(Photo credit: The Jewish Press, Gary Lelonek- author of a recent book on the history of Tannersville. If anyone has the book, please check for a photo credit. Thanks.)

In this picture, Rav Breuer is seen at the summer home in Tannersville, New York. The shul there is situated on a hill in that very hilly town. In fact the shul- over 100 years old- is named “Anshei HaSharon” after the prayer of the High Priest in Jerusalem’s temple of old on Yom Kippur: “and concernig the people of Sharon (Anshei Hasharon) he would say: ‘May it be G-d’s will that their homes not become their graves!’” Someone in a stroke of wit named the shul after the people of the Sharon who likely lived in a hilly region prone to earthquakes.

Anyhow, when my father made the trip from the Catskills to Tanersville one summer to visit the Rav, Rabbi Breuer asked him where he was davening while in the mountains. My father responded that he davens with the Chasidim of the adjacent bungalow colony.

“Chasidim?” the Rav asked. He then began to list off all of the stages of piety that one must achieve before he reaches the level of the Chasid, per the talmud (Braysa Derabbi Pinchas ben Yair). “If they are really Chasidim, then I want to come and pray with them too!” the Rav exclaimed in irony. My father clarified that the community is only called that..not to imply they all have reached this level- as the Rav winked.

The Rav had a knack for dead pan humor. Once my father told him that he spotted a waterbug in the old keilim mikvah (who didn’t?) The Rav turned to him and said, “The mikvah is still kosher, I don’t think it could drink that much!”

The Rav was also careful with his words. At one of the memorials for Rav Breuer the following story was told. Rabbi Schwab’s son Yosef was completing his semicha (ordination) and the certificate was brought to Rav Breuer to sign. He read it and saw that the young man, not married yet, was called “HaChoson” (the betrothed), a respectful way of calling a young Benedict- but technically inaccurate if he was not even engaged to be married. The Rav asked if he was engaged. He wasn’t, and the Rav began to rip up the document for its use of hyperbole- until they had to wrest it from his hand in protest.

This is where we come from, people!

I don’t believe the Shul has any observance of the Nittel. But I was told that Rav Breuer s’l would reserve the night to sit down and watch family movies. I do not know if he picked up the minhag in Frankfurt or at Yeshivah in Hungary.

When I was a little boy I asked Rav Schwab s’l: When we learn Chumash we say the names of the Avodah Zarah. So why don’t people refer to the December holiday by its full name? He answered that this is a big “shtus” and we don’t even want to mention it!

In Moritz Oppenheim’s Chanukah painting the men are playing chess  near the lights. In Eastern Europe it seems card games were more popular from the Ropshitzer’s warning to refrain from using Gypsy style Tarrots. Dreidels are also conspicuous- in Judaeo-German this was called a trendel (Werner Weinberg in “The Jewish Legacy and the German Conscience. p. 131).

I contacted Meta to ask about a fire that once damaged the venerable “Schuster’s Hall”. (According to Sidney S. it was the “Jacob Schuster Auditorium”.)

In her response which I shall quote momentarily we learn the story behind the picture of Rav Breuer ZT’L mounitng the top step of the unique super-stairway up to Ft. Washington Avenue. Remember, he never lived there. He lived on 181st Street, in the apartment occupied today by Mr. Schnerb hbl’cht.

So here it is:

Yes, Mendy, there was a fire in 90 Bennett in the basement, something with the boiler went wrong.  – I remember that the front room had lockers where people put their Friday pay checks – or cash – when they rushed from work to come to Shul. That room was not affected and the people got their money out.

So, it must  have been in the winter.

But repairs had to be made, and the place up the steps on Ft. Washington Avenue and 187 Street(which is now a Bank and next to it a large grocery) which became our Shul and Talmud Tora classes. I think a few months later we moved back to 90 Bennett.

I cannot remember dates or year.  But there is a picture of R.  Breuer approaching the steps on Ft. Washington Avenue.

I ordered a custom throw pillow (stuffing not included) on Amazon for 6$. It ships from Asia so allow time for delivery. I bought a plastic cover at Eichler’s and for another 6 dollars. I have a picture of the old shul on Friedberg Anlage with the posuk “Mimizrach Shemesh ad Mevo’o”  …ממזרח שמש עד מבואו מהלל שם” From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of Hashem is to be praised.”(Ps. 113:3)

I don’t know the origin of this picture with the posuk over it, my father saw it hanging in Jerry’s apartment and photographed it. The picture is now on my tallis bag.

But here is the story of a different picture.

In the 1920s Mr. Henry Zimmer was living in Frankfurt. He was a furniture designer and was trained in sketch. He penciled this picture of the shul for his own use.

In his octogenarian years his son helped him record a CD of our familiar nigunim- sung raw- without accompanying instruments-  in Mr. Zimmer’s aging voice. The album was recorded in a studio and came in a pearl case with a jacket bearing the picture he drew in his youth. I will soon share it to my website.

We descend from the Weil family in Emmindingen. I have several pictures of that family as well as an artifact of the famous New York philanthropist Jonas Weil (picture above) who founded the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital and the Park East Synagogue with his son-in-law Rabbi Bernard Drachman. Drachman was an early translator of Hirsch’s “Nineteen Letters” and a his story can be found here .

The artifact in my possession is a ledger of loans made by Weil to people and institutions as well as letters from the board of the shul in Emmindingen.

Drachman and Weil were also among the founders of the JTS.

On a tangential note. The Yekkes were early contributors and founders of the Sharei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem. My Uncle Asher Hirsch z’l was active in some of their American fundraising. Hermann Schwabb in his memoirs writes that the original seed money for that hospital was provided by the financiers of the Frankfurt Kehilla. This is a very long legacy indeed.

Today the hospital has become a cause of the Syrian Jewish community in NY as well. This year’s dinner ad has 5 or 6 guests of honor in the age range of 21-25. The hospital has realized that a base of young contributors is essential. There is also a German-Jew from Riverdale among the honorees. The event will be in an uber-trendy event-space under a bridge in the UES.

I think I am priced out of this one…

In the video just posted on the famed German-Jewish painter of the 19th century, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, we focused on some of the themes in his works. There is a lot of juxtaposing the ancient with the modern; apt for the 19th century. In the blog post here by a Lit. Professor at Touro, we read of some of these themes in the Shabbos-Ruhe depiction of a lazy Shabbos afternoon.

How lucky we were in Washington Heights to have a park to sit in on long Shabbos afternoons, and all we had to do was climb a mountain to get there!

Recently on a FB group of Yekkes around the world someone wrote, “From its location (at 155th Street and Riverside Drive) this may be what a long gone friend of my parents wittily called the “Kölner Bank.” But he wasn’t referring to a Bank of Cologne. He meant it was the park bench favored by the immigrants from there.” Riverside drive was the Shabbos-Ruhe for many German Jews in the southern region of the neighborhood once.

Enjoy this nice recording from an old choir practice once here

Gertrude Hirschler (Photo taken from the Tidesociety.blogspot.com) translated many of the Hirsch works into English. Her bio here.

The above mentioned bio says she removed her name from the Hirsch siddur over a conflict with the editor pertaining to the final draft. This should be investigated. Was something omitted? {After this was posted I was told by Proffesor M.Miller, that Dr. Bondi told him, that the editing went beyond her vision of the final product, but did not amount to a significant change.)

Secondly, in Steven Lowenstien’s “Frankfurt on the Hudson” he quotes from an unpublished manuscript of her’s titled, “Washington Heights; The Rise and decline of an Inner-City Jewish Community”. I imagine she didnt publish this out of sensitivity to the community that remains. But, people! We need to see this!

After a quick look, the librarian at YU did not locate it among the Hirschler papers stored there, though someone who could spend an afternoon there might come up with it.

Anyone looking to collaborate? (It is very hard to reach Dr. Lowenstien.)

In the video I’ve just posted we will focus on two small shuls in the lower neighborhood of the 160s and below. Ahavath Torah and Tikvoh Chadoshoh were vibrant religious centers for German Jews, some who identified as  “Traditional” and some who identified as Orthodox.

Many of the children of these congregations attended Public School and did talmud torah as an after-school program.

Predictably, as seen across the American Jewish landscape, whether these children would remain traditional or join the likes of the liberal Jewish Community was up in the air.

In the movie ” We Were So Beloved”, Manfred Kirchheimer revisits his childhood in the early 1980s (released in 1985) and recounts with his parents, his friends, and their parents- the horrors of fleeing Germany, surviving, and arriving in the United States. He touches on many issues along the way including, righteous Gentiles, American inaction, survivor’s disillusion with both societies, and the power of charismatic leaders and mob-mentality.

Manfred also admits that he once tried to join the Orthodox men of the daily minyan, but the lifestyle did not last. He and his three friends featured entered the heart of the Liberal Arts world- with he and Walter in motion-pictures, Max Frankel sporting an obnoxious cigar in the Times editorial room, and a zany anarchist academic weighing in with a sob-story about his rearing.

Towards the end of the film Manfred takes his carefully guided introspection somewhere very dark. He elicits the fear and the skepticism his parents’ friends had for the newer immigrants in the neighborhood, namely the Hispanic and the Russian arrivals. The interviewees express some indignation over the fact that US policy had changed over time and immigrants were accepted without affidavits and with immediate access to public support. They also feel sidelined by the seeming disinterest of the new arrivals to learn the language.  

Simultaneously, Kirchheimer introduces a dark episode in the career of his Rabbi in which his congregants either mis-judged or, as suggested,overreacted to a report about the rabbi.  

Without a great deal of discretion he prods the rebetzin in to saying that the congregation’s group-think was analogous to the behavior of the German people under Hitler. Even if this was the rebetzin’s own formulation out of reliving the stressful episode, including it in his “introspective” documentary was cheap fodder for where he was going next.

Continuing the line of moral relativism- the religion he picked up when he left Orthodoxy, Manfred in his closing segment defecates in public by showing the mild xenophobia of his parents’ generation as analogous to the attitudes of the Nazis and their sympathizers and certainly well below the idealism of the Gentiles who took risks on behalf of the Jews.  

Now, I will not jump on the moral-relativism, because I consider it an outlook on the spectrum of opinion (though it often yields a good chuckle e.g. “Palestinian-BDS Pride March”, yeah, try hosting that in Ramalah), but I call out the superficiality of comparing mild-xenophobia to the complicite united effort of the “ordinary men” who killed 6 Million Jews, mercilessly, including one million children (!) and another million political rivals, Gypsies and other marginalized peoples, though in a less coordinated way.  

There is no connection between the attitudes of his parents and the German conspirators. Because only merciless hate can bring to the atrocities of Nazi brutality and German indifference -and hate was not present in the voices of his interviewees.

He glazes over the weekly reports of muggings, push-in robberies and auto-theft that plagued this neighbirhood during those years and instilled bitter fear in his parents. You see, Manfred had been occupying an “Ivory Tower” pre-war apartment in the low 100s since the mid 1960s. One of the neighborhoods famous for strong and united vocal opposition to the inclusion of low income housing or homeless shelters.

The towers of the uppity west and east sides of New York are just high enough for flinging stones at people who live, love and coexist with recent immigrants…even if they sometimes sigh at the hardships sharing a neighborhood often brings.

Two more points that went over Kirchheimer’s white- mane- and- moccasin debonairism:

1. xenophobia is good. When one has a phobia, which is usually associated with an involuntary reaction, the person is on the alert. Always testing the waters and re-aligning his defenses. If you think all immigrants/others are bad, then you are in for a lesson in the holiness and humanity within each human. If you think all immigrants are good, then you are in for a lesson in the “dog-eat-dog” nature of the inner city. But if you live in an ivory tower and engage with humanity on your own terms…well then you protest the homeless shelter.  
2. The Torah has many intricate laws that don’t seem to create better people. These laws permeate the life of an Orthodox Jew. The laws do not automatically shield him from the human folly that lurks behind the corners of life and its moral tests. But the laws fine tune the person, so that should that person be a thinking introspect, he will not stop his brain at the first opportunistic opportunity and he will not allow superficial analogies to satisfy him. He is used to corroborating his ideas with the tenets of justice and love, and as he knows his G-d you can’t have one without the other. He won’t call his parents Nazis to satisfy his friends.  

I don’t fault Manfred. He espoused what he was taught to think, and alot of good has come out of people like him. I see in him the lost generation south of the bridge, but because I have a fondness for those people and an innate respect for the faithful, I detest the disparagement he shed upon the friends of his parents.