By Rabbi Ervin Birnbaum
Note: This blog post was featured as part of our #HeshbonHodesh: Nisan monthly newsletter.
I find it interesting and fascinating to what an extent our past does not abandon us and serves us as a source of inspiration for all time to come. We are now in the month of Nisan. Soon Pesah will be with us. It should serve as no surprise yet it is a source of admiration that the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt burst open on the eve of Pesah 1943, for how could the remnant of Jews celebrate the Seder with the brutal Nazis taking thousands to Treblinka daily!
Neither is it a coincidence that the Haganah ship which took a significant number of Jews to the Land of Israel after the Shoah should inherit its name from our glorious past. Allow me to relate to you one day of our memorable voyage, curiously enough, linked to the exodus from Egypt.
We figured it to be about mid-point in the voyage from the time we left the French shores aiming for the shores of Israel. Several events took place that day. It was the first day we were allowed to go on to the top deck. Until now this was forbidden despite the stifling mid-July heat on the boat. When this ship had plied the waters of the Chesapeake Bay under the name of President Warfield, its total capacity for guests and staff was 188. Now, on the Mediterranean, the headcount of passengers was 4530, crammed in a boat without air-conditioners and ventilators. Until that day the Haganah command had attempted to hide the huge number of refugees from the six frigates and one giant warship accompanying us. The terrible heat on the packed boat, loaded from bow to stern on each deck with three or four layers of sleeping places, forced the relaxation of the rules.
And now for the first time since departure people began discussing, under what name do we travel? There were some Polish survivors of horror camps who felt that the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, Mordechai Anielewitz deserved that honor. Other names were also proposed, like Janos Korchak, or Anna Frank. And then someone suggested: “Yetziat Mitzrayim,” the “Exodus from Egypt,” for that was the greatest exodus of our people from an alien, antagonistic land to our homeland in ancient times. This ship was the greatest exodus of survivors of the Shoah from a continent soaked with Jewish blood to a land which is the sole haven of the Jewish People. It was determined, therefore, that a fitting name for the boat was,”Yetziat Europa,” the “Exodus from Europe” – in short EXODUS 1947.
Eventually, it was not only the name of the boat, but the courage that the passengers showed in fighting off the well-equipped and trained British army for three hours while at sea, that made this ship an integral part of Jewish history. At the Port of Baltimore, Md. in the place where the President Warfield used to anchor, one could proudly read the inscription on the marble plaque placed there for all to see: “Here anchored the ship that launched the Jewish State.”
When 23 years later I endeavored to help fulfill Ben Gurion’s dream of establishing a center of learning in the Negev at Midreshet Sde Boker, I was proud to know that “The Old Man” still admired the bravery and steadfastness of the passengers on the Exodus.
Those survivors who had suffered so much during the Shoah were among the heroes who made up this amazing State of Israel.
Read the Other Blog Posts in This Series:
Rabbi Mark J. Bisman: Freedom from the Perspective of Retirement
Rabbi Sandra Kochmann: Freeing Ourselves from the "Always" and the "Never"
Rabbi Eliav Bock: Connecting with the Divine in the Outdoors
Rabbi Mario Rojzman: The Ancient Jewish Vaccine Against Loneliness
Rabbi Danielle Upbin: צא ולמד - Our Body as Teacher: A Spiritual Journey Through the Hebrew Letters
Rabbi Ervin Birnbaum (JTS, 1958) is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Bet Israel, Netanya, Israel. A Shoah survivor, he was made several attempts to reach Israel, including on the well-known ship the Exodus in 1947.