Rona Ramon, Aimee Golant - 1939 Club Luncheon
Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, March 29, 2012

(photo by: Clifford Lester)
Attendees of the Ilan Ramon Jewish Day School Dedication Ceremony
939 Club Luncheon-Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, March 29, 2012

(photo by: George Post)
Barbed Wire Mezuzah - Aimee Golant
Silver, Copper -  one of my my first mezuzahs

It took about 1 1/2 hours to cut each individual flower and it's surroundings.  Over the course of cutting this piece I broke more than 5 dozen tiny saw blades.*    

*(Metal-Geeks only:  It was cut out of 14 gauge copper, using a  3/0 laser blades from Rio.)

After the sheet was cut, sculpted with tiny jeweler's files (F. Dick are my favorite ! ), I added texture to the leaves, stems and surrounding areas (using steel wires, decorative stamping tools and ball peen hammers).  I also designed the matchbox.

Here's what it looked like after I cut out the "happy couple."

We all go through loss of loved ones.  It is a sweet Jewish tradition (which is also Universal) to light a candle that burns for 24 hours at the anniversary of that person's death. I want to share this meaningful tradition so that others including my own friends and family can honor the memory of loved ones in a beautiful, supportive way. 

Here's the finished copper master - original:

"Garden of Memories" Memorial (Yartzeit) candle holder with "Forever in our Hearts" matchbox sleeve, by Aimee Golant.

To my knowledge, there has never been a mezuzah affixed to any doorpost of the White House.  Mixing "church and state" is not something I usually advocate, but we do celebrate Christmas, Easter and Hanukkah at the White House.  We always say God Bless America. Since the mezuzah is meant as blessing on the home and a reminder to uphold the teaching, I thought it would be wonderful if one was there.  Plus, teaching a wider audience (in addition to the Jewish Community) about the mezuzah is a dream of mine, so I am hoping a mezuzah on the White House would be a catalyst for me to do that.

The Obamas's story is particularly inspiring to me because they embody the America I believe in.  As a granddaughter of Holocaust Survivors,  I believe that what makes America great is our ability to work together, over come hardship, and pool our intellectual resources from diverse backgrounds. 

So, if you don't succeed, try, try again!  Watching the Republicans in congress deliberately try to hurt this administration has been heart wrenching.  Out of support and love, I have sent them another one-- A Door to the Soul Mezuzah-- inspired by the Hawaiian Islands and originally commissioned by a client rich not only in income but also in tzedakah (giving - for justice.)  

So what do you think?  A Mezuzah on the White House-- a good idea?  Most interestingly, let's see what they say....

I've been wanting to share this story for eleven years. With life's hectic schedule I put it off again and again, but now with the help of my summer intern Malkie Scarf, we finally found the time to write it all down.

It was the year 2000. I was 26 years old, already a Judaica metal artist inspired by maternal grandparents who were survivors of the Holocaust.  I was invited to go to Poland. My trip to Poland was a domino-effect initiated by my cousin Tamara Mielnik. A gifted modern dancer and Yiddish singer with a school in Jerusalem, she was asked to go on the March of the Living and perform in Yiddush at various points for the Israeli students. She was also to walk in silence and remembrance from Aushwitz to Birkenau—about 3 miles. Adverse to the idea of going through this powerful but emotionally terrifying journey alone, she asked my mother to join her in the experience. My mother, also wary of doing the intense trip, invited me to come as well. 

After a few day of sightseeing in Warsaw, it was time to travel to Krakow and then the dreaded concentration camps. On the long bus ride to Auschwitz, just awaiting the March, I could feel stress in every cell of my body culminating. My mom had a migraine and stayed back at the hotel to rest.  (She joined us later at the camp.  It was an emotional reunion in such a terrible place.) 

Anyway, as Tamara and I along with around 7,000 international students made the journey to the camp, I was shivering cold, even though it was warm outside.  To walk silently the paths where many had stepped to their demise, to look at the death factories and structures in Auschwitz where our ancestors and my family members had barely avoided this horrific end, was excruciatingly difficult.  [Below is the view of Birkinau as we walked in from a distance.]

Inside the decaying camp barracks, there were exhibits showing huge piles of belongings from the inmates, including shoes, prosthetics, eye glasses, luggage and more.  To the dismay of the Israeli group, none of the exhibits had any descriptions in Hebrew -the central language of the Jewish people.  They were written in Polish, English and German.  Also disturbing was that the grounds included a bookstore which had the feel of a gift shop. We felt that was inappropriate in the setting of unimaginable suffering that this facility represents.

[The official documents registering Tamara's mother in Auschwitz]

 

As part of our journey into our roots in Poland, and despite our emotional exhaustion from the March of the Living, Tamara and my mother and I decided to set out to the town where my grandparents lived before the Holocaust. Though they had previously urged us not to even visit, my grandparents had drawn out a map of Chmielnick, their hometown nearby the central Polish city of Kielce. While we were there, we were able to view the official papers that documented their residency in the town. Looking at these printed relics of time, it hit me: this is the place and this is my grandparents' (and my) history. 

Once we arrived in Chmielnik we walked around, slightly lost and not knowing what to expect. Again, feeling an intense rush of emotions we wandered around town.  Before the Holocaust, the town used to hold over ten-thousand Jews, and now few Jewish people were scattered about Poland, most of them now in Krakow. From the depictions on the map my grandparents drew for us, we were able to locate where the town center was, as well as the old shul from my grandparents' time that, weathered from disarray and desertion, still stood. This synagogue had been constructed in the 1600's at the same time the main shul in Krakow was built. However, it was locked, so we could only peer through the open window spaces and look at the shul from outside.  We sobbed.

[My mom, my cousin Tamara and I outside the old shul]

I had been told numerous, beautiful and tragic stories of Chmielnik and of my family members that survived the Holocaust.  When my great-grandmother was a prisoner in Auschwitz, she hid when the rest of the inmates were gathered for during a death-march. She probably wouldn't have survived the unforgivable cold and fatigue of the march. 

After three days, she arose from hiding and trekked on foot back to her hometown. After my grandfather was liberated from Buchenwald at the end of the war, he too walked back to Chmielnick. Imagine walking on the street, a familiar road that used to be paved with familiar stone, that the Nazis had now replaced with the tombstones of deceased Jews. 

As your feet gently tap on stony deaths, the same desolation that surrounded you for six years, you see your mother for the first time in years. This is what happened to my grandfather and his mother, both of whom had had no certainty of the other's survival for the last two years of the Holocaust. Every time my grandfather told me this story he would tear up.  As you can imagine, they couldn't bear to stay in their town still imprinted with hatred, they had to move on.  Besides some Polish people had bought the house from them beforehand, so it was time to go.

With a mix of apprehension and curiosity, my mother and Tamara and I found this house. We knocked and an older woman opened the door. From her age we knew she was part of the wartime generation. As we began to realize she spoke no English, we were at a loss on how to communicate who we were, but soon after she had motioned for us to wait while she called to the house. Her nephew Adam came out. He had gone on exchange to Canada, so he spoke English! He acted as translator between us and his aunt. Finally, we could communicate our story and the significance of this place.

[Gathering in front of the old Klienhandler house]

To our surprise, they welcomed us into the house for tea and cookies. Additionally, they showed us around to see all the parts of the house, including the back where the candle making machine shop had been.   The passion for metal smithing runs in my blood, for my family in Chmielnik were renowned as crafts-people.  I was thrilled to spend some time in the space that had been their shop.

Plus, the family across the street had found and saved a pair of mis-matched candleholders buried in the front of their house.  We were shocked that they saved them-- it seemed for us. After the trip, Tamara contributed them  to Yad Vashem, the prominent Holocaust museum in Israel. 

After talking over tea and cookies, we were all grateful and amazed at the connections we made with these people and this place.  Adam and his uncle were especially kind.  They wanted us to be able to visit the inside of the shul, knowing it would have incredible meaning for us.  

Adam's uncle, in addition to being a painter and artist, was the head of the beautification committee of Chmielnik.  He was planning to build a memorial wall out of the Jewish tombstones that the Nazis had used to pave the roads.  He also had keys to the shul and connections with city hall.  We were thrilled to learn the following morning that he set up a date for us to meet the mayor of the town and discuss opening up the synagogue for us to see. Tamara had previously contacted a professor at a university in Kielce, an individual who had studied pre-wartime Chmielnick in tremendous depth, and she had joined this spontaneous meeting with the mayor to help with interpreting. 

With great respect for us, the Uncle and mayor let us into the shul.  They waited outside as we entered.

[Inside the shul.  You can still see the Lions of Judah painted up by the round window and Hebrew writing towards the bottom.]

Approaching the shul, we could still see the bullet holes on the outside of the building marking the Nazis' presence. During World War II, Chmielnick, like countless other small Jewish shtetls (small towns), was turned into a ghetto by the Nazi powers. Before the ghetto started liquidating its inhabitants, primarily sending Jews to their deaths in Treblinka, all the prominent Jewish members of the town were put in a wooden shul that was burned down with them in it. Needless to say, it was disturbing being in this dusty and eery place that had at one time housed such wonderful, joyous and spiritual events, that is now in ruins.

Adam's uncle explained to us that during communist rule, the shul was used as a storage facility, and since then had been abandoned. Though derelict and dirty, we could still see the marble floor under all the dust, and some of the Jewish imagery was still evident on the walls.  He told us that there had been talk of renovating the shul and making it into an art center/memorial.  I'm not sure if that has happened, but we'll try contacting them, and see what happens.....

After witnessing the darkness and desolation of the synagogue, we went with the Kielce professor and her daughter to find our family name in the city's ledger books. Even though we felt the pain of the past still resonating inside us, we felt the comfort and care of the community willing to listen and help us out.  As we got into the taxi cab to go back to the hotel, the song "Human Touch" by Bruce Springsteen was playing on the radio.  My mom and I teared up.

[My mom, the professor's daughter, my cousin Tamara, the professor, and me.]

In the last days of the trip, we ventured to Lodz, the city where my grandma grew up.  Even though there was so much compassion coming our way from the people we met in Poland.  In Lodz and in Krakow there were dozens, if not more, examples of anti-semitic graffiti like the one photographed below. 

While the charming characteristics of the townspeople -such as the bell-boy of the hotel we stayed at expressing the nonsensical "hey-shoop!" indication of moving an object that my grandfather used to say- made us feel at home, others in Poland meanwhile drew Jewish stars hanging on nooses or tagged hateful messages for the public to see. 

All in all though, our trip was incredible.  We were thrilled beyond words to have been honored by the Chmielnik towns people.  The trip boosted my sense of the possibility of peace and healing.  From there, I would of course continue to develop my art and spiritual sense in unity.  

Mom: Eulogy.              Mary Kleinhandler

December 22, 1920 – April 16, 2011

From Daughter Henriette Kleinhandler


    This is a very sad time of loss for all of us.  My mother, Mary, was vibrant, brilliant, highly educated, generous, and loving.  Mary was a free spirit.  Her sense of humor and sparkle lit the light of life in us all.  She suffered through the ordeals of the Holocaust, cancer, open heart surgery, diabetes, and the death of our father, Arthur.  But she had tenacity and strength and gave us hope to overcome the hardships in life.  As she would say, “Make yourself strong. This too shall pass.”  She also cherished the joys of living.  My mom loved us all, me, Susie and Mitch, Cherie and Ron, Aimee and David, and especially her great grand children Rose, Ava, and Kaleb.  Her family, our cousin Barbara, and friends always held a special place in her heart.

    I would just like to share some memories of my mother that will stay with me forever.  These are the images of love.

    I remember when we were small children my mother would hold our hands and together Susie and I would go with her into the garden.  She delighted in teaching us the names of all the beautiful flowers and pick cherries from the tree.  We would intensely study the strawberry patch and her vegetable garden.  One of the things that kept her alive during the suffering of the Holocaust was the image of an idyllic garden, just like the one in Chmielnik at her grandmother’s house, she and fulfilled that dream.  Her garden symbolized survival, renewal, and life.

    I remember the wonderful stories she would tell us of her summers in the mountains picking mushrooms or going to Chmielnik.  She loved her grandparents and played with   her first cousins Zlatcha, Barbara, and her brother, Karol. 

    I remember sitting at the kitchen table with our mom, Susie, and our grandma Ruth and laughing at the jokes and one liners till tears rolled down our checks.  I remember her repartee with Alfred Rozenek and who could be the funniest.

    I remember how beautifully she sang.  My parents would sing songs in harmony-- Yiddish, English and Polish.   She would also sing in German and Russian for she spoke six languages.  Sometimes my grandma would play the mandolin or violin and they would sing together.  Those were wonderful times.

    I remember how she read all the classics and existential philosophy.  She would recite entire passages of poetry in Latin and Goethe’s Faust in German.  She loved to read and always had a book next to her.   In fact, she was so impressed and excited by some novels, that she would tell me the whole story before I read the book. She was very proud of her Classical Education and that she had successfully graduated 14th grade, the equivalent of Jr. College.

        I remember how she loved to dress up and go out.  She was very beautiful with turquoise blue eyes and champagne silvery hair.  As a child I remember her delicate complexion contrasting with her striking long black hair that she would twist into a French knot. 

    She loved our dad Arthur and they were inseparable  They were married for 63 years and when he passed in 2006 she always missed him terribly and would look at his picture every night before she went to bed, till the last week of her life.  Every weekend my parents would go on long bike rides from Santa Monica to the Marina or walk in Santa Monica with their close friends  Cesia and Isaac Ulman, Lola and Adam Crispo, Alfred and Lola Rozenek, and Rena and David Goldstein.  They had deep discussions and much laughter.  Then they would enjoy a wonderful brunch.  My mother loved these outings.  She also loved the many adventures traveling throughout the world.  At the end of her life she also loved her caregivers Raquel, Tina, Alene.  And we all tried to give her a good quality of life which she always enjoyed.

    Finally, I will always remember that my mom called me every single morning and she would sing me a song like “If I were a rich man”, wish me a gutten Shabbish, and tell me that everything is under control—until it wasn’t.  She would always say “What are our plans for today?  I’ll go wherever you go and then we’ll have lunch.”  And then she would say, “I love you forever.”
 
Mom, I love YOU forever.  Your image is in my soul and you will always be alive in my heart.  Henriette


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I Love You Forever
From Mitch Golant

Context is everything:  For the last decade Mary would greet me with the following:  “Oh…Mitchie…Mitchie…I love you forever. You are my son—Not my son-in-law. I love you forever.”  It was delivered in the declarative—with absolute certainty.  I was 19 years old when I met Susie. We married when I was 22. What I am sharing comes from the perspective of a child growing up in two worlds. The world of my childhood and the world of the Shoah. After all these years, I struggled with this recurring question:  Does the Holocaust Trump All?
Let’s take even an  example from Monty Python, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.” …Unless you are a Holocaust Survivor…where your worst fears were realized. Trump.
However, as I have come to understand now, Mary’s life as embodied in the simple but profound sentiment:  “I love you forever!”actually trumps all. This occurs in four ways—through: (1) Moral integrity (2) Humor (3) Spirituality, and (4) Love

Moral Integrity
Mary never wanted a housekeeper. Even as she began to slow down, she reluctantly accepted help but only for ½ day a week. On Wednesdays when Lorena would come, Mary would still do the laundry: She said, “Why should I have her clean my dirty clothes and sheets?” At Noon Mary would cook lunch for them both.  We just didn’t get it until in a flash I understood--she was a house slave for the SS at the Villa Versailles (chronicled in her memoir)—cleaning their clothes, laundry and shining their boots. Mary could not tolerate or fathom the idea that anyone was below her and she felt a moral imperative to hold to the idea that we were all creatures that share this earth and that no one is better or should serve another. It was out of this deep sense of moral and ethical integrity that lunch was served and housework was shared. Trump.
Humor:
            In the summer of 1974, Mary, Arthur and I would ride our 3-speed bikes along the Venice/Santa Monica beach bike bath. On this Sunday, Mary and I were riding alone along the bike path and we had it in our mind with mischievous eye to ride past the Venice nude beach.  As Mary tells the story, “Mitch was riding behind me and then he was looking at the naked women and he rode right off the bike path and falling into the sand.”  In truth. I was riding on the bike path and Mary stopped her bike pointing to what I learned later was what she described as a “naked white male albino guerilla” and wanted to show me. To avoid colliding with her I dumped my bike into the sand. When she explained, I said, “That’s why you stopped?” I said, “I’m more interested in naked women than naked albino guerilla men.” She says, “I’m going to tell Susie!” I say, “I’m going to tell Arthur.”  We both burst out laughing. Trump

Spirituality
Of course, there is an important distinction between spirituality and the religiosity.  Mary had a porous relationship between the here and the hereafter. She felt a deep connection to all life through dreams, waking dreams, and premonitions that sustained her through adversity. There are so many examples—Sue has already shared one. The one example that stays with me was when she had bypass surgery and it didn’t go well.   She needed blood and Sue rushed to donate.  When she made it through the crisis we explained that she nearly died. She said, I already knew that. We asked: “How did you know.” She said, “Well, I was in a dream and I saw my parents and my brother and I started running towards them because I was so happy to see them. My mother turned to me and said, “Stop! Go back. It’s not your time yet.” They all turned their backs on me.  So I turned around and then I woke up here. “  She tells that story with certainty and faith that this experience is a link between us and those who come before us and as a legacy for us to cherish.  Trump

Love
As you know Mary died the evening after Shabbat Hagadol.  The Shabbat that precedes Passover.  Mary loved Passover. It was her holiday. Each Passover she would tell the same story and it would start with, “We were slaves in Egypt and now we are free. I was once a slave and now I am free. I didn’t know whether I could have children. And I had children.  She would point to Henrie and Susie. Then my children had children—Cherie and Aimee. And now my grandchildren have children—Rosie, Ava and Kaleb (who is named after my brother Karol) and then she would cry. I am grateful for my life and that I live in this country free.  I love you forever!
Taken together—moral integrity with a light touch through humor impassioned by a vibrant spiritual life stitched together with love trumps all.  As Alfred Rozenek aliva shalom said nearly 5 years ago to your beloved Avrum, I say to you today….Shalom My Friend. I will love you forever!  Amen


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From Cherie Golant, Granddaughter

She’s the reason I’m here. Her survival ensured my existence.    

I grew up knowing that my being in her life was one of her paramount joys.  She adored me, and I felt the same.  Even in the end, when dementia kept her mind moving in tight circles, she never held back expressions of love.  I remember growing up, her stopping everything to pour love on one or another of us.  Her love and gratitude to reach this day, this moment, to have us in her life was declared regularly.  To feel her love wash over me, I would also know that by giving love, by showing love, and sharing love, she was experiencing great joy.  

In recovery from breast cancer surgery in 1972, my grandma felt sure she was dying.  She had a dream of a small hand pulling her away from death.  She always told me this, that it was me who brought her back to life.  She had me to look forward to, and my sister to come the next year, and nearly 40 more years of love and moments of joy.  Our bat mitzvahs, graduations, weddings, and the birth of her great grand children.  The holding of babies gave her a unique pleasure, a glow.  It used to be that we worked hard to avoid causing her any pain, but eventually, bringing her pleasure became its own reward.  

When I saw her this week before she died, I told her again and again how much I loved her.  How her brother, mother and grandparents were waiting for her, along with my grandpa.  And that when she saw them, she should tell them how much we loved her.  

She is the reason I’m here.  Her survival ensured my existence.  Learning to live without her starts today.


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From Aimee Golant, Granddaughter

There is no explaining how my grandparents have affected my life.  I will try today, but really there is nothing I can say that will capture my feelings for them.  I say grandparents and not grandmother, because for me no matter how different they were from one another, it is hard to separate them.  

I talk about my grandparents every day in my work.  Their life has given mine meaning, direction, and purpose.  At the Passover seder each year, my grandma would declare that we were once slaves and now we are free!  This was our holiday.  It was real.  She would say that she survived for the family and that every day she lived was a victory over Nazi brutality.   

Their survival of spirit, their inner strength, and perseverance inspired me to create Judaica-- Jewish Ritual Objects.  It is in their honor that I create Judaica-- using my grandfather’s tools.  Not Judaica of reverence to G-d, but Judaica of survival, of preserving tradition, of sharing our universal teachings with Jews and non-Jews and thereby fighting anti-semitism.

My grandmother had wisdom.  When she spoke, I listened.  Anytime I have been faced with a life challenge, when I feel defeated or unsure, I remember the words my grandma told me.   She would look at me with those piercing blue eyes and say:  “BE STRONG,” and “if you don’t know what to do, DO NOTHING.  The answers will come.”  I can’t tell you how many times I would think about my life situation, and compare, just for a second what she endured in her life and figure, if she could survive that-- I can do this.  I swear, she has at times given me super powers.  

These words of wisdom remind me of a story she once told, shortly after my grandfather passed away in 2006.  She pulled out a silver 1943 Liberty Half Dollar Coin.  After the war, within a week of arriving in New York, my grandfather right away found work at a gas station.  He thought he had been hired as a mechanic to work on the cars, turns out he was pumping gas.  The first week on the job, a man gave him that coin as a tip.  It was a huge dollar amount at that time-- enough for a week’s groceries. My grandpa brought the coin home to my grandma.  They sat in amazement, in silence, in tears.  Quite incredibly, they never spent the money-- she had saved it to this day. She told us that she wanted to be buried with the coin.  The thought of it, made us all groan.  But then I thought, who am I to question what she wants?  So, I took the coin and fashioned a silver and gold locket for it, which I gave to her about a year ago.  I would love to show you all the coin and box, but today, as per her wish, I put the coin in it’s silver box with her in the casket.  It was a testament to their temperance, strength and gratitude.

Finally, she has passed on an appreciation for the simple things in life-- the smell of home cooking (love thick in the air) the sheer miracle of being together with family, gratitude for living in America-- a free and diverse country, a love of nature, a responsibility to take care of my body.   The best I can do is pass on their values and their Legacy of love and gratitude to my family-- my husband David and Son Kaleb.  I will never stop grieving them, I will love them forever.