Kristallnacht

Last night my companion and I attended a Jewish Sabbath worship service at the Temple-Tifereth Israel Synagogue in an eastern suburb of Cleveland, meaningful for us in many ways, and deeply moving.

I am appallingly ignorant about Judaism and apologize for knowing so little, given that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and their scripture was the Hebrew Bible, what Christians have for centuries been calling the Old Testament.

I do know that the people in attendance there were lovely and their worship behavior was reverent and majestic.  When we entered the large sanctuary we were greeted with "Shalom" and each of us handed a program and a worship book in Hebrew and English that is read from back to front, right to left, as is Arabic.  The rabbi who led the readings  directed the congregation to the page numbers in question and we were able to follow along pretty well.

This sabbath worship service remembered Kristallnacht, the nights in November 1938 in Nazi Germany when its Jewish population was attacked by stormtroopers and many non-Jewish civilians, destroying their homes, shops, and synagogues, and murdering many of them.  It was beginning of the Holocaust in which many Jews were imprisoned in death camps and massacred, up to the time of the invasion of the Allied forces and liberation of the camps in 1945.  The teens of the congregation lit candles of remembrance and read passages of history about the Holocaust.

Music was performed by members of the Cleveland Orchestra.  It included works of Ernest Bloch, Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokoviev, John Williams' Theme from Schindler's List, and songs by Srul Irving Glick.

I'm thankful for the experience.  Shalom.