“There are Jews all over the world and it's your job to find them.” That was the way the rav who gave me smicha began his speech on the day I officially became a rabbi. I spent my formative yeshiva years in a place that encouraged active participation with the Jews of the world. With that in mind, after I spent a number of years studying in kollel, my wife and I decided to move to Caracas, Venezuela where I become rabbi of the Ashkenazic community. The overall community is comprised of about fifty thousand Jews and my section had around three thousand families that davened in my shul and came to me for advice and so on. So we moved to the land of the guitar, steak and intense corruption and life was never boring again.
A few years into our stay in Caracas, we decided to take a vacation to get away for a few days from the intense pressures of my job, on myself, my wife and the rest of the family. We chose to go to Aruba, an island in the Caribbean which is operated by the Netherlands, where I had booked a suite for our long awaited vacation, the airport clerk pointed out that our visas weren't valid and that we wouldn't be able to return once we left. The fact is, he was right. Our visas were not valid in the least since they had been purchased by someone in the Caracas community and once we left it really wouldn't be that easy to return. I bent over towards the clerk and talked in a low voice which wouldn't be overheard by the rest of the passengers waiting nearby.
“I know that there are problems with my visa,” I said, “and I'm impressed with your vigilance and sharp eye.” The clerk smiled at my open flattery. “However,” I went on, “I've heard that it is possible in special cases to purchase an emergency visa at the airport which will allow us to return after our vacation, if you understand what I'm saying.”
The clerk smiled at me. A wide smile revealing a happy mouth of rotten teeth.
“This is true,” he confirmed in a quiet tone. But alas, I regret to inform you that such special visas cost mucho denaro.” He spread his arms and looked very sad at being the bearer of such bad tidings.
“How much money are we talking here?” I asked him, preparing myself for the worst.
“The visas are one hundred dollars American per person,” he informed me with tears in his eyes.
I leaned even closer across the counter and whispered; “but I heard that they cost thirty dollars and no more, is that not so?”
“Forty five,” rejoined the security clerk in the Caracas international airport, and forty five dollars it was. A minute later I witnessed a man arrive at the very same desk where he ceremoniously presented the man with two bottles of Jouhnie Walker. His passport was stamped then and there with a flourish. Well I had learned a lesson for the future, one which I wouldn't forget. Our vacation was wonderful.
As a spiritual leader in one of the biggest Jewish communities of the land, it was my “privilege” to take part in a meeting with the then newly elected President of Venezuela; Mr. Hugo Chavez who stormed into office after days of brutal fighting in the capitol's streets. It was not a time to be outside your home during those days and in fact, nobody left. After he was sworn into office however and the situation had quieted down to some degree, Mr. Chavez wanted to meet with the countries religious leaders. I was invited along with the chief rabbi of the Sefardic community as well.
We took our seats along the table sitting side by side and spoke about matters pertaining to both of our communities while we waited for Chavez to put in his appearance. When he arrived, he took his place at the rostrum and began to deliver a powerful speech to his audience. Now I am not a native Spanish speaker. But after dealing with people in that language for a while, I've become somewhat fluent. Fluent enough that is, to sense that Mr. Chavez's possession of the language was grammatically incorrect and I found that idea very strange. Wanting to clarify my doubts on the matter, I turned to my colleague and inquired as to whether I was imagining things, or in fact Chavez was speaking like an uneducated boor. He confirmed what I had been thinking, but explained to me that the people loved the man and didn't care that he wasn't articulate and well spoken. “This is South America, get used to it,” he said. And I did. But some things took a little longer getting to than others.
As I mentioned, my community numbered in the thousands, but among all those people, very few were actually Shomer Shabbos. That being the case I became extremely friendly with the members of my shul who attended services on a frequent basis, our connection far surpassing the normal Rabbi-congregant connection. That was why the disappearance of Mr. Kellman caused me abject worry. When a number of days had gone by and Kellman still hadn't shown his face in shul, I approached another member of the kehillah who was friendly with him and asked if Kellman was in the hospital or something.
“No,” the man answered, “Kellman's been kidnapped!”
I was very shaken up by this little bit of information, although the other members of the shul didn't seem extra worried. And as it turned out, they were right, for Kellman was back in shul a few weeks later, looking tired and worn out, but otherwise none the worst for his bad experience at the hands of the kidnappers.
I approached him after davening to ask him what happened. He made light of the whole thing. He told me that armed men had abducted him from the midst of a crowded public building along with his wife, and had taken them to a hiding spot deep in the South American jungle where they had been kept locked away until the ransom was put together by his business associates. Kellman was in the gold industry and kidnapping was pretty common by the look of things.
“Anyway,” he said, “as soon as the robbers received their money they brought us back to civilization and here we are, whole, healthy and thankful to Hashem.”
“But weren't you worried that things would get rough out there in the middle of the jungle,” I asked incredulously.
He laughed. “No,” he said, “I wasn't. You see this was the third time I've been kidnapped so I have come to learn what to expect. The first time was very scary. But now, it's just part of business! It's just the life of the South American businessman!”
And then there were the encounters that really shook me up and which I think about until this very day. One morning I was approached by one of the wealthier members of the community. He explained that the family had just purchased a brand new home on one of the nearby islands in the Caribbean and would I be available to travel down to the island and put up the many mezuzos that needed to be put up?
You have to understand, every society has their comparisons, their monetary way of showing off. In some places it might be where you spend your Pesach or Summer, in others it's what type of car you drive. In Caracas, keeping up with the Jones meant owning a huge mansion on one of the nearby islands. That's just the way it is. I gladly accepted and he told me how many mezuzos he would need. (On every trip that I took to Eretz Yisroel, I made sure to bring back as many mezuzos and pairs of tephilin that I was able to.) We agreed on a day and he told me to be at the airport at nine o'clock where I would take his private jet to the island. (A private jet is also a necessity in Caracas, being that that is the way you transport your guests to your mansion on the island when you make a bar mitzva or bris.)
Well we flew down to this island and it was a beautiful day with the sun shining through my window, glinting off the ocean below. South America is a beautiful land and the sights are magnificent. A place truly worth seeing. Anyway, we arrived at the island and I exited the plane and went through customs, carrying all those mezuzos in a large bag. The customs officer took a good look and I did my best to explain to him what they were and how they were used.
It's an interesting thing, but during my entire stay in South America, I experienced no anti-Semitism in any shape or form. Here too, the officer simply examined my passport and luggage and I left the airport, making my way to the nearby taxi stand where I would take a taxi to the home of my friend.
So there I was, standing in the sunshine, amidst the swaying leaves of the multiple palm trees and taking in the most amazing coastline I had ever seen when I was approached by an elderly woman wearing a straw hat, whose eyes were covered by a giant pair of shades. She looked bewildered and confused and that might explain why my first reaction to her query was; “will you run that by me one more time.” What she actually asked me was; “what day does Pesach come out on this year?”
Now before you ask me what is so strange about a question like that, I will explain. Simply speaking, the woman didn't look Jewish. I am pretty good at sniffing out Jews, coming from Caracas you can get a lot of practice doing just that, but in her case, I would have never dreamed that she was a Jew.
Her story was pretty fascinating. She had gone through the war. She had been in the camps and had been liberated by the American army. She was one of those people standing at the fences with paper thin arms and expressionless faces. And this one American soldier picked her out of the entire crowd and decided that he was going to marry this Jewish girl. He unfortunately was not a Jew and she having just survived the war, wasn't in any position to argue with this handsome, American soldier, who came from a well to do family back home and who wanted nothing more than to marry a holocaust survivor. Go figure.
The one thing this young man insisted on was that she keep her faith a secret from everyone she met for the rest of her life. A small thing to ask, right? After experiencing the holocaust, it didn't take much persuasion to convince her that that was the best course of action. He took her out of Europe, introducing her to his family as his “European bride.” And she never told anyone that she was a Jew. Children were born to them and they had no inkling that they were Jewish. She was an active member of her community for many years and nobody had the slightest clue. She had married the soldier and she respected their agreement for better or for worse.
The years passed and they moved to Miami, Florida and then to this island in the Caribbean where they intended to spend their golden years in peace and tranquility. And she had never mentioned a word about being a Jew for all those years. Not to him, or their kids or her relatives. It came to the point where she had almost forgotten that she actually was a Jew. All of a sudden, her husband got sick and a few months later, he passed away, with she the loyal wife, standing at his side until the very end.
And then she saw me. I was so very clearly a Jew. Big black yarmulka. Tzitzis. A respectable looking suit. Clearly a Jew. And suddenly, it all came flooding back in a wave of memories, pounding away at the shore of her mind with intense clarity! She remembered that she was a Yid. She remembered her life in pre-war Europe. But so many decades had gone by since those years! What remained for her to do? And she thought of the time of year and she realized that it was spring time and that meant Pesach. So the woman who hadn't given Judaism a thought for the last fifty years, asked this obviously Jewish man when Pesach was going to arrive. A spark had been kindled to a flame long extinguished. They spoke for a while and he gave her his card and begged her to call him if there was anything at all that he could do for her. Then he took his leave and went to put up the mezuzos. The mansion after all, needed to be ready for it's family.
And then there were the dangerous moments. I was sitting in my office one morning eating breakfast when there was a knock on the door. In response to my “come in,” the door opened and a giant of a man entered my domain. He introduced himself as Rabbi…. from Israel and explained that he worked as a Shliach Beis Din, a messenger for this particular court of law. He had been sent to Caracas on a mission of mercy; to track down the husband of an Israeli woman who had been missing for quite a few years. He had been sent on his tracks and after sifting through tons of mud, had finally hit solid rock. He had discovered that the husband had escaped to Caracas. Would I help him track the man down?
I told him that I would do my best, but the fact is, I had never even heard of the man. Obviously he didn't count himself among my congregants. I then told the shliach to give me some time to find out more about the man. I took down all his particulars, his name, where he had last been seen and his physical appearance among other details. Then I told the man I would be in touch.
Later that day I emerged from my office for Mincha and as I walked through the building towards the side room where we prayed during the week, my mind was churning with possibilities! What should be done? Who should I talk to? How does one go about tracking down someone so elusive in a country as spread out as Venezuela. Besides, so much of the land is jungle, the people savage Indians What was I to do?
I entered the sanctuary and began the davening and then the solution came to me. It was simple! After the davening was over, I approached one of my regular congregants who was the key to the whole situation. You see, this particular man was in charge of the Venezuelan equivalent of the American secret service, the government body which protects the president, whose officers are some of the most intensely trained personal out of all the law enforcement branches. And this man, was their boss. If there was any one person who had access to the type of files I so desperately needed, it was he. I pulled him aside and explained the problem facing us. He asked me for the man's name and told me to give him two days to find out.
Two days later he was back with the information. The man was living deep in the jungle in an Indian village surrounded by hostile natives on all sides. He was a professional arms trader by profession and he had the reputation of being a tough guy. I assumed that most people in his line of work had the same sort of reputation. It seemed that many Israelis were involved in this type of work and now we would simply have to take a little trip down to the middle of the South American jungle to track this man down.
“How will we get there,” I asked my friend.
“No problem,” he replied, “you'll take my plane.”
The next morning dawned blustery and grey. Not my kind of morning at all. But the plane was reserved for that morning and I met the shliach beis din at the shul where he joined me for the trip to the airport. The shliach was a mountain of a man, a fact which provided me with a little feeling of security and I glanced at him from time to time to see how he was reacting to the whole thing. Apparently he was used to chasing errant husbands around the world and across the globe for his face was unreadable and he looked ready to take on anything that we'd encounter.
We flew for three hours over mountains and valleys, rivers and forests. South America is very beautiful and I never tired of staring at the view. It is the land of the Amazon, the land of minerals and natural wealth and of oil and that was exactly where we were headed. To the Venezuelan oil fields that were constructed smack bang in the middle of the jungle. Finally we landed on the runway which had been built for the oil field and which was maintained with the proceeds of the lucrative fields and the next thing we know, we had rented a four wheel drive and where headed in a direct course for the village where our friend, the Israeli arms dealer lived with his non-Jewish wife.
The roads were not paved. We bumped over every rut we could find and they were bone shattering! The driver was a taciturn middle aged Indian man who chain smoked like a chimney and asked no questions. He simply drove us to the village we had requested and consented to wait while we took care of our business there. It took us about forty five minutes to get there, bumping the entire way and our bodies felt pretty sore by the time we had reached the place.
It was like we had stepped back two hundred years! The village was just that; an Indian village. Little children clad in rags played in the mud and the smell baking bread wafted along the dirty streets. The housing was bare minimum, and the sanitation department would have had a field day, but we weren't there on a government mission, we were there to help a Jewish woman in distress and so we kept on asking everyone we met for directions to the home of the white arms dealer. It turned out that he lived in a giant home at the edge of the village and the Indians directed our driver to his home, where we instructed him to remain outside waiting for us. He was to go nowhere, since you never know what to expect from a person. Least of all from an arms dealer.
We knocked on his door. The word had obviously spread that we were in the neighborhood looking for him and he came to the door and opened it himself. He had a long black ponytail which cascaded down his back and deep set chocolate colored eyes and the most cunning and crafty look that I had seen on anyone's face for quite some time. He invited us into his living room and inquired as to why we had come. The shliach, his imposing bulk purposely squeezed into one of our hosts smallish chair, the better to show off his bulk, explained to him exactly why we had come.
The man looked us in the eye and said, “I don't know if you have realized, but I'm very far from the Jewish religion. In fact, I don't care one hoot for anything you have to say and I am definitely not going to give my wife a get! I don't even consider her my wife anymore. From my point of view, once I left her she isn't my wife any longer and I don't care what happens to her! His Indian wife peeked into the room when she heard his raised voice and looked afraid.
The shliach beis din stood his ground. “Listen to me,” he said, “I came this far to find you. I tracked you down through the jungle. I took a plane ride to get to you and a jeep ride through the jungle. Do you realistically think that I'm going to get up and walk out of here? Not a chance!”
Through this whole exchange of ideas and friendly conversation, I was expecting the arms dealer to get up, go to the closet where he stored his weapons, pick up some fifty caliber colt and aim it in our direction while telling us to leave. But it didn't happen. They both sat looking at each other in stony silence. The huge shliach beis din and the stubborn Israeli weapons man. They stared and stared at each other, hatred written on one face, impassiveness on the other. Hours went by. The little sunlight which had filtered through the overhanging trees became less and less and here and there lights began to turn on as the village started getting ready for night and still they sat wordless and frigid, there whole demeanor one of war. No side was willing to give in. He because it went against his principles, we because this was our only chance to ensure the continued purity of our nation.
Five hours passed this way. Five hours of heated silence. Five hours which sounded like a silent debate to my wary ears. Suddenly, the arms dealer lifted his arms in a gesture of defeat and said very grudgingly, “okay I'll sign, then get out of my house!”
That was more than fine with us. He signed the document that the shliach procured and we both signed on as witnesses. The get would be delivered to his ex wife and she would now become a divorced woman, with the ability to remarry and have a normal life once again. And we said goodbye to the hostile man, returned to our jeep, drove the return route through the jungle and took our plane back to civilization thankful that Hashem had been on our side allowing is to fulfill this mitzva.
As I said, I'm the Rabbi from Caracas and I did all I could to bring all those Jews back to where they belong. I think that the man who delivered the speech which inspired me all those years ago would have been proud.