Other items in today’s column include
*Jewish community coronavirus news
*Political bytes
*Recommended reading
SAN DIEGO –Benjamin Midler, 91, a survivor of six Nazi concentration camps, led off the Jewish Federation of San Diego County’s Holocaust remembrance via a Zoom presentation narrated by daughters Nurit Kotick and Ellen Winter. During a presentation in which a short video was shown about his life, followed by a question-and-answer session with viewers, Midler told of growing up in Bialystock, being confined to a ghetto, and after his capture as a teenager by the Nazi Germans being sent first to the Majdenek Concentration Camp, and later to Bliszen, Birkenau, Oranienburg, Sachsenhausen, and Ohrduf, from which he was liberated.
Having grown up the son of a dairy man and having worked as a presser in a tailor shop, Midler said he was used to hard work and was ready to volunteer for any work assignment the Nazis might throw his way. Being the first in line to volunteer, and his willingness to accept any work assignment, was the key to his survival, he said.
He was the only member of his immediate family to survive the camps, but following World War II, he was able to make contact with aunts and cousins who had moved after World War I to Argentina and to the United States. In the meantime, Midler spent a half year with other Jewish refugees in a camp in Cyprus, to which the British sent Jews who had tried to immigrate without permission to Palestine. Eventually arriving in the Jewish homeland, he remembered dancing in the streets when David Ben-Gurion declared Israel to be an independent state, and later fighting to maintain that independence in Palmach forces commanded by future Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
In Israel, Midler married his wife of 69 years, Esther, 93, who had immigrated from Egypt. They had dated and fallen in love, even though he did not speak Arabic and she did not speak Polish. They had two daughters in Israel, Tova Stein and Nurit Kotick. After immigrating in 1959 to the United States via New York and then Chicago, a third daughter, Ellen Winter, was born. For most of his career, Midler worked in a dairy, but eventually purchased and operated an auto parts store until retirement and relocation with his wife to San Diego.
About his Holocaust experiences, Midler declared, “I was there and I saw it. I am their voice.” He added, “We need to stop cruelty and intolerance in all its forms.” He said during his ordeal he never lost his faith in God, nor did he ever give up hope. He said that one can encounter hardship in any situation; the best antidote is to work hard and “don’t look for the easy way out.”
For many years, Midler did not talk about his Holocaust experiences, neither to his wife nor to his children, not wanting to suffer the bad memories nor to expose them to it. However, when his daughters became teenagers, they began to ask him about his experiences, and by the time his grandchildren were of that age, they urged him to write about his experiences, which he did in the memoir, The Life of a Child Survivor from Bialystok, Poland.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic which keeps him at home, Midler regularly gave talks to school groups about his experiences.
Midler’s talk led off this year’s Holocaust programming sponsored by the Jewish Federation of San Diego County. By clicking on the links, interested parties may register for upcoming events that include (1) Steven Schindler, Nicole Nocon and Antonia Nocon discussing “Developing Global Leaders in Action: at 12:30 p.m., Monday, April 20; (2) Rabbis Ralph Dalin and Scott Meltzer officiating a Yom Hashoah Remembrance Ceremony at 7:30 p.m, Monday, April 20; (3) Representatives of The Butterfly Project discussing “Sharing Our Families’ Stories” at 1 p.m., Tuesday, April 21; and (4) high school student Talia Schauder telling her grandfather Paul Schauder’s‘ survival story at 3 p.m., Tuesday, April 21.
In other Yom HaShaoh observances, the Jewish Funders Network will discuss support for survivors and present talks by survivor Pinchas Gutter, and USC Shoah Foundation head Stephen Smith at 9 a.m., Monday, April 20; Chaya Gilboa will present a program on Yom Hashoah through the lens of contemporary Israeli media at 11 a.m., Tuesday, April 21, for the Hive at Leichtag Commons; and a talk by survivor Goldie Jacoby will be sponsored at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 21 by Hillel of San Diego.
*
Jewish community coronavirus news
*Jeanne Shenkman, a resident of the Jewish community-run Seacrest Village Retirement Community in Encinitas, snapped a photo of breakfast service at the facility, where residents have been eating in their rooms instead of the common dining room during the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
*Rabbi Tamar Malino, formerly assistant rabbi at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, has gone on to become the rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in Spokane, Washington, which serves congregants from Washington and neighboring Idaho. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane recently quoted her in a controversy stirred up by Idaho State Rep. Heather Scott who said Idaho Gov. Brad Little was acting like a “little Hitler” in deciding which jobs are essential during the pandemic and which are non-essential. “I mean, that’s no different from Nazi Germany, where you had government telling people, ‘You are an essential worker or a nonessential worker’ and the nonessential workers got put on a train,'” Scott declared. Rabbi Malino responded: “Mass murder and genocide is not the same thing as deciding which businesses should essentially stay open and which should stay closed.” Brenda Hamond, president of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, said Scott’s comments showed “deep disregard and lack of respect for what the Jewish people experienced during the time of the Holocaust. It also shows an extreme ignorance of history.”
*
Political bytes
Now that former Vice President Joe Biden has been endorsed for the Democratic presidential nomination by former U.S. President Barack Obama and by Biden’s former rivals for the nomination, U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Republicans are aiming their fire at Biden’s record.
Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, messaged that “Biden isn’t wasting a moment trying to prove to his far-Left base that he will continue the anti-Israel policies of the Obama/ Biden administration… In April alone, Biden has come out in support of lifting sanctions on Iran, invited the foreign policy advisors of Bernie Sanders to join his team and said he was ‘honored’ to receive the endorsement of the viciously anti-Israel group, J Street.” To which, Democratic strategist Aaron Keyak promptly responded, “Republicans were going to call the Democratic nominee anti-Israel regardless of who it was. Anyone who seriously claims that Joe Biden is ‘anti-Israel’ simply forfeits their place as part of any reasonable conversation about Middle East policy. Throughout his entire career, Vice President Biden has obviously been a strong leader on the U.S.-Israel relationship — not to mention being a dear and genuine friend of the Jewish community.”
*
Recommended reading
*Ken Stone of Times of San Diego reported, and his wife Chris photographed, the protest downtown on Saturday against California’s Stay-at-Home orders.
*Holocaust survivor Edith Eger is included in a San Diego Union-Tribune feature today that is titled “Phenomenal San Diego women in medicine and health.”
*Cellist Alisa Weilerstein and symphony conductor Rafael Payare tell how their mutual love of music led to their romance and marriage in a San Diego Union-Tribune feature story by George Varga.
*Michael Ordman periodically assembles the good news from Israel — much of it about strides in science and technology — and provides a compendium of links to these stories.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Pingback: Cottbus, Germany joins San Diego in Holocaust memory - San Diego Jewish World