Transcription of Larry Rubinstein for the show Maine Jewish Film Festival #131
Dr. Lisa: Each year Maine is privileged to have a number of people show up and sponsor the Maine Jewish Film Festival and also not just sponsor the Maine Jewish Film Festival but really take part and put it out there as a cultural event that delivers recognition. Today with us we have Rabbi Larry Rubinstein. He is actually a retired rabbi but very much a supporter of the Maine Jewish Film Festival. Actually someone who knows one of the characters in the film that’s going to be featured at the Maine Jewish Film Festival so that’s for coming in.
Larry: You are welcome, nice to be here.
Dr. Lisa: I shouldn’t exactly say character because the person we are talking about is the Jewish cardinal is a real person that really existed and somebody that you knew?
Larry: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about that?
Larry: Well there is a little bit of a history. I stopped being a congregational rabbi a pastor in 1978 and went to work for an organization called the United Jewish Appeal. United Jewish Appeal is the umbrella organization for the fundraising for all of the major Jewish communities in the United States. Now the local Jewish community here in Maine was part of that umbrella. At that time I was living in Philadelphia and I went to work in New York I commuted from Philadelphia and I went to work in New York for a part of that group called the young leadership cabinet. Which was the 300 men under the age of 40 in those days men and women didn’t mix together.
I developed a reputation for being a really good programmer. I was there for four years and in the four years you stop being young so I had to go do something else. I ended up going back to Philadelphia and becoming the director of the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia. Which was the third largest federation in the United States. Because of my programming skills, the United Jewish Appeal consulted with me on things every year. One of the ways in which the United Jewish Appeal raised money was it used to take missions which is groups of people that had the cognate interest. To various locations that had Jewish themes to them and then onto Israel. I will always be the one that would come up with the ideas about what to do.
One of the things that I got an idea about was the role of the French Jewish community or French community during the Second World War to save Jews from the Nazis. Although French gets a very bad reputation of being allies with the Nazis once they fell, the Vichy government. There were large pockets of people who didn’t go along with that and one of the areas where that was true was in the Bordeaux region one of the great French wine growing districts. Wine is a major interest of mine I taught wine courses and everything. There was a period of time when the people of the Bordeaux region during the Second World War did everything they could to hide Jews and to protect them from the Nazis because they also didn’t like the Nazis very much.
The Nazis understood that if they could somehow take the wine industry away from France they would break the back, the soul of the French. The French knew that if they had the wine industry taken from them their soul would also be broken. They did everything they could to keep the wine industry out of the hands of the Germans and they also as a result wanted to protect the Jews who lived in the Bordeaux region. Who were very active in the wine industry including a very famous family the Rothschild Family. That owned Mouton Rothschild which was one of the great vineyards in all of France.
Edmund de Rothschild who at that time was the senior person worked with the local community and probably they say 5 to 10,000 Jews by hiding them in their chateaus cellars, making believe they were working in the vineyards even though they weren’t. This kind of thing and making be they weren’t Jewish so the Germans wouldn’t be able to finger them. What I wanted to do is I wanted to take one of these missions these UJ missions to the Bordeaux region of France to study what happened there. To work with the Rothschild family who all of them had survived. That time Philippe de Rothschild was the latest in the senior people of the Rothschild family.
We got in touch with him and we told him what he wanted to do and he said, “That’s a great idea.” He said “We’ll go to Israel afterwards together.” By the way this mission was called the President’s Mission and the President’s Mission were the highest givers to the United Jewish Appeal. These were people who would give on the average of 100,000 or more a year on an annual basis. It was a pretty high level mission and it was my job to program for this mission I was from Philadelphia but I was doing and we always had a few people from Philadelphia who participated as well. Rothschild Philippe de Rothschild said, “I have an idea, why don’t we go up to Paris afterwards and meet with Aaron Lustiger.”
I said, “Who’s Aaron Lustiger this is a cardinal and so we know he’s Jean Marie Lustiger.” He said “No I knew him when he was a kid he’s Aaron Lustiger. Why don’t we meet with him because he was born a Jew and he still got royalties to the Jewish community and but he’s a cardinal. We’ll go up there and we’ll have a meeting with him and maybe we’ll invite him to go with us to Israel. That’s what we do and Lustiger said yes. Now all of this took place probably six months to a year before the incidents in the film were recorded. We took Lustiger to Israel and he was a survivor of the Holocaust he was a young man I think he was 13 years old when the Nazis came to France.
He never lost his loyalty to the Jewish people he felt that he was born a Jew he had a revelation about Catholicism when he was a young man. His father witnessed his conversion to Catholicism never was happy with it. Still there was family loyalty that took place and we talked to Lustiger about going to Israel. He said, “Absolutely.” That was the first time he went. When we were there we took him to Yad Vashem the Holocaust Memorial. He had a million questions about what was going on and it was like he had discovered what really happened during the Holocaust.
Although he had personally been through it, he had not really … he didn’t really know all the information and at Yad Vashem picked up a lot of the information. Now this precedes by about I think less than a year, after he became cardinal, the desire and applaud of a small group of nuns in Poland to establish a convent at Auschwitz the great concentration camp the biggest concentration camp. Which of course roused the ire of the Jewish community. This was an unholy Jewish place but it was a very important Jewish place. They didn’t think that and I don’t think that a convent belonged on that turf.
The question was how did they have that happen and Lustiger apparently was a friend of Jean Paul II. He went to speak to him we don’t know exactly what the conversation was but what we do know, the mood he sort of makes out that there was a conversation but it was a made up conversation. He basically did it he said, “Look you have to get the Polish Catholic Church to get rid of this, I won’t do it.” The question was how to do that, Lustiger had to go to his counterpart in Poland the Cardinal of Poland and get him to withdraw this thing. The Cardinal of Poland really wasn’t convinced as a lot of people weren’t that there really had been a Holocaust the way it had taken place.
There was an arrangement made where the two cardinals were going to meet. Interestingly enough in the film they identify where that meeting takes place I don’t know if you remember that. It took place in Geneva Switzerland at the Rothschild Estate in Geneva. Now the question is how, did they get to the Rothschild Estate. Well Lustiger was friends with the Rothschild’s and that’s how it happened. What happened was the Cardinal of Poland who was reluctant to be there as a matter of fact they show that in the film where he is like coming and his aides tell him he has to be there. What ends up happening is Lustiger says, “You don’t know what really happened to the Jewish people you have to go to Yad Vashem you have to see what I saw.”
He finally gets the cardinal to go and the cardinal comes back and says, “I had no idea.” That was the end of the convent in Auschwitz. That’s what the story is about and my part is that I was there with him prior to his having convinced the Polish Cardinal that he should go. We had a number of conversations he was interested in Jewish history; he was interested in what the psyche of the Jewish people were after the holocaust. He was interested in what the importance of the state of Israel was to the Jewish people. I had those conversations with him and I found him to be extremely well informed. Very, very smart and very committed to both his Jewish roots and to his catholic religion.
Dr. Lisa: That’s an interesting duality to be able to have especially when you are that high up in the Catholic Church?
Larry: Yeah it is. It caused great consternation for his parents, his father. His mother died in Auschwitz but his sister accepted it and understood it but his father never really did. He was conflicted about it himself because there were Jewish ritual prayers when his father died that he could not say because he was a Catholic. He always felt, apparently according to the movie I don’t know I never talked to him about this. Apparently he felt very badly about it. His father died after I knew him so this was something that happened after his trip to Israel. He had some conflict about it in terms of the two religions butting up against each other. His Jewish roots and his loyalty to the … the concept of the people of Israel was there.
Dr. Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: I’m going to read directly from Black Elk, The Sacred Ways of Lakota. My people I call them earth people never discovered anything because we are part of the fire. We are part of the rock and we are part of the water and green. We never discovered anything or created anything because we are a part of it. We know we are a part of it because we are still connected to our roots. When I went out in the desert with my Sherman, I studied for four years out in the Sonora Desert with a Sherman. He would take me to the stone people and the grandmother trees.
We would call these spaces out and we would go visit them and we would feel spirit there. It’s important to realize that we bring spirit to a place, it doesn’t just happen. We invoke that and we can look at the world in a very sterile way and a very perfunctory manner or we can look at it with spirit and through the eyes of spirit and it makes all the difference. I’m Ted Carter and if you’d like to contact me, I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
Dr. Lisa: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast understands the importance of the health, of the body, mind and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body is Jim Greatorex of Premier Sports Health, a division of Black Bear Medical.
Tim: Hey let’s get festive, lace up your running shoes or your walking shoes and let’s get active. I want you to take a moment and think about the people in your life. How would they define being active, is it training for a marathon or you are like me you like to play golf on the weekends or hit the slopes. Or is it just getting out to the backyard for a change of scenery. My point is, it’s your perspective regardless of what you define as active we all need to take some time each day to make that happen. What’s better than a three hour long workout a week? It’s 20 minutes everyday of activity.
It’s good for your body and your mind and the consistency can be good in helping you avoid injuries. For more information on how to stay active, visit us in Portland or Bangor or online at blackbearmedical.com. Black Bear Medical keeping you active in the game of life. With medical equipment, sports health and rehab products, wellness products and more.
Speaker 1: Experienced chef and owner Harding Lee Smith’s newest hit restaurant, Boone’s Fish House and Oyster Room Maine seafood at its finest. Joining sister restaurants The Front Room, The Grill Room and The Corner Room. This newly renovated two storey restaurant at 86 Commercial Street on Custom House Wharf, overlooks scenic Portland Harbor. Watch lobstermen bring in the daily catch as you enjoy baked stuffed lobster, raw bar and wood fired flatbreads. For more information, visit www.theroomsportland.com.
Dr. Lisa: What you are describing on this side of your life and actually your life as a whole, is in such stark contrast to what happened during the holocaust where lives were effectively erased. People went in with a very rich cultural heritage and personal histories. Many were never heard from again. Is that part of what’s happening with the Maine Jewish Film Festival or is this attempt and maybe in your life as well is this attempt to almost live more fully. Almost sort of reconstitute and have the stories be told?
Larry: Well that’s truly a motivation, certainly a motivation for me to do what I do. Although I will tell you that I am more motivated in doing the work that I do and being involved as a volunteer in a not for profit world. I’m more motivated by the ethic and ideology of the United States which I think is unique. We are a unique country, one of the most important books I think ever written about the United States is Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America. That where he describes the importance of the volunteer sector in the United States and making it unique. The involvement of volunteers and volunteerism and fundraising and in support of not for profit institutions that improve the community in which they exist.
Which doesn’t exist in Europe the same way Europe is much more government controlled and as a result nothing works right in Europe. Here things work much better and it’s very important for us as Americans to be volunteers and to support volunteer institutions that function for the public good. That’s a major motivation for me and that’s why I tell people all the time, actually tomorrow, Thursday I’m doing a training session for an arts program under the auspices of the Maine Arts Commission. To help them do better fundraising so that we can have stronger arts institutions in the state. I think that the Maine Jewish Film Festival is going to that as well. I’m very committed to this concept of this American concept of volunteerism.
Dr. Lisa: I do agree with volunteerism is very important but I think equally compelling or the story is that bring people to volunteer. This is why I love the fact that you can come in and you can tell the story about the Jewish cardinal and you can actually, you mentioned to me when we were talking before that there is a Jewish film festival relationship with the Kachmar organ.
Larry: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: These stories I think are as just as important and your ability to tell them, other people’s ability to go and watch a film at the film festival because I think that that does draw people in.
Larry: I think you’re right. I’m very proud of what the Maine Jewish Film Festival does because it brings to the entire community not just the Jewish community a good piece of the Jewish cultural life. If you see any of the films there, it’s not a religious festival. It has all kinds of attachments to the Jewish community it could be through the state of Israel, it could be Jewish producers, it could be Jewish directors, it could be Jewish subject matter. I actually had an absolutely fascinating time being involved with this. I can think of one particular young woman I met who was a director of a film that was produced … she made it about herself she was a film student in NYU in New York but her family was from Israel.
Her father a very famous man Amos Elon who was a major political figure in Israel. She was his only daughter and he and his wife did not have time to raise her. He hired a male nanny to take care of her and he was a Palestinian, because there were Palestinian Arabs that live in Israel as citizens and that’s what he was. She grew up really more with this Palestinian-Arab as a father than her own father. He had children and she identified with them as brothers and sisters. Then what she did is after many, many years came to the United States and tried to find all of those people many of whom had come to the United States including the father, the ersatz father that she had.
She made a film about finding these people and Robert and I my wife and I went to dinner with her and talked to her about it. It was just unbelievable to hear her story, a person aside from the film that we saw, then it turned out and we thought for sure her husband and her little baby were with her. We were sure her husband she had married an Arab we were sure of that. This guy was dark skinned and we just thought he was maybe she had met him in Israel he was Israeli-Arab. It turned out that he was from Morocco and his father was the chief rabbi of Paris. We meet all these incredibly interesting people as a result of this film festival. We met a guy who was the director of a film called the Hasidic Actors Guild.
It was about … it was a fiction. He made this whole thing up, it was a comedy, most people didn’t realize it was a comedy. They thought he was making a documentary about this Hasidic Actors Guild which didn’t exist. He was a riot this guy was the funniest guy we’ve ever met and again we got to meet him because of the Maine Jewish Film Festival. We end up meeting all these unbelievably funny people, good people, smart people, creative people because of the film festival. That’s what the film festival brings to the State of Maine. As I said it’s not just Jewish stuff its all kinds of stuff that Jews may be related to so could be a regular story.
It could be a story … there was an incredible story a movie we saw about a guy whose father died and kept calling him from heaven on the phone. He kept getting these phone calls, had nothing to do with Judaism it was a French film. It was directed by a Jew so that’s the reason the film festival showed it. It was one of this very funny stories where every time this guy got involved with a girl his father would call him and say, “No this is not the right girl for you that kind of thing.” Anyway we find it to be an illuminating part of cultural life of Portland to go to these films. We don’t go to all of them we go to some of them. My wife goes to all of them I go to some of them.
Dr. Lisa: Wow it’s been quite a privilege to have you and talking to us today about a broad variety of subjects, the least is the Maine Jewish Film Festival. We appreciate your coming relocating to Maine and becoming a part of the fabric of the culture and doing the work that you are doing. We’ll be speaking with other people who are also involved in the Maine Jewish Film Festival. If anybody would like to Google the friends of the Kachmar Organ, The Portland Museum of Art, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine any of these things. Get more information about the things that you are passionate about I would really, I would encourage it. We’ve been speaking with Rabbi Larry Rubenstein who is the retired rabbi and does so many things. Thank you so much for coming in.
Larry: It was a pleasure to be here thanks for giving me the chance to talk about these things.
Speaker 4: You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Show number 131 Maine Jewish Film Festival. Our guest have included Louise Rosen, Richard Kane and Larry Rubenstein. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit dsctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of this week’s show, sign up for our eNewsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me as bountiful1 on Instagram and give my take on health and wellbeing on the bountiful blog. We love to hear from you so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour.
We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you’ve heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle I hope you have enjoyed our Maine Jewish Film Festival Show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors. Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary by Design, Premier Sports Health, a Division of Black Bear Medical, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage. Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Dream Kitchen Studios, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street Portland Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti and Dr. Lisa Belisle.
Our assistant producer is Lien Wemet. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our online producer is Kelly Clinton. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is available for download free on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.