Posted on 05/01/25
Baltimore, MD - May 1, 2025:
Dear Readers,
This past week was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. A day set aside to reflect on the six million kedoshim who were murdered during the Holocaust simply because they were Jews.
But Yom HaShoah is also a time to remember those who survived – the ones who walked out of the darkness carrying nothing but their emunah and the will to rebuild.
I recently wrote about my grandparents, Yehuda and Chana Friedman, a”h. They were extraordinary people who lived through the war, losing most of their family members in the process. But they held on to their faith, and somehow, they didn’t just survive, they thrived.
Like many survivors, they dreamed of getting out of Europe and starting over. They had only a few relatives in America. One of them, living in Washington, D.C., sponsored their immigration, and that’s where they ended up.
Life in Washington was far removed from the shtetl life they had known. It wasn’t easy, but they adapted. They raised a family, found work, and immersed themselves in building a new Jewish life in a place where Yiddishkeit wasn’t exactly flourishing.
My Zeidy became the shamash at Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah, where Rabbi Hillel Klaven, zt”l was the Rav. Together, they worked hard to keep the shul going. Many members of the congregation weren’t fully observant. In fact, some of them drove to shul on Shabbos. My grandparents were tolerant of the realities of American Jewish life at the time, but they still held onto their values with quiet strength.
So when it came time for my father’s Bar Mitzvah, they made a unique decision. They scheduled it for Thanksgiving Day.
Why? Because they didn’t want anyone to be mechalel Shabbos for the occasion. My father lained, got his aliyah, and the family celebrated afterward with a Thanksgiving morning Bar Mitzvah brunch.
It was a small act – but it made a lasting impression.
This past Shabbos, I was in Houston for a family simcha. During Shalosh Seudos, Rabbi Yehoshua Wender, the longtime rav of Young Israel of Houston, shared divrei Torah. Rabbi Wender, who grew up in Washington, D.C. alongside my father, spoke about how that Thanksgiving Day Bar Mitzvah left a powerful impression on him. So much so that, when it came time for his own Bar Mitzvah a few years later, he asked for it to be held on Washington’s Birthday instead of Shabbos – so that no one would be mechalel Shabbos on his account.
These are the kinds of stories that rarely get written down. But they shape generations.
The survivors didn’t just rebuild, they made deliberate choices that reflected the values they held most dear. They understood that Torah wasn’t something to be preserved in memory alone, it had to be lived – even in a new and unfamiliar world.
Yom HaShoah is, first and foremost, a day of remembering lives lost, communities destroyed, and futures stolen. But it’s also a day to commemorate what was rebuilt in the ashes. The schools, the shuls, the homes where Shabbos candles were lit again and where the next generation grew up steeped in Torah and mesorah.
The truth is, the Jewish people didn’t just survive the Holocaust. We emerged from it with a renewed mission. And that mission was carried out by people like my grandparents, who never sought the spotlight, but whose actions, both big and small, helped shape the American Jewish story.
Their emunah wasn’t just about belief – it was about action. And that action continues to reverberate in our communities, in our homes, and in the choices we make every day.
Wishing you a peaceful Shabbos,