This program, shown on channel 13 on Sunday, as part of Masterpiece Mystery, was

+ anti-Israel
+ anti-United States
+ shallow and
+ derivative.

The author of this noxious propaganda was someone named David Hare.

Behind its worldwide acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned,
socially oriented firm that, during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon
grace, generosity and modesty. E. Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer
of Germany ‘s most famous photographic product, saved its Jews.

And Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed the
closely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe , acted in such
a way as to earn the title, “the photography industry’s Schindler.”

As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Ernst
Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking
for his help in getting them and their families out of the country. As
Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg
laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited their professional activities.

To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established
what has become known among historians of the Holocaust as “the Leica
Freedom Train,” a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the
guise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas.

Employees, retailers, family members, even friends of family members
were “assigned” to Leitz sales offices in France , Britain , Hong Kong
and the United States

Leitz’s activities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938,
during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned across Germany ..

Before long, German “employees” were disembarking from the ocean liner
Bremen at a New York pier and making their way to the Manhattan office
of Leitz Inc., where executives quickly found them jobs in the
photographic industry.

Each new arrival had around his or her neck the symbol of freedom – a
new Leica.

The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out of this
migration came designers, repair technicians, salespeople, marketers
and writers for the photographic press.

Keeping the story quiet

The “Leica Freedom Train” was at its height in 1938 and early 1939,
delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with
the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders.

By that time, hundreds of endangered Jews had escaped to America ,
thanks to the Leitzes’ efforts. How did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away
with it?

Leitz, Inc. was an internationally recognized brand that reflected
credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced range-finders
and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi
government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz’s
single biggest market for optical goods was the United States .

Even so, members of the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good
works. A top executive, Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to help
Jews and freed only after the payment of a large bribe.

Leitz’s daughter, Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, was imprisoned by the Gestapo after
she was caught at the border, helping Jewish women cross into
Switzerland . She eventually was freed but endured rough treatment in
the course of questioning. She also fell under suspicion when she attempted
to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800 Ukrainian slave
laborers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in the plant during
the 1940s.

(After the war, Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honors for her
humanitarian efforts, among them the Officier d’honneur des Palms Academic from
France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from the European Academy
in the 1970s.)

Why has no one told this story until now? According to the late Norman
Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, the Leitz family wanted no
publicity for its heroic efforts. Only after the last member of the
Leitz family was dead did the “Leica Freedom Train” finally come to
light.

It is now the subject of a book, “The Greatest Invention of the Leitz
Family: The Leica Freedom Train,” by Frank Dabba Smith, a
California-born Rabbi currently living in England .

Gilad Shalit Comes Home

Rabbi Stacy K. Offner Adath Emanu-El Shabbat Bereshit October 21, 2011

There is a Hebrew phrase that is going through my mind at this moment. The phrase is “Gam zeh v’Gam zeh”. Literally, the words mean: “also this and also this.” More figuratively, the phrase means, “this Is true and this is also true.” “Gam zeh v’Gam zeh.” It is the phrase that comes to mind as our Jewish commuity tries to wrap its collective head around the events that transpired in Israel just three days ago.
Early this past Tuesday afternoon, Gilad Shalit, the 25 year-old Israeli soldier who became a world-wide household name, walked across the border from Gaza, through Egypt, into Israel, free at last, after 5 1⁄2 years in captivity.
The liberation of Gilad Shalit has caused shockwaves across the globe. It has been cause for celebration, sadness, joy, outrage, pride, concern and wonder.
Gam zeh v’Gam zeh. This is true and this is true. The joy is palpable and so is the concern. What is the pricetag on a human being? The question is absolutely impossible to answer, but Judaism has concerned itself with this vital question throughout our long history.
The Talmud teaches: “The life of a single individual is worth the life of the whole world.” The statement teaches us some very important truths. Each individual person IS a whole world. Each individual person IS priceless, each individual person IS holy, Godly, infinitely worthy and therefore of infinite worth.
“The life of a single individual is worth the life of the whole

  1 world.” So, taken literally, does that mean we have to be so literal? What if you could save a life, and the only price you had to pay, was that the whole rest of the world had to be destroyed? Would you pay that price? Of course not. At least, I hope you wouldn’t.
But, as Abraham so famously argued long ago with God: would you do it if only 1⁄2 the world were to be destroyed? How about one country? Or one city? Or maybe one town?
These are supposed to be hypothetical questions to get you to think about your values. Sadly, in the most gruesome and realistic of ways, these are not hypothetical questions for the State of Israel or for the Jewish people.
One of Judaism’s greatest mitzvot is the mitzvah known as pidyon shvuyim, the commandment regarding redemption of captives. Judaism places a high value on pidyon shvuyim because Judaism places a high value on life. We are willing, indeed we must be willing, to pay a heavy price to redeem the captive.
The extraordinary price that Israel has chosen to pay in order to redeem one soldier, that price being the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, is not new in Israeli history or in Jewish history. The Talmud teaches that redeeming our captives is a mitzvah and that captivity is a fate worse than starvation and worse than death.
Maimonides points out that to refrain from redeeming the captive is tantamount to transgressing many other important mitzvot such as “you shall not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds” and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” One who so much as delays in redeeming a captive is considered like a murderer.
However. And there is a big however. According to the Mishnah, one does NOT redeem captives for more than their value “mpnei Tikun Olam.” One does not redeem captives for more than their value ‘for the sake of Tikun Olam, the repair of the world.” What

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does this mean? We’ve already decided that you can’t put a pricetag on a human being, so what could ‘more than their value’ possibly mean? And how does refraining from redeeming captives help the cause of Tikun Olam?
Fortunately, the Talmud tries to answer these difficult questions. The Talmud says that captives should not be redeemed because it will eventually cause too great of a burden upon the community at large, and redeeming captives will give incentive to kidnappers to seize more captives.
Gilad Shalit was redeemed for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. I do not believe that the Israeli government or Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu are unaware of the risks involved and the pain involved in releasing these prisoners. Among the prisoners listed to be released are the names of those with Israeli blood on their hands, terrorists involved in the blowing up of innocents at the Saborro Pizza Parlor bombing, and others for whom the victim’s families were awaiting their day in court.
And yet. The Israeli Cabinet voted 26-3 in favor of the plan. (In the Jewish world, where one Jew has three opinions, that’s tantamount to a unanimous decision!) The head of the Mossad and the head of the IDF both supported the plan. And we Jews around the world could not be more proud. And the Israeli people could not be more united.
I received an e-mail on Wednesday from a Reform Rabbi living in Israel who described it this way:
“We were witness to a great drama of Pidyon Shvu’im yesterday in Israel. The return of one Israeli soldier—Gilad Shalit—was a national experience, which captured the hearts and minds of the people of Israel. It was a moment of wide national consensus in Israel, something that does not happen very often any more.
I felt proud as a Jew and an Israeli to witness this moving

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experience. It was exhilarating and inspiring and emotional, and a cause for much rejoicing in Israel, especially appropriate during this Sukkot season during which it is a mitzvah to be happy.”
Why so much rejoicing? Because we are a people that treasures life. And ultimately, the finite reality of saving ONE life outweighs the risks of possible loss of life in the future.
Rabbi Avi Weiss is a modern Orthodox rabbi in Riverdale, New York. Rabbi Weiss has a grandson in Israel, whose name just happens to be Gilad. Rabbi Weiss describes a conversation he had with his Gilad, who will soon be enlisting in the Israeli Army, just minutes after Gilad Shalit’s release was announced:
...my grandson said, “Just remember Sabi (grandfather), I’m not worth a thousand.” There was silence on the line. Tears streaming down my cheeks, I found it difficult to speak. Finally, when I could, this hardened activist, who years back argued exchanges should not take place but now feels differently, lovingly responded, “Gilad, you’re right, you’re not worth a thousand. You’re worth at least a million.”
1,027 Palestinian prisoners for one young Israeli soldier who has already been robbed of 5 1⁄2 years of his young life. Is it fair? No. Is it just? No. Is it risk-free? No. Is it right? Absolutely. That Israel has and will and would again put such a high premium on redeeming a soldier in captivity is a decision that rests solidly on Jewish ground. We are the people of “L’Chayim,” of life. We love life, we choose life, and we embrace Gilad’s life, now redeemed for himself, for his family, for his country, for all of us.

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Funeral for Jerry Miller Sunday in Woodstock, N.Y.

In the 1970s I had worked with him at Medical World News, where he ran the photo department.

Smart, hard-working, warm guy. Sorry I lost track of him after I left Medical World News.

He’d been ill in recent years, I learned.

The cantor who officiated mentioned that Jerry never complained, despite his illness.

“Are we sure he was Jewish?”

Funeral for Jerry Miller was Sunday, Oct. 2, in Woodstock, N.Y.

In the 1970s I had worked with him at Medical World News, where he ran the photo department.

Smart, hard-working, warm guy. Sorry I lost track of him after I left Medical World News.

He’d been ill in recent years, I learned.

The cantor who officiated mentioned that Jerry had never complained, despite his illness.

“Are we sure he was Jewish?”

Funeral for Jerry Miller was Sunday, Oct. 2, in Woodstock, N.Y.

In the 1970s I had worked with him at Medical World News, where he ran the photo department.

Smart, hard-working, warm guy. Sorry I lost track of him after I left Medical World News.

He’d been ill in recent years, I learned.

The cantor who officiated mentioned that Jerry had never complained, despite his illness.

“Are we sure he was Jewish?”

Funeral for Jerry Miller was Sunday, Oct. 2, in Woodstock, N.Y.

In the 1970s I had worked with him at Medical World News, where he ran the photo department.

Smart, hard-working, warm guy. Sorry I lost track of him after I left Medical World News.

He’d been ill in recent years, I learned.

The cantor who officiated mentioned that Jerry had never complained, despite his illness.

“Are we sure he was Jewish?”