A Polish Nun Finds Her Jewish Roots

by  Sarah Zarrow for Jewniverse

What happens when a young Polish aspiring nun learns about her Jewish past?

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Mark of Belonging: Why Circumcision Is No Crime

William Galston in Mosaic Magazine

A decade ago, who would have guessed that controversies about male circumcision would roil a number of European countries and achieve some resonance in the United States? But that is what has happened. These events have raised important questions about individual rights, parental authority, religious liberty, and the nature of morality.

The issue of male circumcision reached the front pages of newspapers around the world in June 2012 when a court in Cologne, Germany, ruled that circumcising young boys inflicted grievous bodily harm and that the child’s “fundamental right to bodily integrity” trumped parental rights, despite the fact that the parents were acting in accordance with long-established and fundamental requirements of their religious faith. Although the case that reached the court concerned Muslim parents, its implications for Jews was obvious, and the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany condemned the decision as “an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the self-determination of religious communities.” Meeting a month later, Muslim and Jewish leaders issued a joint statement defending circumcision and calling on the German government to take action. Michael Bongardt, a professor of ethics at Berlin’s Free University, contended that “the often very aggressive prejudice against religion as backward, irrational, and opposed to science is increasingly defining popular opinion.” On the other side, a leading criminal-law expert called for a national discussion about “how much religiously motivated violence against children a society is ready to tolerate.” With her country’s troubled past weighing heavily on her, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared, “I do not want Germany to be the only country in the world in which Jews cannot practice their rites.” By December 2012, the Bundestag passed legislation protecting parents’ rights to have young boys circumcised.

The controversy was not confined to Germany. In 2011, doctors in the Netherlands organized against circumcision, denouncing the practice as a “painful and harmful ritual.” Denmark became embroiled in a debate about whether to require medical supervision for all circumcisions or even to prohibit the practice outright. A socialist member of parliament declared that his Red-Green alliance advocated a ban on circumcision, and the Social Liberal Party—a member of Denmark’s ruling coalition—followed suit. One of the country’s most prestigious newspapers published an article describing circumcision as a ritual involving “black-clad men” who torture and mutilate babies. Meanwhile, Norway’s Center Party announced that it opposed circumcision, as did Finland’s third largest party, the populist True Finns. In a statement submitted to Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, the country’s Pediatric Society called circumcision the “mutilation of a child unable to decide for himself” and advocated abolishing the procedure. In a meeting in Oslo on September 30, 2013, the five Nordic children’s ombudspersons released a joint resolution advocating a ban on nontherapeutic circumcision for underage boys.

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A Trek to (Jewish) Tasmania

19th-Century Pioneers Built Jewish Life in Down Under Island

By Laura Kramer for The Jewish Daily Forward

Koala bears, kangaroos, blockbuster beaches, food festivals, mouthwatering honey and exceptional wine: customary expectations on a visit to Tasmania — but Jews? On Australia’s largest island, a triangular land of exotic woods and quaint cities, I encountered a history of remarkable Jewish life and the two oldest synagogues in Australia, each dating from 1845.

The 2003 book “A Few from Afar” chronicles the lives of a small number of Jews from Hobart, a city on the Australian island state, as they were absorbed into life in Tasmania. These Jews, originally from England, first built an unofficial “Temple House,” and later a synagogue next door and a small cemetery.

Picturesque Hobart, with its multicolored doorways and sandstone buildings, was founded as a penal colony in 1804. The city has an unusual Jewish past and lies at the crossroads of Dutch, French and British history. (It is also the birthplace of actor Errol Flynn.) This capital city — the second oldest in Australia — is on the southern rim of Tasmania, an island separated by the rolling waters of the Bass Strait, 155 miles from mainland Australia.

The synagogue on Argyle Street is a few minutes’ stroll from Hobart’s central business district and in walking distance of waterfront Salamanca Place, a bustling hub of unspoiled Georgian and Edwardian sandstone buildings bulging with cafes, restaurants and art galleries. The flyer on the synagogue door lists the times for the monthly egalitarian service and various holiday observances, and a phone number to organize a synagogue visit. It was Purim, and the gentleman who answered the phone and arranged to meet me invited me to his home for the reading of the Megillah. He promised excellent hamantaschen.

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Making Amends

A mysterious request leads the Canadian-born son of a Holocaust survivor back to the old country.

By Robert Eli Rubinstein in Mosaic Magazine

“There’s someone here to see you.”

“Who is it?”

“Her name is Magda Zelenka,” replied my receptionist. “She says she has something important to discuss with you, but she doesn’t have an appointment.”

It took me a moment to recall Magda. Decades earlier, my late father Bill had hired her and her husband Ferenc as superintendents of an apartment building in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. Despite his own shattered life back in Hungary, my father was remarkably free of vindictiveness, hiring Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Croats—even Hungarians—as long as they were the best qualified candidates for a job.

The Zelenkas proved excellent employees: hard-working, courteous, beloved by tenants. After long years of service, Ferenc suffered a series of heart attacks followed by a fatal stroke. Although Magda hoped to continue managing the building on her own, the challenge had proved overwhelming. She was no youngster, and hardly in the best of health herself. Nor, in spite of her lengthy residence in Canada, had she ever really mastered the English language, which made it difficult for her to communicate. With deep regret, she submitted her resignation, asking only that she be allowed to rent an apartment in one of our buildings.

By then, my father had retired and I had come into the business. I agreed to her request without hesitation, assuming she would wish to remain in her old neighborhood among other expatriate Hungarians. To my surprise, she specifically asked for a building with a large number of Jewish residents, in a predominantly Jewish area.

And now, years later, here she was. Intrigued, I ushered her into my office and in the seldom-used language of my childhood asked after her health: “Hogy tetszik lenni?” Her eyes lit up as, in her habitually formal style of address, she prepared to answer.

“I am not doing very well, sorry to say. I just came home from a long stay at the Jewish hospital”—she meant Mount Sinai, in downtown Toronto—“where I had difficult surgery. I am only here today because the excellent Jewish doctors saved my life. I have always known that your people are not only talented and successful, but also kind-hearted. That is why I am here to see you.”

Your people—the compliment made me uncomfortable in a way she surely didn’t intend. I wondered whether I was overreacting. 

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