Jordan Gelfeld has connections. As a docent at the Illinois Holocaust, his grandfather, Mark Gelfeld, was able to get this grandson in for a sneak peek at the museum's new virtual-reality exhibit. And the experience was nothing short of powerful.

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"You can read about the Holocaust in books, but with this, you really feel like you're there with 'George,' " said the Glenbrook North High School sophomore, referring to a story about a survivor. "Even though you are sitting there in your chair, it feels like you're in the camp, surrounded by the other prisoners."

Through the magic of multi-sensory virtual reality and Surround Sound, the headset strapped around his head brings the entire experience to life: the cattle car emptying its exhausted, terrified cargo onto the Auschwitz ramp; the inside of the barracks with no way out; the barking dogs, shouts of the captors and cries of the victims.

Organizers at the Illinois Holocaust Museum chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 for the official rollout of their new cutting-edge virtual-reality Holocaust experience, titled "The Journey Back."

With 360-degree life-sized projections, once inside the 3-D environment, the participant controls their own view of reality, interspersing contemporary footage with memory sequences, and giving the sensation of being on-site with two Chicago-area survivors sharing their stories.

The What: The museum is presenting two films in its new virtual reality theater. "A Promise Kept" tells the story of Fritzie Fritzshall. As a young teen, she made a vow to the other 599 women imprisoned with her in a slave-labor sub-camp of Auschwitz that, if she survived, she'd never let their fates be forgotten.

Returning to Auschwitz with the film crew more than 70 years later, she said: "Standing here today I hear voices. I see people. I feel hunger. I feel cold. I am in the place of death."

At night, one woman might start a song or a prayer, and the others would chime in quietly. "But mostly we shared recipes – gefilte fish, kugels, roasts," Fritzshall told the camera. "Our stomachs were growling from hunger, but we had to live in a pretend world."

Slabbed with 10 other women on a bunk, "I remember my aunt Bella putting her arms around me and whispering, 'Tomorrow will be better; let's just live through the night and you'll see, tomorrow will be better.'" Sadly, her aunt did not survive.

The other film, "Don't Forget Me," takes viewers on a journey back to Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee concentration camps with George Brent, who was also a teen when his family was taken from their Hungarian home as his friend happily took his bicycle and neighbors emptied out their home.

Nor can he forget the terrifying trip to Auschwitz, where he soon learned "what the two buildings with large chimneys with smoke and fire and a terrible smell" were about, and the rigors of Mauthausen where many men's backs were broken carrying huge boulders from the quarries up the "staircase of death," while others gave up and leaped to their deaths.

Although Brent knew his mother and brother had been killed on arrival at Auschwitz, he never knew his father's fate till a year after liberation when the Red Cross located him in a tuberculosis clinic in Germany.

The Why: "We need to learn all we can from Holocaust survivors while they are still here," museum CEO Susan Abrams said. "The knowledge we gain from their pasts influences our futures and informs the way we interact with the world. And there is truly no better way to learn than to virtually tour the Holocaust sites today with a survivor to see them from their point of view."

Expecting thousands of visitors to experience the virtual reality tour of the camps each year, the museum has plans in the works to share the program with other museums equipped with the virtual-reality technology, in addition to universities and, down the line, schools and individuals as well.

"'The Journey Back' brings to life the moving testimony of two survivors at the locations where they experienced the worst of humanity, and that experience inspires an understanding of our common humanity," Abrams said. "And time is of the essence for growing such understanding. We're swimming against a tide of rising anti-Semitism, and other forms of hatred and bigotry. As the Holocaust recedes into the past and most of the survivors have passed away, this is an important moment for this kind of personal, powerful experience."

The Who: Not only can survivor Brent not forget the image of desperate men jumping to their death from the quarries of Mauthausen, but now neither will the viewers of "Don't Forget Me."

After his reunion with his father, Brent made it to Chicago in 1949 and was soon drafted into the US army to serve in the Korean War. Marriage, dental school, a practice, four daughters and eight grandchildren followed, and after he retired, Brent began telling his story in earnest, often to school kids visiting the museum.

"Seeing a picture of myself – a kid in my underwear – in a book of Auschwitz photos proved to everyone that it was real," said Brent who, at 92, has been telling his story for decades. "I can see the effect it has on the eighth-graders who come to the museum," he said, with most of the questions he gets from his young audiences about what became of his family and how he felt in the camps. Many youngsters also ask to see the numbers tattooed on his arm – and he shows them.

The Audience: Kelley Szany, the museum's vice president of education and exhibitions, said the multisensory nature of the virtual-reality experience is singular in the way it meets the challenges of creating an understanding of the lethal nature of hate in the minds and hearts of the next generation.

"From an educational standpoint, feeling that they visited the sites with Fritzi and George, shared their experiences and felt their feelings, it's a merger of technology and storytelling," she said. "As it's seared into their memories, and they begin to grapple with how to understand what they've learned here, it can ultimately make the world a better place."

The experience, adds Szany, is recommended for ages 12 and up, "who are usually mature enough cognitively and emotionally to be able to dive into the difficult aspects of this history."

The Backstory: When it comes to high-tech bringing Holocaust experiences to life and preserving them for future generations, in many ways, Steven Spielberg was the first to accomplish it on a grand scale. Beginning in the 1990s, a broad interviewer network collected more than 50,000 filmed testimonies of Holocaust survivors – and some witnesses, too (most of whom are since deceased); this collection is now known as the Visual History Archive and housed at USC Shoah Foundation. This massive project came on the heels of the 1994 Academy Award-winning "Schindler's List," whose profits seeded it.

Earlier Holocaust-related VR projects included "Lala," the partly animated short film created by USC Shoah Foundation with survivor Roman Kent. The story of the dog belonging to Kent as a child in Poland during the Nazi invasion was designed to introduce children to the Holocaust and can be viewed with or without a VR headset.

Another VR Holocaust milestone was 2017's "The Last Goodbye," also out of the Shoah Foundation. Following survivor Pinchas Gutter into Nazi death camp Majdanek, the short film records his experience as the only member of his family to emerge from the Holocaust alive.

And that same year the Illinois Holocaust Museum was among the first institution to use hologram technology developed by USC Shoah Foundation, which invites visitors into a "conversation" with a survivor. Each time a question is asked, one of some 2,000 answers the survivor recorded is played, mimicking a live Q&A.

At the museum's Abe & Ida Cooper Survivor Stories Experience, for instance, this hologram program also featured Fritzshall, who spent 40 hours over five days recording 2,000-plus answers.

"It stirred up a lot of the memories that I didn't want to think about anymore, that I thought were hidden," she said at the time.

Still, added Fritzshall, who passed away last summer, "I am glad that I did it, I am so glad that it is going to be left in this museum as a teaching tool, for all the young people who come here. Maybe they will talk to their parents and grandparents and talk to the next generation; this is what I'm hoping today."

But using this technology on such sensitive topics can take some getting used to. "At first, I was a little bit skeptical; I was raised in a generation when we took it for granted that survivors come into our schools to talk to us," said Sara Brown, who managed post-secondary education programming for USC Shoah Foundation before joining CHHANGE (the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education) as executive director. "It never occurred to me that we were in the sunset stage, the last generation who would hear their stories in person."

That is, until she stepped into the field of Holocaust education, she notes: "Then I began to see it's up to us to keep the survivors' voices alive into the future."

The development of such modern technology for conveying such painful, and almost unbelievable, experiences, Brown said, "allows us to meet moderns, especially adolescents, where they're at, through powerful experiential learning."

But she also conveys a warning: "Though I firmly believe these meaningful encounters are the future of Holocaust education, they need to be done right. Presenting it as shock-and-awe can do real harm, especially to children."

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Wojciech Soczewica, director-general of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, who was in Chicago last week to test drive the museum's new VR exhibit, agrees. "It's a very personalized experience," he said, "giving the viewer the chance to not only listen to the survivors' tragic histories and to walk along with them in the concentration camp, but to see how they managed to survive and kept the promises they made."

In fact, they're mid-stream in creating a VR program at the Auschwitz-Birkenau site, he adds, featuring a virtual reconstruction of the camp in 1944, when it was in its murderous peak, to be used by anyone with a VR headset, including in classrooms. "We're doing it to tell the story of evil in the Shoah and build momentum against it," adds Soczewica. "With the survivors passing away, this is how to transmit their voices and their emotions."

But even as they leave the world, "the survivors are still our master teachers," stresses Brown. "They had the courage to share their painful experiences with us so, as Eli Wiesel said, we must now be their witnesses; we owe that to them. To train the next generation that, when they see hate, to be upstanders and not bystanders."

"Their stories have to be kept alive with the goal of inspiring empathy," affirms Abrams. "To create a world where 'never again' is a reality."

As for Jordan, he said "it's so crazy that I'm the same age George was then. I can't even imagine what that would be like."

If all his fellow students at school experienced the exhibit, what might the impact be?

Jordan replies that "if their thinking is prejudiced, this could make them more curious about what happened then and open up their eyes."
And, to give the survivor the final word: "I've gotten a great deal of satisfaction that I can still tell my story," Brent said. "With this new technology, now that there aren't too many of us left, it can help extend the understanding of what we went through into the future."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Some people take the commandment to beautify a mitzvah very seriously indeed, especially when it comes to their sukkah.

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It's been nearly three decades since Len Upin took brush in hand and, using acrylics, painted a huge tree on the canvas walls of his brand-new sukkah, inviting his three children to join in the fun.

As the years grew on and then the decades, and the sukkah grew and shrunk depending on the number of family and friends expected, there were giant flowers added, reflecting those growing in the family's Chicago-area garden. "Over the years, the rain and the sun have faded them," says Upin, an artist and retired art teacher. "But we still have the photos to remind us how they were." Every year when it goes up − now that the kids are grown and living in other towns − Upin and his wife Laura "have it to bring back a lot of happy memories."

Someone who's been collecting photos of sukkahs for the last 15 years is Aaron Ginsburg. "Sukkahs of the World" was born when Ginsburg noticed the wide variety of specimens dotting his Sharon, Mass., neighborhood and began photographing them. Soon he was receiving sukkah photos from around the world and posting them on his website, including one from Shanghai dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers and a quaint Parisian one."After all these years, I'm still amazed at the sheer variety," says Ginsburg.

For sheer variety, it would be hard to surpass the mind-bending sukkah specimens featured in the competition held in 2013 in New York's Union Square  −the documentary Sukkah City tells the story of the competition and spotlights the winners (see trailer).

The competition was organized by writer Joshua Foer to inspire architects and designers to be playful with the structures while adhering strictly to their biblical requirements governing dimensions, roof materials and more. For the full list of guidelines, look no further than the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law, where they were set down back in 1563. These include a minimum of three walls, each one at least 28 inches long and at least 40 inches high, while no more than nine inches above the ground. The roof (to be made of natural materials like branches, palm fronds, corn stalks or bamboo) must be dense enough to create more shade than sun, but loose enough to be able to see the stars and feel the rain. In addition, nothing can overhang the sukkah; it must be completely open to the sky and the elements.

But unlike the professional contestants, most busy moderns don't have the time or the construction skills to devote to perfection, which is why sukkah-kit businesses like the Sukkah Project have sprung up over the last few decades.

Last year during the peak of COVID-19 restrictions, the project saw a sharp downturn in institutional-sized ones for universities and shuls, says owner Abram Herman. Instead, they experienced an uptick in family-sized ones (models start at $368 for a 6' x 8' four-seater.) "If you can't get to the one at your synagogue's sukkah anymore, you need one of your own," says Herman. But this year, he reports, both the family and institutional ones are in high demand, keeping the order center in Grand Junction, Colo., hopping this time of year.

And, if those sales are up then the demand for lulav (long leaves of palm, willow and myrtle bound together within a closed palm frond) and etrog (the citrus fruit specific to the holiday) can't be far behind. These sets, used for blessings in the sukkah, start at $30 but more typically go for $50 or more through synagogues, Judaica shops and online.

Guests both heavenly and human

Besides a place of blessing, the sukkah was designed to be truly lived in, including working or doing homework, sleeping, and, of course, eating (and for hosting friends and family). Though coronavirus concerns are likely to keep most crowds to a minimum, there are seven guests who (variant or no variant) are bound to show up in every sukkah around the globe.

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In order of appearance: Abraham on the first night, then Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and on the seventh and final night King David, each of these ushpizin, or "guests" bringing his own special blessing to the sukkah and all those found inside. Note: Many also believe these august souls' wives accompany them on their visits.

But what exactly should hosts serve the guests, at least the human ones?

Joan Nathan, the author of many classic Jewish cookbooks, including King Solomon's Table, A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World, is a great believer in keeping Sukkot menus "festive but easy." One main dish, possibly a casserole with a salad and fruit for dessert, "is really all you need," says Nathan. Or try one of her sukkah favorites: pesto and pasta with stir-fried cherry tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. "And my best recommendation," she adds, "is when people ask if they can bring anything, always, always say 'yes.' Even if it's just a salad, it's one less thing for you to have to think about."But what if all this holiday joy is outside the reach of especially older people who can't get out and those hesitant in pandemic times to congregate in a relatively enclosed space?

Put your whole self in …

That's where the Chabad sukkah mobiles come into play. "Chabad has been sending around sukkah mobiles since time immemorial," laughs Rabbi Dov Drizin over at the Valley Chabad in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. (He recalls his own father, as a Chabad rabbi in Northern California, building one). "But last year with COVID, we all took it up a notch. If they can't come to us for the mitzvah, we take it to them."

So, instead of parking the portable sukkah (it's often built on the back of a rented pick-up truck or even a tricycle-type vehicle, the pedi-sukkah) in a public place and seeing who shows up to do the mitzvah of sitting and eating (bring on the cookies), and saying the blessings over the lulav and etrog, last year the rabbi and his family began driving it to families around the area. And it's a practice they plan to continue this Sukkot.

"The sukkah is the one mitzvah you do with your whole body − with your clothes on," says Drizin (versus a mikvah, which is a full-body mitzvah sans clothing). "But you don't have to get dressed up in anything fancy; come as you are," he adds. "Just being inside is like a huge hug from G-d."

Because wherever it is, as beautiful as a sukkah can be, it's only when it's occupied does this temporary dwelling fashioned of wood and canvas, PC piping or steel tubing truly become a sukkah, says Ginsburg. "The sukkah is about the people inside it feeling the joy of the holiday," he says. "That's the real way of beautifying this mitzvah."

Tips:

Meet Some Sukkah Guests From Hell
To get in the Sukkot mood, enjoy the 2004 classic film Ushpizin, the story of two ex-cons moving in on a down-on-their-luck observant couple (played by real-life spouses Shuli and Michal Rand), turning their lives upside down in the process.

Stock Up on Construction Paper
Have your kids make sukkah decorations such as stringed popcorn, drawings, paper chains and more to share with neighbors and friends.

Get Hopping
Organize your own sukkah hop. Note: Though the younger set will enjoy assorted sweets, adult hops typically feature movable meals (hors d'oeuvres, soup, salads, entree and dessert), each course served in a different sukkah. And this year, BYOM (bring your own mask).

Making the Holiday Count
Conduct a neighborhood sukkah count with your children or grandchildren. Not finding many nearby? Try traveling to an area with more specimens to count.

Open Your Heart … and Your Hand
Sukkot is a traditional time to give tzedakah ("charity") to those in need. This is especially important during these times and the ongoing pandemic, when we may not have the mitzvah of feeding the poor or lonely in our own sukkah.

Watch Them Grow
Many families have the tradition of measuring their children each Sukkot, marking their progress on a corner beam of their sukkah.

Drink Your Etrog
Planning to find yourself in Jerusalem over the holiday? Not to be missed is the stand in the Machane Yehuda shuk established by third-generation produce guy Uzi-Eli Chezi, aka "the Etrog Man," who's been juicing this Vitamin-C-packed citrus for a quarter-century. (Note: The flavor also comes in the form of liqueur, citron-flavored, widely available online).

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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If you look up the word "emunah" in a dictionary, you just might find Doron and Ilana Toweg's pictures there.

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Because if these farmers and their four kids living near Beit Shemesh didn't have "emunah" – Hebrew for "faith" – they would never have had the courage to take on the mitzvah of shmita.

That's because shmita – the Torah commandment to let the land rest every seven years – means no planting or harvesting can be done, effectively putting the farmer out of business for more than a year.

Seven years ago, the Toweg property was among roughly one-quarter of Jewish-owned farms; the mitzvah is specific to the land to Israel, which kept shmita. And, as daunting as it was, they somehow survived the rigors of their first trial and are now gearing up to do it again.

American-born and Canadian-raised, Ilana moved to Israel when she was 18, only taking on the agricultural life after her marriage 25 years ago to her third-generation farmer husband.

"We understood the basics then, but we really didn't know what we were getting into," says Ilana with a good-natured sigh. Still, she was determined that her family "would take on a mitzvah that only Israel's few thousand farmers have the opportunity to keep. I began seeing it as a special blessing to be in the position to do this."

But back then, her husband was not so easily persuaded. "Doron works from before dawn to late at night – the farm is his life – and the idea of not working for a year and having no income was frightening," she says.

So what convinced him? Visiting a neighboring farm, he met some yeshivah students picking grapes. "One of them said that for 2,000 years, the Jews were in the galut ('exile') waiting to keep this mitzvah," says Ilana. "And now, we have the opportunity to actually do it."

But, as they were soon to discover, in addition to abundant "emunah", shmita means hard work. Ilana taught kindergarten in the morning and English in the afternoon, and Doron led farm tours, while their kids – then 17, 13, 10 and 3 – pitched in at home.

'Judaism teaches us to respect the earth'

In the Torah portion of Behar, God instructs Moses on Mount Sinai to tell the Children of Israel that "for six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard and you may gather in its crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for Hashem; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune. The aftergrowth of your harvest you shall not reap and the grapes you have set aside for yourself you shall not pick. It shall be a year of rest for the land."

Besides those like the Towegs who take on the Torah's commandment of shmita, other farmers choose to "sell" their land to a non-Jew but keep working it. Though considered acceptable by many, this option contravenes the spirit of the mitzvah that calls for a complete "Sabbath" for the land, notes Hershkowitz. And whatever produce grows naturally? It's considered hefker – communal property – for anyone to help themselves but not to be sold.

"The farmers and their families who keep shmita are the real heroes here," says Rabbi Ezra Friedman, director of the Gustave & Carol Jacobs Center for Kashrut Education at the Orthodox Union in Jerusalem. "Imagine you have to close your business for a year and watching your old customers walk by to shop somewhere else, wondering if they'll be back at the end of the year. This takes a lot of courage and faith."

But how does shmita work in modern-day Israel where, even during the other six years, many farm families live hand to mouth?

The roughly 25% of Jewish-owned Israeli farmland that kept shmita seven years ago received a helping hand from an 80-year-old organization named Keren Hashviis (the Foundation for the Sabbath Year).

During the last shmita, Keren Hashviis helped keep 3,452 farmers covering 83,500 acres going, says project manager Dovid Hershkowitz. And this year, with some 40% of the land already on board for shmita, Keren Hashviis is working hard to raise money to keep up with the new demand and encourage others to join in the mitzvah, more than doubling its old $25 million budget.

These grants cover 40% to 50% of a farm's operating expenses – everything from rent on the land to installment payments on tractors, combines and other pricey equipment and salaries for the skeleton crew who care for the animals and keep the fruit trees hydrated and alive. This year's Keren Hashviis goal is an ambitious one: that the majority (51%) of Jewish farmland keeps shmita.

Surprisingly, even after more than a year of pandemic lockdowns, including many restaurants and hotels that usually buy farmers' produce in quantity, and even looking at a 13-month year coming up (added for the Jewish leap year beginning on Rosh Hashanah), Hershkowitz calls the increase in farms primed to keep shmita for the first time "dramatic."

These farmers and all those who would jump on the shmita bandwagon if they thought they could afford it keep Keren Hashviis's American CEO Rabbi Shia Markowitz on the road raising money. So does the memory of a refrigerator he saw seven years ago.

"I was visiting a farm family and happened to see 'past due' notices for electricity and phone service stuck on their refrigerator," he says. "That image is always there to motivate me, knowing that we have it in our hands for more farmers to keep the mitzvah without facing financial ruin."

"People think it's a vacation for farmers, but it's anything but," he adds. "They have to keep their fruit trees alive, their equipment payments on time, and their families and their animals fed."

"I'm a little amazed at how many more farmers have already signed on than seven years ago," says Ehud Alpert, livestock manager and shmita coordinator for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The ministry administers a program of stipends of up to 12% of their average year's income to those farmers who contribute an additional 6% from their own earnings. And whereas only 150 benefited from the program during the last shmita, more than 300 have applied and been approved this time around.

"The support is to help them come back strong the next year, so they can go back to the land and continue to produce the excellent fruits and vegetables Israel is known for," says Alpert, adding his hope that the increased demand will prompt the Treasury Department to approve the request for "an additional budget to help more farmers out."

One reason they could come back even stronger is the simple act of letting the land take a break from constant productivity. "Judaism teaches us to respect the earth, so with shmita, every seven years we need to give it a rest to recharge and refuel," says Aharon Ariel Lavi, who directs Hakhel, an intentional community incubator and project of Hazon that, among other things works for environmental sustainability. "Even with fertilizers and other methods designed to bypass that need, we still need to respect nature not just for what it can do for us, but what we are responsible to do for it."

But as helpful as it is to have these infrastructure costs at least partially covered, how will the families pay for the increasing cost of food? Shoes for growing kids? Textbooks and backpacks for school? Or that unexpected root canal? How, in fact, will they survive?

That's where the world's Jewish women come in.

As the mother of eight, Nahva Follman is no stranger to surprise expenses.

"We also know that it's the entire family that lives with shmita," says the native of Brooklyn, N.Y., who now lives in Jerusalem. "And the only way they can do it is if we step up and help."

So, just as Keren Hashviis takes on much of the big infrastructure expenses, its newly born Nshei Keren Hashviis program aims at helping the keeping the family with the unexpected costs of living for the next year-plus, until the fields begin producing again.

Working through online giving and through funds being run in various communities, the project is collecting a dollar a day ($365) from women across the globe and aiming for 100,000 of them. "That would help feed thousands of farm families, buy the kids shoes and lunch boxes, and new clothes for school," says Follman. "We want to put money on their kitchen table and say, 'We've got your back. Since you're courageous enough to take on this immense mitzvah, you shouldn't have to lie awake at night wondering how you're going to pay for everything till the farm starts producing again.' "

That safety net is bound to bring a measure of relief, says farmer Ilana Toweg. "And it comes from other Jewish women many of whom have raised families and dealt with the surprise costs you never budget for nor can necessarily afford."

As Nshei committee chair who's volunteered to help the farm families afford this mitzvah, at 45, Follman also puts her whole self where her heart is. Three years ago, when her youngest was 4, she donated a kidney to a surgeon who'd made aliyah from Ukraine. "So now, every time he operates on someone," she says with a grin, "I get part of that mitzvah, too."

Follman also considers it a mitzvah to empower Jewish farmers to take on shmita. "With so many sitting on the fence, as Rosh Hashanah gets closer they have to decide if they're going to do it. We want to be there to help that happen, woman to woman."

"There's a reason God gave us such a seemingly impossible mitzvah to perform," says Rabbi Markowitz. "He knew the only way the farmers can succeed at it and survive is if the rest of the Jewish people make the mitzvah work if we do it together. This is Jewish unity at its best."

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Rochel Miller, who's organized a Nshei fund with the women in her Brooklyn community, is also determined to help enable this mitzvah. "But even with our help and the support from Keren Hashviis, the farmer families will get maybe half of what they earn in a normal year," she says. "The rest they'll still have to scramble for."

Over at the Towegs' farm, such scrambling will include Ilana taking on more English students, and Doron and the family leading (bilingual) guided farm tours to demonstrate how shmita works.

Seven years ago, Ilana also took another job – one that she never applied for and that pays in strictly non-monetary terms. It all began when two young women knocked on the door saying Haredi leader Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky had sent them for a blessing to find husbands since "God listens to the prayers of any woman with enough "emunah" for her husband to keep shmita."

These days, Ilana, who's not Haredi herself, spends hours over her Shabbat candles reciting the names of the thousands of individuals, asking for blessings for everything from healing to financial help to having children to finding their soulmate. And those two young women who'd knocked on her door? Within two months, they were both engaged.

"We feel so supported by the Jewish people that this is something I can do to help them," she says. "As scary as it is to turn off your income and lose your contracts for more than a year, shmita is feeling right to us now. This year, instead of growing eggplants for thousands of people, we figure we're keeping this mitzvah for those same thousands. And everyone who's helping us, they're all our partners."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post Jews worldwide join Israel's farm families for challenges, blessings of shmita year appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Scott Gross is a man with a mission. He's scouring the country for the perfect place for his parents to enjoy their retirement.

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"It's one-half investment and one-half a place where they could live in the future," says Gross. So it has to be just right, he says, since when (and if) his Baltimore-based parents are ready to take the aliyah leap, the place is poised to serve as the proverbial soft landing.

"They've worked hard their whole lives," he adds. "So they deserve a place here where they don't have to worry about every little thing that could go wrong."

Which is leading Gross to look at planned construction which has the advantage of being a bit more economical ("buying on paper" representing a substantial savings over the already-built), as well as buying them more time to make a move. "My dad is ready, but my mom's needed to ease into the idea," says the 31-year-old Tel Aviv resident. "But when she saw the video about Netanya – with its community of active retirees many of them Anglos –and best of all, being on the water, she fell in love with the place."

Turns out that while folks like the Grosses are buying real estate in Israel to invest in a piece of the rock with the potential for occupancy down the road, others are purchasing with the express purpose of moving right in.

Like the Begoun family of Chicago. Rabbi David and Ali Begoun and family are looking forward to taking possession of their new home in Ramot Bet, a suburb of Jerusalem favored by many an English-speaking immigrant.

"We never doubted we'd make this move eventually, maybe even in retirement, and were always wondering when the best time to move our family would be," says Ali Begoun.

With one married daughter in Chicago, a second one in Israel, a son in the Israel Defense Forces, a teenaged son staying in the United States to finish high school and their youngest son coming with his parents to start school in Israel, the family is in a variety of life stages and locations. "But when COVID hit, like a lot of other people, we also started to pivot, rethinking our lives and getting more honest with our deepest hopes and dreams."

And chief among those hopes and dreams, they discovered, was living in Israel. And that meant pulling up roots and moving their lives, including Ali's life coaching practice and various aspects of their 25-year-old outreach program, the L'Chaim Center, 6,000 miles eastward, to Jerusalem.

"We'll be the greenhorns, but we know our family will acclimate and that we'll be in the center of the Jewish world where the Jewish future is being written," she says. "As my husband says, we want to be part of the greatest story ever told."

According to Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that helps North Americans and Brits make aliyah, the Begouns are not alone; applications are up more than double from 2019.

Israeli realtors began noticing the uptick of foreigners buying up properties several years ago when anti-Semitism became more overt in France, says Asaf Epstein, vice chair of the Chamber of Realtors in Israel (and chair of the chapter in Jerusalem where his own real estate firm can be found). And these days you're likely to hear as much French as Hebrew spoken on the streets of Netanya and Jerusalem's Old Katamon, Baka and Arnona neighborhoods. "Some buyers are setting up homes for themselves and their families to retire to and, with today's political climate," says Epstein, "and others are looking for a place where a Jew will be able to feel safe."

Here come the Americans …

The pandemic and social unrest of the last year-and-a-half are driving up sales for Americans as well, both newly minted immigrants and those making investments for the future. "COVID hit us hard, making us ask ourselves who we are and who we can count on," says Rabbi David Aaron, dean and founder of Isralight, author of The Secret Life of God, among other titles, and a Jerusalem resident. And it's not only the safety factor, he adds. "If you've been sitting at home in America watching Netflix for a year-and-a-half, seeing Israel come back to life so quickly, it makes you think."

"They understand the reality of the world around them and the uncertainty of what's coming next," says realtor Kim Bash, a South African native whose move to Israel in 2004 precipitated her founding Kim Bash Real Estate. "So they want to get their foot in the door even when they're nowhere near ready to make aliyah now, with many people buying bigger than they anticipate needing as an investment.

So much so that Bash has sold more property this past year than any time in her career. "And that's because the market's simply gone crazy. We're seeing places that have sat on the market for a long time now going like hotcakes in bidding wars."

Where is the craziness centered? Tel Aviv, Raanana, Netanya, Ramat Beit Shemesh and Modi'in are among the Anglo-magnets, as well as Jerusalem, where the deep-pocketed often choose properties in Baka, Old Katamon, Talbia, Ramot Bet, Rehavia, Mamilla and the German Colony.

Sticker shock

And, naturally, with the law of supply and demand still in effect, prices are shooting up.

In Tel Aviv, the epicenter of eye-popping property price tags, a modest two-bedroom apartment will easily cost $1 million (that's dollars, not shekels) and one on the beach can run several times that. "Prices have literally gone through the roof this last year, even with the dollar being so low," says Bash. Realtors are seeing a new trend of families overwhelmed by the hefty prices banding together to purchase a property as a single entity.

But she insists that buying property in Israel is more about the community than the interior space. "I call myself the shodcan ('matchmaker') for community; that's what your real home is, whether you have a growing family or are retired; otherwise, it's just four walls."

Home sweet (sight-unseen) home

Unless they're already Israeli citizens, most Americans have not been able to travel to Israel since last spring, so if they were buying in the Jewish state, it had to be done sight unseen.

And, unlike the Grosses, not everyone has a child in the country dedicated to finding the ideal place for them. Fortunately, finding the right property from across the ocean is powered by such modern-day technological wonders as WhatsApp, Zoom, videos and webinars.

In fact, the video that inspired Gross' mom to fall in love with Netanya was one of Bash's "Find Me a Community in Israel" series (see below).

Videography also allowed the Begouns to both "explore" their future neighborhood and "tour" their future home.

"We knew we wanted Jerusalem and with Ramot Bet all our boxes were checked," says Begoun. "And when this wonderful cottage came up, we knew it was right." Bonus: Although they bought it sight unseen, they trusted Bash to know what they were looking for, and a Realtor friend also gave the place the proverbial thumbs-up before they signed intercontinentally.

So why is Jerusalem so popular? Yaakov Berger, aliyah coordinator for the municipality, says the city offers "a strong welcoming English-speaking community that's a soft landing and Anglo communities with a variety of social and religious flavors."

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The price point is also important, says Berger, who offers the Armon Hanatziv, Talpiot and Arnona neighborhoods as typically less expensive Anglo-popular choices.

Elsewhere in the country, Bash nominates these as up-and-coming (still more affordable) areas: Carmiel, Carmei Gat in Kiryat Gat, Pardes Hanna, Ashkelon, Tel Mond and such new neighborhoods as Beit Shemesh's Mishkafayim/Neve Shamir and Netanya's Ir Yamim and Kiryat Hasharon.

Help over the hurdles

Americans, however, weaned on multiple listings and full-service realtors may find themselves overwhelmed by the somewhat different Israeli system, especially if they're trying to do business in a language not their own.

That's why Rafi Shulman and his sister, Lara Itzhaki, added real estate support to the services they deliver through Olim Advisors. "We'd heard the frustration of negotiating and the confusion around the legalities here," says Shulman, who connects would-be buyers to a network of real estate and mortgage professionals, as well as guides them through the process and protects their interests.

"It's not just a different language, but also a different way of doing business," he says, including the art of buying on paper, a practice not as common in the United States. And who pays the bill? Olim Advisors gets a percentage of the realtor's fee for any sale that works out.

Interestingly, the number of people buying as investments has doubled from 9% in 2019 to 20% after the pandemic hit, reports Shulman. And, he says, it's no coincidence that the cost of real estate in the US has also shot up. "Many of them see Israel as their real home and hope to move here three to five years down the road, so they're cashing out of their property there and investing the money here."

This is injecting less sought-after areas with a boost in both demand and price, he adds. "Those who want to be near the water and are outpriced in Netanya and Tel Aviv are looking at other beach towns like Ashkelon, Bat Yam, Nahariya and Hadera."

Additional factors pushing the prices up are an increase in the cost of building materials and a shortage of housing – "the builders can't build fast enough," says Shulman. "And it can take years from development to completion, made worse by corona grinding the government approval process to a near halt."

So, given all these factors, are increased demand and cost simply blips on the screen of history destined to bottom out soon, or is now actually a smart time to buy?

"Get yourself educated about the market and buy even a small apartment in Hadera or Bat Yam to rent out now and sell later, when you want to trade up to something bigger," Shulman advises. "You'll avoid the could-haves, should-haves, would-haves since while you're waiting for the dollar to rebound, it's likely prices are just going to climb higher."

"Of course, it's a good time; there's never been a bad time to buy in Israel," says Bash. "It's not just a financial investment but an emotional and spiritual one, too. Everyone wants a little piece of Eretz Yisrael."

Rabbi Aaron agrees the time is right. "This rapidly changing world is telling us to come home and be part of the promised land – not from a distance but from inside the heart of our people," he says. "There's a growing feeling among Jews, a growing need to be here."

"Life is precious, fragile and short," says Begoun. "After a while, it seemed almost arrogant for us to say, 'We'll wait for a more convenient time.'"

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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After more than a year of pandemic silence, Taglit-Birthright Israel participants have returned with all the gusto of young adults who have waited out the year of coronavirus restrictions with visions of Israel dancing in their heads.

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Take Conor Mullaney, who applied for a Birthright Israel trip months ago with little hope of going at the time.

"I'd been looking forward to being in Israel for a very long time," said Mullaney, a third-year finance student at the University of Maryland's Global Campus who arrived on May 24 with the very first Birthright Israel group to set foot on Israeli soil since the pandemic shut the program down more than a year ago.

"Even though I've read a lot on Israeli politics and history, never having been here until now, I didn't fully understand how it all fits together," he said. "Being here has changed my life and the way I see the world." It also included holding the bar mitzvah he'd never had at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City with his new friends cheering him on.

Or take his fellow Birthright traveler Sami Marshak, an aspiring attorney who after the Birthright experience will be starting a summer internship with a Tel Aviv-based international law firm. While the Rutgers University junior visited Israel years ago with family, she noted that "it's extremely cool being here with friends."

Jack Berkey, who was busy exploring the country with friends from his school, the University of Michigan, said: "I came with zero expectations of what I will experience," he said. "I've always wanted to come but with COVID, it wasn't happening last year. So when I heard I could come on Birthright this spring, I thought, 'This is my chance; I'm not going to miss out on it.'"

These three young adults were indeed fortunate to secure a spot; some 6,000 applicants are now qualified and looking forward to going, reports Birthright's vice president of Global Marketing Noa Bauer. Most of these are expected to be able to enjoy Birthright this summer, with another 20,000 waiting in the wings for winter, spring, and beyond.

When they go, they'll join the whopping 750,000 young adults aged 18 to 32 from 68 countries who have experienced the unforgettable sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Israel through a free Birthright trip over the last 21 years.

A recent Pew Research Center study of American Jews found that while just under half of Jewish adults have been to Israel, among those aged 25 to 34, over a quarter reported having been on a Birthright trip.

According to Bauer, more than a third of young Jewish adults have been on a Birthright trip, "which makes it a potent force for influencing how an entire generation feels about both Israel and their Jewish identity. And now, after more than a year of isolation, they're so happy to be free to come and explore at a time when Israel is back to life and more exciting than ever."

Professor and social psychologist Len Saxe, who directs the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and has been following how college students have dealt with pandemic isolation this past year, says the time is ripe for them to go.

"For this generation coming off the loneliness and emotional challenges of COVID, the hunger to engage with peers makes this a propitious moment to go to Israel and an important moment in our history for young Jews to establish personal relationships with their peers, including the young Israelis they get to know on the trip."

That's because only face-to-face contact works for establishing bonds, he maintains.

"Online works only if you've already formed the relationship in person, and grow and deepen it on the phone and online."

Scott and Amy Jaffee's involvement in Birthright began five years ago when their oldest son returned from his trip. "We saw how energized and inspired he was when he got back, including the rapport he had with his Israeli peers and the beginning of understanding what a young Israeli's life is like."

Amy, who now serves as co-chair of Birthright Israel Foundation's Long Island Leadership Cabinet, said that "we began thinking about all the Jewish kids who need to go to Israel but can't afford it, and we wanted to pay it forward."

'An important time to strengthen Jewish identity'

The rise in antisemitic acts in the last few months, including but not limited to anti-Israel pressure from college campuses to social media to online hate has not escaped the notice of Birthright participants.

"We've had our fair share of pro-Palestinian rhetoric on campus," said Marshak, noting one professor who had said Israel was an apartheid state and the Jews have no historical right to the land. "The media also influences what people think, including all of us who came here questioning our beliefs and not knowing how to feel about Israel," she said.

"Despite Israel's problems, here I see Jews of different politics and religious views all feeling the same way about the rise in antisemitism, the importance of Israel, and the fear that history could repeat itself," she said.

Berkey, too, had heard anti-Israel positions at his school: "I've heard a lot about Israel, and it wasn't necessarily positive, but I refused to believe any of it until I could come with an open mind and see it for myself."

The Jaffees recall meeting one young woman who'd bad-mouthed Israel on the flight over – an attitude that lasted until she got off the plane. 'She said as soon as she arrived, she began questioning her own assumptions and wound up falling in love with Israel and the idea of being Jewish," says Scott Jaffee. "This kind of transformation was something we wanted to be a part of."

Rabbi Shlomo Gestetner, who directs the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, one of Birthright's providers, said: "The rise of antisemitism in Europe and now in the United States makes this such an important time to strengthen Jewish identity. And the only lasting way to do that is to come to the land filled with Jewish history, where you can hear our ancient language spoken on the street and walk on the same 2,000-year-old stones our ancestors walked on."

'The sense of unity that I never expected'

Many a Birthright participant has reported that those few days in Israel truly strengthened their connection to the Jewish people and Israel, says Barry Shrage, former president of Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, who now teaches at the Brandeis Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership.

"It's a transformational experience, and though we know you can't get back what you lost, so the kids who should have gone this past year might go later or we may have missed them altogether, but now is a particularly important moment to go.

"Here I see Jews of different politics and religious views all feeling the same way about the importance of Israel," they said.

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In a time of "woke anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda, fighting it with information and advocacy can go only so deep, and facts can and will be distorted by our enemies," continued Shrage. "The only thing that really works is getting to know their brothers and sisters in Israel and truly understanding the heart of the Israelis. You can't educate someone to love and identify with the Jewish people and Israel. Falling in love has to be experiential, and Birthright is the best way we have of giving them that experience."

Bauer added that "just getting them here and showing them the real Israel is the single most powerful way to fight BDS [boycott, divestment, and sanctions] attacks. And though they're not necessarily going to wave the Israeli flag on campus when they get back, they have a much better chance of questioning the hate they could face from a place of deep connection after having seen firsthand what the Israelis are made of and what they're dealing with."

Bauer says when they do hear accusations, former Birthright participants tend to "pick up the phone and call their Israeli friends and ask them what's really going on over here."

While zipping up his backpack as the plane touched down at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Berkey said: "I've always identified Jewishly, but this is my chance to find out what that really means."

Upon arriving at Israel's national cemetery on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, Marshak said: "I wasn't really expecting much, but we saw a bunch of soldiers mourning over one grave, and everyone in my group just stopped and mourned with them, staying for the prayer. It really felt like one of us had died.

"I know I'll always remember that moment – the sense of unity that I never expected and never felt before. You never know how things will affect or change you. But I guess after this, I'm feeling more open to new experiences shaping me and my understanding of things," she said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The world will mark Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Memorial Day – on April 7-8 with particular attention on the 80th anniversary of the Nazi campaign to eradicate the Jews of Eastern Europe – a genocide that put Jewish families to the most painful of tests.

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The tensile and enduring strength of the Jewish family is now on full view in a new online exhibition at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, called "The Onset of Mass Murder: The Fate of Jewish Families in 1941."

Timed to release the week of Yom Hashoah, the exhibition reveals a dozen never-before-published stories of Jewish families caught in the web of the Nazis' "Operation Barbarossa," an organized rout of the Jewish communities in Soviet-controlled countries beginning that summer. Carried out by Einsatzgruppen SS mobile killing units teamed up with local authorities and citizens, "Barbarossa" cut a bloody swath across the Soviet-controlled lands of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Eastern Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania and Yugoslavia.

Four years later, only one-third of Europe's Jewish population who survived remained to tell their story of a love stronger than hate, stronger even than death itself.

"Too often, the Holocaust is taught as one madman in Berlin while the cooperation of the so-called 'conquered' nations of the Third Reich is ignored," says Steven Katz, director emeritus of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University, who also holds the school's Alvin J. and Shirley Slater Chair in Jewish Holocaust Studies. "These countries may have responded a little differently from each other, but one thing they all had in common: They all wanted to get rid of their Jews."

One has only to look at pictures of German soldiers looking on while the locals did the killing to grasp the idea, notes Katz. "The Germans gave the locals the freedom to express their own antisemitism in the most deadly way," he said.

By the end of 1943, more than 1.5 million Jews from the region – representing one-fifth of the 6 million Jews who perished during the years of the Holocaust – had been murdered.

The grisly routine, repeated over and over around the region, consisted of rounding up a community's Jews, taking them to a spot on the outskirts of town or the local Jewish cemetery, and forcing them to strip and surrender their valuables before gunning them down. They were then shoved into one of thousands of mass graves, many of which have yet to be discovered, according to some historians. The most famous of these killing sprees was Babi Yar near Kiev on Yom Kippur eve in 1941, where 33,771 Jewish men, women and children were massacred.

"We want to show their faces, give their names, remember them as human beings, as part of our Jewish family," said exhibition curator Yona Kobo. "To go back and trace the beginning of mass murder as Nazi policy, to see all the professors, teachers, doctors they killed – and so many babies – many of them murdered by their neighbors.

"Of all the exhibitions I've worked on, this was the hardest," she added. "I kept seeing my own grandchildren who are so cute and thinking if they lived in those days people would look at them and think they were scum and had no right to live."

Giving them names

In 1933, young Ida Bernstein's family encouraged her to leave their home in Ylakiai, Lithuania, for the hard-scrabble existence of pre-state Palestine. "My mother went with their full support," said her son, Yitzchak Lev. "She was so attached to her family, and she knew how much they worried about her being so far away."

Indeed, a postcard written on May 9, 1941– one side in the Yiddish of her parents, Eta and Jacob, and the other in Hebrew by her sister, Hinda – echoes these feelings. "Dear Ida, we are very worried about you," her father wrote. "For God's sake, write often, we are waiting for good news from you. Mother doesn't sleep and mentions you all the time."

"My mother knew how much her family looked forward to joining her here in Israel as soon as the war was over," said Lev. But two months after sending the postcard, that dream died as her parents and four of their seven children were murdered along with Ylakiai's other 300 Jews. By August 1941, not a single Jew was left in town. Since two more of her siblings were murdered elsewhere during the war, his mother was the only one of the family to survive.

The Bernsteins are among the dozen families featured in the exhibition – families whose stories and photos bring this terrible time and place to life. Those left to tell the tale typically fell into one of three groups, Kobo points out: Jews exiled to such far-flung Soviet outposts as Siberia or Kazakhstan, those who hid with groups of partisans in the forests and others – many of them children – taken in by non-Jews.

In such situations, untold thousands did the hardest thing any parent could ever do: Giving over their beloved child to strangers, entrusting them to people who, though they may feed and care for them, would not raise them in the time-honored ways of their forebearers.

Halina Tenenbaum of Lvov, Poland (now Ukraine) was an only child who was born into wealth; her father, Jonasz, was a lawyer and professional violinist. She was 13 in the summer of 1942 when her father dropped her off at the home of a Christian friend. Within the year, he'd been part of a roundup of Lvov Jews and taken to the notorious Janowska concentration camp, where he was murdered. Her mother, Stephania, survived hiding with other Jews in a movie theater until one month before liberation, when someone turned them in. They were among the last Jews of Lvov to be murdered. But their sacrifice paid off: Their child survived. At war's end, Halina immigrated to an Israeli kibbutz, where she lived out her years as Ilana.

And, in the case of the Knesbach family of Vienna, there is a poignant moment in 1939 where Fanny, whose parents Osias and Jetti, in an effort to get her out of harm's way, sent her to England after she'd finished her medical studies. Seeing them receding into the distance as the train took her away from home – and towards safety – she wrote, "I stuck my head out … I wanted to keep the imprint of my parents' faces. For a few yards, they kept up with my window while the train was still moving at a walking pace.

"'Don't cry, Fannerle, we rejoice that you are leaving!' and tears were streaming down Mama's cheeks. 'B'shanah haba'ah b'Yerushalayim!' Papa shouted above the hissing steam. 'Next year in Jerusalem!' The train was gaining on them. … I held my handkerchief out of the window at arm's length and caught a last glimpse of them. Two tiny figures. Then tears blinded me completely. … I may never see them again! 'Never, Never' went the mocking rhythm of the train."

Sadly, Fanny's fears proved to be well-founded. Her parents, trying to escape to Israel with other Jews, were murdered by the Germans when their ship was stranded in Yugoslavia.

The Jewish woman takes charge

With so many men taken to work in forced labor camps, much of the family life-and-death decision-making fell squarely on the women.

"It was a time when the job of the women became enlarged, they had to be the ones to keep their families alive and ensure that Judaism would continue," said Esther Farbstein, an Israeli historian who founded and directs the Center for Holocaust Studies at Michlalah – Jerusalem College and is the author of Hidden in Thunder: Perspectives on Faith, Halachah and Leadership during the Holocaust.

"Where did their hope and strength come from in such a horrible place? How did they do it?" she asked. By keeping their traditions as best they could, she said – by lighting threads on Friday nights and saying the candle-lighting blessing over them, by fasting on Tisha B'Av even when they knew they didn't have to. "And by keeping pictures of their past in their minds and envisioning meeting their loved ones again and going home together when all this was over," said Farbstein.

It was a trial by fire that forged strong women, enriching those who survived with knowledge well beyond the generations of Jewish women before them, empowering them to teach and transmit Jewish tradition to their children and communities.

This doesn't surprise Steven Katz, the historian. "All the jokes made about Jewish mothers don't recognize the truth," he said. "The Jewish mother has made the survival of the Jewish people possible. In fact, more than anything, since the destruction of the Second Temple –when we had no temple and no state anymore – the rabbis knew the Jewish home would be the key to our survival."

Tragically, there were times when family love and loyalty actually cost lives. The exhibition features the invitation and group photo for the wedding of Zalman Jershov and Luba Pilschik on Dec. 26, 1937. Four years later, all the Jews of their hometown of Zilupe, Latvia, including many in the photo, were ordered into the market square. From there, they were taken out of town and shot by members of the local home-guard militia.

On the way to the killing fields, Zalman, with his wife and two small sons, was recognized by a local policeman with whom he'd served in the Latvian army who offered to pull him out of line and save his life. A member of the militia reported that Zalman refused, saying he would remain with his family and the others, including his brother Yisrael and his family. Within minutes of that fateful decision, they were all dead.

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"'Stay together,' my mother said. We wanted to stay together, like everyone else," Nobel Prize-winning author and human-rights advocate Elie Wiesel wrote in All Rivers Run to the Sea. "Family unity is one of our important traditions … and this was the essential thing—families would remain together. And we believed it. So it was that the strength of our family tie, which had contributed to the survival of our people for centuries, became a tool in the exterminator's hands."

But 80 years later, the Jewish family lives on.

"When I think of the power of family," said curator Kobo, "I can't help but remember my mother, who survived the Holocaust and told me before she died that the proudest moment of her life had been when I joined the Israel Defense Forces. 'Now we're not powerless anymore,' she said. 'And my daughter is one of the soldiers protecting us.'"

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Anyone who still believes that ignorance is bliss hasn't seen how easily it can be turned into hate.

Nov. 9 will mark 82 years since Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass." A night when authorities looked away or even aided the anti-Semitic mobs fanning out across Germany and Austria. Twenty-four hours later, hundreds of Jews were dead, thousands more had been beaten and tens of thousands arrested. And thousands of Jewish schools, hospitals and businesses had been destroyed and 267 synagogues burnt to the ground, their Torah scrolls and other ritual items stolen and prayer books were thrown into bonfires or strewn over the streets.

As destructive as it was, few could have predicted where this one terrifying 24 hours in 1938 would lead. It was a night and day that historians say planted the seeds of the Nazi's Final Solution, which would take 6 million Jewish lives across Europe and North Africa between 1939 and 1945.

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As the world prepares to remember the horrors of Kristallnacht, the number of people who know anything about this day of destruction – and its aftermath – is on the decline. Indeed a recent survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany reported that 63 percent of American millennials (born 1981-1996) and Gen Z'ers (born 1997-2012) surveyed did not know that Nazis and their accomplices murdered 6 million Jews during years of World War II and the Holocaust.

At the same time that knowledge of such Holocaust experiences is dropping, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial around the world are sharply up. Last year, the United States saw the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the 40 years since tracking began, totaling more than 2,100 acts of assault, vandalism and harassment, according to the Anti-Defamation League. This includes the Passover shooting at Chabad of Poway in Southern California. An attack and shooting in a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, NJ; and a Chanukah machete attack in Monsey, N.Y., plus a string of violence in Brooklyn, NY.

The folks at Yad Vashem don't think this is a coincidence, and they decided that doing something about this level of ignorance – and the Holocaust-denying and anti-Semitism it feeds – is a whole lot better than wringing their institutional hands over it.

So they teamed up with the University College of London (UCL) with its international reputation for innovative methods of teaching the Holocaust to create "Teaching the Holocaust."

The free online course took nearly two years to produce, says course manager Yad Vashem's Sandra Rosenfeld. And though it's initially geared to help educators with the important but delicate task of teaching the Holocaust, "we designed it to be available to everyone," she adds, from parents and grandparents looking for a way to explain it to the next generation, to clergy of all faiths to youth group leaders and the general public seeking a way to begin to understand what really happened.

Woven throughout the three-week curriculum (three hours of lessons a week) are the moving human stories of those who, like Glassman, experienced the horrors of the camps.

"We tell the story of the Holocaust intertwined with real people's stories in their own words, and they give such a personal feeling to this history," says Rosenfeld, whose father was a survivor from the former Yugoslavia. "That's why I know how important it is to get this story out, so people can understand what hatred can lead to."

To help teachers and others present the Holocaust, "we had to look at how to present the reality that doesn't shield young people from the horrors, but doesn't lose the human story or traumatize them," says Ruth-Anne Lenga, program director of the UCL's Center for Holocaust Education who was also involved in making the course.

And with the upswing in anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial and distortion, as well as fewer young people aware of the Holocaust, the timing of such a course is crucial, adds Yad Vashem spokesperson Simmy Allen. "We see education as a silver bullet. Knowing the immense damage hate can do is the best weapon we have against hate. And we have a real sense of immediacy now."

Expanding the potential audience for the course is what Allen terms "the COVID-19 effect, with many more people at home and used to learning online now." It's resulted in greatly increased online engagement – in the last nine months, Yad Vashem has gotten more hits on its platforms – its courses, online exhibitions, Facebook offerings and interactive Zoom events than any other time in the museum's 67-year history.

The pandemic is having another, more somber effect as well; since it targets the elderly, it's cutting away at the number of living survivors. In fact, the very first Israeli fatality back in March was 88-year-old Hungarian-born survivor Aryeh Even.

"With fewer and fewer survivors around, we're on an end-run race against the clock to catch every last eyewitness testimony, to make sure we have every last name," says Allen. "This has been Yad Vashem's mission from day one."

Ruth Wisse, a retired Harvard University Professor of Yiddish and Literature and Comparative Professor of Literature and author of such historical analyses as Jews and Power, cautions that Holocaust education needs to be done in context to a broader understanding of world history.

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"You could not have better people than the ones at Yad Vashem involved in telling the story of the Holocaust sensitively and intelligently," she says. "But unless these young people have some sort of idea of world history and how the Jews fit into it over the centuries, and most of them do not, including many of my Harvard undergrads who'd had no history course after Grade 9, they have no context to understand what happened in the Holocaust, how it happened and why."

Still, in the spirit of preventing another such atrocity and to honor those who suffered this unspeakable crime, the story of the Holocaust calls out to be understood in the most honest way possible, says Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev.

"We are seeing an increase in targeted hate crimes against Jews and Jewish sites," he says. "We must combat the resurgence of these dangerous trends throughout society with informed vigilance and steadfast determination."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Weinstein is among the generations of North American Jewish teens who have forged lifelong attachments to the Jewish state in the intimate overnight Jewish camp environment, where friendships, values and Jewish peoplehood are born and raised.

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Strengthening Weinstein's attachment further were the six weeks last summer when she absorbed the sights, sounds, and atmosphere of the Jewish state as part of Ramah's Israel Seminar. So this summer, when the 18-year-old heads back to her old camp, it will be as a counselor who has much to impart on youth. "Being in Israel, connecting to Israelis, I was inspired in ways I can now share with my campers," she said.

This inspiration and connection come at a crucial time in American and Jewish history, as the college campuses these youngsters will soon venture onto become increasingly hostile to Israel, and sometimes, even to Jews.

More student governments – joined by some unions and faculty groups – are voting for their schools to stop buying Israeli products or cooperate with Israeli academics and scientists. And roughly half of these 66 campuses have passed resolutions regarding the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, according to AMCHA Initiative, a watchdog group that monitors anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activities on North American campuses.

These votes are not isolated incidents. Many schools are seeing an increasing number of professors preaching anti-Israel doctrine – from those whose salaries are paid by deep-pocket funders, including wealthy Arabs, and by others who, as AMCHA's Tammi Rossman-Benjamin puts it, "Use 'academic freedom as an excuse to push their leftist politics down students' throats."

In addition, many schools have chapters of such anti-Israel groups as Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as Jewish ones like the Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street U, and IfNotNow.

And at nearly 50 campuses, these groups hold an annual Israeli Apartheid Week (also known as Palestine Awareness or Anti-Zionism Week), exposing thousands of students to a litany of Israel's "crimes."

Not content to influence the next generation of leaders on campus, last spring the group IfNotNow, which describes itself as "a movement led by young American Jews to end our community's support for the Israeli occupation," held training for incoming counselors at Jewish summer camps to 'enlighten' their young campers about the "occupation."

This strikes many observers as particularly destructive due to the intimate nature of the summer camp experience.

"Summer camp, for many American Jews, is an immersive experience – the only time that they can 'do Jewish' with other Jews their own age, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and author of award-winning books such as "American Judaism: A History." "To turn an immersive experience into a divisive one would be a tragedy. Far better for camps to do what they have always done best: offering Jewish youngsters a taste of Utopia."

CAMERA director Andrea Levin shares Sarna's concern about the challenges today's campers are likely to face tomorrow. Her media watchdog has fellows on 40 campuses in North America and the United Kingdom to keep an eye on campus media (including social media) and reach out to Jewish students who say they "increasingly feel marginalized."

"They need to feel a deep love for Israel, certainly," she says. "But at the end of the day, it's only by having strong knowledge about Israel and its history that these kids will be able to defend [the Jewish state] – and themselves – when they get to campus," says Levin. "Without that, they are sure to be browbeaten in any 'open discussions' when critics assert 'facts' the Jewish students don't know enough to refute. Knowledge is their best armor, and camps are important players when it comes to this."

'An investment in time and money'

Are camp organizers aware of the environment they're sending their campers into? "It would be impossible not to think about it," says Bil Zarch, who runs Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire. From a letter he sent out to parents and supporters last year: "The right of the Jewish people to a homeland in Israel is a core belief at Camp Yavneh … understanding that there is a difference between Jews living in the relative safety of the U.S. and Canada and Jews living in Israel."

In a similar move, this spring Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, director of the National Ramah Commission of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, sent out a strong message on behalf of the Conservative movement's Ramah camps. "We, the leadership of Ramah, are proud that Zionism is a central part of our core mission, as we nurture within our campers and staff members a deep and enduring love for the State of Israel. At Camp Ramah, campers and staff develop a positive, personal and meaningful connection to Israel."

Cohen is proud that Ramah flies in some 300 young Israelis to work as counselors and teacher specialists at Ramah's 10 overnight camps. "It's an investment in time and money," he says. "But the return is significant. Our campers and counselors gain Israeli friends from whom they learn so much. The bridges they build are important, especially with attacks from BDS."

So when three of the IfNotNow trainees landed as counselors last year at Ramah camps, open discussions ensued, and the counselors were informed that no anti-Israel propaganda would be tolerated. "They're wonderful, passionate young adults, but we needed them to know that this kind of thing is outside the scope of Ramah," says Cohen. "They weren't necessarily happy with the decision, but they were respectful."

It was a learning opportunity for the camps as well, he adds: "Our directors and division heads have to have their antennae up."

'The kitchen table for discussing everything that matters'

At the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), Rabbi Reuven Greenvald, who as director of Israel engagement works with the 18 URJ camps and their 10,000 campers, also met last year with counselors trained by IfNotNow. "As far as we know, no troubles arose, but we let them know that if they want to work in one of our camps, they have to work within our framework." Also on site is a cadre of young Israeli "shluchim" – staff who "make organic connections with both our campers and college-age counselors," said the rabbi.

Unlike URJ and Ramah camps, the 25 Jewish Community Center camps (the largest such network in the US) operate independently. But they do share many basic values, says David Ackerman, senior vice-president of the JCC Association of North America. Among them: "We believe that a strong connection with Israel is one of the big ideas in Jewish life that connects us to our past and to Jews around the world today," he says. "And the more knowledgeable about Israel they are, the more enduring their connection to strengthen them for what they'll encounter, whether it's in the media or their college cafeteria."

And though he says he hasn't heard any anti-Israel rumblings from the camps, "we do know that camps are the kitchen table for openly discussing everything that matters. That's the magic – and the opportunity."

At TheZone, a "keruv" (outreach) camp in the Catskills that attracts youngsters from across the Jewish spectrum, "the goal is to foster a strong Jewish identity and community and Israel is a big part of that," says Meira Zisowitz, director of the girls' camp that hosts 500 each summer. TheZone boys camp has about an equal number of campers) and where one-quarter of the counselors are Israeli. "We create excitement about Israel, about going there someday," she adds. "And many of them do. You never know the effect you have on kids until much later."

An attachment to Israel is such a foundational part of Bnei Akiva camps that "even before they walk in they know we're religious Zionists, so there will be a strong Israel focus. That's one reason families send their children to us."

So says Rabbi Shaul Feldman, executive director for Bnei Avika's five North American overnight (and two-day) camps and a former Israel Defense Forces paratrooper. "They leave not only more knowledgeable but also connected," he adds. "I say, 'Good luck to anyone who tries to tell them Israel has no right to exist.' "

'One unwavering voice for Israel'

Former camper Marissa Sandler, whose love of Israel was first ignited 15 years ago at Camp Young Judaea in Texas, reports that "I actually attribute a lot of my adult life to that camp."

Not only did she meet her future husband, Yosi, there when they both served as counselors, she says "that's also where I fell in love with Israel."

It proved a love so powerful that in 2010, she made aliyah and is now the mother of two young Israelis.

"We create a space where it feels good to be Jewish and love Israel," says Young Judea Texas director Frank Silberlicht. "There's a reason singing 'Hatikvah' is the last thing we do each night."

The folks at the umbrella organization Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) are also keeping their eye on Israel's role in summer camps. It's a topic that comes up often during Cornerstone Fellowship, a leadership-training program for senior counselors. "Israel education, as part of the overall mission, is central to the work of Jewish camps," says CEO Jeremy Fingerman. "We encourage camps to provide developmentally appropriate, relevant and engaging material to our campers, staff, and families."

That issue of Israel programming that's developmentally appropriate resonates with Josh Bar-on (Brown), a longtime camper and counselor at Yavneh who has since led teen groups around Israel. "You can't give a so-called 'balanced view of the conflict' to young kids; they're not ready for complex political explanations," says Bar-on, who now lives with his family in Efrat. "All they really need is to bond with the Jewish homeland. There's plenty of time for politics when they're older and already have that connection."

Bar-on says he's "thankful that what I heard at camp was one unwavering voice for Israel – that being Jewish meant being strong, having a history and a state. For that alone, I owe Camp Yavneh an enormous debt."

One particular memory: The night in 2001 when the Second Intifada was just beginning and parents were balking at sending their teens on Yavneh's summer Israel trip. "I'll never forget the director, Debbie Sussman, telling the parents that this is exactly the time we need to show our support of Israel. In the end, nearly all of us went."

Ramah's Rabbi Cohen put it this way. "If they know why Israel is so important to our people, when they're old enough to understand things within the context of Israel's role in Jewish history and destiny, then they'll engage in dialogue about the complexities facing Israel today."

He offers this advice to parents: "Tell your kids to befriend the Israelis at camp and hear their stories, how they defended our people in the army. The more personal their connection to Israel, the greater sense that Israel belongs to them, too."

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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