A Yom HaShoah Reflection for Our Times

This is the 2025 iteration of a message I post annually on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). If you can read only part of it, jump to the last paragraph.

In July of 2007, I volunteered to accompany a group of 48 NFTY-ites (the Reform Movement’s youth group in North America) on a L'dor v'Dor journey to Poland, the Czech Republic, and then on to Israel. (Crazy, I know.) One of our many visits to significant sites was a mass grave in the woods in Tikochin, three hours from Warsaw and two hours from the Lithuanian border. The time we spent there was, for me, perhaps the most difficult of the entire trip—and there were many difficult moments.

But those in the forest were personal.

My paternal grandfather, Abraham Charmatz was born in Lithuania, one of 19 children (yes, 19!). He was the youngest, and only a handful came to this country. (We originally believed that his name was changed to "Herman" at Ellis Island, but I have since learned from Dara Horn, author of "People Love Dead Jews," that it is a fallacy that names were changed there. According to Horn, they were changed afterward, and there are court records that prove her assertion. I have not searched court records for my grandfather's name change.)

To hear my father tell this part of our family's story, when he was growing up on Mapes Avenue in the Bronx in the 1930s and 1940s, his father frequently received letters from his brothers and sisters in Lithuania. Until the letters stopped.

I lit a yahrzeit candle at the mass grave in the woods in Tikochin, and today, once again, I remember all those unknown aunts and uncles and cousins. May they rest in peace in the shelter of the Eternal.

And while we're remembering, it would be wise to remember, too, that the current administration's efforts to "protect" Jews from antisemitism, especially on college campuses, are nothing more than a facade that tramples the civil rights of immigrants, many of whom are living and studying in this country legally and have the right—just like the rest of us—to assembly and free speech. In America, when those freedoms are denied to anyone, we all lose, and no one, including Jews, is safe from the forces that wish to see us gone—from this country or from the world.

Remembering Tante Laura

This yahrzeit candle is for my Tante Laura, who died on March 5, 1970—55 years ago. Although we shared only seven years on this earth, her memory is forever etched in my heart.

She gifted me my first Hanukkiyah, so small it uses the thinnest of birthday candles and remains among my treasures.

In the early 1920s, she and one of her sisters, my grandmother, came to this country along with a brother, Max, who had served in the Austrian army. The three worked in the garment industry, saving enough to bring their parents to the Golden Medina. Two decades later, she and Max, neither of whom ever married, lived together in an apartment they rented from Mrs. Provenzano that was located above (or maybe next door to?) Provenzano Lanza Funeral Home Inc. on Second Avenue between Third and Fourth streets on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Across Second Avenue stands the Church of the Nativity. It got a facelift in the 1970s, but when my mother visited Tante Laura and Uncle Max as a young girl in the late 1930s and 1940s, the building had a Greek Revival edifice. As she told us many times, she loved to watch from Tante Laura's front window as wedding parties left the church on Saturday afternoons to pose for pictures on the front steps—the bride and groom in the middle flanked by groomsmen and taffeta-clad bridesmaids in pastels, two in pink, two in green, two in blue, and two in yellow.

When she was a young woman and Tante Laura wanted to make her a sandwich, my mother would tell her, "Just one slice of bread." But food was love, and although she abided by my mother's wish, she always picked the widest, thickest slice from the middle of the loaf of rye bread.

Later, she told us, when she was a young wife and mother, she'd often return from visiting Tante Laura, to find a cucumber, half a loaf of bread, or $10 stuffed in her purse.

By the time I knew Tante Laura, her hair was gray and held in place with combs. She wore clunky orthopedic shoes and her body was thick. "You can't escape your genes," I often say, and I am convinced I inherited my own body shape from her. I hope I also possess some of her generosity of spirit, love of family, and tenacity. I hope, too, that she knows, even after all these years, how deeply loved and missed she is by her great-nieces and great-nephews.

P.S. When one of those great-nephews went off to college in the 1980s and joined a fraternity, somehow he discovered that the maiden name of one of his fraternity brothers was Provenzano. When my cousin told his mom, my aunt, she off-handedly said, "Ask him if his mother's name is Adrienne." Indeed it is; she is the daughter of Mrs. Provenzano, Tante Laura and Uncle Max's landlord. What are the chances?!

This Memorial Day I'm Remembering Major Stuart Adam Wolfer, z"l

I first learned about JWB Jewish Chaplains Council^® (JWB) early in my tenure at the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ). From time to time, its then-director, Rear Admiral Rabbi Harold Robinson, would call to invite URJ President Rabbi Eric Yoffie to fly with him on a fighter jet that would then land on an aircraft carrier at sea—or at least that’s what I remember hearing about those calls in the executive suite at the URJ! Not surprisingly, Rabbi Yoffie always had a conflict.

More recently I learned that the Jewish Welfare Board, the forerunner of JCC Association of North America, was formed in 1917 as a coalition of organizations to support young Jewish men headed off to fight in World War I. Over more than a century, it has stayed true to its founding, and today its Jewish military chaplains and trained lay leaders bring Jewish life and opportunities to Jewish military personnel and their families wherever in the world they are working to protect Americans and our many freedoms.

Last Thursday, JWB hosted Beverly Wolfer, who spoke to the staff of JCC Association about her brother, Army Major Stuart A. Wolfer, z”l. A Jewish day school graduate, ROTC-commissioned Army officer, and a respected soldier, leader, and friend, he was active in “B’nai Baghdad,” the military’s Jewish community where he served, until he was killed in action there in April 2008. Major Wolfer was 36 years old and left behind his wife and three children, his sister and her family, and his parents.

Throughout his military service, Wolfer’s family regularly sent him care packages, and following his death, they established the Major Stuart Adam Wolfer Institute (MSAWI), a nonprofit organization that works to ensure that his legacy of leadership, commitment to his country, and community service lives on and inspires future generations of children, adults, and leaders. In addition to continuing to send care packages to troops with help from volunteers of all ages, MSAWI raises awareness about the sacrifices troops and their families make to serve our country and recycles the stars on retired American flags (those no longer fit to fly) into tokens of honor for members of the armed forces and veterans.

Just days before Memorial Day, I was honored to learn about the life and legacy of Stuart Wolfer, chat briefly with his sister, and join my colleagues in putting together care packages that will bring some small comforts of home to Jewish-American and American troops stationed on bases, ships, and elsewhere around the world.

Today—and every day—may the soul of Stuart Adam Wolfer and all those killed in service to our country find perfect rest in the shelter of God’s wings and may their memories be for a blessing, now and always.

Eight Tidbits for National Grammar Day

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In honor of National Grammar Day, I present this year’s list of my grammar and usage pet peeves—some new ones, but a few old favorites, too. 

1. “Thru” is not a replacement for “through.” It is an informal, non-standard word and should be avoided at all cost. 
   
   
2. “Below” is a preposition that means “lower than:” The subway runs below the street. It may also be used as an adverb, following a noun, to describe something that will be shown later: The chart below shows the difference between adverbs and prepositions. Although the tide may be shifting, “below” should not be used as an adjective, a usage that seems to be gaining in popularity: The below email… but sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. 
   
   
3. Use “unique” sparingly. If something is unique it is the only one of its kind. As my friend, Peter Schaktman, wisely advises, “Something is either unique or it isn’t. [It] cannot be ‘very unique.’” 
   
   
4. Don’t confuse “ensure,” “assure,” and “insure.” The first means to make certain: Joe must ensure he is home by 6 p.m. to relieve the babysitter. Assure means to dispel doubts: Joe assured Mrs. Seligson he would be home by 6 p.m. Insure is related to “insurance;” Sue insured her new necklace with a rider on her homeowners insurance policy. 
   
   
5. Although “deep dive” is (over)used informally to mean an in-depth investigation of a topic or scenario, in my book, it is what happens only when you jump off a high diving board or go underwater in scuba gear to see colorful fish and coral reefs. When you study something intently, you investigate, search, inquire, or probe. 
   
   
6. Know the difference between “diffuse” and “defuse.” The former is to spread over a wide area: By the time Sergio left the office, the scent of his cologne had diffused into every corner of the room. The latter means to remove the fuse from an explosive or reduce danger or tension. The HR manager was responsible for defusing the tension between Tess and her supervisor. 
   
   
7. As my paternal grandmother was fond of saying, “It bears repeating,” and so it is with this tidbit from a previous post on National Grammar Day: “Use” and “utilize” are not interchangeable and using the longer word in place of the shorter one doesn’t make you sound smart. “Use” is the correct word when employing an object for its intended purpose: Sally used a hairpin to keep hair out of her eyes during the exam. When describing an object used for other than its intended purpose, “utilize” is the correct word: After the exam, when Sally found herself locked out of her car, she utilized a hairpin to jimmy the lock.
   
   
8. Finally, keep an eye on your grammar (capitalization and punctuation, too!), even when texting. In other words, don’t send me a text like this: 

Happy National Grammar Day, friends!

Bless These Hands: Creating a Reform Chevra Kadisha in NYC

In 2010, our family spent 11 days in hospice, accompanying our mother and wife to the end of her life as the body that had held her soul for more than seven decades succumbed to disease after an excruciating seven weeks of illness. After she died, our rabbi asked if we wanted to arrange for shmirah—individuals to watch over her body until burial. Without missing a beat, my father, my sister, and I said “yes.” We knew, deep in our own souls, that our beloved “The Mums” would have appreciated the presence of shomrim during this liminal time. 

What we did not know, was how comforting it would be for us. As we completed the necessary arrangements at the funeral home, we could hear, in a nearby room, the familiar voice of a longtime family friend reading Psalms as she sat with the body of our beloved. With the details handled, we returned home to wait out the time until the funeral. Throughout those long hours of disbelief and breath-stopping grief, we were consoled, knowing that shomrim were with The Mums. 

Recently, when the rabbis of two New York City congregations—Temple Shaaray Tefila in Manhattan and Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn—joined forces with students from the Reform Movement’s seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), and Plaza Jewish Community Chapel to create a chevra kadisha to serve Reform congregations in the five boroughs, I signed on. Intrigued and open to the possibilities, I welcomed the opportunity to be in on the ground-floor formation and launch of the first sacred community that will not only prepare and guard bodies of the deceased before burial according to Jewish tradition but also will have the freedom and expertise to do this work in ways that extend beyond the customs of Orthodox chevrot kadisha (plural of chevra kadisha), which currently are the only option in New York City. 

After an introductory meeting at Plaza in late October, I thought often about what we had seen and heard that evening, finding renewed appreciation for the Jewish rituals around death and burial and the ways they so intentionally honor the deceased and offer compassion to the living. Earlier this week, our fledgling group participated in hands-on training at HUC-JIR led by staff and volunteers from Kavod v’Nichum. Hebrew for “honor and comfort,” this non-profit organization provides education, support, and training around end-of-life rituals and practices in our tradition. For more than three hours, we learned about and then practiced the rituals to prepare a body for burial. We did so without water or the necessary equipment but with help from gracious volunteers who served as—meit (masculine), meitah (feminine), and meiteh (non-binary)—the deceased. 

We began with the physical washing of the body, reciting passages from Song of Songs to remind us that we are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the Divine image, beautiful in body and spirit. Physical washing was followed by ritual washing. Known as taharah, purification, this spiritual cleansing restores the soul of the deceased to the state of purity it was in when the person entered this world. A prayer that highlights the power of water to purify and sanctify, Amar Rabbi Akiva, is recited as part of taharah. In addition, when the purifying waters washed over the body, we repeatedly recited, depending on the gender identity of the deceased, t’hora hi (female), tahor hu (male), or t’horeh heh (non-binary) to mark the moment of transformation to a state of ritual purity. 

Finally, we dressed the body for burial in tachrichim, loose-fitting, white linen or cotton garments, including a kittel or burial shroud, a ceremonial, collared, knee-length jacket without pockets that some observant Ashkenazi Jews, mostly men, wear on Yom Kippur, when leading a Passover seder, or under the chuppah on their wedding day. The tachrichim are designed to replicate the clothing of the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest during Temple times, and to show that all are equal in death. 

Although the how-tos of caring for the body and performing taharah are certainly important, the most valuable lesson in our training concerned our intention or kavanah in carrying out this holy work. Because none of the rituals performed by a chevra kadisha is rooted in halacha or Jewish law, it is not possible to do anything the “wrong way.” Twice during the process, once before the group begins its work and once after it has finished, the members recite the mechilah prayer, speaking directly to the deceased, to ask forgiveness for anything they might do or might have done that falls short of bringing honor and respect to body and soul. For these reasons, those who were present from Kavod v’Nichum assured us that we are ready to begin. (Initially, the Reform chevra kadisha will focus on preparing bodies for burial and will add shmirah later.) 

In the coming weeks, as we move toward February 15, the projected launch date, our chevra kadisha will continue to solidify itself by compiling a manual of readings and prayers to codify our own customs; organizing a notification system for members; and training individuals as leaders (rosh, rosha, rosheh) to ensure the physical and emotional safety of the entire team and that its members show honor and respect to the deceased; follow Jewish customs; and adhere to the desires and practices of the funeral home. 

Our training session closed with this blessing of the hands: “Bless these hands for the kindness they show, for the holiness they embody, for the mitzvot they enact.” I am honored to participate in this sacred undertaking but am not without trepidation. My heart is fully in, and with time, experience, and the camaraderie of others, I believe my hands, too, will faithfully enact the mitzvah of taharah.

5 Lessons for National Grammar Day…And Every Day

https://blog.cengage.com/six-best-grammar-websites-for-your-college-students/

In less than a week, it will be March 4^th, National Grammar Day, the only day of the year that is a complete sentence. In its honor, I offer you five grammar and word usage lessons you can use every day.

1. Don’t substitute “utilize” for “use.” It doesn’t make you sound smart.
“Use” and “utilize” are not interchangeable and using the longer word in place of the shorter one doesn’t make you sound smart. “Use is the correct word when employing an object for it’s an intended purpose: Sally used a hairpin to keep hair out of her eyes during the exam. When describing an object used for other than its intended purpose, “utilize” is the correct word: After the exam, when Sally found herself locked out of her car, she utilized a hairpin to jimmy the lock.

2. Don’t confuse “capital” and “capitol.”
Trenton, Albany, Sacramento, Tallahassee, Concord, Montpelier, and Austin are state capitals. The gold-domed buildings in those cities, where the state legislatures meet to conduct business, are capitols. Got it?

3. Which is it: it’s, its, or its’?
“It’s” is a contraction of “It is.” It’s cold outside today. “ “Its” is the possessive form of an inanimate object or an animal or child of unknown gender. The Coca-Cola Company issued its annual report last week. “Its’” is not a word. Please don’t use it—especially on National Grammar Day.

4. Is it “lesser” or “few”?
I’m always annoyed by the signs for the supermarket express line that say: “10 or Less Items.” Here’s why they should say “10 or Fewer Items.” When talking or writing about discreet objects that can be counted individually, use “fewer.” When talking about nouns that cannot be counted individually, use “less.” Pamela had fewer coins than Rob, but her coins were quarters and his were pennies, so Rob had less money than Pamela. Here’s another one: Josephine had less flour than she thought, so she baked fewer cookies.

5. Why you should not say or write “Marci left the decision to Joe and I.
”In this sentence, “Joe and I” are the objects of the sentence—the ones to whom Marci gave the decision-making power. But “I” should be used only as a sentence’s subject, not its object. The correct way to say or write this sentence is “Marci left the decision to Joe and me.” To easily decide whether to use “I” or “me,” take Joe out of the picture entirely. Would you ever say, “Marci left the decision to I”? I hope not! I also hope that it sounds so wrong that you know at once that the correct choice is “me.”

Happy National Grammar Day, my friends!

October’s Arrived, So I’m on My Soapbox

Credit: benefits.com

I didn’t know how I was going to write about Breast Cancer Awareness Month this year, and then I saw this message on Facebook, posted by a guy I knew in high school:

Lost my mother, grandmother (and both her sisters) and great grandmother to breast cancer. I get checked every year by my doctor.

#getchecked

#protectthetattas

I immediately sent him a private message: “Have you had genetic testing for BRCA and other mutations?”

Guy: “My brother has since he had daughters. Was negative. But he and I are vastly diff makeups. He’s def from my father’s DNA. And I’m sure I’m more my mother’s. Never got tested since I only had boys.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better set-up!

Me: “You should consider consulting with a genetic counselor because men, not only women, can pass mutations on to their children. So, if you carry a hereditary cancer mutation, each of your sons has a 50% chance of carrying it—and a 50% chance of passing it on to their own kids, both sons and daughters. Happy to discuss further if that would be helpful. I’ve learned all of this the hard way, and I work hard to make sure other families don’t have the experiences that mine did. Also, some of these mutations are much more prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews than they are in the general population. I’ll also butt out if you think this is none of my business.” 

Guy: “I appreciate it! I will pursue it further.”

Me: “Excellent! Please keep me posted.”  

If, in fact, Guy or either of his sons turns out to be a BRCA mutation carrier (pfth, pfth, pfth), they’re at increased risk of male breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and melanoma. So, I hope he follows through, gets genetic counseling, and does whatever might be necessary to protect his own health and that of his sons.

To learn more about hereditary cancer, visit FORCE: Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered, a national non-profit organization solely devoted to providing resources and support to the hereditary cancer community. To find a genetic counselor in your area, visit the National Society of Genetic Counselors. Visit JScreen.org to learn how you can test for hereditary cancer mutations from home and consult with a genetic counselor about the results.