We are truly interdependent. To commune with God
through and with nature and not through and with our fellows is really to
connect with but a part. And so I come back to Yiskor, and what it is for
me, and who I am. I know Zeligi asked me to speak because I told him a story,
and so I will tell it now.
One year ago I walked into this place with my
children to somehow observe Yom Kipper together. We entered with a key provided
by someone who still had a key, and found mold and dirt and filth. Downstairs
the ceiling had fallen in and walls were covered with mildew. Outside the front
steps were in disrepair and the paint was fading. Windows were broken, the heat
was off, and a family of chipmunks had made the Rabbi's study their home. It
was "shandu", a shame, and I think a public humiliation for the Jews
of this community. I later learned that on Rosh Hashanah, Lilo Glick and Ruth
Levin had tried to get in and could not. A few weeks later was the observance
of Kristalnacht, and because it was the fiftieth anniversary there was a good
deal of media attention.
Kristalcacht is the night my father-in-law, along
with many others, far too many others, was taken from his home and began his
journey to Buchenwald. My husband and children are here because he was not there
long. He was able to immigrate to this country in 1940. Many of us sitting here
are refugees of that time, or like my husband and I, are the children of
refugees. It seemed to me then, almost a year ago, that to be Jews as
individuals, but without our synagogue, and to be Jews who would let our
synagogue simply die of disuse and disrepair was to take the first giant step
toward doing for Hitler what he was unable to finally do. And so with Lilo
Glick, also a refugee, a meeting to rebuild was arranged. All of us sitting in
this room did what we needed to do as individuals and as a community to save
this place.
Now the place is restored. Far from a humiliation,
it was one of six public buildings highlighted on this weekends public building
tour. We have a place in which to remember as a community. I hope we will
remember with a purpose. That our remembrance, will enlighten our present
reality.
Some might take from my remarks that we proclaim Judaism only because at
moments in history we were persecuted for it. I am not a Jew because of
anti-Semitism. I think the telling of the story about some of my motivation for
being part of the rebuilding of this community suggests only that because of my
close connections to the recent institutionalized anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany
and the third reich, I was reminded of something I have known, I can't be a Jew without remembering my Jewish communities past and without using that memory to constantly create my Jewish communities present.
-Patricia Barr
Patricia Barr (1950-2003)
Rolf Sternberg (1945-2012)
