Her Name Was Baila Sarah

My grandmother’s name was Baila Sarah– a name given to her by her grandparents of Hungarian Jewish ancestry. She called herself “Bernice DuBow” in the modern, gentile world, but held near and dear to her heart every holiday, custom, food, tradition, and the way a Jewish mother cares for her children. She died this past Sunday, and I am her only living descendant of her two children and six grandchildren who actively keeps the traditions and faith she was fortunate enough to be born into during the Holocaust era.

Her faith– and I say faith instead of religion– was her guidance. I remember from a very young age her reminding me “your husband will be Jewish, so you can have Jewish children, and grow into the woman you need to become.” Her words were often loaded with both hope and despair, because by the time I had been born in 1984, my uncle- her only son- had already been married for quite some time to a considerably non-Jewish woman. The woman agreed to undergo conversion measures to make sure my grandparents didn’t stand in the way of their wedding, but from early on in the marriage quickly reverted to non-Jewish ways and insisted my uncle and their children do the same. No one was to blame here, really. The woman wasn’t raised Jewish, and had no real reason to adhere to the faith. My uncle was only following what his 23 year old heart was telling him to do, and my grandmother was only insisting that some level of Judaism be kept in their home. After all, my grandmother’s parents and grandparents (and likely generations before that) suffered endless bigotry to survive and continue their existence as Jews.

Her spiritual work for her grandchildren never stopped until the day she died, though. She insisted all six grandchildren have bar or bat mitzvot, and five of them did. She insisted we receive good Jewish educations and visit Israel to connect to our ancestry- and some of us did. By my teenage years it became obvious to me that I would be the most likely to keep our faith, partially because it meant the world to me, and partially because I had a deeper understanding that thousands of years of wisdom, ancestry, and lineage led to the moment of my very own existence, and I would not be the one to ruin that. Even after my Jewish mother divorced my Jewish father, she insisted her children continue on the path of Judaism and find Jewish spouses of their own– and two out of three of us did. However, in one single generation two thirds of my grandmother’s six grandchildren are now actively celebrating every Christmas, Easter, and everything in between. They have dated, engaged, and married non-Jews out of social convenience, assimilation, and lust. But what happens when faith and culture are disregarded so intensely? Well, those casual feelings of “it’s not my torch to carry” get forced on the elderly.

My grandmother was lucky enough to pass away with several family members by her side, with my Israeli husband reading her the Viduy prayer, my five year old son singing Shema in unison with my husband, mother, and myself, and a room full of practicing Christian grandchildren and great grandchildren who even though were bar and bat mitzvah-ed, were totally confused by even hearing the prayers for the departure of our beloved’s soul. And then we were matter of factly told by my uncle (executor of the estate), that Baila Sarah bat Binyamin– my Jewish grandmother– would be cremated instead of buried in the plain, wood box that she mentioned to me over and over was her dream, and that her faith of nearly 87 years said was the right thing.

My heart broke. My grandmother’s soul departed on the 6th day of Nisan, just days from her Hebrew birthday of the 14th of Nisan. I was taught that righteous souls tend to pass close to their birthdays– how could a soul as beautiful as my grandmother’s be stripped of its right to the proper Jewish burial it needed? And then it hit me: her work to keep us all Jewish, whether spiritually, culturally, or both- was more about giving us a Jewish beginning, middle, and end. It wasn’t about the particulars like the kosher groceries she shopped for, the outfits she lovingly made sure each grandchild had for shul, or the trips to Israel to see where we came from– those were the details. She simply wanted her children, grandchildren, and the generations to come to have the opportunity to walk on a path their souls were privileged enough to be born into.

Although this is not the usual content I write about on TheLuxurySpot, I thought it was an important personal story to share. This could be any family of any culture or faith, and preserving an elderly loved one’s life path in their final days and thereafter should be regarded with the deepest level of care and concern possible.