When/Where:
Friday, October 19, 7:30 p.m.
Beth Ohr
12355 Moorpark Street
Studio City, California
Following the Shabbat services led by Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak and cantorial soloist Andrew Henry, we will welcome Steven D. Reece, a Protestant minister from Atlanta, who will speak about the important spiritual and physical work of remembering and restoring Jewish cemeteries in Poland. Rev. Reece is the CEO of The Matzevah Foundation. Its mission is to further ongoing dialogue between Christians and Jews and continuing education about the Shoah. Beth Ohr gathers this coming Friday, October 19, 7:30 p.m. Beth Ohr 12355 Moorpark Street, Studio City
After World War II’s devastation of German-occupied Poland, Jewish life never recovered due to the ensuing Communist rule and anti-semitism. Under the German occupation and subsequently, many cemeteries gravestones were used for road building material. Without a viable Jewish community both Polish Communist authorities and the common folk had no incentive to preserve “ownerless” property. Beginning in the 1990s the task of tending to the more than 1200 cemeteries began to be addressed by individuals, Landsman associations, and the new official Jewish community. The emergence of The Matzevah Foundation is a key moment in the larger project of the recovery of Jewish dignity and Christian – Jewish relations. Today in Poland, an emerging sensitivity finds numerous civic organizations of Poles attempting to return gravestones (Matzevah, singular and Matzevot, plural) to cemeteries. The interest of “the second generation” in restoring the cemeteries of their grandparents’ home is also growing. Indigenous Jewish groups sponsored by Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland and its umbrella group of Progressive Jewish communities, Beit Polska are increasingly involved in restoration and preservation efforts. The preservation of the Jewish cemetery property is an act of self-respect for both Catholic Poles and for different reasons Jewish Poles.
On visits to small towns and villages, Beliak has encounter examples of people seeking to return Matzevot to the cemetery. Villagers claim that they did not put the Matzevah in the yard but found it there when they moved to the property. An example of this is the town of Orla.
Rabbi Beliak, who works with developing Jewish life in Poland through Friends of Jewish Renewal in Poland‘s umbrella organization Beit Polska (including Beit Polska’s Beit Warszawa, Beit Troijmiasto, Beit Konstantin) met Steven Reece in Poland. Reece will be in Los Angeles for two screenings of the film The Presence of Their Absence. The film is a documentary produced and directed by Donna Kanter about Los Angeles resident, Fred Zaidman‘s search for family roots in Poland. Steven Reece and The Matzaveh Foundation played a key role in those efforts. The film will be screened at the Writer’s Guild on Wednesday, October 17, and at Skirball Cultural Center on Tuesday, October 23. Steven Reece is a 2018 candidate for the Ph.D. in Leadership at Andrews University. He is certified to teach about the Holocaust through Yad Vashem and Tel Aviv University.
Rabbi Beliak pointed to the example of a 1986 visit to his mother’s hometown, Olkusz, Poland. The so-called new cemetery was largely intact even though there were signs that a soccer field was encroaching on the unfenced area. In video captured during that visit, a Matzevah with his mother’s maiden name Rivka Zilbersteiyn was stumbled upon intact and dated with the dates of a woman who had died about six months before April 4, 1923 the date of Rabbi Beliak’s mother’s birth. It is reasonable to assume that this was a relative after whom Beliak’s mother had been named. The matzevah was in the cemetery on subsequent visits in 2010, 2012 but after a fence had been erected the Matzevah disappeared in 2015!
Although you are always welcome, we always appreciate knowing if you will be joining us, so please RSVP by phone, 818-773-3663 or email, congregationbethohrsc@gmail.com.
Leave a Reply