Tetzave (Parshat Zachor) - Purim 1945

“Pardon me, sir, are you perchance a Jew?'”

Ralph Goodman immediately reached for the .45 calibre pistol on his hip.

The 24-year-old American soldier didn’t know what to expect from the approaching middle-aged man wearing a felt hat, one side folded up, and speaking Australian-accented English.

Goodman stopped and looked the stranger in the eye, his hand firmly planted on his gun.

“I am,” Goodman replied. “Why do you ask?”

“It is so nice to be able to say aloud ‘I am a Jew,'” answered the man, introducing himself as Philip Vecht."

This conversation took place on a hill in the small (Belgian) village of Spa, near the German border.

It was February 1945.

Goodman, who was on an errand for the 1st U.S. Army Headquarters Commandant section, relaxed as my maternal grandfather explained that he was Australian born and that he, his wife and two young children had fled their home in Antwerp in 1942 and spent the war years stranded in a rented cottage in this once-popular resort town. Only the Vechts’ British passports had saved them from deportation.

He recounted that virtually no Jews remained in Spa. And that his own father-in-law, a Belgian citizen hidden in a nearby house, had died of natural causes several years earlier and been secretly buried. The family had not been able to recite Kaddish for him."

 [I am named after his father-in-law - Kalman.]

"The two men also noted that Purim was approaching.

“Sir, I have holy books buried safely in my cellar, and amongst them Megillat Esther, and my daughter has not yet heard it read,” my grandfather said.

“Mr. Vecht, the Megillah will be read Purim evening,” Goodman said.

Goodman, from an Orthodox background in Pittsfield, Mass., was looking for a reason to celebrate. It had been a bitterly cold and nasty winter. Chanukah passed unnoticed. And the Battle of the Bulge, a surprise attack, one of the war’s bloodiest battles with more than 80,000 American casualties, had ended less than a month earlier.

Life for my mother, uncle and grandparents had been extremely difficult and my grandfather had been on strict orders to report to the Gestapo on a weekly basis.

In preparation, Goodman approached his mess sergeant, Tony Seas, a former World War I Polish army captain, for whom he had done a favour.

“Tony, I need flour, oil, raisins, poppy seeds, sugar and lemons. It’s Purim.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Seas answered.

“Tony, you owe me.”

Before the holiday, Goodman delivered the ingredients to Henrietta (whom everyone called ‘Hetty’) Vecht, my grandmother, who greeted him open-mouthed at the sight of such luxuries.

He returned on Erev Purim with a group of Jewish soldiers, including his yeshiva-trained buddies Paul Burstein from the Bronx and Melvin Lewis from Washington, D.C.

My uncle wasn't there that evening since he had already been sent to boarding school in London. And my mother, seven at the time, remembers it only vaguely.

But Ralph Goodman clearly recalled that Purim celebration.

The Ma’ariv service was prayed, Kaddish was recited for my great-grandfather and the Megillah was read.

“The GIs ate lovingly baked and tasty Purim pastries with coffee that Sgt. Seas provided,”

Goodman said.

Goodman also remembers two little girls — Rosette (my mother) and perhaps a younger cousin — who “sat on a kitchen table with tears running down their faces and sang zemirot [songs].”

In the story of Purim, with its unpredictable and paradoxical chain of events, “The world turned topsy-turvy,” according to Megillah 9:1.

But for the Vecht family and the Jewish GIs, for a few hours that Purim night in Spa, Belgium, with Haman dead and Hitler on the run, with a Megillah reading and homemade hamantaschen, the world turned right side up."

The extraordinary excerpt above which I have slightly edited, is taken from an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, dated 2^nd March 2007, exactly 13 years ago (I wrote this drasha on the same date this year). It can still be found online (please see the link at the bottom of this page).

Ralph Goodman had recently written to the “Stars and Stripes” a highly respected US Military news source, in order to tell his story.

His account piqued the interest of a journalist, Jane Ulman who met with him in Florida and he recounted his story to her. Then in his late eighties, Ralph was very keen to trace the little girl he’d seen sitting on the table, sobbing and singing zemirot, along with her her brother, whom he’d never met. He wanted to celebrate Purim with them as free Jews.

Somehow, Jane managed to locate my uncle Romeo who invited him to journey across ‘the pond’ for Purim and Ralph was incredibly excited to come over, despite his family’s very real concerns about his fragile health. 

Ralph being ‘Ralph’ would not let this stand in the way of his achieving his dream and duly joined us, along with his charming daughter, Myla, for an unforgettable evening, on 23^rd March 2008 (two days after the holiday, which he had celebrated with our family) held at my cousin Nina’s house in Hendon.

Before an invited room of family and close friends, we heard my uncle’s stirring recollections of growing up in wartime Belgium followed by a detailed account of the meeting between Ralph and my grandparents, all those years ago. It was an unforgettable evening which I fortunately videoed and shared the DVDs amongst the family.

My then-wife and I had the pleasure of inviting Ralph over to our house for a Shabbat lunch, so that we could spend more time with him and most importantly, he could have the opportunity to meet the next generation, my daughters.

The following Purim, Ralph sent us a beautiful box of hamantaschen whose taste lasted longer than the crumbs they generated.

I stayed in touch with Ralph until he sadly passed away a few years later, on 7^th July 2013 and I still correspond with Myla, despite the physical distance between us.

I mention all the above because, despite it being 75 years since the event, an auspicious commemoration in itself, it speaks directly to me in connection with this Shabbat of Parshat Zachor.

“Devarim 25:

Remember what Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt, that he encountered you on the way, and he struck those lagging at the rear, when you were tired and exhausted, and he did not fear God. Therefore, when the LORD your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

Some Rabbis have compared the actions of the Nazis to those of Amalek, in their barbaric treatment of the Jewish people, not least the singling out of our vulnerable members and particularly the one-and-a-half million children who were murdered during the Shoah.

Tzaddikim like Ralph Goodman, Ruel Reuven ben Mordechai zichrono livracha, - may his memory be a blessing), ensured that he did everything in his power to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under the Heaven”. He didn’t just sit back in the United States where war seemed to be, but a distant thundercloud. He literally put his life on the line to help save the continent of Europe and not least, his own brothers and sisters. To rescue them from the furnaces that had engulfed the area, both literally and metaphorically.

And that’s why, 75 years later, I say “thank you”.

Thank you, Ralph, for putting your hand out to that Australian gentlemen on a hill, somewhere in the countryside between the Channel and the Rhine and thank you for bringing Purim back into my grandparents’ lives.  Coming towards the end of the Shoah, it was, at least for our family, nothing short of a miracle, which is what Purim is all about.

We have never forgotten Ralph’s incredible gift to our family. In doing so, he created an inexorable bond between the Goodmans and Vechts because in Jewish geography, mountains and oceans simply do not exist.

We are one family.

Shabbat Shalom and Purim Sameach.

(You can read the unedited article at https://jewishjournal.com/tag/rosette-vecht/)

Mishpatim - Caroline and Kirk: Tales of Desperation & Redemption

"I sit by your grave and weep,

Silently, not to disturb your sleep.

Rest in peace my beautiful son

It won't be long before we are one,

While I lie down by your side.

And talk, no secrets to hide.

Tell me, Eric, what did I do wrong?

What should I have done to make you strong?

Now I sit here and cry,

Waiting to be with you when I die."

'Life Could Be Verse: reflections on love, loss, and what really matters', Health Communication Inc.,Douglas, K, 2014, [p. 72]

"I remember one of the first ever internships I ever did was for a fashion shoot where Caroline was going to be on the cover of a magazine. She was incredible and so inspiring on the day. She never complained and made it look easy, even though she was going through multiple outfit and hair and make up changes. I was exhausted just watching her.

The best bit?

She came up to us interns (there were three of us) and spoke to us individually about the shoot. She asked why we were interning and what we wanted to do. She didn’t have to do that, and yet she did anyway. You don’t often see that on a high-profile fashion shoot. She was kind and lovely and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I hope that’s how she is remembered." 

Daisy, 26, content manager, London

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/feb/18/readers-pay-tribute-caroline-flack-love-island

The last few weeks have witnessed the demise of two people, who on the face of it, couldn't have been more different.

The first, a young, beloved TV presenter with so much left to give, who tragically chose to end her life prematurely and the second, a wise, centenarian Hollywood actor whose very name invoked countless memories of his performances in the minds of his millions of admirers around the world.

I knew little about Caroline Flack before last Saturday night and even less about 'Love Island' the popular TV show she fronted. I had heard her name in relation to the recent court case, but as I didn't care much for her or the programme, the news glossed over me.

It was different when it came to Kirk Douglas. I am very familiar with a great deal of his films, including "Cast A Giant Shadow", "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ", "Lust for Life", Gunfight at The OK Corral" and of course "Spartacus". I was also aware of the retracing of his roots and the public reclaiming of his Jewish background, which began in the late 1980s with the publication of his autobiography, "The Ragman's Son".

Since Saturday night, I have read, with a growing sense of sadness how Caroline struggled with her mental health, which worsened after she won the "Strictly Come Dancing" contest in 2014. 

She wrote:

"'It all started the day after I won Strictly. I woke up and felt like somebody had covered my body in clingfilm. I couldn't get up and just couldn't pick myself up at all that next year.....'

I felt I was being held together by a piece of string which could snap at any time. People see the celebrity lifestyle and assume everything is perfect, but we're just like everyone else. Everyone is battling something emotional behind closed doors - that's life. Fame doesn't make you happy."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8008585/Caroline-Flacks-mental-health-battle-Love-Island-host-admitted-struggles-just-months-death.html

One would have thought that Kirk Douglas, née Issur Danielovitch, who didn't have an easy start to life, would have been able to enjoy his twilight years embraced in the warmth of his family, but he too suffered greatly,  narrowly surviving a helicopter crash, in which two other people were killed in 1991 and only five years later, being struck down by a severe stroke which robbed him, an actor, of his greatest tool, his voice.

And then he lost his youngest son, Eric, the subject of the poem I read at first, to a drug overdose. He was only 46 and this was but eight short years after his father's debilitating stroke.

Exodus 21 (1) Now these are the rules that you shall set before them:

שמות כ״א: (א) וְאֵ֙לֶּה֙ הַמִּשְׁפָּטִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר תָּשִׂ֖ים לִפְנֵיהֶֽם׃

Sforno on Exodus 21:1:1 (Ovadiah ben Yaakov Sforno - Italian Rabbi d.1550)

ואלה המשפטים, in the previous paragraph, the Torah spoke about the prohibition of coveting property belonging to someone else (20,14). This did not involve action.

Exodus 20 (14) You shall not covet your neighbour’s house: you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.

שמות כ׳:י״ד (יד) לֹ֥א תַחְמֹ֖ד בֵּ֣ית רֵעֶ֑ךָ לֹֽא־תַחְמֹ֞ד אֵ֣שֶׁת רֵעֶ֗ךָ וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ֙ וְשׁוֹר֣וֹ וַחֲמֹר֔וֹ וְכֹ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר לְרֵעֶֽךָ׃ (פ)

By contrast, where it says ואלה המשפטים,  the Torah speaks about laws governing the concrete nature of “אשר לרעך,” tangible matters belonging to your fellow man.

The Parsha of Mishpatim that we just read, starts recording the laws that Gd gave to Moses whilst he was on Mount Sinai for the 40 days preceding his first return to the Children of Israel (when they greeted him with the obscene Golden Calf).

It contains a panoply of civil laws ranging from the treatment of Hebrew slaves, those who commit manslaughter, matricide or patricide, kidnapping, through to criminal damage, theft, sorcery. behaviour towards Gentiles, orphans, widows, the poor, keeping Shabbat and even the rudimentary laws of Kashrut.

In short, it provides, in detail the foundations of what should be a just and moral society. 

A society that values and respects the rights of individuals:

·        Where those self-same members play an active role in building a community of like-minded people.

·        Where each person is treated justly and those who break the rules are punished accordingly. 

·        Where people like Kirk Douglas insisted on crediting Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter of Spartacus – a man whose career and livelihood had been decimated through being blacklisted during the barbaric McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1940s and '50s.

Kirk Douglas, who donated millions of dollars to improve the lot of his fellow human beings by giving to countless schools, hospitals and medical centres both in the United States and abroad.

Kirk Douglas, who contributed to the creation of playgrounds in Jerusalem enabling Arab and Jewish children to play together, building a shared future together. The ardent Zionist who established the ‘Kirk Douglas Theatre’ in the Aish building opposite the Kotel.

This was Kirk Douglas, the proud Jew who reclaimed his heritage, realising that it was never too late to contribute to the kind of society espoused in this week's Parsha.

And Caroline Flack, who although she didn't achieve the same dizzying heights, in her tragic, untimely death, showed us that, had we lived by the words embedded in the fabric of Mishpatim, we too might have been part of a society that could have protected her. 

Had her inner turmoil been addressed earlier, perhaps she might have taken different decisions, choices which might not have resulted in the alleged charges relating to assaulting her boyfriend. This led to her feeling that she had no other option but to take her life.

Exodus 22:

(21) You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. (22) If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me.

She may not have been a widow or an orphan, but she was just as vulnerable and perhaps, only now, will her anguish be understood. When large swathes of society enthusiastically promote a culture where programmes like 'Love Island', 'Big Brother' or any similar reality show are venerated, sooner or later, that society’s shallow outlook and cynical facade will self-destruct and cause the collateral damage we witnessed last week. Hopefully, Caroline has found the inner the peace she craved so much.

As Kirk wrote, at the age of 98:

Gd walks beside me in the open air.

I can't see Him but I'm sure He's there.

Together we admire His green grass,

His roses in bloom,

Tomorrow that red one will decorate my room.

Together we admire His palm trees,

Tinted silver by the setting sun.

A sudden breeze carries Gd away,

As light is fading at the end of the day.

I sit there lonely, until it's hard to see,

So, I get up and - He is inside of me!

I'm happy to know that Gd is everywhere:

In the broiling sun, the pouring rain,

And in the cool night air.

Look for Him. He is your friend too.

But if you can't find Him, He will find you.

[ibid p.74]

Now, he has found them both and the moral lessons that we read today were never more applicable that in the societies we currently inhabit.

We can't afford to risk losing another Caroline and we owe it, both to ourselves and the youthful members of the next generation, to ensure that a society’s moral compass can always be redirected.

It is never too late to change the world.

Shabbat Shalom.

Yitro - Kilroy and the Legacy of the Torah

James J. Kilroy (d.1962) was an inspector who worked in the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.

During WWII, the staff at the shipyard needed to increase production to turn out as many ships as they could to help the war effort. Kilroy's job included checking the rivets that held the ships together, making sure that they had been placed properly and fastened solidly.

In the course of his daily duties, Kilroy had to fit between tight spaces and often entered very narrow areas to check the rivets, which he counted in blocks. As he approved an area, he used some chalk to certify that it had passed his strict criteria and left a tick as a mark of his inspection.

In those days, workers were paid on a piecework basis and this was calculated per rivet.

When Kilroy had left for the day, the workers would erase his tick so that when another inspector checked the rivets, they would be counted a second time and the workers would be paid twice for the same job!

After a while, one of the shipyard supervisors calculated that the number of ship parts was below the amount being paid, considering the amount of rivets being inspected.

Kilroy had to come up with a solution, realising that his inspection marks had been tampered with. He could use paint instead but how would he be able to fit into the tight spaces carrying a pot of paint?

His solution was to re-apply the ticks, but with an additional oversized legend stating that "Kilroy was Here" which made the tampering more difficult. He later added the famous 'eyes and nose peering over a wall' sketch.

The message was clear to all the workers - "don't tamper with Kilroy's inspections!" and indeed, as a result, the tampering ceased.

In peacetime, all ships would have been painted over, obliterating Kilroy's artwork, but due to time constraints and the need to deliver the ships as soon as possible to the theatre of war, they were launched with the sketches intact.

When the ships appeared in parts of Europe and the Far East, the servicemen had no idea about the history of the legend and soon played a game of seeing how many locations they could spot the "Kilroy was Here" motif around the world. Simply put, Kilroy became ubiquitous.

After the war, the motif was replicated in locations as remote as Mount Everest and the Arc de Triomphe.

There is even a story that, when the Nazis found the motif on a piece of captured American equipment, Hitler thought that Kilroy was the identity of a high-level spy!

I've related this story because of something similar that happened to me recently.

A few months ago, my eldest daughter, Hadassah felt that she wanted to discover a little more about her origins and bought a DNA kit from the Israeli based website "My Heritage". She duly sent off the results and when they came back, she found out that she was mostly Ashkenazi with some Sephardi connections, due to her maternal grandmother's Greek background, which the family traced back to Spain and the inquisition.

She asked me to have myself tested.

Initially, I was reluctant, not least because these tests are still in their infancy and there is quite a lot of scientific scepticism as to their authenticity and reliability. They are also relatively expensive.

The Black Friday discounts duly rolled up and so I decided to take the plunge. I bought a kit, swabbed my cheeks and returned the package to the US, just after Xmas.

And I waited....and waited.

I'll be honest, by now, I was quite intrigued as to the result that would come back!

(In passing, I was almost amused when I went to post the package at a Post Office in Edgware and the lady immediately asked me if I was sending a DNA kit. Apparently, I'm not the first Jewish person in the vicinity to do so!)

About a fortnight ago, the result came back. I checked online, with bated breath.

Was I 13% Spanish, 15% Turkish, perhaps 3% Chinese....."

No, unlike my daughter, I am, at least according to the results....100% Ashkenazi.

And not only that, the map they provide links me to no less than seven countries, without a by-your-leave of individual percentages. I'm a pure Jewish European thoroughbred!

Was I disappointed?

Completely. I felt that I'd been diddled out of my hard-earned cash.

I could have used the money to pay for a very nice meal at the Aviv in Edgware (for two, noch)!

But then I got to thinking....

If you look at this week's Parsha, we find our ancestors eagerly encamped at the bottom of Mount Sinai, where-ever it may be found in the vast deserts of the Middle East. Gd presents a set of laws to a nation, barely free from centuries' long slavery by the most powerful empire in the known world.

In a desert.

Ten Commandments (literally, the Ten Statements) that literally rocked the mountain.

Exodus 19:17-18

(17) Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain. (18) Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the LORD had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently.

A pretty incredible sight.

Yet, within five weeks, Gd is threatening to destroy the nation and rebuild a new one from Moshe....and within two years, from the point of their departure, they are on the verge of being obliterated once again as the spies relate their deceitful travelogue - perhaps the first instance of 'fake news'.

If we think about it, had Moshe not interceded, the nation of Israel could possibly have ended its travails in the desert and the Torah might have disappeared alongside them.

But that's not what happened.

They survived and the revolutionary moral code carved into those rocks (albeit a second time) travelled far beyond the sand dunes of Sinai.

They now form the basis of a book that is literally the DNA of the three monotheistic religions and their message is communicated by billions of people around the world.

My ancestors lived amongst those people - scattered around Europe, keeping the Jewish flame alive, through thick and thin, through poverty and perhaps a touch of wealth, through pogroms and national wars. The self-same Torah, given at Mount Sinai, way down south, could be located in every rivet that held their faith together in the shtetlech of Poland and White Russia.

Before Kilroy, the Torah - was Here.

And so, when I think about it, although it would be nice to have a little more information, the fact that I can say (at least if you believe the evidence) that I am 100% Ashkenazi fills me with a great sense of pride. That, despite everything my folks went through, here I am.

This week's Parsha, which provides us with our spiritual DNA, reminds us that when Hashem took our people out of Egypt, it didn't matter where in the world the Torah ended up.

From Anchorage to Adelaide and everywhere in-between, the Jewish People and the Holy book that we share with the world around, have become the ultimate Kilroy!

And that dear friends, is nothing short of riveting.

Shabbat Shalom.