The Mir Yeshiva's Escape to Shanghai (Rabbis on the Run Series)

okay good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back to rabbis on the run the series that we've been uh discussing on tuesday evenings this year we've introduced several times we've had the privilege of our sessions rabbis who've been able to author all kinds of scholarship while on the run it's really extraordinary what they accomplished and what they achieved when you think about us we who in peace and serenity and tranquility relative prosperity even with the pandemic that we faced for many has meant just being locked up with the ability to study to produce to write to publish and we don't yet achieve a fraction of a fraction of what many of these rabbis who were on the run fleeing for their lives were able to do and that's the series that we've had this year i want to thank our series sponsor paneer lenny grunstein the memory of their fathers maurice grinstein and aaron tambor all the learning that took place should be sure to elevate their neshama this particular class in our topic you'll understand in a moment is very relevant and less to go with his props back there judy and lester lester henner a sponsor also in honor of memory of his parents you got amina hunter who fled europe and they were married i don't think anyone else here can say they married there not marina del rey but they were married in shanghai china 75 years ago we have some documentation and props to prove it oh oh right here okay right here i'm about to reveal my ignorance by not knowing which way to hold this up but here you have what is this dexuba what is this this is not the suba i could tell you that is it the extrema can you read this okay it's a contract with the caterer i heard they serve chinese at the wedding is that true orange beef and egg rolls but thank you uh for your generous sponsorship just as a housekeeping point there is a one final class in the series which will take place on wednesday march 9th here on the social robberil blumenthal sneaking mysticism into the new world rebuttal rosenberg and the maharal's golem you don't want to miss that it's on march 9th so join for that also we've begun our campaign for our brs global and i apologize but i don't really apologize you're going to hear me continue for the next week or so emphasize those who are not members if you're a member of brs you're doing your part to enable brs to spread to its messages its values and its vision but if you're not a member of brs and yet you are a consumer of brs you enjoy listening and watching and reading and attending and eating and drinking and being cooled or warmed by the air conditioning then please do your part we run a campaign once a year we want to try to get our message out better bigger farther and we need your help in order to do it it's that simple you could do it while i'm speaking take out your phone i'm not offended at all vrsonline.org global brsonline.org global our topic tonight is vast and i am grossly inadequate incompetent and capable you never want to hear the speaker say this by their for their introduction but this is a vast vast topic with so much rich history to share first-hand accounts this is not ancient history but it's relative recent history for which we have video firsthand testimony documentary historians have done analysis we have literature and books and paperwork some shared with me in the crook of the rock jewish refugee and a world gone mad which is this story and well worth uh reading uh my dear friend judy gebber and david safir two historians write from mishpochah magazine who seem almost obsessed and i say that in a complimentary way with the story of the mirror and the fleeing to shanghai in the mirror today and uh robled malin who will speak a little bit about there are no shortage of people including in this room who are much more competent to be able to share so with that introduction let's begin now but with that introduction my goal tonight as i began to read and research and watch and listen and try to put together and weave together uh for us to be literate to spend in our series what is a very small amount of time that could be unpacked into an entire course years courses on this subject i want to come from the perspective not only although we'll touch on it a little bit of the mirror that's the topic the miraculous escape of the mir to shanghai and the mere the only yeshiva lithuania to have been saved intact there are miscellaneous students from other yeshivas in lithuania who got out in time and took advantage what we'll see are a series of nothing short of miracles and angels that god put here on earth who chose to act like angels and didn't need to so there were miscellaneous people who were saved but the mir was the only yeshiva as a whole that was saved and we're going to tell that story from the perspective of the mirror a little bit what it was like in shanghai and what happened afterwards but much more just a broad historical overview with the most significant names dates and events that enabled this hopefully for those who know the subject well you will not be offended by the injustice i do in presenting it those who don't know the subject well hopefully will feel their appetite was uh we've wet your appetite to read to listen to watch to know more because it is well well worth studying when we think of the mirror today i have a son-in-law learning in the mirror in yerushalayim today there's the mirror in yerushalayim and there's the mirror in in brooklyn when you think about the mirror today and your shallam in particular it is the largest yeshiva on the planet we call earth it competes with base managers gov bmg in lakewood somewhere north of six seven eight thousand students talmidim there's a mirror in brooklyn which doesn't nearly that size also very uh prestigious on our fly-in last week to new york we took two dozen guys and we went and we met different rebels russia yeshiva rebellion and we met one of the russia yeshiva of the mir we went to the mirror and we were first looking at him i'll just tell you this story which is a little bit of a flex but i found so hilarious i can't help but tell you and the mirror yeshiva is connected to the mirror high school and there were some high school yeshiva brooklyn mere boys standing there as we entered we were all looking around for the um of britney who we met to meet with and some of the boys pointed and said that's rabbi goldberg so our guys were like how do you know who rabbi goldberg is so they said what do you mean behind the bema so i was happy to know i hope i didn't just get anyone thrown out of the mirror in brooklyn but i was happy to know that the i said you know the shira mosso and the torah like now we got plenty of that but the behind the bhima that's now that's good stuff um so the mirror in yerushalayim today as i said north six seven eight thousand talmidim it's extraordinary the scope of the shiva and so when we begin and we tell the story we say the mirror was saved the mirror was not originally in lithuania it was in mere poland it moved to lithuania we'll talk about in a moment but we're talking about the mir at a couple hundred tamidim the notion today the assumption the default today that everybody learns and learns for several years or gets married and learns in a cola for many years is an absolute new idea in jewish history and we're not here tonight to talk about the merits of the demerits right or wrong who should support it is it a system that could sustain who developed it why is it here that's not it's a fascinating topic but not for tonight the simple reality is that the most prestigious yeshiva amir was probably the second what was the most prestigious yeshiva at the time it was probably velocin and the mir was probably the second most prestigious and we're talking about a couple hundred maybe three hundred tell me them at most there's not a shirt at the mirror today that's three hundred tell me them you'd be embarrassed to be in the shirt with that futile medium today and that was the whole yeshiva at its time the mirror was established in the year 1815 in a small polish town mir which actually was in belarus as we're seeing today in real time and we'll see some parallels as we uh see our topic tonight the the borders and boundaries of that part of the world change and change regularly your address your zip code your passport could change on a regular basis the mirror was a small town uh in belarus 20 miles from the russian border as i said it was probably the second most prestigious ship at the time velaj in 1815 we're talking it was founded by a merchant a businessman and a torah scholar or shmuel tiktinsky who after his death uh appointed and passed on to be the russia shiva al-khaim labe who was worshiva for many decades and then he was succeeded by his son ravram who brought revelation to the yeshiva in 1903 of kamai's daughter married rebellion otherwise known as yodo son of nassen finkel who was the altar of slavadka so here we had a merger of the great yeshiva slobodka that we've spoken about and studied in the past the who's who of the rabbis of america the 20th century were talmidim of slovaka of yaakov and rafner and ravram and rabbit heights and the who's who of american rabbin of 20th century with tamidan of the altar of of slovakia so here you had the son of the altar of nassen sv who um who would have kamae's daughter narrated belize you definitely was the center of nassau the grandson of the altar of slovakia became the rashiva in the mir and it remained in its original location for 100 years nearly from 1815 until the year 1914. the golden years of the mir in europe not today in yushalam and new york was in the interwar period between the first and the second world war probably at its peak it had 500 talmidam that was the peak that was extraordinary that was a large large yeshiva most came from lita from lithuania and from poland there were about 50 that came from america uh 40 from germany some south africa switzerland alan check isla belgium uk remaining hungry it's hard for us to imagine finland australia but there was a time that american boys went to europe we know um there was some great golem who came back to america who had chosen elected to go to some of these prestigious yeshiva centers of torah to be able to learn with the outbreak of world war one the yeshiva moved to poltava ukraine in 1921 it moved back to its original location it remained there until the nazi invasion of poland in 1939 the beginning of the of the holocaust so um the story is really an absolutely incredible story again we could we could look at it from the perspective of the mirror and the personalities of the mir that lazy the finkel traveled to palestine at the time to get visas for his students to reestablish the yeshiva in eretz israel but the holocaust world war ii interrupted that plan when he was already on his way in 1944 ultimately opened the branch there with 10 students some of them are very uh well-known names rabioto shapiro was the rosh call of the hazarish brim it's a very well known name and uh and others he was succeeded by banish finkel and who was with the mirror in shanghai we'll see that story and ultimately came back to you shalom the great request and uh he was considered the main rosh shiva his son-in-law uh took over after him then of banish finko and then in uh taken over by his sons-in-law namely since finkel who had come from america where did he grow up chicago nate finkel i saw his yearbook from ida crown played basketball if you look at his yearbook from ida crown nate finkel and he had gone to stay with his uncle went to go learn ultimately emerges we know of nassen fifinco person who suffered struggled with parkinson's persevered resiliently built up the mere uh yeshiva and after his sudden patience sudden death in 2011 was succeeded by today's russia shiva of defence who was the russia shiva today so what is uh what is this story where does it begin where does it begin so we're going to go back a little bit in history to give it a context and a context from the perspective not of the mirror but of japan it's a fascinating documentary i watched in preparing this frankly so good i considered just pressing play and letting you watch it instead of listening to me featured on the documentary is a member of our show who lives in our community should be well and have good health run by marvin tokyo who was a rabbi in japan for many years and he's featured in this documentary having studied and lived at this subject there it's well worth it i'm happy to share many of these sources as i said there's so much more to analyze and to dig most japanese records um were destroyed in the bombings in world war ii and the rest whatever was this wasn't destroyed was burnt in what was called the bonfire of the bureaucrats there was a attempt to destroy and to eliminate the records of the time but very strangely historians say strangely we would say pratis we would say providentially there's one group of records that escaped the ashes they weren't destroyed in the bombings they weren't destroyed in the bonfire of the bureaucrats and those are 14 volumes in japan known as the jewish problem files why are there files in japan about jewish problems what are the japanese know from the jews what did the jews know from the japanese that was not a part of the globe that jews had migrated to in our history but in that file are 7 000 pages of japanese analysis of the jews trying to understand jewish monopolies jewish businesses how jews might be manipulated and at the time japanese had nothing to do with knew little had little exposure relationship with the jews when did that change when did that change so in 1894 japan lost a war with china that led to a campaign against russia and they needed money in order to fight this war with russia they needed money they needed financing just like we see today in ukraine they don't have weapons they need financing jewish communities others there need our health need our supports martin adam honda bhima the ceo of tikvah odessa if you saw the video of someone making kiddush in the buses this past friday night on the run we're interviewing him on uh on behind the bhima for a report from ukraine and we'll hear the funds that they need so japan was fighting this war with russia getting ready to fight this war and they had no finances now banks would not finance them you know why because banks don't finance the one side they predict will lose because what happens when you lose there's an excellent chance that what you're not going to be able to pay back whatever loan you took so the japanese were struggling because they needed money to fight russia and nobody would lend to them until a jew i didn't know much i didn't know this jew until i was preparing for this talk but it's well worth the whole talk just on him jacob henry schiff anyone know that name 1847 to 1920. he was a german-born jewish-american banker businessman philanthropist he um he ultimately decided that he was going to finance japan's war against the russians do you know how much money he lent he invested and think about the sum at this time in the early 20th century it was 200 million dollars it's an astounding astounding number and he went to the russians and he went to the japanese and he said no one else is betting on you but i will on the following condition the russians had perpetrated terrible pogroms against the jews that had impacted and influenced schiff and his family he said i'll bet on you as long as you promise me you're going to take out those russians you probably used all kinds of colorful language but we're streaming live and i want people to donate to the global campaign so i can't but he said he said i'll invest and i'll bet on you if you promise me you'll take down these russians japan won shift became a national hero in japan and at that time the japanese attitude to the jews changed because it was a jew and a jewish banker who had actually enabled and financed their ability to succeed that was number one point number two rural japan for many years was untouched by the industrial revolution and by finance industry its economy remained rather simple in some ways even perhaps primitive one of the heroes the protagonist of our story tonight many of you i'm sure know his name is tsugihara he was born in that backdrop shiyun tsugihara january 1st 1900. early years he was influenced by the bushido code which is a japanese code to live bravely with honor with humility there was there was a it was a very simple time but driven by a code of derek it's a code of honor that we can admire he was a strong student he had a flair for foreign languages and culture he liked sports and and played basketball his father i guess here's where we begin the jewish and japanese connection his father desperately wanted him to be a doctor but he defied and in 1918 instead against his father's wishes he went to study english literature in the university of tokyo his father was so opposed to it that his father refused to pay the university tuition and therefore he had to do whatever he could taking odd jobs in order to pay his way in order to survive in the year 1919 he saw an ad to study for the foreign service in which against fierce competition he received a full scholarship to go to school in china now while that's happening there's a war china and manchuria and there's a manchurian faction who at the time was producing terrible products today still we import a lot from china it's inexpensive and also often still poor quality my apologies to the chinese who are watching that which came from that region and that area was considered to be junk so the manchurian faction had this what we would call an einfa they had this great hat they had this great idea they said you know the jews we began to be exposed to them study them we know about the hero banker who financed our victory against the russians you know those jews are pretty good with money what if we import jews to manchuria and what do we set up a jewish yeshua of a jewish establishment in manchuria and jews will drive the economy they'll elevate production manufacturing inventory distribution banking and industry and they'll be able to help elevate and enrich and expand our economy they had a plan to import 300 000 jewish refugees to manchuria to bring the technology the brains to the japanese labor force to take over now sugyara was in manchuria and he became an expert in russian languages he was studying in the foreign service and an expert in russian culture in fact he met a russian girl and he married her the japanese embassy then recruited him to gather intelligence about russia he spoke russian he's familiar with the russian culture he had a russian wife he was perfectly positioned the deputy foreign minister manchurian government uh and uh he served in that capacity in that role ultimately he resigned because the japanese dealt with the chinese with tremendous cruelty and violated a lot of human rights and you see at this already young age at this stage of his career sugiyara was a principled person and so principled that he put his principles ahead of his own career he resigned in protest because he considered it inhuman wasn't humane and he couldn't bear it 1934 he divorces his russian wife he returns to japan he's afraid he's going to be reprimanded because uh he had resigned and refused to cooperate and was critical of his government but they needed him for the foreign ministry so they didn't july as the avian conference in france countries around the world meet decide to coordinate closing their borders to jews in december a few months later the japanese leaders expressed in writing that they didn't want to alienate the us or germany so they would treat the jews also they would close their border except if it were in their interest so to allow jews in sort of a mini version of this way to expand the economy to seed their country with jews they would allow them in if they would prove to be useful to them so a japanese representative i didn't know this part of the story either maybe you do a japanese representative came to america and went to go meet with rabbi stephen wise with the proposal that look we don't want to alienate the us or germany so we're honoring closing our border on the other hand we've stipulated a condition that if it's in our interest then we would bring jews so why don't we bring a group of jewish refugees who you need to find a home safety and refuge we want to elevate our economy so here's the deal why don't we bring a group of jews to relocate jewish refugees to manchuria to come live in in japan and you know rabbi wai said thanks but no thanks he turned down the offer now we've studied in the past and part of the great moments of jewish history we've had great debates of jewish history we spoke about rabbi wise versus bergson onto the pseudonym cook we studied that whole episode and what we've learned from that very challenging difficult episode in our history of american jury during the holocaust and obey wise consistently took this position like this why did he do it now with with the comfort of hindsight we look with judgment at his decision how foolish how many refugees he could have saved if he would have let them in but he had his calculations first of all he believed that if things became worse in europe roosevelt would open america and england would open up and therefore better that jewish refugees find a home in a place where we have influence than to go to manchuria or japan in a place that we have no influence and what happens if the plan backfires what happens if the jewish refugees go and they're not welcomed we have no influence no clout we have no relationships in that country so he turned down the option he was also convinced that as the fire burned in europe that the british would open palestine to the jews and better the jews go to palestine better they come to america than that they go to the uh to the far east so he had no leverage in japan and he therefore turned down several months later he changed his mind and he wrote a letter to a contact in japan saying he would accept but by then the japanese military had taken control of the country and had no interest in jewish settlement in manchuria that option the offer was no longer on the table and that opportunity was lost sugyara was in japan he met a woman who was impressed with his worldliness with his multiple languages and liked how he treated women as equal which apparently was not uh universally the custom there and she wanted to travel so here she had this man who was multicultural and spoke several languages and was a diplomat and would make a perfect diplomat's wife they married and they had a baby he got his first post which was in russia but they wouldn't let him in because they had a grudge when he was serving as a foreign minister and he helped negotiate because he knew the russian culture he helped the japanese negotiate regarding a railroad with the russians very unfavorably to the russians the russians remembered that they wouldn't let him in from this negotiation so he went to cities outside of russia to be able to observe including helsinki finland 1939 world war ii begins and polish jews had to escape and many polish jews migrated from poland as many as they could to lithuania and that in itself is its own story in fact there's a lot written about it there's an article in hakira the khakira journal out of flatbush torah journal has a 30-40 page article it's called actually still have it open here on my laptop to flee or to stay by joe babker it's an article to flee or to stay where he talks about all the rabbis at the time and rabbis it's a very disturbing and difficult article to read particularly in light of any conversation about the topic of da's torah are rabbis infallible our leaders do we believe they're prescient they're prophetic that they see with some broader scope or lens how could those rabbis have given such bad advice not to leave poland and later not to leave lithuania and you see the exceptions to the rule who had the vision to be able to leave so but many from poland migrated and moved to lithuania and the mir was one such group they fled with 300 teachers and students and lithuanian jews they went to vilna invited the polish refugees into their homes and who was living there in lithuania running the japanese council at the time none other than sagihara he had a one-man consulate in lithuania and he wrote in his diary that it was more than diplomatic he wasn't only there to offer visas and passports but he was there essentially it was wartime as a spy to see the german border troops the german troops near the border if the nazis were going to invade russia because what would benefit japan why because if the nazis if germany would invade russia then the russians would have to move their army to the german front away from the japanese front so therefore it was in japan's interest to know what movement of the satellite technology that we have that we have today so tsugihara was fluent in russian and german and i saw an interview with his son where he talks about as a child they would go for these picnics right along the russian border and his father would disappear from the picnic they went to areas to picnic that nobody picnicked in and then his father would go for a walk for an hour or two and come back and only later learn that his father essentially was collecting intelligence about russia december 1939 hanukkah and sugihara is in a store in in lithuanian vilna and he meets a jew whose aunt owns the store someone named sally i saw this interview with him he describes the story and they strike up a friendship he's a little boy sukihara gives him some money to buy candy and the little boy innocently invites him to his parents hanukkah party and sugihara and his family accept and spend a hanukkah evening having a party with his jewish family and the relevance of that story is only the affection and the warm feelings that were formed already uh at that time before lithuania was uh captured or conquered before the jews of lithuania were at uh in threat june 1940 soviet union annexes lithuania orders all the councils to close the yeshivas the shules the jews of course the extension of the oppression the persecution they had been experiencing jews needed documents and they needed diplomatic stamps now they had moved the mir had gone from poland to vilna tolhuenia to move to several cities intact the only yeshiva to be migrating intact 300 students together with their obey and their teachers and so on and so forth the problem in lithuania now they had a problem it had been a next and in order to be able to flee in order to be able to leave to find safety and refuge they needed an entry visa a proof that another nation would accept them an entry visa they needed a transportation visa that they would have to travel through countries so you'd have to bring evidence that you'd be allowed to travel through those countries and then you'd have to apply for an exit visa so there's a series of paperwork that a jew needed a jews on the clock a jew's life was threatened in real time they in their family it wasn't so simple as could you get a train ticket a bus ticket but rather there were a series of paperwork one needed including this uh entry this entry visa that you'd be allowed into a country a travel visa you could travel through other countries and then you could apply for your exit visa that you'd be allowed to exit so many leaders urge people to stay put as a reference to flee or to stay you can find that article online khakira h-a-k-i-r-a uh journal from flatbush 30-40 page article but it's a disturbing article it's a difficult article to read in terms of the rabbis the overwhelming majority of whom [Music] encouraged people to stay my wife had a great uncle who they were they were hasid and other uh mankato the other forms of hasidim and her great uncle wanted to leave at the beginning of the signs of the war wanted to go to israel palestine at the time and was told not to it's zionistic those are the zionists you have to stay put and he stayed put he lost his spouse parents lost everybody and that rabbi had been rescued and saved and had gone to palestine and for the rest of his life he could never forgive that rebbe that rabbi and really struggled with that advice that cost him his entire family even while the rabbi was able to escape it's a complicated and i said it's without judgment again we have retrospect we're trying to understand it's much harder to make decisions in in real time so many most counseled to stay but some had the wisdom to leave to apply for these series of of papers to get out of lithuania and to continue to go on the move they had started in poland some had gone through other countries to lithuania vilna other cities in lithuania and to continue to go on the move and to continue to flee in fact we'll come back to in a moment the story of the mir is actually not any of the russia yeshiva who had the wisdom and the courage and the brazenness the boldness to leave but rather it was one of the older students who already was on the faculty robled malin who was the one who really stood up and saw what was happening and what was to come and encouraged and organized and orchestrated the ishiba to be able to leave we'll come back to that in a moment so how did it happen this is the core if you've tuned out to them back in because this is this is the core of the story i'm going to mispronounce the names here you'll forgive me but it's really just an extraordinary story and it's not one person tsugihara will see is a major major hero who's recognized now he wasn't for the majority of his life for being a hero but he's not the only one there were a few dutch citizens one nathan goodworth i don't know if he was nasan but he's recalled in history even in uh yuri gebber and of sapphire's article nathan he's a dutch citizen he's 23 years old he's learning in the tells yeshiva in lithuania which he had lived since 1935 and he was considering he wanted to escape and go to curacao he wanted to go to the island of curacao my good friend the neighbor sal abidi grew up on the island of curacao it was a jewish community in curacao and he wanted to go there because it was somewhere near the u.s and being dutch he only needed his dutch passport to enter a dutch colonial territory so he had this great idea that if he said that his destination would be curacao then he'd be able to journey there so many other countries had closed their borders but as a dutch citizen this was a dutch colony he'd be able to enter around mid-july he inquired about the possibility of a visa to curacao for some of his polish and lithuanian friends and for himself to be able to go together there was another family as well the lewins who had the who had the same idea what they found out was the following for aliens no visa was required for curacao the local governor of kurosawa had sold discretion to decide who would be permitted a privilege that was rarely granted so they went to the council in in lithuania whose name i'm going to mispronounce somebody help me here z-w-a-r-t-e-n-d-i-j-k smith we'll call him smith zwarte zwarterjek and he said the following he agreed that he would grant the visa to curacao and then goodworth had this incredibly bold brazen again there were these pivotal moments that changed the course of history and this is one of them he said for his friends he said look i'm going to ask you and beg you not for a crime of commission but a crime of omission technically you do not need a visa to go to curacao but you need the approval of the governor are you willing to write in the passport just the first half of the sentence and omit the second half of the sentence are you willing to write that you don't need a visa to curacao and leave out that you need the express written permission not of major league baseball but of the governor of curacao are you willing to write that and incredibly this consul general was willing to do it was willing to do it and mark the passport such which was the only thing necessary had he not and they didn't have that permission he wouldn't have been able to go and ultimately this idea and this insight spread he went for advice to someone at the time a leader in the mizrahi community the jewish community of vilna who would later become one of the religious affairs ministers of israel named zarachur and he went over haftik for advice and he told him go back he was the one who gave him this advice go back and see if he's willing to give the same notation not just to you to save your family this tells her but will you willing to give it to as many friends as you could get to come to be able to go to curacao and to mark in the passport that you don't need a visa to go to curacao and conveniently leave out run out of room for the second half of the sentence that you need the permission of the governor goodworth made that request and it was agreed to so we're have having spread the word and a chain reaction followed and within hours at that door were hundreds of people lined up wanting to get out of lithuania and wanting to take advantage of this loophole they had found through an island you need to know that just to fast forward for a second the mir and the thousands who ultimately spent the war years in shanghai shanghai was not the destination shanghai was a stop on the way there that was the travel visa the destination that was on all of their uh visas was none other than the island of curacao the dutch islands the curacao that is how they were meant to that was how they were meant to go um he ultimately however you pronounce his name with the z he ultimately wrote 1300 visas by hand in four days from july 24th to the 27th he issued another 1050 with uh with the help of a stamp over the next five working days and uh the highest number surviving visa known to date is number 2345 that was issued on august 2nd of that year so their series of miracles just in this first part of the story why was he willing to do this and that he wasn't only willing to do it for the dutch citizen who's willing to do it for his friends up to over 2 300 of his of his friends really extraordinary extraordinary story so he started his gut worth with 20 of his of his yeshiva classmates who were not dutch citizens and the ambassadors willing to write on their passport and expanded to be more and more um good summer 1940 summer of 1940 sugihara was about to close the consulate and go to berlin lithuania had been taken over and the next was no longer safe the nazis the germans had ordered the consulates closed so he was closing up shop he had been a one-man consulate he was closing up shop on his way to berlin however this group now who had one stamp that they needed they needed the visa what would be their destination and their end visa was curacao but they still needed a travel visa before they could apply for their exit visa they knew where they were going and they knew where they had to go through but before they can apply to leave they needed the approval of the travel visa so july 27th 1940. so guyara is packing up he's going to go to berlin and an unruly crowd of about 200 people surround the consulate and they're waving their curacao visas and they're begging to see the japanese council they need that travel visa he described in his diary an eyewitness testimony that there were hundreds they were hanging on the fence and they tried climbing over there was some security at the council who pushed them back and the few men who had come with were haftig and this was their last hope so they begged if they can get an audience with the console with sugihara who allowed them in and he said look i can forward the request to the japanese government but i can't decide on my own hundreds and ultimately what would amount to thousands he sent it to the higher ups and they rejected it they rejected the request they had no money to travel it wouldn't work out so the approval never came he sent three times for approval and though the japanese kept denying the request the crowds only built bigger and bigger and you can imagine the intensity the urgency they were literally begging for their lives they had they had them the curacao visa they had the way out of lithuania the nazis had a next had conquered and taken over word of what was happening to the jewish population was getting out their only way out was to be able to get out through japan japan kept saying no but the people the people were relentless tsugiyara had an agonizing decision disobeying the government would bring punishment and assisting the jews could be a capital offense to the russians so if the russians who occupied lithuania if germany won and took over sorry the russians that occupied lithuania and that the russians found out they could hold it against them if germany defeated russia and ultimately imposed the german rules and he had helped jews in any case it was there was no easy way out so tsugihari didn't know what to do he had a great moral dilemma and frankly ladies and gentlemen if we look at ourselves back in time and we ask ourselves what would we have done closing down the console packing our bags moving with our family we three times asked our superiors and the request was denied we might feel we gave it our all we might feel we did our best we're so sorry there's nothing we can do but i want to read to you from sugiyara's diary he writes the following i may have disobeyed my government but if i hadn't i would have been disobeying god i really had a hard time being unable to sleep for two nights i thought i can issue transit visas by virtue of my authority's council i cannot allow these people to die people who have come to me for help with death staring them in the eyes whatever punishment may be imposed on me for disobeying the government i know i should follow my conscience approximately in august 10th i decided there was no further point to continue negotiating with tokyo following day i began on my own accord with full responsibility on my part to issue japanese transit visas to the refugees without regard to whether so-and-so had the necessary document or not i had no doubt that one day i'd be fired from my work in the foreign ministry those people told me the kind of hard they would have to face if they didn't get away from the nazis and i believed them there was no place else for them to go they trusted me they recognized me as a legitimate functioner of the japanese ministry if i had waited any longer even if permission came it might have been too late that's what he himself wrote so he made that decision which is again a historic and monumental decision to disobey his own government to risk his own life and to issue those transit visas for the next four weeks he issued hundreds of visas a day written by hand more than half the people he issued visas to had no passport which was even more putting himself on the line because they didn't legitimately qualify but he did it anyway you know why he did it anyway because why did this group in lithuania not have legitimate passports because they weren't from lithuania where were they from poland they had run for their lives into lithuania when you were a polish jew running from the nazis into lithuania you couldn't apply to lithuania or later to the russians for a passport and sugihara god bless the souls he um he even for those half of them who didn't have passports he accepted anything again in these documentaries they described he would tell them take a piece of paper and depend and just write that curacao you don't need a visa and i'll stamp it and you could be on your way it wasn't an official document it wasn't even a passport he had lowered the bar so low once he was willing to disobey his own superiors he worked 16 hours a day in fact he requested an extension from the japanese to stay in lithuania to keep his console open just so he could save more jews for the sole task of issuing more of the transit of these transit visas really an amazing amazing story now let's intersperse the mirror where does the mirror come in as a group and then we'll come back to sugiyara and what happens to him april 1939 moshe zupnik 23 year old german-born student is preparing to resume his studies he had begun three periods earlier at the mir was interrupted by travel he worked as a salesman but now he was eager to resume i guess those days you worked then you went back to learning so he was ready to go back to learn but the yeshiva was vulnerable at the time as we see the nazis had invaded poland summer 1939 they had relocated to vilna and from there they went to kidnan 27 miles of kavna and here they resumed their studies the mirror and how do you run a yeshiva not a 15 or 20 bahram you're running yeshiva hundreds on the run my friend rafael from the tikvah orphanage in in odessa has hundreds boys orphanage a girls orphanage a school and he's on buses that are driving through ukraine right now with hired security you can't it's not like a summer program you don't call ahead to the youth hospital the hotel order the food and order the hotel on the run fleeing for your life refugees you're trying to find he told me you'll hear behind the bema that so far their costs just of of running since the war began five six days is two million dollars securities four hundred thousand dollars for their lives food anyone has food there's so many few rations they've raised the prices doubled the prices how do you stay alive and you're responsible for these hundreds of of orphans teenagers you'll hear and we should all do our best to to help this and so many others so the mere yeshiva is 300 students and they are they're on the run but there's one why student and for this i really i can't do it justice there was an article whatever you think of mishpach i'm a big fan but there was an article called leader of the lions the story of revlaid malin my buddy uda geber has a fantastic podcast called jewish history sound bites jewish's three sound bites half hour 40 minutes long he's a historian he leads countless tours to europe and uh he's fantastic a bento torah personality jewish history sound bites you can listen to any podcast player find it online and it's well worth it from the history of miami the jews of miami to the history of laid mountain really diverse topics you know you have a drive or you're shopping or cooking it's worth the listen so he and dhobi safir they have a column together it's a long article leader of the lines the story of lady malin and to understand who he was for blade malin it's well worth it he was born in bialystok 1906 when he was studying in grodno together with one of his closest friends at the time someone maybe some of you met the suval kharov of david lipschitz he was a dear friend of david alicia lift ships would be a rush of shiva at you they went shimon shkap to discuss the personal matter and um after they had taken time from of shimon shkap they apologized they said you know we've taken from the rest of shiva's time shimon told them when you share your time helping others with leadership krish barhu expands your time enriches your time whatever you get away you get back multi-fold that's what he told the suvalkar of david lipschitz malin who both would learn that lesson in their lives by being leaders of claustral and being enriched and getting back much more than they they gave away or they spent rebelled malin was a tremendous talmud of rav there's a story in here that once were played malone already as a young man a baker was bold was brazen was a leader something about the yeshiva and its rules bothered him so he led a maha protest in the yeshiva we don't really picture this today he gathered several bachram they rose up and they walked out of the basement to make a statement they had a strike in the basement i don't know they didn't like the barracks you know can be available we were lucky if we got a barracka for dinner if we would strike for that we'd be striking every other day avocado season we got an avocado nothing better than the avocado season he led the strike and on his way out of the basement he saw it of your home in the doorway and gave him one look that he nodded to everyone else and they quickly went back to their seats and they resumed learning so that's a story of his stature and his posture and who he was right that's not the story the story is then verb calls under blade malin and he says to him what happened what were you upset about what was that protest over sort of laid marlon told them and he said why did you stop he said because we saw the reshashiva so if you run chastised and it said if you thought it was worth protesting over then you should have taken the acharyas and the responsibility to see it through the fact that when you looked at me you turned around didn't earn my respect it lost it if you're going to take achara's if you're going to stand up and protest you see it all the way through if it's worth getting up and protesting over it's worth being prepared to stand by your decision and taking achraiz for it this is a story as he's a young man that's certainly ingrained within him that attribute and he did exactly that i don't know that the russia yeshiva of the mir were following other godola lithuania to stay put but i know they were not the catalyst to have the mir apply for these visas and leave as a yeshiva it was none other than revlaid malin who was a member of don hala as a bakr in his thirties while he was still sort of a talmud he was atari of the yeshiva even while he was on the of the yeshiva clean shaven gray hat you should see the pictures of him he was a shrewd a businessman following sim castora mir made its way to lithuania she was settled in the shettle of kedan and the soviet takeover of the baltic states seemed imminent so and then it was incorporated into soviet union in summer in 1940 you have here the whole story of of the mir and now robled malin who was arye is a lion he was considered the leader of the lions these were the top bachram of the mir and he was he was considered the leader of of the lions he was an extraordinary person it's worth studying his story and his life and and how he inspired the mir to apply uh apply for this so the mir uh left as a as a group um and moshe zupnik was the one who with warhaftig went in and they had these visas to curacao and demanded from sugihara to get the transit visas stamped so that they as the yeshiva could travel again they're the only yeshiva the only yeshiva poland lithuania that was able to survive intact as a as a yeshiva um this is borrowed a suit from one of the rabbis and he stood in line the japanese consul to see sugihara sugiyara wasn't seeing people there were long lines but he was undeterred the zupnik he came back he bribed the guard he got in and he represented the 300 bakram and rebayem and their families and he was able to persuade sugihara sugihara wanted assurances that they had the money if he was going to risk his life to give them the stamp the transit visa that they had the money so at the time how did they have the money because rav avraham khamenevits flew via sweden to england then to new york beforehand and he began his work already before the mir already was gone to lithuania and left lithuania and in new york he was able to raise money and he had sent that back to help the mir be able to meet this request of sugihara to be able to to be able to go so what happens early september after writing for the 2000 transit visas nasugihara prepares to leave for berlin he was exhausted he needed a day to rest so he found a hotel um there in lithuania before he was going to journey to berlin the jewish people found him in the hotel and they asked him to write more visas the next day he went to the train station and jewish people found them at the train station and he was continuing to write these visas when he boarded the train they climbed the outside of the train they hung from the windows and through the window of the train he wrote more visas and only when the train pulled away did his wife describe the scene it's actually extraordinary because she's crying i think japanese are very stoic but there's a tear flowing from her eye as she describes the scene of jews hanging from the side of the train through the window and it pulls away and he's no longer able to write these visas now refugees had to approach russia for the exit visa they had the entry visa to curacao that was the easiest to attain they had the transit visa which was the heroism of sugihara who risked his life violated his superiors and they needed the exit visa from the russians most said in lithuania again don't do it if you go to the russians there was this group that were the forerunner of the kgb and they would have an interrogation of everyone who applied for this exit visa and you were risking your life but the russians ultimately again another miracle of the story agreed to grant the exit visa and the cost of the train ride with the boat ride from russia to japan was a hundred and eighty dollars 180 doesn't sound like a lot to give to the global campaign for example but brsonline.org global not a lot but in those days 180 was a fortune if you're a refugee on the run and you've left everything behind and you're trying to take multiple members of your family so how did they pay for it so you know where the funds came from the jdc the joint distribution committee the jdc sent the funds i don't know exactly how they were able to wire or send these funds that were the difference they had gotten the entry visa curacao the transit visit sugiyara the russians were ready to give the exit visa only thing missing was the money and the miracle of the jdc revolving commodores the combination others didn't have access to that they bartered with the russians i saw the testimony of one man who talked about a violiniad at the train uh station and uh one of the russian soldiers was admiring his violin and he said i'll give it to you for a ticket on the train the russian soldier gave him that ticket that violin he said saved his life the train ride was arduous 6 000 miles across russia and three days in a small boat to japan and most didn't know where japan was or how to find it on a map they didn't know what life was going to be like there when they when they got there it's a story that uh teller says malevolence the great rash of shiva was traveling with them one of the talmudim said rebbe where are we i don't even know where we are and he said you're in the third shmi the great ketosis work of lumdas he said it doesn't matter geographically where you are he said i don't know where we are it was the equivalent of saying it doesn't matter you're on pasha's pakude where you are geographically it's where we are as the yeshiva where we are as the yeshiva we're in shmysis the gimmo we're on where we are is wherever we're holding and learning is where we are i'll read to you from that train ride an incredible testimony there's a book called which is a collection of the testimonial of these mere students on this journey on this journey first second and third so um sorry sorry so they're on the train and they're traveling there's a group of mere students and there's a testimony in this collection this book it's been translated into english as well there's a testimony not only of the mere students and what that journey and experience was like but there's testimony from japanese on the train who were eyewitnesses and watching and and what it was like and what they saw so let me read to you that they said the following it's fascinating their behavior through all hours of the day was strange they never ceased to argue with one another the arguments between individuals and groups stormed and raged all day long okay i hope we're good the arguments between individuals and groups storms enraged all day long yet it became clear they were not fights they were lofty debates when learning individuals between love and brother had reigned debates the debates went on while all the time the debaters were holding these large open books and it was clear that these books were the source of the debates and what those books said also held the resolution to the debates that was the testimony where shakti used to quote this and shir when he talked about the notion of milham the torah part of why perhaps the gemara's understanding of men and women's role in learning when men learn is what the japanese described they said you know they had these big books when the books were open they were yelling and screaming and killing each other and calling each other's names the second they closed the books they were the best friends they were hugging and laughing and having the best time never saw anything like that in their entire life so to a certain extent that's something i won't say uniquely but that's something that uh that men can do uh women you know either call me every name under the sun it's most ridiculous idea that's stupid that's moronic that's ridiculous that's not what ptosis is saying that is i and then right afterwards you go have lunch and you talk about what happened in the game last night not every gender is able to compartmentalize and exchange in that way but torah requires a mahanta torah torah acquires a battlefield and to get to the truth of torah requires that attitude so this was the testimony of some japanese at the time which is fascinating when the big books were open there were enemies yelling screaming calling each other names when the big books closed they were the best friends never saw anything like it in our in our life um small jewish community in kobe japan was waiting they had cables uh from jdc that flooded the small jewish community asparta community in kobe japan was alerted by the jdc that a flood of arrivals from lithuania would be coming as the refugees came in they ran out of money and the jdc sent back a telegram when they approached the jdc we've run out of money these are the words of the telegram five words they moved me deeply when i saw this i hope they move you too this is the jewish story the jdc sent back a telegram money no object save jews those were the five words money no object save jews the refugees were treated kindly by the japanese june 1941 germans invaded and freed from soviet rule now slaughtered by germans and lithuanian anti-semites lithuanians were among the worst conspirators together with the germans many or some think the polish deserved that title but lithuanians were right up there they murdered jews in the streets for absolutely no reason whatsoever lithuania were the most willing collaborators so those who didn't get out from sugihara to understand what was at stake and you understand the decision of those who chose to stay they had little to no chance of surviving before the war the jewish population of lithuania jewish population 250 000 by the war end 220 of those thousand had been murdered 220 000 of 250 000 jews in lithuania had been murdered what was life like for the jews who got to japan to kobe and then we'll see later they were moved to the ghetto in um in shanghai ghetto residents received passports they were marked with a yellow line but they weren't ordered to wear any distinguishing mark as a jew they were not discriminated against as jews they lived ordinary there were no other limitations there were no discriminatory rules against them and they were allowed to travel outside of the ghetto for their needs it was simply a matter of efficiency and uh to be able to know and to identify who was a jew that they were placed in that way following the um surrender of japan in august 1945 leaving shanghai became impossible there were transportation problems small groups of people managed to leave most of the yeshiva members were forced to stay fact in this article about reblade malin or blade male 1 had a chance five years earlier to leave with a group of some of the choice students he felt as the lion the leader goes down the leader has to stay and remain so he remained in shanghai five years longer than he needed to and most were forced to stay until the end of 1946 majority have left to the u.s the ishida split some stayed in the u.s and the mirror branch opened in brooklyn others left foreign established the mirror in the base israel neighborhood in ushalayim what happened to first of all the learning in the mirror i want to offer one other thing the the learning in the uh in the mirror testimony of the the learning at that time so there were great great leaders who were with them and they described we have testimony from them that those years in shanghai refugees fleeing running for their lives in a string strange country strange language staying culture what would you expect to be the best of the worst years of learning of their life they described it as the best years of learning in their life one reason is they were not the distractions they were not they were not uh persecuted they had relative safety and security where they were they were allowed to live they were welcome fresco levenshtein said a different reason this is very instructive very insightful you know what he said it's incredible he said do you know that we thought that we were the last jews going to be left on earth we knew what was happening the fires that were raging in europe we knew the threat even in palestine and what could happen in anti-semitism in america he said when we sat and we learned we took upon our shoulders that we could be the last jews left on earth learning torah and davening with a minion and continuing this jewish story and nothing elevates your experience like achara's when you feel you're responsible when you feel that it relies and depends solely on you nothing elevates the experience like uh like that so that was their experience um challenging and difficult some ways and again you could read a lot more testimony about life with like it's a wonderful work that collects uh some of it uh here and more but i want to end with what happened to sugihara the real as i said protagonist and hero of our story together with the first original dutch console who was willing to tell them that he would just mark curacao doesn't need a visa and leave out the second half of the sentence he's the first hero of the story sugihara is the main hero of the story he was in berlin waiting for reassignment he was transferred to prague but the japanese foreign ministry asked for a report on the visas this was the first time that he was now going to submit a report about what he had done in lithuania the one man consulate he was running he submitted his list of 2139 names so we know that he has handwritten visas for almost uh 2200 people but the truth is that translates to many more because many families traveled on one single visa and a document in jewish file finds that he wrote almost 70 more when he was in prague even after he had taken that train ride the jews were hanging outside the train wherever he went jews found him and he kept writing those visas it's incredible extraordinary japanese formed an alliance with germany and italy um let's skip to uh spring 1947 sugihara returns to japan what he finds in japan is a bombed out wasteland sugiyah reports to the foreign ministry for his next assignment they told him to stand by after three months they told him to come in and at that meeting they told him that they wanted him to resign his son describes this documentary i saw how he came home with such a fallen face he couldn't even speak he was so broken after giving his life to the foreign ministry that they had told him he had to resign he was at 47 years old at the time and the reason they gave him was because they said they were downsizing but he believed his whole life and he told his family that this was retribution for the number of visas that he had signed that he had written so at 47 years old after risking his life for the foreign ministry of japan and going from city to city 47 years old he had no job he had no career he had a seven-year-old son who died suddenly the family was struggling financially emotionally for years he never even spoke about the visas he had hand written or signed or what he had done to save thousands of lives he did whatever it took to work for his family so he worked in a supermarket in a grocery store he worked very uh so to say low-level jobs and ultimately in order to take care of his family he took a position because he spoke russian was familiar with the cut with the culture he moved to moscow for 16 years he left his family to go work earn a living and send back the money when he went to russia the moscow was 16 years he lived there and worked under a different name he was afraid the russians would still take retribution over the railroad transaction from years earlier and the intelligence gathering and spying that he had done in 1968 it was an israeli diplomat who had known the story of this japanese consul who saved so many jews and who tirelessly searched him out and in 1968 this is really diplomat found sugihara found sugihara and sugihara had never known what happened to those jews he had written those visas for you know there wasn't an internet you do a search you're curious what happened he had signed these thousands of visas and he didn't know what happened and ultimately the only gift he took the only payment he ever took was a full scholarship to hebrew university for his son who attended hebrew university in his declining years he lived near tokyo he moved back home it was only then he first met his grandchildren he had been living in moscow taking care of his family 1985 sugiyar is the only japanese citizen honored as a righteous among the nations and yad vashem the only japanese he was too frail to be able to attend and in a tv interview they had asked because there was suspicion for a while that the reason that he had signed was not because he was altruistic but the reason that he had signed these visas was the chariot um thank you manchurian strategy of bringing jews to be able to boost the economy but he in this tv uh interview denied that he said he didn't know about that plan and it certainly was not the motive factor at all and we have these excerpts from his diary where he talks about having to answer to god his moral code his honor that led him in the 1960s and 70s i mentioned rabbi tokayo was a rabbi and he finally interviewed sugihara he himself and when he was asked when marvin took rabbi toker lives here in boca couple blocks away as sugihara why'd you do it you you went against your superiors you risked your life not to sign one visa to sign thousands of visas and you continued to do it on the train platform and later in prague why did you do it but taker says in the interview you see sugiyara says he didn't understand the question he didn't understand the question what do you mean why did i do it because it was the right thing to do and you have to do the right thing just like he had resigned earlier we saw the way the japanese had treated the the chinese so too he had no ulterior motive july 1986 he passed away at 86 years old in 1992 they built a monument in his hometown to honor him less than one thousand jews in lithuania today but there is a street in lithuania that's named for sugihara and yerushalayim there is a memorial to sukihara and in 1998 it's a fascinating video to see there was a reunion for the survivors whose lives were saved by sugihara and the reunion was held where in the mirror yeshiva and there were nussens fifinko sitting at the head of the table and there is uh sugiyara there are representatives of the sugiyara family and there are survivors today of course number in the many many many thousands the progeny children grandchildren great great grandchildren of tsugihao so as i said at the outset there are countless more details and fascinating insights to the story from every perspective of the dutch console of sugihara in his story of the mir yeshiva of the other miscellaneous students of where they lived and what life was like in japan in shanghai itself and here we have an actual document from that time period thank you for sponsoring and for bringing it in as i said at the outset i just collected an overview of the topic and i hope i wet your appetite to read to watch to listen more because there's a string of miracles there's a string of miracles what it takes for these miracles to happen the heroism and it's easy in the hindsight to look and say of course they did the right thing who would deny hundreds of people banging on the fence to stamp your passport who would have said no their lives lay in the balance and the answer is many most almost everyone said no that's why six million were killed and those who said yes those who had the heroism i think about this i'll close with this i spoke about it in shabbos but i think about this as we talk about the ukraine ukraine the ukraine as we talk about what's happening right now i have no problem when we emphasize and focus on our brothers and sisters on jews living in ukraine primarily centrally that's our family when your family is going through a challenge situation of course that's our focus but i believe we have a responsibility as jews to not only care about the jews but other innocent people and i say imagine if sukiya said i just care about the japanese why do i have to care about the jew the dutch council said i only care about the dutch why do i have to care about the jew had the polish farmer who hit a jew said i only care about myself in the polls why do i have to care about a jew so if we want to express our gratitude to those who protected and hid and to care and stamped visas to save jewish lives that shouldn't we demand of ourselves to equally care and extend ourselves minimally diven for and contribute towards helping others so i think that there's nothing wrong with the focus and the emphasis and the majority of our resources and attention being on brothers and sisters but as we continue to review and study and live history it should tell us not only in the past but should inform and inspire our present and our attitude not to be flippant and not to be mindless and thoughtless but to care not only about jews who are experiencing a problem but to think about more globally all those who are suffering and struggling when we wish well continue to read the subject it's really a fascinating one thank you so much have a great evening you