Kaddishel

A Life Reborn
By Aharon Golub and Bennett W. Golub
(374 Pages)Publisher: Devora Publishing, 2005

Aharon Golub is the kaddishel for his family the only son upon whose shoulders falls the responsibility to recite the prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, for his parents. And as the kaddishel, he honors his parents by remembering both the joys of his early childhood in Ludvipol and the hatred that sought to destroy Ludvipol, and his childhood. Aharon bears the burden of an entire generation of children who made promises to their parents, promises that are relived at every Yahrzeit, every anniversary of the death of their parents: never to bask in the luxury of forgetting. So Aharon Golub remembers his past.

As a child in Hitler's War, he suffers crippling frostbite that leaves him at the mercy of others. He encounters Jews who help him hide, and Jews who abandon him in his time of need. He meets non-Jews who risk their lives to feed him, and non-Jews who live for the day they will find him and kill him.

As a kibbutznik in Israel, Aharon begins his childhood anew. He relearns friendship, trust, love. He discovers that building a country is a lot like building a life: It takes patience, hard work, and an ability to put the past aside in a compartment marked "To Open Later." And, as an American, Aharon begins to pry open the rusted lock of his memories. Then, slowly, over time, he takes his own son, Ben, his kaddishel, on a journey that is too unbelievable, too strange, too terrifying to be true.

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