Everlasting Life

 

To commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2026

 and in observance of my father’s twentieth yahrzeit (anniversary of his passing), I offer this blog, 

Everlasting Life

Joseph Greenfield - at home in Oceanside NY 1964

My father is a Holocaust survivor. He was liberated from KZ (concentration camp) Mauthausen by US 11th Armor troops - Thunderbolt Division - on the 5th of May, 1945. Despite the unimaginably black abyss from which he emerged, he chose a path of light to  create a new family and new life in a new country. 

He was my hero. I think about him every day.

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“May his precious soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.”

Those words are etched at the base of the monument recently dedicated in my father Joseph’s memory. I’ve been thinking a lot about everlasting life since he died. I’ve now come to a better understanding of its meaning. In the beginning, I fully expected to feel lost and aching. Expressing similar pained emotions, two Jewish sages, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, composed these lyrics for their soulful song America:

 

“I’m lost and aching and I don’t know why, 

Counting the cars on the NJ Turnpike”

When my journey of mourning began, it was also in New Jersey, and it was also on a highway. But it wasn’t the Turnpike, and I wasn’t counting cars. I was, however, numbly staring out the window of a small SUV as it cruised down Jersey’s Garden State Parkway on the way back from the cemetery where my father had just been laid to rest. Although traffic was flowing freely, our driver suddenly exited onto a side road. I turned to ask why the switch. He told me he grew up in New Jersey and loved driving the rural routes whenever he could. At that moment, I pictured my dad leaning over to give him the directions to turn off, just as he often did to me when I was driving, and just as he would have done if he was behind the wheel and the option of a more scenic route presented. I realized in that instant that I would never again take the quiet “road less traveled” without feeling my dad’s presence. So, despite the tears of the morning and the turbulence of the previous few months, and unlike the lost and aching souls in the song America, I smiled and turned to continue gazing out the window. Somehow I was happy and at peace.  

My father on the road less traveled

One day when sitting in synagogue for the daily morning service, I sensed my father’s presence once again, as I have on numerous other occasions. My eyes had momentarily drifted from the siddur (prayer book) and fixed on the beautiful aron kodesh (ark containing the Torah scrolls) in front of me. A smile spontaneously spread across my face. What happened to elicit such a pleasurable diversion? Among his many talents, my dad was a master craftsman. One of his last creations, at age 87, was building a commissioned aron kodesh for his own congregation. In the exuberance to complete the project, he made an errant cut with a power saw and it needed to be disguised with just a slight, undetectable modification of design. This scenario of an “excitement faux-pas and correction” did occur occasionally in his creations. When he told me what happened, I invoked the traditional carpenter’s mantra, “Remember, you measure twice and cut once, not the other way around.” This interchange had long ago become a standing joke between us. For added emphasis, I added that in my surgical work, I typically measure three or four times before an incision is made, never the other way around. With all of our kidding aside, I always learned a lot standing alongside my dad watching him work. As a teen I often begrudged having to spend my time being his assistant, steadying the wood as he sawed those knotty-pine boards for renovations around our home and other such jobs. But that is how I developed an appreciation for the beauty of wood and finer points of woodwork. 

Working in his NJ garage workshop, 2005

And later it was for photography, of which he was also a master. So now, whenever I take in the aroma of fresh sawdust, or whenever I hear the soft metallic whisper click of my camera’s shutter, I know he is there. His presence will always be with me. It is everlasting.

self portrait with Leica III and 90 mm lens

My father lived to an old age, but he never became an old man. He was vibrant, independent, fiercely loving of family, incredibly creative & artistic, and wise with the fundamental precepts of Judaism to the end. I will always be grateful for and inspired by that full life. 

As I said, he was my hero.

Joseph and David - building a deck in Newton, 1980

“May his precious soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.”

Jacob's Ladder

 "It was the best of times ... it was the worst of times,  it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

In high school I didn't read much Dickens, but I always remember those opening lines of from his novel, A Tale of Two Cities.

The quote came to mind this Thanksgiving 2025 when everyone collectively paused with family and friends to think of all we are thankful for. But with hurt and fear viscerally affecting so many now across the land, it's hard and perhaps Pollyanna-ish to engage in that exercise. If you hold fast in believing we are truly in the season of darkness, consider this ...

In this same season of 1863, in the midst of the Civil War with Rebel sons sometimes fighting Northern brothers and the Union on life support, President Lincoln proclaimed going forward there would be a national day of thanksgiving.

Crazy, no?

Even during those worst of times Lincoln wanted his countrymen to recognize their blessings. Acknowledging the good motivates the soul to respond with gratitude. The President believed that despite darkness and despair, it is always a season for hope, light, and gratefullness.

Abraham Lincoln was known as a brilliant orator and master storyteller, but as far as I know, he wasn't a Torah scholar. Yet his remarks over 150 years ago echoed the corresponding Torah portion of this past week - the story of Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28: 20-22).

In this passage, we find Jacob on the lam. Previously he schemed with his mother Rebecca to take advantage of his father's failing eyesight and steal his older brother Esau's birthright. Realizing the robbery, Esau goes ballistic. He with his men, 400 strong, then set out to get Jacob who has just made a hasty exit from biblical 'Dodge'. Exhausted by his desperate flight, Jacob drops into a deep sleep somewhere in the desert wilderness. During the night he dreams of a ladder ascending the heavens. Jacob's vision can be seen as a way upward to overcome life's challenges and connect with all that is good. But as in Wenceslas Hollar's 17 century artistic depictions of the dream, angels are shown going down as well as up. The ladder is a two-way thoroughfare providing rungs to journey heavenward but also steps to fall back to the uncertain times in the earthly realm.

So here's the $64 question - will the ladder help you up, inspiring to see a better place, or lead you down to remain wallowing in despair?

It's your call.

Isaac getting inspiration along with a snack

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Photos © David Greenfield

Lincoln - St. Gaudens Nat'l Historic Park, Cornish NH

ladders - Poverty Lane Orchard, Lebanon NH

Isaac getting inspiration - Arlington MA

Jacob's Ladder Artwork - Wenceslas Hollar 1607 - 1677

How Sweet It is!

 

Has feeling the pain of our citizens who lost SNAP benefits during the government shutdown and didn’t know how they would feed their families continued to gnaw away at you? How about seeing images of ICE agents pulling people out of cars or being rounded up at workplaces and put into detention just because the agent judged the shade of their skin to be too ‘non-white’? 

It gnaws at me and I needed a remedy, at least short term. Perhaps something funny on the telly would work.

Then for some inexplicable reason, I thought of Jackie Gleason.  Don’t ask me why.

Jackie as Ralph Kramden (Etsy photos)

During his illustrious television and film career,  Gleason’s signature line was, “how sweet it is!” In his 1950s Hollywood heydays he brought joy and awe to viewing audiences by portrayals of busdriver Ralph Kramden on the ‘Honeymooners’ TV series and as the gentleman pool aficionado Minnesota Fats in ‘The Hustler’, just to name two.

Temporarily putting aside what I, what we, can do about the tsunami of heartless, hurtful policies emanating from Washington on a daily basis, I needed some of Gleason’s ‘sweetness’,  something to warm my insides, brighten my horizon, and put a smile on my face. 

Maybe you need that too. 

In pondering a ‘one size fits all’ fix I conjured up a sure-fire winner, baby faces - pure and innocent. Just the idea of it immediately began to work. Unless you’re made of stone, maybe it will work for you.

So, to bath our ailing psyches with a short term soothing salve, check out this collection of babes and see if you won’t start thinking, ‘how sweet it is!”

photo credit - Jonathan Dunn and Emily Jewel

Is the 'salve' working for you yet?

How Sweet It Is!

Pathway to Citizenship

 

America was always viewed as the ‘City on the Hill’, a beacon of freedom and democracy. People from around the world looked to it and aspired one day to call it their home, become a citizen, and raise their families there. 

Pathway to citizenship is termed ‘naturalization’, a process that is ……… natural. It was the pathway my parents and I  once traveled on.

Rachela, David, and Josef

But the day I officially became a citizen, not only as the minor child of naturalized  parents, was anything but a natural day. 

How come? Here’s the story of events leading up to that day. 

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Rachela Bunis along with an older sister, and Josef Grünfeld along with a younger brother were the only survivors of the Holocaust/Shoah from their families. Before the war, they lived in different parts of Poland, but afterward, as with other Jewish survivors whose families and homes were decimated, they were gathered by the Bricha* from all over Europe and resettled in various Displaced Persons (DP) camps. Once relocated, the survivors’ goal was to move on and find new homes in Palestine or other parts of the world ready, for the most part, to accept Jewish refugees. 

Rachela and Josef met in one of those DP camps in Austria. They fell in love, married and gave birth to me. From Day One in camp they also turned their energies into finding a new home. Initially their sights were on Palestine to be part of the movement to re-establish a Jewish homeland after 2,000 years of dispersion. The British, who held the mandate for Palestine had other ideas. The Brits didn’t want more Jews to emigrate there and create turmoil for them with the local Arab population. Despite several attempts, the Bricha was unsuccessful in its underground smuggling operations to get us into Palestine. But all the while my father was writing to relatives who had previously settled in the US. Could they help bring us to the States? 

Josef at the typewriter, younger brother Mendus in the back

His aunt Tova, who came to America as a young woman, was now married and established in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. 

 

Tova and Israel

She and her husband Israel eventually provided the necessary sponsorship for our family. So, after four years living in the DP camp, and with all necessary prerequisites in place, we left Austria in February, 1949 for the voyage to New York City.  

Now the mission was to become US citizens. Back then the process was relatively straightforward - after a period of five years, pass a citizenship exam and demonstrate the ability to support yourself. Both parents, now with Americanized names, Rachele and Joseph (Joe) Greenfield, went to night school to learn their new language and my dad secured a stable job as a pattern man* at the Werman & Sons Brooklyn shoe factory. When they earned their citizenship, as their minor child I automatically became a citizen. For me it was easy and ….. natural. 

Now let’s fast forward to the 1960’s.

Soon I would be leaving home for college. My folks felt I should have my own set of citizenship papers. In order to do so, very early one designated morning I had to appear before a magistrate in a courtroom at the Town of Hempstead’s municipal building. Upon taking an oath of allegiance to the US, and answering a few questions, my own papers would be issued. 

 

On the designated day in court I got up really early, much earlier than I usually did on school days, and went to Hempstead. I don’t remember much about the proceeding but I can remember it wasn’t as challenging as getting up so early! You know how teenagers like to sleep in. When I got home I headed straight to bed for a much needed nap. 

The date was November 22, 1963. 

Suddenly, nap time was over. My mother was in my room shaking me awake. 

What’s going on? 

There was breaking news I had to hear - President John F. Kennedy, JFK, the  youngest man ever to become a US president, with a beautiful wife and young children, Caroline and John, Jr., had just been shot while motorcading in Dallas, Texas! By 1:00 PM, he was declared dead - gone. The entire nation, and the world, was in shock. Sadly, that brutal act turned out to be just an opening salvo of the 1960s turbulent decade.  

November 22, 1963 - I may not remember much about my early morning steps along the pathway to citizenship at the municipal building, but I will never forget what happened in Dallas on that day. 

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Bricha - Postwar, clandestine movement that helped Jews emigrate from eastern Europe to Palestine.

Pattern Man - Translates a fashion idea into a practical, beautiful, well fitting shoe. He is at once an artist, a fashion expert, an engineer, and a production man. The pattern man develops the patterns for all sizes and widths. Those patterns are then used to create dies to cut the leather pieces to manufacture the shoe. The pattern man is the ultimate Shoe Man.