A good story hinges upon the improbable. This story takes “improbable” past man’s farthest ken.
Latzi Reich was born in tiny Yablonitza, near Bratislava, Slovakia. One might have imagined that a small town like this, which had such a sparse number of Jews, might have escaped the Nazi scourge, but this was not the case. As long as there was a solitary Jew, the German army would be mobilized to implement the Final Solution, über alles.
At the age of eleven and a half, Latzi was shipped to Auschwitz and, in a history-defying feat, survived there – against the Nazis’ best wishes – for two-and-a-half years. Upon liberation, Latzi was fourteen years old and free to… what? Where was an orphan alone in the world to go?
Like so many other survivors, he scavenged across Europe, vainly hoping to find family. Latzi was more fortunate than most others and discovered his Aunt Rosa, who nursed him back to health during a long convalescent period.
When Latzi was fully back on his feet, he had to decide what future looked the brightest for him; he had already experienced more than anyone’s share of doom and gloom. In sync with the rabbinic adage (although he had grown up devoid of any religious tradition) “Mishaneh makom, mishaneh mazal,” (“Change your spot, change your lot”), Latzi departed at the age of eighteen to Israel along with 120 other Slovakian youth to join a Shomer Hatza’ir – staunchly anti-religious – kibbutz in northern Israel.
The plan was a good one (especially considering the lack of other viable options), but the reality was not to his liking. Latzi stuck it out as long as he could, but when he got thoroughly disenchanted with kibbutz life, he headed to Tel Aviv where he became a longshoreman. And it was there in Tel Aviv that lonely Latzi Reich heard the rumor that every survivor hoped for – someone from his former life had survived and was just around the corner.
According to the information that he was given, his good friend from Auschwitz, Yozo Weiss, was now a taxi driver in Tel Aviv! Lonely Latzi just had to find Yozo.
Every day after work he approached a taxi stand to inquire if his friend worked for them. After weeks of relentless searching, he happened upon the right stand. The taxi dispatcher confirmed that Yozo was part of the fleet, and that he was currently on duty.
Breathlessly, Latzi requested that she inform Yozo that Latzi Reich was at the dispatcher’s office and waiting to see him. Serach Adiv obligingly depressed the talk switch on the mike and conveyed the message. Yozo felt himself go faint and sturdily held on to the wheel. He could not, at first, respond. Serach repeated the call, causing other unabashed drivers to verbally wonder what was happening. Finally, Yozo found his tongue and replied that he had just picked up a fare, but when he finished, he would head right over. But as soon as Yozo dropped off his passenger, he was hailed again, and in those financially challenging 1950s he could not afford to refuse an opportunity. One fare led to another, and it was a full hour before Yozo returned to the station.
In the meantime, Latzi, overwrought with emotion, opened up to the only person present. He stuttered and still had a potent and lingering case of PTSD, but he could not refrain from unspooling what he had undergone.
It was a surreal scene: Every two minutes the phones were pealing with that strange European urgency, RRRRing RRRRing RRRRing, as the dispatcher solicited drivers in a compressed tinny voice (thanks to the limited bandwidth) amid the frequent crackles, hisses, and bursts of static interference, the distinct squelch tail squawks that marked the end of transmissions, and a cacophony of drivers barking radio codes and abbreviations of street and neighborhood nicknames.
Despite the din, Serach gave Latzi her fullest attention. In no time Latzi was crying and so was she, as he recounted what he underwent and all that he had lost. Serach, like most immigrants from North Africa, were not intimately acquainted with the horrors of the Holocaust. Her father had been a chacham in Libya – when he would walk the streets of Tripoli, the children would line up and kiss his hands. In Tel Aviv he also served as a rabbi.
When Serach returned home from work, she related to her parents the searing emotional encounter she had undergone. Their immediate response was for her to invite Latzi for Shabbat the next time he came to the taxi station. She did not have to wait long, and the next week he was invited for Friday night dinner.
Latzi, by this point referred to as Yehuda, committed numerous faux pas due to his ignorance of Judaism, the first being the bouquet of flowers he brought that could not be inserted into water on Shabbat. The large family sitting around the table made no mention of the innocent errors and accepted their guest warmly and hospitably.
For the first time, Yehuda witnessed the sanctity of Shabbat, as well as a beautiful family enjoying a Shabbat meal, also a novelty. And he also noticed one other thing.
Exhaling like one about to jump into icy water, he addressed the head of the family. “I see that you have three single daughters. Maybe I could marry one of them?”
Thoroughly unflustered, the Chacham responded, “You already know Serach – why don’t you marry her?” No other response could have better pleased Yehuda. But it wasn’t a surfeit of satisfaction that spread across the room. Slack-jawed, with eyeballs nearly bulging out of their sockets, Serach beseeched, “Abatah, Umah, we need to go to the other room to speak!” A mushroom of tension enveloped the home as the three slipped into the kitchen and closed the door.
Incredulous, Serach demanded, “How in the world can I marry this guy? First of all, he doesn’t know anything about Judaism and is totally not religious. Secondly, he is Ashkenazi!” (In the 1950s in Israel, it was unheard of for an Ashkenazi and Sepharadi to intermarry.)
To make a paradoxical situation all the more enigmatic, Serach’s mother pronounced, “These are minor details. He will learn from you.”
The Chacham then weighed in. “He appears to be an honorable person, and Serach, you are the only family he has. This is the kind of altruism that we expect from you.”
Nothing more had to be said.
Before the family erupted into a chorus of song to celebrate the engagement, the Chacham informed Yehuda of the modest ground rules. “You will be just beginning to learn about Judaism so I shall not rush you, but you must understand that we have a religious home. What you do outside is your business, but inside everything is governed by Torah law.”
Just one month later, the couple was married, and the proverbial “and they lived happily ever after” was exquisitely fulfilled. As her father further instructed, Serach looked after Yehuda’s every need, despite the fact that he never made a single request from her – for the next 59 blessed years!
Author’s note: By and large, Holocaust survivors did not receive a sympathetic welcome from their Sephardic brethren in Israel, and Israelis in general were appallingly inconsiderate, referring to them derisively as sabonim (bars of soap). This only changed after the Eichmann trial in 1961 when the horror of what was perpetuated, and the impossibility of resistance, was disclosed to a nation that listened avidly to the trial proceedings on the radio daily.
