AT JEWISH NEWPORT
It was nice to be home at Touro Synagogue after a long trip to Israel.
The parsha dealt almost entirely with Aaron, his sons, and assistants, and their duties as priests in the Ohel Moed…the Tent of Meeting. The topics ranged from the clothing a priests wore (it should be made by “all who are skillful, whom I have endowed with the gift of skill”), to how they should be consecrated, what and how to sacrifice and what incense to burn (the aromatic kind was preferred). We adorn our Torahs with breastplates modeled after the priestly breastplate described in the parsha.
Purim was coming up, and Rabbi Mandel said,
“When I was at Congregation Beth Shalom in Lawrence NY, Rabbi Kenneth Hain asked, why is it "When Adar comes in, we increase in happiness" (Mishenichnas Adar marbin b'simcha, משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה). Why Adar and Purim? Why not Nissan for Pesach or Tishrei for Sukkot? A rabbi ( I have forgotten whom ) said, because on Purim we created our own redemption, so that is real joy, when we initiate and create our future that is true joy. On the other holidays, it was God who did the miracles.”
It’s not our role to wait around for miracles. We need to create our own opportunities both as individuals and as a community. We have the potential. Do we have the will?
The parsha began with instructions, “You shall further instruct the Israelites to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly.” That’s שֶׁ֣מֶן זַ֥יִת shemen zayit in Hebrew.
During the Israel trip I met Michael Somin. He was born in 1966 in Dokshitz (where several Newporters trace their roots). Michael visited Dokshitz in August, 2017, for the first time since immigration to Israel in 1978. Michael asked if I had room in my luggage to take something back, and then gave me a gift of a two pound can of pure olive oil made in Omer, Israel, a suburb of Beer Sheva.
During my trip I met several relatives of Newport’s Friedman family. After a brief visit with Friedman family member Shai Viseman in Tel Aviv, I had some free time. I went to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. A special exhibit on display was about “Forbidden Music: X-Ray Audio in the USSR, 1946 - 1964.” From the 1940s to the 1960s, banned music was produced by making recordings on X-Ray film, which could be played on a record player. The exhibit focused on jazz and Western rock n' roll, immigrant music, and prisoners’ songs.
In 2013, musician-composer Stephen Coates found a recording for sale in St. Petersburg, Russia. He started the X-ray Audio Project to gather information, and wrote the first history on the subject in 2015, “'X-Ray Audio’ The Strange Story of Soviet Music on the Bone.” This led directly to the traveling exhibit.
When I visited Regina Zhuk, another Friedman relative and asked if she had heard of these recordings, she replied, “I’ve heard of them, and I have some.” They were a different type of banned music, Jewish music.
Regina Friedman Zhuk was born in Moscow, grew up in Riga, and immigrated to Israel in 1999. When I spoke of how one of my Kusinitz great-uncles who was a revolutionary was arrested in Moscow 1937 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, and then sentenced to a second ten years six months after being released, she had a similar story about her father. She had never told the story before, because her parents engrained it in her that she should never speak of it.
In 1937 in Moscow, her father, Abram Friedman, was visited by an acquaintance who was also from Dokshitz. The visitor wrote her father’s name and phone number in his notebook. When the visitor was arrested so was Regina’s father. He was sentenced to 10 years.
When he was released in 1947, he joined his family in Riga, where they had moved after the war. To help avoid being rearrested, a friend obtained a clean passport that did not mention the arrest. That was not enough. He and Regina’s mother, Mara Shulman Friedman, hid in the open by moving to Rostov-on-Don for several years to get away from the heavy but not so efficient hand of the KGB. Rostov-on-Don is a 23 hour drive from Riga today. Now that’s a long way!
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| Libyan Jewish Museum |
I met another Friedman family member, Paula Shaham, at the Libyan Jewish Museum in Or Yehuda, where she is the education director. The museum’s website is in Hebrew, English, and Italian. Most Israelis that I met have never heard of this museum. Just a few blocks away, the Babylon Jewish Museum, tells the story of the Jews from Iraq. Paula recounted how she lived in a tent after arriving in Israel, and how various members of the family in Israel were helped by their relatives in Newport.
As I write this, the wind is howling, it’s raining, the electricity is out, and it’s a long way from Israel, Riga, Dokshitz, and Rostov-on-Don, but not so far from Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.
Shabbat Shalom
#tourosynagoguenewport #newportri
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