I peer through my window, my world. The trees, the flowers, the streets, the buildings, the sky. What a wondrous sight of nature and civilization. I walk through the streets, and I see structures of the modern world, built of gleaming glass. Glass, a marvelous creation from ancient Egypt, throughout centuries till modern times. Jews were also active in glass making from medieval to the present day. Yes, glass has adorned and illuminated our lives for so long. And of course, the breaking glass, a symbol of celebration and remembrance at a Jewish wedding.
But at the same time, the word glass has a darker reference to a day of infamy, November 9, 1938. Known as “Kristallnacht,” Night of the Broken Glass. It was the beginning of the end for the Six Million of European Jewry, where the Nazis stormed and broke glass after glass of Jewish shops and homes, then penalizing the shop owners for their treachery. It was a night where majestic synagogues rose in flames, a prelude to the fate of millions.
Glass, a simple object, useful and positive, took on a tragic memory for the Jewish people. Kristallnacht – never to be forgotten; never to be repeated.
