There are two movies that dominate the collective memory of American Jewry. The first is Fiddler on the Roof, the second is Schindler's List. Today being Holocaust Memorial Day, the latter will be viewed in synagogues and homes. As etiquette goes, the tears of Schindler the businessman seem more fitting than the songs of Tevye the dairyman. But I wonder if we have it wrong, and in a way, it might be better to watch Fiddler on the Roof.
There is so much devoted to the Holocaust; historical tomes, monographs, museum upon museum, the written and videoed testimonies are endless, not to mention works of fiction and film. But in our devotion not to forget the destruction of Europe's Jews, I wonder if we have forgotten something else: how the Jews of Old Europe once lived.
What was Jewish life like before 1939?
We know about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but do we know of the Warsaw of before? And what of Odessa, Vilna, Prague, Sighet, Kotzsk or a thousand other places large and small? I can visualize the cattle cars and concentration camps. But ask me what sort of bread my Jewish brethren ate, ask me what sort of shirts they wore to shul, ask me to recite a poem in Yiddish, or even a lullaby...."Upon these things I weep."
By World War I, most of Europe's shtetls were wiped out. Whose fault this was primarily--was it the Poles, the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Germans, or some combination--I cannot tell you. But Shalom Aleichem wrote his story, "Tevye the Dairyman." And I remember Anatevka.
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