August 7, 2008
When you spend your summer vacation in Poland and Israel, the answer to “How was it?” isn’t simply “Great!” The real answer is that we had a powerful Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission with 130 other Jewish leaders representing North American federations. To walk through the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto and the once lively Jewish quarter of Cracow and imagine the vibrant life they once contained, to bear witness to the horrors of the Shoa at Majdanek and Auschwitz, and then to arrive in our homeland of Israel a few hours later was to run the gamut of all the possible emotions a Jew in the modern world can feel.
We’ve all encountered the difficulty of comprehending the loss of six million Jewish souls, one and a half million of them children. We were literally brought face to face with this concept at Birkenau. A collection of the thousands of photographs brought in suitcases to that horrible place is on display in one of the few buildings that still stands there. There is a picture of a wedding couple, the bride in a dress that could be worn today, lifting a glass in toast to a future that would not be. It was like looking at your parents’ wedding album. The exhibit contains pictures of children, parents, grandparents, babies, friends on vacation — just like the ones in our living rooms. They are a reminder to us of the importance to Jews of every life, a value that remains with us to this day, despite the attempts of Nazi Germany to destroy us all.
We ran the gamut of all emotions a Jew in the modern world can feel.
We saw the implementation of that value in today’s Poland, where the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee are hard at work bringing Judaism to life for the small but rapidly growing number of young Jewish Poles who are rediscovering their Jewish roots — at kindergartens, camps, and JCCs just like ours here in MetroWest. We truly saw how Israel values each life with the sad but dignified return of the bodies of Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, honoring them in death and allowing their families some measure of closure and peace. We saw how we, through our annual campaign, change lives and save lives with visits to the programs run in Israel by our overseas partners, the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee. The message was clear — yes, the Israeli economy is strong but unfortunately, the reality of unmet human needs persists. That is why we must continue to do our part for all Jews in need.
We have lots of pictures from our summer journey and lots of memories; we look forward to sharing our stories with each of you. As we head into the new campaign year, we are energized and ready to help each of you make a difference in the lives of others — here at home, in Israel, and around the world.
Scott Krieger is UJA Campaign chair and Leslie Dannin Rosenthal is the Women’s Campaign chair for the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey.
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