Their prayers spent, visitors later emerged from the cave’s two narrow doorways. Exhausted from the crush and the fervor of their prayers, they headed for a makeshift dining hall where hot soup and food was ladled out of steaming servers amid the sound of live chassidic music. It was a delight to see an old Polish caretaker wheel in a sloshing vat of soup on a pushcart. I recalled stories of my own grandfather doing the same for the guests in his boarding house.
Some of the younger townspeople mingled gamely with the bearded followers of ”Reb Melech” and even enjoyed some of the strange food in an almost carnival atmosphere. Watching them, I couldn’t help wondering how many of their parents had been willing accessories in the murder of their Jewish neighbors. How many of them may have catcalled: ”The only good Jew is a dead Jew!” What an irony that the single dead Jew buried in a cave up the hill has now become the most important personality in their town and today brings in more foreign currency than their largest enterprise.
Revived and refreshed, our pilgrims were now to become tourists as they split up for pre-booked choices of all-night bus tours of the outlying towns and their notable tombs and few surviving synagogues. It was unfortunate that the timing of this year’s anniversary on a Sunday meant that tours could only take place at night. It seemed as if Jews had to steal visits to their holy places while the rest of Poland slept. By the next morning, buses returning from Shinov, Dinov, Ropshitz, Sanz, Krakow and Warsaw brought their bleary-eyed passengers back to the airfield at Rzsesow for the flight home.
Chatting to the chief steward on our return flight, it became clear that this was as much an unforgettable trip for the 22-man crew as it had been for the passengers. They had really not known what to expect and, frankly, I’d had my own doubts. But it was with genuine warmth that they thanked everyone for a most wonderful experience and asked whether they could take us all back again next year. For me, the entire trip was a genuine Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d’s name). And this — in the words of the famous song — would have made the Rebbe Elimelech ‘goor goor freylach’ (very very happy).
* * *
Back in London, the big news of the day was terrorism’s victory at the Spanish general election. In the days that followed I wondered how much has really changed since those twilight days in Lizhensk and whether it could all happen again in modern-day Europe. You only have to look at events in France to see stark parallels; the torching of Jewish centers, vandalism of cemeteries and street beatings which seem to go largely unpunished.
Jewish life in Poland was doomed by the early appeasement of Nazi fascists. Now we are seeing appeasement of the new Islamofascists. But who are we to complain when our own leadership in Israel is appeasing terror with voluntary withdrawals from territory liberated with Jewish blood and now vital to its security? Why is our own army being held back from liquidating those responsible for the modern day pogroms of suicide bombers?
Anti-Semitism has again reared its ugly head on European campuses. Not quite the ‘Gehinnom’ described by the child of Lizhensk, but abuse just the same. But who are we to complain when the Israeli universities we fund with our donations provide tenure, pay and platform to some of the most self-hating anti-Zionist lecturers?
Now as then, the media are blatantly biased against Jews. Last year’s parody of a Nazi-era cartoon won an award in Britain for portraying Ariel Sharon eating babies. But who are we to complain when the liberal leftists who monopolize Israel’s press pounce on any opportunity to discredit their own people and country?
