This semester I took a class on immigration policy. The stories of the past have always fascinated me: the way people moved throughout the world in different ways: by choice, force, foot, or boat. More than the physical journey, I am captivated by the transmission of the experiences, pain, and joy carried on the backs of my grandparents, which become the values, cultures, and stories I internalize as a great-granddaughter of immigrants.
In this course, I was the token spokesperson of the Jewish immigrant story. Class discussions revolved around the historic and modern struggles of many immigrant groups; however, white, European immigrants, like my ancestors, were never mentioned. Class readings included extensive research reports regarding U.S. immigration, with no mention of the Jewish story.
With the lack of discussion regarding the plight of European immigrants, I often explained the stories of my great-grandparents, Zeida Izzy and Bubby Amy, Zeida Morry and Bubby Gitel, and my maternal great aunt, Aunt Ruthie.
It was in this classroom that I understood it was the duty of every child to continue the stories of his or her ancestors. A long-lost cousin interested in genealogy could not continue the legacy of our ancestors alone, I needed to fill the holes of the past to understand the present and inform others.
As I searched for information and family trees, I was given vibrant stories of full lives alongside disturbing tragedies.
I sat behind my laptop, attempting to find all the pictures my maternal grandmother, Savta Miriam, once sent me.
I feverishly searched for the recording of my Zeida Izzy, my maternal grandfather’s father.
As I searched the internet for the words of my ancestors, I came across an article written by my Aunt Ariella. She recounted a beautiful trip she took with my grandparents, her parents, to Seattle, Washington. They visited the town where my grandparents were raised: the very place their parents had resided after escaping Europe.
In her article, Ariella quoted a verse from Deuteronomy, “It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and oath, but with whoever stands with us here today before the Lord our God as well as those not with us here today” My aunt expressed her love for this verse and the way, as she wrote, “[it has been] my invitation to weave the thread of history from my ancestors standing on the shores of the Jordan River to my present.”
Echoing the message of this verse, as Yom Hashoa, the Jewish day to commemorate the Holocaust, approached, I organized the testimonies, pictures, and online archives.
The exploration of my past has led me to understand Yom Hashoah as an example of a known Jewish paradox: it is a day commemorating life and death, hope and anguish, endings and continuity.
How fitting that the verse my aunt chose was a snapshot of the culmination of the Journey of Moses, but not the Jewish nation, for Moses was not destined to enter Israel. He led his people through their excruciating journey from slavery, but passed away right as the Jewish people were on the cusp of their Homeland.
As I journeyed deeper into the past, I found this paradox reflected in the story of my ancestors.
Looking through the art, poetry, and interviews of my great-aunt Ruthie, I saw a woman, who I was fortunate to know and love, reflect this paradox: unimaginable hope and unfathomable sadness.
My Aunt Ruthie was only two and a half on the night of November 9-10, 1938, when her father, my Zeida Morry, was taken from their family apartment in Vienna to the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. After 5 months of imprisonment, and tireless effort from my great-grandmother Bubby Gitel, Zeida Morry was released on the condition that his family leave Vienna immediately.
Without a choice, Ruthie and her parents were deported to Riga, Latvia, where they had to live in a refugee camp for a year and a half. There, they desperately waited for a Visa to enter the United States, at a time when Jewish immigration was extremely limited.
While I knew statistics on other forms of immigration, the Jewish number of visas granted to Jewish migrants during the Holocaust, was not a part of the curriculum. I found that from 1933-1941, “123,868 self-identified Jewish refugees immigrated to the United States.” This number, miniscule in comparison to the six million who were killed, was an encapsulation of the struggle my ancestors faced.
In the spring of 1940, Zeida Morry finally received visas for his family. They journeyed from Moscow to Japan, where they finally, in the summer of 1940, left on a boat to the United States, ultimately residing in Seattle, Washington.
Ruthie wrote extensively about the inconsolable trauma she and her family endured. It seemed their lives would always be tainted by their insufferable pasts. In a poem titled, Homeless in a Lonely Land, Ruthie lamented,
“They put their dreams
to sleep and wait for some
bright new star to tuck them
in each night but the sky
stares down bare of stars
so they walk back
to the gardens and streets
of their past
the house of memory
their only home.”
While it was clear Ruthie never felt free from the pain of her past, and lived in a relentless world of her parents working long hours to make ends meet, there was a story about Ruthie that has been passed down that I will always remember her by.
My grandmother, Savta Miriam, often told me of the way her beloved older sister, Ruthie, dreamed. Savta would relay to me the dream Ruthie had of becoming a big sister after their family arrived in Seattle. Through the inconsolable pain of the past, she had inspired her parents to face the seemingly insurmountable future. At the age of 40, my Bubby Gitel gave birth to my Savta: a woman born to a family of not just survivors, but dreamers.
Though living in poverty and experiencing unfathomable trauma, Ruthie continued to dream, and in 1961 she fulfilled the dream of her ancestors. While her four grandparents and eight aunts and uncles were killed in the Holocaust and unable to enter their Homeland, Ruthie fulfilled the dream of her ancestors: moving to Israel in 1961.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Ruthie spoke of the “great thing” about Israel, which she described as, “The miracle of it all… God must be watching over this country, or otherwise there’s no hope, no Israel. The people have to recognize that, and God has to recognize the people, because they have sacrificed and worked so hard to build this country.”
Ruthie’s story had once again echoed the ever-present Jewish dichotomy: the coexistence of life and death, hope and anguish, endings and continuity.
This paradox, ever-present in the history of the Jewish people, is embedded in Jewish tradition and prayer. Hallel, a prayer said on days of celebration, includes lines about destruction and struggle: presenting the experience of celebrating life, honoring memory, turning to God in moments of anger and hopelessness, and crying out in prayer that life must continue. As said in Hallel, “I will not die but rather I will live and tell over the acts of the Lord. The Lord has surely chastised me, but He has not given me over to death. Open up for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them, thank the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous will enter it.”
I remember visiting my Aunt Ruthie in her beautiful home in Kfar Shmaryahu. She would hug me, tell me I was beautiful, and remind me to never let my Savta Miriam or my mother work too hard.
Behind her home was a garden, one that I always pictured as the secret garden from the books, filled with fruit trees and flowers only she knew the names of. I had always felt that the four walls of her home, filled with color and antiques, were a world in itself: one filled with hand-picked candles, pillows, and china.
My Aunt Ruthie became a photographer and journalist, sharing the way she saw the world: often with palpable anger or sadness, or with dreams of hope and prayer, but always with dignity.
Finished in her final days of life, there is a book of her poems, artwork, and writings called Buy me a Heaven Tonight, a line from one of her intricately written poems. I don’t know if Aunt Ruthie ever found the heaven she so desperately wanted, one of quiet streets where only the sound of crashing waves in the distance and the small sound of children laughing could be heard. I pray that she is listening to the waves of Israel’s waters, hearing her grandchildren laughing as they walk the streets of the Homeland where she lovingly chose to raise her children.
The Jewish dichotomy is not just a story of tragedy and continuity. As my Aunt Ruthie so clearly expressed, the world can be unthinkably horrible, and it is our job as the children of God to work through the thorns, live another day, and find the roses.
Aunt Ruthie never simply dreamed; she acted. She lived the words of Herzl, “If you will it, it is no dream.” The Jewish story never ended with a dream. While Moses never entered the land, the descendants of those who were enslaved in Egypt entered Israel, making the dreams of their ancestors a reality.
My Bubby Gitel did not let the story end in Vienna with Zeida Morry in Dachua.
My Aunt Ruthie did not let the story end in Seattle without a sister.
I will forever tell the story of my past, so that my children and their children will be inspired to continue living it.
