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  • From: Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach
  • Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 15:38:26 -0500


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.




  • Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach, Shoshanna Walker, 12/14/2001

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