Congregation Ohav Sholom

David Schifman - Halutz at thirteen

Thirteen, the age when a Jewish male becomes a bar-mitzvah, is a milestone. It is the age of Jewish adulthood. At age 13, David Schifman, carried with him not only the responsibility of mitzvot, but much more. A mere half year after becoming a bar-mitzvah, David Schifman set forth on a journey that would take him from his hometown, Frankfurt am Main, in Germany, all the way to Eretz Yisrael. He boarded a train alone from Frankfurt am Main, which was headed for Trieste in northwestern Italy. From Trieste, he boarded a boat, "The Galilee," which took him to Haifa.

The year was 1934, a year after Adolph Hitler (yimach shmo) ascended to power. David was active in a religious Zionist youth group, called "Ezra." His parents, who may have sensed that the political climate in Germany was changing for the worse, did not discourage David from implementing his plans to move to Eretz Yisrael. As David's parents walked him to the train station, his father whispered to him not to cry, or else his mother would not let him board the train. Only after he and his parents parted and the train started to move did David break down crying. It was the last time he would see his mother and father.

David's brother and sister also managed to escape Hitler's savagery five years later in 1939 by traveling first to Denmark and then to the U.S. Before leaving Germany, they witnessed the arrest of their parents. In 1939, a local Nazi official who happened to be known to the family, came to the Schifman home to arrest David's father and did so, but only after David's mother cracked a glass bottle over the Nazi's head. She too was arrested. David's father was eventually transferred to Dachau and died there. His mother died in Hadmar which was a prison known for some of the first gassing experiments conducted on Jews, prior to the more widespread use of gas chambers in concentration camps, later in the war.

The seas were rough on the Adriatic but David fell into a deep sleep and thus did not fall prey to the seasickness that befell the other passengers. At the port, in Haifa, David was met by his group leader from Ezra, who had already settled in Eretz Yisrael and who accompanied him to the settlement of Chavurat Hafetz Haim (now Kibbutz Hafetz Haim). Hafetz Haim was near the town of Gadera on a sandy piece of land south of Yavneh on the coastal plain. Initially, the residents of Hafetz Haim slept in tents. David spent his days studying in a Talmud Torah, a half-hour away in Rechovot. The work of Hafetz Haim's chalutzim consisted among other tasks, of clearing the fields of rocks and debris to prepare them for agriculture. The years 1935 through 1937 were years of rioting by the Arab population. Attacks against Jews were commonplace. No different in Gadera. Shots from the neighboring Arab village of Jadara toward Gadera prompted the settlers at Hafetz Haim to erect a barbed wire fence around the kibbutz.

After a few years on Hafetz Haim, David was sent to Jerusalem to learn a trade at the Horev school on King George St., near the Jewish agency. David learned to be a cabinet-maker. He then served as an apprentice in Jerusalem.

After learning his trade, he moved to Haifa and worked with his uncle as a cabinet-maker. He lived in Haifa for eight years. His stay in Haifa was eventful to say the least. He later went into business with a partner who worked for the Haganah. David would make wooden targets for Haganah target practice. He also made cabinets specially designed to hold war maps for the Haganah. He would have been in hot water had British soldiers ever entered and searched his workshop. Luckily this never happened. He recalls that during World War II, Italian jets would sometimes fly over Haifa Bay, strafe the city and attempt to hit the oil refineries. But the most exhilarating memory he has of his stay in Haifa was the evening of November 29, 1947. The General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution calling for the partition of British-ruled Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. At last after 2000 years, a Jewish state would be formed. Granted, a war would have to be fought for this dream of a state to be realized. Regardless, a centuries-old dream of the Jewish people was coming true. There were celebrations throughout the country. David recalls that in Haifa shouts of joy rang out as people celebrated in the streets until the early hours of the morning. David describes that evening as utter euphoria.

In February of 1948, David boarded a commercial flight from Tel Aviv to New York's Idlewild airport and moved to the U.S. He met his wife Josephine in 1950 and got married the same year. Their first child, a son was born in 1951 and a daughter, 5 years later. Initially, they lived in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, moving to East Meadow in 1952. They described to me the potato fields, which once occupied the land on which my own house currently stands. The Schifmans moved to Merrick in 1956 and were the eighth family to join Ohav Shalom. They have two children and three grandchildren.

January 2002

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Michael Rosenbloom is a member of Congregation Ohav Sholom. He can be reached at spidermr@aol.com.

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