KADDISH IN CAMBODIA On the eighteenth day (in the Hebrew calendar) of Shevat I found myself in the dusty, noisy village of Aranyaprathet, on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, searching desperately for nine more Jews.
I had Yahrzeit for my father, and I needed a
minyan so that I could say Kaddish. I would have found a
minyan easily enough in Bangkok. There are about fifty Jewish families in the community there, plus twenty Israeli Embassy families, so there would have been no problem about finding ten men for
minchah. But in Aranyaprathet?
I had gone there to take part in a March for the Survival of Cambodia organized by the International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Frontiers. There were philosophers, novelists, parliamentarians, and journalists—myriad journalists. But how was I to find out who might be able to help me with
my problem?
I would have liked to telephone one of my rabbi friends in New York or Jerusalem and ask his advice on the Halakhic aspects of the matter. What did one do in such a case? Should one observe the Yahrzeit the following day, or the following week? But I was afraid of being rebuked and of being asked why I had gone to Thailand precisely on that day, when I should have been in synagogue.
I would have justified myself by saying that I had simply been unable to refuse. How could I refuse when so many men and women were dying of hunger and disease?
I had seen on television what the Cambodian refugees looked like when they arrived in Thailand—walking skeletons with somber eyes, crazy with fear. I had seen a mother carrying her dead child, and I had seen creatures dragging themselves along the ground, resigned to never again being about to stand upright.
How could a Jew like myself, with experiences and memories like mine, stay at home and not go to the aid of an entire people? Some will say to me, Yes, but when you needed help, nobody came forward. True, but it is
because nobody came forward to help me that I felt it my duty to help these victims.
As a Jew I felt the need to tell these despairing men and women that we understood them; that we shared their pain; that we understood their distress because we remembered a time when we as Jews confronted total indifference. . . .
Of course, there is no comparison. The event which left its mark on my generation defies analogy. Those who talk about “Auschwitz in Asia” and the “Cambodian Holocaust” do not know what they are talking about. Auschwitz can and should serve as a frame of reference, but that is all.
So there I was in Thailand, in Aranyaprathet, with a group of men and women of good will seeking to feed, heal, save Cambodians—while I strove to get a
minyan together because, of all the days of the year, the eighteenth day of Shevat is the one that is most full of meaning and dark memories for me.
Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum was a member of the American delegation. Now I needed only eight more. Leo Cherne, the president of the International Rescue Committee, was there as well. Only seven more to find.
Then I spotted the well-known Soviet dissident, Alexander Ginsberg, and rushed over to him. Would he agree to help me make up a
minyan? He looked at me uncomprehendingly. He must have thought I was mad. A
minyan? What is a
minyan? I explained: a religious service. Now he surely did not understand. A religious service? Here, by the mined bridge separating Thailand and Cambodia? Right in the middle of a demonstration of international solidarity? I began all over again to explain the significance of a
minyan. But in vain. Alexander Ginsburg is not a Jew; he is a convert to the Russian Orthodox Church. I still had seven to find.
Suddenly, I caught sight of the young French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who was making a statement for television. Only six more to find. Farther on, I found the French novelist Guy Suares. Then a doctor from Toulouse joined us, followed by Henry Kamm, of
The New York Times. Another doctor came over. At last there were ten of us. There, in the midst of all the commotion, a few yards from the Cambodian frontier, we recited the customary prayers, and I intoned Kaddish, my voice trembling.
Then, suddenly, from somewhere behind me, came the voice of a man still young, repeating the words after me, blessing and glorifying the Master of the Universe. He had tears in his eyes, that young Jew. “For whom are you saying Kaddish?” I asked him. “For your father?” “No.” “For your mother?” “No,”
He grew reflective and looked toward the frontier. “It is for them,” he said.
Copyright © 1995 by Elie Wiesel. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
