Jewish Enough for Hitler: A Reform Convert at Yad Vashem

On Sunday morning, we got up early, ate our last lovely breakfast at the David Citadel in Jerusalem, boarded our bus and headed to Mount Herzl and Yad Vashem. 

Mount Herzl is home to the military cemetary where many of Israel's great hero's and fighters remain.  We didn't have time to pay our respects at any of the graves, but were ushered into the Herzl museum where we saw a wonderful interactive movie/diorama/experience about the life of Theodore Herzl.  He wrote the famous pamphlet The New Old Land and single handedly started the Zionist movement that resulted in modern Israel.  It seems cheesy, but it was really well done and I enjoyed it.  It did bring to life his vision for Israel and how we have succeeded and how we have missed his ideals. 

Then it was on to Yad Vashem.  Yad Vashem--a name and a memorial--is the Holocaust Museum in Israel.  Newly renovated, it is a stunning peice of architecture and an incredibly moving museum.  We started in the Blvd. of Righteous Gentiles which recognizes the non-Jews who risked their own lives to save the lives of Jews during the Shoa. That was when I started to cry. 

Then it was the children's memorial.  One and a half million children were murdered during the Shoa.  One and a half million under the age of eighteen because they were Jews. 

Before I go any further, let me answer a question asked on Akira's blog by one of his readers.  Akira called me a Ger Tzeddek, a rightious convert, and his reader said, "but is she Orthodox, she has a link to the URJ on her site."  I converted in the Reform movement, not because it was watered down, easy, or a weak version of Judaism--but because it was the honest place for me to become a Jew.  In the conservative movement or in an orthodox shul, I would have had to lie to my beit din.  Am I shomer negiah?  No.  Do I keep a Kosher home?  No.  Do I dress modestly?  Not all the time.  Do I beleive  that I should count in a minyan?  Yes.  Do I believe that men and women can pray together without being distracted by the other?  Yes.  Do I believe that gays have a rightful place in our community? Yes. 

I could not sit before a beit din and lie about how I would live my Jewish life.  In the Reform movement, I take responsibility to learn halacha, understand it, and interpret it for myself and for myself only.  I keep kosher-style.  I don't take sex lightly.  I pray alone everyday.  I try to remember to bless my food.  I give tzeddaka in my community and to Israel.  I count towards a minyan.  I'm learning Hebrew. 

I'm Jewish enough for Hitler, but not Jewish enough for the Orthodox.

Sigh.

At my conversion and again at my public ceremony, I said yes to six questions.  I'll repeat two of them here. 

1.  Do you cleave yourself to the Jewish people forever?  Yes.

2.  If you are blessed with children, will you raise them as Jews?  Yes.

That said, I went into the Children's memorial at Yad Vashem and immediately started to sob.  You walk into a dark tunnel, past a mezuzah, holding onto a rail.  There is eerie music playing in the background and then you start hearing the names and ages of the One and a half MILLION children.  The room is pitch black and there are mirrors upon mirrors reflecting the light of just 5 candles.  Flickering all around are 1.5 million flames and you hear name after name after name.

Here I am, a single woman.  A single Jew by Choice.  I have decided that there are enough blessings in being a Jew and raising my children as Jews, that I am willing to put them at this risk.  Not just the risk of anti-semitism or being teased, but that if the shoa, God Forbid, happened again.  I would step forward and say, "I'm a Jew."  I won't say, "Yeah, um, it was just a Reform Conversion... so it didn't count."  No.  I'm a Jew, my children will be Jews.

I stepped into the sunlight and Vadim, an Israeli born in the Ukraine, handed me a Kleenex.  He said, "I am a cynical, secular Israeli.  But in here, I'm a baby.  I always cry."  Then we went into the memorial tent--the first building built at Yad Vashem and said Kaddish together. 

From there it was time for the main exhibit, I walked slowly and read too much and still felt like I was racing through.  In the end, the bus left without me.  They realized it and came back for me.  I'm not going to say much about the main exhibit--other than to say it is really well done and that you should allow yourself more than the 90 minutes we were allotted and the two hours I took.

tags: one  aviv  yad  vashem  tel  jew  reform  conversion  

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