A Jewish Journey

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PART 1

OBERAMMERGAU, GERMANY

(1843-1904)

CHAPTER 1

On a clear day in Munich, the peaks of the Alps are visible some sixty miles to the south. Many Munich citizens travel in this direction to the town of Oberammergau. The trip is a beautiful and tranquil journey taking the traveler past shimmering, clear green lakes. Soon one sees pale grey mountains looming in the distance. The journey starts a slow upward ascent as rolling hills transition for almost a mile above sea level. The travelers then find themselves encircled by grey and white peaks surrounding the beautiful village of Oberammergau in the Ammer River Valley. Countless travelers make the journey for the sole purpose of observing the famous Oberammergau Passion Play.

In the 1840’s, the part of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, was given to Hans Bauemler. He was the town blacksmith; a quiet, hard-working man who no one expected could play the part with such a mission driven relish. As Hans said, I never dreamed I could be a good actor, but when you believe in a role and want to show the power of the devil, it just flows out of you. He was forty-two years of age and had a fiery red beard. When perfoming on stage, his bushy eyebrows angled up at the periphery and served as a perfect match for the double horned crown perched on his head. A priest’s robes could not hide his massive arms, which added to the determination and strength necessary to portray the part of the high priest. The bass voice he projected, audible to the last row of the audience, did the same. A man of few words, Hans took on another personality when he played the part of Caiaphas. He was a great draw for the townspeople who came to hear the story of their Lord, and also to see and revel in the transformation of Hans when he stepped forth on the massive stage.

As he worked over his anvil in his blacksmith shop, the heat and light from the fire defined his massive upper body musculature. He had the appearance of a Michelangelo sculpture with every muscle well delineated.

His son, Otto, fifteen years old and taller than his father, was overjoyed that his part in the play was that of one of the crowd of Jews influenced by Caiaphas. Otto was more like his mother, as verbal as his father was non-verbal. He was gregarious and outgoing and was a leading debater in his high school class. This would be his first experience and would give him the opportunity to work with his father. What he didn’t know was that this experience before an audience would also give him a head start on his future career

Otto stood in front of the mirror and practiced his lines under the watchful eye of Hans. With his pointing right index finger punctuating his voice and with his eyes staring straight ahead, he said, Take him away; death to the false prophet and blasphemer. He looks tired. Let him rest on the cross.

That’s fine, Otto. Say it a little louder. Pretend you are talking to the last row of the audience. My job, as the high priest, Caiaphas, is to stir up the crowd. After Jesus is condemned, I will say no more. Then you and the other Jews scream your lines. Point your finger at Jesus when you say it. Show the hatred on your face. Scowl. We do an important job when we play these roles. We must never let people forget what the Jew devils did to our Lord.

I will never forget, father.

CHAPTER 2

In 1633, The Black Death visited Oberammergau and eighty-four citizens died. This was not the first time this plague had decimated Europe. In the years 1348 to 1349, twenty-five million people perished.

Unknown to humankind in the fourteenth century was that the disease was caused by bacteria. It would take five centuries until Louis Pasteur would develop his germ theory of disease. Until this groundbreaking discovery, superstition and fear ruled as the etiologic mechanisms for all diseases and catastrophic events that befell humankind.

The Plague had different names depending on the way the disease manifested itself.

The physicians of the day were helpless and many met the same fate as the victims they attempted to treat.

Bacteria carrying rats were the cause. Fleas fed on the rat’s blood and the bacteria multiplied in the intestinal tract of the fleas. They would then bite man and regurgitate the bacteria into the victim’s blood stream. Within days, large swollen lymph glands known as bubos would appear. Secondary manifestations could then include pneumonia and/or septicemia (blood poisoning). Death would result from respiratory failure due to the pneumonia, or massive internal bleeding as a hemorrhagic complication of the septicemia.

As the fleas bit more and more victims, and as these victims met their relatives and friends, the infection disseminated and the disease became a raging, uncontrollable epidemic.

In the minds of the populace, the causes varied from earthquakes to comets to astrological forces to Jews. Of these four etiologies, Jews were the only controllable choice, so their inquisitors tortured them. Under such duress, some confessed to anything and the word went out that the Jews had poisoned the wells.

It became local government policy to rid the area of the Jews. The townspeople divided all the Jew’s money and other possessions. The local populace drowned or burned the Jews to death. Thus did most of them perish. Many who managed to escape this punishment committed suicide by cremating themselves in their own homes.

Pope Clement VI lost seven cardinals as well as eleven thousand of his subjects in the city of Avignon. He refused to accept his advisors suggestion that the plague resulted from a conjunction of stars and planets, so he ordered autopsies in an attempt to determine the cause. This was one of the first pioneering efforts in the field of pathologic anatomy. He also refused to accept the suggestion that Jews were the cause since he observed that Jews were dying as fast as were their Christian neighbors. However, his efforts were not enough and by the time the plague had passed, very few Jews remained alive in Western Europe. In Oberammergau, in 1633, the panicky townspeople gathered in a little parish church and vowed to produce the drama of the Suffering and Death of Jesus every ten years if only the plague would disappear.

God answered their prayers. The plague abated and soon, with the help of monks from a neighboring monastery, the villagers fulfilled their promise.

From the 1670’s on, every decade beheld an ever-enlarging spectacle portrayed with fervor and devotion by the townspeople. The reputation of the Passion Play spread throughout Europe, and increasing numbers of the faithful came for religious renewal.

In the 1840s, the Passion Play committee consisted of twenty-four Oberammergau citizens. Their responsibility was to organize and market the coming play, and choose the principle actors from the many Oberammergau citizens clamoring to participate. This selection process took place six months in advance of the play and the townspeople held their collective breaths waiting to see if they received a part. The only ones eligible were town citizens and at least half of them participated.

The people of the town felt responsible for this important task. To them the play was their sacred tradition handed down from generation to generation. For the six months prior to the opening of the play, the citizens stopped all town amusements and concentrated on rehearsals.

The Passion Play from medieval times to the 1840s remained unchanged. The villains, the deicidal Jews, find Jesus guilty of blasphemy and they turn him over to the Romans for sentencing. A Jewish mob led by Caiphus demands punishment for Jesus, and the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate, agrees to their demands by condemning him to the cross.

The story line rotated around the battle between absolute goodness (Jesus) and absolute evil (the Jews) that collaborated with devils to kill Jesus. In the eighteenth c century, the Jews were clad with prominent double horned hats. The point needed emphasis; the Jews assumed the role of the devil.

Caiaphas, portrayed as leading the Jews against Jesus, was a member of the Sadducee sect, all descended from aristocrats and priests. They accepted the authority of the written Torah and viewed the priests as the only experts on Jewish law. Their primary form of worship was the cult of sacrifice. They did not believe in the concept of an immortal soul. They did not accept a divine afterlife with its punishment or rewards. They denied the existence of angels. A minority of Jews, influenced by the Roman culture supported the Sadducees. This relationship assured that the Romans would always appoint a Sadducee as High Priest.

The majority of Jews were Pharisees. They accepted the written Torah and believed that at Mount Sinai, God handed down an oral Jewish law tradition that they were responsible for interpreting. They also believed in the immortality of the soul, and thus a divine reward/punishment system in an afterlife. The Pharisees taught and encouraged study and prayer as the proper form of Jewish worship. Many Pharisees thought of Jesus as an important Rabbi and teacher.

CHAPTER 3

BERLIN, GERMANY (1875)

Following the German victory over France in the War of 1870, an intense nationalism under Bismarck replaced German liberal, democratic ideas. A new German Reich, dominated by Prussia and German militarism, saw a further inhibition of democratic principles including an eventual outlawing of the Social Democratic Party.

As this new system evolved, anti-Semitism increased. The word went out that Jews caused the economic depression of 1873.

Otto Bauemler, molded in this milieu of anti-Semitism, left Oberammergau to study philosophy and history at the University of Berlin. He was the first member of his family to attend a university and his father saw him off with great pride and hope. At five feet and ten inches, he was three inches taller than his father, had brown and wavy hair and his upper body was well built, developed from assisting his father over the anvil. But in time, as he immersed himself in academia, he lost the muscular definition. His skill at debating put him at the head of his class, and his professors took note of this promising student.

With his father’s influence behind him, Otto sought and had no trouble finding student organizations that had anti-Semitism as their principle ticket to membership. Anti-Semitic fellow students and teachers influenced his thinking. He graduated with high honors, remained in the academic environment, and achieved a full professorship in German history. He had published many articles and as his influence grew, he became a founding member of the Christian Social Worker’s Party.

The underlying philosophy of this hoped for political force was their virulent anti-Semitism. The Jews were involved in a conspiracy for world dominance. It behooved all German Christians to protect themselves against the insidious treachery of the Jew. Restrictive anti-Semitic legislation was necessary to restrict Jewish influence.

In the eyes of the Christian Social Worker’s Party, and as stated in a speech delivered by Otto Bauemler: Die Juden sind unser ungluck (the Jews are our misfortune). This slogan took on a life of its own, and fifty years later, the Nazis adopted it as their rallying cry.

Otto Bauemler advocated an initial five-point approach to controlling Jewish influence in Germany:

1. The Jew’s influence in the judiciary was to be limited.

2. Jewish immigration is outlawed.

3. No Jew could serve in any government position.

4. No Jew could serve in the military.

5. Only Christian teachers could teach in grammar schools.

In his role as a history professor, he was an agitating force in the lives of many students. His positions caused considerable controversy amongst the university authorities, and they forced him to leave. In his mind, there was no doubt as to the reason—a Jewish plot was behind his failure to keep his post.

This only reinforced his often-taught conviction that Judaism was a separate race apart from humanity. No effort to convert or to assimilate Jews was feasible. Their basic nature was the personification of evil. The influence of the Devil was all-consuming, and exorcism was impossible.

Otto said. Jews were a foreign drop of blood in the German body; one with destructive power! He also said. The Jew who turned away the Savior was cursed to wander the earth. Jews have so dispersed themselves that they found rest nowhere. And they never would until they find the true Messiah.

Preceding Nazism, Otto claimed that the German people were now the chosen people of the Christian era. The Jew had been the chosen of the pre-Christian era, but because they rejected the Messiah, they were doomed. The Jew who turned away the Savior had to wander the earth forever. There was no chance of co-existing with the Jew. His father was right all the time. How wise he was. A mere blacksmith, forced to interrupt his education at an early age, but still able to comprehend the Jewish threat to the world. His father’s legacy would not die.

By the 1880’s, a torrent of German anti-Semitism was to be unleashed; more political parties adopted the creed. Many unions arose which had anti-Semitism as their underlying basis.

For the rest of his life, Otto Bauemler remained a potent force in keeping anti-Semitism alive in Germany. When he died, his son Karl continued the struggle.

CHAPTER 4

By the third generation, the upper body muscular definition of the Bauemler men disappeared as they continued in academia. The anti-Semitism was inbred, however, and Karl persisted in efforts to promote his father’s anti-Semitic legislation. Try as he might, he failed. This frustration only served to enhance his anti-Jewish mindset. He continued his father’s nationalistic anti-Semitism and amplified it to suggest that the Jew represented an international threat to the world, and Germany was the place where that threat would come to a boiling point.

Many in the anti-Semitic German community adopted Karl’s ideas, but, at the same time, others rejected them. This was the source of great disappointment to him, and it turned him into an angry loner, but then he found a cause that he embraced with fervor. A young man’s dissected, blood drained body had been buried under the winter ice in the Prussian town of Konitz. Although the authorities suspected a Christian butcher, the townspeople fanned the flames of prejudice by insisting that the Jews had murdered the young man in order to acquire his blood for the Passover Matzo. This was a restitution of the ‘blood libel’ that had found life numerous times in Czarist Russia of old. A friend told Karl of this even before anyone else received the news. He stopped everything and rushed to the scene. He spoke with the town leaders who by the time he had arrived were ready to lynch the man they insisted was the murderer, a Jewish butcher in the town. Karl calmed their passion, recognizing that precipitous action by the townspeople could hurt his cause. However, he lent his weight to the charges and saw to it that it that Germany knew.

However, Karl found himself up against the German Government that refused to accept the preposterous claims of ritual murder. They protected the town’s Jews rather than be faced with a pogrom that had, in the past, decimated Russia’s Jewish population and caused an international uproar.

They never found the true murderer, and Karl found himself silenced by the power of the government and lack of any concrete evidence against the Jewish butcher. When the townspeople began to turn against him for not being able to lead them to the Jewish butcher’s arrest and conviction, Karl retreated.

Untarnished by the episode, Karl took up where he had left off, and he went on to preach, as his father had before him, that the rivalry between Jews and other German citizens, plus the money and media power of the Jews would promote an outbreak of rage. Karl insisted the signs were evident. This would lead to a popular movement in Germany that even the military and the police would be powerless to prevent. Why Germany? Because the Jews of Germany, even though they represented less then two percent of the population, were richer and occupied a higher social position. From Germany the outbreak would spread, resulting in a Jewish exodus from all of Europe.

In another generation, Hitler would amplify the exodus in Karl’s statement.

Karl added another element to his thinking and was one of the first to espouse racialism when he insisted that by the grace of God, the German Nordic was the Aryan destined to dominate the world. This domination would first govern Europe and then would transcend Europe’s borders and achieve world hegemony.

Later, Hitler and Nazi party apologists appropriated and exploited Karl’s vews.

Karl sickened and died, but not before he had indoctrinated his son, Ernst who had been well prepared to carry on his father’s work.

After the German defeat of World War I and the revolutions to follow, the new Weimar Constitution was to give the Jews an equality that they had never known. In spite of this, another anti-Semitic frenzy overtook Germany. Anti-Semitic societies flourished more than ever and their periodicals flooded the streets. State legislatures continued to introduce laws against Jews. For the Jews during the Weimar Republic, these antagonisms did not have the force of law, but the perpetrators looked forward to the time they would.

Leading this struggle against the Jews was Ernst Bauemler, the son of Karl. Ernst, imbued with his father’s broadened view of anti-Semitism, was a professor at Berlin University, and an early member of the Nazi Party and friend of Nazi philosopher, Alfred Rosenberg, who adopted and amplified Karl’s racial theories greatly impressing Adolf Hitler. Through his position as a professor, Ernst was able to influence the thinking of his students and many followed him into the Nazi Party. Ernst visited the Passion Play more than once.

Hitler praised the Oberammergau Passion Play as a precious tool for turning Christians against Jews. In addition, he would label the drama a racially important cultural document for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed. As part of their educational indoctrination to Nazi philosophy, he required that his elite SS troops witness the play. After World War II, the Passion Play was revised to cast a more even-handed blame for the death of Jesus amongst all the people and the Romans, emphasizing that the Pharisees were for Jesus and the Romans had ultimate authority for any death sentence.

Ernst’s son was Erich, Hans’ great grandson. He was born in 1919 and learned at an early age about his ancestor’s anti-Jewish philosophy. He grew up with the Swastika decorating his room and a house filled with anti-Semitic pamphlets and volumes of anti-Semitic books.

Nazi party members were welcome guests and even Adolf Hitler appeared once for dinner. Erich Bauemler was old enough to carry the memory of Adolf Hitler stroking his hair and commenting to Ernst Bauemler about his son’s glorious Aryan appearance.

This virulent anti-Jewish mindset of the Bauemler family had a long and tortuous course. There were Jewish communities along the Rhine as early as 300 C.E. By the eleventh century, they developed great influence over economic matters and were desirable citizens. They were encouraged to settle in German towns, continued to enjoy complete religious freedom and followed rabbinic law.

With the onset of church encouraged religious bigotry engendered by the crusades, the Jew was persecuted and killed. This tradition increased, as the non-Jewish citizenry turned to competitive commerce with the Jew.

Most opportunities to earn a livelihood were in time forbidden to the Jew. Unable to engage in business and commerce, many Jews turned to finance and became money lenders. This only increased the hatred of the Jew now accused of usery.

Ancestors of the Bauemler family had received a loan from a Jewish financier. They fell on hard times and were unable to repay, so they joined the chorus of those who accused the Jews of usery and participated in violence against the Jew. The Jewish financier had to leave Germany under threat of death.

By the 1500s the accusations against the Jew became more vitriolic and those Jews that survived fled eastward, mainly to Poland.

In fifteenth century Germany, Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation resulted in a schism among Christians. Protestants expressed their dissatisfaction with Catholicism by violent action against Catholic edicts that they found unacceptable.

After failure of arbitration, Charles V, king of Germany, resorted to force in an attempt to crush the Protestant militants. The possibility of war engulfing France and Germany resulted in a compromise. The Peace of Augsburg, negotiated in 1555, formerly recognized Protestantism and established the principle that whoever rules an area may establish the religion within that area. It was unenforceable. Civil war ensued and spread throughout Europe, lasting thirty years and ending only when the parties realized that their effort to annihilate each other was fruitless. With great reluctance, they agreed to tolerate each other, and after four years of negotiations, the Peace of Westphalia (1644-1648) formalized this toleration.

The Protestants and Catholics learned the hard way that freedom of worship is God directed and man should not attempt to control it. For the most part, they learned this in reference to each other, but, as subsequent events would prove, some failed to learn it as far as the Jew was concerned.

The Thirty Year War devastated Germany, especially the northern section, so the Jews were allowed back to help rebuild. The old contempt for the Jew remained, however, and their struggle to gain full rights was slow, tortuous, and never fulfilled for the vast majority.

The majority of the Jews in Europe resided in Eastern European countries such as Poland.

PART 2

THE PALE

(1843-1904)

CHAPTER 1

Tiktin, Poland (1843)

Seven young boys, aged ten to twelve, sat on a low hill under a large shade tree while Rabbi Shepsel Tepperovitch paced back and forth in front of them. He viewed his students as the future of Judaism, and it was his mission to keep that vision alive. He was a fighter in God’s army, struggling to negate the powerful forces marshaled against his Jewish beliefs. This was the reason for his existence.

He took his class outdoors this beautiful, sunny day. There were only a few clouds in a light blue sky. Today he would teach his boys Jewish mythology.

The rabbi was a short, muscular man whose hair was black with early signs of gray, his mustache was black and his long beard was at least one-half white. The contrasting shades made his dark-complected, oval face appear like an artist’s portrait. His eyes were hazel colored and his pupils stared at you with a force that demanded your complete attention. The rays of the sun and the shadow of the tree outlined his face and prominent nose and caused his long beard to take on a flickering luminescence that seemed to extend around his face. The students took this to be another one of the many signs attesting to the fact that the rabbi was indeed a favored one of God. Before we talk about Jewish mythology I want to ask a question, he said.

The students looked at him with anticipation.

As his hands and fingers danced in the air, he sang in a loud tenor voice, "Shema Yisraeil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echod." He paused, waiting for reaction from the students.

There was none.

What did I say, boys?

Several students answered together. Hear, oh Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

He nodded his head and smiled one of his rare smiles, Yes, you’ve all said this prayer before, and by now I hope that it is in your brain forever. Let’s continue with the rest of the Shema. And you shall love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them to your children, and you shall talk of them when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise. He paused and looked at the students, his hands and arms now stilled and brought down at his sides.

When you lie down and when you rise? What does that mean? How do we follow this commandment? he asked staring at each of his students in turn.

They did not respond, so he continued. We recite the Shema in the evening when we lie down to sleep and in the morning when we get up. This means that we must always think of the Shema. Then it says, You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. How do we do that?"

The smallest one of the group, a bright-eyed youngster named Yaakov answered. That’s the phylacteries with the prayers inside that we wrap around our arm and head to remind us to keep the laws.

Good, Yaakov. He then continued with, And you shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates. And what does that…? A hand shot up before the word was out of the rabbi’s mouth. "The Mezuzah, interrupted Ze’ev. That’s what we touch when we go into the house."

That’s right, Ze’ev. You see how what we do is connected to these prayers?

Yes, rabbi, said Ze’ev, smiling and nodding.

And who owns your house?

My father, said Ze’ev.

What does the Mezuzah mean?

Silence.

The answer is that the Mezuzah reminds us that God owns our house. Then we will keep our house a holy place where everybody lives in peace with God and with nature and with each other. That’s why we touch the Mezuzah on the doorpost and kiss our fingers when we come and go. We do that to remember to live with His rules.

The rabbi looked at his boys in turn. He stopped speaking for a moment of silence to bring them to attention if their thoughts had strayed. He found these pauses to be an effective method of returning the boys to the concentration that, at this age, they were prone to lose.

Yes, now you’re getting the idea, he said. There’s always a reason for those rituals we take for granted. They remind us that we are but children of the One God, and we are the people who brought this truth to the world. If we follow the One God there’ll be hope for all. It’s a blessing to recite the Shema because it means that we accept God’s guidance. The Shema must be the last prayer we say before we die.

The students nodded yes.

You know that Moses received the Torah from Sinai.

Yes, they all said as one.

How many books are there in the Torah?

Five, they said together.

God gave Moses the Torah, right?

The students looked at each other wondering why the rabbi asked such an obvious question. Then together they nodded their heads.

Yes, you know the Torah is God’s laws given to Moses for the Jews.

Facing one boy the rabbi approached him and said, And tell me Laban, where did God get the Torah?

God wrote it? answered Laban with more of a question then an answer.

Ah, good, you remember your lessons. When did he write it, Saul?

He wrote it with Moses on the mountain, answered Saul with confidence.

The rabbi turned to the entire group and asked, Is Saul right?

Yes, some answered in a quiet, tentative manner, knowing that when the rabbi asked a question in this way there was more to come.

I want all of you to think for a minute. How do you build a house?

With wood and bricks and stones, said Saul.

That’s right, but is that what you do? First decide to build a house and then go in the forest and fetch wood and stones and just go ahead and build it?