THE END (SORT OF)

Dear friends, This blog will be soon discontinued as we have published all these accounts into an e-book available at Amazon, with new pictures and updates. You are welcome to visit it at the Amazon website (kindle version). The book "Moldova Impressions (and everything after)" was made possible by the 2021 Word grant. Word is a program of American Jewish University's Institute for Jewish Creativity. Word: Bruce Geller Memorial Prize is made possible by the late Jeanette Geller in memory of her husband Bruce. There will be an online event about this grant and the grantees, you can register for free at https://learning.aju.edu/event/digital-word-2021-meet-the-grantees/ Thank you all for following! Keep in touch at www.cassiotolpolar.com

WALKING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The "Bom Fim"neighborhood

I see many elderly people walking in the streets of "Bom Fim", the renowned Jewish neghborhood where I live in Southern Brazil. Some are in their 80's, other already in their 90's. Some walk alone, others with their caregivers or their family members. Most of them have been living here for over 50 years. Not all of them are Jewish. But each of them carry a particular set of memories, a history. I don't see them as old, but as bearers of a past that doesn't exist anymore. They remember a type of childhood that will be forgotten. They hold a specific kind of life that is gone. 

As time passes, these groups of people will disappear, and the next one will arrive. Historical events will build up one on top of another, and we will have even more things to remember. History will inevitably be extended, information expanded - so things will make sense.

For now I enjoy watching the elders. They remind me of something familiar, like relatives I don't have anymore. It makes me feel at home. And sometime in the future I might be one of them, and I might enjoy watching youngsters, knowing I was one years ago.

MITL - A TALE INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS

My grandmother Amália was sick in the hospital, very weak, with a feeble memory. I came to visit her, we tried to talk, and luckily she remembered me. But hardly enough. Most of her recollections would dwell in an early past. At some point she said the word "Mitl". I asked her again and she repeated: "Mitl, mitl...” And then fell back to deep sleep.

I had never heard this word before. What could it mean? Grandma spoke Yiddish, so it could be a Yiddish word. Or maybe the name of a relative?  A special recipe from Bessarabia her mom used to cook?

I asked my mom, daughter of grandma. Never heard about Mitl. Asked my dad, known as the family scholar, and also a Yiddish speaker. Never heard it either. What secrets could possibly lie under this mysterious word?

I went for the first resource mankind goes for when faced with an unanswerable question: Google. But I'm pretty sure Amália was not referring to a networks corporation, a tennis league or stock exchange group. 

I called my uncle and aunts. I called grandma's two sisters. I called cousins. I asked the Rabbis. Nothing. Who was this Mitl? I was by then convinced it was a person. Maybe grandma's first love? Or somebody she really liked? Or lived a tragedy with? Or her favorite pet?

But wait. Could it be that I heard it wrong? Grandma was weak and her voice frail. Maybe was it Motl? I looked it up on the internet. Motl is the abbreviation for March of the Living. But I doubt Amália was referring to this event on her hospital bed. I started researching all possible variations, but couldn't reach a satisfactory resolution.

Then I reached out to genealogy groups. These are great people. If they don't know something, they know somebody who does. But even they could not help me. 

Next week I went back to the hospital. Amália didn't say a word. She would just look at my shirt, like trying to read something. "Vlei"she said. I looked at my shirt: it read "fly". It was then I realized! Mitl was not a person, a pet or some dish from Bessarabia, where her family had come from. The day I first visited Amália I had a shirt and on it was written "Midtown". I bought it because it was the name of the neighborhood I used to live in Los Angeles. Well, grandma couldn't speak or read English, so "Midtown" became... MITL! She was just reading my shirt all along.

So, if you ever have a Jewish Brazilian grandmother at the hospital saying "Mitl", it could just be your shirt.

By the way, Amália is already out of the hospital, recovering just fine. I haven't told her this story yet.

TIME

Two recent events made me think of time and how we handle it. First, my 95 year old grandmother was hospitalized, and still there at this moment. Secondly, a fellow filmmaker whom I met in Chisinau while shooting Mamaliga Blues, died of cancer.

I was able to record many conversations with my grandmother, and made some videos of her cooking old Jewish recipes. People say that photography and video made people immortal. They are there for us - forever. Somewhat. But this event also made me think of the many stories she never told on video, that I always used to hear but can also forget so easily. There is always so little time to devote to it.

I was unaware my friend had cancer and learned of his death on Facebook days ago. Viorel and I hung for a few days in Chisinau, he showed me the city's nightlife, we went to some bars, a rock concert and local restaurants. He introduced me to some of his friends and told me stories of the Soviet era. Kind and always available, I admired Viorel's sense of humor. I remember he said it was hard to film in Moldova's countryside because every little village he stopped the locals would make sure he tried their homemade wine. Inevitably drunk, the crew ended up not making the film. And then he said Moldovans regarded themselves as the Latin people of Eastern Europe. But most of his other stories I already forgot. Viorel was not recorded by me. I have only a picture with him. 

Everybody knows life is short, but the other problem is time. We always wished we had more time. Time can be interrupted all of a sudden. And it can only live through preservation of memory. Memory is endless time.

Viorel and I - our only picture - in Chisinau, 2008

RAMIFICATIONS

A few years ago, after a screening of  my documentary Mamaliga Blues (https://www.darkhollowfilms.com/product/mamaliga-blues/), a man came to me and said that he spotted his younger self in one of the photos shown in the film. This is genealogy. Surprising, revealing, it makes us reflect, imagine, put pieces together endlessly.

A genealogical tree ramifies its branches not only into family relationships but also into actions. We can start investigating something and, without knowing where it could take us, end up in a unforeseen scenario. It's beautiful.

I'm writing this because my curiosity was triggered (it's always curiosity at the end, right?) by my own family's history, and now transcends to something else, the immigration of Jews around the globe, and mainly the Baron de Hirsch initiatives. Something that started back in 2005, now dwelves on the Jewish Colonization Association activities.

In 2015 I received a grant from Asylum Arts to produce a film that investigated the first Jewish colony in Brazil, established in 1903, A trip to Philippson (https://www.cassiotolpolar.com/projects). During the research and production process I read Baron de Hirsch's biography, The Moses of the Americas (by Dominique Frischer) and became fascinated by this complex and unique character whose endeavors affected greatly the course of History – but whose life is a bit obscure. 

Baron Maurice de Hirsch

A lesser known character in Jewish and World History, Hirsch's endeavors were highly successful. He was overshadowed by Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism and was not very fond of the creation of a unique Jewish State as he supported the assimilation and spread of Jews around the globe. Herzl thought Hirsch could be his first and great ally. Both had the energy and interest in making possible for European Jews a new kind of life, but the alliance never happened. They had very different approaches, Hirsch being much more practical and Herzl more idealistic. Nevertheless, his initiatives saved many families from death and were responsible for the creation of a stronger Diaspora, especially amongst Jews originated from the Pale of Settlement (it included Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova, much of present-day Ukraine, parts of eastern Latvia, eastern Poland, and parts of western Russia).

So what will come next? A documentary on Baron de Hirsch's life? Maybe. Let's see where genealogy might take us.

I HATE ISRAEL, BUT NOT THE JEWS

A few years ago I liked a post on Facebook and almost immediately was reprimanded by a friend, who was very angry I had agreed with a pro-Israeli opinion. It was then a discussion started. Facebook is the worse place for this kind of thing, since people use words that can be easily misinterpreted and usually it doesn't go anywhere. People never change their minds on Facebook. But there I was, surprised, confused and upset, trying to understand my angry friend.

After a lot of back and forth she came up with this "I hate Israel but not the Jews". How could I reply to this? It made me even more confused. Could you really hate a country? And furthermore, question its existence? Could I be against Canada, France or India? No, I guess. I could be against their political decisions and government views but not against their proper existence, that would be absurd. Right?

My friend's repulsion of anti-semitism but Israel hatred kind of steered me away from the discussion and it made me think on my own. It was then much later that I understood her words. I understood by reading, reflecting and talking to other people. Little by little, a couple of things became very clear to me and helped me in my logical thought.

The first one is that the Jewish people were persecuted for thousands of years, name the slavery in Egypt, inquisition, pogroms, etc, the most relevant and recent event being the Holocaust. Anti-semitism always existed. When the Holocaust started to happen and Jews were being murdered, NOBODY intervened. War did not erupt to save the Jews, communists, gypsies people with disabilities or hommosexuals, but because countries self interests were being threatened.

Then Israel was created, the only safe haven for the Jewish people. Now they would be persecuted no more because they have a nation to defend them, something they can rely on, which never existed before. Israel is not perfect but it is, amongst the 196 nations, the only one Jewish State in the world .

Because of that, the second thing clear to me is that if Israel ever ceases to exist, all the Jewish people will fall along with it, becoming endangered and left at the mercy of sheer luck once again. The pogrom era could come back, anti-semitism would flourish even more, other nations could do whatever they wanted with their Jewish population, like they did many times. 

So now I could go back to my friend and resolve the contradictory sensation I had. I wished I could have said at the time: "My dear friend I'm sorry to tell you this, but if you hate Israel and question its existence, you might not even realize, but deep inside, somewhere in your uncousciousness, you do hate the Jews as well." 

OLISCANI - AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN SHTETL

I think I've met about 7 people whose family came from Oliscani, or Oleshkon, or Olishkany. I know there might be more, but I believe only a handful know about their origins. There are no more Jews in Oliscani. There is NOTHING Jewish in Oliscani anymore. Like all, or at least most shtetls in Europe, its Jewish past is vanished, only alive in a few memory moments. 

I was recently contacted by Elvira Volcu, who said her family came from Oliscani as well. She said there were approximately 80 Jewish families there initially. Elvira lives in Chisinau, but she was able to send me some actual pictures of the shtetl, and its former Jewish sites. Below is the proof of what pogroms did over the years and the Holocaust finally concluded.

THE SCHOOL (STARTED IN THE 1930'S)

THE SCHOOL TODAY 

THE SYNAGOGUE WAS HERE

IT WAS A JEWISH HOME, NOW IT'S A STORE

FORMER JEWISH SITE

THIS WAS A JEWISH HOUSE

ANOTHER FORMER JEWISH HOME