Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>]

As Shabbat descends upon us here in the US Northeast, I'm sending 
this now instead of on Shabbat.  Not humor, but a beautiful true 
Channuka story.

shoshanna


> Young Private Winneger was with the U.S. Army
> as it marched through Europe at the end of World
> War II. His unit was assigned to a European village
> with the orders to secure the town, search for any
> hiding Nazis and to help the villagers in any way
> they could.
>
> Winneger was on patrol one night when he saw a
> figure running through a field just outside the village.
> He shouted, "Halt or I'll shoot." The figure ducked
> behind a tree. Winneger waited and eventually the
> figure came out and figuring that Winneger was no
> longer nearby, went to a spot near a large tree and
> started to dig. Winneger waited until the figure had
> finished digging and was once more on the move
> before he stepped out and again shouted, "Halt or
> I'll shoot!" The figure ran.  Winneger decided not to
> shoot but to try to catch the furtive figure. He shortly
> caught up with the figure and tackled it to the ground.
>
> To his surprise he found he had captured a young
> boy. An ornate menorah had fallen from the boy's
> hands in the scuffle. Winneger picked up the
> menorah. The boy tried to grab it back shouting,
> "Give it to me. It's mine!" Winneger assured the
> boy that he was among friends. Furthermore, he
> himself was Jewish. The boy who had just survived
> several years of the Holocaust and had been in a
> concentration camp was mistrustful of all men in
> uniforms. He had been forced to watch the shooting
> of his father. He had no idea what had become of
> his mother.
>
> In the weeks that followed, Winneger took the young
> boy, whose name was David, under his wing. As they
> became closer and closer, Winneger's heart went out
> to the boy. He offered David the opportunity to come
> back to New York City with him. David accepted and
> Winneger went through all the necessary paperwork
> and officially adopted David.
>
> Winneger was active in the New York Jewish community.
> An acquaintance of his, a curator of the Jewish Museum
> in Manhattan, saw the menorah. He told David it was a
> very valuable historic, European Menorah and should be
> shared with the entire Jewish Community. He  offered
> David $50,000 for the menorah.
>
> But David refused the generous offer saying the menorah
> had been in his family for over 200 years and that no
> amount of money could ever make him sell it.
>
> When Chanukah came, David and Winneger lit the
> menorah in the window of their home in New York City.
> David went upstairs to his room to study and Winneger
> stayed downstairs in the room with the menorah.
>
> There was a knock on the door and Winneger went to
> answer. He found a woman with a strong German accent
> who said that she was walking down the street when she
> saw the menorah in the window. She said that she had
> once had one just like it in her family and had never seen
> any other like it.  Could she come and take a closer look?
> Winneger invited her in and said that the menorah
> belonged to his son who could perhaps tell her more
> about it. Winneger went upstairs and called David down
> to talk to the woman and that is how David was reunited
> with his mother.
>
> This is retelling from memory (so some of the details
> may be wrong) from a true story told by Rabbi Allan C.
> Tuffs to the congregation at Matthew Weil's Bar Mitzvah,
> Temple Shalom, Levittown PA, December 7, 1996.