David

         The story of my family’s journey to America reaches far beyond just one generation. My father moved to New York in 1980, but before he was even born his family’s existence depended on the courage of one man, my great-grandfather.

         When I was growing up my father used to tell me amazing stories about his grandfather. He told these stories with such respect and reverence for a man I never had the privilege to meet. In my father’s stories, my great-grandfather was always described as a very big, strong man. My father told me how his grandfather used to hammer in nails with the palm of his hand, and how he was able to break down doors almost effortlessly. Most of all, my father always seemed to emphasize my great-grandfather’s towering stature that made everything surrounding him appear to be smaller. One day, I was able to find a photograph of my great-grandfather standing with my father at my father’s Bar Mitzvah. I could not help but notice that my great-grandfather was not as tall as my father said he was, in fact, he was fairly small. This made me wonder why my father had told me his grandfather was a giant. I soon realized that my father did not mean giant in stature, rather he meant giant in character. This inspired me to learn more about my great-grandfather’s life and history. I wanted to know what made my father have such an elevated level of respect, enough to see his grandfather as a giant.

         My great-grandfather was an early ancestor of Sephardic Jewry in Greece. He lived in Greece his entire life and was able to make a very comfortable living there. As the stability of Europe began to subside during the years before World War II, he decided to leave everything behind and move his family to what was then called Palestine. He left all of his brothers and sisters, and unwillingly most of his fortune behind. I do not know what compelled him to leave such a comfortable lifestyle, because at the time, nobody anticipated the devastating future that lay ahead.

What was it that made my great-grandfather such a great man in the eyes of my father, and what was it that made him decide to move his entire life to, what is now, Israel? I sat down with my father and asked him to tell me all about his grandfather’s life, and I also did a little research about Jewish communities in Greece. What I was able to learn about my history was more than remarkable.

My great-grandfather grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece, one of the largest Sephardic Jewish communities in all of Europe. He spoke Ladino, the Romance language of the Sephardic Jews. Greece, especially the city of Thessaloniki, which was also called, “La Madre de Israel,” or, “The Mother of Israel,” is known as a historical center of Sephardic Jewish life (Sephardic Studies). After the 16th century, nearly 20,000 Sephardic Jews had immigrated to Greece from Spain following the expulsion.  By 1519 Sephardic Jews numbered 15,715, 54% of the city’s population (Britannica). In 1917, The Great Thessaloniki Fire ravaged through the center of the city destroying everything in its path, including religious structures, buildings and businesses. The fire left nearly one quarter of the population without a home (Mazower, 2005). Almost half of the Greek population left the country after this disaster, but my great-grandfather, who was only a young boy at the time, stayed put.  In 1922, the Ottoman Empire began to fall. Greeks were expelled from Turkey and many refugees came to Thessaloniki, thus reducing the proportion of Jews in the total community (Mazower, 2005). Greece continued to emphasize that all citizens of Greece should receive equal rights, therefore a considerable number of the city’s Jews decided to stay.

         World War II brought disaster for Jewish people of Thessaloniki. The city fell to the forces of Nazi Germany on April 22, 1941.  Soon all Jews were ordered to wear the “Yellow Star,” and were forced to move into an enclosed ghetto adjacent to the rail-lines, called Baron Hirsch. Thessaloniki lost 94 percent of its Jews in the Holocaust. Only 1,200 are left there today, a mere shadow of the once glorious “La Madre de Israel” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).

My great-grandfather was a wealthy man. He owned a restaurant and a lumberyard, as well as many properties in Thessaloniki. In the late 1930’s, as tensions in Europe began to escalate, my great-grandfather foresaw something that others did not.  When Hitler started to seize the power of a war torn Germany in 1933, my great-grandfather realized that it was time for him and his family to get out of Europe.  He tried to convince his brothers and sisters to leave with him, but they did not want to go. Their families were living in Greece for so many generations, and their currently comfortable lifestyles were so ingrained within them that they were not able to easily leave that all behind. Finally, in 1938, he tried to sell everything of his that he could, and shipped himself, his wife, his two sons and two daughters off to Palestine. All of his relatives that he left behind perished in the Holocaust.  Somehow my great-grandfather cheated death.

         My father was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel on March 15, 1952, four years after the establishment of the state of Israel. After serving in the army fighting for his young country in two wars, he traveled to the United States with no intention of staying. During his trip to New York he met my mother and eventually married her. Like his grandfather, he began to stat a new life in a foreign land, but this time for a better reason.

         There is no way to predict where one’s family will be in future generations. Whether it is love, war, or anything else, there are countless reasons for one to leave his native country. All I can do is look back to my ancestors and recognize the fact that I owe my entire existence to the strength and courage of my great-grandfather, and the fateful meeting of my two parents. I can now see why my father had so much respect for my great-grandfather. I now see how big he truly was.