Grandfather's Hard Lessons
By SARAKAY SMULLENS

Published September 28, 2006 in the Philadelphia Daily News

WITH THE world still reeling from hell on the Lebanese border, and throughout the Mideast, with synagogues worldwide under armed guard, and with threats of a holy war, the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, 5767, has begun.

The holiday is a 10-day period of prayer and self-assessment. And as I reflect, I'm reminded that because of thousands of years of prejudice and persecution, survival of the Jews has been called an "accident."

I am also reminded that, following the Nazi ovens, there was a sentiment that united Jews worldwide: "Never again!"

When I was a younger, I believed that the horrors of World War II would surely bring universal understanding of these Jewish sentiments. During this sacred period, known by Jews as the Ten Days of Awe, I would like to share what a beloved grandparent painfully tried to teach me long ago. In 1982, my husband and our newly blended family of three daughters and a son journeyed to Israel, where our son had a bar mitzvah Torah reading at the Western Wall.

We visited the Lebanese border. Just before this, children and their mothers and caretakers had been slaughtered by Palestinians. As we entered the school where the massacre occurred, I had a flashback.

I was very young, and my mother took ill, so I was sent to live with my Polish grandfather. Still grieving for a beloved wife, he had no idea how to care for me, and no energy to find out.

A fierce intellectual, he did what he knew: He put me on his lap and read from "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace," speaking of love, loss and politics. I couldn't understand his words, but I did understand his love.

"Pop" and I took breaks from his seriousness by radio visits with "The Lone Ranger," games of hide-and-go-seek and welcoming the Sabbath by drinking wine (mine diluted with seltzer) in my grandmother's crystal, always with his toast: "To life."

One evening, my grandfather terrified me with a warning. "Remember, we Jews are never family. Wherever we live, whatever we contribute, we are outsiders."

From the sound of his voice, I knew this was something so bad even the Lone Ranger couldn't fix it.

A few months after our family returned from Israel, Israeli forces moved further into southern Lebanon. Then the horror happened - the massacre at the Palestinian camps in Beirut.

My husband and I assured each other: "Surely the world will put things into perspective and remember what Israel has suffered and endured. Surely people will recall that in Jerusalem tombstones of Jews became urinals and synagogues were used to house cattle; how Israelis rescued those imprisoned in Entebbe; how they were returning parts of territories won in war.

"And if people have forgotten, the Israeli demonstrations against the massacres will remind them that this tragedy was not sanctioned by Israel."

This was not the case, as my grandfather had warned: "It will never be different for Jews. When the world goes mad, events are distorted. Reality and reason vanish. Scapegoating becomes epidemic. That's why we must take care of ourselves. We must never be walked on again. We must protect each other...

"All of history confirms this. Remember."

Last year, my husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary with a visit to Budapest and Prague. Our guide, whose partner is Jewish, let go of her official script one evening as we shared a bottle of wine. With tears she confided, "I fear for my children. All of this talk of anti-Zionism is just a political cover for real feelings. Jews are hated. If we take care of ourselves when attacked, we are labeled aggressors. Madness is in the air, and not only here. Nothing has changed since the war. Absolutely nothing."

After my mother recovered, I returned home. On my last visit to my grandfather, just before he died, I tried to set him straight. My parents had told me that Bess Myerson, the new Miss America, was Jewish.

Since a Jew had been voted the most beautiful woman in America, I defiantly argued: "You are wrong, Pop. Jews ARE family."

My grandfather's eyes burned intently: "People are guilty over Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and the rest. Bess Myerson makes everyone feel better.

"If America had entered the war earlier, millions could have been saved... Nothing will change. Nothing. Only our determination: Never again."