Recognizing Remarks of Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman

Floor Speech

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Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his views:

I found refuge every morning hiding

Under my grandpa's inviting, embracing Tallit

Of black and white woven of the tapestry

Of a survivor's spared life,

A wondrous cloth, never abandoned nor lost,

He managed to safeguard on the run

Twice from Poland, in Siberian exile and Kazakhstan,

Stained by flowing tears,

The beauty marks of refugees,

An added layer of essential warmth

Which sustained a ravaged body and tested soul,

Wrapping me, his other saved possession,

In a magical garb whose sacred fringes I playfully unraveled,

Ever since attempting together tie what

Torn away is forever gone.

The youngest member at the Shoah (Holocaust) survivors'

Minyan (quorum) in Germany's Wetzlar Displaced Persons Camp,

I hear louder and louder in the dark

With elapsed some eighty years,

The adults' heartfelt davening (praying) with painful groaning

Of weighing memories while searching for the light,

Gratefully feeling still the loving hands faithfully

Placed on my curly head by proud Grandpa Zvi,

Son of martyred Rabbi Yaacov and Dena of Zamosc,

With radiant grandma Rachel smilingly approving,

Reassuring their first grandchild,

A refugee like Father Abraham and Mother Sara,

Whose birth was surely a divine sign of a threatened

Covenant renewed, to protect me always with a Tallit

Of reaffirmed life even if God's blessing would not.

Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is the founder and spiritual leader of Temple Lev Tikvah as well as Honorary Senior Rabbi Scholar at Eastern Shore Chapel, both in Virginia Beach.

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