Writing Contest

Thank you to all who particpate in our "Coming of Age" writing contest for the 2009 Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival. We are happy to list the following winners and their stories! Congratulations!

Over 18 Category:
1st Place - Ruth Brennan "Home for the Holiday"
2nd Place - Noah Lederman "Opening the Holocaust Vault"
Honorable Mention - Raya Mandler "My First Trip Over Sea"

Under 18 Category:
1st Place (tie) - Avi Sachs "Shabbos Enlightenment"
1st Place (tie) - Nathan Weissler Untitled

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAY by Ruth Brennan
A note from Ruth: "This story is a small piece of a larger memoir--Gathering Family: A Personal History of Jewish Immigration to America--that I've been writing for the last year. Based on my mother's memories, Gathering Family recounts a three-generation family history and the similarities and differences among those generations. It particularly celebrates the courage and independence of the women in the family. For more information about the memoir, please contact Ruth Brennan, Ph.D. at DrRuthB@aol.com"

I was 13 when I was apprenticed at the laundry. I tried to visit my father every chance I got, but his New Wife always had an excuse to exclude me—she was sick, she was about to go out, she had a headache or she had no food.

I would see Papa delivering milk to the town restaurants as I picked up and delivered laundry. 

“Sarah, why don’t you visit me?” 

“I do visit you, Papa, but your New Wife says that there is no food and tells me to leave.” 

“We have plenty of food. I don’t believe you.”

On Purim, I went to Papa’s house. The New Wife opened the door and immediately started to close it. I pushed past her into the kitchen, threw open the cupboards and started throwing the food on the floor.

“Stop this instant, Sarah. You do not belong here, you ugly girl.”

I smashed the bags of flour, the jams, the pickles and the jarred vegetables.

“You are a savage. You have no manners, you uneducated, homely girl—no one loves you. Your Papa does not love you.”

I tipped over the pans of hamentashen cooling on the pie chest, crushing the pastries under my boots. Then turning to the New Wife, I said in a satisfied voice:

“Now you really have no food! Now my Papa will know that I have been here! Chag Sameach.” 

I left Papa’s house. I never saw Papa or the New Wife again.

OPENING THE HOLOCAUST VAULT by Noah Lederman

As a child, all I knew about my grandparents’ Holocaust was that Poppy was the only person to survive from his family and Grandma and her cousin were the only two to survive from theirs.

On weekends, at Grandma and Poppy’s Brighton Beach apartment, I was constantly investigating, hoping to uncover Holocaust secrets. 

“Tell me about the war.”

“Not now tatehla,” Poppy said.  “Deal,” he instructed, quelling my curiosity with cards.

“Not now sheine keit,” Grandma said.  “Eat.”

If I ever managed to unearth a story, what I received was Grandma’s PG-version of the camps.

“This girl did a pee in my eating bowl.”  She went into the kitchen and placed a large grey lump of gefilte fish on my plate. “Here tateh sheine.  Eat.”

“Grandma, tell me…”

“Eat, tatehla.  Eat.” 

But I only hungered for the stories behind those haphazard vein-colored digits tattooed forever on their arms. 

When my questions remained unanswered, I went into my grandparents’ bedroom and gazed at Grandma’s family portrait, which hung above the light switch like a page torn from an obituary. 

 “What do you want I should say?  That’s a cousin, an uncle, mine brother.  Dead, dead, dead.  All thirty.  Dead.”

The stories remained sealed in memory. 

Then, at the end of the millennium, Poppy died.  I shoveled dirt onto his grave and felt as though I was burying the Holocaust. 

To reclaim it, I went to Poland—the beginning of their tragedy.  When I returned with some context, Grandma opened the Holocaust vault.

MY FIRST TRIP OVER SEA by Raya Mandler

My sister and I drop sandals and towels on the sand and plunge into the sea, off to our great adventure - swimming to Cyprus. We checked the world-map; that island is just half an inch from our Kibbutz!

The sea breathes dreamily, its green-blue swells reaching the horizon. Our strokes splash gold in the salty air. The coastline finally disappears. Freedom! We reach an island – a disappointing cluster of rocks. It is clearly not our destination. Undeterred, we press ahead towards Cyprus.

We tell this to the old fisherman who arrives in a smoke-spewing, put-putting motorboat.

“You crrrazyy? Come onto boat!” He yells in a coarse, nicotine-saturated voice. His broken, guttural Hebrew suggests he’s from the near-by Arab village. We’d never spoken to an Arab before.

“Yallah! quick! Storm coming”

We have no choice. He might follow us all the way to Cyprus…Besides, at ages 13 and 11 we are still obedient girls. Grumbling, we climb in.

What a dispirited return. The surf becomes rougher. Grey waves hit the boat, splattering angry white foam. I turn green with sea-sickness.

The fisherman helps us dash onto shore like two wet puppies. “You strrrong sweammerr”, he consoles me with a grandfatherly smile “but sea is stronger”. Just one sentence! Yet he offers life-long wisdom about folly, danger and a neighbor’s decency. Being deeply embarrassed, I do not even thank him.

Years later, when passing over Cyprus on flights to Israel, I smile and stretch – 40 more minutes before landing…

SHABBOS ENLIGHTENMENT by Avi Sachs

I stared up at the little light bulb. It flickered like the wing of a moth but glared harsh, dangling from the ceiling.
The Ner Tamid, the eternal light of God was simply a light bulb. It was no special flame, no lamp controlled by the will of God. In fact, Pablo the custodian had probably been up on his ladder the night before unscrewing the dead eternal light and popping in the new one.
But to us Jews, it is more than appearance. The Jewish n’shama burned with the intensity of God on the little pedestal above His shrine to the East. As I stood there, incantations rolling off my tongue, the strange language of my people pierced the stagnant air and sent it off around the cavernous room.  I was almost scared - scared that the hand of God outstretched, just like it had been to the people of the Exodus, would whisk me into the desert. Or that a streak of lightning would stab at me from above, bursting from that little 60 watt bulb. My palate was dry as the Sinai desert, and my stomach was raging like the warrior Samson with his club fashioned from a goat haunch. Before me, a huge Torah was laid out. It smelled like an old library, and its sheepskin scroll felt thick. The ink was bright, and the crowns on each of the characters were delicately positioned by the scribe who created the beautiful objet d’art like his grandfather’s grandfather probably had before him.  Judaism was all about heredity, l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation my father boomed as he had bear-hugged me just hours before. I was about to become a man.
I had begun my quest nine months before. “Very good, you have great potential!” my tutor told me ecstatically. I beamed because I was in my element. Singing Hebrew was one thing that came naturally to me. I left my tutor’s little stone house with my treasure, a small packet of M&M’s crumpled in my hands as my reward. As one week followed into the next, I gained greater confidence, ultimately coming to the realization that nothing would keep me back.  
I was not alone in my quest. There were many other students studying for their bar mitzvahs.  Much needless discussion passed between them about their events. “Oh I’m doing 3 aliyot!” one boy would say swaggering down the hall. “Oh yeah, well, my haftarah is the most difficult!” the other boy would reply sticking his tongue out. It was the most childish display I’d ever witnessed. I thought it rather ironic that 12 year olds were arguing in this manner about the event that transforms them into adults of the community. Reflecting on this, I came to question whether any of us were ready for this rite of passage. But as the weeks progressed and as I put more and more time and effort into preparing for my own bar mitzvah, I put these thoughts aside. Could there be a deeper meaning to this event than just growing up?
The suit was heavy now, dragging me to the floor. It was thick.  My ears boiled.  I was almost there, almost done, just a half hour left. I had been chanting for two and a half hours and still no epiphany. No God descending from above and anointing me an adult, just an old lady from the Sisterhood handing me a Kiddush cup. Maybe this was God’s way of anointing, perhaps He utilized the community. Maybe there was heaven traffic, God making his way around all synagogues right now and He was, on his way. I was getting restless, I was very happy with my performance and my parents were so proud.  The only thing assaulting me was this lack of revelation.
But no lighting struck me, no divine hand smote me, and I had no vision in front of that Torah. I stroked it with the metal yad, the gabbai chanting the prayer for the ill. I was shocked, wasn’t I supposed to feel different? Wasn’t I supposed to ascend to a higher level of sacredness? The words sputtered from my mouth faster now, the haftarah crescendoing into the heart of the story. The prophet Abraham had bound his own son and was prepared to sacrifice him to God.  Was I ready to sacrifice anything for God? These questions tormented me like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes buzzing in and out of my head as the words boomed from deep within my diaphragm.
It was strange how I felt. It was blurred as if I was trapped in a glass box, obscuring sights and sounds from my eyes and ears. I felt pin pricks in my stomach as I strode up and down from the bima. Everything was so intensely powerful. I thought how I love Judaism, the smell of sweet apples and honey every October, and the heat of burning wax slithering down the Shabbat candles. I love the taste of pungent prune chicken and of warm challa infused with eggs and honey. But it was on that bima, with its worn Berber carpet, I thought “why?” Why does this matter? Why had my ancestors died at the hands of brutal religious hate? Why was my homeland soaked in the blood of suicide bombers instead of thick with the milk and honey of legend?
The last word flew from my mouth and soared through the air slamming into the stone wall. The traces of sound flowed from my mouth and into my ears, warm and sweet like the Dixie cups full of Manischevitz wine awaiting me outside. I had no catharsis, no sacred ascent into adulthood. I was just plain old Avi in his new suit, with my hair-slicked back. I patted my cheeks to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I sniffed the air to be sure that no holy lightning had scalded me from above. I looked up to find that little light bulb still there, still flickering. Slowly my eyes circumnavigated the sea of smiles watching me, intense like the columns of freed slaves pouring from the red sea.
And there it was, flickering between those gaping holes in each person’s mouth. The light of God. He wasn’t one being that ruled us for eternity. He was hidden in each and every person’s heart, the whole of nature burst with his divine creations. We weren’t here to wait for him to help us. He had already given us the gift of life. It was now our turn to return the favor and make it useful. Yashir Ko’ach they boomed and the whole of Jewish life and the human element blazed before me and all around the world, I knew that I was armed with avot, the ethics of our fathers, and emet truth that would lash around my arms and burn into my forehead with every wrap of t’fillin and every act of loving kindness.
Emet.
B’ruch Hashem.
God is just.
Adonai Echad, God is one
It was then that I could finally say AMEN!
I had become a Man.

UNTITLED by Nathan Weissler

My coming-of-age experience was not my Bar Mitzvah or entering high school.  It was when at age fourteen I discovered Ohev Shalom, a modern Orthodox synagogue, in Washington, D.C.  As a child and young teen,  I was socially isolated, as I have Asperger Syndrome (AS), an autistic spectrum impairment that makes social interactions stressful and sometimes unsuccessful.  Despite efforts by teachers and clergy at my family‘s synagogue before and after my Bar Mitzvah, the community did not feel like home.

About a year later, my family went with friends to Simchat Torah services at Ohev Shalom.  I was immediately captivated by the welcoming and inclusive spirit.  The warmth, and the sense that every life is valued, struck a deep chord in my soul.  I gradually became friendly with the Rabbi and some congregants and began to participate in the congregational life at Ohev Shalom.

The next step in my journey was to enter the Sulam (Special Needs) program at the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville. As with Ohev Shalom, I feel an emotional resonance at my high school that grounds me socially and spiritually in a Jewish community. My school involvement has included voluntary participation in an overnight high school  Shabbaton--a big accomplishment given my social discomfort.

I have not finished the journey but am beginning a new chapter.  I have found my home.