World Union for Progressive Judaism

Jerry Tannenbaum's booming voice was ringing in my ear--it was this familiar southern accent, something reminiscent of a Texas twang. I sat down with him at one meal and discovered he was from Hot Springs, Arkansas.

"The place where FDR died with his mistress?" I asked.

"No.....that's Warm Springs... Georgia." he smiled.

Atleast I broke the ice.

Jerry and his wife Pat are loyal members of their small Hot Springs congregation and were in Mexico representing the World Union of Progressive Judaism.

A refreshing voice amongst discordant rabbinical debates surrounding conversion and mixed marriage, I appreciated Jerry's frank style and down-to-earth religion doctrine. He definitely turned some heads and his organization will turn yours.

1926: Established in London the World Union of Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) is the largest body of religious Jews in the world. As outlined in its website, the WUJP's aims are to:

First, to create common ground between its constituents and, second, to promote Progressive Judaism in places where individuals and groups are seeking authentic, yet modern ways of expressing themselves as Jews.

The World Union for Progressive Judaism serves congregations and communities in nearly 40 countries, encompassing more than 1,200 Reform, Progressive, Liberal and Reconstructionist congregations and more than 1.5 million members throughout the world. Its international headquarters is in Jerusalem, with regional offices in London and Moscow and New York.

With regional offices all over the world, the WUJP is equipped to help Jews from diverse cultural, political, economic, and historical backgrounds. Check out the WUPJ website from more juicy information:

www.wupj.org

More on Jerry tomorrow.

Reflections on Guadalajara

This week, I want to spend some time writing about the new communities, individuals, and organizations I encountered at the UJCL (Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean) regional conference in Guadalajara. First and foremost, I must tell all that Salvador's own Jean-Claude Kahn (AKA Claudio) was awarded UJCL's "Hombre del ano/Man of the Year" award. Below you will find the Spanish speech made in his honor.
Apologies to the non-Spanish speakers.
************

Novena Convención del UJCL en Guadalajara

Quinta Convención de Jóvenes


Estoy agradecida a la UJCL por muchas razones, una de ellas es que me permitió conocer gente de gran humanidad, totalmente dedicada a sus comunidades. Hoy nos gustaría reconocer a un líder indiscutido. Su brillante trayectoria como constructor de comunidades, defensor de los derechos humanos y hombre de valor que no vaciló en enfrentar el peligro cuando parecía que su congregación estaba destinada a desaparecer, le han ganado este honor bien merecido.

Nació en la zona libre de la Francia ocupada por los Nazis durante la segunda guerra mundial. Aunque alcanzó el rango de sargento durante su servicio militar siguió siendo un pacifista, que rechazó una decoración por servicio distinguido.

Emigró a El Salvador para ayudar a su tío en sus negocios, y decidió radicarse, casándose con María Schlesinger en 1969.Ha sido miembro activo de innumerables organizaciones y es ahora Director Propietario de la Empresa Privatizadora CORSAIN. Probablemente ya hayan adivinado que me estoy refiriendo a Jean Claude Kahn quien, después de 25 años de esfuerzos incansables en favor de la Comunidad Judía de El Salvador, ha decidido recientemente retirarse para dar a la generación más joven una oportunidad de continuar con su gran trabajo. Quizá esta historia, que el rabino Daniel Goldman relatara en la AMIA en Buenos Aires en noviembre 2005, durante una cena sabática en honor de Jean Claude, sea la que mejor lo define: Un relojero llegó a una ciudad donde nadie tenía un reloj que funcionara. Buscó por todos los rincones en vano, hasta que descubrió a un hombre cuyo reloj andaba. Le preguntó entonces que había hecho para que esto sucediese. El hombre respondió: "Simplemente le di cuerda cada día. Todos los demás nunca lo hicieron."Jean Claude es "El Relojero" que, cuando la Comunidad Judía de El Salvador sufría tanto, ante una ola de secuestros y violencia durante la guerra Sandinista, mientras la mayoría de sus miembros abandonaban el país, decidió permanecer en El Salvador, junto con otras escasas familias judías. Jean Claude simplemente no podía permitir que la luz se extinguiese y, gracias a su coraje y perseverancia, se allanó el camino para que la comunidad se reconstruyese a sí misma.

La lista de organizaciones en que él activa es impresionante, como lo es el número de líderes de organizaciones judías con los que ha establecido una sólida relación a través de los años. Mencionemos algunos: el American Jewish Committee, el Congreso Judío Mundial, el Congreso Judío Latinoamericano, el Joint Distribution Committee, B'nai Brith. El National Jewish Committee, etc.

Nos sentimos afortunados porque Jean Claude abrazó a la UJCL y su visión desde su creación. El nos ha enriquecido con su sabiduría y su experiencia, y nos ha ayudado a difundir nuestro mensaje al mundo judío. Por todos sus logros, tenemos ahora el gran placer de declararlo nuestro Hombre del Año.

Gracias, Jean Claude, por tu pragmatismo salpicado de humor sardónico, por alentarnos a lograr lo imposible y ,sobre todo, por ser quien eres.


Martha Lichtenstein

Comunidad Judía de Aruba

"Rememberance and Beyond"

The United Nations declared today the first universal observance of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

I write this from my first UJCL Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. Today, I met individuals from small communities within Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean including Jamaica, Suriname, Aruba, Honduras, and Costa Rica amongst others.

Many of these communities swelled both before and after WWII first with refugees and then survivors. As a young historian, the Holocaust has colored much of my early independent research. Personally, I cannot deny that the Holocaust is a horrific nightmare that forms a large part of my Jewish consciousness. My grandmother lost six close family members in Sobibor and Auschwitz and others narrowly escaped arrest by hiding in an Amsterdam attic.

We heard this story numerous times; I asked to see pictures.

I memorized their names.

This early experience with death and destruction gave my religion a face---my search for identity a sense of purpose.
This morning in Guadalajara the keynote speaker, Dr. Daniel Fainstein, addressed the first plenary session with very powerful words for small communities in attendance. Fainstein provided attendees with a challenge maintaining the it is NOW that small Jewish communities must work to separate their purpose and identity from the Holocaust.

Communities will never forget the victims.
Communities will never stop educating Jews and non-Jews about what happened.

But it is today that we must organize, rally, and support small communities as they base their present and future growth on life and renewal. It is a powerful concept and one that inspired healthy discussion.

What would you say?

For more information on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of Victims of the Holocaust, see: http://www.un.org/holocaustremembrance/

En route

Dear Readers,
Soon I'll be blogging from the UJCL (www.ujcl.org) conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. Today will be taken up by travel and late night meetings.

Tomorrow-- I will tell all.

Noemi Guttfreund de Segev: The Israeli Reality

Towards the end of the interview, I was very interested in learning more about Noemi's thoughts regarding the increasingly volatile conflict in the Middle East.

(How do you feel about the conflict here? There was a challenge for you in Salvador because obviously class issues were very difficult for you, that it was so in your face. How is living here?)

That is very difficult. (pause) It’s a difficult subject. Yes. I think one of my difficulties when I’m getting sad about is the sad truth that my son Itamar will go to the army in two years. And to tell you the truth, if something happens to him, I can’t justify it. I mean, my ideology is not to the point that I want to sacrifice my son. So it’s difficult. I mean, it’s my country, but I would prefer if he wouldn’t go to the army. But he wants to go to the army, and he wants to be a fighter. That’s part of the ideology of the school. I tried to encourage him to go into intelligence or something, where he can go sit in an office and won’t risk his life. But then again, you know, actually you risk your life more in the streets. I mean, they drive like mad here. There are more deaths per year—five hundred to six hundred people died a year here, and in the army much less. So if you start thinking rationally, statistically, there’s not that much of a danger.

It’s very difficult. I’ve watched Israel—I mean, Israel was much more of an ideal place thirty years ago, when I arrived.

I mean, I arrived in 1971, more than thirty years ago. And I don’t know how it will get solved, what will happen. I hope something happens that we can live peacefully next to the Palestinians so that we won’t suffer these consequences. On the other hand, I feel that the people here are very—a lot of them, or at least the ones I’m in contact with, I respect them tremendously. Very serious people, authentic people, very committed people, at least—I mean, I work with thirty therapists in a public mental health clinic, and I respect tremendously the work that’s been done. And I also work privately, so I’m exposed through my patients and my therapists. I find that in the arts, very serious work is being done, in music, in art, writing, and authors. Maybe because the place is in danger a lot, it also creates a lot of very interesting artistic people as well.

(Do you have a lot of contact with Palestinians in your life?)

Well, it’s been interesting in that I have to say two things. I feel guilty about not doing enough, you know? Politically. I mean, it fits me to do more than I do. One of the things that I wanted to do, I can’t do, because a friend of mine told me it would be dangerous, which is being where the, how do you call it? where the Palestinians pass, the borders.

(The gate, the wall, the checkpoints?)

It’s the—well, there are borders where they watch, where soldiers watch how they come in and out. So there are people overlooking that, so there’s a human way of treating the Palestinians when they come in or go out. That’s the type of job that I would love to do. A friend of mine does that, but she told me that she wouldn’t do that if she would have younger children that still need you, because sometimes it gets dangerous. This type of work I would like to do. I can go to demonstrations and all that, but I’m no longer such a believer of demonstrations. One good thing that I have been doing in the last two years is that I have Arab and Palestinian clients, not only at the public clinic but also privately. I charge them very little, very, very little. That for me is significant work.

It’s been a very rich life going through three different cultures, different countries. It’s a rich life here because, like I said, I encounter all these cultures that are part of me. That’s part of being in Israel that’s significant for me. Yeah, and each—I mean, Salvador, I love its culture. I love the music, the literature, the food, the language as well. My parents gave me a lot by being so active there in El Salvador. That’s why I think I’m so active here. I think that was very significant.

I’ve forgotten one very, very important part of my life, which is my husband Yoav, we’ve raised these two wonderful, beautiful Israeli children. My daughter Natalie is in the army teaching about tanks, (laughs) the techniques about shooting tanks. That was very strange for me. And the language that they speak about the army and, you know, the shooting techniques and all that is totally foreign to me, so it’s been an experience to be in that. She will be through in a few months. And I must say that I also see that the fact that I’m Salvadoran and also the European background and my mother living in Israel and relatives living in the United States, also that has influenced them. They’re very social people, very warm, very outgoing, sensitive. They’re very—they have their home. I like the fact that they really feel that they belong here. It’s something that I wanted for them, and I have that.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Noemi Guttfreund de Segev: A Rooted Consciousness

Noemi shares an important story about her adolescence in San Salvador.

But I do want to say something that’s very important that has to do with El Salvador in connection to the art therapy center. When I was twelve years old in El Salvador, I already had a very, very developed social conscience. Because of my parents, who had a social conscience, and because I didn’t know—I was always looking at the poor people and it really stuck—I was always feeling guilty in El Salvador that I had money, and these poor children didn’t have anything to eat and I’m eating at home—you know, I was very conscious of that.

So one day I was sitting on the stairs and a little girl came to me and she says, “Can you teach me how to, you know, how to write the letters?” So I started—I was glad to teach her. I started with an old book and she learned the letters. And then other children came. And soon enough, there were five or more children sitting around me. One of those days, my father came early home.

And he sees me teaching these children on the stairs of the house. So he says to me, “What are you doing?” I said, “I don’t know. For the last weeks I’ve been teaching them how to read and write. That’s what they want.” So he says to me, “You know something? I want you to think seriously about the following issue, but don’t give an answer now. Think it over. If you’re serious about it, I can help you—how do you say it… to set up a school in our garage. I’m in the Ministry of Education. I have an educational campaign. I can set up desks. I can bring you books. I can bring you a book on how to teach, say, in a systematic way.”

I wanted to tell him yes right away, but he had told me he had to think about it, and I had to look serious. So— (laughs)

I told him the following day that I really wanted to do it. So he set up a school. In two days, there were desks, there were books and everything. And I mean, the following week, we had twenty children. I was teaching twenty children how to read and write.

(And you were how old?)

Twelve. From the age of twelve to fourteen and a half, that’s what I did—and loved it. And the children really learned how to read and write, and basic arithmetic, you know? And we would also—then we would have recess and I would teach them songs. Miriam my sister also joined, then Dian Bymel joined. This was a very, very important part of my life, and I think it informed a part of my life, which also made me eventually create the art therapy center. I mean, that’s what gave me the idea that if you believe in something, you can create it. If there’s nothing there, then create it yourself.

(Did you hear from those kids again, later on?)

Oh, there was always contact. I remember—I don’t even know where I have a letter, but “Señorita Noemi,” you know? (laughs) A letter thanking me. There was one girl that came pregnant, fourteen, fifteen years old, that came pregnant to this class. Then later on she came—a year later when I came back from Buxton for vacation, she came to show me her baby. I would sometimes visit her home. Yeah, there was some contact after that when I would come back home. Then it stopped. I wouldn’t know now where to reach them.

(Do you speak about these experiences now with your husband or with your children?)

Oh, they know this story very, very well, because it’s a very meaningful story. I think it’s one of the most meaningful stories for me, this school, that I could do something. It was also I think something that sort of was caring for me in the sense that whatever my teachers didn’t do for me that was so boring, I could do differently. (laughs) So there was a lot of humor in the class. Whenever someone didn’t know how to learn the letter, I remember jumping, clowning around, doing fun stuff. And they all learned. I mean, it didn’t matter how average they were or low average. They all learned how to read and write.

(That’s an amazing story.)

By the way, I heard later on that in Cuba, one of the ways that they did alfabetización, how they taught everybody how to read and write was using adolescents. Adolescents went and talked to elderly people and all that. I think that adolescents can be very, very good teachers, because they’re very close to what school is all about, what they don’t get from teachers, or their wishes of how teachers would be. You have ideology.

(When you think of being a Jew in Salvador, do you have warm feelings about that identity? I assume that it might be challenging to grow up as a religious minority, but those are simply my thoughts….perhaps that does not even occur to you. I’m wondering about this...)

What I felt, it was like a big family. I liked the people in the Jewish community very much. Very warm, very authentic. I felt that we were a special community. I had seen other Jewish communities in Central America and I was impressed of how gossipy the people were and how important it was the way that you looked. And I found that in Salvador it was less like that. And I did a Bat Mitzvah, by the way. I thought to myself, “Why should only boys have a Bar Mitzvah?” So I made a revolution there. I went to the Rabbi and said—I really fought it out. I thought girls also should have Bat Mitzvah. I didn’t think I had ever heard of girls having Bat Mitzvah when I was in the United States. I just wanted the same rights as the boys.

(What did the Rabbi say—how did he react?)

It took time until they decided and gave their permission. And we studied. It wasn’t that we didn’t study. I did it with Kathi Geissmar, my best friend. We were the first Bat Mitzvah girls. (laughs)

(Amazing. What year was that, do you remember?)

’65? No. ’65 I was fifteen. But it was before I went to the States—maybe it was ’64?

(Were men and women still sitting separately at that point?)

Yes. Yes. I liked the old synagogue.

(Can you describe the old one?)

Yes. The old one was more of an older building. I don’t know, there was something homey, cozy about it. It didn’t have all these neon lights that the new synagogue has. When I go to the new synagogue now, I don’t feel the same feeling as I used to. It’s other faces, mostly. It doesn’t feel like a cozy place like it used to. There used to be all these fruit trees, I remember, for Yom Kippur. We would play around and say, “Oh, let’s go over there,” so that our mouth would get all juicy and we wouldn’t feel thirsty. “Oh, let’s go to the mango tree and look at the mango tree.” All these games, you know. But I like the Jewish community very much, no matter the synagogue.

(Do you ever feel that you want to go back?)

No. I feel very identified here. I feel freer here. I have more choices of different kinds of people and I’m not locked into, like I said, one strata.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Noemi Guttfreund de Segev: Learning Hebrew

Noemi tells us more about her early years in Israel. All questions in parentheses are mine.

(Did you know Hebrew when you arrived?)

No. Not at all. When I arrived, what I wanted to do was to see what a kibbutz was like. That was very much my dream. It was also that my ideas, my political ideas, were socialist, so I looked for a more leftist type of kibbutz, one that had an ulpan, a place where you learn Hebrew. So I went there for a year, and I really had a great kibbutz. I loved it. I loved working in the fields. I met fantastic people. One of them is even a close friend of mine today, one of my very best friends. Very interesting, serious people.

(So you learned Hebrew—?)

I learned Hebrew there in an intensive type of school. They have programs for three months, where you learn for eight hours. So I learned there. And also having Israeli friends, I practiced my Hebrew.

(So you were there for a year, and then—?)

And then I went to—I came to Jerusalem. I liked Jerusalem. Also—then it became very difficult, when I came to Jerusalem. What happened was that they didn’t accept the studies that I had done in the United States. They told me that if I want to study at Hebrew University, I have to start from the very beginning. So that was a total shock for me, that my two and a half years, almost three years, I just wrote down the drain. I mean, it was a lot of money, it was a lot of effort. I thought at that point, should I go back to the United States and do another year and a half? But I really didn’t have the strength to be doing that. So at that point I decided I’m gonna work. So I worked cleaning houses, I remember, and also in a bookstore. During that year, I made my decision to—yes, I’m gonna start all over again and I’m gonna stay here. But it took me a year to take care of that.

And I think, not being in the kibbutz, which was like a family and being held in a certain type of system where you’re not alone, that coming to Jerusalem I was really totally alone. And then I felt, “Oh, my God, this is really far away from my family.” I really felt the separation, much more than when I was in the United States. Because when I was in the United States, I would go three times a year, during the summer for a whole month of the summer. Here it meant that I would see my parents once a year. I was then twenty-one, which was still young. So I had lots of decisions and I was really by myself.

But little by little—I think it took something like five years to really feel that this is where I belong. That’s how long it took. The more I hear about it, the more I understand that that’s the case here, that it takes five years to really settle in.

(So you started at Hebrew University and you studied psychology?)

I studied at Hebrew University, then in art history I also studied, art history and psychology. At one point I had to move because of a boyfriend to Haifa University. He was studying at the Technion, so I studied there. But I didn’t like the studies, so I ended up finishing here at the Hebrew University. Then I worked, after I finished I worked in a mental hospital with autistic children for a year and I realized—the arts had always been a part of my life. I used them a lot with these children, and then discovered the world of art therapy. There wasn’t such a program here to study, so I went to the United States and got my Master’s degree in art therapies at Lesley College in Cambridge.

When I was about to finish my degree at Lesley College, I was very worried. I asked myself, where am I going to work? Where am I—I mean, usually art therapies are used in the educational school system or in the hospital. And I didn’t like both settings. So I said to myself, “What do I do with this, so that I can feel free to do what I want and be as creative as I want?” So I decided I’m gonna create my own center! Let’s create an art therapy center.

So then I decided to turn to friends. One of them was a man who was a psychodramatist, and then a friend of mine here who was older than me who I had worked with at the hospital and who I knew did not have a job then. Everybody got enthusiastic about it. So we started this art therapy center, and it’s still alive today.

(Here in Jerusalem?)

Mm-hmm.

(So the guy from Boston moved to—?)

Moved here together with me. We started it as a pilot project in 1980. The municipality gave us an air raid shelter, and the place is still here, in the air raid shelter. I turned to Salvadoran Jews through the phone, and also through letters, to raise funds for this. So with $5000 from the Salvadoran community, we furnished the place. (chuckles) And then we invited—what we did was art therapy for children who had difficulty socializing. It was group theory through the arts. What we did is, we took a group of eight children with three therapists and then we presented our work. We did it twice a week, and then psychologists and teachers from all over Jerusalem came to see our work. We would invite every time a few. The following year we were completely full and could work on a regular basis, on an everyday basis and with a salary.

(Only a year it took?)

Yes. It was, like, we had a waiting list immediately. It was something that didn’t exist here, and the children enjoyed it tremendously. Just two weeks ago I went into this café, and this girl who’s 32-years-old today had seen me a previous weekend, went to Yoav, my husband, and said, “You were sitting here with a woman last week, sort of redhead, is her name Noemi?” He said yes. “Well, she took care of me when I was at the art therapy center. And I was ten.” So when I came she was sort of waiting for me, to say hello to me. I was amazed that she recognized me. She is thirty-two, and she was ten the last time she saw me.

It was a lot of fun. It was a wonderful time of my life, to do this center for six years. And afterwards I left to the United States, because I had married Yoav. He’s a mathematician. He had his doctorate, and he wanted to do his post-doctorate work. So we went to the United States, to Cal Tech. I had my first baby, Natalie.

(In the United States?)

No, here. So we went away with Natalie and Yoav for his post-doctorate studies, which really lasted for three years. And then I decided there to do a social work degree—an MSW. Because I thought to myself, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to do the art center for the rest of my life, and I know that I don’t like the school system or the hospital system, so social work will be something that’s therapy, and I will be able to do it wherever I want, in the United States or in Israel. It’ll give me the freedom of choice..”

So I studied there social work and then I came here and I did an institute of psychotherapy.

(So you trained.)

I trained as a therapist.

(When you went to Cal Tech, did the center continue?)

It continued. It continued until now.

(OK. Good.)

We just celebrated this year twenty-five years. We started in 1980. So it’s still going on, and it’s growing. It’s really an amazing thing, because it was from a small project, and it just kept on going. Because it’s a very, very good project, and people love it, and people just continue supporting it. So it hasn’t fallen to pieces. (laughs)

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Reel good.....

Since Fridays are my favorite day of the week, I thought I would mix it up and let this weekly entry feature interesting non-profit organizations, projects, and individuals working to tell stories throughout the world.

I have featured StoryCorps in the past (www.storycorps.net) which continues to be a large success in the US. Today's fantastic organization is Reel Youth, Inc., a Brooklyn based non-profit that teaches young people to tell stories through videomaking.

During college, I used to babysit for extra spending money. I had an experience with a very shy child (around five years old) who simply could not interact with me on any level. She was petrified of playing games, of reading, of even playing alone if I was in her presence. Completely exasperated after four weeks of silence and awkward discussions with her parents, I decided to bring crayons and paper to our next babysitting session. I handed her the supplies with very few expectations. Sitting down on the floor near her, I started flipping through some of her beautiful picture books. Two minutes later, I did my best to check out her progress through my peripheral vision.....incredibly, she was lying on her stomach, intensely focused on the blank piece of paper in front of her.

Half an hour later, she silently handed me her paper....filled with abstract shapes in either blue or black. No words or conversation but this was definitely progress in my eyes. As time passed, the shapes became more defined and she included more color in her drawings.

Slowly, she began answering my questions. Over two months, her creations became more sophisticated and expressive...sometimes revealing happiness or frustration while othertimes remaining distant, abstract, and ambivalent. I was fascinated and realized very quickly that one of the few ways this little girl felt comfortable communicating with non-family members was through her drawing.

Reel Youth, Inc. uses film in very much the same way. Obviously more sophisticated than crayons and white construction paper, Reel Youth teaches young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to organize, film, and produce short autobiographical pieces.

Their mission statement says it best:

Reel Youth's mission is to empower youth to tell their stories through video making. Reel Youth teaches young people how to produce short autobiographical films, providing them with unique educational and self-esteem-building opportunities. As they go through the process of developing their narratives, students develop skills such as self-examination, critical thinking, teamwork, and creativity. By helping students produce short films about themselves and their communities, Reel Youth also fosters the development of media that have substantial educational value to society at large. Ultimately, our aim is to help young people find their voices, tell their stories, and project that voice outward, as a tool to educate the wider community.

Take a look at their website; you won't be disappointed.

http://www.reelyouthinc.org/programs.htm

Noemi Guttfreund de Segev: The Chelita*

Noemi Guttfreund de Segev lives in Jerusalem's Rehavia neighborhood with her two children and husband Yoav. Previous thoughts on Noemi's interview can be found in the October 8th entry: "Recording Rehavia." Below, excerpts from the actual transcript introduce us to an individual who has taken the time to truly think about her many identities, languages, and homelands.

(What language did you speak at home?)

I think we really didn’t stick to any language in particular. It was really a mixture of languages. So there was—my mother was very keen on passing German on to us. They also spoke between themselves, my parents, German. So she would speak German, and we would also speak English and speak Spanish and there was also Portuguese in the air, you know, whenever my grandmother and other relatives would come because my mother’s family went to Brazil to escape Hitler’s Germany. I really felt that I didn’t have my own language, one language--that I didn’t belong to one language. Something that I miss today, and even though I love Spanish, I think that I am funniest in Spanish, it brings out my humor, because I like the language and I like to play around with it. (pause) But with my children, I now live in Israel—with my children, I never spoke Spanish to them as a mother tongue when I raised them at the beginning, because I wanted them to belong to a language, to one language. So I spoke to them Hebrew, and of course their father is Israeli, he spoke to them in Hebrew, and I really wanted them to have a sense of belonging, and I think one of the main things for belonging somewhere is the language, to pertain to that. And I also knew that we were going to go to the United States and that they would soon be speaking English, and I didn’t want them to have so many languages.

(That’s interesting. So they don’t speak any Spanish today?)

Today, no, but they’re very curious about it. My daughter Natalie, who’s twenty and soon will finish the army, wants to learn Spanish with my mother, who’s now living here, and then go to South America. She’s talented at language, I’m sure she’ll pick it up quickly. And my son also wants to pick it up. I think it’s not too late.

(How does that make you feel, that they’re interested. Does it make you feel good or—?)

Yes, of course! It’s—there’s something important that I would like to say. I think I feel more Salvadoran in Israel than I did in Salvador, and yet Israel is my home. For me, El Salvador was a difficult experience in the sense that being Jewish, coming from a European background in which—you know, that was not negated at home, on the contrary, it was emphasized. We were playing around with all different kinds of languages. We were trying to not just be Salvadoran. Being white, tall, and a redhead really made me feel very, very different in El Salvador. I mean, if I would go to the city, I would really—everybody would look at me. I felt very, very different. I also felt my status, not only that I look like a foreigner, but also that I come from a certain class in society, and that was very uncomfortable for me.

When I arrived in Israel, one of the things that freed me so much was that I’m not a status symbol. And that this is a country that the common thing is that we’re all Jews, but it’s a country that is receiving from all different countries all over the world. So that being a foreigner is very, very, legitimate and it’s not looked upon as something strange. So I sort of—and I didn’t want to become an Israeli. I am not into negating my roots here. It’s very interesting. I mean, in Hebrew, I have a Spanish accent, and I didn’t work on it. I didn’t try to polish it and try to sound Israeli. Some Salvadorans I’ve seen have tried that. And yet, in many ways I am Israeli. I love working here. I have many different friends that are Israeli. I’m married to an Israeli. And this is my home for sure. But I can accept here being a foreigner and an Israeli at the same time.

(Do you find that people are interested in your background?)

Yes. And I must say that I also have a lot of Latin American friends. Yes. I speak Spanish. As you know, I’m a therapist, and I work in Spanish as well. So I really do have clients from the United States, from South America, and from Israel. So I’m speaking three languages, and it brings all my different backgrounds together. I love that. (laughs)

(It’s amazing.)

‘Cause that’s who I am. I’m not one thing. I’ve come to terms with that.

******
(So you were in the States from fourteen or fifteen—?)

Fifteen.

(Until you were eighteen?)

Mm-hmm.

(And then what?)

I came to the United States, to the Buxton School in Massachusetts, and I really discovered that there was a whole world of people that I really had a common language with. It was exciting, you know, that I wasn’t such a strange bird like I was in El Salvador. And it was very important for me. It really, I don’t know, boosted my self-esteem. It was very important for me. Even though it’s such a paradox, because I was away from home, I should have been suffering and I was close to my parents. But I wasn’t. I was liking so much this part, the social part and the learning part, that actually it was very good.

Then, unfortunately at that point, I think there I was lacking real guidance. Maybe parents, parents that knew what was going on with the college situation—they were not involved. They expected I guess the people from Buxton to be more involved. I really made a very wrong decision there. I went to a college in the Midwest, a Quaker college, called Earlham College, which wasn’t a bad college, but it had nothing to do with me, you know, in the middle of nowhere in Richmond, Indiana, I end up in a Quaker college, you know. I mean, it was like—and I had many different choices. I could have gone to Sarah Lawrence, but when I went to Sarah Lawrence, I looked around and it all looked very snob—I didn’t know. I just didn’t know. I got lost there in my choice. I had no idea what it all meant.

So soon enough, after I was, say, a student in psychology at Earlham, and then it was also the ‘70s, so it was Kent State, Ohio, all the killings. There was Vietnam. People were very disturbed, lots of drugs, suicides, I don’t know. It was very messy. And then I said, “Well, I really don’t belong to this scene.” Even though politically I was very active with Vietnam and all that, but still I felt that it was too much. It was too chaotic for me.

So I decided, “Well, let’s see what Salvador is all about. Let’s see how I feel in El Salvador at the age of twenty-one, twenty, if I really don’t belong there.” So I went and worked there as a social worker for a private foundation. It was very, very interesting work, in which I was doing research. I was also setting up—I was doing research about birth control in this little village, in this finca (farm), actually, to see how much they knew about it, because actually the people that owned the finca wanted to teach the people, the women, how to use birth control, see what their knowledge was about it. So it was exciting. And the second thing, I was interviewing young men, young boys, what they wanted to do was, to stay on the farm, on the finca, or did they want to learn something, an apprentice type of thing in the city? What did they want to become? So that’s how—I interviewed them, and there were several that wanted to become mechanics or whatever, so I would set up that apprentice.

(Oh, you would!)

Yes. I was the facilitator. I would go with them to San Salvador and find them the place. So that was very exciting. But at the same time I felt that I was very—I was treated like a queen there, you know? I couldn’t get rid of being (pause) I don’t know, from a certain class. So I was working with middle-class social workers, I still felt very much my status, and I didn’t like that.

(So you decided—?)

I decided, no, I don’t want this. I want to be—I don’t want this. I want to try out Israel--that has something to do with my roots. And that’s how I came.

*chelita (from chele,chela: m/f)- slang word for a light-skinned girl

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

The Transition: English

As promised, here is yesterday's speech translated into English.

*****************
January 11, 2006

Recognition of Past Leaders from the Jewish Community of El Salvador.

Today is a celebration of life. And when Jews celebrate, we also celebrate blessings. In the Commentary entitled “The Main Blessing” taken from a Parable of the Talmud which deals precisely with blessings, a certain rabbi states that there is no greater blessing than to see virtues we may have duplicated in those who come after us. That those who come after us display the same virtues that we appreciate so much and that we are able to pass along all those things we have been blessed with so that they go on doing good throughout the world.

The change in Directors represents a tremendous challenge. This challenge is as clear and defined as it is difficult and complex. We are all an ancient chain in the Jewish tradition passed on from generation to generation, and each one of us is a link in this chain that cannot and should not be broken. On the contrary, we and those future links, must be strengthened.

Today we acknowledge, celebrate and bless those who have done precisely that throughout their lives: strengthened the Jewish ancient chain. We hope we can continue their work so that they see their good deeds producing fruit in our children, their grandchildren. We hope that we are able to disseminate and teach the values we have been taught. Hopefully some day we can bless our children with that which we have been blessed with so that we continue spreading good things in the world.

SARA SUSTER
Sara, like so many of us in this Community, first a janijá in the Noar, and then a madrijá. You also were Rosh Noar (a position given to very few), and then you led, as only you could lead, and were in charge of the youth during the most difficult years of the war, when there were no two children of the same age. When kvutzot was not allowed, and when it was dangerous to live in El Salvador.

You were always enthusiastic, committed, unwavering and determined and, when I asked others who grew up under your teachings they said you were strict and “yuca,” the way you had to be with children who enjoyed “doing nothing” too much. Your work with our Community’s youth has strengthened the Jewish lives in El Salvador and we are very grateful from the bottom of our hearts.

JACK DAVIDSON
Until Danny and Natalie got married, Jack and Lilian were the only “pure” couple in our Community. I say “pure” because they both grew up in it. Somebody told me about Jack this week: “Jack has always been warm, approachable and a friend to people from every generation.” In this context, his presence in the Community has been critical to involve, interest, motivate and to form people.

Not too many people can say they enjoy working at the cemetery, or that they like being a part of the Jevre Kadisha, or that through all of this he became interested as an adult in the Jewish life. I would like to make public a personal thank-you as you recruited me to work in the Community through the cemetery. You taught me, you led me, you demanded from me. You are my mentor.

Your work within the Community throughout these years has been very valuable. Your work as the “kid” in FEDECO, opening your home and being a warm host to members of the Community and guests who might visit us, your continued presence even when you were abroad; the wisdom with which you guided, led and managed the process of contracting our rabbis, and the wise counsel you give us to this day are but a few examples of your work within our Community. You have strengthened Jewish lives in El Salvador and we are deeply grateful to you.

ERNESTO FREUND
Ernesto, Don Ernesto, Papi. When I asked the people what I should say about you at this time, they all said I should say that you are a pilar of the Community. You have supported it for several years instituting, organizing and managing because you are a visionary. To find out what it means to support a Community for 80 years, your age, I had to tap into the Community’s memory banks. There is data from 1945 through the beginnings of the war in 1978.

The year 1955 was the first time in which you appear as Member of the Board, serving as Secretary. It says: “Construction Commission. This Commission is in charged of creating a Community Center to shelter under its roof not only religious services, but any activity related to the ever increasing members’ lives in our young Community.”

I would like to cite from the year 1966 in which you acted as pro-secretary. It reads: CONVENTION. The main topic was the Third Convention of Jewish Communities Federation in Central America and Panama, in which we were honored to be host to fellow believers of the other five countries in the istmo, from July 7th through the 10th… 60 children from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and El Salvador participated in youth groups in 1967 held at the recreational center in “La Palma” from January 2nd through the 14th.

Don Max, his father and my grandfather, was the first Community President. You were the first Bar Mitzvah in the Community. You were the leader of the youth group and have served in several positions of the JD for very many years. You have supported the Community through its beginnings with Conventions, Constructions and even at religious services doing minián, as attested by recordings.

Besides supporting the Community, you have also supported your country by getting involved in education, environment and even the mayoralty in San Salvador. The slogan and visionary campaign “With faith in the Future” resulted in one of the most recognized civic contributions in our country.

You have strengthened the Jewish lives in El Salvador, and for that we are eternally grateful.

CLAUDIO KAHN
Claudio, for very many of us, you are the one who plays the Shofar on Yom Kippur. The one who opens and closes the ark. The one who fixes relationships in the political world, the Jewish world, in the El Salvador arena, or in the world in general. For some of us you are the one who fixes relationships within the Community as well. Personally, I have been greeted many times with these words: “Come by tonight. We’ll fix it over coffee.”

In the 80’s you and your family assumed a crucial role: Survival of the Community. Through your efforts and leadership the Jewish community was able to maintain the flame of traditions and teachings burning within our Community. I have heard that Rabbi Daniel Goldman gave you the title “Relojero” (the one who fixes watches) during a Sabbath dinner at the AMIA in Buenos Aires this past November 2005. Maybe you can expand on this later.

These last 10 years, you led and supported the contracting of several of our rabbis. You led and supported the formation of the UJCL, the Union of Liberal Congregations of Central America and the Caribbean. Your work to establish good relationships with American Jewish organizations like JDC (Joint Distribution Committee), AJC (American Jewish Congress), WJC (World Jewish Congress), the Anti-defamation League, Meeting of Presidents of American Jewish Communities, and others is especially outstanding. Your constant, frequent and fruitful travels resulted in tremendous benefits for the community. And even though you had much pending, both at work and with your family, you never ceased to travel.

Your outstanding contributions to the country include a long list of projects from your support of 4 Presidents of the Republic with the directorship in CORSAIN, your work as President of the Special Olympics’ Committee, your collaboration with the Foundation for Senior Citizens and several French organizations with activities in the country.

I believe that one of the best memories Claudio has imprinted in the Community is his scream of KIDDUSH at the end of the prayer to hurry people. I hope he allows us to continue doing this forever.

With all this, you have strengthened Jewish lives in El Salvador, and we are eternally grateful to you.


Text translated by Patricia Parten, Parten International

The Transition: Spanish

Also over the weekend, a community dinner honored those individuals who have contributed to the life and future of the synagogue, its members, El Salvador, and Israel.

Many thanks to the new President of the Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador, Mr. Ricardo M. Freund for giving me permission to publish his moving tribute to the honorees. An English translation will be posted tomorrow.

************************************
11 de enero, 2006

Reconocimiento a Ex Directores de la Comunidad Israelita de El Salvador

Estimados Todos:

El día de hoy es una celebración a la vida, y los judíos cuando celebramos bendecimos. En el comentario de una parábola del Talmud que trata precisamente con las bendiciones, se llama “La Mayor de las Bendiciones”, un rabino dice que no hay mayor bendición que ver cualquier cosa buena que poseamos reproducida en los que vienen después de nosotros, que estos tengan también los valores que tanto apreciamos, y que todo con lo que hemos sido bendecidos pase a ellos para que puedan seguir ofreciendo las mismas cosas buenas al mundo.

El cambio de la Directiva representa un reto tremendo. El reto es claro y definido como lo es difícil y complejo. Todos somos parte de una cadena milenaria en la tradición judía, pasada de generación en generación, y cada uno de nosotros es un eslabón en la cadena que no debe y no puede romperse. Muy al contrario, debe fortalecerse y fortalecer a los eslabones del futuro.

Hoy reconocemos, celebramos y bendecimos a personas que han hecho, a lo largo de sus vidas, precisamente eso, fortalecer la cadena milenaria de la vida judía. Esperamos poder continuar su trabajo para que vean reproducidas cosas buenas en nuestros hijos, sus nietos, esperamos poder propagar y enseñar los valores con los que nos han educado, y esperamos poder algún día bendecir a nuestros hijos con lo que nos han bendecido a nosotros, para seguir ofreciendo cosas buenas al mundo.

SARA SUSTER
Sara, como muchos de nosotros en la Comunidad, en el Noar fuiste primero janijá, y luego madrijá. También fuiste Rosh Noar, un puesto que no muchas personas han ocupado, y luego, como solo tú lo has hecho, lidereaste y te encargaste del grupo juvenil en los años más difíciles de la guerra cuando no habían 2 niños de la misma edad, cuando no se podían hacer kvutzot, y cuando era peligroso vivir en El Salvador.

Fuiste siempre entusiasta, comprometida, constante y determinada, y cuando le pregunté a otros que crecimos bajo tu tutelaje me recordaron que también fuiste estricta, y “yuca”, como se debe ser con niños a los que les gusta hacer relajo. Con tu trabajo con los jóvenes de nuestra Comunidad has fortalecido la vida judía en El Salvador y por eso te estamos agradecidos de corazón.

JACK DAVIDSON
Jack, hasta que Danny y Natalie se casaron, con Lilian eran la única pareja “pura” de nuestra Comunidad, “pura” digo por que ambos crecieron en ella. De Jack me dijo alguien esta semana: “Jack siempre fue cálido con, cercano a, y amigo de todas las personas de todas las generaciones”. En este contexto, su presencia en la Comunidad ha sido crítica para involucrar, interesar, motivar y formar.

No muchas personas pueden decir que les gusta trabajar en el cementerio, que les gusta ser parte de la Jevre Kadisha, y que por medio de todo esto se ha interesado como adulto en la vida judía. Quisiera hacer público un agradecimiento personal por que fue usted que me reclutó para trabajar en la Comunidad por medio del cementerio. Usted me enseñó, me guió, y me exigió, fue mi mentor.

Su labor en la Comunidad a lo largo de todos los años ha sido muy valiosa. Su trabajo como el “jovencito” en FEDECO, la apertura de su casa con hospitalidad calurosa a miembros de la Comunidad y otros que nos visitan, la presencia contínua aún viviendo fuera, la sabiduría con que supo acompañar, manejar y guiar la contratación de nuestros rabinos, y los sabios consejos con que nos ayuda hasta el día de hoy, son solo pocos de los ejemplos de su trabajo en nuestra Comunidad con los que usted ha fortalecido la vida judía en El Salvador y por lo que le estamos agradecidos de corazón.

ERNESTO FREUND
Ernesto, Dn. Ernesto, Papi, cuando le pregunté a la gente que debía decir de usted en este momento me dijeron que usted ha sido un pilar de la Comunidad acompañándola por muchos años, que es ordenado, organizado, y que es visionario. Para poder informarme de que exactamente significa acompañar a una Comunidad por 80 años, su edad, me he tenido que auxiliar de las memorias de la Comunidad. Existen memorias desde el año 1945 hasta el comienzo de la guerra en 1978.

La primera memoria en la que aparece usted como miembro de la Directiva, secretario era, es la del año 1955. Y dice: “Comisión de Construcción, se le ha encomendado a dicha comisión el estudio de la creación de un Community Center con el objeto de poder albergar bajo su propio techo no solamente los servicios religiosos, sino también cualquier actividad relacionada con la vida cada vez más creciente de nuestra jóven comunidad.”

Y quisiera citar la memoria del año 1966, pro secretario era, y dice así: CONVENCION, El punto sobresaliente del año fue la Tercera Convención de la Federación de Comunidades judías de Centro América y Panamá, en la cual tuvimos el honor de ser anfitriones de nuestros correligionarios de los otros cinco países del istmo, del 7 al 10 de julio… 60 niños de Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panamá y El Salvador están participando en el campamento juvenil para 1967 en el centro de vacaciones en “La Palma” del 2 al 14 de enero.”

Dn Max, su padre y mi abuelo, fue el primer Presidente de la Comunidad, usted fue el primer Bar Mitzvah de la Comunidad, fue el primer líder del grupo juvenil, y ha servido en varios puestos de la JD por muchísimos años. Como lo atestiguan las memorias, usted ha acompañado a la Comunidad desde su inicio desde convenciones y construcciones hasta los servicios religiosos haciendo minián.

Además de acompañar a la Comunidad, usted ha acompañado a su país, involucrándose en educación, medio ambiente, y hasta en la alcaldía de San Salvador. Su slogan y campaña visionaria “Con Fe en el Futuro” es una de las contribuciones cívicas más reconocidas en nuestro país.

Con todo eso, usted ha fortalecido la vida judía en El Salvador, por lo que le estamos agradecidos de corazón.

CLAUDIO KAHN
Claudio, para muchos de nosotros usted es el que toca el Shofar en Kipur, el que abre y cierra el arca, el que arregla las relaciones con el mundo político ya sea en el mundo judío, en el mundo de El Salvador, o en el mundo en general. Para algunos de nosotros, usted también es el que arregla los problemas entre nosotros en la Comunidad. Yo personalmente he sido acogido y ayudado varias veces con sus palabras “pasá por mi casa en la noche, tomáte un café y arreglamos el asunto...”

En los 80, usted y su familia asumieron un rol crucial para la supervivencia de la Comunidad. Con su esfuerzo y liderazgo se mantuvo la vida judía y se logró mantener ardiendo la llama de nuestras tradiciones y enseñanzas en nuestra Comunidad. Dicen que el Rabino Daniel Goldman le adjudicó el titulo de “Relojero” durante una cena sabática en la AMIA en Buenos Aires el pasado noviembre 2005, talvez después nos puede contar un poco sobre esto.

En los últimos 10 años, usted lidereó y acompañó la contratación de nuestros rabinos, y usted lidereó y acompañó la formación de la UJCL, la Unión de Congregaciones Liberales de Centro América y del Caribe. Es especialmente notable su labor estableciendo buenos contactos y desarrollando relaciones con las organizaciones judías americanas, JDC, AJC, WJC, Antidefamation League, reuniones de Presidentes de Comunidades Judías de América, y otras… Sus constantes, frecuentes y fructíferos viajes le trajeron mucho beneficio a la Comunidad, a pesar de tener asuntos pendientes en el trabajo y con la familia, nunca dejó de viajar.

Su contribución notable al país incluye una lista larga de trabajo desde su apoyo a ya 4 Presidentes de la República con la directoría en CORSAIN, su trabajo como Presidente del Comité de Olimpiadas Especiales, su colaboración en la Fundación para la Tercera Edad, y varios organismos franceses con actividades en el país.

Creo no equivocarme al decir que uno de los recuerdos más lindos que Claudio nos deja en la Comunidad es su grito de KIDDUSH al final del rezo para apurar a la gente. Espero nos acepte considerar seguir haciéndolo siempre.

Con todo eso, usted ha fortalecido la vida judía en El Salvador, por lo que le estamos agradecidos de corazón.

Leatid-Latinoamerica

Over the weekend, I observed an incredibly interesting workshop conducted by two representatives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Leatid Program. Together with two facilitators, the Comunidad Israelita successfully composed a Vision Statement for the synagogue, a process which took nearly the entire weekend. A total of 35-40 individuals attended the meeting and their commitment to the future and continuity of this small yet vibrant community was truly moving.

For more information on Leatid and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, check out the link below.

http://www.jdc.org/p_americas.html

Ricardo "Dicky" Schoening: Final Thoughts

(Today, when you think about yourself, if someone asked you where you’re from, how would you respond?)

I’m from El Salvador. Very definitely.

(Would you say that your first identity is being Jewish or being from El Salvador?)

Being from El Salvador.

(OK. That’s interesting.)

For me, Judaism is my religion. It’s my religion, very close to it, very close to me, but my roots, for some odd reason—well, my roots are really in Germany, and I feel very close to Germany. All my business contacts today, my import contacts, are all in Germany. I go to Germany twice a year, and at least once a year Betty comes along. Last year she came along twice. And we both feel that—we’ve been going to Germany since God knows when.

(That’s very interesting. Do you feel any resentment?)

None whatsoever--none, absolutely none. I feel so at home in Germany as I do in El Salvador and as I do in Miami, Florida.

(And your colleagues, do they know that you’re Jewish?)

Oh, very much so. I have never hidden my Judaism. As a matter of fact, our partner in business, who is a German and a Catholic and he’s very much a German and very much a Catholic, they came to Sarah’s wedding. Sarah and Juan Ricardo were married under the chuppah by a rabbi. And they were here, and everybody knows I’m Jewish. I have never hidden it.

(That’s very interesting, that you have that relationship to Germany.)

I feel extremely close to Germany. I speak the language. I read the language. I sit down at a restaurant and I read the menu and I know what exactly what I want to order. One of our favorite cities is Berlin, which is of course filled with all kinds of Jewish things, a beautiful—the remnants of a beautiful synagogue, now the Holocaust Memorial, which I recommend to anybody. The Jewish Museum, which is spectacular. Betty and I spent the day there once. I was just at the Holocaust Memorial in June, and I feel very much at home there.

(What would you say to people who maybe are stuck in this place where they can’t forgive Germany? I find it very interesting that you don’t carry any resentment.)

Well, the thing is this: my grandmother on my father’s side, I’ve always said that she was a very learned woman. My grandmother lived in Hamburg in a gorgeous three-story home with a maid and a butler. They owned a car. They had a chauffeur. They took vacations in the most wonderful resorts in Europe. My grandfather had a seat on the Stock Exchange. Two, three nights a week they were at some party where he had to wear a tuxedo and she had to wear a long dress. I mean, there are photographs of my grandfather wearing a top hat and my grandmother all decked out. I still remember some of the jewelry that my aunt got for her daughter. And I was very close to my grandparents. They came to El Salvador right before I was born. They came with nothing. And my parents were not in any condition to really set up a separate home for his parents, so they lived in a very small house in the Colonia Flor Blanca, which was a very nice area of the city and where I would say a lot of foreigners lived. I would say a lot of foreigners. Betty’s parents lived in the Colonia Flor Blanca, and Boris Gabay’s parents lived in Colonia Flor Blanca. My parents lived in Colonia Flor Blanca in a small house, and there was a room over the garage, and that is where my grandparents lived for the first year or so. My father had just bought into the business, so he had nothing to spare. And so I know that my early childhood, my early years were spent with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa went to work with my father, but Grandma stayed home with my mother.

Then they went to their own little place, but we were of course very close, and every weekend and during the week, as we were growing up, every Saturday, once I was in school every Saturday I had lunch with my grandparents. Every Saturday. My grandfather had a stamp collection. He taught me all about stamps. My grandmother taught me certain very simple philosophies of life which have always stayed with me. One of the things that she taught me is, she said to me, “Never look back except to learn from your mistakes.” And with that, she taught me that you could not resent, you should not resent people for having done what they did. But the thing is this: why would a person of my age who did not lose anybody in Germany resent Germans who were not even born at the time of the Hitler movement? I mean, my partner in Germany is a man who just turned fifty-two…why hold a grudge against him for something that happened before he was born.

I have no idea what his political affiliations are. I don’t talk politics or religion. I know that he’s Catholic, and he knows I’m a Jew. When we were in Germany last year in December, on a Saturday afternoon, they lit the Advent candles in their home, and I think it’s wonderful. It’s their tradition. And if they would be here for a Jewish festivity, we would invite them to our table, as we have done with so many other people. And why should I resent this man who wasn’t even born at that time? He was born in the ‘50s. It was over by then. So how can I have a resentment? And I just—you know, I don’t resent anything or anybody. I have no hard feelings towards anybody.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Ricardo "Dicky" Schoening: Things Get Political

Dicky tells us about the Civil War years, first in El Salvador and then as a fresh American immigrant living in Miami.

In 1979, I was doing a project for the Military Hospital of El Salvador. I was basically doing the specifications of a new hospital. And we were—we had just been in the USA doing—showing the committee what we had already done, went back to San Salvador and two days later the government was toppled. That was the 11th of October that we had a coup d’état, October of 1979.

After that, that government named me as the President of the Institute of Rehabilitation. They needed fresh blood there. This was a non-paying job. It was a non-political job also, it was, you know, something that you did for your country. And the government was a very leftist-leaning government with a lot of support from already the guerrilla factions, all these people were very vociferous and they were always threatening and always saying, “If you don’t do it our way, we’re gonna get you.” A few times I was followed home. I mean, I didn’t go to the Institute full-time, but I spent X hours a day there, and a few times I was followed home from the Institute by God knows who.

We had planned for the end of that year—well, in 1979 a lot of our friends left, a lot of our friends, both Jews and non-Jews. Salvadorans just went, left for Miami. Nobody was an American citizen. Nobody was an American resident. They took their tourist visas and came to Miami and bought apartments or moved into the apartments we already had. We had planned a vacation and we had rented an apartment in the same building as a lot of Salvadorans had already bought apartments, came up with our two young children, Sarah three years and three months, Allan five months. While we were here, we came up on the 18th of December, early January there was another coup d’état, and a few weeks later another coup d’état. I went to see what was going on.

I did not like what was going on. I didn’t feel it was a safe environment for my wife and my two young children. So I said to Betty, “Let’s rent the apartment for another month.” And that’s all we got it for, because then the owner of the apartment, who was also Salvadoran, wanted to move in. So then we rented an apartment in a building in Coral Gables which was owned by a Guatemalan friend of ours. Very strange story. I mean, our children were always extremely well-behaved. They were well-behaved. These were not kids that ran around like crazy. What we did not know is that this building permitted children for only thirty days. And it happened to be that in that building lived the mother of a very close friend of my brother, who was an American living here in Miami. And she is the one who reported us—in other words, she reported us or she made a claim to the building management, and one fine day we came home from somewhere and there was a note posted on our door giving us I think it was twenty-four or forty-eight hours or seventy-two hours to move out.

And then we were told that we didn’t have to move out, but our children had to leave. Like they were dogs that went to the kennel.

So at that point, we moved in with friends of ours who were already living in Kendall, and then we bought our first house, because at that time, we had decided that at that point we did not want to go back to El Salvador because it really was not safe. So we bought our first house, and I established an export business in the medical field. I started—in El Salvador I used to be an importer. Now I was an exporter.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Ricardo "Dicky" Schoening: A Salvadoran Childhood, an American Adolescence

The following excerpts describe Dicky's first memories of school in El Salvador and his formative years at a boarding school in the United States.

(Did you ever feel like the Salvadorans treated you differently because you were Jewish?)

I think in my early days at the Escuela Americana, I was a very frail person. I was a very frail child. I mean, what you see now is not what used to be. I was very skinny. I was not very much into sports or into exercise. I was very shy. Preferably I would hide beneath my mother’s skirt. So I was very happy if nobody talked to me, because then I didn’t have to talk to them. So it wasn’t that I was being, let’s say, moved aside because I was Jewish. It’s just that I didn’t really want to mix with anybody. I was very happy mixing with those few children whom I had grown up with, like, oh, my cousins, maybe the Liebes, Ruth Reich, and the Lewinskys. I was very happy there. With these people, we were together—not every day all day, but a lot of the time.

Once I got to—I would say this took until age ten or eleven, for me to get over my fears, my shyness, and once I was eleven or twelve, I started mixing in very well with the local friends. I became part of the Boy Scouts. I think I was probably one of the very few Jewish Boy Scouts in El Salvador, because all the other guys didn’t want to become Boy Scouts. That’s where I made a lot of friends and I started to develop a personality. I started to do sports, feel more at ease with people.

(So you don’t have any distinct memories of anti-Semitism?)

No, no, I don’t.

(Moving forward a few years, you went to the American school until which grade, ninth?)

I was in the Escuela Americana until—I went through the tenth grade. That’s as high as I could go. Then my parents sent me away to boarding school and I went to a school by the name of Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. A few others went there. Just one, really, my cousin Arturo Falkenstein, who passed away in 1960. And when I got there, I was just fifteen, so they put me back into tenth grade, because definitely I was not ready to be with sixteen-year-olds or to—let’s say, I was not ready to go into the eleventh grade from a maturity point of view. I was just fifteen. And the reason for that was because I had been allowed to go to first grade at age five because my father was El Presidente of the Escuela Americana.

So I went to Stockbridge School for three years and then went to the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, for two years. I decided that a college education was not something that I really needed, because I had a business waiting for me at home. At age twenty I started working in my father’s business.

(Just going back a little bit, how was the Stockridge School? How was that adjustment?)

Initially it was a little tough, because you came from a very closed environment, a very protected environment, where—you came from a very good home, where your father basically was home every night, where you had dinner with your parents every night, where you saw your parents at breakfast, at lunch, and at dinner, where you were surrounded always by family and by friends and it was a very protected society. In other words, if you needed to go somewhere, Mama took you. You never took the bus. And now, you came to Stockbridge School. You had to do things you had never done in your life, like make your own bed and wash your own clothes. Plus, of a hundred and twenty kids, I would say that seventy percent came from some type of a broken home or home in problems. So this was quite an adjustment.

The other thing was, I would say that at that time, every kid from the tenth grade on up smoked and drank, which was for us unheard-of in El Salvador. This was not something that we did. So it was a very, very—I would say the first semester was a very tough adjustment, very difficult.

(And how did people react to you? What did they think, this kid from Central America?)

(Well, that was not so bad, because the school—of a hundred and twenty kids and let’s say seventy percent from broken homes, seventy percent, or at least sixty percent, also were foreigners. So you had kids from Europe, you had kids from Latin America, you had kids from India. I think the biggest thing that Stockbridge School taught me was how to get along with people from all walks of life. In El Salvador at that time, we had never seen a black person. And we had—I would say that we had a good twenty blacks in the school. We had Catholics. We had Muslims. We had all kinds of people. So that was a very good experience. It really taught me how to integrate.

(Did you experience any anti-Semitism there?)

No. No. No. As a matter of fact, we were—all the kids were encouraged to follow their religious traditions, and the school made it a point of making sure that for the individual holidays, the kids were placed with families in the area who would take care of them. So for example, when it came time for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I went to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which was fifteen or eighteen miles away, and I stayed with the Lipton family. There I slept and I went with them to synagogue and I had my meals and I had a wonderful time. I was right back in the Jewish circle of things that I was used to.

(Did you feel that you were very different from these American Jews that you met?)

No, no. The American Jews at that time—there were two types of Jews in our school. There were basically the Orthodox Jews—who really wanted to be Conservative, but they were Orthodox, they came from an Orthodox family—and those who didn’t care. And the ones who didn’t care, they really went to synagogue on Friday night because it was a way to get into Pittsfield and then go get a hamburger and a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop. And then there were those of us who really cared, who went to synagogue because we believed in synagogue. We wanted to borrow this Shabbat service.

(Did you ever envision yourself staying in the US when you were in Rochester? No, you wanted to go straight back?)

Definitely not. I mean, the idea never crossed my mind. Because we lived—the life in El Salvador was a fantastic life. Beautiful country with every comfort that you can think of. Plus, I had a business waiting for me. So I felt that my life was already pre-arranged when I came here to school.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Ricardo "Dicky" Schoening: "I was very much Bar Mitzvah'd"

In the following excerpts, Dicky tells us about his experiences as a Jew growing up in El Salvador.

(What are your early memories of Jewish life?)

Early memories of Jewish life were, always around the family, always around the family table, always around the festivities. We celebrated everything. The only day that we didn’t celebrate was the second day of Yom Kippur. We celebrated everything. Grandmother, my mother’s mother, was a very religious woman. Shabbat dinner was held at her house every Friday night, come rain or shine. Sometimes—once a month it was at my mother’s house, and once a month it was at my aunt and uncle’s house, but really it was at my grandmother’s house. That was her evening with all of her children, all her grandchildren, many times my grandparents, many times the Steiners and other people. We celebrated every festivity that you can think of: Pesach two nights, Rosh Hashanah two nights, I mean two days, two nights. My early recollection of Judaism was in the home celebrating and eating.

(What about synagogue?)

Synagogue? My first recollection of synagogue was the bar mitzvah of a fellow by the name of Max Widawer. Max’s father, but it was really his stepfather, he was his adopted father, although they had the same name, he was his uncle, was a cousin of—was a distant cousin of the Mugdans. So there was a relationship there. And the synagogue was a very, very tiny house a block away from my grandparents’ on the 19 Avenida Norte. It was a very small synagogue with the—where you put the—

(The ark?)

The ark for the Torah, we still have it, it was a wooden ark. We had two Torahs, I think, which we also still have.

And our rabbi was Mr. Alex Freund, who had come from Poland or Rumania and later, when he left Salvador, moved with his wife to Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had family living, and I know that they both died there. He was our teacher, he was our rabbi, he was our everything. He prepared us for bar mitzvah. He did the services. He was an elderly man. He was kosher, extremely religious, spoke a very poor Spanish, no English, yes German, probably Rumanian or Polish or something like that, and of course Hebrew. And he also gave us classes at the American school. So the American school did have a program for after-school religious classes.

(So there was a choice between taking a class with the rabbi and a priest? Or how did that work?)

Yes. You had—by the time I started going to religious classes, I was probably nine or ten years old. The Escuela Americana, maybe I was already twelve. The Escuela Americana had moved from the original location to its present location, where it has grown tremendously. You had a choice. If you were Protestant, the Protestant minister gave the classes, and if you were Jewish, a Jewish rabbi gave the classes; for Catholics there were priests who gave the classes.

(But that was optional, it was after school?)

After-school program. That was completely optional. I would say that more popular were Protestant and Jewish than Catholic, because I think the Catholics, they each went to their priest or to their church and the Protestant minister, there was only one, and the Jewish rabbi, there was really only one. (chuckles) And he just couldn’t cope with more than just giving—he probably had two or three groups in the week and really couldn’t cope with that.

(Were you bar mitzvahed in that synagogue?)

I was very much bar mitzvahed in that synagogue.

(I’m backtracking a little bit. In the home, did you mainly speak German?)

In the home we spoke a mixture. In the home it worked like this. We spoke English and Spanish. My parents between them spoke German, and when they didn’t want the children to understand, they spoke French. I learned French. I’m fluent in German and I still understand French. My sister understands German and I would say that my brother understands German, but they don’t speak it. We really spoke a mixture. My parents with their parents spoke German. My mother with her brother spoke German. With her sister-in-law, my uncle’s wife, she spoke English because she was an American citizen. The men between them spoke German. It was a mixture. It was really a mixture.

(Did they associate with Salvadorans, did they have Salvadoran friends?)

The chief of public relations for the Salvadoran community was my grandmother, my kosher grandmother. Because when she came to El Salvador and married Salvador Mugdan, he was a very, very important businessman in El Salvador. I mean, he was important to the point where he had, at that time, I would think, the biggest hardware store in the country, and they also imported and sold flour and cigars, everything under the sun. He also loaned money to the government. There were documents that—

we found after my grandmother passed away where he had loaned the El Salvador government 25,000 colones, which was equivalent to $10,000, which was at that time, of course, in the 1930s, a lot of money. So he would rub shoulders with the President of the Republic over dinner any night of the week, either at the President’s home or at his home. And that’s where my grandmother made all of her Salvadoran friends. I would say that although my grandmother was very, very friendly with the Jewish community of El Salvador, I mean, with people of her age, which were the Liebes, the Frenkel’s, the De Sola family, her real friends were the non-Jewish community, the people, the Salvadorans, the Salvadoran people.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

Ricardo "Dicky" Schoening: A Beginning

Dicky was the first person I interviewed on a recent research trip to Miami. We sat at his big breakfast table surrounded by albums and loose photographs. Here he gives us a brief background summary on the Schoening-Falkenstein family.

Growing up in El Salvador, my father was a businessman, and their circle of friends was really the—initially I would say the German Jews who were also living there, among them the Lewinsky family, the Reich family, the Joseph family, later on the Weill family who came from France, the Freund family who came from Germany, of course my uncle and aunt, the Falkensteins, the Steiner family, who had come from Austria, the Frenkel family from France, the Henriquez family from Spain via Curaçao, probably via Panama, and then later on younger couples moved into the life of my parents, like the Scherer family. He is an American citizen, had come to Central America, married a lady who was born maybe in Salvador, maybe in Guatemala, I’m not really sure. Her father was American, her mother was Guatemalan. The Wieners, who now live in California. That’s about it.

(When did you start school, and where did you go to school?)

I started school at age five. At the time when I went to school, my—the only good schools in El Salvador were the Catholic schools, so my father and a group of his friends got together and they founded the Escuela Americana, the American school, with the help of the US government. I was among the first class. They brought in an educator from the US, a Mrs. Inez Terzian, who became the first director of the school. The school was founded in the house that used to belong to my grandmother and the house where my parents had gotten married seven years earlier.

(And tell me, how did your grandmother arrive? How did your family get to Salvador, of all places?)

On my mother’s side, her father—my mother was born in Berlin in 1914. Her father was a soldier in the German army. Her mother was a seamstress. My mother’s father was killed in World War I by the time she was four years old, so by 1918. Somewhere around 1926, my grandmother met Mr. Salvador Mugdan, a German Jew living in El Salvador. Part of his family already lived in New York, I believe. They fell in love.

They decided to get married and left her two children in school in Switzerland. My uncle went to a yeshiva. My mother went to a girls’ boarding school. And they went to El Salvador. Once a year, they would take the boat and come and visit the children and then go back. In 1937, Salvador Mugdan died of a heart attack. My mother by that time had already moved to England, where she was attending nursing school. When she got news of her stepfather’s death, she decided to go visit her mother. There, on the day after she arrived, at Shabbat dinner at her mother’s house, she met my father. They fell in love and got married five months later.

My father was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1906. He went to the—whatever the school, you recall it? the Hochschule in German, the high school, and when he came out of high school, his father, who was a very wealthy man, sent him to Brazil to learn the paper business. There was a big paper mill in Sao Paulo, Brazil. My father spent four years in São Paolo, came back to Germany, was probably going to work in one of his father’s companies, but his girlfriend—that must have been 1928 when he came back to Germany, and he had a girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s brother was very much part of the Nazi movement. One day the brother said to the sister, “You tell your boyfriend that if he does not stop seeing you, what is going to be left of him will not be a pretty sight.” So with that, my father decided that he would move on.

My grandfather, whose mother’s maiden name was Kauders, had a cousin already living in El Salvador. It happened to be he was in the paper and office supply business. My father went to work in El Salvador. He met another Austrian Jew there, Victor Steiner, and they worked side by side and then ended up buying the business from Uncle Kauders it, must have been probably early ‘40s.

My grandparents, my Schoening grandparents, they stayed in Germany until the last moment, simply because my grandfather did not believe that the Nazi movement was a reality, although he was being chased all over the place. But I guess he didn’t want to give up his lifestyle in Germany, also. When they finally left, they took a boat with whatever they gave them, the one suitcase, a fork, a knife, a spoon for each, and $4 in their pocket. They traveled by boat to Panama and stayed in Panama for three weeks while my father was able to arrange their visa. He was able to arrange their visa simply because his now-partner, Victor Steiner, had married a local lady and her father was the Vice President of the Republic of El Salvador. So he was able to arrange for a visa for my grandparents, and they came to live in El Salvador.

(How old were they when they got to El Salvador?)

My grandfather was sixty-seven, and my grandmother was ten years younger, so she must have been whatever.

(And they lived for how many years?)

Well, my grandfather lived twenty years in El Salvador, never learned Spanish because he was one hundred percent deaf in one ear and ninety-whatever percent deaf in the other ear. So basically he was never able to pick up Spanish, and so his conversations were always in German. He knew some English from his youth. That is where I learned my German. My grandmother died at age eighty-nine, so she lived in El Salvador thirty-some odd years, I guess. Yeah, exactly thirty two years. And she was fluent already when she came, in German, French, Italian, English, and then she learned Spanish, so she was fluent in five languages.

(Amazing. Did your grandfather work when he came?)

My grandfather worked for his son. He did all the accounting for my father’s business, and he worked till the day he died.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC

The Next Generation

 

I hope each of you had a fantastic holiday season. I did quite a few things, one including an extended beach stay at the home of Dani and Lisa Guttfreund on the Barra de Santiago (near the Guatemalan border). I have decided to include this picture as it is a great collection of kids from the next generation.

From left to right: Ariella Freund, Ilana Guttfreund, Eric Freund, Raffi Guttfreund Lehrer, Maya Guttfreund, Mia Biller Rosenberg, Gabriela Guttfreund.

Check out their family stories in the archives (Gerda Guttfreund, Meissner Familia). Much more to come this month!