Shattered Crystals - Mia Amalia Kanner (that summer book TXT) 📗
- Author: Mia Amalia Kanner
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It took a few more months before we were really reunited. Until an apartment became available in Brooklyn, my parents and Lea lived in Kew Gardens with Hannah, where I visited often. The day after we all moved to our own apartment, I went into my school’s office and told the secretary I had moved. Barely looking up from her work, she gave me a card on which to write my new address,. After five years in America, this was the first time I wrote my address without the words “care of” after my name. School friends who knew nothing of my history accepted my move from Washington Heights to Brooklyn without question.
It took a while until we adjusted to each other. I relearned German but spoke it forever after not only ungrammatically, but with an American accent. My parents and Lea learned English even faster. So communication became easier and more relaxed as well, as we adjusted to each other as a family.
My sisters and I married, raised families and enjoyed success in our chosen professions. Five grandchildren and one great grandchild brought my parents great pleasure. My parents, sisters and I were a rare quintet, an entire nuclear family who survived the Holocaust intact. But the lost years during which we were apart, years that included vital time during which we were growing up, could never be retrieved. It is a loss that was felt not only by us children, but also by our mother and father.
Glossary
aliya: call to reading of Torah scroll in Synagogue
Appell: roll call of prisoners
bar mitzvah: coming of age (13) for Jewish boys
Baruch Hashem: “thank God”
becher: wine goblet
bentch: to bless
bentch licht: blessing over candles
berachah: blessing
besomim: sweet smelling spices
besomim halter: container for spices
Boche: derogatory term for Germans
chad gayah: song traditionally sung at Seder
chametz: leaven; bread
chalutzim: pioneers
charoses: paste of apples, nuts and wine for Seder
chasid: adherent to pious Jewish movement
cheder: Torah school for children
Chumash: five books of Moses
chuppah: bridal canopy
chutzpah: audacity
daven, davening: to pray
eretz Yisrael: land of Israel
ersatz: substitute
fleishig: food containing meat
frum: observant
gendarme: French policeman
Gemara: another word for Talmud
goy, goyim, goyish: non-Jew, non-Jewish
Gute Reise: good journey
halachah: Jewish law
Hallel: special prayer of praise
Hamotzi: blessing over bread at start of meal
Hashem: name of the Lord
Havdalah: concluding ritual of Sabbath
Juden Verboten: Jews forbidden
Judenrein: free of Jews
kasher: to make kosher
kibbutz: collective Israeli settlement
Kiddush: ceremonial wine blessing
ki leolam chasdo: His grace is forever
kneidlech: matzoh balls
Kol Nidre: opening Yom Kippur prayer
Kosher: permitted under Jewish law
Kotel: Western temple wall, Jerusalem, sacred to Jews
leichters: candlesticks
Ma Nishtanah: the Four Questions asked at the Pesach seder
machzor: prayer books for high holidays and festivals
make aliyah: immigrate to Israel
marror: bitter herbs
matzoh: unleavened bread
Mazel Tov: congratulations
mechitzah: partition in synagogue
melamed, meladim [pl.]: teacher
menorah: candelabra
milchig: dairy
minyan: quorum of ten men for prayers
mishpachah: family
mitzvah: commandment
Moshiach: Messiah
musette: knapsack
naches: gratification
Opa: grandfather
OSE: organization that saved Jewish children
payos: earlocks
Pesach: Jewish festival of Passover
Rebbetzin: wife of rabbi
Rosh Hashanah: New Year
Schule: school
Seder: Passover feast
Sefer Torah: Torah scroll
seudah: meal
Shabbos: the Sabbath
Shalom Aleichem: peace upon you, a greeting
Shas: works of the Talmud
Shema Yisrael: Hear, oh Israel
shevah berachos: the seven nuptial blessings
shir hamalos: song of praise after meal
shivah: seven-day period of mourning
shochet: ritual slaughterer
shomer Shabbos: Sabbath observers
shtiebel: Chasidic synagogue
shul: synagogue
siddur, siddurim [pl.]: prayer
shtetl: village in Eastern Europe
succah: booth
Succos: festival of booths, one of main Jewish festivals
taharah: purification of dead body
tallis: prayer shawl
Talmud: fundamental code of Jewish law, see also Gemara
tefillin: phylacteries
tzimmes: carrot dish
yahrzeit: anniversary of death
yeshivah: Torah school
Yiddishkeit: Jewishness
Yom Hashoah: Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust
Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement
Yom Tov: festival
Zei gesunt: be well
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