מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead.

That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all.

I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead.

I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines.

I don't expect the young children buried here or

the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic.

Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being.

Yesterday, I experienced a little bit of מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים.

I have known for my entire life that my grandfather Jacob was born in Frampol, Ukraine. Around the time he was born the town had a population of about 1,000. Eighty percent of the population was Jewish.

My great grandmother, Hudya,

came to America along with her two daughters. her husband Zalman Pesach did not.We have a photo of Zalman Pesach but we don't know his last name.

Hudya was born into the Freider family. My grandfather came to New York with his uncle Yossel Freider and his wife and children.My grandfather came on the visa of a Frieder cousin who had died and he borrowed the cousin's last name as well.

When My grandfather arrived he had various Frieder cousins who were a part of his life. My grandfather's cousin Pinchas officiated at my grandparent's wedding.

I have been doing genealogy research for a while. My Freider cousin Jeff has done an incredible job gathering up as many Freider descendants and ancestors as he can.He has traced our lineage back to the late 1700s which is pretty extraordinary for a simple family that lived in a teeny village in the countryside.

One of the Freiders is Mikhail who grew up in the Soviet Union. Mikhail's father Sanya was born in Frampol. After Sanya died in 1991 Mikhail started to research his family and went to visit Frampol.

This is one of Mikhail's haunting photos of a cemetery near Frampol where some of our cousins were buried.

Dozens of Freider cousins lived in the surrounding area in various small towns and villages. Sanya and another cousin from Frampol served in the Russian army during the Second World War. Sayna's cousin was killed. Nathaniel survived. He was the only Frieder survivor of the Holocaust in the region.

Earlier this week I discovered that Mikhail wasn't living in Russia any more, he was living in Rockland County just north of New York City. We arranged to meet yesterday with Mikhail's daughter and wife. Ironically, we met in the town library right across the street where my grandfather died.

Mikhail mentioned as he looked over the giant family tree put together by our cousin Jeff that he has no idea how he fits into that family tree. He doesn't know the names of his extended family. His father couldn't bear to talk of it after the war.

We shared what we could. I brought my mother's photo album. My great grandfather was a shochet, a ritual slaughterer or butcher. So was Mikhail's grandfather. When it was time to say goodbye I said " Zai gezunt", go in good health just like I used to when I departed after a visit with my grandparents. Mikhail responded in the same Yiddish accent as mine.

This morning Mikhail's daughter wrote to me and said that now their family no longer feels alone.

My grandfather and his mother and sisters uprooted themselves and moved to a new country and never saw their Frampol homes again. But after they left their community still existed.

Mikhail's father left home to fight the Nazis and came home to discover that he was the only Freider from his town and from the region.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

Blessed are You, God, Resurrector of the dead.

My cousin Mikhail put together a book about Frampol. You can read the PDF Here

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

Ellen Marder PriesSeptember 23, 2024 at 11:12 PM
Sarah, this is absolutely fascinating! Thank you for sharing it with us especially before the High Holidays when we think of and lovingly remember all our family members who are no longer with us.
Sarah JacobsSeptember 23, 2024 at 11:46 PM
Thank you Ellen!! שנה טובה!!

sarah in nyc

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