The Piaseczno Rebbe’s final sermons in the Warsaw Ghetto were addressed to a population terrified after the release of the Grojanowski Report, authored by the resistance based on the testimony of an escapee from the Chełmno Death Camp. News continued to filter into the Ghetto confirming the horrific details of the Nazi extermination facilities, including a report in mid-June from Biala Podloska that described sixty wagonloads of children under the age of ten and adults over the age of sixty who were selected and deported for mass murder. The murder of children is overwhelming for any human being, how much more so must it have been awful for the Rebbe, who devoted his life and literary efforts to the development of Jewish youth. His long sermon of June 27, 1942, discussed the importance of children to the Jewish people, and meditated on the cruelties meted out to this most helpless of populations:

The first antisemite, Pharaoh, pounced upon Jewish children: every male child born [shall be thrown into the Nile]. So too, the cruelty of the antisemite is always directed primarily against Jewish children, whether to murder them, Heaven forbid, or to force them into apostasy, as is well known from the evil decrees of previous centuries, may the Merciful One preserve us. This is, to our great anguish, apparent in our own days, for of all the horrific, murderous cruelty which is poured upon us, the Jewish people,  the murderous cruelty directed against young boys and girls is by far the worst. Woe, what has befallen us! More than this —when they seek, Heaven forbid, to murder the children of the Jewish people, it is not exclusively the children that are lost, Heaven forbid. The effect extends to their parents and grandparents who are in Garden of Eden, since the continued existence of the ancestors in this world is accomplished solely through their progeny, and when, Heaven forbid, they are wiped out, then the continued existence of the ancestors is severed, may the Merciful One preserve us. Regarding this we pray, “our Father, our King, take pity on us and on our infants and children,” for they are not merely our children, they are us…

The Rebbe expressed his bewilderment that the pain of the children was powerless to move God to act on their behalf:

In truth, it is astonishing that the universe continues to exist after so many screams such as these.  With regard the Ten Martyrs of the State it is taught that when the angels cried out, “this is Torah, and this is its reward?” A Heavenly Voice responded, “if I hear one more word, I will cause the universe to revert to primordial waters!” In our time, innocent children, pure angels, as well as great and holy ones of the Jewish people, are murdered and slaughtered simply because they are Jews…their screams suffuse the entire universe, and yet the universe does not revert to primordial waters. It continues to exist as if completely unaffected, Heaven forbid.

The Rebbe spoke on Parashat Matot, July 11, 1942, and then a final sermon was recorded on the Sabbath immediately preceding the day of national Jewish mourning, Tisha B’Av, on July 18, 1942. Both sermons focus on a theme prominent in the Rebbe’s early writings: the development of contemporary prophecy.

The Rebbe wrote often that the faculty of prophecy was accessible to individuals of spiritual sensitivity, and described a series of visualization exercises to encourage the development of this skill. To be sure, he distinguished contemporary prophecy from Biblical prophecy in quality but not necessarily in kind, arguing that elevated souls could access more direct communications with the Divine in a manner broadly similar to the inspiration of prophecy.  Problematic, however, was the Rabbinic teaching that prophecy may only be accessed while in a state of joy.

Prophecy is impossible amidst sadness. The Talmud states that this is also true for the study of Jewish law. Not only the investigation of a point of law, but even to comment on the suffering, is impossible with a broken heart and a crushed spirit. At times it is even impossible to force one’s self to speak at all, due to the enormity of the calamity, may the Merciful One rescue us. How is it possible to strengthen one’s self, if only a little, as long as the salvation has not yet arrived? How is it possible to elevate the spirit, if only a little, at a time of crushing oppression such as this? First and foremost, we must pray and have trust in God, the Merciful One, that it is impossible that God will so utterly cast out children from God’s presence. It is also impossible that God would abandon us in such danger as we experience now for the sake of the Blessed Name. Certainly, God will have mercy and will immediately save us in the blink of an eye.

On July 18, 1942. On that day, Adam Czerniaków recorded an ominous note in his diary:

A day full of foreboding. Rumors that the deportations will start on Monday evening (All?!) I asked the Kommissar whether he knew anything about it. He replied that he did not and that he did not believe the rumors. In the meantime panic in the Quarter; some speak of deportations, others of a pogrom.

The rumors, of course, would be proven true: beginning at 4:00 pm on July 22, the eve of Tisha B’Av, the Jewish community would be forced to provide the first daily quota of 6,000 deportees. Czerniaków refused to sign the order. The next day, when the Nazis specifically informed him that children were not exempted from deportation, he wrote a note to his wife that read,

I am powerless, my heart trembles in sorrow and compassion. I can no longer bear all this. My act will show everyone the right thing to do.

Retrieving a potassium cyanide tablet that he had secreted away with the intent of utilizing it when he could no longer reconcile his cooperation with the Nazi authorities with faithful service to the Jewish community, the President placed his diary on the desk before him, swallowed the pill, and ended his suffering.

The Rebbe, despite his personal agony over the suffering of his Hasidim, would deliver one final sermon on Shabbat Hazon.

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We don’t know how exactly many of us were forced out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella’s cruel Edict of Expulsion in 1492, but conservative estimates put the number somewhere between 100,000 and 160,000 refugees. We climbed the northern mountains to escape into Navarre, we took to the sea hoping to find refuge in Mediterranean ports, and some of us even braved the Atlantic hoping to make a home in the New World. Our largest group, well over 50,000 Jews, sought asylum in neighboring Portugal—a country famed for its freedom of worship, sheltering Jews who fled the violence of 1391 and the recent persecutions of the Spanish Inquisition.

At first, we tried to cross the long land border into Portugal in an orderly and legal fashion. We sent a representative to King João II of Portugal and secured his agreement to allow temporary resident permits for 600 families and the privilege of purchasing transit visas for everyone else. The price was crippling: eight cruzados per every Jewish man, woman, and child—translated into 21st century American dollars, about $20,000.

For every Jew who could manage the payment, perhaps four others were forced to enter Portugal illegally, under cover of night along the loosely guarded land border. The only alternative was to accept baptism and return to our devastated homes in Spain. Many Jews did so, thinking perhaps that they could continue to practice Judaism in secret (known by the derogatory term “Marranos,” tens of thousands of these Jews and their descendants were mercilessly pursued by the Inquisition and ultimately murdered in public burnings).

By April 1493, many of us who entered Portugal found sea passage to other destinations. Others, especially those who paid for the transit visas, remained in government detention facilities; most lived quietly as illegal aliens in smaller communities throughout Portugal, trying to escape the notice of the authorities. King João II then adopted a zero tolerance policy—any undocumented Jews, including those with now-expired transit visas, were to be arrested and sold as slaves.

Two thousand Jewish children were forcibly separated from their parents. In a chilling act of incomprehensible cruelty, João shipped them off, aged two to twelve, to the uninhabited equatorial island of São Tomé off the coast of west Africa, and abandoned them on shore. Later Portuguese expeditions would reveal that only some six hundred survived. Many, according to the 16th-century historian Solomon Usque, were eaten by the huge lizards indigenous to the island.

João‘s cruelty did not extend to Portuguese-born Jews, but we and our children were not safe from his successor Manuel I. In late 1496 the new king determined to follow the Spanish example, ordering Portuguese Jews to choose between expulsion or baptism. He recognized, however, the economic value of the Jewish community, and put into place another child-separation policy to coerce us to choose Christianity over exile.

On the eve of Passover in 1497, Portuguese authorities raided Jewish communities and seized all Jewish children below the age of fourteen and baptized them as Christians. Eliyahu Capsali, a contemporary historian, wrote that when the Jews were searching for chometz in all the nooks and crannies of their homes, the Portuguese came with torches and searched them for our precious children. Parents were given the option of reunification with their offspring if they would but accept baptism—as in Spain, many did, and many lost their lives when the Inquisition crossed the border into Portugal thirty years later. In some cases, however, the children were simply lost—the government did not have a serious plan in place to reunite the families, and the children were never found again. In some cases, distraught Jewish parents committed suicide within the churches where they were to be baptized.

*****

I am a historian, not a politician. Like everyone else, I have my opinions about the long-standing immigration debate in this country, but in general I try not to share my views publicly. At the same time, I am a parent and a grandparent.

Last week I ran into a neighbor, another observant Jew, who mentioned in passing that he “could not care less” about the blanket child-separation policy occurring on the southern border. Me? I have difficulty sleeping, thinking about what this great country has done to these families, and the fact that months after the zero tolerance policy went into effect (and weeks after it was rescinded), over 2,000 children have still not been reunited with their parents, including over a hundred under the age of five. I just can’t understand how we–as Americans, as Jews, as human beings–can be so callous to this suffering.

I don’t want to get political about this. I don’t want to say it’s the fault of this person or that party. I want to do my part to bring us all together in agreement on something that should be obvious: separating children from parents as a deterrent to illegal immigration is horribly wrong. Yes, we need a solution to secure our borders. This is not it.

And if we don’t care? Shame on us.

Hoping that Moshiach will arrive before July 22. If not, then this is a great time to listen to the insights of Rabbi Zev Goldberg on the traditional Kinot. I’ll provide historical context. We did this last year and it was really meaningful. Hopefully this is the last Tisha B’Av we will have to mark in this fashion.

July brought new tribulations upon the Jewish community as the Nazis, energized by their victories on the western front, formally eliminated virtually every non-governmental organization in the General Government. Charitable agencies, cultural leagues, and of course political groups were abolished, for both Jews and Poles. The ghetto population increased by tens of thousands as Jews who were expelled from Cracow flowed into the Jewish quarter, and the Nazis enacted a new “obeisance decree” that required Jewish men to remove their hats and Jewish women to bow their heads in the presence of a German uniform, military or civil. The decree was enforced with severe beatings. Even Jewish books were targeted with wide-scale confiscations of library collections along with a ban on the printing and sale of Jewish reading material.  Conscription of Jews into brutal forced labor continued and even increased. 

The German occupation of Warsaw was especially hard on full-time Torah students, including those in the Piaseczno Rebbe’s yeshiva, Da’at Moshe. Writing in October 1941, Rabbi Shimon Huberband reflected on the decimation of this population:

There were over five thousand young men who studied in the yeshivas and shtiblekh of Warsaw before the war…there are currently no more than two hundred such young men in Warsaw.  This raises the question of what became of all the other young men who were studying in shtiblekh and yeshivas?

A considerable part of them left the “straight and narrow path” during the war, and ceased being observant Hasidim.  A large part perished, some left for the countryside, and still others managed to find various kinds of employment, while remaining observant Hasidic young men.

…The poorer ones live from alms and from the aid of the wealthier students, as we have already written.  The kitchen for Torah scholars at 221 Gesia Street is of great assistance to these young men…

The Rebbe began his message for Parashat Pinhas with a possibly autobiographical reflection:

And Moses spoke to God…[appoint a man over the community] who will go out before them…who will take them out…and let the [community of God] not be like a [flock] without a shepherd [Numbers 27:14-17].  The Talmud teaches (Berakhot 28b) that when Rabbi Eliezer fell ill and his students came to visit him, they asked him, “teach us the ways of life so that we may merit the life in the world to come.  He said them, “keep your children away from unnecessary meditation [higayon] and place them among the knees of Torah scholars.” 

The Rebbe posed some unusual questions based on the interaction between Rabbi Eliezer and his students:

We see, first of all, that despite the fact that Torah study is primary and the foundation of everything, nonetheless it is insufficient to lead one to the life of the world to come, because certainly the students of Rabbi Eliezer learned much Torah from him–yet they still asked him to teach them how to reach the world to come. Furthermore, he did not answer, “continue to study more Torah,” rather he said something else.

We must also wonder why they waited to ask him this question until he was on his deathbed, and not earlier. During the entire course of a person’s life, one must strive to merit the world to come.  Furthermore, why did they even ask “so that we may merit the life in the world to come?” Do the Sages not teach that “one should not conduct himself like a servant, who serves in order to receive a reward”?

The Rebbe’s interpretation reflects the notion that Rabbi Eliezer’s students realized that with his passing they would have to make the transition from students to teachers themselves:

These were lifelong students of Rabbi Eliezer, and they certainly learned the ways of life from him, as would all students from their Master. When, however, the time of Rabbi Eliezer’s death approached, they knew that they must now assume the mantle of leading the generation.  Consequently, they asked him how they should best teach others, and how they should educate novices who are yet on a low spiritual level and perform Divine service “in order to receive a reward.” Therefore he answered them in a manner which to us, with our simple understanding, appears to contain a basic answer for novices.  It is possible to say, however, that the response that he gave them, namely “keep your children away from unnecessary meditation and place them among the knees of Torah scholars,” alludes to something which we must now take to heart.

The Rebbe delves into the strange association of learning and the knees, and connects it to the suffering experienced in the Warsaw ghetto:

The Talmud teaches (Berakhot 6a) that students who gathered to hear Torah discourses would experience weakness at the knees due to the influence of the demonic realm. We wonder, why specifically were the knees affected? We see that when Job’s friends came and saw how dejected he was due to the worries and suffering that had afflicted him, they said to him, “your words have raised the fallen, and you have strengthened weak knees” [Job 4:4]. This illustrates that a spiritually dejected person is called “weak-kneed.”  It is to this that the Talmud alludes when it speaks of weak knees.  When it is difficult for a person to bear the tribulations which Heaven has placed upon him, this spiritual dejection is the work of the demonic realm and the evil inclination.

We see that the evil inclination accomplishes this goal of causing the knees of the Jewish people to fail by implanting its agenda into one’s mind. This occurs not only in times of great tribulations, rather we have also seen this in the past. When one of the yeshiva students stumbled and abandoned his friends who were engrossed in Torah study to become a laborer or a merchant and abandoned his former ways, may the Merciful One rescue us, the underlying reason for this was that his faith was damaged, and he began to consider another agenda.  What is his purpose? How will he make a living? and so on, despite the fact that we see that poverty and wealth are not dependent on one’s occupation [rather by Divine decree], and one way or the other a person does not live forever. When a person’s final day comes, the wealthy man who did not conduct himself properly during his lifetime knows that he has nothing to fortify his spirit other than the fact that he ate well or had fine clothing, and at the time of his passing, these things are of no consequence to him. The lifelong student of Torah, and the person who lived his life according to Torah values, on the other hand, know that he has lived a life of purity, a life of Torah. Times have not changed in this respect. All the “weakness of the knees” comes from a change in agenda. For were it to be known that salvation would come tomorrow, everyone would strengthen themselves. Since their thinking has changed, however, they now wonder, “how long will this continue, who knows how long we can tolerate this,” and so on. For this reason fear intensifies and the body weakens, and “the knees fail.” Therefore it is essential to strengthen the foundations of faith, and distance this foreign agenda, and to trust that God will favor, redeem and save us.

The Rebbe clarified that Rabbi Eliezer’s warning to avoid “unnecessary meditations” refers to inappropriate philosophical speculations, and described why he used the metaphor of “knees:” both ideas were essential for his students, preparing to take leadership positions on his passing:

Rabbi Eliezer taught this to them when they themselves were about to become the leaders of the generation.  Firstly, in order that they will teach their students that intellect in and of itself is nothing, and with intellect alone a person cannot determine the course of the future, nor may he benefit himself.  Secondly, when the leader of the generation is inextricably bound to his faith, then this has a powerful impact upon those students who are bound to him, and will serve to distance unnecessary meditations, and they will thereby be strengthened in their faith due to the portion of their master which is infused within them.

…let the community of God not be like a flock without a shepherd, that they themselves have no inner leader, rather into the heart and essence of each one of them, let the shepherd enter and strengthen their faith in God.  In this way, God will also bring their salvation near their salvation.

Hardcover: $29.71 (was $34.95)

Paperback: $24.95

Dear Old Friend:

First of all, thanks for not using an adjective.

I know you understand the word “Jew” to be a slur in itself, but it’s a bit softer without the modifier. I never liked it when you spat “dirty” Jew at me in the playground. I always saw red whenever you jeered “cursed” Jew, using the Québécois term maudit juif. Exchanges like that usually resulted in scuffles and fisticuffs, and ultimately we ended up glaring at each other on the bench outside the principal’s office, bloody-nosed and sweaty. As a teenager, you shouted “F-ing Jew” as you zoomed by in your car as I walked home from shul on Saturday mornings. In recent years your anonymous invective on social media has been especially creative.

So it’s a kindness on your part to simply label me “Jew,” something I would proudly affirm. Your hateful, anonymous scribblings on the hood of my car just reinforces solidarity with my ancestors who endured far worse, as well as my African-American neighbors who moved to our safe Jewish neighborhood because you scrawled a swastika on their front door. 

Second, thanks for timing it such that I didn’t discover your message until right before Shabbat. I don’t know if you intended to sour my mood moments before walking into synagogue, but your nasty surprise was overwhelmed by two unexpected, and infinitely preferable, developments.

My fourteen-year old son was the first to see the damage, and you gave me the precious opportunity to teach him some ancient truths about our long-standing relationship. His childhood was more sheltered than mine—he’s grown up in various American shtetls, and as far as I can tell, he’s never encountered you in any meaningful way. I’m hoping that your venomous message, diluted in the form of a cowardly one-word act of vandalism, will inoculate him against the live, active version of the disease you represent. You gave me the unscripted opportunity to teach him how to react with dignity and equanimity, just as my father of blessed memory taught me so many years ago. (A prayer: May it be Your will, my G-d and G-d of my ancestors, that this be the full extent of his contact with you).

The other amazing surprise revealed itself when I  broke the news to my wife. Given that the Sabbath is a time of rejoicing and relaxation, I was concerned that the news of your reappearance would upset her, so I told our son not to mention it at the table and I didn’t share your communication until after the Havdalah ceremony on Saturday night. You should have seen her reaction! Her normally luminous green eyes turned a hard, gun-metal grey as she pursued her lips in that dark expression that says, “congratulations, soldier–you were looking for trouble, and you certainly found it.” I was worried that she might be frightened or at least intimidated, but man, if I were you I would lay low for a while. You and I have had the occasional conflict, but you do not want to mess with Jewish women.

My eldest daughter decided to share photos of your art on her social media account (like I said—those Jewish women). And you know what? She got a ton of supportive messages from her online friends and colleagues. Jews for sure, but plenty of Christians and Muslims, maybe some Hindus as well: kind and sympathetic messages from men and women representing the kaleidoscope of human races, colors and religions. I’m sorry, old friend, but even your dramatic torch-lit marches can’t hide a basic truth: there are more people like us, ordinary people who love their families and just want to mind their own business and get along with each other, than there are people like you. Yell all you want, we’re not affected.

See, the chip in your brain that is supposed to recognize our common humanity is busted. You don’t see me as a regular middle-aged guy just trying to take care of his family. Instead you dream up all kinds of crazy pathological fantasies about me, like I drink Christian blood on Passover, or I faked 9/11, truly messed-up stuff. You should take better care of yourself, see someone about that, because it’s not healthy, you know? 

Which reminds me: thanks also for limiting your self-expression to my car. The ancient Sages, when they contemplated the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago (the anniversary is coming up, as I’m sure you know), proclaimed, “wood and rocks.” Meaning, no matter how awful the loss, the Temple was ultimately only wood and rocks, inanimate things. “Sticks and stones,” in the vernacular. Yes, I know full well that you are capable of breaking bones as well. My ancestors’ bones, which lie in an unmarked mass grave in Lithuania, testify to your genocidal capacity. That’s why I’m happy you restricted yourself to the car.

But back to the broken chip in your brain. What you probably don’t realize is that I actually care for you. I worry about whatever it was you experienced that made you hate me—even though you never met me—and wish I could do something about it.

Love, wrote King Solomon, is as strong as death (Song of Songs 8:6). As much as you wish to negate me and my people, you will never succeed, because we love life, and believe it or not, we even love you, you pathetic little person–I mean, come on, you write on people’s cars when they are not looking! We are an exuberant, entrepreneurial, generous, creative people, and whenever you try to put us down with your threats of violence, we will be in your face with our irrepressible joie de vivre, courage, spiritual exaltation, and humor. It takes a lot more than this to knock us down.

Sincerely,

your old friend,

Henry

P.S. I was also pleasantly surprised that the Nassau County Police took this whole thing really seriously. I reported your crime, figuring it would just be for the statistics, but they sent out a squad car and two detectives (!). They will be reviewing a pile of security camera footage, my friend, so maybe we will get a chance to catch up on things in court.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Zev Brenner of the famous Talkline last week; really pleased that there’s a lot of interest in the work of the Piaseczno Rebbe. The broadcast was aired last Saturday night and will be rebroadcast again tonight at 8pm EST on WSNR AM 620. Here’s the link to the broadcast.

Dean Boylan has been a mentor of mine since I joined Touro in 2006. Proud to be with him this morning at the Harvard Club as he receives the Education Update Outstanding Educator of the Year Award. With Dean Moshe Sokol of Lander College for Men and Executive Dean Robert Goldschmidt of the Mighty Avenue J campus of Touro College.

Rabbi Shimon Huberband, a student of the Piaseczno Rebbe, recorded a tragic incident that was circulating through the Ghetto in the summer of 1941:

In late June a couple appeared before the rabbi; he was roughly thirty years old, and she was much younger.  The husband said that he had been seized from his bed on Passover of that year and was sent off to a labor camp.  There he suffered greatly; he was beaten with terrible blows, and suffered from infections and lice.  Many of his comrades died from the blows and from shootings, but he was lucky enough to survive.  In the most difficult moments, he kept before his eyes the image of his young, beautiful wife.

When he returned home, drained of all his energy, he found a stranger in his bedroom.  His wife wept and expressed regret.  People told her that everyone who had been taken to the labor camp had died there.  Had she known that he was alive, this never would have happened.  She wept, he wept; and the divorce was carried out.

The Rebbe spoke that Shabbat on the need for personal balance in the face of awful tragedy. On the one hand, he said, we should direct our attention to our spiritual lives, separating from the mundane physical experiences. He alluded to a teaching of the Ba’al Shem Tov that appears with some frequency in his prewar writings: paraphrasing Moses’ words on Deuteronomy 5:5, I stood between God and you–it is the “I” (אנכי) that stands between God and an individual. The Rebbe noted that a strong self-consciousness can interfere with one’s spiritual growth:

A person who wishes to elevate himself further and develop a closer connection with God, however, must diminish his sense of self and accustom himself that all his divine service be solely for the sake of God. His fear is not self-directed, nor is his desire for reward, rather all his emotions are directed toward his desire to serve Hashem. This depends on the degree to which he is able to diminish his sense of self [אנכיות]. Every person can accustom himself to this according to his level of spiritual development; if not perpetually then at least occasionally he may rise to his pure level of divine service.

Yet, continued the Rebbe, how is it possible for a person to diminish one’s sense of self when one is in pain, experiencing the terrible tragedies of the Warsaw Ghetto?

When Jacob is suffering, while it is true that this provides atonement for his sins, nevertheless this accustoms the person to be ever more aware of his physical condition, for he is daily immersed in his own suffering: “I have pain,” “I have need.” Is it possible for a person to be struck and not experience physical pain? Since his daily preoccupation is over his very life which is hanging in the balance before him, and he is immersed in his pain and suffering, he regresses to a lower form of Divine service which is predicated upon this awareness of his physical condition.

The solution, taught the Rebbe, is to direct that heightened self-consciousness of suffering into sympathy for the plight of others.

In order to arouse Divine mercy above for the Jewish people, and to temper the harshness of Divine judgement, we must arouse within ourselves mercy for our fellow Jew. Not only are we required to provide them with whatever we are capable of giving, but the very mercy which we arouse within ourselves has an affect in the Heavenly realm. We must not become accustomed to Jewish suffering, that is, we should not become numbed to the overwhelming degree of suffering such that our mercy for Jews be deadened. On the contrary, the heart should melt, Heaven forbid, at the bitterness of this suffering. Arousing mercy within us will have affect two things: firstly, our prayers on behalf of the Jewish people will be more heart-felt, and secondly, as is known from the Holy literature, there are times when a decree of salvation for the Jews has already been issued in Heaven, but its implementation is delayed due to its other-worldliness and its inability to descend to this world and assume physical garb. Consequently, when a person has more than an intellectual awareness alone that Jews have an obligation to support one another, rather he manifests mercy with his entire being, then his prayers are beneficial in drawing down the salvation into this world and the realm of the physical, since he has made himself into a vessel of mercy, both in his heart and with his entire character.

Post script 2018: The Rebbe’s words here, spoken in July 1941, reflect his principal preoccupation with the welfare of his Hasidic congregation and the larger Jewish population of the Ghetto. The larger arc of his thought, however, would certainly support expanding this passage to concern, sympathy and prayer for the welfare of all people.

Forthcoming October 2018:

Meet Mr. Hunter Ross Loren, a precocious 13-year old who, together with his uncle Alan Loren, contacted me this week to discuss Jewish history. Hunter is an avid fan of Jewish history–especially, of all things, the Jews of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth–and he is probably my youngest student online. As a follow-up to his Bar Mitzvah, his uncle arranged to come visit me in my office at the Mighty Avenue J campus of Touro College to ask me some really hard questions (thankfully, I survived–they were actually quite excellent questions).

In recognition of his academic prowess, we prepared a small certificate for him, recognizing his Scholarly Enthusiasm and Excellence. Thanks to my assistant, Ms. Jamie Venezia, for masterminding the execution of this moment.

Congratulations Mr. Loren! Your family should be very proud of you. Looking forward to seeing your name on a book in a few years…

Here’s a new video from the Ukraine in the World Conference I attended last month at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Introduction by Dr. Lubomyr Hajda of Harvard at 1:03, and my talk begins about a minute later. The presentation basically reviews the intersecting worlds of Jews and Ukrainians over the last half-century, with some musings on what the future might hold.