in a competitive and changing world.

 

Though at times he spoke of the experiences of his youth in the camps he did not allow himself to be consumed by them. Though he questioned the circumstances that allowed the Holocaust, he never wavered in his loyalty to the God of Israel and to His Torah. He and many others like him of that heroic generation looked forward and he and they were determined to build a stronger Jewish world than even the one that had been so ruthlessly destroyed.

 

Building and teaching, helping and encouraging, these were the goals of his life, his justification of survival and of life itself. That was a generation of driven people, determined to rebuild and not succumb. And it is upon their attitudes and actions that our current generation and those generations that will yet follow will continue building and educating the Jewish world.

 

Aristocratic, soft-spoken, determined and scholarly, he was a fine representative of his home and upbringing. But in his accomplishments against many obstacles after the Holocaust, we witnessed his true mettle and faith. The departure of that person and of his generation is a sad moment for all of us.

 

Shabat shalom

 

Berel Wein