For those who are standing between the sea and the dry land

 Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This year the liberation comes just as the hostages in Gaza are being released drip by drip. It's an anxious time of high emotions.

At my synagogue, like so many other across the globe, this prayer is sing during services as a prayer of  hope for the liberation of  the hostages.

אַחֵינוּ כָּל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל הַנְּתוּנִים בַּצָּרָה וּבַשִּׁבְיָה הָעוֹמְדִים בֵּין בַּיָּם וּבֵין בַּיַּבָּשָׁה הַמָּקוֹם יְרַחֵם עֲלֵיהֶם וְיוֹצִיאֵם מִצָּרָה לִרְוָחָה וּמֵאֲפֵלָה לְאוֹרָה וּמִשִּׁעְבּוּד לִגְאֻלָּה הָשָׁתָא בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב

Our brothers, the entire house of Israel

Who are in a place of trouble or captivity

Those that stand between the sea and dry land

May God have mercy on them

And take them from trouble to ease

from darkness to light

from slavery to freedom

Soon and speedily

When I hear this sung in synagogue I am usually too choked up to sing.By the time we get to the line about being between the sea and dry land my tears begin. I stand with everyone else but instead of singing I just cry.

The melody was written by Abie Rotenberg who was part of the great flowering of  folk/rock Chassidic music composition here in New York  starting in the late 60s and early 1970s. This melody is sung by Jews across the religious spectrum. The melody amplifies the words and the emotions of the text.  

As you see from these (only three) arrangements it's truly sung by a wide swath of the Jewish world. This melody has been my earworm for the past while.

 This morning one of my cousins texted me this letter.

You can double click it to see it larger. This letter was written to my Aunt Irene, my father's twin sister in June of 1938.  My father and his sister had turned eleven just before this letter was written. They had raised money to help liberate a German Jewish girl and send her to Palestine.

A very little bit of Google searching helped me to understand this a bit better. Between 1933 and 1939 ( and especially between 1938 and 9) there was a push by Youth Aliya to get kids out of Germany and Austria and bring them to Palestine. Terrible things were brewing in Germany and Austria. It cost $360 to transport a child to Palestine and support them for two years. I assume that this also included what one had to pay to the German or Austrian government to allow the child to leave.Youth Aliya saved over five thousand children between 1933 and 39.

My aunt told me today that she and my father used to stand on street corners in Miami asking for money from passersby  for this project. I don't know exactly how much of that $360 Irene and my father raised but it was enough to warrant this letter.

You can read more about Youth Aliya here. 

The language of the letter echoes the language of the prayer I quoted at the beginning of this post.

There are people who say that Americans, including American Jews had no idea about the situation for Jews in Europe before the Holocaust. And yet, two children in Miami, (which in 1938 was a Jewish backwater) were concerned enough about what was going on in Germany  to stand on  street corner, askings for change from strangers and do their best to save a child from death.