who's in the kitchen: judy joszef

Woodmere man recalls good life in Czechoslovakia

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During a recent Shabbat lunch at our home with friends, my husband Jerry said that he would never visit any place in Europe that either expelled its Jews, or whose people werae notoriously anti-Semitic.

He went on to say that the one country he aspired to visit was Czechoslovakia, in particular the Carpathian Rus’ mountain region, where his mom lived. His mother regularly spoke about the warm and respectful relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish community in her hometown.

One story that particularly touched her involved their non-Jewish neighbors coming by their chasdishe home to sing Christmas carols outside; her parents reciprocated by serving them drinks and snacks in the spirit of neighborly congeniality. And then there was the time that her brother Shoima was swept into a raging river near their home. A non-Jewish neighbor leapt into the river, risking his life to save his Jewish neighbor’s son. He ran to the boy’s house with the limp body in his arms and helped revive him there.

My friend Debbie Shafran excitedly told us that her parents, residents of Woodmere, were also from that  region. Her dad, as well, always spoke about the good treatment of Jews in Czechoslovakia. He attributed this remarkable phenomena to the country’s first president, Tomáš Masaryk. 

Her dad referred to Masaryk as the Czech George Washington. Under his country’s democratic constitution, Jews were granted all of the legal, civil and all other rights and privileges that Czech citizens were entitled to. His government-funded Jewish parochial schools were freely available to each Jewish child. Most importantly, every Czech Jew knew that Masaryk had staunchly supported and defended a Jew who was wrongly convicted of a ritual murder charge. Not only did Masaryk defend and exonerate him, he secretly supported him for over ten years, until he died.

Debbie thought it would be a great idea for Jerry to meet her dad and hear his story firsthand.

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