Flashback to 2019. Israel is enjoying a record shattering year of tourism in 2019, flights to the country are up, and interest has never been higher. Everyone in the tourism industry is wondering just how long the good times will last. Well, they would get their answer. Enter 2020 and the yearlong fight against COVID. Overnight Israel’s tourism industry went from a rapidly expanding and thrilling concern to a barren wasteland of cancelled reservations and empty airports. 

Today the vaccine is being distributed throughout Israel, but at the time of writing this article the country is STILL closed for people not holding Israeli passports. If you were planning on a 2020/2021 tour, it’s been a pretty disappointing time! But there are some silver linings. While nothing can compare to the real thing, you can scratch the itch by visiting the Holy Land virtually! 

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art has been doing an incredible job of making their museum accessible during this difficult time. Hosting multiple virtual exhibits, you can enjoy the leading lights in Israeli arts and culture from the comfort of your own home!

There are a few different formats for checking out the exhibits. Some include video featurettes that walk you through the exhibits giving details and context to the works and artists behind them. Others simply have high resolution copies of the artwork in question available to be perused. But by far, the most elaborate of these online exhibitions are the "360’ Virtual Tours.” These incredible tours present the museum similar to Google Maps street view, allowing you to pan a camera around in every angle and move about the exhibit as if you were really there. With a few clicks you can zoom in on a work and even read the info label or caption that contextualizes a work.

Not a techy person? No worries, this virtual tour works right in your web browser and is operated with your mouse, no need to download anything or learn any fancy new controls. If this still sounds a little intimidating, use the walk-through feature which will take you through the exhibit in a guided fashion. You can click to stop it at any time to take a longer look at something and resume when you’re ready! A fantastic way to get a dose of Israeli culture any time you want for free!

Not a fan of museums? More of a street life kind of person? No problem! Another great option to get a taste of the Holy Land experience is to simply explore some sites on Google Street View!

Simply navigate to Google Maps, tap in the location of a place you’d like to visit, and presto, you’re there! It’s free, easy, and gives you a nice idea of what life is really like in Israel. Visit incredible locations like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or recreate the experience of the Tel Aviv Independence Trail starting at the first espresso kiosk ever built in the city!

The beauty of exploring Israel like this is that your imagination is the only limit. If you’ve ever heard of a place in Israel that interests or excites you, just plug it into Google and view it at street level! It’s not the same as being there, but it’s close!

With spring weather finally arriving but COVID still a real threat, many of us are starting to get a little stir crazy. Chase those lockdown blues away by taking a virtual road trip with a young Israeli couple!

At first you might think this video is nothing special, a dashcam of a couple out for a ride. But look closer, this isn’t a normal YouTube video, it’s a 360 experience one! That means YOU control the camera! Rubberneck to your heart’s content as you wind through Israeli country roads and visit some city locations. It’s a brief escape, but it might just be the thing you need to brighten up your day!

We know these virtual options are a far cry from the experience of traveling to the Holy Land. The awe of being able to see historic sites that have stood for thousands of years in person, or the magnitude of being able to retrace Jesus’ steps as he spread the gospel, those are not feelings you’re going to be able to capture on a computer screen or YouTube video. All we can do is hold on for now, pray for stability and a quick end to this crisis, and plan for when we are able to travel freely and enjoy this world that God has given us. 

A fresh fugitive on the run from the Nazis still grieving her family’s death, cold and half starving in the woods, Faye Schulman wasn’t looking for a way out. She was looking for a way to fight back. She found it in the Molotova partisan brigade.

Like most resistance groups forged in the pressures of World War 2, the Molotova partisan brigade was an eclectic group. They included Russian soldiers taken as prisoners of war who had since escaped and now found themselves cut off from their comrades in a strange land. There were Polish men who objected to the crimes they saw the Nazis committing and pledged their lives to doing something about them.  And there was one young Jewish woman. A photographer with no military training, no experience living in the wild, but a powerful drive to fight back in honor of her murdered family.

It wasn’t easy, and acceptance came slowly. Faye trained hard to prove herself as a useful member of the brigade. Despite a crippling fear of blood, she trained herself as a combat nurse after discovering there were no medical experts in the partisan group. Her skills quickly progressed from applying simple bandages and stiches to performing lifesaving field surgery. Skills she employed not just on wounded partisans, but also on Jewish fugitives in hiding. Faye learned the skills she needed to save families from the pain she was feeling.

 

Of course, she also learned how to fight. A girl who never handled a weapon in her life quickly became familiar with the kick and weight of a submachine gun. One has to wonder if her skills at lining up the perfect shot for a photograph helped her pick it up faster. The very thing the Nazis spared her for coming back to haunt them. 

Faye’s partisan group raided her own occupied town several times. It was not only to punish the Nazi murderers who lived there, but crucial to their own survival. Raids were essential for capturing supplies, food, and medicine that not only the partisans themselves needed to survive, but also several Jewish families they were sheltering in the woods. These were people living in the most precarious conditions imaginable, making their way in the woods often without proper shelter, never knowing when a Nazi patrol might stumble on them. 

But Faye had additional business in town. As a personal symbol of her commitment to the cause, and an act of defiance against her oppressors, Faye had her old family home burned. "I won't be living here. The family's killed. To leave it for the enemy? I said right away: Burn it!" There was no going back to the way things used to be.

But before they did, they recovered Faye’s photography equipment. It was with these cameras and chemicals that she would document the resistance effort and bring us some of the only photographs we have of these men and women who risked everything for justice. 

In our day of camera phones and overnight development, photography is seen as a common thing. But in the 40’s it was a specialized skill, one that required delicate equipment and conditions. Faye was living in the woods with roughneck Russian soldiers trying to stay one step ahead of Nazi bloodhounds, it wasn’t exactly a studio environment. Nevertheless, she managed to take and develop hundreds of photos. She made her own "dark rooms” with blankets and coats. She developed film with unlabeled chemicals using a formula she memorized. She cast "sun prints” on photo paper in the wild. An extraordinary documentarian effort, one borne of a burning need to shout to the world that yes, this is happening, and people are risking their lives every day to stop it.

Over those hard years, Faye clung to her faith. Despite the incredible circumstances, she managed to keep Passover in 1943, eating nothing but potatoes. She was dedicated to living a Jewish life in whatever small ways she could. It was a way to hang on to the memories and customs of her family and spite the monsters that wanted to exterminate that way of life. Faye possessed not only remarkable inner strength to survive the ordeals she went through, but also an incredible clarity of vision to keep what was important in perspective and what would be necessary for future generations to know.

After the war, Faye moved to Russia where she was rightly considered a war hero. For the first time in years she enjoyed security and stability, with a quiet job as a newspaper photographer, a home to call her own, and three hot meals every day. Compared to the days working under the Nazis thumb or hiding in the forest patching up wounds and exchanging gunfire with German soldiers, it was paradise. But she was joyless. She missed her family terribly, they left a void in her heart that was impossible to fill.

Imagine the overwhelming happiness she felt when she discovered her brother Moishe was still alive. Unknown to her for years, Moishe escaped the work camp he was held at and had himself joined a different partisan outfit. For years they had been fighting the same battles for the same cause, holding on to the memory of each other and the rest of their family to keep them going. And now they were reunited in peace and comfort. A miracle.

Faye married her brother’s friend, a fellow partisan named Morris Schulman and they started a life, a real life, together. They immigrated to Canada where they had two children, started a business together, and put the past behind them to heal. Faye still lives in Toronto today, happy and content. 

You can read her story in her own words in her autobiography "A Partisan’s Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust.”

 

Faye Lazebnik Schulman was an ordinary girl. Born in Lenin, Eastern Poland (better known now as Western Belarus) as part of a large Jewish family, Faye lived the normal life of a young woman in a European community. She went to school, looked after her chronically ill sister, and when her older brother, Moishe, decided he wanted to move to another town he taught Faye everything he knew about photography so she could take over the family photo studio at just 16 years old. There was no strife in her small town on the Russian border. They were aware of antisemitism in other areas, but never really experienced firsthand in their small mixed community. Life might not have been perfect, but it was peaceful. Until the Nazis invaded in 1941.

Overnight, everything changed. 

When we think of World War 2 and the horror Jewish families faced, we often think of places like Warsaw and Berlin. Locations where tensions, racist rhetoric, and violence had been on the rise for years as the Nazis rose in prominence and power. The horror of a slow and steady escalation of hate until, like the frog that suddenly realizes the pot of water it’s in is boiling, you’ve past the point of no return without even noticing it. But that wasn’t the case for every community. For families like the Lazebnik’s, they were certainly aware of what was going on in the world and rightfully concerned about it, it seemed a long way away – right up until the jackboot was at their door. 

For absolutely nothing but the crime of being Jewish, the Lazbinik’s peaceful family life was destroyed. Her older brothers were sent to slave-labor camps (a certain death sentence), the rest were herded into a ghetto where they were abused and kept in a state of constant terror. In 1942, the Nazis decided they had wrung everything they wanted from the ghetto’s inhabitants and "liquidated” them.

Only 26 Jews out of the entire Lenin ghetto population were spared. The remaining 1,850 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by the Nazis. They were shot and unceremoniously thrown into in mass graves, treated like human refuse. 

We know this because Faye was one of the only survivors of the massacre. She was sparred because the Nazis thought her photography skill could be useful and put her to work for their record keeping efforts. To her horror, she was forced to develop film of her own family lying dead in a trench. 

I don’t think most people could survive something like that. The heartbreak and the horror must have been overwhelming. In less than a year, Faye went from doting on her little brothers and running the family shop, to working at gunpoint for the butchers who killed her family. That’s the kind of trauma that breaks people, that destroys them inside.

But Faye wasn’t about to let the Nazis have another victory. Somehow, she had the presence of mind to make copies of the film the Nazis gave her, to hide it away as documented proof of their crimes. The entire time she was kept under the Nazi’s thumb, Faye thought of only one thing – escape. She had to tell her story, she had to make sure the world knew the Nazis murdered her family. 

Miraculously, she would get her chance. A partisan raid on the town provided just the distraction and confusion she needed. Faye slipped her captors, gathered all the film copies and whatever supplies she could carry, and made off for the woods. But she wasn’t done. No, Faye was committed to fighting back. She joined the Molotova partisan brigade and in doing so became the eyes and voice of the resistance effort. 

Find out more in part 2 later this week!

Israel has a truly unique food culture, one that has been shaped by geography and history. As a desert nation, Israel has an entirely different agricultural profile compared to what we’re used to in North America. Israeli cuisine makes far more use of staples like olives, olive oil, chickpeas, and yogurt than we do in the west. But that’s just part of the puzzle. What really makes Israeli cuisine so interesting is how many different parts of the world it draws from! As Jews living all over the globe return to Israel to live in the Holy Land, they bring parts of those cultures with them. A typical Israeli pantry looks like a meeting of the UN with spices from North Africa and South America sitting next to products from Europe which will be combined to make a Mediterranean dish! Combine all of that with Israel’s lively street life and the popularity of small food stalls and gimmick restaurants and you have no end of interesting treats to sample!

Best of all, you can try many of these favorites at home. Put a little international zing in your kitchen by trying some of these popular Israeli dishes!

When you’re looking for a distinctly Israeli dish, it’s only natural to try one that has "Israeli” in the name! This fresh salad of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and peppers is a nice and light addition that can go with almost any meal. Dressed in a little olive oil, lemon juice, and tahini, it’s both tasty and delicious!

I did a double take the first time I saw khachapuri. "Is that an egg on that bread?” It sure is! This delicious bread treat originates from Georgia but is incredibly popular in Israel. A sure-fire breakfast hit, this boat shaped pastry is stuffed with cheese with a beautiful golden fried egg on top. It’s pretty easy to make and is great for dipping or topping with your favorite condiment. Who doesn’t like a little humas in the morning? Some people even enjoy adding shrimp and garlic to this bread goody and serving it for dinner – how versatile!

When you’re looking for a meal to remind you of Israeli street life, you can’t beat the humble kebab. Served everywhere in the country and with as many variations as you can imagine, the kebab is an absolute staple of Israeli cuisine.

While there are endless variations to be tried, one of the most popular in Israel is the so-called Romanian kebab (also known as mititei). This kebab is made with ground beef, a generous dose of garlic, some onions, and a little bit of sugar to caramelize everything. They’re simple, quick (although you do need to prep it ahead of time to chill in the fridge a bit), and guaranteed to impress the family the next time you fire up the BBQ!

Alright, let’s be honest. If we’re talking favorite Israeli desert treats, Sfenj, Israel’s preferred doughnut subsitute sold by street vendors and tiny cafes all over is the best. Like an extra airy but crisp doughnut, these are dusted with sugar and impossible to resist. But they also need to be eaten as fresh as possible for the full effect and not too many of us have a barrel of frying oil around the house to do them right. 

Thankfully, we can still enjoy atayef at home! These are delicate thin pancake bites stuffed with nuts (or cheese if you’re feeling adventurous) and usually served dripping with syrup. Although they are associated with Tu B’shvat, you can enjoy these treats any time of year. Easy to make, tasty, and totally unique! Try making a batch for your family as a surprise and see how quickly they ask for more.

If you’re going to have a sweet treat, you’ll need something savoury to wash it down, so why not try Israel’s upside-down coffee? This drink was all the rage for a few years and still enjoys decent popularity at cafés and espresso kiosks across the country. 

Café hafuch is similar to a latte, but in reverse. When you make a latte, you put your espresso shot in the vessel and pour frothed milk on top. With café hafuch, first you put in your steamed milk and slowly pour your shot over top of it. Layer it with another dab of milk froth, garnish with nutmeg, and you’ve got a nice compliment to anything sweet that is creamier than a typical latte. In Israel this drink is frequently served with a chunk of dark chocolate, give it a try for the full experience!

There is a passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 that contains some of the most practical and direct relationship advice ever put to page. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." Wise words indeed, and words that have taken on extra meaning during this extended period of crisis.

What does patience look like when you’ve been basically homebound with minimal social contact for months on end? How do you manage to not "keep a record of wrongs” when you’re home with a spouse all day every day and petty annoyances gradually becoming maddening vexations? How can we keep our relationships strong as we get through this (hopefully) final period of uncertainty and stress?

Honesty is one of the most important elements in any relationship and that has never been more apparent. Spouses should be able to talk to each other about anything openly and without fear. From important matters of the home and family to all the little inconsequential thoughts and observations we make throughout the day, everything should be on the table.

Nothing breeds resentment like feelings left unexpressed. If you feel like you are unable to talk to your spouse about something it will create a wall between the two of you that will only get taller with time. Being honest with your feelings might not always be the most pleasant thing when you need to address a problem, but it’s far better than bottling them up and letting them fester into something that hurts the love you have for each other. 

This is especially true when you are not able to discuss things with other people. Even small observations like talking about the plot points of a show you like or speculating on the Blue Jay’s chances next year (not good) are important. They might not seem like all that vital, but God created us to be social creatures and that kind of exchange and sharing of what matters to us and what interests us is essential to a healthy and happy life. We must recognize that the social outlets we used to enjoy are just not there anymore, but we still need the release they provide. All of which means you need to take a more active interest in what your spouse cares about and wants to discuss.

Of course, honesty means nothing without understanding. There needs to be a real effort from both people to accept each other’s feelings when they are expressed, as well as an equally strong effort to stave off the all-too-common impulse towards defensiveness and blame shifting. 

Think of it this way, if your partner has the courage to tell you "hey, you’ve been doing X lately, and it’s been bothering me” you should be grateful they let you know. They’ve given you a chance to talk it over and find a solution rather than letting it grow into something worse, that’s good! The last thing you want to do is get sulky, defensive, and insist it’s not a big deal, that’s only going to let your spouse know two things. 1) That you don’t think their feelings or opinions are "a big deal” and worth considering. And 2) that there is no point in trying to address things between you calmly, the only options left are resentment and recrimination. That’s how you start adding pages to that record of wrongs Paul was talking about. 

Genuine understanding is difficult, but it is the path to a strong and stable relationship. When your world shrinks down to the size of your home and your social circle only includes those in it, you must accept and embrace each other even when it’s tricky. 

Sure, you may be spending all of your time together, but has it been quality time? It’s easy to fall into comfortable ruts in a situation like this. Yes, you might be watching TV together every night, but if you’re not talking or engaging with each other you might as well be in separate rooms. 

Make time to focus on each other. Turn off the background noise and have a conversation. Plan a date-night meal that is a little fancier and elaborate than normal. Take a walk together or even just a nice country drive. Anything that lets you unwind, enjoy each other’s company, and break up the routine a bit is good! 

Now more than ever, love needs to be patient. It has been a tough year, but the end is in sight. What kind of relationship you’ll have at the end of it is a choice you and your spouse have the power to make.

Everyone knows things float in the Dead Sea. But what would happen to something that couldn’t float, or was intentionally weighed down in those strange waters? Well, then you might see something interesting. The same high salt content that makes the Dead Sea so incredibly buoyant has another interesting property – intense calcification. It is this natural but entirely bizarre phenomenon that Israeli artist Sigalit Landau has made her signature style, using the unique properties of the Dead Sea to create stunning "salt sculptures” of everyday objects!

Resting 1,412 ft below the ocean, the Dead Sea holds the distinction of being the Earth’s lowest elevation on land. It is a hypersaline lake, with a salt to water ratio of 342 grams of salt to every kilogram of water. While those numbers might not mean much to a casual layman, it is an astounding ratio. To put it another way, the Dead Sea is over nine times as salty as the ocean! Truly, there is no other place like it on Earth, which makes it the perfect place for an artist to find inspiration.

Enter Jerusalem born and raised artist Sigalit Landau. Landau is an Israeli artist with international appeal. Her multimedia work spanning everything from sculptures and video installations have been the feature of shows and museums across the world, including a personal exhibit at New York’s prestigious MOMA. Her work has been described as providing symbolic bridges connecting the past to the future, the individual to the collective, and the center to the periphery, all while always using interesting materials and unique techniques that have made her a star in her field. It is this drive that led her to the Dead Sea and the creation of her incredible "salt sculptures.”

Picture a dress that can stand on its own. One where the fabric has become so stiff and brittle with time and salt exposure that it can retain individual wrinkles like it was cast in cement. Think of ordinary objects turned to crystalline structures like they had been petrified, completely frozen in time. This is the beauty of Landau’s craft, a singular art she has been perfecting for over 15 years.

The Dead Sea has always been a part of Landau’s life. In her childhood years she visited the magical spot regularly, taking inspiration from the quiet stillness of the water and the intensely personal experiences visitors would have. Individuals floating separate from each other, but still deeply connected by their shared wonderment. The idea for the project occurred spontaneously as she walked the shores one day and noticed the crystal formations that occur naturally along the water’s edge. 

The process is painstaking. Landau and her team secure items to the bottom of the Dead Sea using metal weights and cables. It’s very tricky to suspend something just so to attain the proper effect, it isn’t as simple as just throwing something in the bottom of the sea and waiting. Each item is carefully considered for its emotional impact, as is the choice of material and composition of the item. Different materials calcify at different rates and by intelligently using these differences Landau is able to create texture and unique effects in her salt sculptures. Heat and the weather are also pressing factors, requiring careful monitoring and documentation to make sure nothing is extracted from the waters too early or too late. It must be perfect.

The entire process is recorded in her book "Salt Years” which serves as a kind of coda to her decade plus work. The book not only details the many incredible sculptures she created over the years and the process used to make them, but also her thoughts and the emotional connection she has to her work. How her life in Israel, the specter of the holocaust, and her fascination with how the individual functions inside a society has influenced the way she sees the world and what she creates.

Landau’s Salt Sculptures are an achievement that is only possible thanks to the natural wonder that is the Dead Sea. Yet another example of how special the land of Israel is and what it has to offer the world.

Tabgha is a sleepy little area in Israel. Found above the northwestern corner of the Sea of Galilee, It is known for its springs and is a favourite local fishing spot with sportsmen. But there are surprises around every corner in the Holy Land, and this seemingly sparse area is no exception! Tabgha is also the home of the Church of the Multiplication, a church with an incredible connection to the life and ministry of Jesus and celebrates one of his most inspirational miracles.

As you might have guessed by the name, The Church of the Multiplication honors the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5000. As recounted in Mathew chapter 14, Jesus was so distraught upon hearing of the death of John the Baptist, he retired to a remote location to pray and contemplate on what happened. But upon hearing this a large crowd followed him. Despite his own pain, Jesus took compassion on the group, which included many sick and afflicted seeking his blessing and began to minister to them and heal the sick among them. As night fell, his disciples asked him to send the crowds away to go and buy food since they were in such a remote and barren location. 

But Jesus said they could stay; he would feed the crowd himself. When the only food his disciples could produce was five loaves of bread and two small fish, this was no obstacle for the son of God. Giving thanks to the Lord, Jesus began to break the loaves and fish apart and distribute them among the people. Miraculously, not only did five loaves of bread and two skinny fishes feed a crowd of thousands, but they had over a dozen baskets full of leftovers. There are many lessons to take from this story, but it stands as one of the most powerful and direct testaments to God’s ability to provide for us in our time of need in the bible.

Ranking miracles is an exercise in futility, each one is, by definition, wholly unique and equally impressive to every other miracle. But there is something that speaks to the heart about Jesus’ ability to feed the five thousand. It is one of only two miracles mentioned in every gospel (the other being the resurrection of course) and one of the most immediately accessible and reassuring moments in Jesus’ ministry. Even when he himself is suffering, Jesus chooses compassion towards others. Even when the situation seems hopeless (how can you feed thousands with only a small lunch’s worth of food?) the power of Christ doesn’t just find a way; it makes the impossible look effortless! That compassion and that power to change things has never gone away, Jesus cares about you and can work miracles in your life as well. What an absolutely beautiful message. 

This is why the Church of Multiplication is so special. It is said to be built over the location of where this miracle took place! Of course, the church we see today is far from the first church to have been built at that location. To know the whole story, we have to go back to the 4th century.

Records dating back to the first church are somewhat spotty, but it is widely believed that a convert name Josepos built it. Born into a wealthy family, Josepos became a follower of Christ and used his family’s money to found at least four churches in the Galilee area. We are familiar with him and his works from the writings of a Spanish nun and pilgrim named Egeria who toured the Holy Land and documented her journey. She wrote about the small church built over the rock where the Lord broke bread and fed the multitude. Her writings name the location as exactly the same spot we see the church today.

But Josepos’ church was not to last. In the 5th century the small chapel built over a rock was replaced by a much more elaborate Byzantine church. Built in an ornate style, the church featured magnificent tile mosaics floors. Speculated to be the works of two different artists, the mosaic tiles feature wildlife and food (notably most of which is Egyptian in origin which fuels speculation that the artists were originally from Egypt) among other things. The most impressive mosaic of course depicts the miracle of the multiplication, a priceless work of art commemorating the event that makes the church so special.

This church stood until the 7th century when the Persian invasion of 614 sealed its doom. The beautiful church was destroyed by the Persian army and in the resulting upheaval the area itself became deserted. Soon the ruins of the church were covered in sand and lost to time. Almost.

In 1889, land near Tabgha was purchased by the German Palestine Society. They sent an American archaeologist to survey the land who noted several promising spots, including what would later be confirmed as the site of the Church of the Multiplication. In 1911 another archaeologist began preliminary excavations and discovered the first remnants of the church, including, miraculously, the mosaic depicting the miracle! Somehow after more than 1000 years and the ravages of war, these historical mosaics survived to confirm what the archaeologists surveying the site had dreamt of. 

Despite the excitement of this discovery, the site would lie dormant for years. World War 1 interrupted any kind of excavation effort as all involved had much more pressing concerns. Then ongoing post-war territory disputes involving multiple parties would prevent anyone from digging for decades. It wasn’t until 1933 that work to restore the mosaic would take place.

Many more upsets (including another world war) would prevent more ambitious work on the site until 1980, when finally it could be safely redeveloped. The church was rebuilt incorporating as much material from the ruins of both the Byzantine church and Josepos original church as possible and the new church was designed to infuse design elements from what churches in those times would be like. 

Today the church is a magnificent building. The millennia old mosaics (two of the earliest known examples of figurative floor mosaics in Christian art in the Holy Land) have been restored and are a main feature of the church.  The foundations of the original churches can also be viewed (safely protected behind glass). As can the very limestone slab it is claimed Jesus multiplied the bread and fish for the miraculous meal! Imagine it, Jesus laid his hands on that slab and today we have the privilege to be able to see it with our own eyes. Incredible. 

While not an ancient church like some of the historical temples and shrines dotting Israel, the Church of Multiplication stands atop a rich history. It is another important connection to the life and work of Jesus, the kind of which can only be found in the Holy Land.

 

At first blush, Suzanne Spaak didn’t seem like a strong candidate to help the underground. She was an heiress who married into even more money. As a foreign-born non-Jew living in Paris, members of the underground were initially skeptical when she asked how she could help. What was this rich girl thinking getting involved in this world? What could she possibly bring to a resistance movement that needed to get its hands dirty from time to time? Nobody took her very seriously.

This was an attitude Suzanne made sure did not last long. She threw herself into the work with a zeal that surprised even her other resistance members. She took any assignment without hesitation or complaint. Whether it was physical labor, clandestine scouting and observing the Nazis, or creating and distributing leaflets, Suzanne completed her tasks quickly, efficiently, and always asked for more.

But her work wasn’t just limited to standard underground fair. Suzanne came from a unique background, one that afforded her access and ears that were closed to most other people. One of her major tasks was finding hospitals and other safe houses that were willing to accept fugitive Jewish families. It was dangerous work with a huge amount of risk for everyone involved. Everyday the Nazis broadcast and published propaganda with a simple message, anyone caught aiding or hiding Jews would be put to death as well as their entire immediate family. Asking someone to shelter Jews was asking them to accept the possibility of arrest and execution for them and the people they cared the most about.

Suzanne, the socialite adept in the ways of conversation and persuasion, was one of the best at getting people to accept this risk. She rang up judges and authors, knocked on the door of priests and painters, she used her social standing and incredibly diverse circle of friends to pry open doors and solicit aid for Jewish families like nobody else.  

She even got her own family in on the effort. Her daughter, Pilette, helped her forge documents for Jewish families. It was like an arts and crafts project they would do together, taking old ID cards they collected from friends, they would use a hot iron and moist cloth to lift the original signatures off the card. After a bit of clean up they’d write in a new name and presto, a fugitive Jew suddenly becomes a respectable citizen with right of passage.

Still, this wasn’t enough for her, she wanted to do more. She HAD to do more. Suzanne was haunted by stories of Jewish children being taken. She would look at her own beloved children and could not shake the deep, deep horror of what the Nazis were doing to kids and mothers exactly like them. It began to affect her psychologically; she’d wake with nightmares and have trouble focusing from time to time. Handing out ration cards and new IDs was a good start, but there had to be more she could do.

That’s when she began to hear rumors about a mass arrest the Nazis were planning. There were preparations being made to raid all of the Jewish orphanages in the city and deport the children to Auschwitz. This was a singular horror to Suzanne. These were innocent children who already had their lives ruined (the reason so many Jewish children were in orphanages at the time was because their parents had already been forcibly deported and likely murdered by the Nazis). They had nobody, so Suzanne decided to be that somebody, to be the person who would save these children.

She set to work immediately. She recruited a local Pastor, Paul Vergara, who was known for his fiery anti-Nazi sermons. They were joined by Marcelle Guillemot, the woman who ran the church’s soup kitchen and was all too familiar with the precocity facing Jews and particularly Jewish children at that time. Together, they put a plan. A series of "kidnappings” that would take those children far from Nazi clutches.

On February 15, 1943, there was a strange amount of interest in Jewish orphanages in Paris. More than 30 women (vetted by Suzanne and her allies) showed up at orphanages around the city. They offered to take some children for a walk, get them out of the building and stretch their legs. And of course, the orphanage staff was glad for a break and naturally agreed. More than 60 Jewish children from ages 3 to 18 walked out of those orphanages that morning and never returned. 

The children were given new names, clothing, and ration cards. The yellow stars marking their former clothes were burned. This was a massive and risky operation involving multiple people, safehouses, and smuggling methods. Suzanne herself sheltered some of the children in her own home for a time, hiding them from the ever-present eyes of the Gestapo and the opportunistic French collaborators who would gladly sell information about a Jewish sympathizer to the Nazis.

This was why Suzanne had allied herself with the "Red Orchestra” (a loose network of resistance cells that originated with anti-Nazi Germans in Berlin and spread all the way to France). She needed their network to help smuggle and place the children either in allied countries or safe areas across Europe. Sadly, it was this association that ultimately led to her fate.

Unbeknownst to anyone in France at the time, The Red Orchestra network was compromised. Members captured in Germany were tortured and forced to give up their allies. Those allies were then rounded up and tortured into giving up their friends. Again and again the horrible pattern continued, eventually reaching all the way to Paris. More than 600 members across Europe were rounded up in a year long Gestapo operation - and one of these members was Suzanne. 

It is only by the grace of God that Suzanne received last second word of the Gestapo’s operation. Not enough time to save herself, but she had just enough time before she was arrested to give the names and locations of the Jewish children she saved to another underground member not affiliated with the Red Orchestra who would be able to keep track of them. This last heroic act was done in the hope that those children could eventually be found by any surviving family they had be reunited someday. Even up to her last moments of freedom Suzanne thought of the children before thinking of herself. 

On August 12, 1944 mere days before the liberation of Paris, Suzanne Spaak was executed. They conducted her execution while simultaneously preparing to abandon the prison and flee from the inevitable march of allied forces. A completely senseless and spiteful murder committed by an evil regime. 

Suzanne left behind her husband and two children. Her accomplishments and heroism would go largely unknown for years but have thankfully since been recognized, with Suzanne being inducted into Yad Vashem’s "Righteous Among the Nations.” In 2009 her surviving daughter Pilette, by then an old woman herself, finally got to meet a few of the children her mother saved. Old themselves, they were able to tell Pilette about their own families, the lives they got to lead and the children and grandchildren they got to have thanks to Suzanne. All of them forever connected by the love and sacrifice of a woman who gave up everything to do the right thing. 

Some people have all the luck. Suzanne Spaak certainly had her share. Born the daughter of a wealthy Belgian banking family, Suzanne enjoyed a fine European upbringing that took her to the elite social circles of Belgium. She married extremely well and eventually settled into a glamourous home in Paris where she and her husband enjoyed life in Paris’ high society.  

It all sounds like a fairy tale, a charmed life well lived. But this was Paris in the early 40s and everything changed with the invasion of the Nazis. Suzanne’s perfect life was turned upside down and she was faced with a choice. She could either turn a blind eye to injustice and try and live as normally as possible during the occupation like so many of her rich friends, or she could listen to her conscious and do something about it. She chose the later and became first a hero and then, tragically, a martyr.

Suzanne came from a family of means. An established Catholic family with deep ties to the banking business, she wanted for very little in life and was brought up from an early age to become a "proper” young lady. She received an excellent elementary education but was frustrated by her parents insistence that she study house management and embroidery as she matured. She independently studied literature and political science, with an eye towards social issues. It was this interest that brought her into contact with Jewish women’s groups in Brussels, many of which had already fled homes in Eastern Europe as the antisemitism in those areas became more intense and violent.  

It was also these interests that made her so fascinating to her husband Claude Spaak. When we say Suzanne married well, that’s a bit of an understatement – she married into a dynasty that might as well be considered the Belgium Kennedys. A family of political movers and shakers, businessmen and important figures. Claude was an accomplished man in his own right, a pioneering filmmaker and playwright. Sadly, he also proved to be a difficult and sometimes selfish man. He was unfaithful and prone to mood swings, but Suzanne stuck with him, largely for the sake of her two children, a daughter name Pilette, and a son, Bazou, both of whom she loved intensely. While her marriage could have been better, she embraced motherhood and was incredibly devoted to her children.

In 1938 they relocated to Paris to be closer to the emerging film and arts scene. They moved into an upscale building in the heart of the city, one of those gorgeous buildings that people just stop to look at and dream about. The two young children settled into Parisian life immediately, making friends and excelling in their studies. It was a fantasy come to life – until the Germans invaded in 1940.

The Spaaks originally tried to flee. Joining the millions of people fleeing the country, they intended to travel to New York and the safety of America but were cut off by German roadblocks before they could reach their boat. So, they returned to their Paris home and prepared for the worst. But to their surprise, the worst didn’t happen to them.

Make no mistake, the Nazis occupation of Paris was brutal. There is no telling how many people "disappeared” during that dark time. Fear was the order of the day, you never knew who was listening, where the Gestapo were lurking, or which of your friends had become an informer. It was a nightmare for Jews and anyone the Nazis considered an enemy. But if you were not a Jew, but wealthy, politically connected, and willing to keep your mouth shut, things could still be relatively comfortable all things considered. 

Suzanne’s position shielded her and her family from the worst of the occupation. But she could still see what was going on. Jews were suddenly not allowed simple basic freedoms. They were barred from parks, cafes, or movies. Their movements were controlled and monitored, and possession of a contraband item like a simple radio could earn a Jew a death sentence. She saw it all and was disgusted by it. She felt terrible guilt seeing such injustices mercilessly meted out to innocent people while she got to comfortably go about her life like nothing changed. 

But as angry and upset as she was, nothing prepared her for the shock of losing a friend. One of the Jewish women she met in her groups back in Brussels, Mira Sokol, also moved to Paris. The two had bonded over their shared interests and become close friends. Originally when Mira moved to Paris it was a welcome and celebrated event. But now with the Nazi occupation, it was a disaster. Sure enough, Mira and her husband were arrested by the Nazis, taken away to parts unknown and doomed to an uncertain fate. All for the crime of having Jewish heritage.

It was too much for Suzanne, she couldn’t stand by and just watch. So, she made the most of her position. As a wealthy Belgian married to a politically connected man, she could pretty much roam Paris unimpeded. She would use this freedom to raise funds for Jewish families trying to keep their heads down and avoid detection. Her home was unlikely to be targeted for inspection, so she listened to verboten radio broadcasts from the UK and allied forces, sharing the news with friends and creating a whisper network to keep people up to date with what was going on in the world.

While many of her social circle resigned themselves to quietly enduring the Nazi occupation, taking comfort in their remaining freedoms, and trying to ignore the plight of others, Suzanne chose a different path. She joined the underground National Movement Against Racism (MNCR) and dedicated her life to the struggle against Nazism.

Find out how this socialite became a hero in part 2 later this week!

Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is one of the most important religious and cultural holidays in Israel. Celebrating the events described in Exodus of the Israelites’ miraculous liberation out of bondage, the ten plagues the Lord brought down on Egypt, and the journey to the promised land. That’s a lot for any holiday to cover and indeed the Passover is a weeklong event complete with numerous different rituals and traditions to observe.

But how do Israelis plan to celebrate that history while still in the grasp of a modern-day plague? COVID-19 disrupted last year’s Passover events, and sadly it is still a looming concern of this year’s upcoming celebrations. Here are some of the ways people in Israel are keeping the spirit of the holiday alive while staying safe.

A traditional part of Passover is cleansing the home of chametz. What are chametz? Very simply it is any food that contains wheat, barley, rye, and oats that has been mixed with water and allowed to "rise.” In other words, leaven bread. Jewish observers not only abstain from such food during Passover, but they also need to cleanse their house of them so they do not own or benefit from chametz during the holiday. Over the years, this has been folded into a kind of broader annual cleansing, but it is still a highly ritualized event. For example, as observers are supposed to have no contact with any chametz, some recommend cleaning the oven and sealing it up prior to Passover. It’s a very involved process.

Now in our time of social distancing and self-quarantining, there has never been a better time for Israeli observers to dig deep and give their home, vehicles, and other property a good cleaning. Many Israeli’s took extra time to rid their homes of chametz and give it a new sparkle for the season last year during the beginning days of the Coronavirus outbreak and looking online it seems many families are gearing up to do it again. This makes a lot of sense, if you’re going to be stuck at home it might as well be comfortable and look great!

One of the most important parts of Passover is the Seder. This is the traditional feast that marks the beginning of Passover. Normally, this is a joyously chaotic and crowded affair. Entire families gather and crowd around a shared table, swapping stories, picking at the spread and traditional four (!) glasses of wine, and making a show of who can recline and relax the most (seriously, one of the Seder traditions is to recline in your chair to demonstrate the comfort and freedom Israelis enjoy since escaping Egypt).

Sadly, in the current climate with COVID-19 looming over us, gathering that many people into a small room is just asking for trouble. Many people will be practicing smaller Seders with only their immediate household members or, unfortunately, nobody at all. While there is no denying that this will be a very different Seder from the traditional experience, many Israeli families are still doing what they can to honor the Seder and make it fun for the whole family!

Last year many families attempted "virtual Seders” to various degrees of success. Trying to wrangle more than a dozen relatives through a Zoom meeting screen to read through the Haggadah is no easy feat! Thankfully, after a year of dealing with COVID lots of people have plenty of experience with Zoom and there are no end of tutorial and tip articles out there with pointers on how to throw a fun, but not out of control, long distance Seder. 

As Israeli families enter this second year in a row of cautious distancing and a disrupted Passover, many are concentrating on what is truly important – keeping each other safe. Yes, it has been an incredibly difficult year, and nobody expected to have to celebrate a second Passover under these conditions, it’s discouraging and difficult and disappointing. But at its core, the Passover is a celebration of the Israeli people’s perseverance in the face of adversity. We have dealt with the disruptions and dangers of COVID for an entire year now and with vaccines beginning wider distribution the end is finally in sight. While this might be an unusual Passover, the important thing is to make sure everybody makes it to see next year when they can gather in safety and gratitude.