 Matt is with me, Jay Fiedel, and Rabbi Itzhov Kresemchansky of Chabad, Hawaii. Welcome back, Rabbi! It's always nice to see you. It's spiritual uplifting for me. Thank you, Jay. Hopefully you won't disappoint you today. Let's talk about one thing before we get to the holiday theme we've been working on, and that is a movie called The Dibble Next Door. It's about John Demionnik, which is, I guess, a Polish name, I'm not sure. And Demionnik was living in Cleveland. He had married. He had a couple of kids. He went to church, Catholic. And one day, the federal authorities arrested him and deported him because it had been determined, they determined, that he had been a war criminal. And the United States was not going to try him, just deport him. And he wound up being deported to Israel, where they tried him, as Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible was famous in Treblinka, the prison camp. And he was really an awful human being. And he tortured people. He did horrible things to them. I don't even want to repeat on the air the kinds of things he did to them on the way to the crematorium. In other words, they would arrive on the train. And within a very short time, they were marched into the crematorium. And I guess some of them realized that this was not really a shower. It was the gas and cyclone too, was it? And they realized that they were going to their deaths. And they struggled. They complained. They tried to resist. And Ivan the Terrible was there with a bayonet. And he would bayonet them. He would cut them, cut their flesh off, cut people, do terrible things to them. In order to make it clear, they had to go in there now. So he was really awful. And a lot of the survivors, there was 77 survivors from Treblinka. A lot of survivors knew that the fight. He was Ivan the Terrible. So they brought this guy, Demianiek, who had lived in peace and tranquility in Cleveland since the war. And in the 80s is when they deported him back to Israel and they had a trial that lasted a year. And they had a pretty aggressive defense counsel, Israeli defense counsel. They had an American, also defense counsel. Demianiek fired him in the middle of the trial. And they had a prosecutor who I thought was a very decent guy. And there were troubling issues about some of the documents and the testimony by the Israeli survivors. It was a very famous trial in Israel. Everybody was watching it. All the survivors were watching it on television. It was a televised trial. It was like Eichmann, but it was 20 years after Eichmann. 25 years after Eichmann. And it caught everybody's attention. So he was convicted and he was sentenced to hang, which is what the Israeli law said about war criminals of this nature. But at the last minute, there was additional evidence found that added on to reasonable doubt that he was not Ivan the Terrible. He always Ivan the Terrible, I think. And this was in addition to other evidence that caused you to have a little doubt about whether he was, in fact, this monster man. And there were photographs. There was descriptions in some of the writings and found in Germany. And it led to more doubt. And it went to the Supreme Court of Israel. And the Supreme Court of Israel said there was enough doubt to be reasonable doubt. And they reversed it. And they exonerated him. They exonerated him. He was found like guilty. Well, essentially, yeah. They found him not guilty, even though there was evidence that he had been a guard, a really nasty guard, in the nearby Sobibor in Poland, both of these camps from Poland. And so because of that, the courts in Israel decided, well, they took him on a deportation over the one charge, Ivan the Monster. It was really interesting. I mean, it's from a legal point of view, because there was evidence pointing both ways. But they acquitted him in the Supreme Court. And they reversed the deportation, sent him back to the US where he joined his family. And he was living there for, I don't know, a while, years. When the US attorney for Cleveland found other evidence, suggest that he was also a really bad guard in Sobibor. So although he wasn't Ivan in Treblinka, he was Ivan or a bad guard. His name was, middle name was Ivan. So they did another deportation to Israel. Yeah, second deportation. And this was, I guess, later on, a few years later, maybe the 90s. And successfully deported him this time to Germany to stand trial in Germany. And Germany convicted him of being a monster guard in Sobibor. But he appealed that. And while the appeal was pending, it tended for a long time. And he was in jail in Germany. He died. And the law in Germany provided that if you die pending an appeal, it is presumed that you were never convicted. So he died an unconvicted man. By the way, the Israeli survivors were just wild about this. I mean, I have the conviction reversed in Israel to send him back for his family life in Cleveland. Really upset the country. And that's the end of the story. This is a documentary called The Devil Next Door. And it's about this. It's five episodes on Netflix. It is a very well done documentary. I saw it last night. All five? Yeah. All five? Yeah, I binged on it. Somebody advised me about this. I pinched on it. Well, in the morning, in the paper, just so happens. Today, today, Rabbi, there was an article. I think it was at times, or the post, or maybe the Guardian. And it's about Poland, the prime minister of Poland. Now, you know there's a law in Poland that says anybody who claims that Poland was involved in the killing of the Jews is guilty of a crime. So if you say that the Polish people were responsible in any way for the, you know. And this is anti-Semitic law. Sure, just because the reality is that the Poles were as vicious. Many Poles were as vicious as the Nazis. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so the prime minister sees this thing on Netflix. I guess they get Netflix there. And he's making a global statement against Netflix for making the movie. Because, and I have to read it again, but because the movie includes the fact that there were at least these two camps in Poland, Treblinka and Sobibor. It's really all about those two death camps. And he says, you can't say that. You can't say that in Poland we had death camps. We didn't have that. And he's like denying the whole Holocaust. He's denying these death camps existed in Poland. Incredible. Today, right now, the prime minister of Poland, I can't tell you how I feel about Poland. I mean, it's a truth, you know, aren't you? Truth helps. And we need to have truth all around us. And he's saying that, oh, no, this wasn't true. And it's a violation of Polish law. So you're going to see more about this. You're going to see controversy about this. And if you have a chance, and I'm telling everybody, if you have a chance, take a look at this really well done documentary about their life. And fortune, misfortune. John Demioniuk. Auschwitz, was that in Poland? Auschwitz. I think that was in Germany. I think so, yeah, yeah. So anyway, you know, these controversies are alive. And one of the reasons they're alive is that there's plenty of anti-Semitism in Europe. And it becomes very, and in the US, I might add. And it becomes, you know, newsworthy. It becomes, it generates controversy. Good for Netflix for covering this. Not to say, you know, that Netflix did not, was just reporting the news. This was, and hard to say, balanced. But this was just the facts, man, about what happened to him. And it raised all kinds of interesting questions about how did he get in the country? How did he slip through after 1945? Was he the only one? He worked at the Ford Motor Company. And there was a suggestion that Ford had allowed others like him to participate, lead quiet lives, making cars, in Cleveland in this case. Maybe other cities, too. So we have a serious anti-Semitic problem that existed in the 1930s, in the 1940s, after the war, after it was clear what they had done. And I suggest that hasn't really stopped. And it goes to a discussion I always want to have with you about the status of anti-Semitism. You know, we put these videos up there on YouTube. And we get comments on YouTube that are clearly and absolutely anti-Semitic. I sent one to you this week. And it's hard to describe the reaction you have. You know, we said never again, because 6 million people perished in an awful holocaust. And still, it's not never again. It's again. Well, you don't have to go further than what's happening to Israel today, the BDS movement and the whole anti-Israel is really another form of anti-Semitism. The UN is riddled with anti-Semitism. Alice, can you explain all of those actions taken against the one single country, Israel? I think there's more resolutions against Israel than against all other countries in the world combined, including all the horrible countries that we know, like Iran and North Korea and the people from BDS. And that's a whole new story. You and I had a show about that a couple of years ago. They don't complain against those other countries, just against Israel. The one civilized country in the area, the one country that doesn't involve itself in hate, violence, all that. What are we going to do, Rabbi? This is very disturbing, because when I was a kid, it was all about never again. It was about making the desert bloom in Israel in the Kibbutzim. It was about making a safe haven for Jews about never again. And so much literature, so many movies have been made. And yet, there were those people today, 2019, who deny it happened. Anti-Semitism is a very, very fascinating phenomena. It's been around forever. It has, the motivation for anti-Semitism has been everything under the sun, user to rich, poor, to smart, to communist, to capitalist. It's really a very inexplicable hatred that's hard to be explained. You're right, we have to fight it. And for us Jewish people, what's equally important is that we as Jews need to learn to define ourselves, not by the fact that they hate us, the fact that we have to cling together, but by embracing the positive elements of Judaism, the teachings of the Torah, and what we learn about our unique relationship with God, the love of God to the Jewish people, the people in general. And that has to be the bedrock of our identity, not the fact that they hate us, and how do we deal with it? We become victims now. And I mean, from time to time, there have been responses by Jewish people that think of the Warsaw ghetto and other places and situations where the Jews have rebelled, retaliated, rebelled. Well, for sure we have to retaliate and do everything we can to stop it wherever it rears its ugly head. But at the same time, what I'm saying is that that cannot become our whole identity, our response to that hatred. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So much value in Judaism and being Jewish and the Jewish community and the Jewish traditions, so much value. We have to hold on to that, not only perpetuate it, but enjoy it. And I know you're into that. So let's stop talking about that movie. The movie is The Devil Next Door. You can find it on Netflix. I would urge you to take a look at it. Because in this movie, there's footage that will put to rest any possible denial of the Holocaust. Footage I have not seen yet until this movie. Netflix found it. And there are gross things in this movie that show you what the Germans were doing and the Poles were doing in these camps, the Jews. OK, let's talk about holidays. We have a sort of a vacation from holidays lately. A low in the holidays, yes. We had just come off the month of Tishrei, which is the month packed with holidays, beginning with the high holy days, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the Jewish Festival of Sukkis, the east of the Tabernacle, which culminated with Simcha's Torah, dancing and rejoicing with the Torah. And that was one of my favorite ones, Simcha's Torah. In my neighborhood, they did it in the street. They walked in the street with the Torahs, too. And they sang, and they made a big cemice all over the neighborhood. Yes, yes, still happening today. And then we enter into a quiet period, which in the Hebrew calendar this month is called Cheshvin. And it's unique from all the other Jewish months in the calendar in that there's no holiday throughout the entire month. Almost every other, actually every other Jewish month in the calendar has one special day. Either it's a holiday or a national day of mourning, like Tish above, or another fast day. But the month of Cheshvin has no holidays at all. So you go from this high to this very extreme low. It's a holiday from holidays. Maybe they were leaving room for a Veterans Day in the US. But actually what's interesting is that in the Jewish tradition, the holidays are singular days within the calendar. But they're meant to infuse all the other days of the year with its special holiday holy day, the special holiness with the message of that holy day. And our task is to take that message into the regular days and to imbue the regular days with meaning and purpose and holiness. So we serve God in the synagogue, the Sabbath, prayer and Torah study or the holiday. We also can and should serve God on the regular day when we work, when we go through our daily activities. If they're motivated by a higher purpose, then it all becomes service to God. If they're motivated by ego and greed and whatever else, then it's nothing more than something passing. But it's an opportunity to integrate the lessons of the faith in the Jewish New Year. That is, as you say, those are the high holidays. And now maybe we just think about that a little bit. Let it soak in. That's true. These days, the holidays are days that are charged with different holidays with different spiritual energies. For example, the holiday of Simcha Torah. We just mentioned your favorite holiday. And Sukkis in general is referred to as a time for rejoicing. So where do we draw happiness every day of the year? We draw it from this holiday. And if we don't take from the holiday and apply it to every day, we're missing the point of the holiday. Yeah, yeah. So much to learn from holidays. And you can't let holidays go commercial on you. You can't forget the origin and the meaning of the holiday. That's the value of having holidays in any culture that you have this repeating experience every year. And you are reminded of why it was made a holiday in the first place. Correct. Always a reason. Correct. And what's so part and parcel of the Jewish religion is mentioned time and time again in the Torah. And it's related to what you just said is all of these, many of these holidays the Torah says is just so that the generation shall remember. That we have to remember what happened in the past in order for us to appreciate the present and work towards the future. It's all about remembering. It's about being global too. And for example, I'm reminded of another movie about black Jews in Ethiopia, that the Mossad spirited out of Ethiopia back in the Monaco, actually. And they were conducting the same holidays. They were celebrating the same holidays that any Jew anywhere else does, even though they were black and even though there were variations on the theme. But it's of some comfort to know when you're celebrating Simchastora that Jews around the world are celebrating Simchastora. It brings us together. Right. And there's a saying from one of the famous rabbis who lived in the 12th century. It's named Rapsadje Gohan. And he writes, this famous saying is that more than the Jewish people have kept the Shabbos, Shabbos has kept the Jewish people. The fact that, especially in our day and age, when people travel all the time, the fact that you can travel to anywhere in the world, if you're there on a Friday or on a Shabbos, you just plug in. And it's the same as it is all over the world. It's a global thing. The aspera has separated us, but it also keeps us together. So let's talk about Hanukkah, because it's coming up. It's not too far away. Thanksgiving in the European and Western culture. And then bingo, you have Hanukkah, which is my second favorite holiday, because my parents gave me things on Hanukkah. Can you talk about it? Hanukkah is this year, I'm not sure exactly, but it's coming up in December. And it is a holiday that commemorates a great miracle that happened to the Jewish people during the time of the second temple in Jerusalem. The Jews were under the rule of the first temple in Jerusalem. Excuse me, let me just orient myself. This is the first temple in Jerusalem when the Greek-Syrian were in charge at that time. And the Greek, I'm confused, is the second or first temple? I think it's the second temple. OK, second temple. So they tried to, there's two holidays that commemorate miracles of survival. One is the Festival of Purim, which is later on in the year. And one is the Festival of Hanukkah. A Purim happened right after the first temple was destroyed, and Hanukkah happened during the second temple period. And at the time of Purim, there arose a leader, Haman, who wanted to annihilate all the Jewish people, man, woman, and child. Like in our generation, Germany, the Nazis, Hitler, as we were talking about before, they were seeking to annihilate the Jewish people. The Greeks were different. Their problem was not the Jewish people. Their problem was the Jewish way of life, Judaism. And they were seeking to snuff out Judaism. They issued decrees that made it forbidden the Jews to practice the Sabbath, to practice circumcision. They wanted to Hellenize the Jewish people, that the Jewish people should buy into the Greek culture. The problem is that the Greek culture and the Jewish culture are a clash of culture. Because the Greek culture deifies man and man and the intellect, philosophy. And in Judaism, it's all about God, which is higher than reason. And there was this clash. Their inability to accept what the Jewish Torah teaches, that we surrender to a higher authority. To them, that was very wrong. There was this clash of these two cultures. And they issued all these decrees. And they eventually conquered Jerusalem and went into the temple and contaminated. They brought in idol worship at the temple. There was a small group of Jewish people led by an elderly high priest. They were called the Maccabees. Maccabee in Hebrew is an abbreviations for the word mika mehob elimashem, which is a phrase from the Torah, which means who, like you, who is as strong as Hashem, as God, God being the strongest. They rallied many Jewish people. And they led an uprising against a powerful, mighty Greek Syrian army. And the miracle of Hanukkah is that they were victorious. And they were able to drive away these powerful armies, even though that they were fewer in number, even though they weren't trained soldiers. But their faith in God and their willingness and readiness to sacrifice everything. It's one of those pushback examples, isn't it? Yeah. Like what you mentioned earlier, before we went on air, the war saw uprising, even though that the Jews were outnumbered and outgunned. But they kept them at bay for a long, long time. This Hanukkah is a festival of lights. Correct. Has a lot to do with light. Right. And I'm sorry I didn't mention that. So what happened was after the Jews were victorious in the military front, they entered into the temple and they cleaned it out. And they rededicated the temple. And one of the things that was done in the Jewish temple was they would light the candelabra, the menorah. But the menorah required to have oil. And it had to be pure. It couldn't be defiled. But all the oil that was left in the temple was not pure. Until they found one jug of oil that was only enough to last for one night. And it would take them another seven days to replenish it with pure oil. They nevertheless went ahead and they lit the menorah. And the miracle of Hanukkah is that the oil that was only enough to last for one night burned for eight nights. And that's why we have eight days of Hanukkah. And we celebrate this as a very joyous time. And what's fascinating is that the emphasis of this holiday is not the military victory, but the miracle of the lights. The miracle of the lights. Even though one would think that the miracle of the lights is like an incidental side story to the big miracle of the military victory. So we meet next time, Rabbi. I want to go into greater detail on how Hanukkah is celebrated here at the Renean. What it means, the timing, because it's not the same thing as Christmas. And how it has changed, if at all, over the years. In the Christmas season in the US, Christmas affects everything. And so we need to explore how Hanukkah and Christmas get along. And what actually is funny, because this is something which is the Rebbe, the Babach Rebbe, brought to the world. And that is the Talmud says that the Hanukkah lights are different than the Shabbos candles that are lit Friday night. Friday night, we are also instructed to light the candles. The women are instructed to light the candles. That's done in the house. Hanukkah, you're meant to publicize the miracle. So you light the menorah at the window or at the door in front of the house. You're supposed to go out to public to publicize God's miracle to the public. Rebbe came out about 40 years ago less to bring the menorahs to public squares and to the outside. And that's why you have all these menorah lightings all around the world. Oh, sure. I know you do that. So I wish this show was like the miracle of the lights. But unfortunately, it only lasts so long. OK. We'll continue next time. We're going to have to explore more about Hanukkah the next time, because I think there's plenty to discuss. With pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have a good show. Crescent. Thank you. Come out of Hawaii. Thank you. Aloha. Bye.