עַם הזיכרון

— מאת שמואל רוזנשיין

ביום א׳ 9/6/24 ב-16:30 בפּארק ליפשיץ, יתקיים טקס להנצחת סיפורן של נשים מעוררות השראה משכונת בקעה. בין המכובדות הן שתי מייסדות בית הכנסת שלנו: אליס הולנדר ז״ל ומרתה טסלר ז״ל.

אליס הולנדר (1913-2006) נולדה בצ׳כלוסלובקיה. שׂרדה שלוש שנים באושוויץ וגם ״מצעד המוות״. בירושלים ניהלה ״אֹמֶן״, מוסד ידוע לחינוך ילדים מכל קצווי העיר.ֿ

— Bob Rosenschein

On Sunday afternoon, June 9, at 4:30pm, at Park Lifshitz, there will be a ceremony saluting the memory of a few of our neighborhood's inspirational women. Among those being honored are two of our own founding members: Alice Hollander ז״ל and Marta Tesler ז״ל.

Alice Hollander (1913-2006) was born in Czechoslovakia. She survived three years in Auschwitz and also a "death march". In Jerusalem, she directed "Omen", a leading institute for educating young children from all across the city.

Marta Tesler (1925-2012) fought as an anti-Nazi resistance fighter in Hungary during WWII. In Israel, she worked for over 30 years at the Tel Raanan Children's Center with underprivileged children and was awarded the Hazani Prize in 1980 for her outstanding social work.

On a personal note. I do not usually write backstories but decided to make an exception in the case of our remarkable beit knesset, to preserve our communal memory and because we have only one remaining member, Meir Edelstein, who was actually there as a 7-year-old when the shul was founded in 1949. (Read Meir's wonderful history of those early years here.)

75 Years Ago

Baka in 1949 was a refugee neighborhood, with Jews from all over, including the Old City, moving into abandoned Arab houses. There were other Sephardi shuls, but ours was the first Ashkenazi shul, founded by Holocaust survivors from Central and Eastern Europe, whose frequent disagreements about the davening reflected a dozen traditions.

The building had been a shoe factory, and the first seats were organized from old busses at the deserted British Allenby Camp, now Beit HaNatziv.

Founding member David Steiner ז״ל once told us why the shul is called Emek Refaim. In those days there were just a handful of buildings between it and Emek Refaim, beyond the (functioning) train tracks, so the name was actually based on visual proximity.

The building was smaller and narrower, with the men's section occupying what is today the women's section and the women's section situated behind a formidable mechitza in what is today a third of the men's section (layout).

51 Years Ago

By 1973 the gabbai was David Tesler, a loving, outgoing man, married to Marta. Their son Eli got married just before Rosh HaShanah, on September 26, 1973, and enjoyed a brief honeymoon in Nahariah, before the Egyptian and Syrian surprise attack of October 6 changed everything.

On Simḥat Torah 1973, behind blacked-out windows in shul, David Tesler led the dancing. Afterwards, he remarked to Moshe Lichtenstean, "אִיך מוּז וֶוערן משׁוּגָע, ווײַל אִיך ווײַס נִישׁט צִי מײַן אֶלִי לֶעבְּט." ("I must be going crazy because I don't even know if my Eli is still alive.")

He wasn't. Eli Tesler (details) (1951-1973) was killed in an artillery barrage on the Golan Heights during Ḥol HaMoed Sukkot, a week before his 22nd birthday. He was survived by his mother Marta, father David, twin brothers and a wife.

The other fallen soldier from our kehillah was Ḥayim Ben-Kedar (details) (1953-1973), son of olim from Hungary, who was killed in the Golan on the second day of the Yom Kippur War and whose 71st birthday would have been next Shabbat.

People walk by the plaque at the end of our men's section all the time and do not know the story behind these two boys, if they notice the plaque at all.

35 Years Ago

On a personal note, Diane and I moved to this neighborhood and tried just about every beit knesset in the area. We sort of assumed that Yael was a Sephardi shul because we saw our good friend Sasson Chacoty there!

Diane's father, Aaron Glassman, had a heart condition and could not walk so easily when he visited us. One Erev Shabbat, he walked into our apartment and declared, "I just heard the most beautiful davening, the voice of an angel, almost my own father's voice." That ḥazan was a man named Alexander Hollander.

Diane and I joined Beit Knesset Emek Refaim in 1991, after our eldest son Avi's bar-mitzvah — and soon realized what we had been missing! We especially loved the friendly combining of vatikim and younger people (as we were then). As David Steiner once said, "Before the influx, during Yizkor, nobody ever walked out."

If you want to see a short video of the shul in 1991, watch this video from Daniel Toberman's brit milah on Hoshanah Rabba 1991.

Diane went on to work on the building committee with Jane Medved and Rabbi Baruch Rackovsky ז״ל when the shul was completely renovated in 2000.

Today

Rabbi Jonathan Sachs once called the Jews the People of Memory. Marta Tesler and Alice Hollander are not just two names but very much a part of our community's story, a kehillah we love so much. יְהִי זִכְרָן בָּרוּךְ.

Thank you to Bracha Edelstein for this notice and to Meir Edelstein for his memories.

חוֹדֶשׁ טוֹב – שֶׁיְּמַלֵּא ה' מִשְׁאֲלוֹת לִבֵּנוּ לְטוֹבָה.