Behind the Camera 2.0

[Music] hello um and i'm here with um my good friend rab maisha yarmisch the famous legendary photographer of great rabbinic leaders gedaili israel and i want to thank you amudhim for the great opportunity to be back here at the special emotion event it's great to be back for a second here and if i move them invited us back for a second here then i guess uh it's it's an even more cause for uh excitement um and it's really a privilege to be here together with the photographer legend moshi amish for about the segment behind the camera part 2.0 so we had part one last year which was very well received and um it's still archived on the amudham website i believe so if you remember it from last year and liked it or if you're curious about we had some fantastic stories about the these really amazing pictures and the history and the personalities associated with them um and we're here for part two it's mostly new material there's a couple of personalities who might be familiar from last year but there's new stories a new angle and mostly new personnel mostly new daily israel all together the stories and history behind these historic pictures of great rabbinical leaders is something that can be seen through pictures the the cliche goes a picture is worth a thousand words and it's not just a cliche it's actually true and it's worth far more than a thousand words so i'm happy to that you'll join us here i'm yehudi gaber a historian tour guide and host of the jewish history sound bites podcast together with legendary good island photographer moshi yarmisch and we're all happy that you're here to join us on behalf of amudhim as we embark on a photographic and historical exciting journey together so what we're going to do is the the pictures which are worth more than a thousand words because they form a historical record they are able to tell a story they make it more alive more relevant they give it context and the there's all kinds of associations with each picture and it adds so much more color than any text in the world could and that's why it's so it's so much better to tell a story through a picture and why so that that's the answer why we're doing with pictures instead of just reading a text but why moshy armish that's that's the next question because there's many people who have photographed uh great rabbis great torah leaders great kadelis all over the years but there's a certain uniqueness to the images that you have captured especially in the pre-digital age i think that's what's most uh important about your work in that it was it was more focused and it was more um you know you you i remember you describing last year about how you'd go out on specific journeys to obtain certain pictures at certain moments and therefore your stories more than others perhaps have an even more exciting and fun story to tell so i think uh we're ready to go um and we'll we'll go right ahead with the first picture so let's start with um this picture uh rabbi victor miller one of the greatest rabbinical leaders rabbis in the united states scene over the 20th century lived a long and fruitful life and uh his popularity seems to grow following his passing as so many people listen to his audio uh lectures on every conceivable topic the man was a genius who literally covered every facet of both torah and the scientific and general knowledge so what do you what can you tell us about the picture uh that you took here okay uh victor miller um there happened to be a nasa safa torah um i think it was given to his sons yeshiva or miller he used to have a son uh who passed away i think during covert recently but um it was written uh uh they were writing it in the house by somebody by the name feldman it happened to be uh on right here in flatbush and he it's interesting because he used to walk a lot um his yeshiva was i mean he was like i think an avenue r in ocean parkway and i think he used to walk almost every single day like miles he was like i think the destination was pretty much his son's uh his where his son used to live which was pretty much close to like a mile away and there was many pictures i'm not the only one who took pictures of him on the street there were many people on avenue j in flatbush i don't know if these are familiar with people who are listening um you would see him many times just walking the streets uh he would uh you know he would take a long leisurely walk his picked his famous picture of him looking at that there used to be a um a new york times uh stands on on one of these corners and he's like there's a picture of him like bending down even just to see the latest uh whatever but he he had to take a tremendous amount of a lot a lot of walking it happens to be that he was coming from this ceviche where he wrote an ice into the sepatara and he was just walking to wherever he he was walking too um i captured his uh you know walking on the street he happened to put his hand up it looks like he was like waving to me it wasn't i just happened to capture the moment and uh this picture has been very you know wildly popular for the miller fans it's just you know it's colorful it's nice he's smiling it's outside it's just uh just it was so-called one of the best sellers what can i say yeah and i can see why also a few things you said um especially the last thing about his smile he was in many ways a very serious individual he took things and topics very seriously and when you hear him speak um he has a very you know a certain intensity to him um and and uh not to make light of things he everything was a topic was a sugiya with something to dissect and uh and analyze and therefore to get that lightness to him to that smile that warmth which brings out the other side of his personality because he was an incredibly fatherly individual like i emphasized um although he did serve as a masjid yeshiva in high balloon for about two decades for close to 20 years for most of his life he was a pulpit rabbi he was arriving in chelsea massachusetts for a couple of years and then for many many years in brooklyn rugby and then in flatbush and he was a leader of of people of families of of uh and he built them up so this is someone who who definitely had us you know much warmth and much of a smile to him and uh to be able to get that on on cameras that's that's what i like best about the picture also about the walking the thing other thing you said also you know it resonated with me was the walking he's someone who was somewhat known for his walks both because he put such an emphasis on a health aspect of it about his exercise and how important it is and be out of the fresh air and he made his life's mission to live the char habrina of the chavez the looking around the world around us the natural world the physical world the animal kingdom the the you know astronomy the influence of iran to look and see god and and see everything about it the the marabou and he sort of the simplest things so even on his daily walks he talked about sunlight and air and water the things that we really take for granted and you know not just uh how an ant builds a colony underground um and and but but beyond that he was a student of slovakia he was someone who grew up in baltimore um went to new york to learn in yeshiva's rebellion which became yeshiva college university at the time he was there and then he gets exposed to her of isaac sher who's the rashiva in slovakia and he comes to fundraise in the united states during the interwar period and regularly gets enraptured by him and goes on a boat and he's off this american boy to learn in lithuania in slovakia stays there for six seven years becomes an incredible student there very close to through isaac's share and he personified the godless adam the greatness of man the aristocracy that nobility of character and bearing of slavka throughout his life and that also comes across in the picture and it's also related to his walks because supposedly this story is true i didn't actually check you know this specific one but it really matches his personality but he was once asked if he was if he had if he one day he uh merited to sim after his passing he was be brought back to life for one hour after having seen the world of truth and seeing where what what goes on in the next world need one hour to be back in this world what would he util how would he utilize his time would he would he study torah would he davin would he study musser like a real muslim what would he how would he use that hour and supposedly the answer he gave was it really depends if it was seven o'clock in the morning i would be davening if it was eight o'clock in the morning i would be eating breakfast if it would be at this and this time i would be taking my walk and if it would be like this and this time i would be learning in the basement and he basically was conveying that he believed that his life was so in order and so scheduled and he had worked it out that he's doing the right thing at any given moment that everything he was doing was awaiting hashem everything he was doing was the right thing to be done at that moment he never wasted a moment and therefore his walk down ocean parkway that you described and captured in this picture is the same available hashem as far as he was concerned as his learning in the base measures so i think that's uh what's brought out as well in in this picture very true let's move to number two this picture of rough palm was taken um purim 1987. um although the picture looks like he was posing for me for a picture it it really wasn't it was as they say i captured the moment um interesting thing about this picture is um many years after i took the picture uh turbidas in um honored rough palm and he was like the guest of honor and this picture was on every single lamppost in flatbush all over the place and he was like whatever it it i i got a lot of grief from it but uh whatever um you know he was he was very very uncomfortable not because he didn't like the picture because he just you know he didn't like it you know his picture all over the place placed it all over the place uh this picture was uh chuvu uses this picture as you know because true was representative so they almost like so-called inherited this picture but no i i took the picture it was taken on paul in 1987. um we i learned by your palm for uh six or seven years but um when i uh i got smith from upon but this was you know in his clay for every purim for his class he would you know they have like a little meseba and uh across the street from the shiva in the basement cotton as it was called uh or the the the elementary school i'm sorry and um look this picture captures who rafam was always with a smile always how can i describe her phone i mean you know the glare i mean whoever remembers the glasses and the smile and and and this was in his good years you know later on he was like not well whatever say look but this was rappam as they say batok fight and who reform was i mean his his essence his kindness and everything you know comes through in this picture i'm sure you can you give a little historical thing who reform was before the start of the thing he he he was describing it he was essentially your rebbe your palm was my rabbit he was my massage and he was one of my kids baris he wasn't sondik because i happened to have the skull and rebel was the sondik but uh yeah i learned vera palm asked me for a palm i learned by him besides the two or three years that i learned your day about him i used to go to his humashir and i recorded his homoshia for six or seven years i used to drive him all the time so i guess you want to call it um yes i'm gonna come from phone so beyond this on this you're taking it as your hobby is taking pictures of everyone uh every girl this is much more personal this is someone who felt personally connected with and and to have captured it you know that like you said the essence is is much more powerful in a personal way than just uh an abstract way of getting another good shot of a great man yeah so i mean yes i was very close to a palm um in yeshiva every single day with him so it's i happen to catch the capture this picture but yes i was very close it wasn't like my other pictures were happened to be a paparazzi and i happened to capture the moment this was you know every day i saw a farm you know you see you you were still like this was when you were still younger you said you were by his parents you were like i mean just before you you were taking this is probably one of your earliest ones before you're talking about um not the earliest ones i would say i started taking pictures the eric uh in the late 70s with a little camera i was like a little kid um and then and this was like more like around 10 years later when i was like so-called an adult this is before i was married but i got married in 1991 so this is 1987. i was uh you know i didn't get married very young but i was a good you know 20 something years old amazing now um first of all is that's his full name he actually was very proud of his that he had a is as a kind canadian he said that um his parents his father had a uh mcgill a lineage of of of their accurate good family of kahuna all the way back to arnaud which was lost during world war one unfortunately but we take his word for it so he was uh he was you know he had that real iris of a client um he again that radiant face that it's it's it's it's really it's an incredible to capture an image like that and and that light on camera because so many people described him like that so many of us tell me even described him like that and here you see it and if i'm not mistaken it wasn't just used for shuvu it was also used on his biography it was used on his biography it was used in shuvu it was used rabbi uh shalom smith wrote a bunch of svarim i think uh art school translated it or someone i translated it and that was on that cover i mean it became like you know as they say it uh got a life on its own so uh it was originally mine as they say uh all right you keep on saying originally i hope you didn't lose out because of it you know went into the public domain yeah whatever you know it is what it is you know some people will be very proud that uh this is the picture that if you want a picture upon this is the picture of her upon so many ninety-nine percent of his town leader have this picture on their wall prominently displayed in various sizes this is who rafam was and uh as they say i i've sold many over the years of this particular picture why did it you said it caused him grief when they used it on the shubu dinner uh why did it not work because it was on the lamppost and then it was torn off the lamppost when you know the garbagemen came it just it became like i don't know he was like a little uncomfortable with it but uh you know he did it for the shiva and she even needed for you know raise the money and then you know he he went with a smile and he you know he didn't really say but i know that it like irked him a little that it was there not that it was my fault but uh you know i guess you know he never he didn't put it two together oh i was the one who gave him the picture that was you know all over the streets but uh you know i just know that that was his personal feeling regarding that particular uh event where it was it was really it was all over the place and um whatever but uh hopefully i didn't cause them any grief uh that much and i'm sure that the the dinner was uh you know fabulously successful so i guess like i did the ending to it right it's interesting because i think that that that brings about another point um the story of the picture about him not being so comfortable that it was all over the place is that that's kind of his part of his biography is that he never wanted to be thrust into the limelight he was very comfortable being a rebbe and tara vidas to tell me them like you and not acting on the world scene as a world torah leader and he was almost forced into it he described a phone call that he received from her back of kaminetsky when riako was getting older and he you know rebecca was was coaxing him to take a more active leadership role take more initiative and rupaul was very reluctant at first and rubyaku basically didn't take no for an answer he hung up the phone on him and he like basically forced him into it and water of palm uh you know he didn't express resentment he took it on with the full responsibility and it was amazing how he emerged as the public leader during the last two or three decades of his life once uh another other senior torah leaders were getting older and so he took it on fully but he was he had this reluctance he he had this simplicity and modesty he never wore a rabbinic frock he didn't want to be in the limelight but he did it anyway and here the picture itself you're saying it becomes part of that story that that here he needs to be in the limelight his picture needs to be all over flatbush in order to help raise funds for terror with us and he's even willing that like you said the the garbage that are tearing it down right he's literally being torn down for teruvadas and he's that's also okay at some level because um you know he understands that's what needs to be done even if it's it's not the most ideal thing to do and what's even more interesting um is his legacy because here's someone who was so modest and quiet in one hand and so reluctant to be in the limelight on the other hand and correct me if i'm wrong and this is more contemporary than history so i could be wrong i'm never wrong in history but it could be i'm wrong that um that rafam has probably more tall medium than anyone else who have taken active roles in communal leadership of organizations of schulz of yeshivas of national organizations of international orthodox organizations i left and right everywhere you look at their almost and almost always are very often terrible as tell me them and specifically students of rapunzel so it's it's incredible i mean someone who is he was he was so he was so beloved it's it's beyond comprehension they loved him it was it was they just loved them and they they would do anything you know to help him and to make him happy whatever it was uh you know what those were and there's a certain thing that when you see automotive palm you could tell tell by the person what he does that this you know that he's a tommy ripon it's just a certain amount of mo or vena breasts not aloof just um nice guys it's just nice each one mentioned and that's what he incorporated into his domino you know right i mean there's many many many examples of it but you know but uh you could tell about tommy rough palm is stands out you know unique as his product yes amazing okay let's move on to number three here we have the blue javarebba ruby stroll spira the great and holy rabbit of belugev in galicia he himself lived in lava for many years i gotta say and i say this about a lot of your pictures last year and i think this about a lot of your pictures in general but this is one of my favorites and and and just from everything about it and i i want to elaborate on what you know about the blue java and and all that but first i want to hear what the when you took the picture how you took the picture i'm just curious because it happens to be that i happen to have a friendly with a few to see them and they go crazy it's like i like you know i've taken many many pictures but for some reason i i'm not exactly sure i assume every person has what they like about this picture but they go crazy about this picture uh a blush of a hustler tells me he says the way the rebels fingers are that's how he has etched in his mind i mean i don't know if you ever saw the blizzard rebel but this was their memory of him and and the picture it just captures the way they remember him but if you're the third person who told me that this is their fame their their favorite picture um this picture i think was taken in 1986 and 1987 i'm not 100 sure it was taking hashana rabba and hashanah rabbit was rather happening for me i would run from one place to another because not everybody was on the same schedule and in bar park i would run to bubba i would run to hampshire but whatever and happened to be there i had to run in here apparently it was the time that they were uh either was a shyness time you know going around i don't remember exactly what time was but he was sitting there it was open and i just took the picture and i just it was this one picture that i took and then that was it um i mean i guess you could see that i guess from historically i'm sure the yamaka that he's wearing is probably from the benefits hustler that's somebody from his i'm not exactly sure who it is from i'm not sure either but it's one of those that you said yeah yeah it's probably one of those um and it's a chanderaba as you know as holy the time as as it is i mean i guess he was taking kippah but i guess i couldn't picture the name kipper and this as i said before captures who i guess who he was and uh and more than that i can't say like you said it's a great picture and i have to be there at the right moment yeah it was really amazing and and this is like i'm not even familiar with the whole bar park scene there's like a blue jersey stable that's where he is on 57th street uh or 58th street between the 13th and 14th uh between 14th and 15th avenue a little small steeple over there um i mean the stable in my mind is famous because if you remember there's a famous picture of the samurai black on my picture of something but walking down the stairs in barrow park that was coming out of the blizzard vestibule it happened to be the blush of a rebbe's [Music] grandson's pigeon haben and the sami rebel was there and the famous harry trained a picture of him walking down the stairs but that was the i'm not even sure if they're still there maybe they just threw it down and they built something else over there i don't know there's a few blush forevers today uh grandchildren whether it's the ribotic blush of i don't know what they call themselves but that's the steeple that i took the picture and it was never a big huge one no never oh they have it and they had blizzard to see them whatever they had a hundred people and then it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't a very big jewel and he was happy with that he he didn't need he didn't need you know he was happy doing good whatever he was doing he he also was not interested in and then you know people running after him or whatever he did what he did and not interested in the fanfare or whatever and uh that's where i captured the picture so it it is amazing i mean he's someone who who passed away at age 100 uh two or three years after you took the picture so he lived for a full century uh the pictures when he's 97 98 something like that and he besides for living through a century he lives through the jewish 20th century which is the most momentous and in many ways tragic century in jewish history and he goes through all that he's someone who probably more than any other famous rabbinic personality went through the war and the holocaust through six full years he was in poland it was not in hungary or any other place so he went from beginning to end and the miracle of his life and his rebuilding on a small scale like you said he doesn't make a place of big meisters a lot of institutions and thousands of see them in a huge way spanish but the that rebuilding there's so much to see in that picture itself those sunken eyes and the yamaka of of his ancestors of either the the denver uh uh or um or or this or whoever it was i always i'll tell you what like personally when i think of this picture is i tried to think what is he thinking of what's going through his mind there's something there of this holiness this concentration what is he you know what's what's what's going through what's going through his mind is his holy mind at this time on ishan araba you know with his kittle and the garthel and the talis and it just gives this whole scene he was he was in lava at the war's outbreak he goes through the lava ghetto which was a terrible place he's later at the anubsca road camp itasca road camp which was you know in in in holocaust historiography there are researchers who dislike referring to yanovska as a concentration camp because since so many people were killed there it's not even fair to classify it as a concentration camp they want to reclassify it as a death center a death cam and that is a gun's dream that's how horrible yanovska was and he survived zanusky he was even on a train to belgius which was a real death camp where no one survived but he was sent back from belgium to sort the clothing of recent victims he was in the furnace of death itself he is then transported to other camps ends up in bergen-belsen towards the end of the war he went through it from beginning to end not only that he loses his wife and family after the war you mentioned that his children and grandchildren became brothers it was his second marriage uh he had adopted children he had real children from his second marriage his wife was a survivor who had lost her husband and her family and and it's like i don't think he had children from the second second wife it was just the adopted children yeah well yeah it was his wife's children his wife you have to understand i mean he at the war time you're talking about he was in his 50s right that's another young yeah most survivors are were either child survivors hidden most survivors of the camps were in their 20s teens 20s maybe 30s and here he was in his mid 50s during the war um and he he somehow survived and uh and some of the greatest uh holocaust and inspirational holocaust stories that i relate over to groups in europe is um is about him um i think uh jaffa elijah interviewed him yes yaphel the late the great holocaust research survivor herself interviewed him personally she he granted her enthusiasm it was also not a very typical thing a big hasidic rabbi uh granting holocaust uh interviews to a female holocaust researcher and she interviewed him extensively in other words she sat for several sessions where she went through his whole story with him um she they're they are from the most accurate stories and hasidic tales of the holocaust which she wrote some of the other stories and there are a bit questionable but his stories are impeccable they come straight from the blue javarepa's mouth and and of course many many other ones come from his his wife is second robinson um a few in particular that stand out by me is when he in yanovska wrote camp he was the sadistic assessed one of the things that they did to them there um at one point they were forced to jump across a ditch and uh and and it was it was it seemed to be physically impossible to jump across for a healthy man maybe for an olympic sprinter and here there's people who were starved who were male you know malnutrition diseased beaten tortured broken and they were expected to jump across this ditch and the they're standing there anyone who would fall in would be shot and this would there this would be their way of basically carrying out a celexia who's still fit to work because if they're physically able to get across the ditch then then we can keep them for slave labor for a short time longer and the the fellow is standing next to the blue javarepa before he jumps he says how are we going to make it how can we jump we can't jump so he says i have no idea i don't know how we're going to do it we just have got to try and jump and close our eyes and rely on hashem and will make it and he like says he says or he says something and he makes the jump the next thing is he opens his eyes and he finds himself on the other side of the ditch he looks around and he sees his partner the one who started off with him also still standing next to him and and and this and this fellow says to rebecca how do you do it and he says i closed my eyes and i held on to the coattails of my great ancestors of the two of my father of the tsila tzadik of the banaya saskar of dinah of the emily mello of lejanska ever all my great tadikim ancestors i held on to their coattails and they schlepped me across and that's how i ended up across how did you get across and this the guy standing next to him says i held on to you that's how i got across yeah and that story is it blows my mind each time because that's jewish history how do we get across life how do we get across our 2000 year exile how do we get across the challenges of raising children and making a living and of collectively as as the jewish nation how do we get across history and we did it by holding on to the coattails by we're not letting go of our past not letting go of our ancestors not letting go of our saddiquin as far as his partner is concerned not letting go of of who are near and dear to us of everything that we come from and we hold so strong onto our past and that gets us across the dish we don't fall into the ditch when we hold on so tight and don't let it go so that was uh a great story there's uh um another one it's quite a famous one it was towards the end of the war when he's in bergen-belsen um and in his in his barracks a few broken jews come together they try to light hanukkah hanukkah candles on the first night of hanukkah and they they like i think they took either shoe polish or some margarine from their starvation rations and they made a wick out of their sleeve or something and the and and they they honor him in lighting this this this wick on the first night of hanukkah and he recites the first bracha hanukkah and he recites the second brah saying then he stops and he turns around and he waits a few seconds and he doesn't say anything and then he turns back around and he says the third rakha for the first night and they light it and a few minutes later of course they put it out because the ss might come and they're nervous and they and and life goes on and someone approaches the blue juventus irreligious jew not affiliated but he knows knows who the rebbe is and he says rabbi i respect that you wanted to do a religious act and you wanted to maintain a religious identity because that's preserving our humanity and our identity and our jewishness in these terrible times and the nazis are trying to dehumanize us and we're showing that we're still alive we can do it so i have no way even if i'm irreligious and i don't believe in it i respect that you did it and i'm happy to participate and i even understand how you made those first two blessings your bless your blessing about the mitzvah you're making another blessing about the nisim the miracles that were once done to us but how dare you make that third blessing you're happy that we're alive today we're five and a half years into this terrible war we've all lost our families we're going to get killed we're for sure not going to survive what are you happy about and the blue jeremy tells him i agree with you i did not want to recite this prophet either i don't think it was appropriate and i turned around and i paused because i knew there was a rabbi of a town in hungary in our barracks and i wanted to ask him is it even permitted to recite this program because no one's happy that we're that we're here and alive today just like you said but you know what i saw when i turned around i saw hundreds of pairs of eyes looking at me with anticipation with the histychicus with an excitement that even in bergen-belsen even after everything we've been through even after everything we lost we're still waiting to light a hanukkah candle and i said that's i'm excited to see that the jewish spirit has never been crushed and and again that's when i see that i think of this story also um and the last thing is is that you went into base medicine boro park borough park is in new york city in the united states of america he when he grew up and he was in his mid 50s like we said when the war broke out and he grew up in the old world of galicia in the world of the divre khayyam of sans of the banaya saskar of dinav of the old galician polish hasidis he never imagined that he would one day be in this urban american materialistic environment attempting to rebuild the hasidis with a new family he would never have dreamed of it but when he was pulling into a ship new york harbor in 1946 he was one of the first groups of survivors to arrive as refugees after the war and he comes into new york harbor and he's standing on the deck alone with just a shirt on his back no money no family no anything is someone who had a community of hasidim before the war someone who had so much and lost everything lost literally everything it can't even be described how much he lost and there's an american sailor a non-jewish sailor who's standing on the deck and he says to him rabbi you see that's the statue of liberty and there's that's a that's that's a welcoming to all immigrants to refugees there's even a poem authored by a jewish woman emma lazarus at the pedestal of of the statue of liberty give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to be free and so on and uh you're welcome here rabbi you can start again with everything you it was destroyed in your life you can start again in the united states and the beluga starts to cry and he says thank you mr sailor for welcoming there's one place in the world that will allow jews to come that will welcome jews in but i have to make one correction huddled masses there are no huddled masses anymore there are a few individuals and it's up to those individuals to go ahead and rebuild what was lost and he saw himself as one of those individuals that here there is no more huddled masses but these individuals are yearning to be free and to rebuild the yiddish kite and he did he did and he remained it as individuals he didn't build the big masses of casinos he did it as individuals but his impact was on so many individuals even in well well beyond the world of lujan so many people were touched by his life and his actions and his leadership i believe that the see in hashas um which is till today dedicated to the memory of the six million uh of kadasha who were lost or killed in the war is because of his initiative he pushed for that that the cms should be in their memory just one of many things that that were his impact so he really is is someone special and and i think that uh that hundred years of history that he lived is is is written on his face in that picture that you were able to get in that let's go to number four so here we have the uh previous skeletal now it's too previous the right the old old scholena rapper of eleazar zusha portugal who was the rabbi in skeleton in in romania um so what's the story of this picture later soon we're going to show a picture of his son who's who succeeded him as the rebel of israel of so it's the father and son duo who are the skeletabas leaders of romanian jewry both in romania and later in the united states what is your connection to skeleton and how do you come to take these pictures of the father and the son okay so so first of all this picture was taken by a grandson's wedding in williamsburg uh wha what year did he pass away 82 um this was i remember it was it was it was in the baby 283 yeah so this was like 81 whatever um and uh this is under the hopper uh he at the end of his life he was pretty much blind he could not see and usually when i take pictures with the flesh it just happens to be i get a lot of people who are screaming at me whatever and you know for him it didn't really bother him he didn't see it anyway so nobody really said anything um this was by a grandson's wedding and and i was just you know lucky to i took a bunch of pictures over there at that time it was like the first time that i really had a good camera and took you know very nice pictures of him uh my my uh so-called relationship with skeleton is really comes from my grandfather rabbi sv rancino they call him harry branson he was very big you know askin uh he went many times to russia he had an organization called altidom he was a mayo but he was very instrumental in taking out the scalenu reba and his son from romania uh he was in jail at that time uh i it's it's very how it came about my grandfather i mean my grandfather used to sell on the saudis to sell caramel wine this may sound insane but um you sell caramel wine and at that time romania produced um uh one of these brandies of one of one of these things and uh at that time oh okay so they had something that they produced over there in romania and at that time romania was not didn't have a certain status in the united nations or whatever so my my grandfather helped and and they they they brought romania to uh uh uh something status um they gave a certain status that you were able to import things from romania so because of that it was very involved with a lot of different things but anyway so he is in romania it was in jail and my grandfather sent matsis over there there's a whole story how how the sclener ever how he was in jail as a matter of fact this glennareva every he's every hamish by uh by a tuba of every year he makes in alka it's called the daw and every year i'm talking about from the old scaleneraba to the past one who passed away you stole of rama's son and even this many skeleton rabbits today every sudden they talk about my grandfather because my grandfather besides the fact that the rebbe said he sent mapses and sugar it was just something they were like dying for but he felt that the biggest the biggest major nace that he saw was the same person who was torturing him actually torturing this galanareba he was forced to give him this matzah and and the sugar so him was like a big thing so every sunday i uh by uh they would speak about it as a matter of fact by every seder by pesach knight by the seder they all the rabbis they all spoke about my grandfather of hershel bronstein how he helped them and and they never forgot which is amazing as a matter of fact every yard site where my grandfather is the arts i was off nissan for the last i don't know 20 years after he passed away i would go over the skeletal rabbit to get a bracha and he would like talk about my grandfather whatever uh my uh it happened to me that my sondik was this galena rabbit that uh uh like sun sadik my son uh who's named after my grandfather his sonic was the pastor of the who passed away so i i will call it that the my grandfather helped this glenda even when he came to america he helped with his apartment he helped them you know getting you know a new immigrant coming you know he helped them a lot so he scalene has a lot of accuracy types to my grandfather and um i guess so i felt always a connection to the scholar um so this picture was taken like i said by the fastener and um and of course you'll see the next picture is taking up the sun but uh so we do have a lot of cyclists this one amazing it's beautiful it sounds like a a good close relationship and and to understand what your grandfather did it's worth noting that uh the skeletal like i mentioned was in romania so he was a talmud of some of the revision or branches in romania's uh saudi arabia wasn't really in romania but he was uh and then of the was you know really in romania a real romanian hasidis and he's the rabbi of skullen he was not from you know he wasn't a hasidic dynasty he was a hustler of big rabbis and then he was the rabbi in skeleton and he emerges as a rabbi so he's i guess we would call it an authentic rabbi he didn't inherit it he he really really becomes this leader of khasidah and and he's he's one of the only people the rhythmist rep also not many very many people who are hasidic rubbers who remain behind under a communist regime after surviving the holocaust going through the holocaust as a survivor and then staying in eastern europe in the place where the holocaust took place but more so under a communist regime an atheist anti-religious communism where preaching religion and teaching it to the youth can be a crime um and he says he's the inspiration for romanian survivors who stayed behind in romania he has an act of based madrid and i know about children and grandchildren of other romanian survivors who stayed in romania after the war who though their only way of continuing any form of yiddish kind of any judaism behind the iron curtain it wasn't technically in the soviet union but was behind the iron curtain in the communist sense was their affiliation with the scalenora during the uh he only had this one son who was the last one who passed away but he adopted many children a lot of the you men took care of a lot of yeah he took the level of things yeah yeah but he was like their father as a matter of fact many years later when it was there they married themselves and they married off children skelenrab used to come to all their weddings and because they were like children amazing they were his father's children yeah and the um very very very beautiful songs were composed by both of the last travis and one of them he composed during the holocaust um about uh you know a whole long thing which i of course don't even know the words and and and definitely would not sing because people are supposed to be enjoying the amudham event not being you know upset at it so but it was it was a very haunting song very hunting tune very powerful words um and the uh and and it included the the cry of the imprisoned the encas us here in during the holocaust and that then in the 1950s at one point he was romania was romanian government allowed a jewish delegation to visit uh romania to to see that jews are not being prosecuted there's no oppression of religious life there's no suppression of of jewish life in romania and was all a sham because any meeting of this american delegation was with with local romanian jews was with communist officials in the room right and they knew they would get punished if they said everything was censored and the scholenarebe is one of the leading one of the leaders of romanian jury in the 1950s was chosen as a member of the romanian delegation and he was racking his brains how am i going to convey to the free world this is a one-time chance we're going to have this meeting how can i convey to the free world that things are really really bad and what he decided to do is he asked the communist officials if he can sing them a song in hebrew that he had composed under nazi oppression during the holocaust okay nazis are bad right you know so you're singing no problem see he sings that song but he changes one part of the song the words encase us here he changed into this cry and casa he like screamed it almost and until today when they sing the song of the sklenareva it's again i'm not going to sing it because i'm just going to mess it up but it's it's screamed and sir the cry of the oppressed and the american delegation understood right away that there's an encasa that he's screaming out for help because it's not easy to live as a jew in communist romania and that leads this chain of events leads to your grandfather eventually after after he's arrested it's after he's in jail actually later in 1960 getting him out and here we have his son so the father of lazarus portugal we saw before and here we have a visceral realm portugal the next galena rebel who takes over his father and he takes as far as legacy in the hested lavrom organization which his father established to help the needy to help the downtrodden the children from dysfunctional homes from abusive homes from you know with parents in jail in other words the ones that society would have neglected ever he took those as his hasidah that's that's the people he's taken care of and he built homes for them and got you know got them helped married them off them off paid for their weddings and and and um portugal used to uh it used to go around fundraising for in fact um i i grew up in in muncie so you know of course i remember the vision at syrah and the square ever but one of the first encounters that i remember with the hasidic rubber was at the scalenera because he came for a fundraiser and the way it was marketed to us was come to see the scholar of course he's also going to ask for money but you're coming to see this big side of this glandereva and i'm the seven-year-old kid and four shea and he says to me you're what's this ship you need to cut that off that was the that was the that was his famous thing yeah that was worried about the chop and if somebody had like a tv in their house so that was he was yeah but he was consistent it's not as if when he came to a rich person's house he would not say anything no if the kid was the the rich person who's giving them who knows how much money his kid has a big choke he would say you know you have to take off the choke it's not good the creepers or whatever yet all very interesting uh it happens to be that this picture yes it is this glen rabbit but this picture believe it or not was taken by the by the hanukkah's evan happina of yeshiva's turritemima wow yeah so this was an ocean parkway with the turret mima building was built many years later uh and um and he had to you know he was there it happens to be that this picture it's interesting because if you look at the picture you could tell that that is when he was much younger because after um when he was older he would let his pay us down and here he had to pay you know the pace around zaziah so i guess people skeletons know exactly what time it was taken but this was a classic picture you know beautiful picture of the skull nerve i took many many pictures of this glandereva i used to take pictures by all the dinners i mean they would hire me whatever i was many times in the rebber's house since i knew of heschl grunstein's grandson so you know they were like so-called more uh free with me more access more access yeah and uh i knew him i knew the rabbits in whatever i was like very close over there it's amazing and he looks so regal he had this hydro spun in his yeah beautiful yeah and he he also used to compose many many songs a lot of times i used to see him and he would sit there with a tape recorder always near him just in case he thought of a song and he would tape it and play it back and you know improve on it like uh very well i didn't know that and he had this his especially was in borough park yeah expansions on bar park on 54th street between 13 and 14. they have you for many many years um not a big uh not not a big base mattress in the later years they expanded a little whatever but he's diamond very late and he and sometimes they would be standing on the street to help somebody who didn't die in chakras yet that we talked about later in the day whatever he didn't really have a many many many people later years of course you know then he had you know a lot more people but in the beginning even his father used to live in crown heights and many times he he would dive in in 770 in because you know just to them to get a minion because he really didn't know he had nothing he didn't have anything in crown heights wow so 770 was home to the school and also well he was a rebel under communism so that would fit well with labavish you know the uh fighting for yiddish kind of undercover yes but i'm just saying because not because of lubavitch but more because right because yeah wow so i i also like it because especially this picture because he he looks very rubbish he has this beautiful beard silver cane which is like a classic rubber look and those i didn't know what they're called those uh sleeves where you have the velvet on the sleeves that's also a very rubbish thing yeah and the beard and the paste the whole thing it looks and that and therefore if it's in color you could say wow this is 20th century classic grammar and if it would have been in black and white you would have said 19th century classic rubber right and under communism there's no such thing as a classic rabbit because he couldn't have looked like that i guarantee you that he or his father didn't have a silver cane and velvet because walking through the streets in romania in the 1950s he probably couldn't afford it and he probably would have been dangerous too and i'm just i'm just imagining here i'm not stating anything that i know right no no no i'm sure not he definitely wasn't in the open you know you had to do everything hidden over there was a different world even though that was it was a lot later it was night till 1960 you know when i talking about something yeah so it's like 20 years later in the holocaust but yeah right very oppressed over there and and and so behind the facade of this regal bearing is lies all those romanian years where he was the same exact rubber the same exact leader the same exact character to see them but without the external trappings right and therefore the external trappings is not what makes the rubber it's who he is is what makes the rebel yes yes that's he was special person very special person yeah okay i think i think we'll wrap it up for now this was a a pleasure schliss i really enjoyed it thank you ramaisha for again another wonderful session your pictures are lighting up the world uh giving us so much uh knowledge so much inspiration so many stories so many things to light up our lives with what you were able to i don't know if you imagined that when you were taking these pictures back then that that uh it would have such an impact on the wider society at that time yeah definitely didn't at that time and i'm happy to see that many jewish homes have my pictures hanging yeah and people are enjoying it yes and uh thank you amudhim for giving us this platform for the special event of behind the camera part two and wishing you all the best thank you thank you [Music] you