All four of my grandparents come from the Ukraine. My father's side is from a shtetl known as Medzhybizh.
In the early 1920s my grandparents got out of there. They took my father as a baby to Argentina, because they could not get a visa into the United States and it is there that my grandfather died. My grandmother, Sarah, brought my infant father into the United States via Ellis Island in 1922.
The rest of my father's family was slaughtered, along with about 3,000 other Jews, by the Nazis in Medzhybizh during Operation Barbarossa.
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The picture above is of Medzhybizh Castle located here:
Medzhybizh is where the Chasidim were born in the 18th century and where the movement's founder, Baal Shem Tov, lived and is buried.
And thus this guy is my brother:
Happy Shavuot.
Damn, man. Thanks for the post, Mike. My grandfather made it out of Poland just in time, too, though I never really knew him.
ReplyDeleteChag sameach, youze all...
Hey brother,
Deletewhen you come into town we'll get Chinese food.
No doubt, brother.
DeleteSame goes if you ever find yourself out this way, too, and remember - I'll soon be living in two cities (Philadelphia and Newark, NJ), and also just a quick PATH ride into NYC from the latter... ;)
(In other words, Jay is Everywhere. and I'm watching everybody at all times...)
Delete;-P
Chag Shavuot Sameach guys!! Good Yom Yov.
ReplyDeleteMedzhybizh is very close to Kamenetz Podolski where my family is from.
My grandparents left in 1890, with a few other family members. Others also left but I have no idea when. Some went to the US, where they were going too, but the 'ONION BOAT' dropped them in London telling them it was New York. They stayed becasue other people from their shtetl were there.
If anyone can find out why these 'ONION BOATS' are so named I would be forever grateful. I and others can't find out.
Shirl is my sister.
DeleteI once saw a Flickr gallery with pictures of Hasidim in pre-Holocaust Poland. Except for the clothing, which was fit for that climate, and the lighter skin, though it didn't show quite well on black-and-white photos, those bearded, earlocked men and their children with earlocks were little different, in appearance as well as in thinking, than their counterparts miles away in Morocco, Iraq or Yemen.
ReplyDeleteUnderneath that gallery, in the comments section, were a couple of comments saying the grandparents of the gallery owner should have stayed in Poland instead of coming "to steal another people's land" in Palestine. But anti-Zionism isn't racist, no sir, not at all. /sarc
I managed to find the Flickr page I was talking about:
DeleteJewish boys from Blazowa (Bluzhev)
The commenter "palestinian_jasmine" (an Arab settler woman pretending to have a connection to the Land of Israel a.k.a. Palestine) begins by dropping the turd, and then posts a second comment that doubles down on the Jewish rights-denying stance.
There you are, folks: The kind of bigotry the Progressive Left is OK with. As the Helen Thomas clone "Taxi" on Mound o' Scheiss said (follow the indirect link at your own risk): "Since when is it 'ethnic cleansing' to evict an illegal squatter?" It's ethnic cleansing regardless; by calling the Jews of Palestine "illegal squatters" they're arguing that ethnic cleansing is justified in this case.
Racism, demonization, stereotyping, calls for ethnic cleansing—all those things, the cardinal sins according to the Progressive Left, are suddenly given a stamp of moral purity when the "Jewish settlers in Palestine" (oxymoron) are under discussion. Sick, mindless hypocrites.
Zion, the progressive-left is the most racist political movement in the west today outside of political Islam.
DeleteThey accept anti-Semitic anti-Zionists as part of the larger coalition and they treat "people of color," particularly Arabs, like little children who cannot be held responsible for their behavior.
I find it revolting, but these kinds of racist behaviors have become the norm on the left, sadly.
By the way (sorry, couldn't find a thread where it's 100% on topic, this is the closest),
ReplyDeleteJust looking at the Progressive Leftist hate sites, I noticed they were doing an extravaganza on the Nakba, more correctly known as the failed attempt of the Arab settler-colonists in Palestine to deny by force of arms the self-determination of the indigenous Palestinians (the Jews) just agreed on in the United Nations.
I was thinking to myself, "What, now? Why so late? Israel's Independence Day was a month ago."
Then I remembered: They're marking the anniversary since May 15, while Israel celebrates Independence Day by the date of the 5th of Iyyar. All the anti-Zionists mark the date by the Gregorian Calendar—including the very "Palestinians" who've "been on the land from time immemorial" yet, like the original Semitic name for Nablus (Shechem), somehow lost the reckoning by the one calendar that's actually tailored to this land, mysteriously leaving it to those "Zionist settlers" to preserve.
Very fishy, isn't it?
I think The Atlantic ran one yesterday. They banned me today so I haven't been back.
ReplyDelete