And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
(Isaiah 40: 5)
I’m not singing in the annual production of Handel’s Messiah this year. After six years, it felt like time for a break, although I have loved much of performing it as a member of the symphony chorus.
Every year it’s a different Messiah, from Baroque versions to versions with conductors who specialize in the Mozart “version.” A mad scramble to make it to rehearsals on time after a long work day, days feeling like I should have made more time to rehearse on my own at home, but then the rush of the big moments of the Alto entry of “And the Glory, the Glory of the Lord.”
I’m missing it, but I have other things on my mind this December. Like our upcoming trip to Israel next month, how I’m ever going to be ready for it, how I’m going to approach spending time with Shimon’s mother (do I ask her more questions, do I tell her new things I’ve found out about her family? Will I make it to Yad Vashem and see the letters that Lena is translating?) Plus I still have to do my application to King’s and get ready for the spring trip to Vilna.
So it’s a different kind of December, one spent looking back and forward, instead of into my Messiah score, where I’ve written all kinds of notes to myself over the years – how “He was Despised” reminded me of Shimon’s great-grandfather, Rabbi Itzik Rutel, living in the Vilna Ghetto. How I tried to concentrate on the “Glory” of G-d, and not so much on the Christian message, which is kind of the whole point of Messiah (but the thing that makes if tricky to sing if you’re Jewish).
I reminded myself that much of Messiah’s text is cobbled together from the “Old” Testament anyway, and I’ve marked which passages are from Isaiah, Malachi, Psalms.
But what’s really on my mind today is the email I received yesterday from Yad Vashem, an astonishing email, which in a few sparse words changed my understanding of the family story yet again. #It's complicated.
Shimon’s grandmother (Ida) was raised by her step-mother and father (Rabbi Itzik). She had several half-siblings, all of whom died in the Holocaust. But her widowed step-mother had been married before, and her husband (Meir Bromberg) had died, and she had had one or possibly two children with him before marrying the Rabbi. I could find no record of her son Ioseph (Joseph), other than his birth, and after two years of searching for him, I’d given him up to childhood death or perishing in the Holocaust.
But yesterday the story changed with the note I received – a Joseph Bromberg, living on Long Island, New York, had searched for his step (half)-brother, Schmiel, (Shmuel or Samuel), last heard from in 1941 – a half-brother of Shimon’s grandmother, probably lost in the killing pits of Ponar.
Yes, not only did Joseph not die in the Vilna Ghetto or as a babe in arms, but he moved to the States with his wife Ida and their daughter, Jeanette. And then in the States, they had another child, Emanuel. I’ve already found a Google photo of their tidy brick home on Long Island.
“Is Emanuel a Jewish name? ” I asked my husband this morning over breakfast. “Yes,” he replied, citing all the Jewish musicians. “Right,” I said, in my mind slapping my forehead, “like Manny Borok, Emanuel Volkovich.” Duh, knew that. “It’s Jewish, Emanu-El – “G-d with us.”
The Alto soloist in Messiah sings:
“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel, God with us.”
(Isaiah 7: 14; Matthew 1: 23)
So no Messiah for me this year, but I’ve been given an Emanuel. And a Jeanette, an Ada and a Joseph, maybe more. I haven’t found them all yet, or their descendants, but I hope they are out there and want to know what happened to this remnant of the family.
Comments