BETH OLIM  (Eternal Home)

The town's highway, whose origin was the city square, ran past our home and the Talanda House on the right, and the Greek Orthodox church on the left.  As it continued further, it connected with the street that separated the homes of the Jews facing the market square, and the homes of the Poles, with their neat houses and fruit orchards.  Further along, it merged with the street that ran in the front of the Shul, and then continued up past the Jewish cemetery sited on a hill, and then past a still higher hill which housed the Polish cemetery, and finally it ran through the Goray Mountains. 

While the Polish burial site was neat and orderly, with rows of white crosses and stable monuments, this was not the fate of the Jewish cemetery.  The entire cemetery area was very old, and it showed its age.  During the passage of hundreds of years of use,  the iron clad wooden wheels of carts and carriages  had worn deep canyons into the clay soil underlying this roadway.  These had become so deep that even horses progressing through the canyons could not be seen.  If one wanted to cross this highway, which was actually quite narrow, one had to go up or down about a half-mile to get to the other side.  Even the parts that were essentially rocky were deeply cut through.

When I was still attending school, my art class took us out to draw and paint on the well maintained Polish side.  It was not a sad place, and the view was magnificent.  I could see the flat wetlands where the river Wieprz, gleaming like a silver scarf, was flowing.

The Jewish Beth Olim appeared old, very very old, and it was undoubtedly older than the Polish cemetery.  No one could actually determine when it had been established,  although there were strong indications that it existed before 1352, the date when the Polish King,  Kazimierzs Wielki,  gave several Jewish communities permission to build their prayer houses.

Whenever Jews started a community,  as long as they had at least 10 men for a minyon, they immediately bought land for a cemetery.  When a Hebrew died he was buried the following day, except when the death occurred on a Friday, and then he was buried the same day.

Written records are still in existence about the Jews living in this Shtetel;  Sherbershin.  I believe that my theories about the Spanish Jews, like the Talanda family, have been validated by these records.

In 1550 thirty rabbis held a meeting in our province to deal with the authorities. Among this group was the rabbi from Sherbershin.

There is a record from 1614 about a great rabbi from our shtetel by the name of Delacruz.  In 1618, the "Conference of the Four Lands" had a delegation from our township, and in 1701 the Conference was held in Sherbershin!

Also, I find that in 1555 a man from our town, Mr. Gumpech, published (in Italy) a book for women about Purim and Channukah in a mixture of German and Yiddish. He also wrote other stories in poetic form that were included in the "Tzen-Worene" (sometimes included in women’s prayer books).  He lived in our shtetel, and so written materials remain about this old Jewish town.

At the entrance to the Jewish cemetery there was a gate and a comfortable small house where the caretaker lived.  She was a Polish widow, and she had raised a son there.  I remember him well.  He was paralyzed in one leg and one arm.  Everyone "knew" that this was a punishment for urinating on a grave of a great rabbi.  Even the Polish people believed this.

The cemetery was overgrown with tall grasses and fruit trees. The winds and birds deposited seeds from nearby orchards.  Nobody ever wanted to eat the fruit as the roots reached down deeply, and it was said that they got their nourishment from the people buried below.

As a Kohen I was not permitted to visit the cemetery.  A  Kohen must stay away from anything that is not alive.  But I, together with friends, disobeyed, and went to this old place several times.  Even my grandmother, when I was very young, took me along, and pointed out where our family was interred.

It was not a frightening place.  Mostly it was appeared peaceful and looked comfortable. When people were very sick, and as a last resort,  women went up to the graves of their ancestors and pleaded for intervention.  Their screams were loud and urgent.  It was said that they screamed "loud enough to wake the dead."

The elements and time, however, were not kind to the monuments and markers.  The old painted letters faded.  Even the chiseled out words on the stones could not be read.  Some monuments sank deep into the ground.  Some toppled over on their faces.  They were too heavy to be put back in the upright position.  Some were made of wood, usually oak, but wood deteriorates and rots away, or sinks into the ground.

And there were exceptions.  To the right of the entrance was a tall stone marker with the names of a mother and seven sons (Kohanim) that were buried together, all  having died on the same day.  But there was no date.  Did they die in an epidemic, in a pogrom?  A story was told that they were about to be taken as slaves, but they chose suicide in order to escape.  Nearby was also a very large stone with a name of a rabbi, Symcha the healer. They came to him for intervention in truly hopeless situations.  People swear that sometimes it worked.

There were many other miracle working graves.  The shtetel's burial society came up to the cemetery several times a year to repair or replace some of the markers, but it was too much of a job for the volunteers, and so the neglect continued – 700 years of wear is almost impossible to clean up.

There  was not really a complete division between the people living in the shtetel and the people interred in the cemetery.  Everyone living knew that too soon they would also rest in this sacred place.  The people sleeping there were not really completely gone.  They were just resting.  Sometimes at night, some would get up and come to the shul to pray; others would visit their former homes.  They looked out for the living.  Sometimes they were able to help.

It was common knowledge that when a person passes away, he or she would soon be with their loved ones, parents, grandparents, or if they lost their children, they would soon be reunited as parent and child.

There was no dispute about this, and it was comfortable to know that life goes on.  The cemetery looked like an old well used feather bed where a restful good night's sleep is always available.

As a very young child, I speculated about the transition from real life to the extended life that can only be reached through the Beth Olim.

I had a great grandmother that lived to be about 104 years of age.  I was but one of many great grandchildren living around the big house.

If "Baba" caught one of us (it was usually me, as I actually wanted to be caught), she sat down, put the child on her warm lap, and gave him a "Love Patch" – a little loving pat on the face- asked the child to whom they belonged and what was their name.  She could not remember the names of all her great grandchildren.  When I told her my name, she kissed me, reached into a pocket of her apron, found something good to give me, like raisins, a few nuts, or some sweet candy. 

"And what is my name," she asked. 

"You are Baba," was my reply.

"And I will soon go to sleep in the cemetery," she would invariably say, always adding: "And when I do, will you come and visit me? 

I would answer: "Baba, I cannot.  I am a Kohen, and I am not allowed to visit the cemetery."

She would just smile, and say: "That's alright, I'll come and visit you in the night time."

It was heavenly to sit there on her lap, feeling warm, loved, and secure.  As a child, I concluded that this must be the feeling one has when they sleep in the cemetery on the hill.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, they made use of this old place.  They rounded up the Jews – men, women, and children – made them dig their own graves, and killed them without mercy.  There are five mass graves.  Nobody knows how many innocents are buried there.  My own family of about 90 persons were executed, and they are buried there.  Soon there were no more Jews living to be interred there.

I have a cousin, Adam Ryan, who lives in Australia.  He was born in Poland.  He lived through the war and occupation.  He was born in the city of Chelm, lived in the Polish forests, and finally saved himself in Russia.

Two years ago, while visiting Europe with his family, he decided to visit Poland, and especially his birth town of Chelm.  He wanted to look for his roots.  He also wanted to say kadish (prayer for the dead) for all of his deceased family.

The Nazis totally desecrated the Jewish cemetery in Chelm.  They turned the cemetery into a pig farm.  My grandfather, the Rabbi of Chelm, was (perhaps still is) buried there.  Later the place was completely leveled, and it was turned into a pasture.

My cousin could not find a spiritual place to say his prayers, but he knew from the  conversations he had had with me over the years about my shtetel, Sherbershin, that there existed the old Beth Olim.  Although he had never been there, and never knew my family that perished there, he, nevertheless, hired a limo and driver in Warsaw, and drove across Poland to visit my birthplace.

When he arrived he found no Jews living in this very much changed city, but when they came to the cemetery, he felt that he had come home.

He gathered his wife and his three sons about him. They made a circle on one of the mass graves, and standing there said kadish for his own family.

At the conclusion of the prayer there was nothing else to do, nothing else to say.  There were no living Jews left in Sherbershin.  Everything around him was in decay.

As they were leaving, he stumbled on something in the grass.  It was a long buried marker.  He looked at it.  There were many Hebrew letters, and he was finally able to make out the words "Am Israel Chai" – "The Tribe of Israel lives on."

He took this as an omen.  He again gathered his family in a circle, and said kadish, this time for all the people buried there, and for all the Polish Jews who had been murdered. 

They left for Warsaw, and went back to Australia.  They set out new roots in Melbourne where they are well integrated in the general population, and in the Jewish community.  He and his family, and his sister, Lisa Bush, and her family are now there, and prospering.

"Am Israel Chai" indeed, indeed!