For almost two weeks my wife and I traveled through West Germany attending November 9 commemorations and visiting places of Jewish historical interest as well as tombs of Gedolei Yisrael, which we have not seen on previous visits.
We spent long hours of the day and several nights on trains, visiting Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Nurembourg, Hamburg, Berlin (East and West) and other places. Twice we crossed into neighboring countries. We went to Strasbourg, France to replenish our kosher dwindling supplies. One Shabbat we spent in Basle Switzerland.
In forthcoming articles, I will try to describe our experiences in Germany but I would like to start the series with an account of our stay in Strasbourg and Basle.
Going to Strasbourg was not a simple matter.
We traveled with a German Rail Tourist Card which entitles the holder to travel throughout West Germany as well as to Berlin (with some extra payment for the transit through East German territory.) We had to add only a few Marks or Francs for a journey to Strasbourg because the city is very close to the German border– but as Americans we were in need of a French visa.
When planning our trip we did not contemplate visiting France and consequently did not provide ourselves with French entry permits.
We set our for Strasbourg hoping that the French border police would grant us a visa, but on arrival in Offenburg, a German city near the frontier, we were informed the French border police had no authority to issue visas.
This was unacceptable to us. It meant breaking the journey at the border and waiting for the next rain to Strasbourg or getting there by bus. On our return to, we would have to lose time at the border retrieving our travel documents. Worst of all, it was already evening and there were no trains late at night. Under no circumstance would we be able to crowd a journey and a visit to Strasbourg in a few hours.
Following a second call to the French border police, we were informed that for the payment of a fee at the office of the chief of the French border police we would be permitted to remain in Strasbourg overnight.
This seemed satisfactory.
We took the next train to Strasbourg and got off at Kehl, the German border station. As I was preparing to leave the station and make my way over the bridge to the office of the French border police, my wife declared that she was too tired to move. She preferred to wait on the platform for the members of the French border patrol who board the train to inspect the passports of the passengers, and she would try to persuade them to give us a visa on the spot. I reminded her of the information that the border guards had no authority to issue visas, but she still felt that she might accomplish what we needed right here in the station.
the German train conductor showed us a room on the platform which served as temporary office for the officer in charge of the French border patrol. A few minutes later my wife noticed the officer going towards the office. She ran up to him and in her Canadian French e explained to him our situation. At first, he wouldn’t listen, but after she reiterated her request and he examined our passports, he told us to get back on the waiting train.
About 15 minutes later we arrived in Strasbourg.
In a waiting room in the station we noticed an elderly Jew with three little boys with longish Pe’oth. In response to our enquiries, he gave us the address of the Yechiva des Etudiants,” Yeshiva for University students) and told us how to get there.
As we were leaving the station, we met three other Jews. Rabbi Elkaim, head of Strashourg’s Yeshiva Eshel, his wife and a retired physician. It was close to eight o’clock and our first priority was to buy Kosher food products before the shops closed The three directed us to the nearest Kosher food store. After about a quarter of an hour’s walk, we reached Chalom Levi’s Kosher food center on Boulevard President Poincare. Luckily the shop was still open.
Levi, a native of Morrocco is a bearded Luvaticher. His shop offers kosher products, not only made in France but also imported from the U.S., Israel Switzerland and Belgium. On display 0 and free to take– ae also Sihot by the Rebbe of Lubavtich in French. The Sichot are printed in Paris but added at the end is information about Chabad activities in Strasbourg.
We were thirsty and refreshed ourselves with Koser delicacies we had not taste din days. My wife bout Matzot, salami, Cheese, yogurts, biscuits chocolate bars and the usual fruits and vegetables.
Wehn Levi was getting ready to close his shop my wife asked him if he could take us in his delivery truck to the “Yechivia des Etudiants.” He readily agreed, though the Yeshiva was situated at the opposite end of the city.
Continued next week
The Jewish Press, Friday December 2, 1988
Continued from last week
The “Yechiva des Etudiants (Yeshiva of University Students) was founded more than 20 years ago by Rabbi Eliyahu Abitbol, a native of Casablanca, Morocco, who had studied at the Yeshiva of Be’er Yaakov and at the Kollel Hazon Ish in Bnei Brak
Rav Eliyahu- as he is affectionately called by his students — was inspired by a great desire to teach Torah and Judaism to the many Jewish students, Ashkenazim and natives of North Africa, who attended Strasbourg University. From modest beginnings his Yeshiva developed into a Torah community embracing about 200 men and women and 500 children and boasting a number of educational institutions, including a kindergarten, an elementary school, a Yeshiva, a Kollel, a school for Torah scribes and computer classes.
I had never visited the Yeshiva before but I heard much about it from our children Pearl and Chaggai who had been to Strasbourg and had become acquainted with Rabbi Abitbol and his family.
I also read a beautiful article about the Yeshiva by Dr. Peter Honigmann, the East Berlin Ba’al Teshuva, who joined the Yeshiva after he and his family were allowed to leave East Berlin. The article appeared in Vienna’s Illustrierte Neue Welt in February 1986.
“This yeshiva belongs without doubt to the most interesting phenomena of Jewish life in Strasbourg,” Dr. Honigmann wrote. “Like its director, about half of its students, originally came from Morocco or other North African countries Rabbi Abitbol succeeded in creating from a small group of students who met in an apartment, a community of almost 100 families. The three story building is no longer large enough to accommodate all those who assemble there for study and prayer In accordance with its name, the Yeshiva initially accepted only young men who were students. The average age of those who joined was between 20 and 25. Nowadays graduate physicians with their families also enroll. Already in their 30s they want to start a new intensive Jewish life.
The young men remain usually in the Yeshiva for a few years until they marry., In this milieu mixed marriages between Sephardim and Ashkenazim are rather the rule than the exception. Even after their marriage, most remain tied to the Yeshiva. They don’t live any longer in the Yeshiva, but the Yeshiva remains part of their lives. The men attend Shiurim after work or study with a partner (Havruta) The women, too use every opportunity to deepen their Jewish knowledge by participating in classes specially devised for them.”
Dr. Honigman further stated that some of the physicians associated with the Yeshiva wrote their dissertation on the views of Halacha and Jewish ethics regarding such medical topics as autopsies, contraception, abortion and organ transplants and that a proportionately large number of members of Rabbi Abitbol’s Torah community were doctors and teachers.
I also heard about the Yeshiva from the late Paul Freedman, a writer on economic affairs, whose home in Sutton Place, Manhattan, was a meeting place for Jewish writers and journalists. Freedman had visited Strasbourg and had talked with Dr. Honigmann.
It was about nine o’clock at night when we reached the Yeshiva. Rabbi Abitbol was not in the building. When I want ed to phone him at his home I was told that the Abitbols had no telephone. A young man, Joel Bloedy, who had studied mathematics, but now dedicated himself totally to Torah, volunteered to bringing us to the home of Rabbi Abitbol in a nearby street.
“Shalom, Shalom,” we were warmly received when we entered the apartment.
The Abitbol’s home is full of children., Sefarim and hospitality.
“We are old acquaintances,” I turned to our hosts.
Rabbi Abitbol, whose face is framed by a flowing grey beard and long “pe’oth and his wife Zohara measured us with their eyes from top to bottom and tired to “placed us. Seeming they couldn’t remember us. No wonder we had never met before.”
“We are the parents of Pearl and Chaggai,” I explained.
“Oh, ho,’ Rabbi Abitbol exclaimed and moved two chairs towards a coffee table. “Please be seated,”
Zohara disappeared and reappeared after a few minutes with loads of steaming coffee and home baked cakes.: You will stay here over night,” Zohara said. It sounded more like a command than an invitation.
We talked for about half an hour about our families.
Rav Eliyahu speaks Hebrew, French Arabic, Yiddish and German. The latter he picked up in Strasbourg.
“What’s new in Strasbourg, I asked him.
“You know we have had Arafat here,” he replied.
Strasbourg is the seat of the European Parliament. The impressive buildings are situated opposite the Yeshiva. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, Arafat addressed the Parliament.
“Strasbourg’s Jews protested Arafat’s appearance. About 1500 Jews marched in silence from the great synagogue to the building of the European Parliament,” Rav Eliyahu said.
The next morning, when Rabbi Abitbol showed us the Parliament buildings, he pointed out to us the place on the wide steps leading to the assembly hall up to where the protesters had been allowed to proceed.
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, December 9. 1988
(Continued from last week)
I mentioned to Rabbi Abitbol that i would like to meet Dr. Peter Honigmann.
I first “met” Honigmann in the summer of 1983. During a visit to the offices of the East Berlin Jewish community, my wife and I picked up the latest issue of Nachrichten, the organ of East Germany’s Association of Jewish Communities.
A small item in a report on the life and activities of the East Berlin Jewish Community told of the Brith Milah of the son of Dr. and Mrs. Peter Honigmann, which was performed at the Honigmann’s apartment on February 17, 1983 (Adar 14 5743), It was the first circumcision of a newborn in the Jewish community of East Berlin in 16 years.
The item described Dr. Honigmann as a member of the leadership of the East Berlin Jewish community and as a Gabbai of the Rykestrasses Synagogue. The newborn was named Reuben ben Pinhas.
Little did I know then that less than a year later, I would meet Dr. Honigmann, whom I had never seen before , here in New York.
Dr. Honigmann is a Ba’al Teshuva. On a visit to Moscow in 1982 he met Russian Ba’alei Teshuva and an emissary of Agudath Israel of America. These meetings changed the young physicists beliefs and views. He embarked on the road to Judaism.
In 1984, Dr. Honigmann, his wife and their two young sons were permitted to leave East Germany. A short time later in the beginning of the summer — Dr. Honigmann was the guest speaker at the annual dinner of Agudath Israel of America. In his address, he told a spellbound audience how he, the son of Communist parents, who was born and raised in a Communist country, had become a Baal teshuva returning to the faith of his ancestors. He thanked Agudath Israel for the great help the organization had rendered him and his family.
During his short stay in this country, Dr. Honigmann was the guest of Reb Mordechai Neustadt, who had been his “patron”. Reb Mordechai had been in contact with him and had visited him in East Berlin. Rabbi H. Bronstein and I called on Dr. Honigmann at the Neustadt home in Boro Park. He related interesting details of his road to Judaism and spoke of his plans to study at the “Yechiva des Etudiants” (Yeshiva of University Students) in Strasbourg.
When I arrived in Frankfurt to attend the commemorations held in West German on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, I noticed while looking through the calendar of events, that on the day before my arrival Barbara Honigmann had read from her writings at the main branch of Frankfurt’s municipal library.
I wondered who this Barbara Honigmann was. Was it possible that she was the wife of Peter who had gone to study at the “Yechiva des Etudtiants’ in Strasbourg?
During our conversation with the Abitbols in their home in Strasbourg, I learned that the author Barbara Honigmann was indeed, the wife of Peter.
Eager to meet the Honigmanns, I went back with Rabbi Eliyahu Abitbol to the Yeshiva and from there phoned Peter. “Return to the apartment of the Abitbols. From there I will bring you and your wife to my house,” Peter said. He added that his wife was attending a Shiur and would join us a little later.
It was about 10:30 PM when we arrived at the Honigmann’s apartment. The walls of the living room were covered with beautiful paintings. Barbara was not only a writer, but also an artists! Peter proudly showed us the shelves filled with Sefarim, which included his Shas and Rambam.
A few days before we arrived in Strasbourg, Peter had accepted a part-time position as librarian of the Jewish community of Strasbourg. He now divides his free time between the study of the Talmud and research in modern Jewish history. This year he published two studies on the withdrawals from membership in the Jewish communities in Vienna and Berlin respectively in the last three decades of the 19th century and the first four decades of the 20th. One of these Studes appeared in a Viennese journal devoted to history. The other was published as a brochure in Germany.
He is now working in an essay about the late Rabbi Zalman Baruch Rabinkow.
Zalman Barch Rabinkov was born in the Ukraine into a family of Habad Hasidim. He studies at the Yeshiva of Telz under Rabbi Eliezer Gordon and Rabbi Shimon Shkop. Later he attended universities in Central Europe. An outstanding Talmid Chacham, he devoted his life to teaching Talmud and Judaism to Jewish university students in Germany, many of whom were greatly influenced by his extraordinary personality. Among his disciples were young men who later played prominent roles in the life of the Jewish people. These included the late President Zalman Shazar, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Dr. Aaron Bart and Yeshaya Wolfsberg (Aviad). Rabinkov was offered a teaching position at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary and at other academic institution, but he declined. He died in Bergen Belsen.
“What induced you to write about Rabbi Rabinkov?” I asked Peter.
“Rabbi Eliyahu Abitbol is doing here in Strasbourg what Rabbi Rabinkov was doing in Germany. One may say that the personality of Rabbi Abitbol awakened my interest in Rabby Rabinkov,” Peter replied.
(Continued next week)
The Jewish Press, Friday, December 16,1988