The Sentinel, v.131 no. 13, 1943

              Reunion In Tel Aviv
By JULIAN LOUIS MELTZER
PROBABLY no other city in the world
closes down, so to speak, for a religious
festival as completely and zealously as
does the teeming city of Tel Aviv. The busy
shops, the marts of commerce, the bustling
market places are shuttered ; the rumbling
buses and carts and bicycles and the plethora
of traffic cease their roar, and the streets are
well-nigh deserted save for the essential non-
Jewish military and police vehicles, and even
those sparingly.
The charm of the holy atmosphere descends
upon this gay watering place, pearl of the
Eastern Mediterranean shore. And from the
scores of synagogues scattered through its
length and breadth rise the chants and cadences
of congregations praising the. Lord. For it is
Rosh Hashonah, the holy New Year in the
Jewish calendar. The ringing voice of the can-tor
comes out into the brilliant sunlit thor-oughfares-
Who is like unto Thee, 0 Lord, among
the mighty ?
Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness,
tremendous in praises, working
miracles?
Upon such an awful occasion, when Israel
faces the Almighty, the tribulations of their
brethren in many houses of bondage are re-membered
in agony, and the thoughts of the
multitude, safe within these walls of freedom
that is Eretz Israel, go out in mourning to
brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, and
often wives and children languishing under
the whips of the tyrant.
For it is part of the Jewish faith and the
Jewish religion to remember those who, in their
long history of martyrdom, have been the prey
df the wicked and the victims of the unright-eous;
the scorn of the "unsympathizing and the
indifference of the unctuous; the bewildered.
waifs and strays of the highways and byways
of an alien world. Secure in their own liber-ties,
the children of Israel who were saved
can never forget their brothers and sisters in
travail.
Those that were redeemed sang a new
song unto thy great name; upon the
seashore, they all unanimously praised
and acknowledged Thee, Kinig; and
said, the Lord shall reign for ever
and ever!
The synagogue in Northern Tel Aviv was
crowded with worshippers, uniformed men
and women on leave from their units mingling
with the sober-garbed civilians. The Rosh
Hashonah morning service on this second day
of the festival had brought many more than-the
building could comfortably hold. Their
fervor transcended the discomforts; and their'
voices, now muted, now high-pitched with emo-tion
and sorrow, commingled into a continu-ous
chant that was both doleful and trium-phant
as they made their communion with the
All-High.
In the front row stood Meir Sandler, in the
uniform of a British private. This was a part
of the service which moved him most deeply:
for he was among the newcomers to Eretz
Israel, who had escaped from the purgatory of
Europe after the war had begun. From his
native Bessarabia he had come to Bucharest
and then, by an incredible series of adventures,
had reached Eretz Israel. Interned at first, he
had immediately volunteered for military serv-ice
upon his release, and had already seen ac-tion
in Greece, Crete and Libya with the Pal-.
estinian Jewish unit to which he belonged.
There was a dull ache in his heart as he
joined in the prayers. He thought. of the loved
ones whom he would probably never see again,
from whom he had been separated while still
in Rumania, and whom he had sought before
deciding that the quest must be hopeless. He
had hoped against hope that they, too, might
have found their way out of the merciless iron
ring :which seemed to have- closed upon the
Jewries of Europe, and was crushing them in-to
nothingness.
Thou strong rock of Israel, rise in as-sistance
unto Israel, and relieve, ac-cording
to thy promise, Judah and Is-rael.
As for our ,Redeemer, the Lord
of Hosts is His name : the Holy One of
Israel. Blessed art Thou, 0. Lord! the
Redeemer of Israel.
The eye of the Parnass of the synagogue
caught Meir, standing there and praying de-voutly.
He thought to himself : There seems
to be an unusual spirit among the congrega-tion
today. They are come closer to the Al-mighty.
The young and the diffident, those
who denied Him in the past, or those who
scoffed at religion, they too are come to the
synagogue today to beseech His forgiveness.
I shall call upon that soldier to open the Ark,
as the "shaliach tzibbur, " that the people may
see the new faith in Israel.
MVeir went on praying fervently. Mingled
with his prayers came fragments of th ought
and recollection. He thought of Esther, his
betrothed, as he had last seen her. He had
gone off to a neighboring town on business-the
Rumanian authorities had given him a
permit, and they had parted with a kiss. He
would be returning at the end of the week to
the hamlet in Bessarabia in which they lived.
They were to have been married in two or
three months.
He had come back, but the whole commu-nity
had disappeared. A sudden whim, a
caprice on the part of the local Governor, and
the Jews had been driven out. Or perhaps it
was the Gestapo who had ordered it, and the
Governor and his corrupt police were merely
the willing instruments of that martyrdom
of those near and dear to him. Not to see
Esther again! He had come into the hamlet
in happy mood, but she had gone - and her
family and his family as well. In the first
moments of his despair, he had wanted to run
amok, to kill: but reason had supervened, and
he had gone off in search in search-search-ing
for her to this day, hoping against hope.
Blessed art Thou O Lord, our God and
the God of our fathers . . . the most
high God! bountifully dispensing bene-fits,
the Creator of all things, who,
remembering the piety of the fathers,
will send a Redeemer to their posterity
for his name's sake in love.
The Parnass was deeply interested in the
young soldier in the front row, who was pray-ing
with such deep emotion, with such an ex-cess
of reverence, that it seemed he was giving
his whole being to the words of the liturgy.
He was pleased to see such piety, and he beck-oned
to the shammash, the beadle, whispering
to him to get the name of the soldier standing
there, near the wall.
"Meir ben Israel,' replied the soldier to the
whispered question of the synagogue func-tionary.
The soldier looked up and the Parnass in-dicated,
by gestures, that he would shortly be
called upon to mount the rostrum. Meir nod- ded. The service went on.. Meir wondered why
he thought, at this time, so much of Esther.
It seemed as though she were near him, in the
spirit, when he was close to the nature and
essence of the Almighty. If he could only know
what had happened to her!
He looked around. The hall was packed with
long rows of worshippers, young and old, chil-dren
and grey-beards. Up behind near the
ceiling was the women's gallery. From behind
the latticework caine the sobbing and moans
of the women, each with her burden of wpe.
The Lord reigneth eternally, thy God,
0 Zion, at every time, Hallelujah.
Thou, 0 Most Holy, abidest among the
hymns of Israel!
The Parnass nodded to him, almost impercep-tibly,
and Meir Sandler went forward to open
the Ark. A sigh went up from the congrega-tion
as he did so, the unknown soldier, ap-proaching
the Ark of the Scrolls to reveal the
Word to the people. They stared at him curi-ously,
inquisitively, some with reddened eyes
who had been weeping with the strength of
their supplications.
With a firm hand, he pulled aside the cur-tain,
and the doors were opened, showing the
Scrolls. The congregation burst into the chant:
Thou art our God in heaven and earth,
almighty and exalted . . . His glory is
everlasting, His look penetrates the
life of all the world . . . He dwelleth
above the skies.
(Continued on page 39)