I think I finally figured out where my great-grandfather was disappeared to.

His name was Iuvalich Eduard Simon, but I’m guessing he went by Eduard to blend in more as a traveling salesman.

The last known address we have of him is in a town in what is now on the border between Poland and Kaliningrad. He was a traveler selling wares and fixing shoes going from town to town. They probably just deported him when he was in Cologne.

#Yahrzeit 🕯️

Don’t think of mourning as the opposite of joy, by Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein July 31, 2024

"...The month of Av begins with deep mourning, particularly during the first nine days when we put joyous occasions on hold. The grief peaks on Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month, a day that gathers all our collective sorrows into one heavy moment. We remember...many other heartaches. The weight of our history presses down on us, demanding that we face our pain head-on.

...Joy, he says, is not merely the absence of sorrow, but the presence of a deeper connection that transcends our immediate circumstances. And in Jewish tradition, our joy is inherently collective. “The festivals as described in Deuteronomy are days of joy, precisely because they are occasions of collective celebration,” he writes. In our shared connection with God and each other, we discover a communal joy that carries us through even the toughest times..."

https://www.jta.org/2024/07/31/ideas/dont-think-of-mourning-as-the-opposite-of-joy

#Mazeldon #Jewniverse #Jewish #Yahrzeit #Yizkor

Mourning and Meaning Making -
Someday our current sorrows will be memories, woven into the tapestry of our shared destiny, By Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein

This article initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge on May 18, 2024.

"...This year, that process is more fraught than most. It has been only six months since the massacres of October 7th, and we are still engulfed in a brutal war. How can we engage in acts of ritual remembering when we are living in between “they tried to kill us” and “we prevailed?”

Our processes of mourning and memory can provide some guideposts. ...We gather, share stories and support those in the depths of grief, collectively waiting for the time when we might begin to make meaning. This sharing is the beginning of a narrative process during which memories become stories, eventually burnished into legacy when they motivate our actions..."

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mourning-and-meaning-making/

#Mazeldon #Jewniverse #JFedi #Omer #Judaism #Jewish #Shavuot #Yahrzeit

Tonight is my great-grandfather's yahrzeit. He immigrated to NYC from the Visoke shtetl in Poland in the 1890s as a child. He was institutionalized in the Pilgrim State Hospital around 1950, around the time it had the largest patient population of any mental institution in the world (nearly 14,000).

That's about all I know about the guy, but he lived through some shit and it didn't kill him until he was in his 80s. May his memory be a blessing.

#yahrzeit

Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

28 years and I miss him like he left us yesterday.

#DaysBetween Day 9 #yahrzeit