7th. February 2020, Beit Warszawa – ”Fog in Channel. Continent Cut Off!” This was one of the most famous headlines in British newspaper history, some say dating from the 1930’s, and it is, by many accounts, at least to some extent a true story. Rather than Britain, an island in the North Sea, being cut off, it was the European Mainland that could not be reached due to the poor weather conditions. Some versions state this was printed in ‘The Times’ after some heavy storms, or after a communications cable was damaged….

It happened in the spring of 1997 or 1998. Back then I was a student at one of the technical secondary schools in Przemyśl. In the summer semester we had a so called “vocational apprenticeship”: instead of going to school, we’d spend one month in one of the local production plants. The production plant we had our apprenticeship in hired several hundred workers. The concept underlying having such an apprenticeship as part of the curriculum of a technical secondary school was (and still is) undoubtedly commendable and appropriate…

Friday, Jan. 24th, 2020 | 28th Teveth, 5780 – My mother’s grandfather, Avram Hirsch Tchervinsky was a blacksmith for horses here in Warsaw, when it was ruled by the Czars of Russia. One of my father’s grandfathers, Gedalyah Moshe Wisnia owned a leather tanning factory in Otvotsk; and the other grandfather, Yosef Haberman owned a furniture factory in Sochaczew. Poland runs deep in my family.

For Beit Warszawa, 10th. January 2020 – This week’s sidra forms the end of the Book of Bereshit, Genesis, and winds up the period of the Patriarchs which commenced with Abraham’s ”call” at the beginning of Chapter 12. In Chapter 49 Jacob dies and in chapter 50 is buried with great honours at the cave of Machpela in Hebron which Abraham had bought as a family tomb when Sarah died, in the land of Canaan (although for some reason they are also somewhere ”across the Jordan” for a while…

Thoughts of parashat Vayigash We live in an age of many different and often conflicting narratives. All the different worldviews can be easily pitted against each other, with a promotion of “the only right one”, in order to wage yet another ideological war. One can also go in a different direction: from the fact that […]

Thoughts on Parashat Miketz In last week’s Torah portion we read about the dramatic events of Joseph’s life. After he was sold by his brothers to Egypt as a slave he became a servant of Pharaoh’s official – Potiphar. He made Joseph the administrator of his home, entrusting him with all his property. Soon after, […]