The Survivor

For most Jews, listening to a Holocaust survivor tell his or her story is probably a pretty common thing. For non-Jews though, it is a much rarer occurrence. Honestly, growing up in a small town and all, I never thought I would hear from a survivor in person. But in just the last year, I have been lucky enough to hear four different survivor accounts. Each of these survivor experiences was special and meaningful to me in its own way, but for the purpose of this blog, one stands out more than all the others.

Going to listen to this survivor talk was just one of several events I attended during Hillel's Holocaust Awareness Week last spring. Since the event was at Hillel, not very many non-Jews knew about it or attended. In fact, I may have been the only non-Jew there. The speaker assumed everyone there was Jewish, which is why it was one of the most authentic Jewish experiences I've had so far.

So the speaker gave his spiel of his life then sort of went off on this tangent (he's 91, what else do ya expect?). First, he started talking about how everyone in the room, as Jews, needs to embrace everyone else. How we shouldn't hold any grudge against anyone of a particular religion, even if in the past people of that same religion had persecuted Jews. We shouldn't hate because that's bad for the soul and bad for the world. I'd heard similar sentiments at other times at Hillel and whatnot, but this was different. Not to say that I think the Jews I'd been around were lying to me or anything, but everyone always knows I'm not Jewish so I couldn't always know for certain that everyone was being 100% themselves. You never know with people; you never know if they're pretending or putting on a show, and that's pretty cynical of me, I know. But in this moment with this wonderful, incredible man was a truly, authentically Jewish moment. He was just talking to this group of young Jewish adults telling them their responsibilities as Jews to be loving and kind to everyone of every race, religion, or nationality. I felt touched to experience that with all of these young Jews and felt inspired to take his words to heart and apply them in my own life.

Then, he started talking about how Jews need to embrace anyone who wants to join the tribe. A couple people glanced at me, and yeah, I felt awkward for a moment. He told us that you don't need to be born Jewish to "be one of us." He reminded us that Abraham and Sarah weren't born Jewish and that they were pretty old when they became Jews. Anyone can join the tribe at any time. And as he went on with this tangent, he was looking at the rabbi, who was sitting right behind me, so it was pretty much like he was looking at me. He then went on to say, we have a Catholic girl right now at our synagogue who converted and now she is up at the front leading in prayers. I definitely froze when he started to say "we have a Catholic girl;" I thought for sure someone had told him I was there and my background. Then when I realized that wasn't the case, it was just so eerie that he brought up an example that was so close to my background.

The truth is, the survivor had no idea who I am or what I was doing at Hillel, but it was like he was talking directly to me that whole time. His words made me much more comfortable about attending Hillel Shabbat services and dinner and about hanging out with Jews on a regular basis. I still have no idea if I will ever convert to Judaism... there is an incredible number of issues and concerns to consider... but when I think of this survivor's words, I definitely lean in that direction.