Tikkun
The puzzle was, and is, the silence and the fragmentation of a family that has in its essence great warmth and love of family. I felt immediately, when I met Danny, Rachel, Channah, Yael, and Orly a sense of connection and joy. Their stories and the stories of their parents and grandparents (the siblings of my great-grandmother) demonstrated their strength. How they survived the Nazi invasion of Romania is uncertain, how many losses they experienced remains unspoken. Once they escaped the Nazis they were welcomed by a totalitarian government which stole their wealth and left them impoverished. When they escaped again to Israel, even there, they were greeted both by sanctuary and by a degree of hardship.
The decisions that were made suddenly, on an impulse—to flee, to leave, to sell a business, to convert—some say survival was predicated by luck. Even today, the choices that are being made rely on luck. Does one escape and leave a home behind and then dream and vow, as Lyuba Yakimchuk wrote “ if only to go there, to breath the scent of mold… we will walk back, even with bare feet”.
In Judaism there is the concept of “Tikkun”, usually spoke of in connection with a repair of our world. This exhibit is thus a gift of Tikkun, of the de-fragmentation of a family, and a reaching out over generations and continents to bring the embrace of the arms of a large family, dispersed across continents and have the descendants find each other.
It is difficult to seek truth when confronted by a seemingly sensible silence. That is, the silence that we believe protects our children. We don’t want them to suffer, to know the truth of atrocities that were inflicted on ourselves or our community. However, to leave the words as silence will contribute only to the ongoing transmission of that awkward anxiety. To leave the silence also permits a space where the family’s stories can be lost, and revised by others.
Chaim Ghelber and his brothers were murdered in Iași in June 1941. Yehushua Ghelber is standing on their veranda, Rachel sitting happily with her great-grandfather. The photo does not reveal the anguish that he must have lived with.