I recently visited the Yad Vashem Archives, where they work in a race against the clock to locate and reveal names and pieces of information about those who perished in the Holocaust.
The archives of Western Europe use an orderly record of those brought east to the concentration camps, but the former Soviet Union countries have great difficulty in locating the documents and any record, although it is clear to everyone that there are about 2,700,000 victims.
Entire Jewish communities in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and parts of Russia were placed in ghettos and extermination camps.
Many managed to escape but were found dead, entire families destroyed, communities destroyed in part or in full.
Mass graves filled the forests.
In that dark period many archives and documents, each family and its story were burned or lost.
My grandfather said all the certificates and photos of his family were burned along with the train bombed by the Nazis.
His relatives managed to escape the burning train through a small window under the ceiling, but everything they carried with them was lost forever.
Many families had to be rebuilt, including restoring their identifying documents.
Some of those who experienced firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust took advantage of the chaos that prevailed in those days to hide their national identity and Judaism, to become members of a different religion on paper.
Luckily, my relatives insisted on registering as Jews, which later allowed me to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return.
But there were many survivors who tried to do everything to ensure their children a more secure future (they believed), and today, decades after the war, their grandchildren are not recognized as Jews.
Many of the candidates who now go to the courts of conversion properly are actually Jews according to Halacha, but are "paid" for the fact that their grandparents destroyed any proof of their Judaism.
When I talk to them, it turns out that Grandma did a thorough job only in the context of the documents, but other "evidence" for her Judaism remained.
One insisted that no egg be prepared before checking that there was no drop of blood in it, another insisted on dairy and meat dishes, in another house they asked the grandchildren once a year not to make noise because on this day they do not eat or drink.
So.
Without explaining.
That must not be explained.
I am happy for the privilege of helping those who come and want to go to our conversion court, to be immersed in a mikveh tehara and to be considered full-fledged Jews.
And yet, something jarring if conversion is the only solution to a problem, especially when it is not a point problem but a phenomenon.
Is there no other way to prove the Judaism of the Jews of the former USSR without being able to issue an original birth certificate of a great-grandmother, who hid her Judaism as part of the Strait of Survival?
The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the survivors are the ones who have to deal with the problem, they and we.
In the meantime, it seems that we will have to deal with the reality of converting Jews.
And if so, it is desirable that the conversion be a process that respects their story and is carried out by people who do not underestimate their identity, even though they do not have official documents in their hands.
As long as no other solution is found, we will continue to live in the shadow of the Holocaust and its consequences for our people.
It is important that the arbitrators of the generation find the halakhic solution that will make it possible to address this national challenge, a challenge that was created sometime in the days of the Holocaust.
Will there be anyone to sing the glove?
The author is the head of the court system of times - conversion properly
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