L. Jack Davidson: El Salvador and Her Neighbors

Jack is currently the President of the Union of Jewish Congregations of Latin America and the Caribbean. He is intimately familiar with neighboring communities and in this excerpt, he shares his opinion on the development and preservation of the community of El Salvador.

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(What sets Salvador apart? What is different about Salvador—I mean, you’re obviously now familiar, maybe not intimately familiar, but you’re familiar with these communities.)

The community of Salvador—first of all, the community has always functioned. Even in the darkest years it functioned. There were—the community always provided the necessary—even if meager, but necessary services to the people of the community. It was very inclusive way back when. In other words, when there were mixed marriages before the war, they were accepted. Nobody would marry them, but once it was done, it was done. If they showed intent to have the children become Jewish, the community accepted them, with the idea of eventually having a conversion before marriage or bar mitzvah, because there was no bat mitzvah at the time. So it was—it became an inclusionary thing. Then the war came and people scattered, to Israel, to the US, all over, but the community continued to function. There was a harmony. There was not too much of a division between the Eastern and the Western Jews, between the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi. Most of the Jews were Ashkenazi. So it was a functioning community. There was never much protocol as far as the organization, but there were always a few people who just made things happen, made sure that it was all there. My father and Lillian’s grandmother died during those years, in 1988, and we felt complete support of the community. They were both buried here. There was minyan for prayers. If a child was born, there was a bris. They had to bring a mohel, and still do, but you know, there were no marriages in those years, but there were funerals, there were bar mitzvahs, there were all the services, and somehow people came, people who you don’t see in the synagogue any more, but who are Jews, but they felt the need to keep a seat warm, to make sure there were ten people in the synagogue, to make sure that the services happened, to make sure that everything continued.

And there was very little inner strife. There was no inner fighting. It was quite harmonious and cooperative. I think that’s what made it survive. After the war, people started coming back with great pride in going to the synagogue. I mean, one of the biggest things for everybody when they came to visit—like Jean-Paul said, “I came to Salvador like I go to a swimming pool, just to put my foot in to see if it’s not very cold.” He came once for two days. And we came and the biggest source of pride was to go to the synagogue. The songs were the same. Max Sztarkmann sang it the way that Granat used to sing it. Everybody felt at home. We were proud. We were very proud of the fact that it had continued. We all supported it, whether it was financially, whatever. Everybody was involved in it because of that. And I think that was such a strong base that it wasn’t so difficult to build upon it and make it a functioning community. And there was no division—I mean, Guatemala had a much larger community, but there was so much inner strife between one faction and the other. Others were too small, and they just collapsed. But Salvador, in spite of the fact that it had the most difficult war of these countries, or the most difficult civil unrest, the community was the most united, the most harmonious, and the most functioning. And it’s an example of that, and has been. I am extremely proud of it, and I think many people are.

Transcript by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC