We invite you to end your week and welcome Shabbat with us!

Tonight we recognize the anniversary of Kristallnacht with two special guests — Faris Cassell, author of  Inseparable: The Hess Twins’ Holocaust Journey through Bergen-Belsen to America joined by Marion Lewin, one of the subjects of the book. LEARN MORE

At 6:00 pm and again after the service: Have something to eat (to tide you over or as your dinner), a drink (we offer a full bar, plus non-alcoholic options), and connect with your community.

Kids are always welcome, and they’ll be able to eat before (and after) the service, play Connect 4, Jenga, and cornhole games, create at a coloring table, and do other arts & crafts activities.

6:30 pm – Our Shabbat service begins.

Watch the Livestream

After the service – Stay for dessert, or more dinner and drinks! There will also be a moderated Q&A in Edlavitch Hall with Faris Cassell and Marion Lewin; The book will be available for purchase in the lobby.

Special thanks to our musicians who add so much to the service. We wouldn’t have them without the support of the Irene & Abe Pollin Music Program Initiative.

This week’s featured menu items include:
(GF – Gluten-free, V – Vegetarian, VG – Vegan)

• Jasmine Rice Salad (GF, VG)
• The Islands Tofu (GF, VG)

If you would like to sponsor a portion of a future Shabbat@WHC to celebrate a milestone or honor a memory, please contact Margaret Cohen, Director of Philanthropy, at mcohen@whctemple.org.

About the Book

Insep­a­ra­ble is that rare book that is able to both deliv­er the grip­ping tes­ti­mo­ny of one family’s Holo­caust sur­vival and also pro­vide a deep­er under­stand­ing of the his­to­ry unfold­ing around them. Through the sto­ry of the Hess fam­i­ly, Faris Cas­sell con­veys the hor­ror and sav­agery unleashed on Jews by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Karl and Ilse Hess were hap­py new­ly­weds liv­ing in Ger­many in the 1930s when Hitler came to pow­er. Rec­og­niz­ing the dan­ger of stay­ing in Ger­many, Karl and Ilse immi­grat­ed to Ams­ter­dam, believ­ing that the city would remain neu­tral in the face of Ger­man aggres­sion. Karl and Ilse set­tled into life in Ams­ter­dam, where they even­tu­al­ly wel­comed a set of twins, Mar­i­on and Ste­fan, in Jan­u­ary 1938. Their peace­ful exis­tence did not last long. By Sep­tem­ber 1939, Europe was at war; and by May 10, 1940, Ger­many invad­ed the Nether­lands, shat­ter­ing the Hess’s sense of secu­ri­ty and set­ting them on an unimag­in­able path marked by fear, dis­ease, and death.

Cas­sell describes how, through­out the sum­mer of 1941 and into 1942, the Ger­mans stripped the Jews liv­ing in the Nether­lands of their free­dom and pos­ses­sions, iso­lat­ing them from Dutch cul­ture. Begin­ning in 1942, Jews were sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pulled from their homes and deport­ed to West­er­bork tran­sit camp and even­tu­al­ly to camps fur­ther east. Karl and Ilse had to decide whether to attempt to hide their young twins with a fam­i­ly or stay togeth­er. They made the fate­ful deci­sion that ​“come what may, they would keep their fam­i­ly together.”

The author describes Karl and Ilse’s jour­ney through West­er­bork and Bergen-Belsen, as well as the many risky and heart-wrench­ing deci­sions they had to make in order to pre­vent their chil­dren from being deport­ed and sum­mar­i­ly mur­dered. Cas­sell brings the family’s his­to­ry to life by using their own mem­o­ries — mem­o­ries that include the dai­ly strug­gle to stay alive and main­tain hope in the face of beat­ings, dis­ease, and star­va­tion. It is one thing to learn about the num­ber of peo­ple who were beat­en and mur­dered in con­cen­tra­tion and death camps; it’s anoth­er to read Marion’s descrip­tion of her time at Bergen-Belsen. “[M]arching boots, leather straps and cud­gels ready to strike, hunger, cold, shout­ing, scream­ing and always feel­ing like a penned ani­mal,” she recalls. She was only six years old.

Although Cassell’s focus is on the Hess fam­i­ly, she makes sure to describe WWII at large. Her efforts to com­mu­ni­cate the war’s pro­gres­sion and the Nazis’ efforts to mur­der all Jews in Europe may be a bit over­whelm­ing for a read­er new to the his­to­ry. But Cas­sell is able to ground that his­to­ry in the Hess family’s per­son­al jour­ney of survival.

This is a mas­ter­ful book that com­bines pow­er­ful sto­ry­telling with a metic­u­lous atten­tion to his­tor­i­cal detail.