you. And why wouldn’t Transylvania tempt you? Despite the barely concealed police state, despite the poverty, you may be happy there. The gardens are splendid, the hotels are new, the reception that awaits you is warm.
Only, while you explore the cities and the villages, while you enjoy their special picturesqueness, try to evoke within yourself the memories of the men and women, and the children—especially the children—who forty years ago were driven away from this place and who today travel endlessly through mankind’s wounded memory, signaling us invisibly, and yet so needfully, for the sake of our own survival.
Kaddish in Cambodia
O N THE EIGHTEENTH DAY (in the Hebrew calendar) of Shevat I found myself in the dusty, noisy village of Aranyaprathet, on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, searching desperately for nine more Jews.
I had Yahrzeit for my father, and I needed a
minyan
so that I could say Kaddish. I would have found a
minyan
easily enough in Bangkok. There are about fifty Jewish families in the community there, plus twenty Israeli Embassy families, so there would have been no problem about finding ten men for
minchah
. But in Aranyaprathet?
I had gone there to take part in a March for the Survival of Cambodia organized by the International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Frontiers. There were philosophers, novelists, parliamentarians, and journalists—myriad journalists. But how was I tofind out who might be able to help me with
my
problem?
I would have liked to telephone one of my rabbi friends in New York or Jerusalem and ask his advice on the Halakhic aspects of the matter. What did one do in such a case? Should one observe the Yahrzeit the following day, or the following week? But I was afraid of being rebuked and of being asked why I had gone to Thailand precisely on that day, when I should have been in synagogue.
I would have justified myself by saying that I had simply been unable to refuse. How could I refuse when so many men and women were dying of hunger and disease?
I had seen on television what the Cambodian refugees looked like when they arrived in Thailand-walking skeletons with somber eyes, crazy with fear. I had seen a mother carrying her dead child, and I had seen creatures dragging themselves along the ground, resigned to never again being able to stand upright.
How could a Jew like myself, with experiences and memories like mine, stay at home and not go to the aid of an entire people? Some will say to me, Yes, but when you needed help, nobody came forward. True, but it is
because
nobody came forward to help me that I felt it my duty to help these victims.
As a Jew I felt the need to tell these despairing men and women that we understood them; that weshared their pain; that we understood their distress because we remembered a time when we as Jews confronted total indifference.…
Of course, there is no comparison. The event which left its mark on my generation defies analogy. Those who talk about “Auschwitz in Asia” and the “Cambodian Holocaust” do not know what they are talking about. Auschwitz can and should serve as a frame of reference, but that is all.
So there I was in Thailand, in Aranyaprathet, with a group of men and women of good will seeking to feed, heal, save Cambodians—while I strove to get a
minyan
together because, of all the days of the year, the eighteenth day of Shevat is the one that is most full of meaning and dark memories for me.
Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum was a member of the American delegation. Now I needed only eight more. Leo Cherne, the president of the International Rescue Committee, was there as well. Only seven more to find.
Then I spotted the well-known Soviet dissident, Alexander Ginsburg, and rushed over to him. Would he agree to help me make up a
minyan?
He looked at me uncomprehendingly. He must have thought I was mad. A
minyan?
What is a
minyan?
I explained: a religious service. Now he surely did not understand. A religious
Only, while you explore the cities and the villages, while you enjoy their special picturesqueness, try to evoke within yourself the memories of the men and women, and the children—especially the children—who forty years ago were driven away from this place and who today travel endlessly through mankind’s wounded memory, signaling us invisibly, and yet so needfully, for the sake of our own survival.
Kaddish in Cambodia
O N THE EIGHTEENTH DAY (in the Hebrew calendar) of Shevat I found myself in the dusty, noisy village of Aranyaprathet, on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, searching desperately for nine more Jews.
I had Yahrzeit for my father, and I needed a
minyan
so that I could say Kaddish. I would have found a
minyan
easily enough in Bangkok. There are about fifty Jewish families in the community there, plus twenty Israeli Embassy families, so there would have been no problem about finding ten men for
minchah
. But in Aranyaprathet?
I had gone there to take part in a March for the Survival of Cambodia organized by the International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Frontiers. There were philosophers, novelists, parliamentarians, and journalists—myriad journalists. But how was I tofind out who might be able to help me with
my
problem?
I would have liked to telephone one of my rabbi friends in New York or Jerusalem and ask his advice on the Halakhic aspects of the matter. What did one do in such a case? Should one observe the Yahrzeit the following day, or the following week? But I was afraid of being rebuked and of being asked why I had gone to Thailand precisely on that day, when I should have been in synagogue.
I would have justified myself by saying that I had simply been unable to refuse. How could I refuse when so many men and women were dying of hunger and disease?
I had seen on television what the Cambodian refugees looked like when they arrived in Thailand-walking skeletons with somber eyes, crazy with fear. I had seen a mother carrying her dead child, and I had seen creatures dragging themselves along the ground, resigned to never again being able to stand upright.
How could a Jew like myself, with experiences and memories like mine, stay at home and not go to the aid of an entire people? Some will say to me, Yes, but when you needed help, nobody came forward. True, but it is
because
nobody came forward to help me that I felt it my duty to help these victims.
As a Jew I felt the need to tell these despairing men and women that we understood them; that weshared their pain; that we understood their distress because we remembered a time when we as Jews confronted total indifference.…
Of course, there is no comparison. The event which left its mark on my generation defies analogy. Those who talk about “Auschwitz in Asia” and the “Cambodian Holocaust” do not know what they are talking about. Auschwitz can and should serve as a frame of reference, but that is all.
So there I was in Thailand, in Aranyaprathet, with a group of men and women of good will seeking to feed, heal, save Cambodians—while I strove to get a
minyan
together because, of all the days of the year, the eighteenth day of Shevat is the one that is most full of meaning and dark memories for me.
Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum was a member of the American delegation. Now I needed only eight more. Leo Cherne, the president of the International Rescue Committee, was there as well. Only seven more to find.
Then I spotted the well-known Soviet dissident, Alexander Ginsburg, and rushed over to him. Would he agree to help me make up a
minyan?
He looked at me uncomprehendingly. He must have thought I was mad. A
minyan?
What is a
minyan?
I explained: a religious service. Now he surely did not understand. A religious
Similar Books
