How a Muslim Albanian Code of Hospitality Saved Jews During the Holocaust
Plus: Bad month for local kosher restaurants
But First
→ Halloween is over. Thanksgiving is upon us. That can only mean one thing: Hanukkah is coming.
Ugly Hanukkah sweater creators hit a new low:
Olympia’s Seth Goldstein reviews the Hanukkah display at his local Target:
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→ Local Jews in the news. Rabbi Danny Weiner had an op-ed in the Seattle Times about Israel’s recent election; a few days later, local AJC director Regina Sassoon Friedland was cited in a courageous editorial by the Seattle Times editorial board about standing up to anti-Semitism. And kudos to Melissa Rivkin for her piece about Samis’s day school initiatives in the national Prizma journal HaYidion.
→ Kosher catastrophe. First, Island Crust gets busted for a treif cheese violation. Now Muriel’s, the community-oriented kosher joint operating out of Third Place Books Seward Park has closed the bagel after exactly one year in business. Muriel’s reps weren’t ready to talk this week and referred me to owner Josh Grunig’s statement on Indiegogo:
The best piece of advice I ever got about owning my own business; when times are tough, remember why you started the business in the first place. Remember the passion and love of craft that made you obsessed and dedicated enough to stick your neck out and strike out on your own. Remember this and there will always be light ahead. I can say without a doubt that my crew and I have given everything we have to Muriel's. The sweat and tears we have poured into this endeavor; learning all the ways of kosher cookery, the long days, and the ten thousand adjustments to make the best food we know how. Unfortunately, the chips have not been stacked in our favor. Supply chain issues, insane food costs and the general cost of doing business during a pandemic have really made Muriel's success a challenge. We are closing Muriel's, our last service was Sunday 11/13. I can hold my chin up knowing that the staff has worked thier butts off and put in so much. I am proud of the food we have made and all of the full bellies. The regulars who have showed us so much love, you know who you are. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be a part of the Seward Park community. This is not goodbye, just until we see you again.
Running a successful restaurant even not during a pandemic is risky. But it’s hard to deny that the entire enterprise seemed shaky from the get-go, from the confusing space-sharing arrangement to the odd ordering process and the evolving menu. While Grunig doesn’t cite the restrictions and expenses of kashrut in his statement, it’s hard to imagine they didn’t play a role. Kashrut requirements are hard to meet and the community is hard to please. You almost need to do everything right first — great food, perfect business model — or have some alternative cash flow (how exactly does Island Crust stay open? 🤔) before slapping the hechsher on it.
Here’s my reporting from last year.
May your memory be for a blessing, Muriel’s.
Feature
You Never Know the Impact of Something Good
A traveling exhibit from Yad Vashem here in Seattle captures an under-told story of wartime courage and survival.
Dr. Marlene Yahalom, director of education for the American Society of Yad Vashem, discusses the traveling exhibit Besa: Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust. The exhibit features portraits of rescuers taken by Norman Gershman, will be up at the Holocaust Center for Humanity through December 11.
The Cholent: Tell me about yourself and your work as director of education for the American Society for Yad Vashem.
Dr. Marlene Yahalom: I’m from a Holocaust survivor family. Both of my parents and all four of my grandparents went through the Holocaust, and they all survived, which is an unusual statistic for one family that went through the Holocaust. It was always a part of my life.
All my grandparents were originally from Poland. My father’s parents journeyed through Western Europe and then went into hiding in Belgium — my father was a hidden child. He had an older brother that was murdered in Auschwitz. My mother was born in 1930 and was put into forced labor, and her parents survived Auschwitz Birkenau and were liberated from Bergen Belsen. She is originally one of eight children. Four survived, four were killed.
As director of education of the American Society for Yad Vashem, my responsibilities include raising awareness about the Holocaust using educational resources developed by Yad Vashem. Our traveling exhibits are an example of such resources. The Besa exhibit is about the humanity and the bravery of Albania during and before the Holocaust because of the code of Besa, which means to keep your word to give refuge to someone who needs help and to treat them as family.
Tell us about the exhibit and what happened to Jews in Albania during the Holocaust.
During the war, a lot of Jews were hidden in Albania. Albania was the only Muslim country in Europe, so Albanians had a different way of interacting with strangers because of the code of honor called Besa. Albania is the only country in Europe that had a larger population of Jews after the war than before. This exhibit contains testimonials from some of the Albanians who were designated as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. The exhibit tells this incredible story of what the country did to honor the code of Besa. Relative to other topics in the Holocaust, this is late news because the country was under the Iron Curtain for approximately 48 years. After the collapse of Communism, the Albanian Jews came to Israel and started sharing their stories with Yad Vashem. The portraits in the exhibit are the photographs of Norman Gershman, who went to Albania to capture the stories.
What was the Jewish community of Albania like, and why Albania was so different from other Christian as well as Muslim countries during wartime?
We know there were 200 Jews in Albania when World War II started. This information is documented in the Wannsee Protocol, the minutes of the Wannsee conference. A lot of Jews went to Albania in part because they tried to leave [other European countries] from Albania and ended up stuck there as refugees until the war was over.
The daughter of Merushe Kadiu — her parents were rescuers — said, “those years were fearful, but friendship overcomes all fear,” and also, “My father said he would let the Germans kill our family before they killed our guests.” Kasem Jakup Kosserri, another rescuer, said, “We had many Jewish families who were longtime members of our community…Jews and Muslims are cousins.”
I think a lot of the attitude to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust has to do with the history of the Jews in each country, and the opportunities that existed in any given country. It would be different from country to country. It’s also thought that part of the reason that Hitler didn’t penetrate the country so much was that Albania was a poor country. There wasn’t as much to gain from having a stronger presence there.
Why should this story and exhibit matter to us now?
It’s very important because part of our educational strategy is to teach the Holocaust as a story about life, survival, and resilience. We need to be mindful how to identify threats to democracy, how to be aware of a dictator evolving, and how to do the right thing even in the most challenging situations. That’s where the rescuers come in. They had such a strong moral compass. You think about what made someone help someone, as opposed to turning someone in. You kind of wonder when the switch takes place. It’s a strong message to students: When you want to do the right thing, you should do it.
I traveled a bit in Serbia and Montenegro, and I noticed in those Balkan countries that there is a very, very strong ethos of hospitality. Is the code of Besa related to that?
I’m guessing it’s the same code. When you read that Jews were hidden in Albania, they weren’t hidden the same way as in other European countries. They lived with Albanians in their homes as part of the family and not as strangers. To a large part, the Jews were taken into their homes and given Muslim clothes and Muslim names. From Albanians I’ve spoken to, if you don’t honor the code of Besa, you’re shunned by your community. When I give my remarks with this exhibit, I say that in Albania it was a privilege to save a Jew, not a privilege to turn one in. This is an incredible story of rescuers. It’s a lesson that Muslims and Jews can get along.
All the six people that raised me survived at one point through acts of kindness from strangers. You never know the help you’re going to give someone, what it’s going to give to them, so you should just do it. You never know the impact of something good. Just do it.
Visit Besa: Muslim Albanians Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust at the Holocaust Center for Humanity through December 11. The museum is open on Sundays from 10 to 4.
From the mailbag
I love hearing from readers! Positive feedback as well as critque are always welcome at The Cholent.
As I wrote in my response to your recent survey, I have been very enthusiastic about The Cholent, but I was a bit surprised by two items that came up in this week’s edition:
- that there are a preponderance of male authors in Holocaust literature. If you consider the fact the most famous author of Holocaust literature bar none is Anne Frank, and that a number of the signature films on the Holocaust feature women — Sophie’s Choice and Sarah’s Key are examples that come to mind, one can hardly say that women get a short shrift in literature or film. Looking at this page summarizing Holocaust literature written by women, https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/holocaust-literature, there is surely no dearth of women’s contributions.
- the interviewee’s remark that the Sephardic community was nearly annihilated by the Holocaust. This may have been true for the Jews of Salonika, and by extension of Greece and perhaps Yugoslavia, but was certainly not true of the Jews in Turkey, in Morroco and elsewhere in the Sephardic diaspora.
I hope you don’t mind these comments.
Best regards,
David Jacobson
Community Announcements
Check out the Seattle Jewish community calendar and the virtual calendar.
This week’s parasha is Chayei Sarah.
Candlelighting in Seattle is at 4:11 p.m.
Shoutouts
Mazal tov to Joyce and Saul Rivkin on their 27th anniversary! —Melissa Rivkin
Shoutout to Regina Sassoon Friedland, regional director of the AJC, for her steadfast commitment and leadership in advocating for the Jewish community and her 11/4 contribution to the Seattle Times editorial “Follow Bellevue’s example to fight antisemitism.” —Ann Levine